also known as
The First Book of Moses
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Genesis 1
Gen 1:1-2:3 – God spent a week on the creation process, spreading the work out over six days and resting on the seventh. Many men struggle to believe that God could have created the universe that quickly, but wise men ponder why He took His time. He must have had a good reason.
Gen 1:1 – The apostle John began his Gospel of Jesus with these same three words: “In the beginning.” This also is worth pondering why.
Gen 1:6-8 – We will see an echo of this separation of waters, achieved on the second day, in Exodus 14 when God separates the waters of the Red Sea so that the Israelites can escape Pharaoh’s oncoming army.
Gen 1:14-19 – This establishment of sun, moon, and stars (verse 16), achieved on the fourth day, is used as a metaphor for the nuclear family in one of Joseph’s dreams (Gen 37:9-11).
Gen 1:16 – The two lights foreshadow the two great revelations of God: 1) the God of the Old Testament (the Father), and the 2) the God of the New Testament (the Son). The OT was the time of “night” and the NT was the dawning of the “day.” The stars speak of the angels, who receded from sight with the coming of the day. In other words, the Son of God would outshine God Himself…because He was and is God Himself. Connect with Mal 4:2. Also correlate this foreshadowing with the foreshadowing of the twins Esau and Jacob, as the described in the BSN note on Gen 25:19-26 below.
Gen 1:26 – “Let us” is allusion to God and His Messiah (FJOT), who will not be revealed until New Testament times.
Gen 1:27 – Just as with the miracle of wine at the wedding in Cana (Jn 2:10), God saves the best ’til last. In this regard, see especially Gen 2:22.
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Genesis 2
Gen 2:7 – The Hebrew word for “being” in this verse means “soul.” This can be seen in Paul’s quotation of it in 1 Cor 15:45. The Bible often uses the term “breath” (like “wind”) as a metaphor for “spirit.” Thus in this verse we see a construct that is used throughout the Bible, though with various words to represent it. That construct is that a human being (a soul) is the union of spirit (breath) and flesh (dust). See Soul, Spirit, and Body.
Gen 2:22 – See note on Gen 1:27.
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Genesis 3
Gen 3:1 – This is the first temptation we see in the Bible, and it’s a doozy. The world is still being confronted with the first part of it every day: “Indeed, has God said?” As for the specific twist Satan is adding, God’s commandment is being exaggerated into an unreasonable requirement. God was only limiting access to a single tree, Satan tries to make Eve think He’s interfering with all her choices. Cain follows this same pattern in Gen 4:9 (see note below).
Gen 3:6 – Paul points out that the woman was deceived, but the man was not (1 Tim 2:14). This does not speak well for the man.
Gen 3:8 – Sin makes us afraid to go to God. How could Adam and Eve have known that God would willing to die on a cross for their sin (“crawl over broken glass” to have restored fellowship with them)? God came as Jesus that we might learn to run to Him when we sin – not away from Him.
Gen 3:14-19 – The curses that Adam’s and Eve’s behavior brought on all their descendants. Bad behavior brings bad consequences (curses); good behavior brings good consequences (blessings). You can correlate this passage with Act 3:26 which is also in today’s Bible reading plan. You can do the same with Gal 6:7-8.
Gen 3:15 – We would normally associate seed with the man, not the woman. But this seems a near-perfect way to foreshadow a virgin birth. That is, “her seed” refers to the Messiah (FJOT). This is the way God’s prophecies often work: like a riddle. That is, seemingly self-contradictory…until the answer to the riddle is revealed through the fulfillment of the prophecy. And then you realize it’s the obvious and only answer. (“What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries? A towel.”) Why does God prophesy this way? So that demons and humans can’t foil His plans. For if they understood in advance exactly how God was going to accomplish His purposes, they could undermine His plans. For example, as Paul implied in 1 Cor 2:8, had the enemies of Jesus known in advance that Messiah was to die by crucifixion, they’d have sought for some other means of killing Him.
Gen 3:21 – God, in His kindness, wanted Adam and Eve to have better covering than the fig leaves they had sewn together for themselves (Gen 3:7). Thus, while our bad behavior brings bad consequences, God’s consolations help us cope with those consequences. “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (Jas 2:13).
Gen 3:24 – The way to the tree of life is guarded here in the beginning of the Bible, but the way is opened wide at its end: the book of Revelation. See Rev 2:7; 22:1-2, 14-15, 18-19. Jesus Christ is the true tree of life. ***** See also Exodus 25:17-22 and accompanying BSN note about the cherubim images which were situated atop the ark of the covenant.
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Genesis 4
Gen 4:1-8 – It is so wonderful when the New Testament gives us direct insight into the Old Testament. In 1 Jn 3:11-13, the apostle John tells us that the reason Cain killed Abel is that Cain’s deeds were evil while Abel’s were righteous. In Mt 23:35, Jesus affirms that Abel was righteous and, in effect, calls him the first martyr. In Lk 11:49-51, Jesus calls Abel a prophet, though Genesis does not tell us any of Abel’s words. In Hebrews 11:4 and 12:24, the apostle Paul refers to Abel as an effective spokesman for God – though Paul doesn’t say whether he means through literal words or through his actions. In any case, Abel is clearly a type of Christ – the righteous man who dies not because of his own sin, but because of the sin of another (FJOT). Surely, Jesus had people like Abel in mind when He said in the beatitudes, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:10).
Gen 4:9 – Like Satan did in Gen 3:1, Cain exaggerates God’s requirement. God wasn’t requiring Cain to take of his brother as if he were a dependent – just not do him harm.
Gen 4:10-15 – God is striking Cain where it affects him the most – the ground, which is the source of his livelihood. That is, Cain becoming “a vagrant and a wanderer” because he’s lost his touch as a farmer is going to make it particularly hard for him to forget what he did to his brother.
Gen 4:10 – Abel’s blood is doing the talking. How much more does the blood of Jesus speak! Actions can be a particularly eloquent way of speaking (Heb 12:24; Rom 1:4).
Gen 4:25-26 – In Gen 3:15 (see note above), God had promised Eve a godly seed. With the death of Abel, it may have seemed that the hope of this promise being fulfilled was extinguished (which was, of course, Satan’s reason for inciting Cain’s anger against Abel). However, God gives Eve a replacement son to renew the hope, and then he himself has a son, thus giving Adam’s and Eve’s other descendants reason to “call upon the name of the Lord.” That is, God was making a name for Himself by the redemptive actions He was taking in a fallen world. God was not giving up on the world and walking away because sins like those of Adam, Eve, and Cain. He was establishing a hereditary line that would eventually result in a descendant strong enough to deal with the serpent (“the seed of the woman” – Gen 3:15). That said, no one back then could have been expected to foresee the cruelty of a Roman crucifixion and just how determined God would be to overcome evil with good (Rom 12:21.)
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Genesis 5
Genealogies are like birth certificates: nice to have but not fun to read in a stack. Biblical genealogies help us peer back into the early history of humanity, but their most important use is to verify that all the promises of God are inherited by the Messiah and that the identify of the Messiah can be verified. Messiah had to be able to trace his genealogy back to the individuals who had received promises from God. Otherwise, He would not be able to claim them as His inheritance (2 Cor 1:20). And through Christ, we ourselves become heirs to these promises (Gal 3:29) – “precious and magnificent” as they are (2 Pet 1:4). Let us not think lightly of them as Esau did.
The lifespans in this era before Noah’s flood make it hard for us to imagine what life was like for these people. God began limiting human lifespans as noted in the next chapter (Gen 6:3), and they declined even more after the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Although Moses lived until age 120, he writes in a psalm that 70-80 was the norm by his time (Ps 90:10), which was roughly 1500 BC. David, who lived around 1000 BC, created the book of Psalms, but the one called Psalm 90 appears to have been preserved from Moses’ time. It does not seem unusual that Moses would have written it because the songs in Ex 15 and Dt 32 are from him and they each read like psalms.
Because of the way the genealogies are written in the Bible, we can estimate ancient dates but it’s hard to be as precise about them as we can with modern dates. James Ussher (1581-1656) labored to produce a chronology of the entire Bible. It is still printed in some Bibles, usually in a King James Version. He pegs Adam’s creation around 4000 BC and Noah’s flood around 2400 BC.
Gen 5:4 – Cain was Adam’s firstborn, but he was bypassed in the messianic lineage because of his murdering his brother. This foreshadows others who will be bypassed in Messiah’s line: such as, Ishmael (giving up his place to Isaac) and Esau (giving up his place to Jacob).
