Remembering that the laws were situated in a narrative framework, the narrative continues with the story of the ordination setting apart Aaron and his sons as priests. But these three chapters are set apart because while the rest of Leviticus has a narrative framework it is mostly legal material whereas these chapters are mostly narrative. As Wenham says, "The history provides a setting for the laws, not vice versa" (129).

Lev 8 spells out in more detail what Exodus ended saying shall happen (Exo 40:12-16). Those verses in Exodus lay out the parts of the ordination service that set apart Aaron and his sons as priests. There is a ceremonial washing element, they receive the priestly garments resembling the tabernacle (as Meredith Kline notes), and they are anointed with oil. Tremper Longman argues that it is possible that the narrative may not be in chronological order because Exodus 19:22-24 mentions priests (123). But such harmonization seems unnecessary since the author wanted it to be clear that no one in this kingdom of priests (Exo 19:6) would be permitted. Priests and people in Exo 19:24 then is simply two parts for the whole nation appropriate in the context like heavens and earth are two parts for the whole of creation.

The English chapter and verse numberings of Lev 8-10 are helpful to see the three-fold structure of this section. The sacrifices of Lev 1-3 also followed a three-fold arrangement. In Lev 8-10 the narrative approach can be seen by looking at key words and the order of events. In this approach to writing, not everything shows up in each panel. Take for example, chapter 8 begins "YHWH spoke to Moses" (Lev 8:1) and chapter 9 begins "Moses called Aaron" (Lev 9:1) but chapter ten is missing this element (and thus the problem that unfolds). It is not an accident that the verb in Lev 9:1 is "called" given this text is about ministry as priests. You can see a table of these chapters compared to each other in Wenham (133) and I have made a table based on it that you can download here.

Book One of Genesis also had a three-fold arrangement, ordination is a new creation event taking seven days (Lev 8), this time Aaron does not recapitulate the fall (Lev 9), but his two disobedient sons go the way of Cain (Lev 10). On day 8, Aaron's sacrifices are accepted (Lev 9) but the following chapter (10) shows us the rejection of his sons' offerings. Adam was the priest of the garden of Eden until driven out and Lev 10 even thematically resembles Gen 4 because Cain's offerings were rejected.

Wenham notes that there is a chiastic arrangement in chapter eight as to the commandments and their fulfillment. The first command was about Aaron's clothes (Lev 8:2) and the second about assembling the people (Lev 8:3), but the fulfillment sees the congregation assembled (Lev 8:4-5) before Aaron's clothes (Lev 8:6-9). I have mentioned before that Aaron's clothes are important because they represent the glory of the image of God (parallel to Moses having a shining face). So here again we have a creation allusion and thankfully Aaron does not lose the renewed image (Lev 10:6).

As in Exodus, Moses stands in for God. When Moses is satisfied you assume that God is too (Lev 10:20, which uses a verb meaning 'to be good'), when Moses speaks it is the word of God (even when not explicitly said, cf. Lev 10:4, 6-7 as Wenham notes). And Moses acts as the priest until the ordination of Aaron and his sons is complete, while Aaron and his sons perform the role of the common worshiper. We should never overlook that the priests in this system were themselves needing forgiveness.

Then the death of two of Aaron's sons near the end of this narrative is yet another reminder (after the Exodus golden-calf incident) that the priests needed to follow God's worship regulations precisely. This is a theme we have highlighted repeatedly. In particular, the common phrase "as YHWH commanded Moses" is very prevalent in these chapters. Wenham mentions that chapter 8 closely quotes Exo 29 in order to stress their strict obedience to the commandments. Chapter 9 paraphrases Lev 1-7. The problem opening chapter 10 is that two of Aaron's sons did something that was not commanded by God (Lev 10:1), but later in the chapter the participants do precisely what is right. This is further demonstration of the regulative principle of worship (as it has come to be known in Reformed theology). The regulative principle is that we not only forbid in worship what Scripture forbids but the only elements allowed in worship are commanded in Scripture.

We can see then how Moses points to Jesus Christ. Moses is the mediator who acts as priest until the priests are ordained. Jesus is the prophet greater than Moses who continues to ordain leaders in His church and He is a priest forever and is interceding on our behalf in the heavenly tabernacle. Jesus is the prophet like Moses whose words are the very word of God. Jesus is the priest greater than the priesthood of Aaron and his sons. Jesus is the very glory-image of the invisible God and He is the way to worship God. Jesus, the God-man, is the mediator that Moses and the priesthood foreshadowed between God and people. The main difference is that Jesus is without sin and the sacrifice of His death is once-for-all.

It is no accident that ordination services today remember our baptisms (a ceremonial washing), often include the giving of symbols of ministry (often garment related), and laying on of hands (something we have seen with the sacrifices in Leviticus). Today we have the priesthood of all believers (as well as the prophethood of all believers) but Christ still sets some apart by ordination to serve in particular ways, especially to regulate worship according to the word of God and to teach the word of God.

Labels: Aaron, Aaron's robe, exodus, Genesis, image of God, leviticus, moses, ordination, priest, priesthood of all believers, sacrifice

Genesis began with a prologue and then consisted of ten books. The larger structure was one of prologue, narrative, poetry, epilogue. Exodus is not nearly as elaborate in structure. The organizational strategy is best understood thematically: salvation, law, and worship. The section on the salvation of the Israelites from the land of Egypt, the house of slavery is Exodus 1:1-15:21. The section on the law begins with 15:22 and continues through the end of chapter 24. The rest of the book is the section on tabernacle worship.

Exodus begins with a conjunction. The purpose of a conjunction (usually translated "and" in English even when a more specific relationship between the clauses is obvious) is to connect what follows with what came before. Exodus is continuing the story of Book Ten of Genesis. It is not continuing the poetry or the epilogue as much as it is continuing the narrative of Book Ten. Thus the first six Hebrew words of the book are a direct quote from the narrative. More specifically they quote the second telling of the move of Jacob and his family to Egypt in Genesis 46:1-27. The second telling begins with 46:8. "And these are the names of the sons of Israel, the ones who came toward Egypt" (my rough translation). Exodus begins with these identical words and summarizes the rest. Exodus, for example, lists the sons rather than giving the exhaustive list of the sons and their descendants. Both mention that the descendants numbered seventy (seven times ten) and that Joseph was already in Egypt. This is a clear case of recapitulation. Here it serves to tie the entire book of Exodus as a continuation of the narrative of Book Ten of Genesis.

Even though Exodus reports that Joseph and all his brothers and their generation had died, it does not give us another heading like each of the books in Genesis, "These are the generations of..." Instead, the new thing God would do begins with the New Testament Torah: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham" (Matt 1:1). This is the title of the Book of Matthew, not just the genealogy that follows. "The book of the genealogy of" is just another way of translating the Genesis book titles. The gospels are the same kind of genre as the Old Testament Torah books and there are many connections between Exodus and Matthew. Future posts will mention some of them. This difference between the two is very instructive as well. Exodus is highlighting continuity between the story of Genesis and the present circumstances.

Furthermore, the prologue of Genesis (Genesis 1:1-2:3)is the prologue of the entire Torah. So it should not surprise us, especially given how Exodus is a continuation of the Genesis narrative, that there are multiple connections between Exodus and Genesis 1. The first such connection is in Exodus 1:7, which Peter Enns translates, "The Israelites became fruitful and swarmed; they increased in number and became exceedingly strong" (NIVAC on Exodus, 41). The word choice of swarmed is instructive because it can be found in Gen 1:21 and 8:17 for animals to fulfill their creation mandates. The creation mandate for humanity in the image of God (1:28) is being fulfilled by the Israelites. Creation and salvation (new creation) are interrelated in Exodus. Future posts will mention many of these connections to Genesis 1.

Looking backwards to creation points us forwards to the new creation Jesus inaugurates with His resurrection. Looking forward to the Gospel of Matthew, points us forward to the way Jesus brings about a greater salvation than the exodus. It is instructive then that the transfiguration is a discussion with Moses (representing the Torah) and Elijah (representing the prophets). Moses was there at the first exodus. The prophets pointed us forward to a second exodus. And the content of their discussion with Jesus is "his exodus, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem" (Luke 9:31). Thus we will be looking at how the Book of Exodus points to the climax of salvation through Jesus Christ. Once you see how to do this with Exodus you should go back and do this with Genesis too.

Labels: creation, creation mandate, exodus, Genesis, Genesis 1, law, matthew, recapitulation, salvation, tabernacle, torah, worship

Genesis has much more to say about sex and marriage than the creation of woman out of man and the scene at Sodom. Sex and marriage is a theme that can be found throughout the book and the righteous make a lot of mistakes.

The book teaches that sex and marriage are to be enjoyed between one husband and one wife. This may come as a surprise to those who have not studied Genesis carefully because everyone remembers that the patriarchs had multiple wives. Abram not only married Sarai but Sarai gave her servant Hagar to Abram as a wife. Jacob married Leah and Rachel and each of them gave their servant to Jacob as a wife. Thus Jacob had four wives. But this was not God's original design and we can see why when we see the issues of jealousy between wives, competition for children between them, and so forth.

God's original design was for marriage between one man and one woman. And he blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over..." (Gen 1:28). The married couple was blessed to have children and be fruitful and was put in the Garden of Eden (meaning fertility). The first poem in the structure of Book One says, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man" (Gen 2:23). And the next verse after this says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Gen 2:24). So the original design was that of marriage between one man and one woman. This picture of exclusivity pointed to the relationship the husband and wife as one were to have with our jealous God.

