Day 15 – Job 40-42
A lot of lessons here.
God restores. Jobby Gilmore got his swing back. 🙌
God rebukes. Job’s friends learned a little “what goes around comes around”. (🎵”Don’t wanna think about it, don’t wanna talk about it, I’m just so sick about it. Can’t believe it’s endin’ this way🎵.…. shout out JT).
God also lets Job know he went a little overboard declaring his righteousness. A little humility, sir. Aren’t we all kind of victims of this mentality from time to time? I am. 😤Sometimes I go on a full-scale child tantrum about “doing all the right things” and not getting the same reward as others or even getting punished for it. It’s a human thing to do, but it’s why we have to stay in the Word. We have to let God show us what arrogant crybabies 😭 we can be sometimes. I receive it…because I deserve it.
💡Learny Word of the Day: Lotus. 🌸 I knew it was a plant, but mostly I knew it was a car. Have known that since 1990. Anyway…. a lotus plant is a large water plant with floating leaves and flowers. Had to be big for a 🐉Leviathan to be getting shade from it, eh?
Day 16 – Genesis 12-15
🌎This is where the Lord tells Abram, “I will make you into a great nation.” (Genesis 12:2)
⭐⭐⭐Genesis 15:5 – And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” History. The story of man.
Why does the Bible keep telling us how old people are and how long they lived after an event?
Bottom line – I think it’s about preserving a historical record and tracing a genealogical path to Jesus. Simple as that. If it means something else, I’m not picking it up. I’ll leave this one for the historians and archeologists.
Yikes! God promises the land of Canaan to Abram👴 and his descendants, but the Canaanite people are still there. Uh-oh….
But this is a good example of “God’s timing”. Abram’s descendants won’t inherit Canaan for several generations. Remember what you read: “…the wrongdoing of the Amorite is not yet complete.” (Genesis 15:16) Patience, grasshoppa! 🦗
🛐Have archaeologists found these altars Abram built?
No. They are just piles of uncut stones. No way they would be able to prove Abram built them even if they found them. It’s like a cairn🪨🪨🪨 on a hike. You can kick it over (don’t do that! Because ironically, like these altars, they show you the way!!) or you can claim Lewis & Clark put it there to mark a path, but who’s going to believe you?
The altars he builds, though, are responses to God. They are where he worships. They commemorate an occasion. Every time God reaffirms His promises, Abram’s response was worship. I’m just sayin’, it’s a good thing Abram didn’t have an HOA because he would probably be getting a letter….
Why did Abram lie about Sarai being his wife?
What I see here is a crisis of faith. God had already promised to make Abram into a great nation. In order to do that, Abram would need to be alive for a minute, right? But Abram thought the Egyptians would kill him and take Sarai if they thought they were married. So he thought his plan for safety was better than God’s, or he thought God forgot about and didn’t account for any danger that would arise. Or maybe he thought God wouldn’t protect him. However it shook out in his mind, Abram didn’t totally trust the plan.
👀I’m a little creeped out that Ai is in the Bible, not gonna lie. 🤖
SMH, it’s not even pronounced that way, Jenny. It’s pronounced “eye”, not “aye-eye”. It just means “a heap of ruins”. It’s the name of an ancient city near Bethel. So no, the Bible does not predict AI in Genesis.
I dare you to dress up as King Chedorlaomer for Halloween this year….. ⚔️
For real, though. These king 👑 names are important for historical purposes; historians are still using Genesis 14 to compare with records from the ancient Near East. But… ya girl won’t be memorizing them.
👑MELCHIZEDEK👑
TLC talks about this better than I can in her Recap video, but I will add a little.
Melech means “king” 👑
Tzedek means “righteousness”
So Melchizedek very literally means “King of Righteousness”.
He is also the King of Salem, which is almost certainly an early name for Jerusalem.
“Salem” comes from “shalom”, meaning peace. No, no, Michael, it’s not “shamone”. You are only the King of Pop🕺….
TLC talks about the bread and wine, but did you catch that Abram give Melchizedek a tenth of everything?🤔
So is Melchizedek a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ? Or is he a real historical king and priest who points forward to Christ in Scripture. You be the judge…. but do some reading first. 📕📘📚
Genesis 14:22-23 shortened …”I have sworn to the Lord….that I will not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, so that you do not say, ‘I have made Abram rich’.” 💰
So when I first read this, I thought it was words of defiance. First thing that popped into my head – says something about me, I guess…. It’s not that, though. It’s Abram’s faithfulness to God. He is not standing in defiance like we did as 20-somethings: “I don’t need a dime from anyone! I will eat Ramen noodles and popcorn🍿 for breakfast, lunch, and dinner while I pay my rent, car payment, and car insurance….” It’s not that. This is Abram saying, “I don’t want anything from you because I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding where my blessings come from. God gets all the glory.”
