Bible Studies

Enslaving Themselves

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Joseph said to Pharaoh’s court, My father made me swear an oath and said, “I am about to die; bury me in the tomb I dug for myself in the land of Canaan.” Now let me go up and bury my father; then I will return.’ So Joseph went up to bury his father. All Pharaoh’s officials accompanied him—the dignitaries of his court and all the dignitaries of Egypt—besides all the members of Joseph’s household and his brothers and those belonging to his father’s household. Chariots and horsemen also went up with him. – Genesis 50:4-9

The redemption of Israel is a foreshadowing of the redemption of the whole world through Christ. Subtle motifs in the story hint that Israel is the representative of the world. Their enslavement to the false gods of the Egyptians is a picture of all of our enslavement to the false gods of this world, from which only Christ can free us.

When and how did the family of Israel become enslaved? Obviously, the first member of the family who was enslaved was Joseph, when his brothers deliberately sold him into slavery. Four hundred years later they were all enslaved by the Egyptians.

Joseph before PharaohAn interesting thing to note was that it seems that even though Joseph had great power in Egypt, he was still a slave even then and not free to leave. In the passage above, when Joseph wanted to travel to Canaan to bury his father, he had to ask permission. Scholars believe that the officials, chariots and horsemen who went with him were there partly to honor Jacob, but also to guard Joseph to make sure that he returned to Egypt.

If that is true, it yields an interesting insight – that from the moment that Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery, someone from their family was trapped in bondage, unable to be released until God himself intervened 400 years later. True, God brought them down there to save their lives during the famine. But had they not sold Joseph into slavery, they wouldn’t have had the tie that brought them all down to Egypt, to the “house of bondage” as the Bible calls it.

Likewise, with the first sin, Adam and Eve were trapped in bondage, and the slavery to sin transferred itself to all their children, including us. Only through redemption in Christ can we be set free.

Longing for Moses

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Therefore when the people saw the sign which he had performed, [the feeding the five thousand] they said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take him by force to make him king, withdrew again to the mountain by himself alone. – John 6:14-15

MosesThe story of the exodus from Egypt was a defining event in the life of Israel, when God heard their cries and saved them from their enemies. In Jesus’ time, it took on a heightened significance because the people were suffering under severe oppression of a foreign government, and they saw themselves as reliving the afflictions of Egypt. They prayed for a Messiah to come as a second Moses who would free them from bondage to the pagan ruler, just as he did before.

One way to see how much the people resonated with the earlier story is to observe how many people in the Gospels were named for the characters in the Exodus story. For example:

  • Mary (Miriam, in Hebrew), named for Moses’ sister.
  • Joseph was Jacob’s son who was sold into slavery in Egypt, eventually to reign there.
  • Elizabeth is derived from Elisheva, the wife of Aaron, Moses’ brother.
  • Lazarus comes from Eleazar, Aaron’s son who became priest after him.
  • James was actually Ya’acov, Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes
  • Jesus (Yeshua, also a common first-century name) is a contracted form of Yehoshua, which means “God’s salvation” and is related to the name of Joshua, who lead the Israelites into the Promised Land.

Ancient texts indicate that names of characters in the Gospels were very common first-century Jewish names. This suggests that they were hoping that the Messiah would be born among them very soon, and that God was placing in them a longing for redemption. At the very same time he was preparing to fulfill his many promises and send someone to answer their prayers. The redeemer, this time, would not just save them physically from their enemies, but for eternity instead.

Photo cred: Luca Volpi (Golmund100)

Exodus Hints at its Great Implications

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt. Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them. -Exodus 1:5-7

Ancient storytellers often wove recurring motifs into stories to hint at connections between them. If we know this and read Exodus with an eye to its subtle themes and language, we will see that in several places the text is hinting that the story has far-reaching implications.

Sunrise over Nile
In several places the wording of Exodus alludes back to the story of creation. The passage above hints back to Genesis 1:28, where God tells the first humans to be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The word translated as “exceedingly numerous” is actually “swarmed” or “teemed,” like the fish that teemed in the sea in Genesis 1:21.