The Book of Genesis on its own terms is very clear about the design of marriage and sex. The third poem in the structure of Book One is a song of revenge by the evil murderer Lamech proclaimed to his two wives. The third part of Book One means to demonstrate the escalation of sin among the seed of the serpent moving from the murderer Cain to the murderer Lamech. It is intentional that Lamech is the first one in Genesis said to have more than one wife. But this is only the beginning. In Book Two the demon possessed kings, the so-called "sons of God," take harems and breed champion giants. They have many more than two wives. It is instructive that the two situations calling for God's judgment in Genesis both have a sexual dimension: harems (answered by the flood) and homosexual rape (answered by the sulfur and fire coming down on Sodom & Gomorrah). This is not to say that there are not other issues involved. But the climax of sin includes harems or homosexual rape.

We saw that the first half of Book Six and all of Book Eight are chiasms. In Book Six there are parallel episodes of Abram/Abraham and his sister/wife Sarai/Sarah (Gen 12:10-20 and Gen 20). In the first story Pharaoh took Sarai as his wife, not knowing that she was Abram's wife. This brought down great plagues on the house of Pharaoh. In the second story Abimelech took Sarah as his wife, not knowing that she was Abraham's wife. God came to him in a dream and said, "Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife" (Gen 20:3). God explains to Abimelech that he kept him from "sinning against me" (Gen 20:6) by having sexual relations with her because Abimelech was unaware she was married. That the Gentile Abimelech knew before this that it was wrong to take another man's wife as his own wife is clear because he tells Abraham, "You have done to me things that ought not to be done" (Gen 20:9).

In the similar story in Book Eight (Gen 26), Isaac told the men of Abimelech's city that his wife Rebekah was his sister. And Abimelech saw them laughing together and realized, 'like father, like son' and he rebuked Isaac saying, "What is this you have done to us? One of the people might have lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us" (Gen 26:10) and then told the men of the city that the death penalty would be the sentence for anyone who touches Isaac or Rebekah. The end of this section tells us that Esau took two Canaanite wives who "made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah" (Gen 26:35). The parallel story in the structure of Book Eight is the rape of Jacob's daughter Dinah (Gen 34). After raping her like a prostitute, Shechem the Canaanite wanted to marry her. As the sons of Jacob said, "He had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob's daughter, for such a thing must not be done" (Gen 34:7). Interesting that such a similar phrase appears in Book Six and Eight.

The climax of Book Six (Gen 15:1-16:16 and 17:1-18:15) is complicated by the fact that Abram/Abraham took Hagar the Egyptian as a wife and she gave birth to Ishmael. Later in the book, righteous Lot's fall becomes complete when his two daughters got pregnant by him. They gave birth to Moab (father of the Moabites) and Ben-ammi (father of the Ammonites). He never should have gone into seclusion so that each could not marry a husband (Gen 19:30ff).

In Book Eight, when Jacob had gone to find a wife among his kinsmen, Esau took one of the daughters of Ishmael as a third wife. The text tells us, "When Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please Isaac his father, Esau went to Ishmael and took as his wife, besides the wives he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth" (Gen 28:8-9). The solution was not to add another wife: Esau should have never married two wives to begin with and most certainly not two Canaanites under the curse. The comment "besides the wives he had" accents this.

Also in Book Eight, Jacob married Leah and Rachel (Gen 29:1-30) and this caused all kinds of jealousy issues even to the extent that they each gave their servant to Jacob as additional wives. It is instructive that Isaac had sent Jacob to find in Laban's house "a wife from there" not wives (Gen 28:6). Of course, the stress is on the instruction not to take a wife from among the Canaanite women. In any case, the author of Genesis wants the reader to compare Abraham's servant who went to find Isaac a wife and Jacob when he went to find a wife. Jacob wanted Rachel because of her looks instead of praying to God for direction on whom to take as a wife. And as a result of this mess, Jacob ended up with two wives and then four.

The sex and marriage then continues in the epilogue of Book Eight. There we see Rachel die during childbirth and Reuben, Jacob's firstborn and the son of Leah, "went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine" (Gen 35:22). Bilhah was Rachel's servant and this will keep Bilhah from replacing Rachel in the affection of Jacob. Reuben did this for his mother Leah (I am not implying that she knew anything about it ahead of time, nor am I implying that this excuses his sexual sin, I am simply explaining the situation).

Book Ten resumes this theme as Judah sleeps with his daughter-in-law thinking that she is a prostitute (Gen 38), Potiphar's wife tries to seduce Joseph (Gen 39:7) and even includes the theme in the concluding poem as Jacob cursed Reuben in the blessing, "unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence, because you went up to your father's bed; then you defiled it - he went up to my couch" (Gen 49:4). They have knowledge of sexual ethics (language of defiled). Also Joseph's response to Potiphar's wife shows this: "How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" (39:9). But even though they know right and wrong the explicit episode with Judah shows they did not always do the right. In this story, Judah took a Canaanite wife and had three sons. Judah took Tamar as the wife of his first son. But his son was so wicked that God struck him down. So Tamar became the wife of Judah's second son who wasted his semen on the ground because he knew that if he had a child it would not be considered his own. And God struck him down. Judah, afraid the same would happen to the youngest son, sent Tamar away pretending to need to wait for him to grow up. Eventually Judah himself slept with her, not knowing it was her, and she gave birth to twins. She was accused of adultery until it was discovered that the father was Judah himself. The story has a number of similarities with the daughters of Lot narrative.

So the Book of Genesis teaches (through precept and example) that God intends for sex and marriage to be between one husband and one wife for all of humanity and that His people should only marry those not under the curse of Canaan. The consequences of the patriarch's failure to keep this design would last for the rest of the history of Israel. And a sign of sin reaching its height is harems or homosexual rape. Of course, people will try to excuse behavior that does not fit God's intention of sex and marriage between one husband and wife by arguing that the episode at Sodom does not have to do with homosexual behavior but homosexual rape. But such an argument has missed the overall message of Genesis on this theme that marriage should be between one man and one woman.

It is worth noting that marriage is a gift of God's common grace to all of humanity. God defines marriage for all peoples (not just His people) as between one man and one woman. Israel and the nations broke the covenant of creation whenever they allowed variations from this pattern. While this common grace institution was something Canaanites could enjoy, the people of God were prohibited from marrying Canaanites under the curse. Later laws in Scripture would build on this principle by prohibiting believers from marrying any unbeliever. For example, in the New Testament (though the regulation was much older) believers are told to marry in the Lord (1 Cor 7:39, i.e., only marry other believers). There are other laws that would be spelled out in the Torah including regulations about marrying close relatives (including prohibiting marriages between some relationships that are not blood relationships). In the New Testament, for example, Paul rebukes the fornication among the Corinthians not even found among the Gentiles - a son marrying his step-mother (1 Cor 5). The most serious violations of this creation ordinance, short of harems and homosexual rape, are things even the Gentiles know are wrong, and are called things which quite simply ought not to be done (cf. Gen 20:9, 34:7 and Rom 1:28) or things that are contrary to nature, which we have called the covenant of creation (cf. Rom 1:26). Such things include marrying your step-mother, all homosexual behavior, marrying another man's wife, and heterosexual rape. This is why it is so surprising that Christians are debating homosexual marriage, something that even the Gentiles should know is wrong.

Labels: Abimelech, creation ordinance, flood, Genesis, giants, gomorrah, harems, homosexual behavior, lamech's curse, marriage, polygamy, prostitution, rape, sex, sodom

Book Nine is about the descendants of Esau. The really strange thing is that it has two heading statements: "These are the generations of Esau (that is, Edom)" (Gen 36:1) and "These are the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir" (Gen 36:9).

The first half of the book ends with the aside "Esau is Edom" (Gen 36:8). This is an obvious example of inclusio, a common feature of biblical narrative. The second narrative also ends with a statement forming an inclusio with the second heading: "these are the chiefs of Edom (that is, Esau, the father of Edom), according to their dwelling places in the land of their possession" (Gen 36:43).

So the structure is this: first heading, first narrative (genealogy), second heading, second narrative (five genealogies in three groups), epilogue. The epilogue serves, like all of the epilogues, as a transition to the next book: "Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan" (Gen 37:1). This is in contrast to Esau (that is, Edom) in "the land of their possession" in the hill country of Seir (Gen 36:43). As God retells it in Joshua, "And I gave Esau the hill country of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt" (Josh 24:4).

Esau made a mistake marrying any Canaanites, let alone two of them, and then he compounded it by adding a third wife (an Ishmaelite). The author of Genesis shows this cleverly through the use of names. In Gen 26:34 and 28:9 the names are Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite; Basemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite; and Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth. But in Book Nine the names are Adah, daughter of Elon the Hittite; Oholibamah, daughter of Anah, granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite; and Basemath, daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth. For example, in Book Nine the first wife "Adah" (the name of the first wife of evil Lamech, the seed of the serpent in Book One) is the daughter of Elon the Hittite when earlier in Genesis the second wife Basemath was the daughter of Elon the Hittite. Another example, in Book Nine the third wife is Basemath, daughter of Ishmael, when earlier in Genesis the second wife Basemath was the daughter of Elon the Hittite and the third wife Mahalath was the daughter of Ishmael. Thus the names in Book Nine are all mixed up to clump the cursed women together. (Waltke shows this with a chart you have to examine).

And he separated himself "from his brother Jacob, for their possessions were too great for them to dwell together, the land of their sojournings could not support them because of their livestock, so Esau settled in the hill country of Seir" (Gen 36:6-8, ESV, punctuation altered). Esau could have settled elsewhere in the Promised Land, but chose to leave. His mistakes set him apart from Jacob who did not marry the cursed women of the land and who sojourned in the Promised Land rather than settling permanently elsewhere.