Gen 5:21-27 – How interesting that the shortest lifespan in this list (Enoch) is positioned next to the longest (Methuselah).
Gen 5:24 – Enoch is a type of Christ (FJOT). For one thing, he “walked with God.” For another, his life was cut short compared to his contemporaries.
Gen 5:27 – This is the longest recorded lifespan in the Bible and explains the adage “Old as Methuselah.”
Gen 5:28-29 – Like Enoch, Noah was a type of Christ (FJOT). As you can see, Noah was “a son” who “gave us rest.” Thus is Jesus called “the Son of God, who said, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest,” (Mt 11:28), and who is even called “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mt 12:8; Lk 6:5) italics added.
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Genesis 6
Gen 6:1-4 – This is a difficult passage to understand and there’s only a little I can say about it. An “im” at the end of a Hebrew word indicates a plural the same way an “s” at the end of an English word indicates a plural. The word “Nephilim” means “giants.” The only two places this word appears in the Old Testament is here and Num 13:33. The term “sons of God” is not common in the Old Testament and seems to be a reference to angels – both good and evil, as in Job 1:6 and 2:1. Therefore, these four verses might suggest that angels intermarried with humans. On the other hand, the last sentence of verse 4 seems to speak positively of the Nephilim, which we would not expect if angels had intermarried with humans. On the contrary, we would expect such angels to be condemned (as we see in Jude 1:6), though it could be only that the descendants of such an intermarriage who were being commended. Another interpretation is that “Nephilim” and “sons of God” were being used figuratively to compliment certain humans, but then that doesn’t fit with the decadence of that age that led to the flood. There has long been controversy about how to interpret this passage. When I come to such a passage, for which there aren’t other passages elsewhere in the Bible to shed sufficient light on it, I don’t dwell on it. If God later sheds some knowledge on my ignorance, I’ll come back to the passage. I can’t act on a passage I don’t understand.
Gen 6:3 – Per what I wrote in the beginning of yesterday’s chapter notes, this is God deciding that human lifespans in the hundreds of years just weren’t working out in a fallen world. He felt an adjustment was necessary.
Gen 6:8 – Noah is a type of Christ – the one man doing right while all other men were falling short (as Heb 4:15 contrasts with Rom 3:23). (FJOT)
Gen 6:9 – That Noah “walked with the Lord” is an echo of what Moses said in the previous chapter said about Enoch – another type of Christ (see note above on Gen 5:24). (FJOT)
Gen 6:14-18 – I do not understand why people portray Noah’s ark as a ship with a contoured hull. It’s only requirement was to float, so I imagine it as looking more like a barge than a boat. It’s not as though Noah needed a vessel with sails or an outboard motor to navigate from one port to another – the whole earth was going to be covered with water!
Gen 6:19-20 – It’s interesting that God sent people and animals onto the ark as Jesus sent His disciples out to preach (Mk 6:7): in pairs. Focusing just on the ark, it’s also interesting how important the male-female distinction was in accomplishing the mission. Noah couldn’t afford to be confused about gender.
Gen 6:21 – As in Act 6:1, daily food is important. And as with physical food, so also with spiritual food (Mt 6:11) – thus we seek daily the bread of life Himself (Jn 6:48).
Gen 6:22 – Moses again highlights Noah as a type of Christ. (FJOT)
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Genesis 7
Gen 7:1 – A foreshadowing of Jesus, who was found the only one worthy to enter the ark of heaven. Yet He, like Noah, was allowed to take with Him everyone who was created through Him, which, since Jesus created everyone, was everyone.
Gen 7:2-3 – Since the “clean” animals were the edible ones, seven pairs instead of one pair would provide the needed food supply.
Gen 7:4 – Forty – like one, two, three, seven, and twelve – is one of those numbers God seems to use more often than others. We don’t always know why, but we ought to stay alert and see what He might teach us over time.
Gen 7:5 – Another foreshadowing of Jesus. Noah is a type of Christ. (FJOT)
Gen 7:11 – The “fountains of the great deep” and the “floodgates of the sky” remind us of how Gen 1:6-7 says that God “separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse.” It also reminds us of how Peter said “the earth was formed out of water and by water” (2 Pet 3:5). Noah’s family was saved between the waters as were the Israelites going through the Red Sea.
Gen 7:12 – This is fulfillment of what God had promised Noah in Gen 7:4. What God says, He does; what He promises, He fulfills. In other words, God is faithful. To be specific about it, He is faithful to His word. That’s all the more reason to read it.
Gen 7:17 – All the ark had to do was float. It did not have to go anywhere. There was nowhere to go. The whole earth was submerged.
Gen 7:20 – A cubit was about 18 inches, or you could say the distance from a man’s elbow to the tip of his fingers. Ancients were practical people – probably more so than modern ones.
Gen 7:21-23 – Because of our biblical illiteracy as a society, most people think of Noah’s flood in terms of chirpy songs and cheery stories told to children – but it was a terribly difficult experience for Noah’s family and, of course, a massive calamity for the world. As Peter quoted from Proverbs 11:31, “AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER? (1 Pet 4:18). This principle applies to all God’s deliverances in the earth, including the Passover in Egypt and passage through the Red Sea as well as the deliverances God may grant us in this age. Therefore, we can and should look to God for help getting through this life – but that doesn’t mean the ride won’t be bumpy at times. And therefore bumps shouldn’t make us panic and think He’s left us.
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Genesis 8
Gen 8:2 – See notes above on Gen 1:6-8 and 7:11 regarding the separation of waters.
Gen 8:6 – God uses forty again – as He did in Gen 7:12.
Gen 8:8-9 – This prompts us to think about the dove that descended on Jesus and did find a “resting place for the sole of her foot” (Mt 3:16-17, Mk 1:9-11; Lk 3:21-22). Something greater than Noah is here.
Gen 8:17 – This echoes God’s blessing in Gen 1:22, 28 (“Be fruitful and multiply”) and signals a new beginning for God’s creation through Noah. This, of course, foreshadows the new creation that Jesus ushered in for His family. That is, Noah’s flood foreshadowed the “great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will” (Mt 24:21). When that great tribulation was called to an end the earth truly did have a new beginning – far greater than the new beginning Noah marked. Because in His new beginning, Jesus Christ would be the king of creation – not the God humans had never really seen until Jesus revealed Him by the life He lived. (Jn 1:18)
Gen 8:20-22 – The order of days, nights, and seasons are taken for granted by secular man. Though modern science was pioneered by God-fearing men like Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) and Isaac Newton (1643-1727), it was in the grip of secularists by the 19th century. Thus could Charles Darwin announce to the world in the 1850’s that order flows naturally out of chaos and be made a pillar of the profession instead of a pariah. Evolutionists are like parents who tell themselves that a child’s bedroom will get straight if the parents just stay mum and wait long enough.
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Genesis 9
Gen 9:1 – For emphasis, the renewal of the creation mandate – “Be fruitful and multiply” = is repeated from the previous chapter (see note on Gen 8:17 above). Just as Adam was entrusted with the earth and given a charge to manage it, so Noah is given that same charge over a new earth – cleansed from the evil that had plagued it. However, just as Adam blew it, so Noah will blow it.
Gen 9:8-17 – A rainbow should inspire us to remember this exchange between God and Noah every time we see one. Alas, Satan has commandeered that symbol in our day and is using it to torment us as the citizens of Sodom tormented Lot. Such things should not be. Let us pray until the present situation is reversed.
Gen 9:18-19 – We should remember that just as every human being is descended from Adam, so also are we all descendants of Noah. (“Can’t we all just get along?”) We should also recognize that tracing our lineage to Noah and Adam means that all ignorance of God is the result of one generation not teaching the next what was known about God…over and over, generation after generation. Therefore, the quantity of knowledge the world has about God is a function of how much parents have or haven’t taught their children about Him. How then can a father or mother feel unimportant?
Gen 9:20-27 – Just as Adam had no good excuse for eating the forbidden fruit, so Noah had no good excuse for getting drunk. But we can hardly condemn them since we have sins of our own we can’t justify or even explain.
Gen 9:28-29 – At 950 years, Noah’s lifespan comes in third to Methuselah’s (969 per Gen 5:27) and Jared’s (962 per Gen 5:20). After the flood, lifespans would begin to decline dramatically, just as God had said in Gen 6:3.
