genesis

The Binding of Isaac

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you. – Genesis 22:1-2

The story of the near-sacrifice of Isaac is referred to in Jewish tradition as the “Akedah,” the binding of Isaac. It is one of the most difficult to understand in the scriptures. It is also rich with meaning, and becomes richer when we are aware of the Hebrew phrases behind it.

For instance, when Abraham answered God, “Here I am,” the word, “hineni” meant much more than just an announcement of a person’s location. It was what a child said to a parent or a servant his master, to show attentive submission. It was like saying, “At your service!” Abraham was fully open to God’s requests.

Isaac and AbrahamGod’s response, “Take now your son” also needs the Hebraic nuances to pick up on its mood. The phrase uses “na” after the verb, which is a gentle request, a plea. It is if God gently asked Abraham this enormous request, saying the word “please” along with it. He is asking Abraham if he would, not harshly ordering him to do it.

And, the words in Hebrew for “go to the land” lekh l’cha, are used exactly one other time in the Bible, as God’s very first words to Abram. Then, God had tested Abram by asking him to leave his family, country and his heritage for a land God would show him. Here, God is repeating the test, but instead of asking Abraham to abandon all his past, now He asks him to abandon the future promise that God had in Isaac.

Amazingly, although Abraham showed great daring in bargaining with God to spare the lives of the people of Sodom, now he says nothing. Somehow he knows that God will come through on this test of all tests, even from the beginning.

Photocred: Web Gallery of Art

Laughter of Relief

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him… Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.’And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” – Genesis 21:1-7

Abraham was 75 years old when he abandoned all his security of home and family for God. It took 25 years for God to fulfill His promise to him to give him a son, and God had made many other promises that were still very far off. During that time Abraham and Sarah had wandered many miles and endured much worry and famine and even war.

The time had not been easy for either Sarah or Abraham. Sarah had probably lived a life of feeling worthless, because in her culture she had failed at the one thing that brought a woman stature. Even Abraham must have felt a great hollowness when he looked out on his vast wealth and thought that he might be handing it down to a servant when he died, and his name would die with him. Long ago he had bluntly said to God,

O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus? You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir. (Gen. 15:1-2)

Parent holding baby handFinally, God fulfilled His promise to give them a son and they named him “laughter,” Yitzhakh, Isaac. It’s a laughter of relief that is somewhat shocked and incredulous that God could finally do what He said. Their years of longing and waiting, and the miracle of having a child in their extreme old age would remind them for the rest of their lives of God’s rock-solid faithfulness.

Why did God make them wait for so many years? God chose Abraham because He knew he would “direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD.” This family was key to God’s promises to everyone on earth, and for those promises to happen, they would need to have great patience and enormous faith for generations to come. This was not because God was slow, but because God’s plan was so huge and far-reaching, it would take ages to come to pass.

The waiting that Abraham and Sarah experienced was only a tiny fraction of the waiting that would be the daily portion of many people after him. Abraham would tell his descendants his story, and they would know that God would be faithful. Through Abraham and Sarah’s long waiting, and God’s hilarious answer, we are reminded that God’s promises may be long in coming, but it is only because they are so much greater than we ever could imagine.

Photocred: fruity monkey

The Logic of Mercy

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Thus it came about, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot lived. – Genesis 19:29

In the book of Genesis, we are introduced to many biblical ideas that have transformed all of humanity. We often don’t think about how radical and surprising they are. One idea that was shocking in its time was that one powerful God created the world, and that this God was moral and demands morality of His people. This was radical and different than the pagan idea that there were many gods, and none of them cared what humans did.

Another surprising idea that comes from the Bible is that mercy is shown to the guilty for the sake of an innocent person. If you think about it, this is quite illogical. We don’t give a gift to one person because we appreciated what someone else had done for us. But yet we have gotten used to the idea that God will pardon many because of the faithfulness of just one or a few.

One example is that when Abraham begged God to spare Sodom, he assumed that God would spare an entire city for the sake of even 10 innocent people in it, and God agreed. He didn’t just ask God to remove the innocent and then punish the rest (which would be logical), he asks God to pardon everyone for the sake of just a few. This really is extravagant mercy, to release everyone for the sake of just a few.

When the angels went to Sodom, they couldn’t find even ten people which would spare the city from its fate. But God did save Lot and his family, although the Bible hints that they weren’t much different than the Sodomites. Lot had become a community leader and his children were intermarrying with the population.

