In the Old Testament it was not uncommon for God to change a person’s name when he called them.  The meanings of names were well known in those cultures.  As noted previously, Abram (father) was changed to Abraham (father of many) when God promised he would father a great nation.  The God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob was about to affect another change: Jacob is also referred to as Israel.  The meaning may be debatable, but most likely means “has striven with God.”  His name changes after he wrestles with the angel of the Lord in Gen 32.  The name may also suggest “has been saved by God” depending on verb usage.  Hebrew is an archaic language, and translating the Old Testament is sometimes more art than science.  The meaning of El is clear, and there can be no doubt that Jacob has dealt with God.

By the time Jacob became Israel he had a large family.  In Gen. 29 we learn that Jacob fell in love with Rachel, the daughter of Laban, his uncle.  An arrangement was made to “earn” Rachel in exchange for seven years of service.  After serving the seven years, Laban gave his older daughter Leah to Jacob instead.  He cited their custom of not giving away the younger daughter before the older had been wed.  Jacob worked for Laban another seven years in order to marry Rachel.  After a lot of jealousy, manipulation and hurt feelings (reality television has nothing on Gen. 29 and 30) Jacob fathered a total of 11 children: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulon by Leah; Gad and Asher by Leah’s handmaid Zilpah; Dan and Naphtali by Rachel’s handmaid Bilhah; and finally Joseph by Rachel herself.  After wrestling with God, becoming Israel, and being reunited with his brother Easu back in his homeland, Jacob fathered his twelfth and final child Benjamin.  Benjamin is the baby, known by Jacob as the child of his old age, and in chapter 35 Rachel dies in child-birth.  So it is by four different women and incredible circumstances that Jacob/Israel is the father of 12 sons.  It is interesting to note that the angel of the Lord told Jacob he would be called Israel in chapter 32, but then God repeats this to Jacob in chapter 35.

For a while, the children of Israel refers to these 12 young men, plus their sister.  In time the children of Israel will become synonymous with the nation of Israel.  The descendants of Israel are going to be known by which son of Israel is their ancestor, and within a few hundred years they will number nearly one million.  The twelve tribes of Israel, however, are not exactly the same as these 12 sons listed above.  Manasseh, for instance, is the firstborn son of Joseph.  We have to get this family of Israel down into Egypt before we can tell that story.

Next time: the coat of many colors, and the boy who dreamed big.

v.10 Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. 12 And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! 13 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. 14 Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17 And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”  Gen 28:10-17 ESV

In the verses that follow, Jacob changes the name of the place to Bethel, literally the “House of God.”  He vows to God that is he is blessed, he will return a full tenth of all he receives.

Describing Jacob’s dream is easy.  Explaining what it means can be something else entirely.  In the first place we probably imagine a ladder as being very upright with metal rungs, like one might use to climb onto the roof.  A better translation from the Hebrew might be staircase.  The angels would simply be walking up and down steps rather than climbing in this case.  If you recall, the Tower of Babel may have very well been a Mesopotamian ziggurat rather than what we think of as a tower.  Jacob’s “ladder” may have been akin to the steps leading up the steep sides of a ziggurat, rather than a vertical ladder like we might climb today.

Jewish scholars interpret Jacob’s dream differently than Christians.  One allegory is a prediction of the exile, the angels ascent and decent implying periods of captivity and freedom.  The place where Jacob has his dream is the future site of the temple, and the ladder he envisions connects heaven to earth itself.  For the Jews, the Temple is the place where God meets humanity.  The Temple represents the literal presence of God, and the mercy seat is the point of contact – as close as the Jews ever came – between God and man.  For Christians, the point of contact between God and man is Jesus Christ.  He is a more perfect sacrifice than the blood of lambs and birds, and he is a better high priest.  Sacrificial temple worship is all about symbols and metaphors for the work done by Jesus in the New Covenant.  In John 1:51 Jesus identifies himself as the ladder linking heaven and earth.  Clearly he is referring to the Jacob’s ladder story in this passage.

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I found this article on Wikipedia very helpful, as well as the ESV Study Bible.

Throughout the Old Testament story, the Hebrew people are going to refer to the “God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”  That reminds them who they are as a people, and of the covenant relationship God had with those men and their progeny.  That title, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, also identifies their God among the many gods of the ancient world.  In Mesopotamia and later Egypt (and later Canaan again) the Hebrews are surrounded by polytheists.  If you just said “God” to the people you were talking to, the question would be “Which god?”  After the destruction of Pharaoh’s army, the reputation of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob became quite well known.  As Moses led the Hebrews in the wilderness, that reputation often preceded them.  Sometimes it was a good thing; often not.  Some kings told them to pass through their territory quickly and not stop for any reason.  Some nations told them to take the long way around and not set foot in their boarders period.  The simple fact is that everyone, friend and foe, knew their God and didn’t want anything to do with him.

