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

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 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