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Genesis 10
Gen 10:1-32 – This chapter consists entirely of genealogies – specifically, those proceeding from Noah and his three sons.
Gen 10:6 – See note on verses 15-20 below.
Gen 10:8-9 – One of the recurring themes we’ve seen in Genesis so far is that division of labor has been a fact of life since the beginning. Nimrod is a hunter as Abel was a keeper of flocks and Cain was a tiller of the ground (Gen 4:2). When humans divide labor it fosters trade, which means economic growth for all concerned. God did not create us to be hermits and live in the isolation of complete self-sufficiency. We benefit from interdependency as a culture just as we benefit from it as members of a family. Of course, a balance must be maintained because too much dependency is unhealthy. But if God gave us a sense of balance to keep us from falling over when we walk, He can give us a sense of balance when it comes to interdependency with each other. That balance starts with respecting boundaries, whether inside the family or outside it.
Gen 10:15-20 – Including verse 6, these verses identify the tribes that descended from Noah through Ham through Canaan. Some of these tribal names will be repeated multiple times in the many chapters to come because these are the tribes that were dwelling in the land of Canaan when the Israelites came to dispossess them – the tribes that the Israelites did not fully drive out, and who therefore caused problems.
Gen 10:21-31 – Abraham came from the line of Shem. Shem’s descendants were called Shemites, later modified to Semites. For this reason, if someone is against the descendants of Abraham they are said to be anti-semitic (even though technically one would expect such a term to apply to all the descendants of Shem and not just those of Abraham). In similarly curious fashion, the descendants of Eber (sometimes rendered Heber) – another ancestor of Abraham mentioned in verse 21 – came to be known as Hebrews. That is, one’s expectation that the term Hebrew ought to apply to more folks than just the descendants of Abraham is not borne out. To round this all out, I should add that Abraham and his descendants, in addition to being referred to as Semites and Hebrews, are also referred to as Jews even though that name came from Judah who was Abraham’s grandson. Thus all three of the most common terms for Abraham and his posterity – Semites, Hebrews, and Jews – come from Abraham’s relatives rather than from Abraham himself. You’d think they’d be called Abrahamites – but I’ve never heard anyone use that term. I know of no spiritual significance to any of this; it all seems to flow just from the quirks of human communication.
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Genesis 11
Gen 11:1-9 – It is so helpful to us that the story of the Tower of Babel is told in the book of Genesis. It demonstrates a recurring pattern in human history and we certainly see it now with the rise of globalism, especially since World War II. Globalists are all speaking one language now, but the Lord will bring that to an end. That’s the way the pattern works.
Gen 11:4 – This is disobedience to a direct order from God, for His creation mandate was that Adam’s descendants “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth…” (italics added).
Gen 11:5 – This foreshadows the incarnation – that is, God coming to earth as a man.
Gen 11:6-8 – And this foreshadows what would happen when God came as a man. First, He would confuse their language, and thus Jesus polarized Jews and then Gentiles (per Simeon’s prophecy in Lk 3:34-35). Second, because of the polarization, the people were scattered and the gospel was allowed to “fill the earth.”
Gen 11:9 – From this name “Babel” comes “Babylon.” It’s also fitting that it sounds like the English word “babble.” Etymologists disagree about whether this English word came from the Hebrew word or elsewhere, but it is fitting in any case.
Gen 11:10-30 – This genealogy gets us from Shem to Abram (whose name will later b e changed to Abraham). It also unpacks the lineage from Shem to Eber (Gen 11:10-17) that we saw compacted in Gen 10:21.
Gen 11:27-32 – From this passage, we see that Lot was Abram’s nephew. We also see Lot’s father dying prematurely led to Lot coming under the wing of his grandfather Terah. When Terah died, Abram filled his shoes by continuing to look out for Lot from that point on, much as Mordecai would later look out for his cousin Esther (Est 2:7).
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Genesis 12
At this point in Genesis, the book shifts focus. Gen 1-11 has been about the human race as a whole, describing certain pivotal individuals and incidents. But going forward, the focus will be on one man and his descendants: Abraham. (He will continue to be called by his birth name “Abram” until Gen 17 when God gives him the name “Abraham.”) From this one man, God is going to painstakingly work out His plan to save the world. This plan will be consummated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. About 1,500 years elapsed between Abram and Jesus. God is patient and when He wants to do something really big, He starts really small. Think acorn to oak tree.
Abram is a model for all of us as men. He took fathering seriously…and played the long game. That is, he didn’t just focus on his son, he focused on God’s broader plan as revealed in the promises He was making.
Gen 12:1-3 – Although it’s not spelled out, these promises to Abram are built on the foundation of the promises God had made to Eve and Noah. All the promises of God in the Bible flow through inheritance to Jesus Christ – descendant of Eve, Noah, and Abram – and then through Him to the whole world (2 Cor 1:20). Therefore, when you see a promise of God in the Bible, think “How does this apply to Jesus?” and through that thinking you can come to see how it applies to you.
Gen 12:4 – “So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him” equates to “Noah did according to all that the LORD had commanded him” (Gen 7:5). This is the pattern that faithful men follow. It is the key to their success in things that matter.
Gen 12:5-7 – This is Abram playing the long game for his descendants’ benefit. He had broken up housekeeping to be a sojourner in the land of Canaan so that his descendants could one day settle down in it. He knew that neither he nor his son would ever own a permanent home in it, but he wanted his descendants to have that opportunity – and he was willing to live in tents to secure that opportunity for them. Of course, the ultimate prize was that Abram’s special descendant – who would come to be known as “the Messiah” – would one day permanently possess not only this land of Canaan but the whole earth as well. And the rest of the universe, too! Visible and invisible. If that’s not really small to really big, I don’t know what is.
Gen 12:9 – “Negev” refers to the desert land of southern Israel and beyond. Egypt was nearby, to the southwest. Thus the hardship of famine in the land of Canaan (a sign of the Canaanites’ sinfulness) was eased for Abraham by the proximity of a country unaffected, at least at that time, by famine. We may at times feel were are in a godforsaken place, but God has stores for us nearby – as we will see more dramatically in Gen 22 when God provides a nearby ram to substitute as a sacrifice in Isaac’s place. That the blessing of God was on Abraham did not mean that his road in life had no bumps – just that God provided him shock absorbers for the unavoidable bumps (“difficulties”).
1 Pet 4:18 AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER?
1 Pet 4:19 Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.
Gen 12:10 – This foreshadows the migration of Jacob (Abram’s grandson) and his sons to Egypt.
Gen 12:17 – This foreshadows the plagues God would bring on Egypt through Moses.
Gen 12:20 – This pharaoh (king) was persuaded to let Abram’s bride go more easily than Moses’ pharaoh was persuaded to let the Lord’s bride (Israel) go. The old covenant portrayed Israel as the Lord’s betrothed in the Old Testament, just as the new covenant portrayed the church as the Lord’s betrothed in the New Testament. In the kingdom of God – which is the eternal age in which we find ourselves – the entire human race is his bride. Alas, we are behaving like Vashti (see Esther 1), only much worse. Satan – like a pharaoh – is always tempting people on earth to disregard their covenant with God.
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Genesis 13
Gen 13:1-4 – Leaving Egypt, Abram and crew travel north through the desert (Negev) back to the land of Canaan. All this time, he is living in tents, having left his homeland and relatives at God’s leading. Heb 11:8-10 says he was doing all this “by faith” in the promises of God.
Gen 13:5-12 – This incident reveals Abram to be a peacemaker and why Jesus would include peacemakers in His beatitudes (Mt 5:9). Strife, because it is the opposite of peace and of order, is evil, but, worse than that, it is also the breeding ground for every other kind of evil (Jas 3:16 KJV – the NASB uses “selfish ambition” for “strife”).
Gen 13:9 – Lot misses an opportunity to show respect to his elder. He could have responded, “Please, Uncle Abram, you’ve looked out for me and I want you to choose the land you want and I will be the one to take what’s left over. Thus the strife (disorder) that was present in the herdsmen of Abram and Lot was rooted in Lot’s selfish heart. Abram, by contrast, was very humble and more interested in avoiding strife than in getting his way.