The Hebrews were called out by God to be a peculiar people.  That’s the word the Bible uses.  You may have memorized the 10 commandments a lifetime ago, but take a careful look at the first four.  Those deal with the relationship of the Hebrews to God.  We have already noted that these were the only people in the world with just one God.  That was odd to begin with.  They are also commanded not to make an image of their God.  Very weird.  The Mesopotamians not only had idols of clay representing their gods, they made little statues of themselves to leave in their temples.  Even when they couldn’t be there praying, their likeness was praying in their place.  No kidding.  Every other culture had gods made of wood, clay, bronze, etc. that they worshipped.  Not just in temples; some cultures had idols in each home.  Each family as it were had their own private collection of gods.  The Hebrews had only one God, and couldn’t even show you what He looked like.  Nor did they know his name, but that’s another subject.

The Hebrews were despised pretty much everywhere they went.  Some kings, nations and empires tried to wipe them out, others did everything they could to avoid them completely.  But whether feared or loathed, everyone knew who they were; and knew the stories of what their God had done.

When God promised Abram that he would have a son, Abram was probably thinking in 9 to 12 months it would happen.  The whole incident with Hagar and Ishmael (Gen 16, see also Gen 21) occurred because Abraham was not thinking in God’s time frame.  We can’t know for sure what Abraham was thinking, but he doesn’t seem to have the kind of patience God has.  I imagine he expected his offspring to take possession of the promised land during his lifetime, not 400 years later.  Sometimes we remember Abraham for all the things he did wrong.  He does of course do a couple of things really, really right.  He was the first person of faith described in the Bible; he believed God and God counted it to him as righteousness.  The sacrifice of Isaac reiterates the kind of faith he had in God’s promises.

We don’t know exactly how old Isaac was, but we have some clues.  Isaac was carrying the fire up the side of a mountain.  He must have been 8 or 10 at the youngest.  He also knew a thing or two about making sacrifice, so perhaps as old as 12.  He noted that they had the wood and the fire, but asked his dad about a lamb to sacrifice.  Abraham responded “God will provide himself a lamb…”  There is no way Abraham could have known how prophetic those words were.  Keep this statement in v. 8 in mind.  When the time came, Abraham built an alter, tied Isaac up, and drew back his knife to slay him.  Isaac is saved at the last possible moment by an angel that restrains his father’s hand.  Abraham demonstrated that he was willing to follow God’s instructions even when they did not make sense to him.  He reasoned that God could even raise his son from the dead.  Isaac had been born after all when Sarah was 90 and Abraham a hundred years old.  He then sees a ram caught by its horns, and offers that as an offering of thanksgiving.  God provided a sacrifice.

Sometimes the whole is about more than the sums of its parts.  There is a lot more going on here than Abraham almost killing his son on the alter.  As an alegory for the New Testament, it seems obvious that Abraham represents God.  He was willing to sacrifice his own son.  But consider this as an alternative: this story is about substitute sacrifice.  We are guilty of our sin, and deserve God’s judgement.  Remember Abraham’s words to Isaac?  God will provide a lamb.  God hates sin, and said that the wages for sin is death.  God’s judgement for sin, however, was poured out on Jesus during the crucifixion.  He received our just penalty.  The one that did not know sin became sin for our sake.  To put it another way, we were on the alter.  Jesus was a substitute, much like the ram was for Isaac that day.  Abraham surmised that God could raise up his son from the dead.  Jesus blood was spilled, he spent three days in the grave, and God raised him up.  It was a victory over death, hell and the grave and none of us ever need fear them again.

If we had only the Old Testament, a lot those stories would not make sense.  God seems to be violent and judgmental, as likely to burn us alive as look at us.  Even though there are suggestions to the contrary, we don’t really understand God until Jesus arrives and explains him to us.  The New Testament is sort of like the magic decoder ring that makes the Old Testament makes sense.  It’s a lens through which we can see the Old Testament clearly.  The whole Bible is about Jesus; in some cases he is easier to see than others.

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For further reading, try The Bible is About Jesus on The Master’s Table.  It contains other links which may be helpful in seeing the entire Bible as one story.

