Stephen
Terry, Director
Jacob-Israel
Commentary
for the June 4, 2022, Sabbath School Lesson
And God said to him, "I am
God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of
nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants. The land
I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to
your descendants after you." Genesis 35:11-12, NIV
When we read the book of Genesis,
we should understand that this is an Iron Age narrative attempting to describe
the world that existed before the collapse of the Bronze Age. Much of the
archival material that existed before that collapse was lost. The period is
also referred to as the Mycenean Dark Age because of this. In ways, it rivaled
or surpassed the loss of wealth and knowledge that occurred after the fall of
the Western Roman Empire. Only recently, thousands of years later, have a few
Bronze Age records been recovered from the ruins left after the widespread destruction
in Greece, Anatolia, Canaan, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Civilizations like the
Hittite and Mitanni did not survive, while others, like the Egyptian and Chaldean,
took centuries to regain a semblance of their former stature.
This pre-collapse world was the
world of the Patriarchs, and it bears heavily on the narrative and its
interpretation. It is a time of cities left to fend for themselves as the major
powers imploded under pressure from invaders (the almost mythic Sea People),
natural disasters (widespread major earthquakes), and climate change (year
after year of drought). As we see similar pressures today, it is tempting to
wonder if we are not engaged in a similar cycle of decline.
Troubling as all of that is, we
have added on top of it all a family rife with dysfunction. The story reads
like an ancient soap opera as we follow the lives of the descendants of drunken
Noah. Nimrod, Noah's great grandson, builder of Babylon, Ur and several other cities
in Chaldea, became the closest thing to Antichrist in their day, opposing the worship
of God and demanding worship instead of himself and his wife Semiramis. I
covered him in more detail in previous commentaries this quarter so I will not
repeat everything here. Terah, who was Abraham's father was Noah's great x 8
grandson and served as Nimrod's military commander. While that could normally
never happen across a gap of so many generations, the writer of Genesis
provides birth records to show how it was possible.[i]
Terah betrayed Nimrod to save his son Abraham. They fled to the city of Haran,
after Haran, Abraham's brother was killed during Abraham's confrontation with
Nimrod. Once Terah died, Abraham and Nahor, his other brother split up the
inheritance left by their influential father. Nahor got the estate in Haran,
and Abraham left for Hittite-controlled Canaan with Lot, the son of his
deceased brother.
Once in Canaan, Abraham and Lot
go their separate ways and Abraham buys land from one of the wealthy Hittites.
Abraham has two children of the Covenant of Circumcision: Ishmael and Isaac. (Where in the world did that bizarre idea of circumcision
come from anyway?) Ishmael's story is more detailed
from there on in Islamic sources. The Genesis writer focuses on Isaac and subsequently
Jacob and Esau, Isaac's sons. Once again, the narrative abandons one son, Esau,
who marries an Ishmaelite and founds the Kingdom of Edom. Esau is only
mentioned as an adjunct to Jacob's story. After Jacob betrays Esau, he flees
his brother's wrath back to Haran where he meets Laban, Nahor's grandson. He falls
in love with Laban's daughter Rachel, but Laban deceives him in the matter of
marrying her, Jacob ending up with two wives instead of one and receiving all
the rivalry that situation produced. Eventually the animosity in Laban's household
toward Jacob grew so great he had to flee for his life.
To bring things up to date.
Terah betrayed Nimrod and fled with his family. While Abraham worshipped the
true God. The rest of the family worshipped idols, saving Lot, whose father,
Haran, chose to worship God before he died. Once Terah died, the family split along
the lines of who worshipped what and divided the inheritance. Abraham, who had
married his half-sister, deceived two rulers about his wife during his travels.
He may have been influenced too much by the unrighteous ways of the rest of his
family while he lived in Haran. The episode with Hagar showed that he could
play fast and loose with God's will if he thought he could help it along.
