Throughout the Bible so far, God has continually expanded his relationship with his people. He began by entering into a marriage-like covenant with Adam and Eve, chose a family of people to carry His flame of faith in his covenant with Noah, chose a tribe based around an extended family when he entered his new covenant with Abraham. Israel is God's First-born, the son of God's heart, the apple of His eye. He's not just the Creator, He's a loving Father, and he wants to be father to all nations once again. In Exodus, in particular during these passages of struggle against Pharaoh, we see the loving Father God go to bat for His children Israel in the most tremendously real way they have seen in four hundred years. As Jesus said, "Would any father give his son a stone when he asked for bread?" God the Father wants to give the Hebrew people an amazing gift, a gift he promised Abraham almost five hundred years before, of deliverance and restoration. It is to be a gift they're never supposed to forget.
When Moses challenges Pharaoh directly for the first time, he is challenging a man raised to believe himself divine. When God sends Moses to him to pry Israel from his grip, God is saying to Pharaoh, "Want to be a god? Be a father." A good father feeds, protects, guides his children, as God does after he frees Israel. Pharaoh believes that divinity is about receiving whatever praise, whatever sacrifice he can get. To be divine is to be adored and feared, to control by fear and to take whatever your power can rip from people. Hebrew people were his Cinderella stepchildren, to be used to the benefit of his "real" subjects.
Moses asks, humbly and respectfully, for a few days to offer sacrifice to Yahweh, but Pharaoh refuses for many reasons. First, he sees sacrifice as a zero-sum game...if sacrifice of material goods, of time, of love is given to Yahweh, they do not come to him. Pharaoh believes in many gods, of which he is one, but he is tempted to consider himself the greatest, and a people who openly deny this are a danger to his self-image, his adoration by the Egyptian people, and his political power. The fewer the better, and since infanticide didn't work, working the people to death is a pretty good Plan B. Pharaoh laughs off Yahweh as no threat to him, and decides to prove his godlike power by ordering a ridiculous and petty extra burden (straw-gathering) on already tapped-out people. God, as a father, is waiting on the correct moment to most effectively demonstrate just how powerless and wrong Pharaoh is. He is no father, only a foolish dictator.
Moses fears he has failed because of his trouble communicating, his "uncircumcised lips," but in the moment of crisis he turns to his Father for help. God responds by reminding him that He has been a father to Israel throughout the centuries...Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew him as a loving father...but that, in the symbol knowing God's Name, Moses and the Israelites of his day had come to know God so much more than they. God would, as a father does, bail them out of difficulty at a moment He knew to be precisely the right one, that four hundred years of waiting was perfect timing. He would see that Israel's perserverance would make them stronger and more virtuous, and that they would know His fatherly love even more now. As a teenager, one often struggles against one's father, but they come to know his love when he comes to the rescue. Sadly, the people were not ready to allow themselves a spark of hope, so crushed were they.
God the Father had not been idle during those four hundred thirty years of slavery. He had watered the family tree of Levi, preparing the branch that would bear Moses and Aaron. Their credentials were "legit," as one might say...and the legacy they would leave is highlighted by the mention of Aaron's grandson Phinehas, a man we'll meet later, honored for his burning zeal for God. God has pruned and prepared, waiting for this man Moses whom He would use to restore his people to His own loving care. Yet one more time, however, Moses does not fully realize what God has done to prepare for him, and reminds God of his weakness, difficulty in communicating his message. The Father is going to use him in a spectacular way, but Moses cannot do it alone.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Exodus 3-4: The Burning Bush and Me
Moses had been a lot of things in his life at the beginning of his chapter. At various times, he could have identified himself as Egyptian, as Hebrew, as Midianite...as rich, as poor, as powerful, as helpless, as respected, as condemned, as rational, as impulsive. Along the course of his life, with his often-changing identity, his spiritual life changed and grew as well. Each of the three major cultures he belonged to had a historic reason for claiming the One God of Abraham, even Egypt, the homeland of Hagar, who bore Abraham's first child. They all related to Him in different ways, with different customs, and Moses had experience with all of these.
The God who had spent the previous 400 years seemingly quiet or unresponsive, really had a strong current under the surface, and burst dramatically back into human history now in the form of a dazzling divine fire that does not burn up. The Holy Spirit often shows up as fire, and the Father's voice rings out in the proclamation of himself as "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob"...the "angel" could then complete the Trinity as a manifestation of the Son. The Early Church Fathers like Augustine thought about it in this way. This kind of amazing power required that you leave behind everything perishable and earthly (like leather shoes) and approach with the utmost humility and fear. Before Christ reconciled us to the Father, He was utterly too awesome to look at directly. By identifying himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Lord was placing emphasis on the chosen line, the ones He had been preserving and sustaining His light of hope in for generations. The Midianites didn't have it, the Egyptians didn't have it.
God hears our prayers and responds to them in a very personal way, but time doesn't limit Him. He can respond to prayers and rectify wrongs after 400 years if that must be, according to His infinite wisdom. In the specific moment written about here, his plan is to clear away the six (a number of human frailty and rebelliousness, always missing the mark) tribes that already live in Canaan and give it to his Firstborn nation, the Israelites.