Another hint in this passage comes from the number of people in Jacob’s clan, which is seventy. In Genesis 10, all the descendants of Noah are listed who will give rise to the nations of the earth, and the number is seventy. It has been traditionally understood from this that the number seventy, a large, symbolically complete number, alludes to the nations in the world.

Later in Exodus, the story of Moses in the Nile in a basket will recall the story of Noah and the ark. The same rare word, tevah, is used to describe the basket as the ark that Noah built. Just as Noah was saved from destruction when others around them drowned in the flood, Moses will save his people when the Egyptians drown in the Red Sea. In both cases, they were being saved by God’s judgment while others perished.

By recognizing these hints in the text, we realize that the story of Israel’s redemption of Egypt is much greater than the history of one small nation. It is saying that through the redemption of this people, God was ultimately going to redeem the whole world.

Photocred: Bibleplaces.com

Our Great Redemption

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God…who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Deuteronomy 8:11, 14

Sphinx and Great PyramidsIn the next weeks En-Gedi’s Water from the Rock series will focus on Exodus, specifically God’s redemption of the Israelites from Egypt. Christians generally don’t see this story as especially significant. But for thousands of years, Jewish readers have considered it a defining point their history, when God reached down into world events in an unprecedented way. The story of redemption is also central to the rest of the Scriptures, as the foundation of God’s relationship with the people of Israel. We can see the story’s critical importance just by noticing the many references that are made to it throughout the Bible. Here are just a few:

The people answered [Joshua] and said, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods; for the LORD our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Josh. 24:16-17
When the sons of Israel cried to the LORD on account of Midian, the LORD sent a prophet who said to them, “Thus says the LORD,… `It was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out from the house of slavery.'” Judg. 6:7-8

[David said,] “And what one nation on the earth is like Your people Israel, whom God went to redeem for Himself as a people and to make a name for Himself, and to do a great thing for You and awesome things for Your land, before Your people whom You have redeemed for Yourself from Egypt, from nations and their gods?” 2 Sam. 7:23

Thus says the LORD God of Israel, “I made a covenant with your forefathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage…”Jer. 34:13

But I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me. Hos. 13:4

In almost every book of the Old Testament, a reference is made to this great act of deliverance in Israel’s history. Why? Because it showed the power of God and his love for his people. Moreover, it reminded them of their great debt to this God who had done so much for them. God was showing his people that they could trust him now and forever more.

Photocred: Bibleplaces.com

Laws for the Gentiles?

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell. Acts 15:28-29

When the early church convened in Jerusalem to decide what to do with all the new Gentile Christians, there was debate about whether they must convert to Judaism or not. Some felt that since the Jews had always been God’s people, to be saved one must be Jewish. But Paul and the rest of the early church saw that God is the God of the Gentiles also (Romans 3:29), and ruled that Gentiles could be God’s people without converting to Judaism.

Worshipping an IdolOne thing that we find puzzling is the rules that the early church said applies to the Gentile converts because they appear to be mostly food laws – meat sacrificed to idols, blood, and strangled animals, things that would prevent them from having table fellowship with Jews. But out of all the things that should be prohibited to the Gentile world, why these?

Some scholars have a different answer based on knowledge of the texts and the Jewish culture of the time. They note that in ancient manuscripts, the text of this passage is difficult and often varies between manuscripts, leaving out one or more of the prohibitions. Their suggestion is that the most ancient versions of this passage actually contained a proscription against the three most serious sins in rabbinic thinking of the time – idolatry, sexual immorality, and bloodshed (murder). In Hebrew, the law against murder is shefichut damim, literally, “shedding of bloods.” The Hebraic idiom may have been misinterpreted after translation into Greek to mean the prohibiting the eating of blood instead.

Cain and AbelInterestingly, rabbis often accused the pagan Gentiles of being guilty of exactly the sins of idolatry, sexual immorality and murder. And, a prohibition against this threesome of sins is also mentioned in other early Christian literature as well. Later in the Talmud, these three laws were interpreted as part of the laws that God gave to all humanity in the time of Noah in Genesis 9. They were extremely serious sins — rabbis ruled that all of the commands of the Torah could be broken to preserve a person’s life except these three things.