Another covenant📜. I will probably do a Still Waters on this in the future because it deserves more than a blurb on this recap roundup. TLC covers it very well in her video. God takes on the covenant obligations in dramatic fashion, walking between the pieces of the sacrifices🔥. He is saying fulfillment depends first and foremost on Himself.
Day 17 – Genesis 16-18
The Angel of the Lord (“the”, not “a”) says to Hagar, “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.” (Genesis 16:10) Tara-Leigh’s recap video is “must-see TV” today. If you don’t read any further, at least take 10 minutes and watch what she has to say.
I have mistakenly called this “the birth of Islam” in conversation in the past, and it’s just not the case. It’s only the 235,785,432nd time in my life I’ve been wrong, though. 😆Winning! Ishmael becomes the father of twelve princes; Arab people are traditionally associated with Ishmael’s descendants; but Islam is not founded until about 2,500 years later when Muhammad teaches that he descends from Ishmael (A.D. 570-632).
The Angel of the Lord speaks to Hagar🤰 at the well she names “Beer-lahai-roi“. Click the link for an image and more information, as I have included this on my Field Notes page. There are also more wells listed if you are interested on an entry entitled “Well, well, well…“💧.
One nation under God or…. multitude of nations under God? I noticed in Genesis 12:2, God originally said “I will make you into a great nation.” But in Genesis 17:4, He says “My covenant is with you, and you will be the father of a multitude of nations.”
Genesis 12 – great nation
Genesis 17 – multitude of nations, name changed to Abraham
God’s plan didn’t change. God just gave Abraham more information. ✍️The name change represents a change in Abraham’s understanding of God’s plan.
I see “Abrahamic Covenant” in a lot of readings and podcasts, and so many times the narrator assumes the reader/listener knows the details. We can’t know everything all the time, folks, so here’s a mini breakdown.
Genesis 12: God calls Abram and makes the initial promises
Genesis 15: God formally ratifies the covenant by passing between the sacrifices
Genesis 17: God confirms the covenant, changes Abram’s name to Abraham, institutes circumcision as its sign, and specifies that the covenant line will continue through Isaac.
The major promises of the Abrahamic Covenant includes themes that repeat throughout the Bible:
👨👩👧👦Descendants (“I will make you a great nation”)
🗺️Land (Canaan)
🙏Relationship (“I will be their God.”)
🌎Blessing to all nations (ultimately fulfilled through Christ)
Let’s face it. I’m a girl, so I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about circumcision. But when I read these passages, I always cringe a little and wonder “why circumcision”? These are my thoughts, and I will probably never address circumcision again in my life, so write this down!
✂️Circumcision was permanent, unlike an altar or a monument
👶It involves the organ of procreation. The covenant is about “descendants” and “offspring” and “future generations”, so this makes sense.
🩸Covenants in Scripture are usually connected with blood.
👴At the time of Abraham, it marked God’s people as distinct.
📜God literally says in Genesis 17:14 “…so my covenant shall be in your flesh as an everlasting covenant.”
I tried to work in a “call me Ishmael” joke here, but nothing really hit. Instead, we are going to compare and contrast Ishmael and Isaac very briefly below.
Ishmael – God promises blessings (17:20)
Isaac – God establishes the covenant (17:21)
Wait….what? Why was ISHMAEL circumcised? I said I was not going to study circumcision any more than I had to😬, but I could not understand this at all. So I dug a bit deeper because this was driving me nuts. 🥜 In a nutshell (see what I did there?), circumcision originally marked Abraham’s covenant household. It was never intended to be the only defining characteristic of God’s people. Ancient cultures like Egypt and other places already circumcised. Islam today practices circumcision. Today it isn’t the defining outward sign of God’s people anymore. Later in Scripture, the emphasis shifts from physical circumcision to the circumcision of the heart❤️🤍💗, which we will get to in Deuteronomy and Romans later.
