Being faithful in your relationships (Genesis 39)

Genesis 39:8-9

But he refused and said to his master's wife, "Look, with me here, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my hand. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" (NRSVue)

Potiphar explicitly put his wife off limits to Joseph. Otherwise, Potiphar's wife may have had the power to give this order. Joseph's intention to avoid Potiphar's wife was connected with the covenantal relationships he had with Potiphar and with God. As John Goldingay says,

First, there is a relationship of trust between him and his master, which he cannot betray. Second, having sex with Potiphar's wife would be something very bad; it is a common evaluation of adultery in the Middle East. And third, it would involve doing wrong against God or offending God or falling short of God's expectations. ("Genesis," Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Pentateuch, 2020)

Relationships are important and it is important that we be totally faithful to our relationship partners.

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Genesis 39:3-4

His master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD caused all that he did to prosper in his hands. So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him; he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had.

What did Potiphar see?
How does God's presence make things happen?

Here are some thoughts from Teranct Fretheim ("Genesis," NIBC, Abingdon, OliveTree e-book).

It probably presupposes that Joseph’s presence “in the house of his Egyptian master” entails theological conversation, or at least sufficient knowledge of Joseph to make the connection between his God and his words and deeds.
There are implications here for how God works in the world: not in overwhelming power, but in and through the ambiguities and complexities of the relationships of integrity God has established.
God also works with Potiphar, so that Joseph finds favor in his eyes. Thus God appears active, not only within the lives of the family of promise, but also within those who do not confess the name of God.

Genesis 38: What is righteous?

What is righteous?

Genesis 38 takes a temporary break from the Joseph story to document a bit of family intrigue in Judah's little circle.

 In the account, Judah gives a Canaanite woman named Tamar to his oldest son Er. God finds something objectionable about Er and acts in some way that results in Er's death. Judah gives Tamar to his next oldest son Onan who, by family custom, should sire a son to inherit Er's birthright (Deuteronomy 25:5-10; Ruth 4). Onan thought about it and decided that he would have Er's inheritance if he failed to sire a son through Tamar; so he used Tamar for sex but he practiced coitus interruptus so that his seed would not go into Tamar. This behavior also displeased God and the result was Onan's death as well.

(Incidentally, there is no basis here to suggest that every death is God's will. Nevertheless, God evidentially reserves the right to sometimes work toward the death of certain persons).

Judah told Tamar that he would give her to his next younger son when he is old enough to take a wife. He then, conveniently, forgot about it. Tamar, on the other hand, was forced into permanent widowhood without any freedom to remarry or to inherit.

Tamar took matters into her own hands. She disguised herself and had sexual intercourse with Judah. She got pregnant. When Judah found out the whole story, he called Tamar "righteous" (Genesis 38:26).

The end result of Tamar's actions is that Judah's lineage was preserved. He became the ancestor of David and Jesus through Tamar. In typical patriarchal fashion, the younger of Tamar's twins is the father of this lineage.

The big question that comes up here and in other places is, What, exactly, is "righteous?" Is morality a long list of DOs and DON'Ts? Is everything that is stated as a rule in scripture the end-all of right behavior? We need look at Jesus' repeated violations of the Sabbath to see that we can focus too closely on the rule at the expense of treating people right.

Is there gray area between right and wrong? If morality is that fluid, how willy-nilly can we be about switching them around? I am reminded of Romans 3:7-8.

But if through my falsehood God's truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not say (as some people slander us by saying that we say), "Let us do evil so that good may come"? Their condemnation is deserved! (NRSV)

 Addendum, for clarity. A paraphrase.:

If by my unrighteousness I glorify God then my unrighteousness is God's will; so I should have a reward rather than a condemnation. We don't do that. Those who say we do are condemned and deserve it.

/Addendum

Consider the dishonest actions of the Hebrew midwives (Exodus 1:19-21), Rahab (Joshua 2:4-5), David's spies (2Samuel 16:16-19; 17:7-13, 20) and Michal (1 Samuel 19:14; 20:28-29; 19:17). There are good Christians who operate as spies and undercover agents. How do they do it without feeling like they are sinning in their dishonesty? It probably boils down to the fact that being right is less important than love and the good welfare of people.

