Genesis

Lamech’s Opposite

Lois Tverberg
Embrace

by Lois Tverberg

“Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah, listen to my voice, you wives of Lamech, give heed to my speech, for I have killed a man for wounding me, and a boy for striking me; if Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.” Genesis 4:23-24

In Jesus’ time, rabbis studied the Torah intensively and peppered their sermons with references to the first five books of the Bible. They often would use even a single unusual or unique word to hint back to a story and make their point more effectively. Their culture was deeply literate in the Bible and would have recognized these allusions to Scripture. Unusual words would stick out at them and immediately bring to mind an earlier story.

In the following passage, Jesus seems to be doing this, to more effectively make His point:

Then Peter came to him and said, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother who sins against me? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.” – Matthew 18:21-22

EmbraceHere we read that Peter asks him how many times we need to forgive – up to seven times? The number seven is symbolic of completeness, hinting that Peter was saying that we should forgive repeatedly and completely. But then Jesus says “up to seventy-seven times,” which we often want to translate as “seventy times seven,” because 490 times is larger than seventy-seven. But the key to understanding is not in the quantity of 77 or 490, but in the fact that the phrase “seventy-seven times” or “seventy-sevenfold” (shiv’im v’shiva or hebdomekontakis hepta) is a unique phrase, found only once in the Hebrew scriptures, in today’s verse from Genesis 4:23.

The context was that Lamech, as a descendant of Cain, had inherited Cain’s violence, but then also had a lust for revenge. If some one hurt him, he would kill him, and he was certain to make sure anyone who wronged him was paid back seventy-sevenfold. God had told Cain that if anyone hurt him when he was roaming the earth, God would punish him seven-fold (Genesis 4:15). But Lamech says he will outdo God in revenge. Anybody who crossed him will be paid-back in a big way — not just sevenfold, but seventy-sevenfold!

If this is in Jesus’ mind, Jesus may be saying that we should be as eager to forgive as Lamech was to take vengeance. Just as Lamech wanted the punishment to far exceed the crime, we should want our forgiveness to far exceed the wrong done to us. We should be the exact opposite of Lamech, making our goal to forgive as extravagantly and completely as possible.

The Slippery Slope

Lois Tverberg
Temptation and Expulsion from the Garden

by Lois Tverberg

The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. – Genesis 6:5-6

We think of the point at which sin enters the world as when Eve takes the first bite of the apple. Some of us quickly leap next to the Gospels to read God’s answer to the problem. But it is interesting that if we keep reading we can get a lesson about sin and its consequences.

Temptation and Expulsion from the GardenWe see sin’s effects even after Adam and Eve are sent out from the garden. Within a few years, one of their own sons commits the first murder – a drastic worsening from Adam and Eve’s small act of rebellion of eating forbidden fruit. Cain is a man who doesn’t care about his brother and is prone to jealousy. His anger entices him to murder, just as the serpent led Eve to sin. A few generations later, in Cain’s line, we see a man even more vengeful than Cain – his descendant Lamech. Lamech said the following:

I have killed a man for wounding me, and a boy for striking me;
If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold. Genesis 4:24

Not only was Lamech more violent than Cain, he was even proud of it! Finally, evil reached its peak a few generations later in the generation of the flood. The scriptures say that this was a people whose only thought was of evil all the time, and God was sorry he made them. He wiped them all out with a flood, but the first thing man did after the flood was to build the tower of Babel — it was clear that the flood hadn’t washed the sin out of their hearts.

At this point, God began a much more long-term answer for sin in the heart of man. In the very next chapter, God chose one faithful man, Abram, and promised that through him he would make a people that would bless the whole world. Through him would come a nation that could be taught God’s way to live, and even if they struggled, could be a light to the nations around them. And God could use this nation to bring his final answer to sin – Jesus.

Through this we can see the amazing power of sin that starts out small and quickly grows powerful and ugly. But we can hope in the fact that while God’s answer also starts out small, it ultimately will triumph with redemption.

Photocred: www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Eva2.jpg

You Must Master It

Bruce Okkema
satan the serpent

by Bruce Okkema

The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your
countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?
And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire
is for you, but you must master it. – Genesis 4:6-7

With so much happening in the opening chapters of Genesis, it is surprising how much we are not told. We know that Cain started a fight with Abel out of jealousy, but did he know that the striking or whatever he did to his brother would result in death? Quite likely, neither of them knew what death was, and furthermore we do not know if that was Cain’s intention (verse 8). How did the brothers know that God had accepted Abel’s sacrifice, but not Cain’s? Who are the people that Cain says will kill him (verse 14)? Several more questions surface in our minds as we read the ensuing story, but they are left unanswered for us to focus on the main issue.