Strangely, when Sarah's son Isaac was old enough, instead of marrying him to
the daughter of a pagan Hittite, the sent to the idol worshipping descendants
of Nahor for a wife. She revealed her nature when she schemed against her son
Esau and with Jacob, betrayed both Isaac and Esau Then she sent Jacob back to
Haran to her deceitful brother, Laban, to protect him from Esau. While there,
Jacob and Laban continually sought to get the upper hand by deceiving one
another, not only in the matter of Rachel and Leah, but regarding wages for
Jacob's work. Unfortunately, while there, Jacob's sons not only witnessed Jacob's
efforts to deceive Laban, but all the dysfunctionality of the extended family.
The lessons they learned about deceiving people bore wicked fruit once Jacob
returned to Canaan.
Even though the story gives us
the incident of wrestling with the angel and the change of Jacob's name to
Israel, indicating a change in his nature, he remains a deceiver. When he meets
with Esau, and Esau invites him home, he agrees to come home. Esau and his men
leave, but instead of following Esau home, he turns aside to Shechem where he
buys a place to live from King Hamor the Hivite's family, indicating he
intended to remain there. But Hamor's son, Shechem, used to having his own way,
violated Jacob's daughter, Dinah. Hamor and Jacob were in negotiations to
resolve the matter peacefully and amicably, but through deception, Jacob's sons
murdered Hamor, Shechem and the Hivites for the insult to Dinah and their
family. Jacob and his family then fled to Bethel for fear of retribution. Over
time, he gradually moves closer and closer to Beersheba where he would have the
security of his brother Esau and his men nearby. On the way, Rachel dies giving
birth to Benjamin, and Reuben, Leah's first born, has sex with Bilhah, Leah's handmaid
after she had already been given to Abraham to father more children. This again
illustrates the dysfunction in this family. Jacob seems powerless to prevent
his sons from doing whatever they wished. Those who wish to have a harem and
lots of children may want to think twice about that. Even powerful King David
was unable to control his sons. Momentary pleasure can produce a lifetime of
grief.
Eventually, Jacob does make it
to Beersheba and together with Esau, they bury Isaac. The problems don't end
here. It gets worse, much worse, but that is for next week's commentary. What
is important is that we learn the lessons of this week's portion of the story.
Doubtless, after all this relational dysfunction, we might be tempted to chuck
the whole business, God, Bible, and all. These patriarchs and their offspring
are no better than we are. Lying, deceiving, murdering, stealing, raping, and considering
themselves people of the covenant. They do not respect the wishes of those who received
the covenant in their generation. They are the children of Nahor, more than
Abraham. But as I already pointed out, Abraham was not free of Nahor's
influence either, giving his wife away to two powerful men rather than trusting
in the God he claimed to serve. If being in relationship with God doesn't
change all of that, then what is the point?
The ministry of Jesus answers
that question for us. He revealed that God uses people struggling with imperfections
to reach those who falsely feel they are already perfect and in need of nothing.
There are those, like the wealthy man in the story of The Rich Man and Lazarus,[ii]
who feel that their wealth is proof of God's blessing, so they need grow no
further spiritually, but the Kingdom of God belongs to the poor who willingly
acknowledge their poverty both materially and spiritually. These are the people
Jesus came to reach that they might find healing.[iii] Those
of humble spirit will find that healing as they open themselves to God's
leading. This is what set the Patriarchs apart. It wasn't their perfect lives
or even a perfect understanding of God's will. If they felt they had that, they
might be tempted to run out ahead of God as Abraham did with Hagar to fulfil
that will. But amazingly, despite that mistake and the suffering it caused both
Abraham and Ishmael, God could still work with it and blessed
Ishmael and his descendants, making him a part of the Covenant of Circumcision
even before the promised child, Isaac, was conceived. This is a message of compassion
and hope. No matter what we have done or what suffering we are faced with because
of it, God is still willing to welcome us into his kingdom and bring forth his
image in our lives, just as we were created to do from the very beginning.[iv] He
has never abandoned that possibility, neither should we.