Fretheim ("Genesis," NIBC) has this to say: [Tamar's] action cannot be universalized so as to be declared righteous wherever it is committed; at the same time, such action may be righteous in another time and place if it becomes the way of doing justice to a relationship. It may be necessary to go beyond the law in order to fulfill the law, which should enable life and well-being to a community (see Deut 6:24; Jesus’ sabbath-breaking, Mark 2:27). Here the OT narrative gives especially high value to the future of the community, in view of which individual acts, which might be normally condemned, are viewed positively. Relationships are more important than rules; faithfulness may mean going beyond the law. We cannot help wondering whether this story has informed Jesus’ saying that “the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matt 21:31 NRSV) as well as his open response to the woman who was a “sinner” (Luke 7:36-50). We should not “secularize” this note about righteousness; in v. 10, God is explicitly involved in judgment regarding this matter. Hence, Tamar has been truer to her relationship with God than Judah has.

Genesis 36: Missional Election

Genesis 36:1
These are the descendants of Esau (that is, Edom).

Genesis 36 records the family tree of Esau. Most of these names we know only through their preservation by Israelite sources. Why would Israelite sources bother to detail the family of a non-chosen people?

The reason is because election is about vocation and mission (Genesis12:3; 28:14). The elect have a vocational duty of mission towards the non-elect.

We must never think of ourselves as better because we are elect. We are elect to be servants of one another and of all the families of the earth.

Outsiders and the Community of Faith: Genesis 34

In Genesis 34, Jacob's daughter Dinah is raped by a man of prominence in a nearby town called Shechem. This story has a lot to say to modern Christians and the modern church as it ministers to outsiders (unchurched), to the truly repentant and to abuse victims.

Interestingly, the rapist in this story is named after his hometown, Shechem. It is possible that Dinah and Shechem had met (Genesis 34:18-20). By the time Dinah visited Shechem to hang out with her girlfriends, she may have been developing feelings for the man Shechem. Shechem's tender feelings for Dinah are abundantly clear as they are mentioned five times in this account.

Dinah's brothers are incensed over this affair and they deceptively invite the people of Shechem to join Jacob's family and religion by submitting to circumcision. In their deception, the brothers go into the town while the men there are recovering from the painful procedure. They kill all of the male Shechemites and pillage their town.

Jacob rebukes his sons for this action as it will only cause trouble for him and his household in relation to his Canaanite neighbors.

The law (which comes later, Exodus 22:16-17; Deuteronomy 22:28-29) prescribes the proper way to treat rapists in that particular social context. Rapists were expected to take their victims as their wives and they were not permitted to divorce them. This law protected of the honor of the family of the rape victim and the honor of the rape victim herself. There would have been more damage to her honor if she remained in her father's house unmarried.

What we see in Shechem is full and sincere intention to do the right thing (his love for Dinah is mentioned five times). He is prepared to pay the bride price to Jacob even if the price is set ridiculously high. This man did not come to Jacob and his sons with artificial statements of "If I have done anything that has caused offense, I repent." He acknowledged his error and was ready to take all possible actions to make it right.

Dinah's brothers' suggestion that the two peoples become one people with one religion is the right response on their part... if they were not being deceptive! For Christians circumcision correlates to baptism.

Colossians 2:11-14 (NRSV)
In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.

Christian baptism joins the believer into covenant relationship with God. In Jacob's family, that's what circumcision did. The people of Shechem were coming to God and, by covenant, God would have added the people of Shechem to the faith community (= Jacob's family).

But Jacob's sons did not treat the Shechemites as brothers. They double-crossed them.

This story invites readers to talk openly about rape and rape victims. How should the faith community minister to rape victims today? How should we minister to abusers when they offer half-baked repentance? How should we minister to abusers when they offer sincere repentance complete with acknowledgement of the pain they have cause and real invested action to try to repair the damage in any way they can?

How ought the faith community minister to outsiders who are very different from us but nevertheless seek sincere relationship with God? They are unchurched and they were not raised right like we were. Can we accept them into our church family?