The second narrative has five genealogies.

The first one begins, "These are the names of Esau's sons" (Gen 36:10). There are twelve grandsons mentioned. Amalek, because he is the son of the concubine Timna, the reader is not to count. Samuel would later command Saul to exterminate the Amalekites, not protected as part of Edom, because of what they did to Israel during the Exodus journey. A descendant who survived was the ancestor of Haman who tried to destroy Israel in the day of Esther.

The second one begins, "These are the chiefs of the sons of Esau" (36:15) and ends, "These are the sons of Esau (that is, Edom), and these are their chiefs" (Gen 36:19). There are fourteen chiefs. The Amalek here is different than the previous genealogy. Each son of Esau follows the same pattern. "The sons of Eliphaz the firstborn of Esau: the chiefs:" (Gen 36:15) and "these are the chiefs of Eliphaz in the land of Edom; these are the sons of Adah" (Gen 36:16). "These are the sons of Reuel, Esau's son: the chiefs" and "these are the chiefs of Reuel in the land of Edom; these are the sons of Basemath, Esau's wife" (Gen 36:17). "These are the sons of Oholibamah, Esau's wife: the chiefs" and "these are the chiefs born of Oholibamah the daughter of Anah, Esau's wife" (Gen 36:18). In the middle of the first pair are the names of seven chiefs (Gen 36:15-16). There are four in the middle of the second pair and three in the middle of the third pair. Again, this totals fourteen.

The first two are to be grouped together as the final line says, "These are the sons of Esau (that is, Edom), and these are their chiefs" (Gen 36:19) concludes "These are the names of Esau's sons (Gen 36:10) and "These are the chiefs of the sons of Esau" (Gen 36:15).

The third one begins and ends with an identical list of seven chiefs of the Horites in their line of succession. The rest of the opening and closing are slight variations. "These are the sons of Seir the Horite, the inhabitants of the land: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah, Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan; these are the chiefs of the Horites, the sons of Seir in the land of Edom" (Gen 36:20-21). "These are the chiefs of the Horites: the chiefs Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah, Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan; these are the chiefs of the Horites, chief by chief in the land of Seir" (Gen 36:29-30). Between the inclusio, are names of the sons of each chief. The only commentary is "he is the Anah who found the hot springs [translation of "hot springs" is debated, the Targum and Jewish tradition says it means "mules" (he was the first to cross the horse and donkey)] in the wilderness, as he pastured the donkeys of Zibeon his father" (Gen 36:24). Two women are mentioned. The first chief had a sister: Timna, Eliphaz's concubine and Esau's wife Oholibamah was the daughter of chief Anah, the son of chief Zibeon. These Hivites should be cursed (descendants of Canaan) but the text gives us seven chiefs.

The third genealogy stands alone. This political system would become integrated into Edom.

The fourth one begins, "These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the Israelites" (Gen 36:31). Each one follows the same pattern: Bela the son of Beor, Jobab the son of Zerah, Husham, Hadad the son of Bedad, Samlah, Shaul, Baal-hanan the son of Achbor, and Hadar. For Bela, it says "reigned in Edom" and for each king thereafter it says "reigned in his place." In the third position most of them mention a city or place the king was from: "the name of his city being Dinhabah," "of Bozrah," "of the land of the Temanites," "the name of his city being Avith," "of Masrekah," "of Rehoboth on the Euphrates," none for the next king, then "the name of his city being Pau." Since they have different capitals this suggests that Edom elected their kings. It is the only such list known in the ANE. In the fourth position is a death statement except for the last one, which says, "his wife's name was Mehetabel, the daughter of Matred, daughter of Mezahab" (Gen 36:39). The only commentary in this genealogy was to say concerning Hadad, "who defeated Midian in the country of Moab" (36:35). As Bruce Waltke notes, this shows how great David is when he conquers Edom.

The fifth one begins, "These are the names of the chiefs of Esau, according to their dwelling places, by their names" (Gen 36:40) and ends, "these are the chiefs of Edom (that is, Esau, the father of Edom), according to their dwelling places in the land of their possession" (Gen 36:43). Clearly this genealogy is according to their dwelling places.

The last two are to be grouped together. Book Nine shows the sons and chiefs of Esau developing into the nation of Edom with kings and chiefs. This reflects the later development of Israel (hinted at with such lines as "before any king reigned over the Israelites" (Gen 36:31)). Waltke's commentary is helpful on this point (and was the starting point for all of the reflections of this post).

So what are we to make of this extensive discussion of Esau's descendants? For one thing, despite how they develop we know that one day they will serve their younger brother Israel (fulfilling the first poem of Book Eight). It also means that some of the Canaanites will not be exterminated but serve the true sons of Shem (fulfilling the poetry of Book Three). But looking even further into the future, today these brothers of Israel can be reconciled to their brothers in Christ (fulfilling the first poem of Book Six). Jesus would even heal a Canaanite woman's daughter (Matt 15:21-28).

Labels: amalekites, canaanite, edom, esau, Genesis, horites, inclusio, kings, seir

This book follows the same pattern as the first part of Book Six: prologue, poetry, narrative, poetry, and epilogue. The title is "These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son" (Gen 25:19). This should mean that the book will be about Isaac's descendants, and this is the focus of the book, but like Noah in Book Three the account of Isaac's death is in the epilogue. Book Seven was so short in comparison partly because the author was in a hurry to get to Isaac. But, even so, Isaac is not portrayed very favorably and his life must be pieced together from Books Six and Eight as a result. Instead of Book Eight focusing on Isaac, it will focus on Jacob.

At the center of the prologue (Gen 25:19-22) we find that Isaac prayed for his wife Rebekah because she is barren and YHWH answered the prayer and she conceived (Gen 25:21). This should remind us of the center of the prologue in Book Six: "Now Sarai was barren; she had no child" (Gen 11:30). But this time the barren Rebekah conceives and has twins who are fighting in the womb. The rest of the book will be concerned with which of the twins, Esau or Jacob, will be the heir to the promise.

The epilogue (Gen 35:13-29) follows the same pattern of the two epilogues in Book Six except instead of they arose and went it is God who "went up from him in the place where he had spoken with him" (Gen 35:13). The epilogue also has a genealogy, this one featuring the number twelve as it tells us the twelve sons of Jacob. And it recounts the death and burial of Isaac. Like with Ishmael, the "he died and was gathered to his people" (Gen 35:29) language is used (see the commentary on Book Seven). The epilogue also recounts the death of Rachel as a result of the birth of Benjamin. And it mentions in passing that Reuben "went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine. And Israel heard of it" (Gen 35:22). This is all preparing us for Book Ten.

The first poetic section is in response to Rebekah's prayer since the twins are fighting in her womb, "YHWH said to her, 'Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger" (Gen 25:23). So the poetry right at the beginning indicates that the younger son will be the heir to the promise.

In the second poetic section God says two poems. In the first he gives Jacob (the younger son) the name Israel (Gen 35:10). In the second, He says to Jacob, "I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring (seed) after you" (Gen 35:11-12). This poem reminds us of the creation mandate "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over..." (Gen 1:28). It was repeated to Noah and his sons "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth" (Gen 9:1, cf. 9:7). And more immediately, Isaac's words to Jacob "God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham" (Gen 28:3-4). The language of nations/kings also brings to mind God's words as he renamed Sarai as Sarah and Abram as Abraham (Gen 17:6 and 17:16). The creation mandate and the blessing have passed down to Jacob/Israel.

Both poems point us to Jesus Christ as the heir.

As usual, the longest portion is the narrative (Gen 25:19b-35:10). The chiastic arrangement of prologue, poetry, narrative, epilogue sets us up to expect it (as in Book Six) to continue in the narrative. And this is what we find. The first story (Gen 25:24-34) tells us about the birth of Esau (explaining why he is also called Edom) and Jacob. The second born child Jacob was holding Esau's heel when he came out. And the story tells us about Esau selling Jacob his birthright for some stew. The text tells us, "Thus Esau despised his birthright" (Gen 25:34). Jacob will inherit. In the last story (Gen 35:1-10) Jacob professes his faith in the true and living God, telling his household, "Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments. Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone" (Gen 35:2-3). And Jacob inherits the blessing.

The second story (Gen 26) is where Isaac pretends that his wife Rebekah is his sister. This follows the same pattern of the similar stories for Abram/Abraham and his sister/wife Sarai/Sarah (Gen 12:10-20 and 20:1-18). We also find out that Esau married two Hittite women who cause problems for his parents. In the parallel place, the second-to-last story (Gen 34) is not one of Jacob pretending one of his wives was his sister but instead Shechem raping Jacob's daughter Dinah. The danger of the stories where the wife pretends to be the sister (though technically Sarai/Sarah is the half-sister of Abram/Abraham) is that someone might lie with her and bring guilt upon the people where they are sojourning. Sexual sin is the issue in both stories. And Simeon and Levi responded by tricking the city to circumcise themselves and killed all the males while they were sore.

The third story (Gen 27:1-28:9) is where Jacob pretends to be Esau and steals the blessing and Esau finds out about it. Also Isaac instructs Jacob to find "and take as your wife...one of the daughters of Laban your mother's brother" (Gen 28:2) and sends him with the blessing. In the parallel place, the third-to-last story (Gen 33) is Jacob's return to Esau and Jacob brings a blessing to Esau.