Gen 13:10-13 – Lot compounds his mistake by choosing his portion of the land unwisely. By that I mean that he chose according to physical appeal instead of spiritual appeal. Specifically, he chose the place that was well watered everywhere (verse 10) even though it was populated by exceedingly wicked sinners (verse 13). Which would have been a better place for raising his family? Lot was obviously making the choice based more on how it would affect his life than how it would affect the lives of his children. Lots of Lots in the 21st century.
Gen 13:11 – When agreement cannot be achieved, separation is the only remaining solution to strife.
Gen 13:14-17 – Abram not only now gets peace, he also receives his reward from God for being a peacemaker. Lot chose the best land, but was only able to occupy it temporarily. Abram, on the other hand, while his reward was deferred, would receive all the land and receive it eternally! That Abram was not receiving it personally was no problem to him because he was all about subordinating his good to the good of his offspring.
Gen 13:18 – With his peaceful heart restored, Abram happily moves his double-wide to its next resting place. Similarly, God let Satan have his way in the garden of Eden, and then reclaimed it…along with the rest of the earth and the entire universe…forever…through Jesus Christ.
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Genesis 14
Gan 14:1-12 – In this passage, Moses reports of a war between two alliances: an alliance of five cities including Sodom and Gomorrah, and an alliance of four cities. Because Abram’s nephew Lot lived in Sodom, he and his family got caught up in this conflict and were captured.
Gen 14:13-16 – Abram had become so wealthy by this time that he had the resources to put together his own small army to rescue his relatives. He even had his own alliance (with Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre)! Abram could have left his nephew to his own devices for choosing Sodom in the first place – just like God could have left us in our sins. But godly character doesn’t forsake loved ones just because they choose stupidly. God was with Abram and the rescue mission was successful. Blood is thicker than water, and Jesus’ blood is the thickest of all.
Gen 14:17 – See note on verses 21-24 below.
Gen 14:18-20 – There’s only three places in the Bible that we hear about Melchizedek: here, Psalm 110, and Hebrews 5-7. Psalm 110 was a messianic psalm written by David that incorporated a reference to Melchizedek as a type of Messiah (FJOT). In Hebrews 5-7, Paul emphasizes ways in which Melchizedek foreshadowed the Christ – including the fact that “Melchi-” means king, “-zedek” means righteousness, and “Salem” means peace. This results in “the king of righteousness and peace,” which Jesus has surely proven to be! Jesus even “brought out bread and wine” (in the Last Supper) just like Melchizedek. And this is the way the Old Testament is: chock-full of “snapshots” of Jesus Christ so that we can grow in our appreciation of just how important and wonderful He is! Remember that the apostles didn’t even need the New Testament to preach Jesus because He opened their eyes to see Him prophesied and foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament. We, however, need the New Testament because we wouldn’t know about the apostles’ insight into the Old Testament without it.
Gen 14:21-24 – Abram had achieved wealth in life, but it was through the blessing of God – not through conniving and corruption. And thus Abram bore a good witness to the king of wicked Sodom by voicing his sufficiency in God and refusing even a “shoestring of a shoe” from Sodom’s treasury. Abel, Noah, and Abram each testified of righteousness to his respective generation – just like the Messiah they were foreshadowing testified of it to His generation. It was a testimony of righteousness like no other, and we have the four Gospels to document it.
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Genesis 15
Gen 15:1-3– God offers Abram a word of encouragement but Abram has given up of having a child of his own and assumes that the way God is going to fulfill His promise is through making Abram’s most prized servant the “descendant” through whom God’s promises to Abram will be passed on as an inheritance.
Gen 15:4-6 – God insists that Abram is actually going to have a child, and Abram takes God at His word.
Gen 15:7-16 – Abram asks God for some assurance about His promises about an heir, descendants, and a land for them to dwell in. God obliges, reinforcing what He has previously said to Abram…and adding details. It’s clear that for God to clear the Canaanites out of the land at this time would be to execute judgment on their sins prematurely. God gives time for people to repent (Rom 2:1-11). ***** Abram didn’t even have a single son at this time but in 400 years, his male descendants would form an army of over half a million under Moses. Like a human being formed in a woman’s womb before being brought into the world, Abram’s descendants would grow in size until the Exodus marked their bursting forth into the world – including a breaking of water, which is normally associated with childbirth (Red Sea). ***** God is not just informing the recipient of a promise about how the promise will play out, He is also demonstrating a pattern. That pattern is that He informs His prophets of His plans. That is, Abram was a prophet (Gen 20:7), and “Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:8). This is how Isaiah and Jeremiah could predict the destruction of Jerusalem that occurred in 586 BC and how Jesus could predict the greater destruction of Jerusalem that occurred in 70 AD. ***** Abram didn’t have a Bible as we do (or even as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Jesus had), so God gave him a very memorable experience that day to impress the promise and its details deeply into his memory. In the warfare of faith, it’s never what we don’t know that hurts us – it’s what we forget. As long as we remember the promises of God, we have something to hold on to.
Gen 15:16, 18-21 – There were many tribes inhabiting Canaan (the promised land) in those days. Sometimes the Bible refers to them simply as Canaanites, but other times specific tribal names will be mentioned along with, or in place of, the simple name Canaanites – as is the case in this passage. The Jebusites, for example, were centered in the well-fortified city of Jebus, which David would ultimately conquer and rename as Jerusalem. Some of these tribes were subsets of the Canaanites, but some were not. The point is that Canaan was not a united kingdom. It was much like North America when it was settled by Europeans – full of many various Indian tribes who were not united as a single nation.
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Genesis 16
Gen 16:1-2 – In Gen 15, Abram began to wonder if God was going to fulfill His promises by making one of Abram’s servants his heir. In this chapter, Sarai thinks maybe having one of her maids be a surrogate mother for Abram’s heir is the path God wants them to take. You can at least commend Abram and Sarai for believing enough in God’s promises to be looking for ways they can be fulfilled. Alas, Sarai will turn out to be as wrong as Abram was about the path to fulfillment.
Gen 16:3-5 – By taking on God’s promises as a DIY project, Abram and Sarai only made each other more miserable. ***** The negative dynamic we see on display in verse 4 between Hagar and Sarai is the same one we see between Peninnah and Hannah in 1 Sam 1:4-8. Bearing a child – that is, bringing a human being into the world – is a profound thing; its effects on the parties involved cannot be easily dismissed.
Gen 16:6 – Once again, as with Lot, since reconciliation couldn’t be achieved, separation becomes the solution to strife.
Gen 16:7-12 – Hagar receives mercy from the Lord. As Jews are descended from Abraham through Isaac, so Arabs are descended from Abraham through Ishmael. Yet the messianic line was through Isaac, not Ishmael. (Also, not every person with an Arabic orientation today traces ancestry back to Ishmael. There have been mixtures of Arabic peoples over the centuries.) If God chooses one, it is for the benefit of the whole – not the one. ***** To receive God’s mercy, Hagar needs to return to Sarai or else she and Ishmael will perish in the desert. Plus, with Sarai, Hagar and her son will have all the protection and provision of the wealthy Abram. Thus Hagar’s situation illustrates the direction Peter gave to servants who were treated harshly by their masters in 1 Pet 2:18-20 – that God would favor those who, for His sake, would “bear up under sorrows when suffering unjustly.” Like Joseph, Hagar and her posterity would be blessed by God because she kept doing what was right under unpleasant circumstances.
Gen 16:13-14 – The NASB translators’ footnote on verse 14 says “Beer-lahai-roi” literally means “the well of the living one who sees me.” What a word! This term foreshadows what we have inherited in the kingdom of God. The “living one who sees me” is Jesus Christ (Lk 24:5; Rev 1:18), and the well is the Holy Spirit speaking in our hearts on Jesus’ behalf (Jn 4:13-14; 7:37-39). Hagar demonstrates that it’s better to get the loser’s consolation prize from God than the very best of whatever the world has to offer. ***** For more on this never-failing source of water (“fountain of living water”) see Jer 17:3 and the accompanying BSN notes.
Gen 16: 15-16 – Abram was 75 years old when we first see God speak to him in Gen 12. Now he’s 86. Along the way, we’ve seen God speak more and more specifically about His promises and how they would play out in Abram’s life. We’ve also seen Abram get antsy and try to fulfill the promises himself and how that hasn’t worked out for him. Through it all, however, Abram has maintained his faith in God. He has never given up believing that God’s promises would be fulfilled one way or another. That was his key to success and that is something we should go to school on.
