The Book of Genesis, Chapter 15

Genesis 15:1-20

Summary

God speaks to Abram in visions and dreams, establishing between them the knowledge that Abram's nation would be great. The whole "Egypt" fiasco is hinted at, and God makes a covenant with Abram.

Commentary

Interesting to see this chapter, because, as I mentioned in the last post, I always view Abram as the ancient guy with many many children. However, in this chapter, Abram is childless, and he worries about the fact that one of his slaves from Damascus will inherit his house.

I'm intrigued by the practical nature of Abram's worries. God comes to him and says,

"Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." (Gen 15:1)

but Abram calls God out in return, saying,

"O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" (Gen 15:2)

Interesting note, the first few times God speaks, it's described as "The word of the Lord" coming to Abram. I'm reminded of Alan Rickman's character in Dogma, Metatron, with the memorable line,

"Human beings have neither the aural nor the psychological capacity to withstand the awesome power of God's true voice. Were you to hear it, your mind would cave in and your heart would explode within your chest. We went through five Adams before we figured that one out." (Dogma, 1999)

Dogma is rather silly, but it can jive with the scripture in this case if you're interpreting it in the right way. The author of Genesis says:

"But the word of the Lord came to him, 'This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.' He brought him outside and said, ‘Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then he said to him, 'So shall your descendants be.'" (Gen 15:4-5)

So, depending on how you read this, the word of the Lord could be a person, because the language suggests that the word of the Lord brings Abram outside. It doesn't really have any major impact on the story of this chapter, but it's fun to speculate.

Shortly thereafter, God patiently tells Abram that he will give all the land in the area to him, and Abram is again skeptical. "O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?" (Gen 15:8) Abram asks, and God says, "Hush you, and bring me dinner." Or something like that. Actually he requests a very specific sacrifice of three-year-old farm animals and a couple birds.

Perhaps there's a significance to what God asks for that I'm not understanding, but I honestly don't see how this validates his claim that he will give Abram a whole whack of land.

Abram falls asleep, and when he does so, a deep and terrible darkness falls upon him as well. God comes to Abram in a dream and plays the part of the dark prophet, warning Abram that while his descendants would face great trials and be slaves in a strange land for four hundred years, judgment would be brought on their oppressors and they would be a great nation.

According to the book, Abram's descendants are going to be paying for the "iniquity of the Amorites", but sadly a quick googling of this subject has resulted in finding little but the sites of people whose scholarly knowledge is very questionable.

Abram, however, is told to have a long life, many children, and a quiet death. In the ancient world this is a blessing and miracle in and of itself, and I hope that most of you don't under-appreciate how important a message to Abram this really is.

With a smoking firepot and a torch passing over the sacrifice, God makes a covenant with Abram to grant him the lands of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.

Whew, that's a lot of land (I'm guessing). I'm kind of intrigued by the imagery of the sacrifice and the fire. It's indicative of the growth of our perception of God, from a very primitive and wordly God who is associated intimately with the affairs of the day to a God who plays from the shadows, much more like the Wizard of Oz (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!).

If God is eternal and unchanging, it must be that our perceptions and understandings of God change with time, as the God we know now is very different from the primitive and worldly God suggested by the ritual in this chapter.

Posting at Camp

Hi folks,

It turns out I have some internet access at camp (occasionally), so I will be posting as I can, when I can. I'll be trying to build up a buffer over the summer as well.

The Book of Genesis, Chapter 14

Genesis 14:1-24

Summary

There's a huge war between two groups of kingdoms (nine kings in all), and poor old Lot gets caught in the crossfire and captured. Abram hears about it, gathers up his buddies, and takes a huge road trip out to recapture Lot and all the people and stuff he had with him. Abram kicks some serious butt, and it turns out he doesn't really want anything in return from the King of Sodom.

Commentary

So, I bet you didn't know Abram kicked some serious butt in his day. I didn't. I always pictured Abram as the ancient man with a crazy amount of kids. We'll get there, though, first we should talk about the huge war. At the time, the kings of Elam, Goiim, Shinar, and Ellasar had allied themselves against the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela in a great war.

It should be pointed out that the second group had been subordinate to the king of Elam for twelve years, but in the thirteenth year, they rebelled. It kind of fascinates me how matter-of-factly this war is mentioned. There's no description, but war in the ancient world was pretty ugly, and even though most kingdoms were pretty small (no more than what we would consider cities or towns today), when you have nine kingdoms clashing, people are going to die.

It's mostly interesting to me because this huge great war is just background; it's setting the scene for the story that's about to unfold. The war is only important because one of the kingdoms that gets crushed in this war is Sodom, and that's where Lot lives. The last couple chapters have been telling the story of Abram and his family, so this follows pretty directly on, but I have to admit I'm a little more intrigued by the war.

Regardless, one little interesting fact about this war is that after getting their asses handed to them by the other kings, the Kings of Sodom and Gomorrah call a retreat, and while retreating, some of the people fall into bitumen pits. It's an odd little detail, but it does serve to be an example of the horrors of war.

For those not in the know (and I'll be honest, I had to look this up), bitumen is a naturally occurring, sticky, tar-like form of petroleum, which is described as being, at room temperature, much like cold molasses in terms of its viscosity. I can't imagine the horrors of drowning in one of those pits. It's kind of reminiscent, for me, of the stories of people dying between the trenches in World War I, not from the gunfire, but from taking a bullet in the leg, falling face-first into a puddle, and drowning. Long story short, war sucks.

In all this chaos, Lot, the people who are with him, and all of their stuff gets taken by the victorious armies (it's not personal, they take all the stuff in Sodom and Gomorrah). Fortunately for Lot, Abram is pretty badass, and when he hears about his nephew's plight, it's a little bit like Liam Neeson in Taken:

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you." (Taken, 2008)

Pretty scary, huh?

Anyway, Abram and his trained three hundred and eighteen men (possibly a nod to the Spartans?), all of whom incidentally were born in his house, take off after the people who captured his nephew. They follow them all the way to Dan. No, stop laughing, Dan is not some random guy. It's a city, and it's the northernmost city in Israel (sort of), so you can imagine that hearing they got chased all the way to Dan is just another nod to how far they really went.

That night Abram divided his forces and went against the enemy and routed them. I hope most people reading this blog understand this, but a rout is a serious, serious victory. It's the kind of victory where you take your enemy and rub their face in the dirt. After this rout, they chased the broken enemy all the way to Hobah, a town north of Damascus (another very long trip), and recovered the stolen goods.

When Abram got back, the king of Sodom met with him, and the king of Salem met with them also. The king of Salem was also the priest of "God Most High" (Gen 14:18), and he brought a beautiful blessing for Abram, but much more interesting to me is that he brought bread and wine. To my knowledge, this is the first linking of bread and wine into the worship of God in the bible, and it happens in the fourteenth chapter.

I guess I always thought that was kind of a Jesus thing, but as I go, it's becoming more and more clear to me how very appropriate, right, and steeped in tradition was pretty much everything Jesus did. He comes forward very much, as he said, as the culmination of a tradition, not the destruction of it.

At the end of the chapter, Abram is offered a great deal of money, but he graciously declines because he does not wish to be in the debt of the king of Sodom. He does, however, name a few people who should receive their shares, and they do. It's a nice little testament that shows Abram's badassitude is tempered by his wisdom and generosity.