The fourth story (Gen 28:10-22) is Jacob's ladder with the angels ascending and descending on it. In the context of Genesis, we are to contrast this with the Tower of Babel. In the parallel place (Gen 32) the fourth-to-last story begins, "Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him" (Gen 32:1) and the story ends with Jacob wrestling with God. Between these events Jacob decides to send gifts on ahead of himself to Esau. In both stories God verbally blesses Jacob.

The fifth story (Gen 29:1-30) is where Jacob meets his kinsman Laban and marries Laban's daughters Leah and Rachel. Jacob, the trickster, gets tricked by the one who says, "Surely you are my bone and my flesh" (Gen 29:14) after Jacob told him all about his life. In the parallel place (Gen 31) Jacob and his family say their farewell to Laban after trying to sneak away.

At the center of the chiasm, the sixth story (Gen 29:31-30:24) and the sixth-to-last story (Gen 30:25-43) show us God blessing Jacob with children and livestock.

The sixth story shows us the blessing of children. At first, Leah was fruitful and Rachel was barren because of Jacob's preference for Rachel. Leah gave birth to Jacob's firstborn Reuben. In the epilogue we noted that Reuben had sex with Jacob's concubine Bilhah when Rachel, her master, died. Leah's second and third sons, Simeon and Levi, as we noted, will kill Shechem and all of the people of his city because Shechem raped their sister Dinah. The fourth son was Judah. Then Leah ceased bearing children. Rachel then gave Jacob her servant Bilhah as a concubine. Bilhah bore Dan and Naphtali for Rachel. Leah realized she was no longer having children so she gave her servant Zilpah to Jacob. Zilpah bore Gad and Asher for Leah. Leah, in an episode with mandrakes, conceived another son Issachar and then she had a sixth son Zebulun and a daughter Dinah. "Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb. She conceived and bore a son and said, 'God has taken away my reproach.' And she called his name Joseph, saying, 'May the LORD add to me another son!'" (Gen 30:22-24). Taking away reproach is a constant theme in Scripture. Joseph is the last son mentioned in this section. His younger brother Benjamin is born in the epilogue. The effect of doing this is to make Joseph the climax of the blessing of children. This all prepares us for Book Ten.

The sixth-to-last story shows us the blessing of livestock. Jacob proposed that he take all of the speckled and spotted sheep and goats and every black lamb for his wages. But Laban tried to keep Jacob from breeding the sheep and goats to make more by taking all of them and putting them with his sons. So Jacob took "fresh sticks of polar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks" (Gen 30:37) and he put these in the troughs where they drank and those who bred there produced striped, speckled and spotted sheep and goats. And he bred them so that he would have the stronger sheep and goats.

When Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac he passed the test of the conditional covenant of Gen 17. Having passed the test, he had shown that he would continue to keep the law. As God told Isaac in Gen 26:2-5, because Abraham kept the law, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in the seed of Isaac. Isaac is blessed for Abraham's sake (26:24). This blessing God pronounced upon Jacob in Gen 28:13-15 and 32:29 (the fourth parallel stories) and in the second poetic section. Blessed to be a blessing, Jacob was a blessing to Laban (Gen 30:30) and Esau (Gen 33:11). Blessing is the theme of this book. Especially since it goes beyond the verbal blessing of Jacob by Isaac and God to the climax where Jacob is blessed with children and livestock. Jacob responds to the first blessing by making a vow that the LORD shall be his God, the stone would be God's house, and he would tithe his goods (see Gen 28:20-22). After the second blessing, he has a limp because of the place where God touched his hip socket.

But there is one thing left to note about the verbal blessing of the poetic section and the verbal blessing of the fourth-to-last story. In both blessings by God Jacob is renamed Israel. In the former, where Jacob wrestled with God, the reason for his new name is revealed. In the latter, the poetry, it says that he shall no longer be called Jacob, but in practice he continues to be known as both Jacob and Israel.

And another observation about the epilogue. The twelve sons are not mentioned in order of birth by are listed by mother. First, Leah's children, then Rachel's, then Rachel's servant's children, then Leah's servant's children. This chiastic arrangement with Rachel and Rachel's servant in the middle highlights the preference Jacob had for her and points us to Joseph (preparing us for Book Ten). In actual birth-order, Leah was the first mother (for the first five), Rachel's servant was the second mother, Leah's servant was the third mother, then Leah had two more sons and a daughter, and then Rachel had her own two children. Rachel was the last wife to have any children but her own firstborn will have the prominent place of Book Ten despite the fact that Judah should qualify as Jacob's firstborn since Judah's three elder brothers have been disqualified.

Labels: angels, creation mandate, edom, esau, Genesis, isaac, israel, jacob, rape, sex

Here we find the shortest book in Genesis. It is undoubtedly intentional that the shortest books are Books Five and Seven because Book Six is so long and about Abram/Abraham. With a full ten books, we might expect number seven to have a place of special significance. Surprisingly, Book Seven is about the twelve tribes of Ishmael and Book Ten is about the twelve tribes of Israel.

Even in this short passage there is structure. It begins with a title: "These are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's servant, bore to Abraham" (Gen 25:12). The narrative section begins and ends with the following frame: "These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, named in the order of their birth...These are the sons of Ishmael and these are their names, by their villages and by their encampments, twelve princes according to their tribes" (Gen 25:13, 16). The passage, like Book Five, has no poetry, which is fitting since Book Six has three poetic portions. And the epilogue includes the death statement and the comments about where they settled and how they settled over against his kinsmen (Gen 25:17-18).

The title alludes to the previous book in the way it identifies Ishmael: "Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's servant, bore to Abraham" (Gen 25:12). It could have just as easily been entitled "These are the generations of Ishmael" and left out the rest. After all, the readers have just heard the story. [Except that the poetry of Book Six before the epilogue of part one identifies Isaac as the "only son" of Abraham (Gen 22:16). This was before Abraham married Keturah (cf. Gen 25:1).] But the reason for the extended title is to remind us of the climax of the last book and the promises made concerning Ishmael.

Ishmael receives very favorable treatment in Genesis. God made promises concerning him at the center of Book Six (remember the center of the chiasm is these two parts on the covenant: Gen 15-16, 17-18:15). The promise made to Hagar concerning Ishmael: "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude" (Gen 16:10). The promise made to Abraham concerning Ishmael: "I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation" (Gen 17:20). Ishmael is not the heir to the covenant promises, but because of the prayers of Hagar and Abraham and simply by being close to the covenant he will be blessed. And we find the fulfillment beginning in this passage as Ishmael has twelve princes.

We see Ishmael's blessings in Genesis by virtue of his descendants occupying the seventh book, we see Ishmael's blessings in Genesis because these promises were fulfilled, and we see Ishmael's blessings in the curious death statement: "These are the years of the life of Ishmael: 137 years. He breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people" (Gen 25:17). This last comment has only been made before this concerning Abraham: "Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people" (Gen 25:8). (The next verse mentions that Isaac and Ishmael, Abraham's sons, buried him.) "Gathered to his people" is an idiom for going to the place where the dead go (Hebrew, Sheol; Greek, Hades) but put in a tribal way. In any case, the fact that Ishmael lived 137 years is a blessing.

The epilogue ends with the ominous, "He settled over against all his kinsmen" (Gen 25:18). This brings to mind the prophecy: "He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen" (Gen 16:12).

Fast forwarding to the present, the good news has gone out to the descendants of Ishmael and the God who hears will dwell within His people of every tribe and nation. All the blessings in the heavenly places are for those united to Christ. Many of those whose hands were against the people of God are now numbered among the people of God. It tells us much about God that Genesis spends so much time talking about nations that are not the chosen nation. He cares for and blesses all peoples during this life and that setting of blessing is the context within which we evangelize the nations. And it is said, "All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to you; the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you; they shall come up with acceptance on my altar, and I will beautify my beautiful house" (Isa 60:7). Kedar was the second and Nebaioth the firstborn of Ishmael. God's people are of every tribe and nation.

Labels: abraham, Genesis, ishmael, kedar, nebaioth

While Books Five and Seven are brief, Book Six makes up for it with volumes of material. While Books Five and Seven contain no poetic section, Book Six makes up for it with three poetic sections. The title of Book Six is "Now these are the generations of Terah" (Gen 11:27), which (as is usually the case) means it is about Terah's descendants. In particular it is about Terah's son Abram (renamed Abraham by God).

There are two parallel halves to the book. In the first half, the pattern of the text is prologue (Gen 11:27b-32), poetry (Gen 12:1-3), narrative (Gen 12:4-22:14), poetry (Gen 22:15-18), and epilogue (Gen 22:19-23:20). This half of the book is a chiasm: prologue answered by epilogue, poetry answered by poetry, and the narrative itself forming a chiasm within this. Also the prologue is a chiasm. As one begins to see when unpacking this text, it is quite structurally elaborate. And the purpose of this half of the book is to focus on Abraham who is clearly superior to Noah and Adam. Book One tells us that Adam was created perfectly righteous and that he fell. Book Three tells us that Noah was created perfectly righteous and that he fell. Noah was celebrated in the ANE by many peoples. Abraham, however, passes the probationary test of sacrificing Isaac. Abraham lived by faith.

The second half of the book focuses on Terah's greatgranddaughter (through Nahor and Bethuel) Rebekah. She too came in the fullness of time as the epilogue for the first half of the book tells us Nahor's eight children and grandson Aram and then mentions that Bethuel fathered Rebekah for number ten. The narrative of the second half of the book (Gen 24:1-59) follows what Waltke would call an alternating structure rather than a chiasm or concentric structure. It thematically moves A, B, C, A', B', C'. It is followed, as we should expect, by poetry (Gen 24:60) and an epilogue (Gen 24:61-25:11).