This seems, in my opinion, to be a much more satisfying answer to what we as Gentiles called to do. Of course sexual immorality and murder are universally wrong, and no Gentile worshipper of God can keep worshipping idols as well. The Holy Spirit and early church did not give all of humanity odd food laws to follow; rather, they ruled that we are answerable to God for these most basic, and serious sins.

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To explore this subject further and its relevance to a present-day topic, see Abortion, What the Early Church Said, Our Rabbi Jesus.

New Light

To explore this topic more, see chapter 21, “Requirements for Gentiles” in New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus, En-Gedi Resource Center, 2006, p. 141-44.

Photo: Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek Fulda and Ghent Altarpiece

Punished for Your Parents’ Sin?

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

On Mt Sinai, God hides Moses in the cleft of a rock and passes by in all his glory. He then makes this fundamental declaration about his nature:

The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. Exodus 34:6-7

Hands of 3 generations

This description of God, that He is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness…” is quoted nine times in the Old Testament. This description of God’s mercy comes up several times in the psalms (Psalm 86, 103, & 145 and others) and was probably part of many worship liturgies during Bible times.

Usually when this passage is quoted later in the Bible, the line about punishing children for the sins of the fathers is not included. This is satisfying to us, because we struggle with that line that seems quite unfair. There is actually a reason for it, if you look understand the culture and look closely at the text.

African TribeTribal peoples like the Israelites saw their primary identity as being a part of a family or clan rather than as an individual. They worked together in everything and prospered or suffered together.

It was assumed that the group was responsible for the conduct of all of its members. If one sinned, especially the leader, they would all bear guilt and suffer misfortune for it. They saw themselves as a tightly-knit team. If one player fumbles the football, the whole team gets the penalty, of course. God’s statement about his justice extending to the third generation made complete sense in that world.

A New Idea in Ezekiel’s Time

In Ezekiel’s time, God pushes back on communal thinking that was pervasive in the ancient world. In Ezekiel 18, the people were quoting a proverb reflecting this kind of thought: ‘The fathers eat the sour grapes, but the children’s teeth are set on edge (Ezekiel 18:2). Surprisingly, God tells them not to quote this proverb anymore because he strenuously disagrees with punishing children for the sins of their parents!

This chapter in Ezekiel is actually one long argument against the idea that children should be punished for their parent’s sin. It sounds like the prophet has a hard time getting people to agree with him that an individual should be judged on his own terms, not in terms of the actions of his ancestors.

If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin, he will die for it; because of the sin he has committed he will die. But if a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life. Because he considers all the offenses he has committed and turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die. (Ezekiel 18:25-27)

Therefore, O house of Israel, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live! (Ezekiel 18:30-32)

So, we see that God himself sees that each person himself is accountable before him, and that it is unjust to condemn people for sins committed before their time.

Children who Carry on in Sin

How do we interpret Exodus 34:6-7 in the light of this passage? The picture of several generations being condemned for a sin may be describing the generational pattern of sin that we see in families. A father who abuses his wife often has sons who abuse their wives. Families do teach and reinforce patterns of sins (or righteousness) to their members that go on for generations. This is especially true in cultures which don’t send children to school, where children learn only from their parents and close relatives. Could it be that the children aren’t being punished for their parent’s guilt, but that the children have carried on in the family sins themselves?

The answer from Ezekiel is that the consequences of sin only extend to the generations that keep on in the sin of the ancestors. There is always hope, if the children will just repent and change their ways. God doesn’t take pleasure in the judgment of anyone, but bids us all to repent and live!

Photo: hannahpirnie and William Warby

To learn more about the communal style of thinking in the Bible, see chapter 7, “Reading the Bible as a ‘We'” in Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus (available in the En-Gedi Resource Center bookstore.)