As brothers Levi and Simeon were united against an outside enemy, their artificial unity led to strife between each other and their respective families (Genesis 49:5-7). Any unity we enjoy as we focus on the outside enemy eventually leads to internal disunity within our own ranks whether we be a nation, a church or a nuclear family. This thought will take a lot of attention to implement in Christian ministry.

Finally, notice that Jacob believed that his sons had placed fulfilment of God's promise in jeopardy (Genesis 28:13-15; c.f., Genesis 12:1-3)! Jacob fully believed that he needed to personally participate in the fulfilment of God's promised blessing and his sons needed to participate in the fullfilment of God's promise to Jacob's family. Failure to embrace God's promise results in failure to receive it. God's promise can be resisted. We must also participate in fulfilment of God's promise. Participation is exactly what we do when we submit to God's covenant terms as described in the New Testament.

Aspiration to be Number One: Genesis 33

 Gen 33:8-9
Esau said, “What do you mean by all this company that I met?” Jacob answered, “To find favor with my lord.” But Esau said, “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.”

Esau never aspired to be Number One. In fact, such aspiration is a character flaw. That was Jacob's problem.

Hosea 12:2-9

The LORD has an indictment against Judah,
and will punish Jacob according to his ways,
and repay him according to his deeds.
In the womb he tried to supplant his brother,
and in his manhood he strove with God.
He strove with the angel and prevailed,
he wept and sought his favor;
he met him at Bethel,
and there he spoke with him.
The LORD the God of hosts,
the LORD is his name!
But as for you, return to your God,
hold fast to love and justice,
and wait continually for your God.
A trader, in whose hands are false balances,
he loves to oppress.
Ephraim has said, “Ah, I am rich,
I have gained wealth for myself;
in all of my gain
no offense has been found in me
that would be sin.”
I am the LORD your God
from the land of Egypt;
I will make you live in tents again,
as in the days of the appointed festival.

Genesis 32: Be afraid

Genesis 32:6-7
The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.” Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people that were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two companies,...

Sometimes fear is a good thing. Being fearless is a character flaw. Being afraid is a strength. It can keep you out of trouble.

Genesis 30: God works even through people's goofy efforts and prayer

Gen 30:16-18
When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him, and said, “You must come in to me; for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he lay with her that night. And God heeded Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Leah said, “God has given me my hire because I gave my maid to my husband”; so she named him Issachar.

Leah's efforts to concieve are really quite goofy but she did what she could.* This action was her work toward a certain goal; but she did not forget God in her goals. She prayed about it and God heeded Leah's prayer. In the end, she gave all the credit to God. It is also NOT the case that having female goats look at something striped when they concieve results in striped kids!

* The work we do to find our dreams are a cooperation with God (Romans 8:28, "work together," συνεργεῖ, synergy). God does what we cannot do. We do what we can. In biblical times, the human effort was sometimes silly by today's standards but God worked with it.

James 5:14 Apply medicinal ointment
2 Kings 4:33-34 Elisha placed his living eyes over the dead boy's dead eyes, etc.
2 Kings 6:6 Elisha threw a stick in the water to get an ax to float

Genesis 29: Remembering grief

Genesis 29:32
Leah conceived and bore a son, and she named him Reuben; for she said, “Because the LORD has looked on my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.”

Leah's heart is in pain. The name Reuben (and similarly the her subsequent sons' names) will always remind her of her grief.

We can weigh the wisdom of giving ourselves such an overt reminder of our pain. It is wise to have reminders of our grief if for any other reason to remind us of God's sincere sympathy and empathy for us.

The popular thought that we can bear our grief because "God is in control" is not nearly as comforting or beautiful as the knowledge that "God grieves with us."

Exodus 3:7f
Jeremiah 14:17

Gesesis 28: Unequally Yoked

We have just read about how Jacob and his mother Rebeka deceived the aged and blind Isaac to get a first-born blessing for Jacob... at Esau's expense. In the account beginning in Genesis 27:46 and continuing through 28:9, Isaac and Rebecca send Jacob to Paddan-aram where he will hopefully find a suitable wife from Rebeka's brother's daughters.