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Genesis 17
Gen 17:1 – Abram was 75 years old when we first see God speaking to him about leaving his home for a peripatetic life in the land of Canaan (Gen 12:4). Then he was 86 when Hagar bore Ishmael to him (Gen 16:16). Now he’s 99. He kept the faith those 24 years, apparently only hearing from God occasionally.
Gen 17:2 – The last time we heard the word “covenant” was when God was making promises to Noah after the flood (Gen 9). All mentions of God’s covenant are laying the groundwork for “the new covenant” that God would establish through His Messiah – Jesus our Lord.
Gen 17:4-8 – God doubles down on His promises to Abram. This is emphasized in Abram’s new name, for while the word “Abram” meant “exalted father,” the word “Abraham” meant “father of a multitude.” What a way to talk to a 99yo!
Gen 17:9-14 – See note on Gen 17:23-27 below.
Gen 17:15 – Abraham’s wife gets a name change to go along with his.
Gen 17:18 – Abraham can’t quite figure out what God is going to do with this aged couple, so he again puts forward Ishmael, hoping it will “make things easier” for God to keep His promise.
Gen 17:21 – This moment is huge! For the first time, God attaches a time frame to the promise of a child. And the child is given a name in advance. And it’s going to be a boy. Babe Ruth calling his shot is not even worthy to be compared to this.
Gen 17:22 – This verse foreshadows Acts 1:9, where Jesus ascended into heaven after speaking with His disciples. More broadly, it foreshadows what happened in the book of Acts after all that happened in the four Gospels.
Gen 17:23-27 – See CIRCUMCISION. Given the importance ascribed to this rite for Abraham and those associated with him, it’s not altogether surprising to see why some Jews kept wanting to circumcise Gentile believers in Act 10-15 and elsewhere in the New Testament. But those Jews were just slow to catch on to the fact that the old covenant was of the flesh and the new covenant was of the spirit – and this distinction applied to everything in the Law of Moses, including circumcision. Paul tried to make this point preemptively in the letter he sent to the Roman church – populated by both Jewish and Gentile believers – before he ever visited there.
For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly,
nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.
But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart,
by the Spirit, not by the letter;
and his praise is not from men, but from God.
– Rom 2:28-29
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Genesis 18
Gen 18:1-33 – We can consider the first and last verses of this chapter as bookends, defining what’s in between as a visitation from the Lord. I say this because “the Lord appeared” in Gen 18:1 and “the Lord departed” in Gen 18:33. To be more specific about the contents in between, it seems that the Lord is appearing to Abraham and Sarah accompanied by two angels (Gen 18:22; 19:1), collectively described as “three men” in Gen 18:2. The contents of the chapter between the two bookends focus successively on three different subjects: 1) Abraham’s hospitality to his guests, 2) Sarah and the child to come, and 3) the fate of Sodom, Gomorrah, and its citizens.
Gen 18:2-8 – Abraham’s hospitality to the visitors shows the utmost respect. Hebrews 13:2 may not be speaking directly to this incident, but certainly speaks of events like it, and like the one in Judges 13 where an angel appears as a man to Manoah’s wife and later Manoah about a child they would raise for the Lord (Samson).
Gen 18:9-15 – In the previous chapter, we read of how God told Abraham that Sarah would bear him a son within a year. We are not told whether or not Abraham conveyed this information to Sarah. Therefore, we don’t know quite how to assess her faith and doubts in this chapter. In any case, the Lord confirms the key facts about the coming miraculous birth that He had previously disclosed.
Gen 18:12 – Lest we be too critical of Sarah, many centuries after this, the apostle Peter would pick up on Sarah’s reference to Abraham as her “lord” in this verse and write this: “For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands; just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear (1 Pet 3:5-6, italics added). All the writers of Scripture were knowledgeable about, and deeply interested in, the Scripture written before them.
Gen 18:16-32 – This section is about Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham probes to find how God’s judgment and mercy share space in His plans. Abraham learned from Noah that God always makes a carve-out in His judgments for those who fear Him. In the end, Abraham learns that these two cities had become so wicked that there weren’t even ten good men left there. In the next chapter, we’ll see how things play out for the two cities and for Lot’s family.
Gen 18:17-18 – See note above on Gen 15:7-16 about Amos 3:8. God keeps His prophets informed about what He’s doing.
Gen 18:19 – This verse presents a good model. Every man should aspire to walk in Abraham’s shoes for such a journey with his own family. Good reinforcement can be found in Act 3:25-26. A man should teach his family righteousness and that comes from the Lord, who is Jesus Christ.
Gen 18:20-21 – This passage foreshadows the incarnation. That is, we see the outline of God’s visit to earth to see firsthand if we’re as evil as all that. The apostle John follows this outline when he effectively answers the question with John 1:9-11…but we can sure be thankful that it’s followed by verse 12. That’s the carve-out.
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Genesis 19
Gen 19:1-3 – The opening of this chapter offers similarities and contrasts between Lot and his uncle Abraham. Abraham was sitting by his tent in the heat of the day; Lot was sitting by the city gate in the evening. Lot showed the same kind of hospitality to the visitors that Abraham had, but not to the same degree. Throughout the chapter we’ll see one contrast after another between Lot and Abraham, and they all point to the worthiness of Abraham and the unworthiness of Lot. We will also see contrasts between Lot and Noah, wherein Noah appears worthy of God’s deliverance and Lot appears unworthy of it. The main thing Lot had going for him was…Abraham.
Gen 19:4-7 – The men of Sodom show themselves to be thoroughly evil. Abraham and Lot show kindness and offer protection to strangers while the Sodomites seek to abuse and humiliate them. This helps us understand and appreciate why the time for judgment of Sodom has come and God would be unjust to wait any longer for them to repent.
Gen 19: 8 – Is this a rational offer by Lot or is he just babbling out of fear? Does he assume the orientation of the crowd means his daughters are at no real risk of his offer being accepted? We don’t know what he was thinking, but Peter said Lot was “…oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds)” (2 Pet 2:7-8). Therefore, that he wasn’t thinking clearly is about the kindest thing we can say.
Gen 19:9 – Although Lot had attained a measure of acceptance and respect among the Sodomites (not just anyone could be seated at the city gate), he’s showing his true colors now as far as the locals are concerned…and they don’t like it one little bit. All of a sudden, they’re Cain and he’s Abel – making them look bad just by being around.
Gen 19:10-11 – I know it’s confusing when Moses goes back and forth calling the two visitors men one minute and angels the next, but clearly they have abilities that mortal men do not.
Gen 19:12-14 – These sons-in-law remind us of what Jesus said about the judgment that would come on Israel. He said it would be like it was with Noah: business as usual “until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all” (Lk 17:27). We see this attitude in people today. They laugh at us who fear God and honor marriage. They do not know what’s coming.
Gen 19:15 – “And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner?” (1 Pet 4:18) Sure, it was inconvenient for Lot and his family to have to pull up stakes and leave town, but when the only alternative is complete destruction, what’s there to complain about? This is go time. The door’s closing on the ark and there’s no time to waste getting on board.
Gen 19:16 – “But he hesitated.” This reveals Lot’s fundamental problem: he was double-minded. He wanted to serve God and mammon. That’s what brought him to Sodom in the first place. Lot was a man who wanted to do right…but he was weak and undisciplined of heart. He was always bargaining, trying to please two masters.
Gen 19:17-22 – Lot again demonstrates that he won’t follow simple, straightforward instructions from lifeguards who obviously know how to save a drowning man. Instead, Lot keeps bargaining.
Gen 19:23-25 – The day of judgment for Sodom comes. God was patient and offered plenty of time for repentance. But when people keep ignoring His warnings, there will come a time when the warnings cease and judgment falls. This is the future to which America is headed…at an ever-increasing pace. Peter and Jude both warned us that Sodom was an example to be heeded by all cultures: 2 Pet 2:6 and Jude 1:7.
Gen 19:26 – One of the angels had explicitly said, “Do not look behind you.” Sarah may have laughed when she heard that she was going to have a baby at 90, but she wasn’t defying angelic instructions as Lot’s wife was! Like Sodom, Lot’s wife is an example for us. Jesus said, “Remember Lot’s wife!” (Lk 17:32)
Gen 19:27-29 – As Abraham was the reason Lot was able to avoid disaster, so Jesus is the reason we are able to avoid disaster.
Gen 19:30-38 – As in the aftermath of Noah’s flood, drunkenness, foolishness, and perversity spoiled what should have been a fresh start. The only time we should let down our guard is once we’re on the other side of the heavenly gates.