Is Abraham bargaining with God about Sodom🏙️? It seems like it to me. We go from 🔢 50 → 40 → 30 → 20 → 10. Is Abraham haggling with a used car salesman here? I would have been afraid God would strike me down with a bolt of lightning⚡ if I disrespected Him this way. This is another thing I had to do some digging on. Felt like I needed to change my perspective. In short, this is not Abraham winning a negotiation with God. This is God demonstrating His patience, justice, willingness to listen, and His mercy🤲. (Genesis 18:22-33)
Day 18 – Genesis 19-21
Not sure I’ll ever use the phrase “yada, yada, yada” ever again, for real, though.🤔 Hebrew “yada” means “to know”. Many different contexts, but in the context of the men of Sodom wanting to “have relations” with the visiting angels (don’t sing it!….ok… I sang it), it is universally understood to mean “sexual relations.” And I don’t really care that the men of Sodom didn’t know they were angels. They shouldn’t have been thinking that mess anyway.
(Genesis 19:4-5)
Then Lot offers his daughters instead?😬 What a great Dad. #sarcasm I don’t love how women are treated in the Bible sometimes, but I have to accept it as historical truth. The Bible records but does not endorse. I thank God every day that I was born in 1970 America.
The angels told the group “do not look behind you” (19:17), but we know what happened to Lot’s wife. That she was turned into a pillar of salt 🧂seems extreme, but because the angels are the ones who said not look to look back, it was equal to a command from God. Therefore, her looking back was disobedience, not curiosity. Probably if Lot had told her not to look back, she would still be alive today…. 😉
🍷Nothing good seems to come from drinking wine….so far. Noah and Lot are doing it wrong. 🍷
🫣Abraham lied again. His recurring weakness seems to be fear for his own safety. He didn’t seem too concerned about what would happen to Sarah! See paragraph 2 above. Abraham threw her under the bus twice but apparently forgot God was the bus driver. Beep-beep!!! 🚌🚌 God stopped the bus and protected Sarah.
Had a big UFC cage match with Scripture today🥊… why did Abimelech’s entire household experience consequences for something he didn’t even know he was doing? This one sent me down a rabbit hole, and Jenny didn’t find a rabbit. I will keep wrestling.
🌳Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in 21:33 and called upon the name of “the Everlasting God”. Tamarisk trees still grow in Southern Israel. They survive the dry climate and can live for a very long time. Hmmm. An enduring tree for an enduring God. 🌳
Day 19 – Genesis 22-24
Tara-Leigh and I were on the same page today. Watch her video for Day 19 to cover most of the highlights that stood out to me, too. I have some extras, though.
✝️Wood, three-day journey, sacrifice…. Isaac does seem to prefigure Jesus.
🐑There’s “the” Angel of the Lord again! (“The”, not “a”). New Bible word unlocked: Christophany … a manifestation of Christ. It actually unlocked earlier, but I failed to note it.
You see that mountain over there? One of these days I’m gonna climb that mountain! Sing it with me now… That mountain was Mount Moriah. It is where Solomon built his temple, and it was where Jesus was crucified about 2,000 years later.
👑22:2, 22:12, 22:16 – Only son? Isaac isn’t Abraham’s only son. But he is the only son of the covenant…the promise.
I was struck by the fact that Abraham very willingly led his son to the slaughter with no question, yet previously, he was so unsure of God’s plan that he lied about Sarah being his sister twice. Hmmm. This is the same guy? That’s us, though. We don’t always grow in a straight line. Most of the time it looks like this. 📈📉📈📉📈 We grow, we stumble, we grow, we stumble, then one day we answer the call. That’s why we shouldn’t criticize each other and judge. “You’re a Christian?” Yep. I sure am.
I’m naming my next dog Hazo. Hazo Hassell. 😂🐶
Okay, okay, Moses, I get it. Abraham bought some land to bury his wife in. 🪦 This is the first piece of the Promised Land that Abraham legally owns. It’s just the beginning.
😳Hand under the thigh? What’s that about? It’s a respectful way of referring to the area of the male reproductive organs. Remember the circumcision discussion earlier? The covenant is about descendants and offspring….
The servant prayed before the big event.🙏 He didn’t wait to ask for God’s help after he messed it up. He wanted God’s hand in it so he wouldn’t mess it up. We need more of this!
Yeah…. Isaac and Rebekah were cousins…. once removed. And I had to look up “once removed” and it just means “a generation apart”. Sorry…. I don’t know everything, no matter what my Lake Friends think…. I do know that song link above says “ride a raft with ol’ Huck Finn”, though, not “ride around with ol’ Huck Finn”.