The reason given for this action is that Esau had married a couple of Hittite women who were source of bitterness for Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 26:34-35).

The charge to not marry a Canaanite seems to speak against marrying across religious lines; but such a conclusion is not indicated by the text. The people of Paddan-aram were not really proper "God" folk. They were polytheists (Genesis 31:19). The real concern, I suspect, was about customs. The customs of the Canaanites was just too drastically different from those of Abraham's family.

There is an application here about where we look for marriage candidates but we must bring in some other scriptures to make the point.

If we look at 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 we read about the problem of being "unequally yoked" with unbelievers.

Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship is there between light and darkness? What agreement does Christ have with Beliar? Or what does a believer share with an unbeliever?

This passage is not specifically about marriage but it applies. Murry H. Harris explains that the passage

... clearly is not an injunction against any and all association with unbelievers (cf. 1Co 5:9-10; 10:27). Paul actually encouraged the Christian partner in a mixed marriage to maintain the relationship as long as possible (1Co 7:12-16). Rather, this is a prohibition against forming close attachments with non-Christians, using an agricultural metaphor about yoking (cf. Dt 22:10; also Lev 19:19). Although precisely what constituted a "diverse yoke" for the Corinthians remains unstated, it clearly involved compromise with heathendom, such as contracting mixed marriages (cf. Dt 7:1-3), initiating litigation before unbelievers in cases involving believers (1Co 6:1-8), or forming any relationship with unbelievers that would compromise Christian standards or jeopardize consistency of Christian witness. (Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary: Volume 2, 681)

First Peter 3:1-7 is about religiously unequally yoked marriages that have become that way because one of the partners became a believer.

So Paul advises Christians to avoid forming close relationships with unbelievers.

Now, does that mean Baptists should not form close relationships with Methodists? or First Christians shoud avoid romantic relationships with Nazarines? Considering the religious goals of these groups are hopefully similar (they want to go to heaven, they love Jesus, they have a sense of Christian mission and want to grow their faith) we can view people from these various groups on average as religious-culturally similar. Obviously, it is advisable to form close relationships with others who have the most important life goals in common and/or the most compatable as reasonably possible.

And Christians should not eschew the social company of anybody as far as it is possible.

Genesis 27: Should we agree on everything?

Genesis 27:36

Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright; and look, now he has taken away my blessing.” Then he said, “Have you not reserved a blessing for me?”

It is interesting that the writers and prophets of the Old Testament are not all in full agreement with everything. In this case, Hosea is sympathetic to Esau when he said,

The LORD has an indictment against Judah,
and will punish Jacob according to his ways,
and repay him according to his deeds.
In the womb he tried to supplant his brother,
and in his manhood he strove with God. (Hosea 12:2-3)

Hosea is somewhat sympathetic to Esau but also to anyone who has been mistreated by Israel in more recent times to the prophet. He may even be thinking about the nation of Edom that is called by her ancestor Esau. That kind of thinking is not universal in the Bible. In fact, the man Jacob is generally treated as an upstanding hero in most places.

It is frustrating to see denominational leaders attempt to get everyone to agree on everything. It comes across like they are wanting people to stop thinking for themselves and just accept what the leadership says they should think. That is the definition of a cult. If Jesus is our cult leader, then so be it; but if church leadership starts telling us what to think, then that is a problem. Not even the writers of the Bible agree on everything.

Genesis 26: unmerited favor

Gen 26:12-14

Isaac sowed seed in that land, and in the same year reaped a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, and the man became rich; he prospered more and more until he became very wealthy. He had possessions of flocks and herds, and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him.

Here is the take-away from this chapter. Isaac did not deserve this blessing; but God is not about being fair as much as he is about grace. This blessing is unmerited, as is our own salvation that we enjoy and appreciate.

Genesis 25: Abraham in the afterlife. Patriarchal period? What about Rebekah?

Genesis 25:8

Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people.