Interestingly, as it says in today’s verse, God didn’t save Lot’s family for their own sake, but for the sake of Abraham, who had been faithful to him. Once again we see this “illogical” logic, that for some strange reason, because of the merit of the a faithful person, sinners are pardoned because of it.

It is as if God gradually preparing his people to understanding his future great act of redemption in Christ, whose righteousness was conferred on us, and we are pardoned for his sake.

Thank goodness for God’s illogical mercy!

Heroic Chutzpah!

Lois Tverberg
Abraham before Sodom

by Lois Tverberg

Abraham came near and said, “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly? – Genesis 18: 23- 25

Abraham before SodomWhen we read the story of God and Abraham discussing the fate of Sodom, we are shocked at the fact that Abraham is so brash as to challenge God’s decision. He even dares to suggest that God needs to abide by the rules that he gave to men – that if we are to deal justly, so should he! How can he speak this way to God?

Interestingly, this story has several comments from Jewish understanding that show that they see Abraham’s actions in a very positive light. His boldness with God is a sign of his tremendous trust of God – Abraham is like a little boy who keeps pulling on his father’s coattails. Even though his father seems stern, the little boy knows that his dad is utterly kind and gentle at heart, and he can be a little bold in begging him for a treat.

Also, it is noted that for some mysterious reason, God wants us to plead on behalf of sinful people. He says in Ezekiel, “I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.” (Ezek. 22:30) God does not want us to stand by passively and watch judgment come on others. He wants us to intercede, both telling them to repent, but begging God to be merciful.

In fact, the greatest heroes of the Jewish people are Abraham, who pleaded for the people of Sodom, and Moses who pleaded for the Israelites. When they had abandoned God’s covenant and were in danger of being destroyed, they begged God to relent from judgment. Two other figures, Noah and Jonah, heard of God’s judgment and didn’t bother to pray for mercy for others. Noah built his boat and saved his family, and Jonah even got mad when God had mercy! These two figures never were as highly regarded in Jewish thought.

Interestingly, we can see that Jesus fits into the first category of being truly heroic when he pleaded for mercy at his crucifixion, because “they did not know what they were doing.” And finally, by bearing our sins himself, he was the ultimate hero in gaining mercy for sinners.

Photocred: James Tissot

Hagar’s Plight

Bruce Okkema
Hagar and an angel

by Bruce Okkema

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children, and she had
an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to
Abram, “Now behold, the LORD has prevented me from bearing
children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children
through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
– Genesis 16:1-2

Hagar and an angelThe story of Hagar does not seem so strange to those who live in cultures where polygamy is common. In fact, our friends in Africa have explained the dynamics of this account because they still see it occuring within their present surroundings.

God had promised to make Abram into a great nation, but it wasn’t happening. He had already asked Abram once to do the cultural equivalent of giving up his inheritance by moving away from his country, his relatives, and his father’s house as we read in Genesis 12:

“Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; … ” Genesis 12:1-2

There was no greater desire than to have children, yet it had been more than ten years since they had left Abram’s father and Sarai had not become pregnant. She desperately wanted to resolve this situation so she did something which was common, offering her maidservant to her husband for the purpose of bearing children. Abram did not see this as irregular and went ahead with the suggestion.

We could discuss at some length the implications of what can result when we lose our patience with the Lord and take things into our own hands, but you can read the story in the rest of chapter 16. Our friends tell us that there is always inequity, fighting, mistreatment, or at least tension within families with more than one wife, and the children are usually put at odds.

Within our story, this began occurring already when Hagar became pregnant (verse 4). Sadly, the result was Hagar’s banishment to death in the wilderness. Can you imagine how she must have felt? She was a foreigner in a strange land, she had been faithful to Abram, faithful to Sarai, faithful to her yet unborn son, she had been used as a piece of property, and now she had been discarded like a piece of unwanted refuse.

The Lord had not been ignoring her abusive treatment and he sent his angel to her at her lowest moment. Not only did he bring comfort and deliverance, he promised her the greatest blessing she could imagine … that she would become the mother of a great nation as well!

Moreover, the angel of the LORD said to her, “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.” The angel of the LORD said to her further, “Behold, you are with child, and you will bear a son; and you shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has given heed to your affliction. – Genesis 16:10-11

We must never give up hope! Oh what a faithful, righteous, blessing God we serve!

Photocred: Rama

How Great is Peace

Lois Tverberg
Torah scroll

by Lois Tverberg

So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out
and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?” Then the
LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, `Will I
really have a child, now that I am old?’ – Genesis 18:12-13

The Jewish sages of Jesus’ time up until now have sought wisdom about how to live by God’s law. In certain situations two biblical commands might contradict each other, and deciding which takes precedence determines what priorities we ought to have. For instance, a principle called Pikuach Nephesh says that any command of the Law (except idolatry, incest, and murder) can be violated if a life is at stake. It shows the preciousness of human life that it should not be lost over ceremonial law.