Moses, upon being called, looked back on his life, and a single question from his past came back to haunt him: "Who appointed you judge and prince over us?" His countryman's sarcastic question showed him that he could be no leader alone. He couldn't do anything to help his people and guide them out of this on his own. The Pharaoh who knew him so well and remembered all the evil he had done would jail and kill him if he went back on his own merits and terms. God's response is, of course, the refrain that "all things are possible through Me. You as an individual are incapable but I'm not." He is the leader, not Moses. The promises and covenant he makes with Moses on behalf of the entire nation of Israel will be sealed when Moses brings them all back to Sinai.
His second problem results from the various ways Moses had encountered the God of Abraham and other deities in his lifetime. He was living in Midian, a nation that knew God but had altered the covenant rules of Abraham to suit themselves (e.g. they circumcised when boys were thirteen, not as infants). He had grown up in Egypt, a land where deities abounded and "priests" and "sorcerers" did cheap magic tricks in their names. How did he know the God he spoke to was the real one, and how would the Israelites believe him? Gods, in his experience, had names. Names that allowed humanity to call upon them, essentially to wield a form of control over them. If this God was the real one, Moses could prove it to one and all by offering His name. Again, Moses thinks that he alone is required to prove where his authority comes from, and again, God responds by saying "You're incapable of proving it, but I'm not. Use My name to prove I'm behind you in this." The God who had spoken to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob as YHWH, I Am, He Who Creates, would be recognized by this sacred name.
God's plan at this point was to bring the Israelite people out of Egypt for a three day (three days being a time of testing and then restoration/intervention by God) worship-fest at Sinai. It could be that this is literally what He wanted, but it also makes sense that He intended this to be a symbolic "three days", after which they'd be free forever. The people who hadn't seen the full divine power of El Shaddai (Almighty God) would learn a lot about Yahweh (I Am) as he dramatically intervened for them with plagues and the like. They would even receive just compensation for their labors on the way out the door.
But what if the Name isn't enough to establish what Moses has seen and what he must do? God again indicates himself as the source of authority instead of Moses. Moses' staff, his symbol of authority and leadership over his flock, was thrown down and became a snake...symbolizing evil in nature...God was pointing out to one and all that Moses had authority over both nature and evil. The demons acknowledged only Christ's authority as God in the New Testament, and God was handing this dominion over evil to Moses in a really flashy way Picking it back up again by the tail, an act of unbelievable trust, made it harmless again. Flesh degraded by leprosy, symbolizing sin, came under his authority too. Evil and sinfulness are under God's total control and nobody else's. Moses could only prove this through God working through him.
Throughout all of this Moses still basically trusts. He has faith, and God gives him powerful tools to demonstrate where Moses' authority comes from. He believes in the God who made those promises, who gave him His name, and who alone commands even evil and sin. The previous three challenges demonstrate how humble he really is and how little he trusts in his own human flesh.
Finally, however, he stumbles. This God is powerful, and has authority over evil, but would he heal? No, no...impossible. Also, when I demonstrate this kind of Godly might to people and then stutter in the next sentence, what kind of witness would that be? I can't be allowed to stumble and fall when I'm that visible an example. Moses here is like many Christians who believe that God cannot use an imperfect person to lead...who tut-tut over televangelists who are adulterers and embezzlers, priests who abuse and bishops who are misguided in handling them. They refuse to step up to responsibilities God is calling them to because they fear their own imperfection. God deals with this more sternly and plainly. I make the deaf! I make the weak and the blind! I am in charge of even your imperfections, and they're always there! Let me use your imperfections and perfect them in the process. But Moses pleads "No, I just can't." Finally, God spells out the solution for him: the human family. You stutter, but your brother is a fantastic speaker. If you refuse to allow Me to work through you alone, I'll "shore up" your weakness with the strength someone else has. Here, God shows us that some problems and weaknesses can be faced alone through relationship with Him, by letting Him shine through us, and some can be faced by enlisting human help.
Moses sets off with Jethro's blessing and Zipporah's, which makes me wonder how the poor man explained his experience to them. He had been living with them in Midian, and his father in law and his wife both related to God in the Midianiate way, which included waiting to circumcise their sons. As Moses is heading out, the covenant requirement to circumcise sons early on (so that it is a free gift, not linked in any way to "manhood") comes back to hit him square in the face. It isn't clear if he merely was pressured by Zipporah and Jethro to live their way, or if he forgot the covenant nature of this, but he didn't do it. God's covenant with Abraham made it absolutely non-negotiable, a sign just like the rainbow, that circumcision (a prefigurement of baptism) had to be done at eight days. God is willing to dialogue with us, and in his mercy He can forgive anything, but He had made a deal with us that defined how He related to us, and at the time, our end of the bargain was that circumcision. God is about ready to kill him in his infinite Justice, but then Zipporah, who may have been the reason, takes responsibility and rectifies the situation. She thus showed a brand new commitment to Moses' call, a call she couldn't share. She'd be there for him from then on.
The God who had spent the previous 400 years seemingly quiet or unresponsive, really had a strong current under the surface, and burst dramatically back into human history now in the form of a dazzling divine fire that does not burn up. The Holy Spirit often shows up as fire, and the Father's voice rings out in the proclamation of himself as "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob"...the "angel" could then complete the Trinity as a manifestation of the Son. The Early Church Fathers like Augustine thought about it in this way. This kind of amazing power required that you leave behind everything perishable and earthly (like leather shoes) and approach with the utmost humility and fear. Before Christ reconciled us to the Father, He was utterly too awesome to look at directly. By identifying himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Lord was placing emphasis on the chosen line, the ones He had been preserving and sustaining His light of hope in for generations. The Midianites didn't have it, the Egyptians didn't have it.