Abraham was gathered to his people? What does that mean? Here are some useful thoughts:

NKJV Study Bible (Thomas Nelson):

A burial. The phrase also indicates that there is an afterlife (see Genesis 15:15; 35:29; 49:33).

John Walton, NIV Cultural Study Bible:

This expression finds its roots in ancient views about burial and afterlife. Both the practice of burials in family tombs and the view of continuing social relationships in the afterlife retain the concept of the ancestors as a distinguishable group. One’s place in the family of deceased ancestors was just as central to one’s identity as one’s place in the family in the land of the living. The living family honored the deceased both individually and corporately through a variety of practices that did not stop after burial.

John E. Hartley, Understanding the Bible Commentary:

The phrase gathered to his people refers to the idea that the deceased became numbered with his departed ancestors. This language, which occurs only ten times and only in the Pentateuch, hints at a belief in some type of life after death.

See also 2 Samuel 12:23; Genesis 37:35

So, while being gathered to one's people seems to be a euphemism for being buried (1 Kings 14:20 and many like it), It seems to betray a very early belief in an afterlife. The concept of life after death may very well be much older than many assume.

Gen 25:22-23

The children struggled together within [Rebekah]; and she said, “If it is to be this way, why do I live?” So she went to inquire of the LORD.
And the LORD said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples born of you shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other,
the elder shall serve the younger.”

While this historical period is customarily identified as the Patriarchal Dispensation—when God spoke to the patriarchs—God spoke to the female heads of household too! Women have always been in personal relationship with God and they did not need their husbands to mediate for them. (Recall that Sarai boldly called upon Yahweh to take her side against her husband Abram in Genesis 16:5). This biblical history ought to inform the notion of gender based roles in the modern church and Christian families.

If Isaac would have paid better heed to Rebekah's revelation he would have spared his family a lot of trouble.

Genesis 24: Looking for a sign from God

Gen 24:11-15

He made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water; it was toward evening, the time when women go out to draw water. And he said, “O LORD, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham. I am standing here by the spring of water, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. Let the girl to whom I shall say, ‘Please offer your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master.”
Before he had finished speaking, there was Rebekah, who was born to Bethuel son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s brother, coming out with her water jar on her shoulder.

Why don't my prayers for a sign ever get answered? Why do some people see signs everywhere when they are no signs at all?

Part of the answer may have to do with the fact that, in this case, God was interested in who Isaac married and (as the servant mentioned in his prayer) God was invested in the long term vocation of Abraham's seed.

It is noteworthy that God did answer the servant's prayer but not in the way it appears on the surface of the text.

The servant's prayer asks for God to chose the girl who responds in a particular way to a request for a drink. The prayer does not ask for the girl chosen by God to respond in a certain way to a request for a drink.

When Rebekah responds in the prescribed way, the servant hopes God will choose her. Evidently, through some prophetic means, the servant is able to determine that Rebekah is indeed the girl for Isaac (Genesis 24:21).

Genesis 24:67

Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent. He took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

Notice the order of the events that sealed the union of Isaac and Rebekah. Isaac

(1) took her to bed,
(2) "took her" as his wife,
(3) loved her.

The order is a nice order and actually the typical order even in western marriages. In the "dating" phase, couples typically believe they are in love; but successful marriages include a period of growing in love which is more lasting than the emotional high that dating couples feel. Isaac experienced the same marital love that all Christian marriages should pursue.

Genesis 23; Bereavement

Abraham's request for a place to bury Sarah is quite poignant to me.

"I am a stranger and an alien residing among you; give me property among you for a burying place, so that I may bury my dead out of my sight." (Genesis 23:4).

Here are some points to be noted:

* Dead Sarah belonged to Abraham.
* Abraham managed to bury Sarah in property that now belonged to Abraham.
* Death separated Sarah from Abraham.

After a time of grief, it was time for Abraham to let go of his dead wife. It was necessary for Abraham to accept his loss. Abraham expressed his grief but not over an extended period of time. He would cherish her memory. He also needed to get on with the practical matter of setting her remains to rest. He needed to bury her away from his sight. She needed to be buried in a place of her own in order to help the living to remember her.