In the ancient world names meant something.  I’ve looked up Clark in the books, and my name means either scholar or clergy.  I like my name.  Well, I like my first name.  My last name, Bunch, means person with a humpback.  You can’t win ‘em all.  At any rate, Abram literally means father.  Abram has already believed God’s promise that he will father an entire nation, or in fact many nations.  Abram’s name gets changed by God to Abraham, which is father of many.  His name, which already meant something, now means something even greater.

Then God explains the rite of circumcision, and that it will be an outward sign of the people of faith.  Two things to remember here; one is that a lot of Judaism had to do with being different from the rest of the world.  This included outwardly in appearance and behavior, in addition to their faith and belief system.  Circumcision was a sign.  It made them physically different, like the beards and not cutting the hair of the temples.  The statement is mentioned here and many other times (like when the 10 commandments are being given) that Abraham’s family will be God’s people and he will be their God.  Circumcision is an outward sign of the covenant relationship.

The other thing to remember is that the Old Testament makes a lot more sense after reading the New.  The Passover story, the whole sacrificial system, those are just scary stories until we read the Gospels.  Then we go “Oh, I get it now.”  After reading the history of the Jews and learning over and over about a vengeful and jealous God, being offered mercy and grace really means something.  When a person gets saved, is that saved from sin, saved from hell, saved from death?  No, salvation is about being saved from God’s wrath.  God’s wrath was poured out on Jesus as he hung on the cross, so that we never have to receive it.  The Old Testament helps us appreciate the Gospel for what it’s worth.  Under the New Covenant, baptism is the outward expression of our faith.  Baptism is to the New Testament church what circumcision was to the Hebrews; the outward expression of faith.  They were the children of Abraham, we are spiritually the children of Abraham.  We are a holy nation, a royal priesthood, but not made up of any one political nation.  The descendants of Abraham made up the nation of Israel, the people of the New Testament church are the Kingdom of God not made with hands.  They were God’s people, we are God’s people.

I can’t discuss or teach the Old Testament in a vacuum; the New Testament is like the magic decoder ring that makes the symbols and images make sense.  Just like Passover became the Lord’s supper, circumcision in the equivalent of baptism.  Hopefully this answers some questions.  If not, go ahead and ask them.  I’m game.

Abraham was incredibly wealthy, having been blessed by God at basically every turn.  I’m not making a financial statement by calling him a “poor guy.”  You just have to feel sorry for him sometimes. He was almost too nice for his own good.  In Genesis 13 (short chp) Abram and his nephew Lot separate.  The land could not support all of their great herds, and Abram gives Lot his choice of land.  Lot choices the Jordan Valley, the better land, well watered and suitable for grazing.   Abram settled in Canaan.  But Lot pitched his tent as far as Sodom.  No, it doesn’t get destroyed yet.  In chp 14 Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim invade Sodom and Gomorrah and take Lot away.  Abram goes and rescues him.  What a guy.

In Genesis 16, Sarai  cooks up a scheme to have a child with Abram by way of Hagar, her handmaid.  He simply goes along with his wife’s plan at her request.  Then Sarai becomes wickedly jealous when Hagar becomes pregnant, and actually says to Abram “may the wrong you have done to me be on your head.”  It was her plan.  So Abram reminds her that Hagar is her handmaid, to do to her as she sees fit.  Hagar is sent away into the wilderness, but God sends his angel to find and care for her.  The child she bears is Ishmael, and he is in fact a son of Abraham.  That’s a family skeleton in the closet that the nation of Israel will not be able to forget.

Abram rescued Lot, who went back to live in the city of Sodom.  Abram would intercede again and again for Sodom to be spared from God’s judgement, and God finally allowed Lot and his family to be rescued before its destruction.  Abraham was put through the wringer twice (not once, but twice) for lying about his wife being his sister.  As an adult, he and his men began the tradition of circumcision.  Comedian Jim Gaffigan observes that God’s demands in the Old Testament make a sudden jump in commitment level:  ”Don’t eat this fruit, build me a boat, cut off part of your penis.”  Gaffigan ponders offering to build two boats.

Abraham was called by God, and responded to that call in faith.  He left his home country, believed in God’s promise, and was even willing to sacrifice that son of promise.  Still, it was no stroll down easy street becoming the father of many nations.  Sometimes it seemed as if Abraham just couldn’t win for losing.

