Author: theparacleteshammer

My reading in Scripture has been taking me through Leviticus in the last several days, as the result of a challenge from the Rhode Island presbyter to read through the entire Bible, which I have done faithfully since our meeting with him and two others for my credentialing interview.  Bro. Rick Sfameni, if you are out there, this blog post is specifically for you, with apologies to Wave Nunnally if I somehow manage to butcher what I remember Mark Turnage telling me…
 
We will catch up to the Genesis account in a minute, but first…

One of my professors, who taught us Hebrew via the Living Biblical Language model, gave us an illustration that has stuck with me to this day.   In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Yeshua spoke to a lawyer who asked, in an attempt to find a loophole and so justify himself (typical lawyer):

“Who is my neighbor?”

We get through the story, and then as we get through the story, Mark says to our class, and I fully agree with this:

Yeshua dealt with the first and second command (which begin with the words “You shall love…”) and moves to an interesting application of the Torah.  In the Torah, there is only one other place where the L-rd uses that grammar fconstruction, “You shall love.”  It is in Leviticus 19:34. 

You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the L-RD your God. 

It seemed evident that Yeshua dealt with the two greatest commands and then moved to close the loophole of this lawyer by using the third command to love, to love the alien and stranger, as an application of the principle found in the second.  

The answer to this question, for my Southern brothers, is that “carpetbagging Yankee.” 
The answer to this question for my New England brothers, is that “dumb hick” whose ancestors you think were responsible for starting the Civil War(I say this as a proud Dixie native, “dumb hick” and rabid advocate of states’ rights).  
The answer to the impatient, road-raging driver is that idiot who cuts you off on I-91 as you hurry through 5:00 traffic, or in the rotary (called “roundabouts” in Dixie and the border states) on the way to church.  
The answer, husbands and wives, is your irritating spouse in the moment they display the most asinine behavior on planet earth on the way to church.  
The answer, parents, is your children, who wake you up daily at 6 am, after three hours’ sleep in order to yell at each other about toys an hour before you and they are supposed to get up (I say this as a father of two who do this on a regular basis).  
The answer, son-in-law and daughter-in-law, is your in-laws.  
The answer, FOX News disciple, is that Muslim you wished to G-d the government would profile, so you can get on with your life and hope to G-d he does not terrorize your plane, when in fact it could be someone with skin just as white as yours (I say this as a listener of FOX News).  
The answer, pastor, is that one person Sunday in and Sunday out whom you cannot stand but comes to you with what seems to you to be the most foolish question in the world each week (I say this as a future minister who has had plenty of practice in this, and has eaten his share of humble pie).


The alien and sojourner, the usurper (at least, in your eyes) is the one whom you are supposed to love. That is your neighbor.

What I discovered in this passage is that Yeshua is, in making Leviticus 19:34 an application of the second commandment, is covering love of aliens under the umbrella of things on which “all the law and the prophets hang.” This not only adds dimension to our understanding of the greatest commandments, but it also brings conviction.

Moreover, what Yeshua is saying, which was a recurrent theme of his ministry to the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and legal experts, is the following:

In their zeal to remain ceremonially clean and not defile themselves, the priest and Levite, in refusing to help their neighbor, this beaten man, fellow Israelite, broke the law.  They should have sloughed off their religious duties, duties which got the religious leaders into trouble with Yeshua on more than one occasion, helped the man, and dealt with being ceremonially unclean for a measly day or week.  Moral and ethical law trumps ceremonial law any day of the week and shows the heart of G-d for his people. 

Or put several ways from the mouth of Yeshua
 “Which of you, if his donkey falls in on the Sabbath, will he not pull it out?”
“You clean the outside of the cup and dish?”
“Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: …?”
“And why do you break the commandment of G-d for the sake of your tradition?”
“it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”

 The concern for ceremonial law in the eyes of G-d is  far less important than healing the withered hand, cleansing the leper, expelling demons, and raising the dead.  

Moreover, G-d used the example of the Samaritan to probe the depth of this legal expert’s heart.  He cut to the root of the issue with the meat and potatoes of the law, which was love of G-d and love of neighbor.  This Samaritan would have surely rankled the sensibilities of any expert of Jewish Torah.

Thoughts 

 

 

 Indeed.  Now that Jacob is ready, here comes the next part

Again, Jacob here is deceiving.  Esau was not deceived in the birthright.  The cunning hunter went for the quick and easy route.  He wanted the bowl of lentils, rather than the work of venison, which was tasty, and so reaped what he sowed.  Am I saying what Jacob did here was right or in any way justifiable.  Hardly.  Those of you who are ready to assume so, are missing something about the LORD himself.  His ways are higher, as one of my colleagues eagerly pointed out.  However, He does find ways to use the evil that we do, to bring about His purposes.  God and His character not once condones this.  In fact, the proof, as they say is in the pudding, and Jacob will spend the rest of His life reaping the consequences of his sin, like David, year after year.   His life, though he did receive the blessing of Isaac, was full of heartache, separation from family, and from children, because he played favorites, even into his old age, and even with the children of his favorite wife, Rachel, much in the same way Rebekah played favorites with him.  He learned this negative mechanism from his mother, who probably learned it from Laban, who will illustrate this attitude in a fuller light in a few chapters.  This attitude cost him, as we will see in the concluding chapters of Genesis.  