Heaping Burning Coals

Lois Tverberg

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Romans 12:20

In Romans, Paul talks about how to deal with our enemies and those who have wronged us. He says many wise things about dealing with others in this passage:

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:17-21

As we read this, one sentence sticks out to us that doesn’t make sense – about heaping burning coals on an enemy’s head. We wonder what Paul meant by this. It helps to know that Paul is quoting Proverbs 25:21-22: “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.” Understanding this proverb will unlock Paul’s words as well.

That saying is in the middle of several proverbs that use physical images to describe emotional reactions. Right before it is the passage, “Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or one that pours vinegar on a wound, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart” (Proverbs 25:20, RSV). The physical picture of discomfort illustrates that trying to make a person in mourning happy just distresses them more. Likewise, the passage about coals is about the emotional discomfort an enemy will feel when you waken his conscience about his conduct toward you. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia1 :

The word “coal” is often used in a metaphorical sense: 2 Samuel 14: 7 speaks of the “quenching of the coal” of a man, meaning the complete annihilation of his issue; while in Proverbs 25:22 kindness bestowed upon an enemy is called “heaping coals of fire upon his head,” since it tends to waken his deadened conscience and help him to realize his wrong. Sirach 8:10 compares the smoldering and easily roused passion of the godless man to the coal that is easily lighted and breaks forth into flame.

The picture of putting coals on a person’s head initially sounds like a picture of causing burning pain, but it really is not. Instead, it seems to be a picture of stirring up the coals of a fire to rouse it back to life again. It is a picture of stirring within a person a response of remorse, when they see your kindness in the face of their meanness. This must also be the sense of Paul’s passage – we cause our enemies to be remorseful for their actions toward us, and in doing so we overcome evil by doing good.

1 www.jewishencyclopedia.com

Photo: snty–tact (Talk)

Eternal Life

Lois Tverberg 1 Comment

by Lois Tverberg

“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” John 17:2

When we read the line above from Jesus, it makes us stop and pause. It seems odd that Jesus would define eternal life as knowing him and his Father. Isn’t eternal life living forever after we die?

Hebrew Text

An interesting insight comes from how the term “eternal life,” hayei olam (Hi-YAY Oh-LAHM) can be understood in a Jewish context. (1) While it sometimes has our traditional understanding of life after death, hayei olam sometimes used in a different way, when it was contrasted with “hayei sha’a” (fleeting life). Hayei sha’a, fleeting life, is living a life that is only concerned about the short term needs of today – working, making money, eating, etc. Hayei olam, “lasting life” or “a life of eternity” refers to living a life focused on matters of eternal importance.

Traditionally, Jewish people have considered the study of the Bible truly living out one’s “eternal life.” A story is told about a rabbi who spent years in study of the Scriptures, and then walked past farmers tilling their land. He remarked, “they have abandoned lasting life and involve themselves instead with fleeting life.” (2)

Hebrew TextLooking at Jesus’ words in this light, his definition of eternal life seems to fit into this second definition. He is saying that knowing God intimately and living with Jesus Christ as Lord, here and now, is living as if you were already in eternity. This actually makes sense – what thing in our lives has more eternal significance than that?

It is fascinating that elsewhere in John, Jesus seems even to be commenting on the Jewish tradition that the way to live “eternal life” right now is to study the Scriptures. He says,

“You diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you have eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40)

He is speaking to some of his fellow Jews who did not see that the Scriptures ultimately pointed toward him. Eternal life is not had even in studying the Scriptures, but in finding in them that Jesus is our Lord, and we can live for serving him.

(1) These terms are found written down first in the Talmud, which dates from around 500 AD. Many oral traditions are recorded in it that come from Jesus’ time and before.

(2) Quote is from the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 33b, as quoted at the following link: http://ww2.mcgill.ca/freedman/bf_risk.html.

Photo: Republica

God’s Wounded Family

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong which we did to him!”

So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father charged before he died, saying, `Thus you shall say to Joseph, “Please forgive, I beg you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong.”‘ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.

