Today I finally felt like I was on top of my reading. I know that it's later in the day, but I did eventually read.
Starting in Chapter 30, I really like the line, "Give me children or I'll die!" from Rachel in verse 1. Jacob's response is interesting. "Am I in the place of God?" This is the first marital fight I have come across in the Bible. I can picture it in modern language.
Rachel says, "Dang it, Jacob! I want to have kids!"
Jacob replies, "What am I? Jesus? I can't just make kids appear!" Of course, back then fertility treatments, Viagra, soap, and other hygiene products didn't exist, so perhaps child bearing was a little harder, or easier. I don't know.
From verse 25 to 43, Jacob is given flocks of sheep and goats as a payment for shepherding Laban's flocks for so long. Jacob then goes and breeds animals based on their wool colour. I was impressed. It was like the work of Gregor Mendel (the monk who figured out inheritance), only the ancient Jewish version.
I really like a name for God in today's reading. In chapter 31:53, God is referred to as "the Fear of [Jacob's] father Isaac". God is fear personified. He is the ultimate, and when we are faced with his actually face, we are terrified. I'm noticing a pattern, that ever since the Fall, every encounter a person has with God is an encounter saturated with terror, fear, and dread. People only are calmed at his words, "Do not be afraid." I don't think I fear God enough. I want to. Maybe I need to see God face to face more often.
The only time I have ever been absolutely terrified by God is once, when I was around 16 or 17, I was lying in bed, I was deliberately thinking about all of the people in my life who I loved. I remember seeing, almost like a dream, Portage la Prairie, and everyone I knew, even if they weren't from Portage was walking around the streets. All of a sudden I was gripped with a sense of impending doom and terror. My heart felt like it was about to burst from my chest and it almost felt like my soul was about to rip out from within me. I looked up in what later felt like a dream but felt very real at the time and saw the sky. Within an instant, it felt like the entire earth fell silent and I knew that the Lord was coming. I don't know how I knew, but I just knew. Then I heard this deafening but silent trumpet blast, and the sky above me opened up like French doors revealing a blinding light but pitch black background. All I saw was a figure walk from within the doors to the middle and stand there. I knew at that moment that it was Christ himself. He had come back, and I was petrified. I heard, "Did I not say that I would come?" Then I woke up, terrified. I need to see God more often.
Genesis 32:22-32 is the story of Jacob wrestling with God. I love this story. Jacob has sent his wealth and family out ahead of him. He's alone in the camp, when a man wrestles with him all night long till the morning. They are in a deadlock, so the man touches Jacob's hip, and Jacob's leg gets gimped. He doesn't let go of the man until the man blesses him. The man renames Jacob Israel, which means, "he struggles with God", which I think is a pretty good description of the rest of Israel's history as recorded in the Old Testament. I love verse 30. He names that place "face of God" because he saw the face of God, and yet his life was spared. "Yet his life was spared"? Powerful!
Jacob then meets Esau and they make peace.
Cool reading. I'm on page 57 of my Bible. Only 1894 pages to go.
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