…In the world you have tribulation, but take courage;
I have overcome the world.”
– John 16:33
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Genesis 20
Gen 20:1-18 – This story is similar to the one in Gen 12:10-20, with Abraham and Sarah reprising their roles while Abimelech follows the role of Pharaoh. There are, however, some noticeable differences in the stories. For one, God brought plagues on Pharaoh and his house, but Abimelech got off with a warning. Further, Abimelech demonstrated himself to be a righteous and God-fearing man – perhaps even more so than Abraham. This situation with Abimelech is all the more sensitive because the heir – Isaac – is going to be born this year and there must be no doubt about who his father is. For if Abraham is not clearly the father, then God’s faithfulness to His covenant with Abraham could be called into question.
Gen 20:4 – Abimelech expresses what seems to be a widespread belief at the time: that God would bring down a nation only for just cause. Sodom and Gomorrah (as mentioned in Gen 19 and elsewhere) were certainly examples of this, and Canaan (as mentioned in the book of Joshua and elsewhere) would be another.
Gen 20:7 – This is the first mention of the word “prophet” in the Bible.
Gen 20:17 – Abraham uses his special relationship with God to help others, which foreshadows his greatest descendant: Jesus.
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Genesis 21
Gen 21:1-2 – God’s faithfulness to Abraham documented. He kept the promises He’d made to Abraham – even down to the specifics of Sarah’s role and the timing (Gen 17:21; 18:10, 14).
Gen 21:3 – Abraham’s faithfulness to God documented. Abraham named the child as he had been instructed (Gen 17:19). No wonder God and Abraham were called friends (2 Chr 20:7; Is 41:8; James 2:23).
Gen 21:4 – Like Noah (Gen 6:22), Abraham did as God commanded him (Gen 17:12). From one end of the Bible to the other, that formula for success never fails.
Gen 21:5 – One hundred is a nice round number. And having a child at the age of 100 certainly qualifies as a miracle. But everything God does is wondrous. We only call those things miracles that He does less frequently. For example, in the age of the patriarchs before Noah’s flood, men would routinely have a child at advanced ages. For example, Jared was 162 before he had Enoch (Gen 5:18) and Methuselah was 187 before he had Lamech (Gen 5:25). And that’s just their age at the birth of their firstborns. How old were they when they had their last child?! We shouldn’t be lulled into thinking that if God performs a wonder less frequently it must mean it’s harder for Him. The only reason we aren’t gobsmacked by sunrises is that He does them every day.e Life itself is a miracle – right down to the breathing.
Gen 21:6-7 – The laughter has taken a different tone now (Gen 18:9-15). Before, Sarah laughed out of incredulity; now she laughs out of joy.
Gen 21:9-14 – The strife between Hagar and Sarah returns (Gen 16). The last time, it was Hagar who stirred the pot (Gen 16:4), this time it’s Ishmael. Since Abraham was 86 when Ishmael was born (Gen 16:16) and he’s 100 now (verse 5 in this chapter), that means Ishmael is currently about 14 – so it’s no surprise he might be shooting off his mouth. Plus, it was a dynamic as old as Cain and Abel. Abraham was understandably troubled that Sarah wanted Ishmael sent away, but God assured him that He was going to provide. Abraham trusted his Friend.
Gen 21:15-19 – Out in the wilderness and out of water, Hagar seems to have forgotten about the mercy God showed her the last time something like this happened – including the promise He made to her about her son (Gen 16). She gives in to despair and braces herself for the death of her son – something any parent would dread deeply because it’s out of order for a child to die before a parent. But God shows her mercy once again and renews His promise about her son. God didn’t dig a well for her; rather, He opened her eyes to one that was already there (“Then God opened her eyes…”). So often, that thing we need is right in front of us but fear blinds our eyes…until God opens them. The prophet Jeremiah spoke of this (Jer 17:5-8, especially verse 6 where he says “will not see when prosperity comes”).
Gen 21:20-21 – Abraham and Sarah had made a mistake with Hagar, but their intentions were not evil. They believed in God’s promise; they were just struggling to figure out how it was going to be fulfilled. Sure, they should have trusted the Lord more, but the Lord was not going to forsake His promise to Abraham regarding Ishmael because of that (“God was with the lad”).
Gen 21:22-34 – In those days, a well of water was a big deal in that part of the world – especially if you had flocks. Whether it’s a woman all alone (Hagar in Gen 16 as well as this chapter) or a wealthy man like Abraham or Abimelech, access to a well was, as they say today, “an existential issue.” By the way, the Hebrew word for “well” shows up as “beer” in English. You can therefore recognize when a well is involved if the name of the place has a “beer” in it – such as in Beer-lahai-roi (“the well of the Living One who sees me” – Gen 16:14) and Beersheba (“the well of seven” – Gen 21:14, 31-33). ***** Another important word to these people is COVENANT. Abimelech and Abraham establish a covenant with each other for peace and mutual defense. Ancient peoples took covenants as seriously as they took wells. Learning about covenants from the Old Testament help us to better appreciate the depth of meaning involved when Jesus spoke of “the new covenant in My blood” (Lk 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25).
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Genesis 22
We should always interpret the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament. The New Testament is “the interpretive key” to the Old Testament. The “New Testament view” comes from the apostles who wrote it, and they got it from Jesus who taught them. People who stumble over Gen 22 usually do so because they ignore what Paul said about it in Hebrews 11.
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac,
Hebrews 11:17-19
and he who had received the promises
was offering up his only begotten son;
it was he to whom it was said,
“IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED.”
He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.
Paul is saying, in effect, that Abraham was willing to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice because Abraham thought it was God’s plan to initial the resurrection of the dead through Isaac. Abraham thought this in Gen 22 because in Gen 21:14 God had promised him “IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED” (ALL CAPS). We know, through the benefit of hindsight, that God wasn’t going to inaugurate the resurrection of the dead until a descendant of Abraham came along much farther down the line. There would have to be Jacob, and then Judah, and eventually David, and all the rest before the resurrection from the dead would be inaugurated through Jesus. But Abraham saw it coming way back then; he just didn’t know when it would happen. So, when God told him to offer up Isaac, Abraham just figured it was “go time.” He had spent years of trial and error trying to understand how God was going to fulfill His promises and he’d finally reached a state of mature faith that whatever God promised He was able also to perform (Rom 4:21).
Further to all this, notice that Paul says Abraham received Isaac back as a type. Therefore, when we read Gen 22, we should look for things that typify Christ (FJOT). Let’s see what we find.
Points of similarity between Isaac and Jesus:
Gen 22:2 – Your “only son” reminds us of “only begotten Son” in Jn 3:16, “whom you love” reminds us of “My beloved Son” when He was baptized (Mt 3:17), and “one of the mountains” reminds us of Mount Zion (Jerusalem) where Jesus was crucified.
Gen 22:3 – The “wood” reminds us of Jesus’ cross.
Gen 22:4 – “The third day” reminds us of Jesus being raised on “the third day.”
Gen 22:5 – Abraham’s statement to his young men that he and Isaac would “worship and return to you” indicates that Abraham did not expect to come back from this experience by himself.
Gen 22:6 – The “wood” being “laid on Isaac” reminds us of Jesus having to carry His own cross. The Bible does not tell us how old Isaac was when this all happened. Although there has come to be a perception in modern times (reflected in children’s Bible story books) that Isaac was a child, ancient Jewish sources place his age at this time at mid-20’s to mid-30’s. In any case, Isaac had to be strong enough to carry enough wood to build a fire which would consume the offering. And he had to be able to carry it UP the mountain as well as DOWN it. Thus it is likely that Isaac’s age at this sacrifice was closer to Jesus’ age at His sacrifice than modern thinking has led us to believe. (The Hebrew word for “lad,” used in verses 5 and 12, has a very wide range of meaning; for example, it used other places in the Old Testament referring to a child in one case and a soldier in another.) While the focus of the chapter is on the testing of Abraham’s faith, Isaac was old enough to be acting in faith as well – which also typifies Jesus. Jesus trusted His Father.
Gen 22:7 – Isaac’s curiosity about “the lamb” for the sacrifice reminds us that John the Baptist called Jesus “the Lamb of God” (Jn 1:29, 36).
Gen 22:8 – “God will provide for Himself the lamb” reminds us that God provided Himself as the lamb.