In other words, those who think God was in on this need to read this request for blessing in the context of, 1) Jacob’s deception of Isaac and 2) Jacob’s life after this point.  God was not in on Jacob receiving a blessing by deception.  God said Jacob would receive the blessing and to an extent the inheritance, but when God chooses to do something, He always does it above board and without trickery of any sort.  This is the part where Jacob is about to sow some mixed seed.  Had Rebekah waited, she could have had a blessed son and seen him grow into old age.  Instead, she short-circuited that God-ordered design and resulted to trickery in order to supplant Esau.  There is such a thing as legitimate supplantation.  But instead of waiting, she rushed in with an imperfect plan.  Yet, somehow, God still ended up being glorified in this plan, and His ends were still met, and He still knew what was in Esau and Jacob’s innermost hearts, which is why he wrote in Malachi “Jacob I loved, and Esau I hated.”

Lie number 2

Lie number 3.

Lie number 4.

I would argue that, from the text here at this point, Isaac still had his doubts about whether or not this really was his firstborn son.  “Please come close,…my son” (repeat of verse 21).

The last two lines of the prophetic blessing, 

More good lyrics from the Mark Stuart-led group of Psalmists…


I can’t stop till my body drops
And you know I’m not gonna be the one to sit it out
I clap my hands to the promise land
‘Cause the promise can
Yeah, the promise can
Yeah, the promise can keep me
Until my heart caves in


Did you hear that?  The promise can keep you until your heart caves in.  You have to clap your way to the promise land.  You have a promised land.  Don’t stop.  Don’t stop.  The Israelites, in one facet of their lives, chose not to embrace and cultivate a lifestyle and attitude of worship toward the Lord Himself.  


It’s all about cultivating a life that reflects our understanding of God as He truly is.  About dilligently seeking Him (Hebrew11:6), and in that lifestyle, entering into that place of rest, not hardening our hearts (Hebrews 4, Psalm 95).  Instead of worshipping, and standing of the truth of whom God was and is, the Israelites griped, complained, groumble, gritched, whined, bickered, tested, moaned, and played a bunch of drama kings and queens against the God of the universe.  No wonder He says He loathed that generation.  Their unbelief drove them to wickedness.  Even after God spent day after day after day, non-stop, speaking directly to Moses and the people.  


Even with the cloud, fire, miracles, signs, wonders, and destruction of their enslaving captors, they still complained it was not good enough.


Thoughts?

A fantastic song by a Xian classic rock group that is seemingly now defunct.  Some of the best lyrics in all of Xianity

Never been accused or been confused with a model on a cover page
Never could have been a superstar in the NBA
Can’t run that fast, never could break dance,
can’t jump a building in a single bound.
Anticipate
Can’t wait til I hear that sound

The sky splits
I move in
I let it freely take me

This must be
The moment
God picked to rearrange me

You and I want a new body
You and I want to fly

Crutches left on the ground
Body parts lost and found
Everybody gets to walk today

No more tears and evil fears
We will feel no more pain.

THIS is the only passage where we actually see Jacob overtly deceiving someone (unless there is another passage someone would like to point out to me) and in this case it was his own father.  I would like to post the passage and then some thoughts.  Let’s move on, shall we?

¹When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called Esau his older son and said to him, “My son”; and he answered, “Here I am.” ²He said, “Behold, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. ³Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me, ⁴and prepare for me delicious food, such as I love, and bring it to me so that I may eat, that my soul may bless you before I die.”

Isaac gets Esau ready to receive the family blessing, not being mindful of the prophecy God spoke to Rebekah concerning Jacob’s leadership.  We are not told if Isaac was made aware of the prophecy.  But we are made sure of one thing.  Once God speaks, typically nothing can hinder that which He speaks from coming to pass.

 ⁵Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, ⁶Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I heard your father speak to your brother Esau, ⁷‘Bring me game and prepare for me delicious food, that I may eat it and bless you before the LORD before I die.’ ⁸Now therefore, my son, obey my voice as I command you. ⁹Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats, so that I may prepare from them delicious food for your father, such as he loves. ¹⁰And you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.” ¹¹But Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “Behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. ¹²Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing.” ¹³His mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, bring them to me.”
 ¹⁴So he went and took them and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared delicious food, such as his father loved. ¹⁵Then Rebekah took the best garments of Esau her older son, which were with her in the house, and put them on Jacob her younger son. ¹⁶And the skins of the young goats she put on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. ¹⁷And she put the delicious food and the bread, which she had prepared, into the hand of her son Jacob.

My argument here is that God could have accomplished the blessing of Jacob without Rebekah and him resorting to deception and trickery.  Rebekah, like Sarah in the matter of Ishmael, did not trust God and resorted to her own devices in order to get Jacob the blessing of his father, a decision that caused Rebekah to lose out on seeing Jacob for potentially the rest of her life.  


Is that a result I would want to live with?  Not in a million years…

Go back and read the blog post on Jacob and Esau if you have not already.  


 ³⁴When Esau was forty years old, he took  Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite to be his wife, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite, 


³⁵and they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.

Off the subject, I just got done researching some interesting material on the location of Mt Sinai, that I will share when I get to Exodus.  It seems what we commonly think of as Mt. Sinai is not Mt. Sinai, at least from a plain reading of Scripture.  Galatians 4 will be a fascinating place to pick up.  

More water is found in the epilogue, which reinforces the name of the town.  Perhaps this latter blessing comes as a result of the covenants made in this portion.

Thoughts???