Torah scrollA question we might ask is how the two commands “Love your neighbor” and “You shall not lie” should be compared. If we are in a situation where telling the truth would hurt a person, should we say it knowing it would hurt them? Or is honesty always the highest value no matter what? The rabbis found an interesting answer in this story from Abraham’s life.

When Sarah heard that she was going to have a baby, she laughed that this could happen when her “master was so old.” God heard her thoughts, but when he quoted her, he didn’t reveal that she was laughing about Abraham’s age. Instead, God left those words out and said only that she was thinking of how old she was. If God would have quoted her exact words, it might have caused hurt between her and Abraham. The rabbi’s comment was, “How great is peace, that for its sake, that God Himself would modify the truth” (Talmud).

This observation in no way suggests that telling an untruth is fine in any situation, but it points out that sometimes brutal honesty just hurts people and is not as good as remaining silent or carefully saying things so as to preserve a person’s feelings. Sometimes we feel that others have a “right to know” about something said about them that would needlessly hurt their feelings.

But as Jesus says, the greater command is “Love your neighbor” and all other values that we have must be weighed against that one.

Photocred: http://jamieshear.com

The God of the Covenant

Lois Tverberg
God's Covenant with Abraham

by Lois Tverberg

So the LORD said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half… When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram. – Genesis 15:9-10,17-18

God's Covenant with AbrahamWhen God reveals Himself to humanity, He uses images and customs that are already known rather than asking people to do something they don’t understand. Here, when God made a covenant with Abram, He asked Abram to bring five animals, sacrifice them and make a path between the halves of their bodies. God was using a method of making (literally “cutting”) a covenant that was well known in the ancient near east. Typically both parties would walk through the path of blood to take the covenant upon themselves. Then part of the sacrifices would be cooked and eaten in a covenantal meal, to celebrate the new bond of friendship between them.

Ancient covenants were not just business arrangements, they were more like marriages, where the lives of both parties are bound together to each other. It is thought that part of the imagery of this ceremony was that they were merging their lives together by walking through the same blood, which represents life. It is also thought that the ceremony is a way of promising that if either party does not fulfill his end of the covenant, that his life would be forfeited, like that of the animals.

One thing that is unique about this story is the idea that a god would make a covenant with a person or nation. Many Israelite practices were like those of the neighboring tribes – their sacrifices, the style of their temples, their laws and other customs. But the idea of a god making a promise and binding Himself to a people was unthinkable, and no ancient stories record anything like this outside the Bible. In contrast, the “gods” of the myths of the time were always capricious, unpredictable and frequently unfair. The difference between the true God and other tribal deities is profound, because He is a God who makes a promise and keeps it for eternity.

It is also interesting that this ceremony is modified from its original form to say something else about God. Normally both parties pass through the peices, both committing themselves to the covenant. Here, only God passes through the pieces, as if He is making a unilateral promise to fulfill His covenant, no matter what Abram does. His constancy and faithfulness are unwavering, and thankfully not dependent on the fickleness of humankind.

Photocred: Phillip Medhurst

Protection in Spite of Ourselves

Bruce Okkema
Abraham and Sarah

by Bruce Okkema

There was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are.” If the Egyptians see you, and think, `She is his wife,’ they will kill me and let you live. Please say that you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may remain alive thanks to you.
– Genesis 12:10-13

There are some passages in the Bible that we find hard to deal with, and this would certainly qualify. What good can we learn from a story in which a man asks his wife to sacrifice herself to save himself? Perhaps you are tempted to skip over such stories and jump to the next one, as I was in this case. But when we think about why certain things might be included in the biblical narrative, we have to conclude they are there for a purpose and we should study them too.

Let’s take a look at some of the details of this story to see what conclusions we might draw from it. The reality is that Abraham, like all of us, failed sometimes; he was not always “faithful.” Neither do we read that he prayed about the problem of the famine or his decision to go to Egypt for food. Also, we see the foretelling of another story in which much trouble results when God’s people go to Egypt for food without consulting Him first.

Abraham and SarahAbraham definitely knew of the danger of going there with his beautiful wife because of the licentious culture. In the pagan lands around Canaan, men let their lusts drive their actions and tried to take anything that looked desireable to them. His fears were soon realized when Pharaoh took Sarah into his house as his wife. There are other similar stories in the book of Genesis; one involves Abraham and Sarah again (Genesis 20:1-7), another, their son Isaac and his wife Rebekah (Genesis 26:1-11), and also the theme is repeated in the story from Sodom with Lot (Genesis 19:4-8).