We can begin by looking at the three sections of poetry in Book Six, since this is the most important part in many respects. The first poem says, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation [1], and I will bless you [2] and make your name great [3], so that you will be a blessing [4]. I will bless those who bless you [5], and him who dishonors you I will curse [6], and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed [7]" (Gen 12:1-3). This seven-fold blessing is a thoroughly complete blessing. And it is worth observing that it is pronounced before Abram did anything solely because of God's sovereign choice.

The second and third poems, falling at the same point in the structure of these halves, both share a similar phrase. The second poem says, "By myself I have sworn, declares YHWH, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice" (Gen 22:16-18, emphasis added). The third poem in the parallel position to poem two says, "Our sister, may you become thousands of ten thousands, and may your offspring possess the gate of those who hate him!" (Gen 24:60, emphasis added). Both poems are poems of blessing. Both stress great numbers of descendants and that the one descendant (the heir of the promise -- the singular seed, the Messiah to come) will possess the gate of those who hate him. He will have victory. It should go without saying for the Christian that all three blessing poems come to fulfillment in the work of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the reason that in Abraham all of the families, clans, and nations of the earth will be blessed.

Next we will look at the prologue and epilogues the same way. The prologue (Gen 11:27-32) through the selective use of vocabulary reveals a chiastic pattern. The genealogical pattern begins in Gen 11:27 and ends in Gen 11:32, Haran (a person, son of Terah) died in Ur of the Chaldeans in Gen 11:28 and Terah left Ur of the Chaldeans for Haran (a place) in Gen 11:31b, Abram and Nahor took wives in Gen 11:29 and Terah took Abram, Lot, and Sarai in Gen 11:31a, and at the center is "Now Sarai was barren; she had no child" (Gen 11:30). This, of course is in tension with the blessing that follows and even when she had a son Isaac he did not yet have a wife in order to have a son of his own yet.

The epilogue for the first half then tells us about Abraham's relocation to Beersheba and resumes the genealogical narrative by telling us about Nahor's ten descendants by Milcah and four descendants by his concubine Reumah (for a total of fourteen descendants mentioned here, we find out for example that Rebekah had a brother named Laban so this is fourteen artificially contrived to show order and the tenth is Rebekah, which is contrived by adding that Kemuel [3] is the father of Aram [4]). It also reports a death, this time it is Sarah.

The first epilogue (Gen 22:19-23:20) follows the following thematic pattern: they arose and went (to Beersheba), genealogy (of Nahor) featuring the number ten, report of a death and burial (Sarah). Interestingly the second epilogue (Gen 24:61-25:11) follows the same thematic pattern: for they arose and went it says, "Then Rebekah and her young women arose and rode on the camels and followed the man. Thus the servant took Rebekah and went his way" (it also reports that this comforted Isaac given his mother's death further tying this text to the other epilogue), there is a genealogy featuring the number ten (Abraham's descendants through his concubine Keturah, with five children or grandchildren of Jokshan and five children of Midian...Keturah had six children rather than four or seven), report of a death and burial (this time Abraham himself). After the burial the epilogue reports that God blessed Isaac and Isaac settled at Beer-lahai-roi. Isaac is the heir of the promise, he is the seed/offspring of the woman. This book from beginning to end is about Terah's descendants but Abraham in particular.

While the prologue, poetry, narrative, poetry, epilogue of the first half of the book forms a chiasm with the narrative at the center, the narrative also continues this chiasmic pattern. It begins by telling us about Abram building altars at the oak of Moreh at Shechem and at Bethel (Gen 12:4-9). And the narrative section ends with Abraham building an altar to sacrifice Isaac upon (Gen 21:1-22:14, in particular see Gen 22:9). The first section deals with the promise of land and the last with the promise of the seed.

The second story and the second-to-last story have to do with Sarai/Sarah the sister/wife of Abram/Abraham and the same six things happen in order (Gen 12:10-20 and 20:1-18). 1. There is a famine, so Abram/Abraham sojourned elsewhere (Egypt and Gerar) 2. Abram/Abraham says Sarai/Sarah is his sister. 3. The Pharaoh/king took Sarai/Sarah. 4. YHWH confronts the Pharaoh/king 5. Pharoah/king confronts Abram/Abraham. And the sixth thing is the conclusion of the episode. The second time this happens Abraham tells us that Sarai/Sarah is indeed his sister as they share Terah as their father but have different mothers (Gen 20:12). This book is truly about the descendants of Terah.

The third story and the third-to-last story are about Abram/Abraham rescuing his nephew Lot (Gen 13:1-18 and 19:1-38). The first time this happens Lot settles in Sodom and separates himself from the righteous Abraham. The second time this happens lot is fleeing from Sodom for Zoar because the two angels found him to be a righteous man but the story also relates his fall (like Adam and Noah before him). The first time is a chiasmic pattern beginning with Abram going to the place where he had built an altar "at the first" and ending with Abram settling by the oaks of Mamre at Hebron and building an altar. The second thing in this chiasm is Abram telling Lot, "Is not the whole land before you?" (Gen 13:9) and YHWH telling Abram that the whole land that he can see will be the possession of Abram and his seed/offspring. And the center of the chiasm is Lot separating from Abraham and settling at Sodom. The text tells us, "Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against YHWH" (Gen 13:13). This is a fall for Lot. The second time Lot shows hospitality to the two angels and protects them from the men of Sodom. Abraham's prayer of intercession is remembered (Gen 19:29) and the angels spare the righteous man Lot (but not the city because ten righteous men are not found). But Lot experiences another fall. The second time his two daughters got him drunk (like Noah was drunk) and slept with him producing the Moabites and Ammonites. Thus Noah and Lot are unfavorably compared to Abraham in Genesis but while Noah is the heir of the promise the Moabites and Ammonites will not inherit the promise.

The fourth and the fourth-to-last stories concern Abraham fulfilling his kingly and prophetic offices (Gen 14:1-24 and 18:16-33). In both stories Abram/Abraham intercedes for Sodom and Lot. The first time like a king Abram intercedes militarily to free Lot who has been taken captive. Abraham gives a tenth of the spoils to Melchizedek ("king of righteousness"), king of Salem and priest of God Most High. Abraham's victory was a victory on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah. The second time Abraham interceded as a prophet for Sodom and Lot and asked God to spare the city of Sodom if it meant sweeping away the righteous with the wicked. At the end, YHWH promises to spare them if ten righteous persons are found. Prayer of intercession is the role of the prophet. And Abram knows that Lot lives at Sodom and is interceding on his behalf.

At the center of this chiasmic or concentric pattern is the covenant with Abram/Abraham (Gen 15:1-16:16 and 17:1-18:15). Since this is the center/focus of the chiasm we will need to slow down here and be more observant.

It has been argued that the first of these two stories can be divided into three parts. The first two have an alternating structure and the third part has a chiastic structure. The first part (Gen 15:1-21) uses vocabulary and themes for the alternating structure stressing the promise of a seed (15:1-6) and then the promise of the land (Gen 15:7-21). YHWH says, "I am your shield" to Abram (Gen 15:1) and then He says to Abram, "I am YHWH who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give to you this land to possess" (Gen 15:7). Then Abram replies using "O Lord YHWH" (Gen 15:2-3 and 15:8). And thirdly, YHWH gives Abraham a sign -- first the stars for the number of seed/offspring (Gen 15:4-6) and then "a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces" of the sacrifice for the land (Gen 15:9-21). The most developed is the third third with this smoking fire pot and flaming torch representing YHWH. He was swearing an oath that Abram's seed would inherit the land or God would be torn apart like these animals (a picture of what would happen with the death of Jesus Christ on the cross). Normally during covenant making the vassal and not the sovereign would walk through the pieces to indicate what would come if they failed to keep covenant. One of the most fascinating comments of this text prophesying the sojourn of Israel in Egypt is "And they shall come back here in the fourth generation [about four hundred years according to verse 13], for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete" (Gen 15:16). God allows sin to reach a climax before judgment comes (counting even the sins of previous generations that have gone on) to the Canaanites just as he did with the flood (Book Two describes sin reaching climax and mentions that it will be 120 years before the flood). Another pattern to notice is the number of nations mentioned in verses 19-21 is ten. The land will fully be for Abraham's seed.

The second part of the first story also follows an alternating structure (Gen 16:1-6). It begins with Sarai telling Abram to obtain children by her Egyptian servant Hagar (16:1-2) and then Sarai is speaking quite differently in the parallel position when she tells Abram "may the wrong done to me be on you!" (Gen 16:5). The second position has to do with Abram obeying Sarai: "And Abram listened to the voice of [an idiom meaning obeyed] Sarai" (Gen 16:2c) and "Abram said to Sarai, 'Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please" (Gen 16:6). The third and fourth positions have to do with Sarai giving Hagar to Abram as a wife (Gen 16:3) and Hagar conceiving and looking with contempt on Sarai (Gen 16:4) and Sarai dealing harshly with Hagar (Gen 16:6b) and Hagar fleeing (Gen 16:6c). We know that things are going to go wrong as soon as Abram takes a second wife and this mistake will be a thorn in the side of Israel.

The third part of the first story follows a chiasmic structure (Gen 16:7-16) with the angel of YHWH's blessings of Hagar at the center. The first blessing is one of multiplication of offspring: "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude" (Gen 16:10) and the second blessing is of one seed in particular -- her son Ishmael: "Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because YHWH has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen" (Gen 16:11-12). Indeed, he will be a thorn in the side of Israel. The third part of the first story begins and ends mentioning water -- a "spring of water" (Gen 16:7) and a well (Gen 16:14-16). In the second position is Hagar's interaction with the angel of YHWH. YHWH questions her and rebukes her (Gen 16:8-9), like we have seen repeatedly in Genesis, and she acknowledges that YHWH looks after her (Gen 16:13).