God hears our prayers and responds to them in a very personal way, but time doesn't limit Him. He can respond to prayers and rectify wrongs after 400 years if that must be, according to His infinite wisdom. In the specific moment written about here, his plan is to clear away the six (a number of human frailty and rebelliousness, always missing the mark) tribes that already live in Canaan and give it to his Firstborn nation, the Israelites.
Moses, upon being called, looked back on his life, and a single question from his past came back to haunt him: "Who appointed you judge and prince over us?" His countryman's sarcastic question showed him that he could be no leader alone. He couldn't do anything to help his people and guide them out of this on his own. The Pharaoh who knew him so well and remembered all the evil he had done would jail and kill him if he went back on his own merits and terms. God's response is, of course, the refrain that "all things are possible through Me. You as an individual are incapable but I'm not." He is the leader, not Moses. The promises and covenant he makes with Moses on behalf of the entire nation of Israel will be sealed when Moses brings them all back to Sinai.
His second problem results from the various ways Moses had encountered the God of Abraham and other deities in his lifetime. He was living in Midian, a nation that knew God but had altered the covenant rules of Abraham to suit themselves (e.g. they circumcised when boys were thirteen, not as infants). He had grown up in Egypt, a land where deities abounded and "priests" and "sorcerers" did cheap magic tricks in their names. How did he know the God he spoke to was the real one, and how would the Israelites believe him? Gods, in his experience, had names. Names that allowed humanity to call upon them, essentially to wield a form of control over them. If this God was the real one, Moses could prove it to one and all by offering His name. Again, Moses thinks that he alone is required to prove where his authority comes from, and again, God responds by saying "You're incapable of proving it, but I'm not. Use My name to prove I'm behind you in this." The God who had spoken to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob as YHWH, I Am, He Who Creates, would be recognized by this sacred name.
God's plan at this point was to bring the Israelite people out of Egypt for a three day (three days being a time of testing and then restoration/intervention by God) worship-fest at Sinai. It could be that this is literally what He wanted, but it also makes sense that He intended this to be a symbolic "three days", after which they'd be free forever. The people who hadn't seen the full divine power of El Shaddai (Almighty God) would learn a lot about Yahweh (I Am) as he dramatically intervened for them with plagues and the like. They would even receive just compensation for their labors on the way out the door.
But what if the Name isn't enough to establish what Moses has seen and what he must do? God again indicates himself as the source of authority instead of Moses. Moses' staff, his symbol of authority and leadership over his flock, was thrown down and became a snake...symbolizing evil in nature...God was pointing out to one and all that Moses had authority over both nature and evil. The demons acknowledged only Christ's authority as God in the New Testament, and God was handing this dominion over evil to Moses in a really flashy way Picking it back up again by the tail, an act of unbelievable trust, made it harmless again. Flesh degraded by leprosy, symbolizing sin, came under his authority too. Evil and sinfulness are under God's total control and nobody else's. Moses could only prove this through God working through him.
Throughout all of this Moses still basically trusts. He has faith, and God gives him powerful tools to demonstrate where Moses' authority comes from. He believes in the God who made those promises, who gave him His name, and who alone commands even evil and sin. The previous three challenges demonstrate how humble he really is and how little he trusts in his own human flesh.
Finally, however, he stumbles. This God is powerful, and has authority over evil, but would he heal? No, no...impossible. Also, when I demonstrate this kind of Godly might to people and then stutter in the next sentence, what kind of witness would that be? I can't be allowed to stumble and fall when I'm that visible an example. Moses here is like many Christians who believe that God cannot use an imperfect person to lead...who tut-tut over televangelists who are adulterers and embezzlers, priests who abuse and bishops who are misguided in handling them. They refuse to step up to responsibilities God is calling them to because they fear their own imperfection. God deals with this more sternly and plainly. I make the deaf! I make the weak and the blind! I am in charge of even your imperfections, and they're always there! Let me use your imperfections and perfect them in the process. But Moses pleads "No, I just can't." Finally, God spells out the solution for him: the human family. You stutter, but your brother is a fantastic speaker. If you refuse to allow Me to work through you alone, I'll "shore up" your weakness with the strength someone else has. Here, God shows us that some problems and weaknesses can be faced alone through relationship with Him, by letting Him shine through us, and some can be faced by enlisting human help.