But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place? “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” So therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.” So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
– Genesis 50:15-17,19-21

Many people feel that brokenness in their background prevents God from using them for his greatest purposes. Yet, as we look at Jacob’s family, even though deep woundedness followed them much their lives, God worked to heal them. But we also see that the process can be long and slow.

The difficulties began back when Jacob was forced to marry Leah, the sister of the woman he loved, Rachel. Leah bore son after son for Jacob, each time hoping that finally, Jacob would love her as he did her sister. But he never did. This was evident many years later when the brothers asked Jacob to let Benjamin come with them to Egypt. He said, “My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he alone is left!” (Gen. 42:38) The statement hints that he considered Benjamin his only “real” son, the only one left he really cared about. Jacob’s favoritism for Rachel and her children had left deep scars on his other sons.

Wounded Family

The unloved brothers’ woundedness was what caused them to nearly to murder Joseph, and many years later when they come to Egypt, they were still plagued by guilt for their cruelty toward him. When we read that Joseph made himself known and invited them down to Egypt, we think that we’ve reached the “happy ending” that all good Christian stories ought to have! But, the final verses in Genesis reveal that the issues in this dysfunctional family lingered for years after that. After their father died, the brothers returned to the worry that Joseph was still plotting to repay them for their crime against him. At that point Joseph wept one more time. Was it because he had thought that his family wounds had been mended and he saw that they still had not been?

Wounded Family2When we see that this family who was to bless all the families of the earth is very average in terms of its pain, we can take hope that God truly can use anybody. God worked through their sinfulness to accomplish his purposes, but he isn’t a God of magical, quick fixes. After a great act of redemption in their lives (moving them to Egypt to be saved from the famine) their problems weren’t over, but he was gently working to bring them back together as a family. This is the note on which their story ends.

Photo: Lawrence OP and Owen Jones

The Testing of the Family

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Then they said to one another, “Truly we are guilty concerning our brother, because we saw the distress of his soul when he pleaded with us, yet we would not listen; therefore this distress has come upon us. Now comes the reckoning for his blood.” They did not know, however, that Joseph understood, for there was an interpreter between them. He turned away from them and wept. – Genesis 42:21, 23-24

The final scenes in Joseph’s story, when his brothers come to Egypt, are very dramatic but somewhat of a puzzle. Why does he put them through so much torment and interrogate them as he does?

As we read the final story, it helps to remember that Rachel’s sons (Joseph and Benjamin) had a very cold relationship with the rest of the family because of Jacob’s favoritism. Joseph was very close to his brother Benjamin, but was convinced that his other brothers were liars and potential murderers for what they had done to him. When they came into his courts, he certainly would have been scanning their group for the face of Benjamin, but when he was missing, he probably worried that his brothers might have killed him because he was their father’s other favorite son. He devised a plan to force them to bring Benjamin to him, to see him and perhaps to protect him from their violence.

Joseph Explaining the Dream to Pharoah, Jean Adrien GuignetJoseph was also forcing his brothers to live through some of what he went through, to see how they would respond. Just as they put him in a cistern, he put them in a dungeon (the same word is used for both). By returning their silver in their sacks, it appears that he was reminding them that they had sold him for silver long ago. And, by imprisoning Simeon, the brothers were forced to see their father Jacob go through anguish yet again at the loss of a son in their company.

Finally, when Benjamin came with them, he treated him with favoritism to arouse their envy, and then put them to the ultimate test: when his cup was found in Benjamin’s sack, would they leave him as a slave as they did Joseph many years before? He must have thought that their jealous dislike for their half-brother would make it an easy choice.

Through this time of testing of the brothers, the brothers went through much anguish, believing that these troubles had fallen upon them because of what they did to Joseph. But, this process of soul-searching caused them to repent and change. For the sake of Benjamin, they all returned to plead for his release, showing that they considered him their brother, worthy of risking their lives for sake. And Judah, whose idea it was to sell Joseph into slavery, showed his complete repentance when he offered himself in the place of Benjamin as slave.

The family had finally come together – they would not abandon Benjamin as they did Joseph, as they did before. This was finally what brought healing, and they would never be the same again.

Photo: http://freechristimages.org