In the parallel position to Gen 15:1-16:16 at the center of the largest chiasm is Gen 17:1-18:15. The usual strategy for explaining Genesis (usually with the objective of casting doubt on the text's truth) is to explain recapitulation in the text as having arisen from different sources, different titles for God reflect different sources, two stories about Abraham telling kings that his wife is his sister as reflecting different sources, etc. The solution has always been -- this just reflects different sources. The approach of this commentary I have been doing has been to see how regardless of the sources this work is a well crafted and intentional whole as we now have it. If you were reading this part of Genesis and came upon this account of establishing the covenant your first thought might be -- does this arise from a different source because I remember something similar already took place. So instead of this approach, I want you to see that the establishment of the covenant is at the center of this narrative and indeed this half of the book. We saw this especially with the first part of Genesis 15:1-21 (with Gen 16:1-16) and now we will see this with especially the first part of Genesis 17 (with Gen 18:1-15).

On Genesis 17: YHWH appears to the 99 year old Abram, tells him to "walk before me, and be blameless" (Gen 17:1, calling to mind the description of Enoch and Noah) and renames him Abraham: "No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations" (Gen 17:5). And the blessing is that God will make him into nations and that kings will come from him (Gen 17:6). This is an alternating structure with Gen 17:1-8 paralleling Gen 17:15-22. In the parallel portion God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name" (Gen 17:15) and it is also said that "she shall become nations [and] kings of peoples shall come from her" (Gen 17:16). Both texts talk about an everlasting covenant God is making with Abraham. Thus from Genesis 17:1ff, Abram is now Abraham and Sarai is now Sarah which is why in comparing every portion of the chiasm we have been saying Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah because the first half of this half of the book goes by the old name and the second half of this half of the book goes by the new name. And both Genesis 15-16 and 17 deal with the place of Ishmael. Here God reveals to Abraham that Ishmael will father twelve princes and is blessed and will multiply greatly (Gen 17:20). But the covenant will be with Isaac.

The second part of the alternating structure of Gen 17 deals with the cutting of circumcision (Gen 17:9-14 and 17:23-27). The sign of the covenant (Gen 17:11) is circumcision and the instructions concerning it are in Gen 17:9-14) and the fulfillment of those instructions for Abraham's household are described in Gen 17:23-27. Abraham and Ishmael and the male servants and any other males in the household were circumcised.

Gen 18 is somewhat parallel in content to Gen 17. Abraham laughs in Gen 17 and Sarah in Gen 18. The birth of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah is prophesied by YHWH in both. And Abraham showed great hospitality to YHWH and the two angels who met him at the altar Abraham made at the oaks of Mamre (cf. Gen 13:18 and 18:1).

Before we leave this half of the book I want to observe one more difference (besides the names Abram/Abraham and Sarai/Sarah) between everything on the upward swing of the chiasm (Gen 11:27b-16:16) and everything on the downward swing of the chiasm (Gen 17:1-23:20). The first half is unconditional. And the second half was conditional. The sevenfold poetic blessing of Abram (Gen 12:1-3) was unconditional and 100% the work of God. The second poetic blessing of Abraham (Gen 22:16-18) was based on Abraham's work (his 100%) passing the probationary test "because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son" (Gen 22:16) and "because you have obeyed my voice" (Gen 22:18). This is also very pronounced in the central sections of the chiasm on the covenant. In Gen 15 the covenant is unconditional and received by faith (justification by faith): "And [Abram] believed YHWH, and he counted it to him as righteousness" (Gen 15:6). Moreover, the sign of the covenant in Gen 15 is the stars and the smoking fire & flaming torch that passed through the pieces of the sacrifices. This is the 100% God. In Gen 17 the covenant is conditional (on keeping covenant, cf. Gen 17:14) Abram is told to "walk before me, and be blameless" (Gen 17:1) and the sign of the covenant is circumcision. This is the 100% Abraham. Then we need to take this to Jesus. The unconditional covenant with Abraham continues (100% God). Jesus passed the test and satisfied the terms of the conditional new covenant and established it (100% Jesus). We then continue to keep the terms of the new covenant (He kept perfectly for us) with the sign of baptism (100% the Spirit leading us to walk in the steps God prepared beforehand).

All that is left to examine then is the narrative for the second half of Book Six (Gen 24:1-59) which follows an alternating pattern. An alternating pattern should almost be expected simply because the servant has to repeat the story for Abraham's kinsmen of Nahor. In the first position it is said that Abraham has been blessed by YHWH and the servant asks what should he do if the woman he is seeking for Isaac's wife is not willing to come back with him (Gen 24:1-10). In the parallel place, the servant tells Laban and Bethuel that YHWH has blessed Abraham and that he asked Abraham what to do if the woman was not willing to return with him. The only difference is that the servant wisely did not relate that Abraham forbid him to take Isaac back there to get his bride. Most important here is that Isaac's bride cannot be a Canaanite under the curse.

In the second position we see the servant's prayer spoken and fulfilled (Gen 24:11-27) and then retold (Gen 24:42-49). The only substantive thing not repeated the second time is the comment: "The young woman was very attractive in appearance, a maiden whom no man had known" (Gen 24:16). He prayed that God would reveal to Him the ideal wife for Isaac and God did. This is in stark contrast with Jacob who later went for Rachel because she "was beautiful in form and appearance" (Gen 29:17) but without a test of her hospitality. And we will see from the third position that Laban never changed -- he liked money and riches -- Abraham was wise not to allow Isaac to go to his kinsmen.

In the third position we see expensive gifts shown to Laban and that the servant is in a hurry and not to be delayed (Gen 24:28-33 and 24:50-59). The expensive gifts Laban sees the first time are the gold ring weighing half a shekel and the two bracelets for her arms weighing ten gold shekels (Gen 24:22 and 30). And the servant was in a hurry to speak before sitting down to eat (Gen 24:33). The expensive gifts Laban sees the second time are, "The servant brought out jewelry of silver and gold, and garments, and gave them to Rebekah. He also gave to her brother and to her mother costly ornaments" (Gen 24:53). And the servant was in a hurry to leave with Rebekah to return to Abraham but her brother Laban and mother wanted to delay for at least ten days (Gen 24:55-58).

At the center of this alternating pattern was God showing Rebekah to be the one for Isaac.

This has been the longest book thus far in Genesis but hopefully this will seeing connections you never noticed before and lead you to appreciate it even more. Like the books before it, this is history told artistically and we need to see the beauty of the art in order to better interpret and understand the history of salvation.

Labels: abraham, ammonites, blessing, chiasm, covenant, gate, Genesis, gomorrah, ishmael, justification, lot, moabites, rebekah, sarah, seed, sodom

The title of Book Five is "These are the generations of Shem" (Gen 11:10). It is considerably shorter than any book we have seen and it is missing the poetry and epilogue. The text is in a hurry to get to Abram.

The royal genealogy follows the pattern we saw in the royal genealogy of Book Two, with one major departure: it is missing the summary/death statement for each: 'Thus all the days of ____ were ___ years, and he died." The only significance it seems appropriate to conclude from this omission is that the pattern has been shortened to get to Abram. Especially since this summary/death statement is used in the next book for Terah in order to focus on Abram.

A second difference with the royal genealogy of Book Two is that in Book Five there is no significance attributed to number seven. In Book Two there was a departure from the pattern to highlight Enoch, but there is no such departure from the pattern for Serug. Again the brevity does not tell us whether number seven was just simply not noteworthy or anything about him, but it does reinforce this picture of wanting to move quickly to Abram.

A third difference with the royal genealogy of Book Two and the other genealogies is that the three sons usually belong to the plus one generation. For the evil Lamech in Book One, number seven in that genealogy, the eighth generation had three sons. For Noah in Book Two, number ten in that genealogy, the eleventh generation had three sons. But here the tenth generation is the one with the three sons: Abram, Nahor, and Haran. The LXX adds Cainan as the son of Arpachshad and father of Shelah. But this addition to the last book would have made seventy-one nations rather than seventy and here would highlight Terah rather than Abram. Book Five wants to highlight Abram as having come in the fullness (ten) of time.

The lifespans are considerably shorter in Book Five compared to Book Two, suggesting that life is more difficult post-flood. I am unaware of any other significance to these numbers. This may be significant in and of itself.

This royal genealogy, like that of Book Two (which ignores the Cain and Abel story), tells us the legitimate heirs of the promise. It does not tell us about Peleg's non-elect brother Joktan mentioned in the last book. All of the focus is on the heirs to the promise. But Scripture as a whole does not speak too favorably of the generations leading up to Abraham who came in the fullness of time. Joshua tells us, "Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods" (Joshua 24:2).

The next book will begin with some recapitulation and adds Lot: "Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot" (Gen 11:27) and does include the summary/death statement for Terah, "The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran" (Gen 11:32) so that the book can focus on Abram, Nahor, and Lot.

Thus in the fullness of time, came Abram, Nahor and Haran. Now we will see God choose Abram to bless.

Labels: abraham, Genesis, recapitulation, royal genealogy, ten

The fourth book begins with the title, "These are the generations of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham, and Japheth" (Gen 10:1). So this book will be about the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. But interestingly in the opposite order: Japheth, Ham, and Shem from those furthest from Israel to those closest to Israel. Israel descends from Shem through Peleg. But the Shemites (Semites, those who are Semitic peoples) genealogy here traces through Peleg's brother Joktan. The comment "for in his days the earth was divided" (Gen 10:25) refers to the split of the descendants of Shem between elect descendants of Peleg and non-elect descendants of his brother Joktan. This book is about the non-elect descendants of Noah through his sons Japheth, Ham, and Shem. The next book will tell us about the elect line of Shem through Peleg.