Moses sets off with Jethro's blessing and Zipporah's, which makes me wonder how the poor man explained his experience to them. He had been living with them in Midian, and his father in law and his wife both related to God in the Midianiate way, which included waiting to circumcise their sons. As Moses is heading out, the covenant requirement to circumcise sons early on (so that it is a free gift, not linked in any way to "manhood") comes back to hit him square in the face. It isn't clear if he merely was pressured by Zipporah and Jethro to live their way, or if he forgot the covenant nature of this, but he didn't do it. God's covenant with Abraham made it absolutely non-negotiable, a sign just like the rainbow, that circumcision (a prefigurement of baptism) had to be done at eight days. God is willing to dialogue with us, and in his mercy He can forgive anything, but He had made a deal with us that defined how He related to us, and at the time, our end of the bargain was that circumcision. God is about ready to kill him in his infinite Justice, but then Zipporah, who may have been the reason, takes responsibility and rectifies the situation. She thus showed a brand new commitment to Moses' call, a call she couldn't share. She'd be there for him from then on.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Exodus 2: Look At Your Life Through Heaven's Eyes
Like a certain other Israelite child 1500 years later, a boy child survives against the odds due to a combination of his family's human cleverness and God's protective hand, symbolized by the ark (little basket-boat, in this case) that carried him in the flood. Moses is often spoken of as a "type" of Jesus, a previous person whose life events would mirror the greater glory of Jesus. The Ark secured Noah against the raging waters, just as the new little ark secured Moses. The Ark of the Covenant would secure the law of the kingdom of David and protect his warriors, and the body of the Blessed Mother would finally be the Ark of all Arks, securing the growing Son of God. Hiding from infanticidal tyrants, both Moses and Jesus would find protection and grow.
It strikes me as more than a little awesome that, in a moment in history when Hebrew women's babies were being torn from them left and right, Jocheved was allowed not only to publicly keep her son, but was PAID to breastfeed him. She was paid to change his diapers, burp him, rock him, to get up in the middle of the night with him. Yes, she had to give him away eventually, but when? The phrase used was "when he grew." Interpret this as "when he didn't need a wet-nurse," then she only got to keep him for about two and a half years or so, which would be sad but still far better than Jocheved's countrywomen. Interpret this as "when he grew up," an interpretation which makes some sense, then she got to keep him for his entire childhood. Those movie moments where the young-adult Moses in the palace suddenly realizes that he is Hebrew after years of not knowing this...might not make sense. The Bible doesn't say anything about a sudden realization. It is very likely that Moses absolutely knew who he was and was taught something of The God of Abraham/Isaac/Jacob as he grew up. Then, when he had to be given away, no matter what exact age, he was given away to a "better life," a life that gave him familiarity with power, an intimacy with the Egyptian royal court, politics, warfare, and religion that God knew would be absolutely necessary to extract His Chosen People from this situation.
Then, however, God had to mold Moses some more. He had to experience hardship and suffering, to be brought out of his comfortable life and have all else stripped away in the desert so he could be touched by God. A prince of Egypt with some vague sympathy for the Hebrews could not do what needed to be done...he had to be drawn closer to God to be able to look with true compassion on his people. He had to suffer and be tested to have strength for the fight against a Pharaoh he knew all too well and strength to be a just lawgiver to a difficult, disheartened nation.
God started close to his heart, when a nameless, faceless Egyptian struck a Hebrew kinsman of Moses. Like most people, his family meant more to him than mere ethnic identity, and like many people of the time, he did not hesitate to act with violence in a situation like this. He believed himself to be doing the right thing by standing up for the Hebrews, but it becomes quickly and painfully clear that this Moses isn't ready yet. He reacts to violence against his tribe with retaliatory violence, which makes a sort of brutal sense. It's the way organized criminals and ancient tribes acted. This retaliatory violence, he believes, is the solution to ending Egyptian cruelty and he assumes that the Hebrews will immediately recognize that he is bidding to be their leader and savior. They don't. They merely begin to wonder when this violence will be turned against them. He's hunted down by the legitimate authorities, as criminals should be, and also rejected in his attempt to become an organizing leader of the Israelites. Nobody wants a Mob boss as self-proclaimed chieftain and liberator...they need a more righteous, mature, formed leader.
He runs off to let the situation die down, and in doing so, he finds himself stripped of everything he thought made him a good potential leader. His Egyptian ties and Egyptian clothing mean nothing to the women he meets at the well, except a mistaken identity. The only thing that gets their attention, and their father Jethro's, is his bravery and helpfulness in protecting them and their sheep. Yet another time in scripture, an important man sits down at a well and finds a loving woman there. Zipporah is yet another "woman at the well," like Rebekah and Rachel. Meanwhile, it is becoming time for God to take decisive action. And His timing is always perfect.
It strikes me as more than a little awesome that, in a moment in history when Hebrew women's babies were being torn from them left and right, Jocheved was allowed not only to publicly keep her son, but was PAID to breastfeed him. She was paid to change his diapers, burp him, rock him, to get up in the middle of the night with him. Yes, she had to give him away eventually, but when? The phrase used was "when he grew." Interpret this as "when he didn't need a wet-nurse," then she only got to keep him for about two and a half years or so, which would be sad but still far better than Jocheved's countrywomen. Interpret this as "when he grew up," an interpretation which makes some sense, then she got to keep him for his entire childhood. Those movie moments where the young-adult Moses in the palace suddenly realizes that he is Hebrew after years of not knowing this...might not make sense. The Bible doesn't say anything about a sudden realization. It is very likely that Moses absolutely knew who he was and was taught something of The God of Abraham/Isaac/Jacob as he grew up. Then, when he had to be given away, no matter what exact age, he was given away to a "better life," a life that gave him familiarity with power, an intimacy with the Egyptian royal court, politics, warfare, and religion that God knew would be absolutely necessary to extract His Chosen People from this situation.