Since Abraham now owned property in the land of his sojourn, he was moving toward fulfillment of the divine promise that Abraham's seed would inhabit that land (Genesis 15:17-21).

Death, by definition, is separation. We can observe separation in this account of Sarah's death. Abraham deeply felt her separation from himself.

Sin results in spiritual death. In the book of Romans, death is all about loss of hope, judgment and separation from God (Romans 5:12, 18, 21; 6:23).

Death is always grievous; but to believers, there is hope of being reunited in the next life (1 Thessalonians 4:13); so there is some measure comfort for those who grieve.

Genesis 22: God learns

As much as many theologians want to reject the notion, God learns the core of a person's character through testing.¹ Any of us who have lived a few years know that a person does not really know the content of his/her own character until it is tested. We learn through experience to never make claims like "I would never do that" or "If it were me, I would... fill in the blank." We do not know the truth of those statements until we are tested.

Guess what. God does not know the truth of those statements either, until we are tested. We must not pass over the critical language of God ( = The Angel of Yahweh²):

Genesis 22:12, NRSV
He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

Note the mix of first and second person. This "angel of the LORD" is reporting what God knows and what God just learned.

The only way this passage makes sense is that God knew something after an event that he did not know before the event.

There is a little saying that goes like this: I'm not a judge of the sheep but I am a fruit inspector (Matthew 7:15-20). God is also a fruit inspector.

I leave you with some questions to ponder today.

Genesis 22:3
So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him.

Abraham's early start shows his determination to fulfill the requirement of the oracle. How did Abraham know this was a communication from God and not Satan?

Genesis 22:5-6
Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.

How did Abraham know this? Does Hebrews 11:17-19 clarify or obfuscate?

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1 More passages on God testing people: Deuteronomy 8:2; 13:3; Judges 3:1-4; 2 Chronicles 32:31; Psalm 139:23

2 On the Angel of Yahweh = Yahweh, which is usually true, cf., Genesis 22:15; 16:7-13; Exodus 3. But sometimes the angel is more like an aid or ambassador, cf., 2 Samuel 24:16; Zechariah 1:7-17; 12:8.

Genesis 21: Wisdom of women; How God acts in history; God's tender heart

There are several neat nuggets of impact in Genesis 21.

Nugget 1: Us men ought to embrace women as sources of wisdom. In Genesis 21:12, God tells Abraham that Sara's word is the voice of wisdom. Obey it. Obviously, not everybody, man or woman, is wise; but there is wisdom in both sexes. Never close your ears to anybody's thinking based upon their sex (gender). If men will not listen to the wisdom of women, they are limiting their available wisdom by half (Proverbs 11:14; 24:6). It is not shameful for a man to obey a wise woman leader.

Nugget 2: God adapts his plans as reality changes. Ishmael was not in God's plan; but Ishmael was now a reality. God adapted (Genesis 21:13).

Nugget 3 has to do with how God responds to people's emotion. Check this out:

Gen 21:15-19
When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

I am fascinated by what motivated God to act. All this sadness going on at the scene and God responds to the crying of the boy! It is interesting that God heard the voice of somebody who was NOT praying and God responded to it. We have seen this kind of sensitivity in God in at least two other places in the book of Genesis: Genesis 4:10; 18:20 (c.f., Deuteronomy 15:9; 24:15)! God is tenderhearted. God is sensitive to people's sadness.

Genesis 20: Ministry of reconciliation

Gen 20:6-7

Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart; furthermore it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her. Now then, return the man’s wife; for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you shall live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all that are yours.”

It is fascinating that God tells Abimelech, a man of integrity, to have Abraham, who is showing lack of integrity, to pray for him.

It the duty of all believers to pray intercessory prayers for others.

It was the responsibility of a prophet not only to warn but also to plead with God for mercy (Jeremiah 18:20; Amos 7:2, 5; Ezekiel 22:30; Isaiah 62:6).

Our own intercession for the world must include persistent work to reconcile the world to God (2 Corinthians 5:17-21;  1 Timothy 2:1-2), even if it feels hopeless and if we feel unworthy.