Day 20 – Genesis 25-26
Abraham remarried after Sarah’s death. So… hmmm…. which wife is he going to be reunited with in Heaven? I do know that Jesus said in Matthew (22:30) that people “neither marry nor are given in marriage” in the resurrection. So…. Jenny gonna leave this in the “lean not unto your own understanding” category (Proverbs 3:5)
Isaac and Ishmael buried Abraham together. I thought Ishmael got sent away. So… he came back? Did he and Isaac hang out and talk about days gone by? We don’t know. This is all the Bible tells us. One verse. We can’t invent details. We’ll just keep “leaning not” here, too.
I have absolutely nothing scholarly to add to the list of Ishmael’s or Isaac’s sons names except that they sound like Assassin’s Creed NPC names. I feel like I need to fire up the Xbox🎮 and go find Ishbak somewhere in the city so he can give me a side quest to “Go retrieve the sacred relic from the Cave of Midian”…. All jokes aside – Midian is a name to remember. Stay tuned.
One note, though. God kept his promise to Hagar (17:20). Ishmael had “twelve princes” (25:16). 🎵 Said one, two princes who adore you, that’s what I said now….🎵
I did notice that Moses lists Ishmael’s sons first. I thought that was odd. But I think Moses has a way of pruning the covenant line in a way that is sorely underappreciated. Ishmael is the opening act, and Isaac is the headliner.
I had forgotten Jacob and Esau were twins. That’s why we keep reading the Bible over and over. Put it in yo brain, Jenny!!🧠🤣
Esau sold his birthright for some stew??? So this is my breakdown. Esau cared nothing about his birthright. It’s just sitting in his garage with all those Washington Nationals t-shirts and caps, collecting dust, never to be worn again. Oh, you want that? Ok then. You can take it all. Just give me a Culver’s crispy chicken sandwich and we will call it even. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
God repeats the covenant to Isaac. Same words he used with Abraham. He is confirming the promises now belong to Isaac.
Other similarities in Isaac’s life as compared to Abraham’s include… the fear of calling his wife his wife! Like Abraham, he was afraid of being killed because somebody might want his wife. 🎵Some things will never change... that’s just the way it is😄
26:10 – Abimelech said of Isaac’s lie “One of the people might easily have slept with your wife (not knowing she was your wife!) and you would have brought guilt upon us.”
⚠️🤥I don’t know if Aesop covered this or not, but Jenny gonna. Don’t freakin’ lie. The lie doesn’t affect just you. It could cause other people to sin unknowingly, and that’s just flat out selfish. Don’t lie. The truth always hurts less than a lie.
Well, well, well…. Isaac keeps digging wells, and people keep arguing over them. Eventually he reaches one nobody fights over and names it “Rehoboth”, saying, “Now the Lord has made room for us.” (P.S. The Lord always makes room. Each of us has a right to space on this earth as long as we live. Don’t give up your space.)
Day 21 – Genesis 27-29
I already hear the staccato violins … Rebekah and Jacob lie and deceive Isaac, Esau wants to murder Jacob, Jacob flees, he loves Rachel but his uncle tricks him and …. I mean…. but then Leah has his children…. and this is literally a Netflix documentary….. who said the Bible was boring!?
Esau said Jacob “took away” his birthright, but just yesterday he gave away (or sold) his birthright for some red stew. My first thought was that these people are lying crybabies – BUT…. birthright and blessings aren’t the same thing. Esau did sell his birthright to Jacob, but that is the legal inheritance, the land, etc.
The blessing Issaac wanted to give to Esau was just that – he wanted to pass on the blessing of the covenant God gave to Abraham and later to him. 🙏
A footnote👣 in my Bible says “Jacob” means “he grasps the heel”. Esau and Jacob were twins, Esau was born first, and Jacob came second, grasping Esau’s heel. But “he grasps the heel” is a Hebrew idiom for “he takes advantage of” or “he deceives”… hmmm…. 🤔
Jacob’s Ladder – Jacob dreams of a ladder🪜 that reaches to Heaven where angels are ascending and descending. God appears at the top of the ladder and gives Jacob the same promise he gave to Abraham and Isaac – that He will multiply his descendants in the Land of Canaan.
“Complete her week” refers to Leah’s wedding celebration. 💍Kind of like our “birthday month” today…. 📅
Yes. 😳 Jacob was married to Leah and Rachel. I have so many questions… but I’m gonna “lean not”….
Today we saw the first four of the twelve tribes of Israel literally born…. (the tribes are named after Jacob’s sons).
— Reuben
— Simeon
— Levi*
— Judah👑
*Levi later receives priestly duties rather than a tribal land inheritance; also later, Joseph’s two sons split his inheritance, and that’s how we get to the twelve tribes.