One may wonder what’s so strange about being blessed by a priest in the Old Testament.  Happens all the time, right?  Well, almost all the time.  Time is the very problem, or to be more precise chronology.  If we’re reading straight through the first 14 chapters of Genesis, then as far as we’re concerned there has not been a priest yet.  Moses will not be born for several hundred years.  The Law has not been given, Aaron and his sons have not been ordained as priests, and there is no temple nor tabernacle.  We identify Abram as the first man of faith, and as far as we are aware he is the only human being alive who believes in the one God.  Then we meet Melchizadek.

Melchizadek is the king of Salem, and also the priest of God Most High.  He blesses Abram, and Abram gives to him a tenth of all that he possesses.  The word tithe literally means a tenth.  How did Abram know to do that?  Who made Melchizadek a priest?  How did these two realize they believed in the same God, or did they realize?  It may strike the reader as odd to encounter such a priest, but it apparently doesn’t bother Abram.  Did he find it odd?  This is another one of those cases where the Bible doesn’t answer all our questions.

It gets worse.  Melchizadek will be mentioned once more in the Old Testament: Psalm 110.   This reference is prophetic of the New Testament messiah; he will be a priest after the order of Melchizadek.  The book of Hebrews is going to be all over Melchizadek, including quoting the 100th Psalm.  Just like the brass serpent or the Passover lamb, he appears as a type of Christ.  It’s an obscure reference early in the Old Testament, and could be easily missed in a hurry; but in proving that Jesus is God and the messiah, Hebrews just keeps coming back to it.  I see a couple of lessons we can take from this.

First, Abram was not the only person of faith.  Up until Melchizadek, he is the only one we know.  The religions of the ancient world were polytheistic, often responding to and based on things in nature.  Abram may have thought he was alone, just as Elijah did at one point.  He was not alone.  The second lesson is that God has a plan.  Hebrews 7 craftily points out that Aaron was indirectly blessed by Melchizadek, since he was still in Abram’s loins.  He may be something of a mystery to us, but is definitely part of God’s plan.  Finally, Abram is clueless to so much of what is going on.  This is the final lesson, in that we have no idea yet either how much God is doing around us or in our lives right now that we are clueless about.   We don’t even know what we don’t know.  Relax though; refer to lesson 2.

In Gen 12, Abram is called by God to take his family and leave his country. He seems to do so without question. There are some events in chapters 12 – 14 that I would like to come back to at a later time. Abram’s faith is seen again in Gen 15.  He is lamenting the fact that a servant, Eliezer, will be his heir. God tells him that his own son will in fact be his heir, and furthermore that his offspring will be innumerable. Abram believes the Lord, and the Lord counted this as righteousness. This represents an important milestone in the Bible story. It was Abram’s belief in God’s word that made him righteous; in other words, faith. That is the basic definition of faith, to believe that God is who he says he is, and will do the things he says he will do.

Faith requires action. It is more than belief alone. One of my favorite and most used analogies is of a tightrope walker. Imagine an acrobat demonstrates his ability to skillfully walk a narrow tightrope. He then walks the rope blindfolded, to the amazement of the audience. He rides a unicycle across the rope, clearly demonstrating years of carefully honed skill and ability. He brings out a wheelbarrow, and asks you personally if you believe he can push the wheelbarrow across the rope. You’ve seen the blindfold trick, witnessed the unicycle, and vocally announce that he can certainly navigate the wheelbarrow as well. He then asks you to get inside the wheelbarrow. Believing he can do it, and putting faith in his ability to, are not the same thing. You can sit comfortably in your seat and believe, but it takes faith to step up. Faith results in action; if we believe the God will the things he has promised in his word, we will actively respond in some way.

Abram had already moved his family to a foreign land, and as we will see, had reasoned with God in chp 14 that God acts with righteousness in his judgments. Abram is not perfect, and in later posts we will examine some of his shortcomings; but the thing that matters most – a trusting belief that God will provide – Abram gets right.  He makes the “hall of fame” of faith listed in Hebrews 11.  Before the Law was given to Moses, before the temple was built, before the Levitical priesthood, it was Abram’s faith that put him in right relationship with God.

The Tower of Babel is first mention in Genesis 11.  This lesson covers chapters 10 and 11; why?  Because the events are not recorded chronologically, not the way we think about chronology.  Also remember that Moses did not have chapters and verses; those are artificial divisions added thousands of years later.

Genesis 10 accounts the descendants of Noah.  Different nations and languages are specifically mentioned.  This is important, because when we get to chapter 11 we find that all people of the world spoke a common language.  Does the Bible contradict itself?  You should know how I will answer that.  For the first few verses of chapter 11, we are given the narrative account of what happened.  Chapter 10, and the rest of chapter 11, are like a catalogue or a census.  The beginning of 11 tells us how and why there are languages and nations; the rest of both chapters chronicle who those nations are and where they settled.