Genesis 19: God's announcements are rarely the last word

Two angels (not three) entered into Sodom as they intended to investigate the truth about the cries Yahweh had heard about the city (Genesis 18:21). This chapter evidences a feature of the divine that is easy to miss.

Gen 19:17-22, NRSV
When they had brought them outside, they said, “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed.” And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords; your servant has found favor with you, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, for fear the disaster will overtake me and I die. Look, that city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!” He said to him, “Very well, I grant you this favor too, and will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.” Therefore the city was called Zoar.

The divine action against the cities of the valley had been determined. The judgment was going down in a determined way. Then, with Lot's input, the determined future was altered on the fly.

The God of the Bible reserves the right to alter his plans as situations change. When God announces his plans, the announcement is rarely the last word (Amos 3:6-8).

Genesis 18, It ain't easy being God

Quite often, when we read something about God in the Bible, we find the presentation to be difficult to reconcile with our view of God in our own minds. One such reading is the account of God's visit to Abraham in Genesis 18.

In the account, Yahweh personally visits Abraham. The visit happens in the event of three men who came upon Abraham's camp. God can either be understood as appearing in the form of three men or he is one of the three. A straight read of the text gives a very strong case for Yahweh being one of the tree men. Verse 22 pretty much makes this arrangement clear:

So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom, but Abraham stood yet before Yahweh. (Genesis 18:22, WEB)

An alternative reading is:

So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom, while the LORD remained standing before Abraham (NRSV footnote)

Indeed, this alternative reading is supported by the New Living Translation and it makes pretty good sense in light of Gideon's experience in Judges 6:11-24 which seems to treat the "Angel of Yahweh" and "Yahweh" as two different persons. Read that text and try to figure out what is going on. Who is whom?

In Genesis 18, Abraham discusses with Yahweh about the outcome of the divine investigation of Sodom. Yahweh agrees to spare Sodom and Gomorrah if there are fifty righteous. Through several suggestions by Abraham, Yahweh eventually reduces the required number to ten righteous.

If Yahweh already knew how the investigation would conclude, this whole conversation in Genesis 18:23-32 has no integrity at all. For the conversation to actually have integrity, it cannot be that either party knew how the investigation would conclude. If Yahweh really is, as the text reports, weighing his options, then we must consider something possibly surprising about his experience. God often has to make tricky decisions. He has to decide between several difficult courses of action, neither of which is very good.

This description of God is entirely consistent with the way the whole Bible presents God but it clashes with the usual traditional view of God.

While God hears our prayers—even silent prayers—he does not go around reading people's minds. He knows people's thoughts by testing and by investigating (cf. Deuteronomy 8:2; 13:3). That means God is not so much a judge of thoughts as he is a fruit inspector. In order to be certain we will act righteously when we are tested, we must grow righteousness in our hearts.

It is interesting that Yahweh's visit to Sodom was motivated by crying. God hears crying and we should add our voices when we hear about it. For a dedicated treatment of God's response to crying, see this article.

Genesis 17: Don't even think about neglecting covenant

Central passage:
Gen 17:9-14 (NRSV)

9 God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. 13 Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

Covenant is in fact something Abraham must keep―beginning with the sign of circumcision. It is not ethnocentric. It is family-centric. Slaves obey it too which gives slaves full human dignity. To add a point on it, slaves are included in the Abrahamic covenant with the divine. We shall see that the definition of "family" eventually expands to include anybody who enters into the Abrahamic covenant (Isaiah 56:3-8; Galatians 3:23-29; Ephesians 3:1-6; Romans 8:29). The sign of circumcision is retired (Jeremiah 3:15-16; 4:4; Deuteronomy 10:16; 30:6; Romans 2:28-29; Colossians 2:11-14).

The point is not that there will be consequences out of a violated covenant; although there are certainly consequences. Particularly, the benefits of covenant will no longer be active and there will be danger of experiencing the fate of the Canaanites (Genesis 15:16). The land holding will not be perpetual (Genesis 17:8).

The point here is that the people who enter into the covenant must not even think of neglecting this covenant.

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