Then, however, God had to mold Moses some more. He had to experience hardship and suffering, to be brought out of his comfortable life and have all else stripped away in the desert so he could be touched by God. A prince of Egypt with some vague sympathy for the Hebrews could not do what needed to be done...he had to be drawn closer to God to be able to look with true compassion on his people. He had to suffer and be tested to have strength for the fight against a Pharaoh he knew all too well and strength to be a just lawgiver to a difficult, disheartened nation.
God started close to his heart, when a nameless, faceless Egyptian struck a Hebrew kinsman of Moses. Like most people, his family meant more to him than mere ethnic identity, and like many people of the time, he did not hesitate to act with violence in a situation like this. He believed himself to be doing the right thing by standing up for the Hebrews, but it becomes quickly and painfully clear that this Moses isn't ready yet. He reacts to violence against his tribe with retaliatory violence, which makes a sort of brutal sense. It's the way organized criminals and ancient tribes acted. This retaliatory violence, he believes, is the solution to ending Egyptian cruelty and he assumes that the Hebrews will immediately recognize that he is bidding to be their leader and savior. They don't. They merely begin to wonder when this violence will be turned against them. He's hunted down by the legitimate authorities, as criminals should be, and also rejected in his attempt to become an organizing leader of the Israelites. Nobody wants a Mob boss as self-proclaimed chieftain and liberator...they need a more righteous, mature, formed leader.
He runs off to let the situation die down, and in doing so, he finds himself stripped of everything he thought made him a good potential leader. His Egyptian ties and Egyptian clothing mean nothing to the women he meets at the well, except a mistaken identity. The only thing that gets their attention, and their father Jethro's, is his bravery and helpfulness in protecting them and their sheep. Yet another time in scripture, an important man sits down at a well and finds a loving woman there. Zipporah is yet another "woman at the well," like Rebekah and Rachel. Meanwhile, it is becoming time for God to take decisive action. And His timing is always perfect.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Exodus 1: A King who Knew Not Joseph
Exodus is the continuing story of the fulfillment of the promises God made to Abraham, and the journey to a brand-new covenant under Moses, in which the Chosen Family of the covenant with Abraham becomes the Chosen Tribe, with Moses as the leader. God is working once again to redefine and widen the scope of His covenant with humanity to include more people, more comprehensive ways of relating to Him. In bringing the Hebrew people out of bondage, chosen from birth for this purpose and preserved from harm, Moses previews for us what Jesus would do for all. Every time we renew Jesus' saving sacrifice at Mass, we experience the Passover, the shielding blood of the Lamb, keeping us from sure death no matter who we are or what we have done before.
God told Abraham back in Genesis that his descendants would be in oppression and exile for 400 years before He brought them home to the Promised Land. Like all of those promises, God has an unbelievable way of making this come to fruition, not just once in a literal fashion, but many times in ever wider and more meaningful ways. The story of Exodus 1 shows the development of the oppression and exile in the most narrow sense, but I am constantly reminded to look past this to the reverberations of this pattern ever since. The Hebrew people of 1400-1500 BC needed to experience slavery and deliverance by God's hand to form them as a people, to "test them like gold in a fire," and so do we. According to Agape Bible Study, this is also related to the fact that God's justice toward the Canaanite people already living in the Promised Land required that He not just arbitrarily hand over the land to the Israelites, but that He would only return the Promised Land when the Canaanites were maximally, unrepentantly sinful and as unlikely as possible to change. That would only come to its peak 400 years later.
The Israelites were doing exactly what God commanded, being fruitful and multiplying, becoming a true nation. Then a new Egyptian administration came to power, who "knew not" Joseph, a pharaoh who didn't just not remember Joseph, but one who had no treaty or covenant relationship (like the sexual bond of "knowing" between a husband and wife) with Israel. He made them slaves in a particularly cruel fashion, because slaves at the time were usually a person captured in war, sold into slavery for debt-related reasons, or born slaves, none of which were true of the legally protected, free Israelites. They had to be kept alive, as they knew how to herd sheep, and none of the Egyptians did, but God's promise of fertility might be held back through hard labor building cities.
I think it beautiful how God remained faithful to His promise of increase even through Pharaoh's stronger and stronger barriers. Through the faithfulness of two midwives who "fear God", who put Him above all else and strive never to offend Him or disobey Him, nonviolent resistance to tyranny kept some precious Hebrew baby boys alive. The beautiful work of the two midwives is carried on today by doctors and pharmacists who follow their consciences and refuse to perform abortions or give contraception out of honest "fear of God." It's carried on today by pro-life advocates who insist that women, particularly the vulnerable and preyed-upon urban poor African American women, should be given the truth about the "choice" they make. It is through people like this whose integrity matters to them that God's promise can be realized. "Lying for the Lord" is a sin, but God sees the heart, and a healthy conscience and integrity are still worthy of reward and praise.
The Israelite people who emerge from this slavery are toughened, tested, and prepared by God for the road back to the Promised Land. No matter what Pharaoh tries to do to negate their blessings, God continues to use his actions to bless them further. That's how I want to be...so sure of the Lord's promises that even my sufferings become blessings.