Book Four continues with the same pattern as earlier books. Gen 10:2-32 consists of three genealogies with commentary and Gen 11:1-5 is the story of building the tower of Babel. So this entire section we have been calling narrative. Gen 11:6-7 is the poetry and Gen 11:8-9 is the epilogue.

Like the other genealogies we have encountered, noticing the patterns will help us. There are fourteen nations from Japheth (seven times two), thirty from Ham, and twenty-six from Shem for a total of seventy nations. Seventy is a highly symbolic number (being seven times ten) suggesting that the genealogy is highly stylized to make a point through numbers. The text is also in a framework. Each one begins, "The sons of [Japheth, Ham, or Shem]" and each one ends in a similar way "each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations" (Gen 10:5), "by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations" (Gen 10:20 and 10:31). Thus the genealogy will divide these descendants by their politics, language, geography, and ethnicity. Some of these names are people groups, others are people, and some are place names. "Sons of" or "fathered" may indicate political, linguistic, geographical, or ethnic relationships. Two names are repeated Havilah and Sheba. These places may have elements descending from Cush and Joktan. Waltke, citing others, makes these observations. The whole table has a framework, beginning with "Sons were born to them after the flood" (10:1) and ending with "These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood" (Gen 10:32).

Japheth's genealogy is stylized around sevens. He has seven sons and seven grandsons mentioned. This suggests order. The commentary, "From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands" (Gen 10:5) means to stress their distance from Israel.

The sons of Ham are closer to Israel. There are five sons of Cush and two grandsons through Raamah for a total of seven. This suggests order. Egypt has seven sons (do not count the Philistines as the mention of them is parenthetical) again suggesting order. But Canaan, the son of Ham cursed by Noah in the poetry of the last book, has eleven sons suggesting disorder.

There are two portions of commentary in the Ham section. The first says, "Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before YHWH. Therefore it is said, 'Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before YHWH.' The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria and built Ninevah, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen between Ninevah and Calah: that is the great city" (Gen 10:8-12). This is an interesting addition. Nimrod is not numbered among the seven sons. Cush fathered Nimrod could mean, as with all genealogies in Scripture, Cush is the ancestor of Nimrod. He is a mighty man or champion warrior king reminiscent of the giants. His kingdom included Assyria (Ninevah as the major city) and the land of Shinar (including Babel). That is, his kingdom included the two nations (the Assyrians and Babylonians) that would take Israel and Judah into captivity. And Babylon (the land of Shinar, Gen 11:2) is where the Tower of Babel was being built. Thus this addition would be a great assurance to the people during captivity.

The other commentary in the Ham section says, "Afterwards, the clans of the Canaanites dispersed. And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha" (Gen 10:18d-19). This commentary deals with the more immediate concern of Genesis about the Canaanites who are under the curse of God and prepares us for the episodes with Sodom and Gomorrah. It is clear based on both comments that the descendants of Canaan are closer than Japheth to Israel and that they are the source of Israel's biggest strife.

The third section includes text before the standard "The sons of..." It says, "To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born" (Gen 10:21). Perhaps we should see the number twelve (like the twelve tribes of Israel). Especially when we remember the elastic use of the word "sons" (as this opening phrase alerts us "the father of all the children of Eber" since Eber is not his immediate son but a descendant), Peleg would be the twelfth son of Shem (or better yet Peleg is the fourteenth distinct name if you count Shem and Japeth in Gen 10:21). And for the sons of Eber through Joktan (including Joktan) there are fourteen (seven times two) . This suggests order. So the three sections of the genealogy considered together serve to highlight the disorder of Canaan.

We have already discussed the first comment in the third section "for in his days the earth was divided" (Gen 10:25) though I will have more to say later about it. The second comment in this section is: "The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of the Sephar to the hill country of the east." This just means to communicate that they are close to Israel geographically but separated from Israel. This genealogy serves to tie the non-elect Shemites to the story of the tower of Babel.

But while these peoples would all have their own languages this was not originally the case. The narrative tells us that the whole earth had one language and the same words (Gen 11:1). And they decided to build a ziggurat tower climbing into the heavens. So YHWH came down to them in judgment. The stated reason for building the tower was: "let us make a name [Shem] for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth" (Gen 11:4). God was going to make a name (shem) for His people of the line of Shem. But these non-elect descendants of Noah tried to make a name for themselves.

One must confess that this book is one of the hardest in Genesis to understand. The poetry is the most difficult. The increased use of parallelism tips us off that this is poetic. One people//one language. This is only the beginning of what they will do//Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Let us confuse their language//so they may not understand one another's speech. The middle pair seems to be the focus. What exactly does it mean that God says, "nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them" (Gen 11:6)? It reminds us of the language of the epilogue in Genesis 3 (complete with God's discussion with His "us"). We, God says in His heavenly council, need to stop man before he does something to keep salvation from being possible.

The epilogue begins and ends saying, "YHWH dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth" (Gen 11:8) and "from there YHWH dispersed them over the face of all the earth" (Gen 11:9). The comment in the middle "they left off building the city therefore its name (shem) was called Babel, because YHWH confused the language of all the earth" is interesting. Babel sounds like babbling -- confusion. They had set out to make a name (shem) for themselves but the city gets the name (shem) of confusion. Their plans were frustrated. They never finished the city...as St. Augustine said, "the city never reached the kind of completion that the pride of impious men had dreamed." Or as Waltke puts it, "The Tower of Babel story lampoons this boast [that Babylon is the religious center of the world]. To its founders "Babel" meant "gate/residence of the gods." but the narrator parodies that significance by a Hebrew by-form bll, meaning "confused" (cf. English, "a babel of voices"). Its builders think their temple tower reaches into heaven; it is so low that the Lord has to descend from heaven just to see it!" (178). It is not finished because it can never get them to God.

Chronologically the narrative of Gen 11:1ff, poetry and epilogue belong before the royal genealogy. Thus Ephrem the Syrian, as quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (same source as the Augustine quote above) , said, "Because of their new languages, which made them foreigners to each other and incapable of understanding one another, war broke out among them on account of the divisions that the languages brought among them. Thus war broke out among those who had been building that fortified city out of fear of others. And all those who had been keeping themselves away from the city were scattered throughout the entire earth. It was Nimrod who scattered them. It was he who seized Babel and became its first ruler. If Nimrod had not scattered them each to his own place, he would not have been able to take that place where they all had lived before." This is an interesting attempt at harmonizing the genealogy and the rest of the book. While we should avoid assuming that Ephrem is correct in the details, his impulse is right. We need to remember that the reason the descendants of Japheth, Ham, and Shem in the genealogy live in different places is the result of being dispersed throughout the land after the attempt to build the city and tower of Babel. This division of the land between the seventy nations took place when Peleg was living ("for in his days the earth was divided") and divided Peleg from his brother Joktan (because Joktan was associated with the tower). And it is in this context that Nimrod conquered the lands of Babylon and Assyria and built his empire and built cities in the image of the original Babel. The text is dischronologized because of the structure of the genealogy and the overall structure of title, genealogy/narrative, poetry, epilogue.

The concern of this book is the salvation of the nations. They have been given their inheritance and are governed by God, whether they admit it or not. And the poetic curse is designed to pave the way for their future salvation through the seed of Abraham. This is the salvation accomplished by none other than Jesus Christ. As the author of Revelation tells us, "By your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation" (Rev 5:9) and we see that all authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation had been given to the beast (Rev 13:8) and that an angel had "an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people" (Rev 14:6). The similarity to our book in Genesis is not accidental. For one thing, tribe is the same word as clan. The salvation Jesus accomplished is for the elect of every tribal/clan/political faction, every tongue, every people/nation, and every ethnicity. And this is what the epistles of Paul mean when they say things like "The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people" (Titus 2:11). Paul does not mean that Jesus has saved everyone but that the salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ was for all kinds of people -- people of every clan, language, people, and ethnicity (Jews and Gentiles/nations). (translation used was ESV with minor changes)

Labels: assyria, babylon, election, Genesis, gomorrah, royal genealogy, seventy, shem, sodom, tower of babel, ziggurat

Even though Book Three is much longer than Book Two, it follows the same pattern. It begins with the title "These are the generations of Noah" (Gen 6:9). The book should focus on the descendants of Noah with such a title, but the last book did not record his death so that this book could tell us what happened in the fullness of time. The narrative section begins "Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God" (Gen 6:9). Thus both numbers seven and ten in the royal genealogy of Book Two's narrative are now described as having "walked with God." The narrative of Book Three continues until Gen 9:24. The pattern then finishes out with the poetic curse of Canaan and blessing of Shem (Gen 9:25-27) and an epilogue reminiscent of the pattern found in the royal genealogy of Book Two: "After the flood Noah lived 350 years. All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died" (Gen 9:28-29).