Essentially God is saying to Cain, “What’s your problem? You know the difference between right and wrong. In every situation you face, you are going to have a choice. Sin is lurking at the door; it desires you, but you must master it.”

satan the serpentFrom the very first temptation, in which Eve certainly could have chosen not to listen to the serpent, until today, the Adversary will continue to come back with another suggestion; that’s the way life is. God has given us the responsibility to choose between activities which honor Him and those that don’t. He promises us that if we ask him, he will make us wise in our choosing and strong in resisting the temptations that confront us. I Corinthians 10:13 says,

No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

As an athlete trains diligently day after day to increase his endurance, to improve his performance, so on the day of the race he can win, let us faithfully, day after day, study God’s Word, pray, and prepare intensively, so that when we face life’s trials and temptations we will be ready to “master” them.

 Photocred: Darren and Brad

Learning to Read

Mary Okkema
Child reading

by Mary Okkema

Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 18:3

Child readingBecoming like children has a different meaning for each one of us. It can mean playing on the floor, being spontaneous with sounds, learning to see things with childlike eyes, and many other things.

For me, learning to read Hebrew feels a lot like becoming a little child again. Since this language is new to me, there are still so many words that are unfamiliar, but those I do recognize seem to jump off the page. I want to study them in great detail, much like a child wants to look at every bug and stone and leaf while taking a walk.

Taking a closer look at Genesis in Hebrew, brings questions to mind like, “Haven’t we heard this word somewhere else in scripture?” It helps us understand how the disciples would have heard and recognized when Jesus was quoting Old Testament scripture, as He so often did in His teachings.

Familiar words like “ruach” (wind/spirit), “ha-aretz” (earth/ground), and “ha-shamaim” (heavens/sky) from Genesis 1 enhance our appreciation of the creation story. Adam’s rib gets a second glance knowing that the word for “rib” can also mean “one side.” We see the word “basar” (flesh) used for the filling in of Adam’s side, is the same word used for the substance of beings used for sacrifices like a bull or ram (as in Deuteronomy 12:27).

The story of the first temptation in Genesis 3 can also be so familiar in our minds, yet when we read it again we see that the word “nahash” (snake, serpent) is repeated over and over as the one doing the talking, and “Satan” is not mentioned. Could other animals speak too at this point?

Sometimes the Hebrew language can be much stronger as in the case of Genesis 3:15:

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” (NASV)

In English a “bruise” is a minor injury but the Hebrew word here, “shuph,” has the action of pounding, which is much more violent.

So as we begin to see, it can be a wonderfully rich experience to go back to the beginning and look for the Lord like a little child again.

Photocred: GMR Akash

In His Image

Lois Tverberg
Roman coin

by Lois Tverberg

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
– Genesis 1:26-27

What is the significance of saying we are made in God’s image? It’s clear that it means that we share something in common with God that nothing else in creation does. Human life is uniquely precious to God. According to Genesis 9:6, because God made man in his image, murder is a crime that always calls for the death penalty, because murder is an affront to God himself. This was a new and revolutionary idea in its time. Other cultures had death penalties for stealing and other property crimes, but biblical law considered life too precious to require it as a penalty for a material loss.

In rabbinic literature, the contrast was often made of man, made in the image of God, compared to idols and statues made in the image of earthly kings. One rabbi said that “A king mints a thousand coins with his image on them, and every one is exactly the same. But the Lord makes multitudes of human beings that all bear his image, and they are all different!” It shows the infinite glory of God that he can represent himself in so many ways.

Roman coinOne scholar1 believes that Jesus was also using the contrast between the images of kings on coins and humans which are in God’s image.

When people who wanted to trap him were questioning him in the temple as to whether people should pay tax or not, he asked for a coin and then asked whose image was on it. The questioners replied, “Caesar’s.” Jesus then concluded, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and God what is God’s!”

The implication is that because Caesar made the coins and stamped his image on them, they belonged to him, but that because God made humans and stamped his image on us, we belong to him! So Jesus was brilliantly evading their trap about paying taxes and issuing an “altar call” at the same time – reminding us that God is our maker, and has stamped his own image on us, and for that very reason, we should give what he has made, ourselves, back to him.