God told Abraham back in Genesis that his descendants would be in oppression and exile for 400 years before He brought them home to the Promised Land. Like all of those promises, God has an unbelievable way of making this come to fruition, not just once in a literal fashion, but many times in ever wider and more meaningful ways. The story of Exodus 1 shows the development of the oppression and exile in the most narrow sense, but I am constantly reminded to look past this to the reverberations of this pattern ever since. The Hebrew people of 1400-1500 BC needed to experience slavery and deliverance by God's hand to form them as a people, to "test them like gold in a fire," and so do we. According to Agape Bible Study, this is also related to the fact that God's justice toward the Canaanite people already living in the Promised Land required that He not just arbitrarily hand over the land to the Israelites, but that He would only return the Promised Land when the Canaanites were maximally, unrepentantly sinful and as unlikely as possible to change. That would only come to its peak 400 years later.
The Israelites were doing exactly what God commanded, being fruitful and multiplying, becoming a true nation. Then a new Egyptian administration came to power, who "knew not" Joseph, a pharaoh who didn't just not remember Joseph, but one who had no treaty or covenant relationship (like the sexual bond of "knowing" between a husband and wife) with Israel. He made them slaves in a particularly cruel fashion, because slaves at the time were usually a person captured in war, sold into slavery for debt-related reasons, or born slaves, none of which were true of the legally protected, free Israelites. They had to be kept alive, as they knew how to herd sheep, and none of the Egyptians did, but God's promise of fertility might be held back through hard labor building cities.
I think it beautiful how God remained faithful to His promise of increase even through Pharaoh's stronger and stronger barriers. Through the faithfulness of two midwives who "fear God", who put Him above all else and strive never to offend Him or disobey Him, nonviolent resistance to tyranny kept some precious Hebrew baby boys alive. The beautiful work of the two midwives is carried on today by doctors and pharmacists who follow their consciences and refuse to perform abortions or give contraception out of honest "fear of God." It's carried on today by pro-life advocates who insist that women, particularly the vulnerable and preyed-upon urban poor African American women, should be given the truth about the "choice" they make. It is through people like this whose integrity matters to them that God's promise can be realized. "Lying for the Lord" is a sin, but God sees the heart, and a healthy conscience and integrity are still worthy of reward and praise.
The Israelite people who emerge from this slavery are toughened, tested, and prepared by God for the road back to the Promised Land. No matter what Pharaoh tries to do to negate their blessings, God continues to use his actions to bless them further. That's how I want to be...so sure of the Lord's promises that even my sufferings become blessings.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Genesis 49:28-50:26 : The End of an Era
These scenes strike me as some of the most realistic and relatable in Genesis so far. Jacob's parting, and then Joseph's, are full of such real emotion. He seems to be feeling what I felt at my grandfather's deathbed, with family gathered around to share in the grief, and the desire to properly honor a life like Jacob's is clear.
The description of Jacob being "gathered to his people" is a really really notable one. The author deliberately chose to state it this way, not merely to say he died. Jacob, not being after Christ's redemption, had to wait for heaven, but he was gathered, brought into the state of readiness and taken up by God. Who are "his people"? His family, clearly, the father, grandfather, wife, mother, and grandmother he spoke of being buried with. He was gathered into the burial cave they all shared, marking the foundation of their legacy in the "Promised Land." No matter how much or how little of it their people would control in the future, by Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham's burial at the very significant location of Mamre, Israel as a nation would always have a place in the land promised to them. Even more so, "his people" included the "people", the great nation Jacob was promised he would bring forth. From his eternal vision with God, he was able to watch the nation change and members of it who would die later were already present to him. Eventually, "his people" would include not the ethnic tribe of Hebrews only, not the religious tribe of Jews only, but all the people on earth who believe in The God Who Is and the salvation offered by his Son. My guess is that Jacob rejoiced to enter eternity and find out how far-reaching his spiritual paternity was, how hugely abundant the fulfillment of God's promise to make him a great nation really was.
Jacob's funeral, in which the greatest nation on Earth at the time, Egypt, mourned this one foreign man with little to catch their attention, is an example of how great his nation was already. Hebrews and Egyptians (Gentiles) came together to fulfill this man's last request, to be buried at Mamre. He was embalmed for 40 days, a number significant for completion and turning-over, renewal. The Israelites 40 years in the desert, Jesus' 40 days in the desert, the 40 days of fasting in Joel's day, were all chances to strip away the old and come to grips with the new, to be tested and consecrate oneself. Jacob was embalmed for this long, giving his family a chance to grieve, be tested, and to consecrate both him and themselves. They mourned him for 70 days, a number of spiritual completion and perfection...in a sense they mourned him forever, and in a sense, they mourned him for exactly the amount of time God wanted them to, the perfect amount.
Joseph makes his final "moral of the story", reconciling with his brothers for good and telling them that he understands that God is in control of what happened to him. All things work for good in his life, for love of God, says Joseph thousands of years before St. Paul would echo him. He lives a complete life, dandling great great grandchildren on his knee and adopting them as his own. Sadly, he's buried in Egypt, leaving his family to return to the promised land without him, and living a life just short of completeness at 110 years (11 being a number of incompleteness and just missing the mark). It would not be for him to carry on the flame, but for Judah. He has hope, however, that his descendants will carry him to the promised land and re-bury him there later, bringing the final completion after death.