Geographically, these events take place in Mesopotamia (land between the rivers).  On the subject of Mesopotamia, creationists and evolutionists usually agree: this is where civilization arose.  Mesopotamia is also known as the Tigris Euphrates River Valley, the Euphrates being mentioned in the Garden of Eden account.  Abraham lived in Ur, which has been identified and excavated by archaeologists.  If you were to peruse a World History textbook, you would likely find a diagram or recreation of a ziggurat.  To understand ziggurats, let’s talk about ancient cities.

All ancient cities had walls.  You can see this in the Bible.  As civilization began to develop, it didn’t happen to everyone all at once.  The first city builders erected walls to keep themselves safe from those still lacking civilization.  Otherwise as they built homes and planted crops, hunting gathering nomads would just take what they wanted.  The first city-builders erected walls around their cities, with gates that were open for trade and such during the day.

The center of city life, religious and economic, was the ziggurat.  Each of these early city-states had a priest king.  He was often worshipped as being a deity himself.  He not only represented the spoken will of the gods, but directed city business and economic activity.  The ziggurat was akin to a pyramid, with steps leading to the top, on which the priest king could deliver decrees from on high.  It is thought by many today, and I believe with good reason, that the Tower of Babel may have been one such ziggurat.

The Babel story explains some things about nations and language, but may also stand in contrast to some ancient Mesopotamian mythology.  Their gods wanted them to stay in one place; the God of Abraham wanted people to spread out and populate the earth.  It has always been the Hebrews’ way to be “different” from everybody else.  The Babel story in Genesis 10 and 11 not only offers explanation for how and why different languages and nations arose, as well as how people spread and re-populated after the flood, but also fits well with the geography and culture of the location.  I don’t believe in forcing the Bible to prove that it’s true, but in this case it would be quite easy to do so.

Next time: Abraham, First Man of Faith

In Gen. 6:5, we learn that God was displeased with the wickedness of men, and that the “intentions of his heart was continually on evil.”  God was so upset with how wicked evil his creation had become, he decided to wipe them out.  Noah, however, found favor with God, and so he and his family would be spared.   God gave the instructions on how to build the ark and what to do, and by the end of 6 we read that Noah did all he was commanded.

In Gen. 7 the flood waters come.  Up until this point, people had never seen it rain.  Earlier, in the Garden of Eden, we learned that a mist came up each night and watered the earth.  in 7:11 the fountains of the deep burst forth, and the windows of heaven were opened.  Water came from above and from below to cover the earth.  In Genesis 1, this had been the condition of the earth before God made dry land appear.  At His command the waters of the deep had given up dry land, and His command they swallowed it up once more.  Think ahead if you will to Jesus calming the storm at sea; his disciples ask “What manner of man is this that even the wind and sea obey his voice?” 

Gen. 8:1 is one of my favorite verses of scripture.  “And God remembered Noah.”  Noah had entered into a covenant relationship with God.  Noah did his part by building the ark, and God did his part by saving all those on board from destruction.  God is always faithful in keeping up his end.  He is not a man that he should lie (Numbers 23:19).  Anytime one party breaks a covenant, it will always be our failure and not God’s.  This will become a recurring theme as we survey the Bible.  God remembers Noah, and after 150 days of flood the waters rescind. 

In Genesis 9, God makes a new covenant with Noah, and places the rainbow in the sky.  He promised to never again destroy the earth by flood.  What are the lessons to be learned in these events?

1) We learn that it displeases God to see his creation do evil.  Each person is made in the image of God, and our sin often affects others.  When we lie, steal, cheat on a spouse, murder, etc. we not only have committed evil but sinned against God by dishonoring our fellow man.  The hearts of man was continually evil, and God was sorry he had made man in the first place. 

2) We learn that God will judge the evil with destruction.  Adam and Eve had been punished for their sin, and God had dealt with Cain for his.  The flood instroduces us to something new; mass judgement.  The whole earth was punished as humanity was wiped from it.  Yet even in the midst of destruction…

3) God saved a few.  Noah found favor in God’s sight, and from time to time we will see others that please God despite what’s going on around them.  Abraham is coming up very soon.  There will also be guys like David, a man after God’s own heart, and Daniel.  This Old Testament story illustrates truths that will be brought out later in scripture, about how many enter the way of destruction, but few who follow the straight and narrow that leads to everlasting life.  Like so many things in the Old Testament, the flood story is a picture of what is to come.