1 See Your Money or Your Life, by Randall Buth, at www.jerusalemperspective.com.

Photocred: Ssolbergj

Eve’s Error

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Now the serpent … said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, `You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’? The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, `You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’ The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. – Genesis 3:1-5

An interesting lesson that we can learn from Eve is the way that she got in trouble and opened a door for Satan to “win” in her conversation with him.

Eve was probably trying to be faithful to God in her conversation with Satan, but when she told the serpent God’s regulations regarding the tree, she overstated what God had said by saying that they must not even touch it or they will die. She was exaggerating for God’s sake, by making his rule more strict than it really was.

Satan probably smirked when he heard her say something untrue, because he knew it was an opportunity for him to gain an advantage. When he said, “You surely will not die,” he had spoken the truth about touching the tree. At that point, his temptations gained credibility in her mind because he corrected her own misstatement.

The thing we can learn from this is the great damage we can do when we over-speak for God and misrepresent his word to other people. This happens in several ways: Well-meaning people make God’s rules more strict than they really are, and put burdens on other’s shoulders to keep impossible, legalistic rules. By insisting on extra requirements that are not central to salvation, well-meaning people often put up barriers to sincere seekers to follow Christ.

Or, sometimes a person claims a certain scientific discovery proves the Bible, and when it is disproved, people doubt the truth of the whole thing. Or, when a person says that one specific doctrine is absolutely necessary for salvation, people are forced to choose sides in battles that divide the church. We can almost see the serpent smirking at all the unnecessary anguish and lost faith that has come from the misrepresentation of God’s word.

We must be ever mindful that our own zeal does not cause us to go beyond God, as we put words in God’s mouth. We need to always speak to let God’s truth be known.

Wind and Water

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. – Genesis 1:2

There is a really fascinating theme that runs through all of the Bible – the picture of God beginning a new creation. Genesis begins the story of creation with the Spirit of God “hovering over” the deep (Tehom), and one of God’s first acts of creation is the separation of water from water. This picture is a theme that recurs over and over in the scriptures, every time God starts something new.

There is a little of a poetic motif there, because the word for “the deep” is Tehom, which was symbolic of chaos. It is a picture of God conquering evil and chaos to bring order and a beautiful new thing into existence. The word for Spirit in Hebrew is ruach, which also means wind or breath, so when God parts the waters by a great wind it is a picture of God in the act of creating.

wind and waterWhere do we see this? First we see it in Genesis 1:1 of course, but only a few chapters later, after the flood destroyed all of life on earth, we read in Genesis 8:1-3 that God caused a wind (ruach) to pass over the earth, and restrained the waters of the deep (Tehom), and the flood waters receded, giving the world a new, clean beginning.

We next see this in the parting of the Red Sea, as the wind (ruach) blows to separate the waters so that the Israelites can pass through. This marks the beginning of God’s new nation of Israel, who now would have their own sovereignty and identity as the people of God. Later, as they pass through the river Jordan, once again God was parting the waters, and in a sense, re-creating them as his people and cleansing them of their sin in the desert. After their entrance into the land they took on the covenant again, just like they did at Sinai, and made a clean beginning as God’s people.

There is one more place significant scene in the Bible when we see this imagery of God at the waters – at the baptism of Jesus. Here the heavens are parted (reminiscent of the waters being parted) and we see the Spirit of God “hovering” over, in the form of a dove, just as it hovered over the first waters of creation. Here is God’s new creation, God on earth in the form of the Son of Man.

Photocred: Jacques Joseph Tissot

reading the bible

If you’d like to learn more about how Hebraic imagery is woven throughout the Scriptures, see pp. 210-212 in ch.11, “Reading in the Third Dimension” in Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus.

The Bible Begins with Good News

Lois Tverberg
Garden of Eden

by Lois Tverberg

God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. – Genesis 1:31-2:1

The creation story in Genesis teaches some revolutionary truths which are so basic that we can hardly think in any other terms. But, until Judaism and Christianity brought them to the world, they were not a part of mankind’s thinking. Not only are they important, they are wonderful news once you think about it!