The description of Jacob being "gathered to his people" is a really really notable one. The author deliberately chose to state it this way, not merely to say he died. Jacob, not being after Christ's redemption, had to wait for heaven, but he was gathered, brought into the state of readiness and taken up by God. Who are "his people"? His family, clearly, the father, grandfather, wife, mother, and grandmother he spoke of being buried with. He was gathered into the burial cave they all shared, marking the foundation of their legacy in the "Promised Land." No matter how much or how little of it their people would control in the future, by Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham's burial at the very significant location of Mamre, Israel as a nation would always have a place in the land promised to them. Even more so, "his people" included the "people", the great nation Jacob was promised he would bring forth. From his eternal vision with God, he was able to watch the nation change and members of it who would die later were already present to him. Eventually, "his people" would include not the ethnic tribe of Hebrews only, not the religious tribe of Jews only, but all the people on earth who believe in The God Who Is and the salvation offered by his Son. My guess is that Jacob rejoiced to enter eternity and find out how far-reaching his spiritual paternity was, how hugely abundant the fulfillment of God's promise to make him a great nation really was.
Jacob's funeral, in which the greatest nation on Earth at the time, Egypt, mourned this one foreign man with little to catch their attention, is an example of how great his nation was already. Hebrews and Egyptians (Gentiles) came together to fulfill this man's last request, to be buried at Mamre. He was embalmed for 40 days, a number significant for completion and turning-over, renewal. The Israelites 40 years in the desert, Jesus' 40 days in the desert, the 40 days of fasting in Joel's day, were all chances to strip away the old and come to grips with the new, to be tested and consecrate oneself. Jacob was embalmed for this long, giving his family a chance to grieve, be tested, and to consecrate both him and themselves. They mourned him for 70 days, a number of spiritual completion and perfection...in a sense they mourned him forever, and in a sense, they mourned him for exactly the amount of time God wanted them to, the perfect amount.
Joseph makes his final "moral of the story", reconciling with his brothers for good and telling them that he understands that God is in control of what happened to him. All things work for good in his life, for love of God, says Joseph thousands of years before St. Paul would echo him. He lives a complete life, dandling great great grandchildren on his knee and adopting them as his own. Sadly, he's buried in Egypt, leaving his family to return to the promised land without him, and living a life just short of completeness at 110 years (11 being a number of incompleteness and just missing the mark). It would not be for him to carry on the flame, but for Judah. He has hope, however, that his descendants will carry him to the promised land and re-bury him there later, bringing the final completion after death.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Genesis 48-49:27
Jacob's blessings on his sons and grandsons here are interesting because they represent a father's insight into his children's character, probably God-given. The Lord, who searches and knows us, is the real author of these pages, and Jacob's blessing involves a lot of allusions to the tribes that would bear these names. The authors were inspired to lay out a picture of the tribal structure...where they live, which are most prominent...in a way that shows how God worked to create it, working in and through Jacob and his sons. This passage is kind of a summary of what has gone before through the entire book of Genesis, as Israel was formed step-by-step from a single couple.
It seems fitting that Jacob should reiterate here the promises God made to him, his father, and grandfather. He's looking upon his legacy and seems touched by how abundantly filled those promises already are, knowing that even more is to come. In blessing Joseph's sons, he replays the theme of the eldest making way for a younger brother to come into prominence. Jesus' life and death and resurrection would call a worthy "younger brother" in the Church to be the new Israel, the new "chosen nation" With Jacob's arms forming a cross, Ephraim, whose tribe would reign over the ten Northern Tribes, was given the birthright and the power. Jacob, like his father, is blind from age, blind to everything that gives a person worldly status, including age, physical characteristics, wealth, charm. Jesus himself, though firstborn of his mother Mary, had "brethren" who were probably his father's sons or other cousins, who treated him the way older brothers treat younger ones. God's plan is foreshadowed again and again, until eventually Jesus the younger brother dies and rises again to save the older brothers in the culmination of history.
As Jacob moves on to comment on his own sons, he wastes no time in condemning the first three sons for reasons we've already read about. These three squandered what could have been theirs when they chose to destroy rather than build up. Reuben's tribe is going to remain small and insignificant because of his self-aggrandizing action against his father, despite his incredible potential. Simeon and Levi will be destroyed because they chose to destroy in anger, and they will no longer be able to claim independence as tribes, remaining as helpless and dependent as the circumcised men and hamstrung oxen they attacked.
Judah, the one for whom the Jews would be named, the one from whom all kings to Jesus himself would come, is depicted as a royal lion, a terror in righteous war and the bearer of authority. The Messiah would be of Judah, and would unite the donkey, the old nation, and the donkey's foal, the "unbroken" Gentiles, in his incredibly fertile vineyard. The wine, the Blood of Christ, washed clean Judah, and then the shining, glorious Messiah would reign.
Zebulun's territory of seashore and harbors, and the hard labor of the tribe of Issachar are allusions to the later tribes, and Dan's "judgement" of the tribes was an indication of Samson, who was a Danite. Asher's very fruitful land was mentioned, and Benjamin, the tribe of zealous St. Paul, whose land was the site of a terrible war, was prophetically described.
