"After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth."~Genesis 8:6-11

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Genesis


This book covers a lot of ground.   It works its way through creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the dispersion of the nations from the Tower of Babel.  Then it goes through the lives of the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who has 12 sons and one daughter.  Then the story diverts to Joseph, one of Jacob’s sons, who is sold into slavery in Egypt, works his way to the top, and eventually brings his whole family (around seventy people) to Egypt, after which time the book recounts the deaths of Jacob and Joseph and then comes to a close.

This all would have been important for the original readers to hear, because this book was written for the Israelites during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness-a detour on the way to the Promised Land.  They didn’t have much knowledge of where they had come from, why they had been in slavery in Egypt in the first place, or who their God was.  They just knew that they were supposed to go to the Promised Land, and then their God was fed up with their mumbling, and therefore condemned them to forty years of wandering in the wilderness.  This book would have explained a lot, and filled in a lot of blanks for them.


 "and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban the Aramean.  Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord granted his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived.  The children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is to be this way, why do I live?” So she went to inquire of the Lord.  And the Lord said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb,
    and two peoples born of you shall be divided;
the one shall be stronger than the other,
    the elder shall serve the younger.”
When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb.  The first came out red, all his body like a hairy mantle; so they named him Esau.  Afterward his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them."
~Genesis 25:20-26
OBSERVATION
How old was Isaac when Esau and Jacob were born?
Sixty years old.
How old was he when he married Rebekah?
Forty.
How old was Abraham when God promised him that he would have a son: his own heir?  And then how long before Isaac was born?
15:4-he is promised.  I’m not sure how old he is but it’s 10 years before Sarai gives him Hagar to bear a child, and then Isaac is not born until Ishmael is 14, so it was 24 years between the initial promise and fulfillment.

INTERPRETATION 
What would this have shown the original reader about God’s sense of time?
That many years is not a big deal to God.  No matter how much time passes, he will fulfill his promises. 
Is this idea supported elsewhere in the Bible?
2 Peter 3 says that 1000 years is like a day to the Lord and vice versa.  God’s sense of time is different than ours.

TIMELESS TRUTH 
We must be patient in waiting on the Lord, for he will always fulfill his promises, but in his time, not ours.
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