The narrative follows a chiastic structure natural to a flood story because of the flood rising and receding. In a chiasm the first thing said and the last thing said are parallel conceptually or thematically and the second thing said and the second to last thing said are parallel conceptually or thematically and so forth. Chiasms can be very elaborate or very simple. This one is very complicated. The Scriptures use chiasms as a way to organize stories repeatedly. Sometimes scholars have been tempted to see them where they do not exist. But this story is artificially crafted to maintain the chiasm's structure. We know the chiasm is intentional and not just an accident of flood story-telling because on the way to the climax we see one week described two times (Gen 7:4-5 and 6-10) and in the parallel position after the climax we see three weeks described two times (Gen 8:10-11 and 12-13). The first is one week described as if two weeks by simply repeating that the rain will begin in one week (Gen 7:4 and 10). The second is a time period of three weeks described as if two weeks because there is a week that he waited before sending out the dove (Gen 8:10), he waited another seven days and again sent out the dove (Gen 8:10), and then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove (Gen 8:12). But clearly the way it is written these three weeks sound like two weeks. So the author wants us to read the story as a chiasm. I am indebted to Tremper Longman III for this observation in his article in Inerrancy and Hermeneutic (see p.142).

The climax of a chiasm is at the center. In the flood chiasm the center is: "But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark..." (Gen 8:1-3). The language of remembering is language for resurrection. The flood story is a death and resurrection story. But this resurrection falls short of the one it points forward to -- as the narrative analogy demonstrates.

The story develops a narrative analogy or recapitulation (Sailhamer shows this) between the creation and fall narratives and the flood story. The flood is a creation-reversal. Thus when the flood recedes we see similarities with the creation story. So we see a new creation. At first the waters cover everything. Then the tops of the mountains were seen (Gen 1:9 and 8:5). The dove brings back a freshly plucked olive leaf (the earth brought forth vegetation, Gen 1:11 and 8:11). God blesses the animals and tells them to be fruitful and multiply on the earth (i.e. Gen 1:22 for birds, Gen 8:17). Man is blessed and to rule over the creation (Gen 1:28b, 9:1-2) and told that he can eat (Gen 1:29, 9:3). Man is told to be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:28, 9:7). Adam and Noah both have three sons. Adam has Cain, Abel, and Seth (Gen 4:1-2, 25); Noah has Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Gen 9:18-19). YHWH God planted a garden for Adam (Gen 2:8) and Noah planted a vineyard (Gen 9:20).

Then we see the recapitulation of the fall narrative. Adam and Eve ate of the tree they had been commanded not to eat from (Gen 3:6) and Noah drank the wine and became drunk (Gen 9:21). Adam and Eve knew they were naked (Gen 3:7) and Noah "lay uncovered in his tent" (Gen 9:21). Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together for aprons (Gen 3:7) and Shem and Japheth took a garment and walked backwards to cover Noah's nakedness (Gen 9:23). And then YHWH cursed the serpent (Gen 3:14-15) and Noah cursed Canaan (Gen 9:25-27). Therefore, we learn that things before and after the fall are remarkably the same. The people still need a Savior from sin. Noah is one of many Christs (anointed ones) in Scripture who through their sin will point us to the need for Jesus. Noah's resurrection does not change hearts. The curse still holds sway over this new creation.

To return for a moment to the subject of the narrative analogy with Genesis 1: the text, like Genesis 1, uses ANE cosmology to describe the flood. The picture is one where the deep wells up like fountains and the waters above the firmament are allowed to pour through the windows in the firmament. The firmament had been created to hold back these waters. The firmament is a hard structure to which the sun, moon, and stars are attached. In this cosmology, when one looks up in the sky and sees blue they are seeing the waters on the other side of the firmament. The author of Genesis has shown us that he knows about clouds forming and watering the earth (Gen 2:5-6 as translated by Kline) but here describes the water coming down from above with the ANE cosmology by saying the windows of the heavens were opened (Gen 7:11) and closed (Gen 8:2). We should expect the author of Genesis to do this. And this in no way demonstrates that the author is in error because the book is not teaching us science but is teaching us about God's judgment, will, salvation, and people. It is important that the flood be considered a universal one regardless of whether it covered the whole earth or not because the text is teaching us about the final judgment that is coming for all.

So to summarize the positive teaching of the flood narrative: the great Noah falls short of the coming seed who will crush the serpent's head. Changed hearts do not result from Noah's resurrection. All deserve the final judgment of guilty for sin. The new creation after the flood has not escaped the effects of the curse. Thus we need the poetry.

In the overall structure of Book Three (like Books One and Two) the most important part is the poetry. Curses and blessings for future generations are immensely important in the Torah and often are the poetic text. This poem is a curse/blessing: "He said, 'Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.' He also said, "Blessed be YHWH, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant'" (Gen 9:25-27). Thus the poem points us to the line of Shem as the line of the promise for one whose resurrection will crush the serpent's head, reverse the curse, and begin the new creation of the heavens and earth. Israel is of the line of Shem. Thus the poetry points us to Israel as the legitimate seed of the woman and heir to the promise and ultimately points us to Jesus Christ as that seed and heir.

And the brevity of the epilogue is appropriate. Noah died.

Labels: blessing, canaan, chiasm, curse, flood, Genesis, japheth, noah, recapitulation, shem

The second book in Genesis begins with the title "This is the book of the generations of Adam" (Gen 5:1). Thus we will find out about the descendants of Adam.

We should identify the genre of the narrative and part of the epilogue as a royal genealogy. Up until now I have not spoken much about the similarities of Genesis and literature from the surrounding ANE world. But this genre identification is important because the tendency of some is to try to date the earth based on mathematically analyzing texts like this. Waltke's commentary mentions the Sumerian king list, which could skip over many generations. Likewise, in Scripture the father/son relationship could also be a grandfather/grandson (or any number of generations) relationship. The purpose of this text is not scientific. It is a royal genealogy pointing us to the legitimacy of Israel (and ultimately Jesus Christ) as the heir of the promise to the woman. And thus the genealogy conforms to a pattern we will analyze later.

Genealogies are one of the most skimmed things in Scripture, but the genealogies in Genesis are some of the most fascinating texts. One of the really interesting things is the ages of the Sethites. Waltke cites M. Barnouin (who wrote in French) who has observed that the ages of the Sethites are equal to particular astronomical periods known to the Babylonians. Enoch's 365 years are the same number of days of the year. Lamech's 777 years (not to be confused with the Lamech in the last book) are the same as the synodic periods of Jupiter plus Saturn (this just means how long it takes for the planet to get back around to the same place in the sky). And Jared's 962 years are the same as the synodic periods of Venus plus Saturn. Moreover, Waltke says,

"If the sum of the years at the time of fathering and of the total life spans from Adam to Lamech are each divided by sixty--based on the Babylonian sexagesimal system--the sum of the remainders is 365, again perhaps representing the perfect life span. The cycles of a man's years may match the cycles of the heavenly spheres to show that their lives follow a meaningful pattern and end with a completed cycle."

So even though 365 is short compared to the lifespans of the others in the genealogy, Enoch was a very important man.

This is confirmed when we observe the pattern of the text. The pattern is: When X had lived Y years, he fathered...Z, The days of X after he fathered Z were ZZ years; and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days that X lived were ZZZ years, and he died. For Adam the pattern is more expansive than the rest. For example, for 'he fathered Z' it says, "he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth." This line is also expanded for Lamech, the text says, "he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying..." Any major variations of the pattern should stop us in our tracks as we read the genealogy. When we get to number three (Adam, Seth, Enosh) we find the basic pattern. Same with number four, Kenan; five, Mahalalel; and six, Jared. But as we should have guessed from the symbolic significance of seven (not to mention the crafting of the genealogy we saw in the last book) the pattern is broken for Enoch who lives the perfect lifespan. Instead of saying, 'Enoch lived after he fathered Methuselah 300 years' it says, "Enoch walked with God after he fathered..." And where we would expect the text to tell us, "and he died" it says, "Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Enoch's son has the longest recorded lifespan (according to Scripture) 969 years. And Enoch himself could have lived longer than his son, but it is far better to be with God.

The pattern resumes only to be broken again for number ten. Ten means fullness. Therefore, at the fullness of time, God sent forth his son Noah (cf. Galatians 4:4). Thus the longer form of he fathered: "he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, 'Out of the ground that YHWH has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands'" (Gen 5:29). Here we see the same overall pattern for most of these books applies to this second book as well (heading, narrative, poetry, epilogue). And remember that we said the poetry is what is most important. Noah gives rest and joy to the people of God through raising a vineyard. Of course, this points forward to Jesus Christ, the son of God born at the fullness of time, who gives us rest and joy everlasting.

The epilogue continues the royal genealogy and adds the plus one generation has three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth. The next book will be about them and unlike most of the books it will also be about Noah as it does not tell us "and he died" quite yet. The epilogue continues to prepare us for the next book and to set the stage. Traditionally the problem has been explained as the sons of Seth intermarrying with the daughters of Cain. But, following Meredith Kline, it is much more plausible (for grammatical, contextual and other reasons) to read "sons of God" as a title of kingship. Since "sons of God" also sometimes refers to angels, it is not a stretch to say that these kings are demon-possessed. The text then is talking about demon-possessed kings (the sons of Cain) taking harems ("they took as their wives any they chose," Gen 6:2) and breeding champions for their army (the Nephilim). The Nephilim are giants sometimes called Anakim. Anak was a person who is the ancestor of many giants and Nephil is the place where giants lived. See Numbers 13:33. Without a doubt, all giants are then called Nephilim. Sin has continued to escalate to a climax demanding judgment. Now we see more than just polygamy and murder but harems and marauding armies. "But Noah found favor in the eyes of YHWH" (Gen 6:8).

It is also worth noting that before the flood "every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen 8:5) and after the flood "the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Gen 8:21). The circumcision of the heart has not yet taken place. God has started over but the problem of sin is not yet answered. This is the difference when God starts over with Jesus Christ and He pours out the Spirit.

Labels: enoch, Genesis, giants, harems, kline, noah, royal genealogy, ten