In all of these stories we can see the wonderful hand of God’s blessing in spite of ourselves. Abraham is given much wealth, the potential innocent victims are spared, and God afflicts the guilty parties – Pharaoh, Abimelech, the people of Sodom, with serious plagues.

God is so faithful, even when we are not, Bless His Holy Name!

Photocred: http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/onlinecollection/object_collection.php?objectid=26685&artistlist=1&an=James

Lot’s Choice

Lois Tverberg
Lot leaves Sodom

by Lois Tverberg

Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, toward Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the LORD.
– Genesis 13:10-12

Even though the Lord makes Abram wait for years to have the thing he most longs for, a son, God starts to bless Abram materially immediately by multiplying his flocks and Lot’s too. At a certain point, Abram’s and Lot’s families have to part ways because their flocks are too large for the land that they have for them.

In this story, the difference between Abraham and Lot’s character becomes very obvious. Abraham graciously offers Lot first choice of the land, and Lot immediately takes advantage of the offer to choose the best and nicest for himself. In doing so, he abandons Canaan, the land God promised them in order to choose what was, in his opinion, better.

Interestingly, Jewish commentaries point out that the way Sodom is described is a subtle commentary on what it is really like. It looks like the “garden of God,” meaning the garden of Eden. They point out that even though Eden was paradise, it was the place of human disobedience from which humans finally were exiled. Sodom will be the same way – it is a place of great disobedience to God from which Lot will have to leave when God’s judgment comes. Next, Sodom is compared to the land of Egypt in beauty. But the Egyptians were known for their sexual immorality, and Abram feared that they would kill him to get his wife. That is another picture of Sodom, which is known for its sexual perversion. This is a hint, once again, to what Sodom is really like.

Then, Lot gets pulled in entirely into the life of Sodom – when he moves there, he doesn’t just camp away from people where his sheep can graze, he moves close to the city people who are known for their perversity. Lot was even involved in city affairs, “sitting in the gate” (the community center of the city), fully a participant in an evil culture.

Lot leaves SodomLot was truly foolish. He abandoned the good things God had offered to choose something that at first glance seemed better. But while it was attractive on the surface, underneath its appearances, it was a place of sin and rebellion. Not only did he choose it, he sank deeper and deeper into sin once he had moved there. Because of Lot’s foolish choices, he lost all of his inheritance, all of his wealth, and he even lost his wife when he had to flee. Unlike Abraham who lived not by sight, but by clinging to God’s promises, Lot ran after what looked good on the surface, even though it would later cost him dearly.

Aren’t our own choices too much like that sometimes?

photocred:  Wellcome Images

True Sons of Abraham

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, `We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up sons to Abraham. – Luke 3:8

The quote above is from John the Baptist. Understanding it depends on catching the meaning of the phrase “sons of Abraham,” which actually is important several places in the New Testament. A cultural perspective can clarify its meaning.

Abraham was of course the father of the Jewish people. He was a Gentile himself until he and his family took on God’s covenant by being circumcised, the covenantal sign for him and all his descendants. In one sense, the term “son of Abraham” means to be a decendant who shares in Abraham’s covenant, in effect to be a circumcised Jew. By the time of Jesus, the idea had arisen that a person’s salvation was based on his or her being a “son of Abraham” in terms of being part of the family covenant. However, in John’s words above, he is disagreeing with this and says not to claim that their national covenant made them right with God. Rather, they needed to be true “sons of Abraham” – people who inwardly have the faith that Abraham did. They expected that a son would tend to have his father’s personality, so to be a “son of Abraham” was to have the character of Abraham, meaning to have faith and commitment to God. Jesus says this in John 8:39.

Interestingly, Paul stretches the definition farther to even include the Gentiles, the very group not included in the first definition of a “son of Abraham”! He says,

Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations (Gentiles) will be blessed through you.” (Galatians 3:7)

Paul is reading the words of God’s promise to Abraham to say that He would bless the goyim, (meaning both “nations” and “Gentiles”) through him. He is pointing out that God’s blessings are not just for the Jews, those who become circumcised and obey the Torah, but also for the Gentiles of the world. Interestingly, when God told Abraham this, he was still a Gentile himself! From this fact, Paul can conclude that Gentile believers in God are true sons of Abraham. He says,

And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise. (Galations. 3:29).