There is more that could be said, but suffice it to say that Paul tells us in Hebrews the right way to view the test of Abraham’s faith. Abraham had his mind on resurrection that day because he had by this time come to have a mature faith in the promises of God.
Gen 22:18 – This reference to “seed” echoes what God had promised Eve about seed in Gen 3:15. Also, Peter quotes Gen 22:18 in Acts 3:25, declaring Jesus to be “the” seed that would bring the blessing – a singularity that Paul would emphasize in Gal 3:16. Isaac was not the seed – he was a type of the seed (Heb 11:19). (FJOT)
Gen 22:20-24 – This mini-genealogy gives a context for Rebekah, who will become Isaac’s wife in Gen 24.
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Genesis 23
This chapter is solely about Sarah’s death and burial – mainly her burial. The story of her burial is relevant because it calls attention to the wandering lifestyle she and her husband had been called to live for God. Their descendants would inherit the land of Canaan, but they themselves had to live on land they did not own. As Stephen poignantly described Abraham’s sojourning in Canaan, “[God] gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot of ground” (Act 7:5). Thus Abraham and Sarah are examples of parents who sacrifice for the good of their children – even their children’s children and all their posterity. Sarah was giving up all the comforts of a home in Ur of the Chaldees to wander around a land called Canaan with a husband who told her he’d heard God. This is a woman whose life is worth celebrating.
Gen 23:1-2 – Since Sarah was 90 years old when Isaac was born (Gen 17:17), she didn’t die until he was 37. I can only wonder what it was like for her – bearing the pains of childbirth for the first time at age 90, nursing an infant, raising him to adulthood, and then not departing this world until he had almost reached middle age. The prophet Isaiah spoke of her.
“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness
isaiah 51:1-2
Who seek the LORD:
Look to the rock from which you were hewn
And to the quarry from which you were dug.
Look to Abraham your father
And to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain;
When he was but one I called him,
Then I blessed him and multiplied him.”
(Also, Sarah is mentioned four times in the New Testament – Rom 4:19; 9:9; 11:11; 1 Pet 3:6.) Given the context, when Isaiah says “When he was but one,” he’s referring to the fact that when Sarah married Abraham, the two became “one flesh” (Gen 2:24). Isaiah’s broader point is that we are to look to our ancestors for lessons we can learn. No, Abraham and Sarah are not our physical ancestors, but notice to whom Isaiah is directing his words: “you who pursue righteousness” and “Who seek the Lord.” Surely, we want to fit that description! Sarah was devoted to her husband and his God…and we are beneficiaries of that devotion.
Gen 23:3-20 – This is a lot of rigamarole for Abraham to have to go through just to secure a burial place for his wife, but it was worth it because it made a statement about the future of their descendants. For him, it was yet another statement of his faith in God. As James teaches us, faith is seen in our actions (Jas 2:18-26). (See more about this in note on Jacob’s similar expression of faith in note on Gen 49:28-33 below, and on Joseph’s expression of faith in note on Gen 50:22-26 further below.)
Gen 23:6 – The locals want Abraham to bury Sarah’s body in one of their plots, but Abraham wants one that that is his. God had forbidden him from owning land to live on…but Sarah was dead.
Gen 23:9 – It was common for ancients to bury their dead in caves. Even Jesus’ tomb provided by Joseph of Arimathea was “hewn out in the rock” (Mt 27:60).
Gen 23:13 – Abraham was not going to take a gift like this from a Canaanite just as he would not take a gift from the king of Sodom (Gen 14:21-24) and just as David would not take the temple site for a gift from the owner (2 Sam 24:21-24).
Gen 23:16 – Abraham did not even want to haggle about the price. He was making a statement about the future of Sarah. He believed a resurrection was coming. He didn’t want bargaining to cloud the issue.
Gen 23:19 – This verse states the key point in the story: “…Abraham buried Sarah…in the land of Canaan” italics added. Even deprived of his wife, he was not going back.
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Genesis 24
This long chapter – it’s the longest in Genesis – tells about when Isaac met Rebekah. Only the two don’t actually meet until the last six verses of the chapter. Everything before that explains how the two came to meet. It’s an easy story to read – like a family history being passed on around a campfire.
Gen 24:1-9 – Knowing he will soon die, Abraham does not slack off in his responsibilities to God but rather looks around to see what else needs to be done before his departure from this life. Isaac needs a wife in order for God’s promise about Abraham’s descendants through Isaac (Gen 21:12) to be fulfilled. Therefore, Abraham sends his highest ranking servant on a mission to find a suitable wife for Isaac. This mission would mean that Abraham would be doing without his most important servant for who knows how long, but God’s plan mattered more to Abraham than his personal comforts.
Gen 24:2 – The servant remains nameless throughout the story. It is a sign of his humility.
Gen 24:3-4 – Abraham’s family in Mesopotamia may not have been as faithful to the one true God as Abraham was but they sure weren’t as wicked as the Canaanites. Sodom was an example of how bad the sons of Canaan could be (Gen 10:19).
Gen 24:5-6 – The goal was not to find a woman Isaac could follow, but rather a woman who could follow Isaac – for Isaac was to follow God, as Abraham had done.
Gen 24:7 – The servant would have divine help in this mission. It was indispensable.
Gen 24:9 – There was no Bible that the servant could place his right hand on to take the oath; the ancients used what they had.
Gen 24:10-14 – Abraham’s servant seems to be operating on the principle that “he who is faithful in a little thing is faithful also in much.” That is, he thinks that if the woman in question shows hospitality to a stranger, she’ll surely show it to her husband and father-in-law. Now this is a tall order to fill (to offer to water ten camels), but the servant remembers that Abraham has said there’ll be divine help on this mission.
Gen 24:10 – The ten camels are a hint that Abraham’s servant was not undertaking this mission by himself. And indeed verses 32, 54, and 59 later confirm that he took men with him. That said, the head servant never delegated the task of finding the wife to anyone else on the team. He was the one who took the oath and so he was the one who had to come through.
Gen 24:15-21 – We first heard Rebekah’s name in the mini-genealogy at the end of Gen 22. As for Rebekah’s very hospitable response, it’s like the attentiveness to strangers’ needs that Abraham showed at the beginning of Gen 18. It also calls to mind Jesus commending “I was a stranger, and you invited Me in” (Mt 24:35). Rebekah is a quality woman.
Gen 24:22-27 – Camels can drink a lot of water, so Rebekah’s gracious offer probably wore her out. The ring and bracelets given by the man in response gave Rebekah assurance she would not be burdening her family with a moocher. The servant appropriately gives thanks to God for the success he has enjoyed in his mission so far.
Gen 24:28-49 – The faithful servant does not get distracted. He stays on mission and declares his purpose – even though you know he must have been very hungry by this time. Once he has fully declared his purpose, the servant wastes no time asking for an answer to his proposal.
Gen 24:36 – Another reminder that Isaac is a type of Christ. Compare “he has given him all that he has” here with “His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things” in Heb 1:2. Consider also that in this scenario Abraham is a type of God and Sarah is a type of ancient Israel. (FJOT)
Gen 24:50-61 – The servant receives the response he wanted. The three key words were spoken by Rebekah in verse 58: “I will go.” I’m awestruck every time I read or remember that short-and-to-the-point sentence. It speaks to me of Rebekah’s hope and courage, and how her whole life had successfully prepared her to be resolute in that moment. Not that she could have imagined what this moment would look like. We seldom know what our moments will look like – but we must prepare ourselves nonetheless.
Gen 24:62-67 – Finally, Isaac meets Rebekah. His trust in his father, and in his father’s servant, to find him a suitable wife is rewarded. Isaac is comforted.
Gen 24:65 – Again, Isaac typifies Christ. That is, now comes the time when the servant ceases to describe Isaac as “my master’s son” and instead describes him as “my master” – just as Jesus became master of all at the Second Coming.
Gen 24:67 – Once again, we can recognize a messianic foreshadowing: Jesus, in His sorrow over the destruction of Jerusalem and the rest of ancient Israel with it, would be comforted by the closer relationship He could now have with Gentiles as well as Jews through the new covenant.