The biblical account was utterly unique in comparison to all other ancient stories about creation, and the differences were a powerful challenge to the world-view of its time. Most creation myths Egyptian Creation Mythfeatured wars between human-like gods and goddesses. Through sex and violence, various parts of the creation were formed. According to these myths, the gods were limited in power and not at all interested in morality – just how to gain power over the other gods. They did not care about humanity, but instead created humans as slaves to serve their own desires. Humans were to appease these gods through magical incantations and religious ceremonies, but there was no moral standard – the goal of life was to survive by being quick-witted and devious. People saw the world as unpredictable and cruel, and didn’t see that their lives were meaningful in any way. Humans had no hope of anything beyond survival in a callous, immoral world.

Garden of EdenIn contrast, the first few chapters of Genesis flip our thinking upside-down and offer tremendous hope. One eternal God created everything and is apart from creation. Because God is unique and all powerful, he can set a universal standard of ethics that applies to all humanity. He is the foundation of all good, created a good world, and is concerned about humanity. Man is uniquely precious to him – he was made from dust, but he alone received the breath of life from God himself. God made us in his image, and because of that, God is our “kinsman-redeemer” who is our protector and savior. What good news compared to the immoral, unconcerned pagan gods!

We hardly appreciate these truths that are important fundamentals even before we get to the story of Christ. But the Bible begins with good news, and it only gets better from there.

Photocred: British Museum

In Wonder of the God of Creation

Bruce Okkema
Creation

by Bruce Okkema

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. – Genesis 1:26-28

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. – Genesis 2:4-7

Creation

Numerous volumes have been written attempting to explain the creation account in the book of Genesis. There have been all kinds of discussions about its purpose, its meaning, and the “science” of it. But certainly most of us would agree, whatever our theology, that many questions remain with room for debate.

Lay aside any debate for a while, and ponder the magnificence of the story and the beauty of the pictures in front of us. We have in the first two chapters of the Bible an account of history that could not have been generated by human memory, because it comes from a time before mankind existed. Either the Lord revealed these things directly to Moses, or He told someone who had gone before and it was passed down from generation to generation.

In any case, Moses relates two adjacent versions of creation which are different in order, content, and emphasis. Chapter 1 emphasizes the transcendent God who is supreme over the universe, while chapter 2 focuses on his very special creation and his relationship to the one created in his own image. It is in this connection (Gen 2:4) that we have the first use of God’s Holy Name, used nineteen times in chapters 2 and 3, but not once in chapter 1, — and seldom throughout the rest of the Torah.

Can you comprehend a God big enough to create something in his image with the ability to choose not to follow instructions? Can you feel the hurt in the Lord’s heart when we choose not honor him? Can you imagine the joy in his heart when we do so choose?

The Lord has given us full dominion over all his creation, will you choose to serve him?

Photocred: Art-Jam

Not Quite the Beginning

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. – Genesis 1:1

In Hebrew, the name of the book of Genesis is Bereshit, which is the first word of the book. It is translated, “In the beginning” in our Bibles.

The word starts with the Hebrew letter bet, which is quite obvious if you look at the first page of any Bible printed in Hebrew. The bet is printed extra large and extra dark, just to tell you that this is where you begin.

The letter bet corresponds to our letter B. It is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, like “B” is the second letter of the English alphabet.

There is an interesting Jewish sermon preached about this very first letter. The rabbis asked the question, “Why do the scriptures begin with the second letter of the alphabet rather than the first?” Their answer: To show that the scriptures do not answer every question, and not all knowledge is accessible to man, but some is reserved for God himself.

They point out that the letter bet is closed on the right side but open on the left. Since Hebrew is read right to left, it appeared to them that the Scriptures start with a letter that is open in the direction of the reading, but closed toward the direction of the beginning of the text. It’s as if there is a one-way sign saying that you need to start here and move forward through the scriptures.

The point of this is not to discourage study and inquiry, but to point out the important fact that some things God has chosen to allow to remain a mystery to man. Even in this first line, there is no attempt to answer the question of where God himself came from. Pagan creation accounts always began with stories about how the gods themselves came into existence, feeling the need to address that question. But God in his majesty does not give every answer, just as he did not give Job every answer to the questions he asked.

Even if God wanted to reveal a portion of his wisdom, the sheer magnitude would overwhelm us. We often forget that God designed everything from neutrons to galaxies, and that we are just specks in comparison to his unfathomable magnitude. There is wisdom in the humility to be able to say, “I don’t know” sometimes, and let God alone know all things.