It seems fitting that Jacob should reiterate here the promises God made to him, his father, and grandfather. He's looking upon his legacy and seems touched by how abundantly filled those promises already are, knowing that even more is to come. In blessing Joseph's sons, he replays the theme of the eldest making way for a younger brother to come into prominence. Jesus' life and death and resurrection would call a worthy "younger brother" in the Church to be the new Israel, the new "chosen nation" With Jacob's arms forming a cross, Ephraim, whose tribe would reign over the ten Northern Tribes, was given the birthright and the power. Jacob, like his father, is blind from age, blind to everything that gives a person worldly status, including age, physical characteristics, wealth, charm. Jesus himself, though firstborn of his mother Mary, had "brethren" who were probably his father's sons or other cousins, who treated him the way older brothers treat younger ones. God's plan is foreshadowed again and again, until eventually Jesus the younger brother dies and rises again to save the older brothers in the culmination of history.
As Jacob moves on to comment on his own sons, he wastes no time in condemning the first three sons for reasons we've already read about. These three squandered what could have been theirs when they chose to destroy rather than build up. Reuben's tribe is going to remain small and insignificant because of his self-aggrandizing action against his father, despite his incredible potential. Simeon and Levi will be destroyed because they chose to destroy in anger, and they will no longer be able to claim independence as tribes, remaining as helpless and dependent as the circumcised men and hamstrung oxen they attacked.
Judah, the one for whom the Jews would be named, the one from whom all kings to Jesus himself would come, is depicted as a royal lion, a terror in righteous war and the bearer of authority. The Messiah would be of Judah, and would unite the donkey, the old nation, and the donkey's foal, the "unbroken" Gentiles, in his incredibly fertile vineyard. The wine, the Blood of Christ, washed clean Judah, and then the shining, glorious Messiah would reign.
Zebulun's territory of seashore and harbors, and the hard labor of the tribe of Issachar are allusions to the later tribes, and Dan's "judgement" of the tribes was an indication of Samson, who was a Danite. Asher's very fruitful land was mentioned, and Benjamin, the tribe of zealous St. Paul, whose land was the site of a terrible war, was prophetically described.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Genesis 46-47: So Jacob Came to Egypt
Jacob, in leaving Canaan for Egypt, seemed to realize that he would never return to the Promised Land in life. This land, so connected to his ancestors, needed to be taken leave of properly. He stopped by Beersheba, the Well of Oaths, where both his father and his grandfather had encountered God and made covenants. God reminds him one last time of the promises He has made, particularly that He will make of Israel a great nation and that Canaan will still be the Promised Land, that Jacob and his descendants have not left there permanently. With this reassurance, the weak, equivocating Jacob becomes once more the strong, faithful Israel and he sets off.
The list of Jacob's family here is carefully planned out to make a perfect number (70) of people. Seven, a number of celestial perfection, and ten, a number of order, come together here. Most lists of families in the Bible seem to include particularly meaningful numbers of people. These 70 people are the beginnings of the tribe of Israel, just as there were 70 descendants of Shem who were the beginnings of the Chosen lineage/tribe. God's restarting with a perfectly chosen group of people.
Joseph, the type of Jesus, is returned to his father in the same way Isaac was returned to Abraham after both were given up as dead, offered as a tragic sacrifice. Joseph sets his family up with as good a start as possible, making sure they explain their trade to Pharaoh properly so that it becomes only logical to him to set the family up in the pasturelands of Goshen. Joseph's family, like the Church Christ founded, was intentionally made separate from the rest of the world. Goshen was far from most important Egyptian settlements, a little isolated cradle of plenty where the family could prosper.
When the family meet with Pharaoh, they impress him. Particularly, Jacob's longevity and humility impresses Pharaoh and he lets them have great land. Then the problems come. The Egyptians use first money, then livestock, then land to buy bread from Joseph until he has essentially every resource in the country. There is, at the end of the period, no more private land ownership, but an entire nation of serfs working Pharaoh's land. The only exceptions to this are Israelites and priests. As Jacob draws near his death, his family/tribe has become incredibly successful in Egypt. The Egyptians clearly cannot take this for long.
The list of Jacob's family here is carefully planned out to make a perfect number (70) of people. Seven, a number of celestial perfection, and ten, a number of order, come together here. Most lists of families in the Bible seem to include particularly meaningful numbers of people. These 70 people are the beginnings of the tribe of Israel, just as there were 70 descendants of Shem who were the beginnings of the Chosen lineage/tribe. God's restarting with a perfectly chosen group of people.
Joseph, the type of Jesus, is returned to his father in the same way Isaac was returned to Abraham after both were given up as dead, offered as a tragic sacrifice. Joseph sets his family up with as good a start as possible, making sure they explain their trade to Pharaoh properly so that it becomes only logical to him to set the family up in the pasturelands of Goshen. Joseph's family, like the Church Christ founded, was intentionally made separate from the rest of the world. Goshen was far from most important Egyptian settlements, a little isolated cradle of plenty where the family could prosper.
When the family meet with Pharaoh, they impress him. Particularly, Jacob's longevity and humility impresses Pharaoh and he lets them have great land. Then the problems come. The Egyptians use first money, then livestock, then land to buy bread from Joseph until he has essentially every resource in the country. There is, at the end of the period, no more private land ownership, but an entire nation of serfs working Pharaoh's land. The only exceptions to this are Israelites and priests. As Jacob draws near his death, his family/tribe has become incredibly successful in Egypt. The Egyptians clearly cannot take this for long.
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