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Genesis 25
Gen 25: 1-6 – After Ishmael and Isaac were born, and after Sarah’s death, Abraham takes Keturah as his wife and has six more sons. That’s eight all together. Thus Abraham goes from being childless to “a father of many nations” (Gen 17:5) pretty quickly. This is the way the promises of God work and, sadly, our normal human reaction to it is to consider God’s promises as impossible until they happen, and then, once they’re fulfilled, take them for granted as if it’s no big deal. There is no good thing God does that man cannot figure out a way to disrespect it. Let us do better!
Gen 25:5 – Another foreshadowing of the Father giving all He had to the Son (Is 22:24; Heb 1:1-2; and elsewhere).
Gen 25:7-11 – Recall from Gen 21 that Abraham sent Ishmael and his mother Hagar away because of the strife with Sarah and Isaac. Ishmael returns in peace to help Isaac bury their father. And recall from Gen 23 how Abraham had purchased the cave of Machpelah as a family burial site beginning with Sarah.
Gen 25:11 – After Abraham’s death, God blessed Isaac as He had blessed Abraham (Gen 24:1). This included Isaac’s dwelling near Beer-lahai-roi, which we saw in the NASB footnote to Gen 16:14 means “the well of the living one who sees me.” Thus this statement about Isaac foreshadows Christ. As the Father provided a well of living water in Jesus, so Jesus provides a well of living water in us. As the Father oversaw Jesus, so Jesus oversees us. See Jn 4:11-14; 7:37-39; 20:21. Our souls do not have to be deserts without a well.
Gen 25:12-18 – This segment of the chapter – a genealogy – shows how God was fulfilling His promises to Hagar and Abraham regarding the many descendants Ishmael would have. The Lord had given these promises when He sent Hagar back to Sarah (Gen 16:9-12), when Ishmael was circumcised at age 13 (Gen 17:20), and when He sent Hagar and Ishmael away from Sarah (Gen 21:18). Hagar was an Egyptian (Gen 16:1; 25:12) and had Ishmael marry an Egyptian (Gen 21:21); thus Abraham sired Egyptians (Gentiles) as well as Jews (through Isaac). The Jewish-Gentile distinction was always intended to be temporary; it is long past time to let go of it. God didn’t choose Abraham to divide the human race but to bring it together, just as He chose Joseph not to divide Jacob’s family but to bring it together (Gen 37-50), just as He separated male and female not to divide them but to bring them together (Gen 1-2).
Gen 25:19-26 – The narrative now returns where it will remain: on Isaac and his descendants. Rebekah is barren for a while but then brings forth fraternal twins: Esau and Jacob. And there could not be more differences between the two. More to the point of the narrative, as Isaac, and not Ishmael, would inherit the promises of God to Abraham, so Jacob, and not Esau, would inherit the promises of God that came through Isaac. ***** The twins illustrate the two great revelations of God, and explain why the older serves the younger. Correlate with the BSN note on Gen 1:16 above. Jesus Christ is the eschatological God – that is, the revelation of God in creation’s end state.
Gen 25:27-34 – Here’s a New Testament perspective on this incident of the stew and the birthright from Paul:
See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God;
Hebrews 12:15-16
that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble,
and by it many be defiled;
that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau,
who sold his own birthright for a single meal.
Every person in the world has an inheritance in Jesus Christ. That inheritance includes promises for this life and the next – promises that will bring blessings of good and protections from evil. These promises include all God’s promises to Abraham, all God’s promises to Isaac, and many, many more. These promises are all recorded in the Bible. Therefore, when people despise the Bible they despise their birthright just as Esau did. This is why Jesus encourages us not to think like Esau.
“Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’
matthew 6:31-33
For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things;
for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness,
and all these things will be added to you.”
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Genesis 26
This chapter shows many parallels between Isaac and Abraham. Like father, like son.
Gen 26:1-11 – A famine requiring a move, Gerar, Abimelech, Phicol, Gerar, promises of descendants and blessings, wife posing as sister – these are all things we saw in the life of Isaac’s father. Isaac is the image of his father just as Jesus would be the image of God (Col 1:15).
Gen 26:12-14 – God made Isaac wealthy just as He had made Abraham wealthy. Because of this, people like the Pharisees (Lk 16:14) and the rich young ruler (Mt 19:16-30; Mk 10:17-31; Lk 18:18-30) assumed that wealth was a sign of godliness. Yet there’s a time for being wealthy and there’s a time for being content with what one has (2 King 5:26; 1 Tim 6:8). Abraham and Isaac were sojourners in the land of Canaan. Since they had no land to settle on, riches gave them protection from the hostility of the Canaanites. Remember how Abraham was able to rescue Lot and his family because he could muster an army of over 300 just from his servants (Gen 14:13-16). As a general rule, God wants us to have “an abundance for every good deed” (2 Cor 9:8), but that doesn’t mean that poor people are necessarily ungodly. That’s the perception James was trying to correct (Jas 2:1-7).
Gen 26:15-22 – Wells were particularly important in that part of the world, and not owning any land of your own made access to them even more critical. Fresh water was and remains an essential requirement for both man and beast. Verse 14 tells us that the Philistines envied Isaac, and we know that envy always leads to strife and quarrels. The Philistines went after Isaac’s wells. When they did, Isaac named the wells according to what happened: “Esek” means “contention,” “Sitnah” means “enmity,” and Rehoboth, by contrast with both of those, means “broad places.” Resolving strife is the theme here as it was between Abram’s servants and Lot’s in Gen 13. As we know, when reconciliation cannot be achieved, separation becomes the solution to strife. But what does a man do when the strife is within himself? For double-mindedness, competing inner desires, and trying to serve two masters all lead to strife within our own hearts. If we don’t learn to remove the strife from within, then we don’t be able to access the water from our own well…which is the Holy Spirit Jesus has given us (Jn 4:11-14; 7:37-39). We remove the strife within by means of honest prayer that submits our will to His. This can take time because our thoughts can be like twisted vines and branches that aren’t easily separated. But it can be done.
Gen 26:23-25 – God reinforces His covenant and Isaac digs another well. Just as the Philistines would stop up Isaac’s wells with earth, so Satan stops up the well of the Holy Spirit within us with earthly concerns. That’s why each morning – at a minimum – we must dig open the well of the Holy Spirit within us. The Holy Spirit whispers to us the words of Jesus, reminding us of the things He has said (Jn 14:26). This water restores our souls and we sense the peace and even bliss that accompanied our initial reconciliation with our Creator. We get back to the Lord the same way we got to Him in the first place: by way of repentance (Rev 2:5). Remember what Beer-lahai-roi (Gen 15:14) means: “the well of the living one who sees me.” That helps you get back to walking in the spirit.
Gen 26:26-33 – Again, like father, like son. Isaac makes a covenant that brings peace. Reconciliation is better than separation. It’s just not always possible. Thankfully, it was in this case.
Gen 26:34-35 – Isaac may have favored Esau over Jacob, but even he was grieving that Esau chose to marry Canaanite women. Canaanites were the most decadent of Gentiles in those days…and he chose two of them! It’s as if the only kind of decision Esau knows how to make is a bad one. When you don’t have the right values, you can’t make quality decisions.
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Genesis 27
Gen 27:1 – Esau and Jacob were fraternal twins. Esau was indeed “older,” but not by much. God had said “the older shall serve the younger” (Gen 25:23), but that doesn’t seem to figure prominently in Isaac’s thinking. On the contrary, Esau and Jacob are very different from each other and Isaac simply “likes” Esau more. That Isaac prefers Esau and Rebekah prefers Jacob is the source of much heartache in this family. Favoritism is not of God (Rom 2:11).
Gen 27:2-4 – An ancient patriarch would pronounce a blessing on his children before he died. The children were usually blessed according to their birth order, but occasionally the father would alter the birthrights. By calling for Esau, Isaac is making clear that he intends to confirm Esau’s rights as the firstborn.
Gen 27:5-10 – Not content to let things take their course, Rebekah intervenes to deceive her husband so that Jacob would get the blessing instead of Esau.
Gen 27:11-12 – Jacob expresses concern to his mother about getting caught engaging in deceit rather than about engaging in deceit. That is, Jacob only shows concern about what his earthly father might think of this ruse – not about what God might think of it.
Gen 27:13-14 – Jacob capitulates to his mother’s reasoning. She had initiated this scheme, but from this point on the two are collaborators in the deceit. Moreover, Jacob and Esau were mature men at this point in time; Jacob had the full responsibility and right to respectfully decline to follow his mother’s bad advice. That he did not do so is on him.
Gen 27:15-17 – Even though the situation arose without advance notice and the con had to be executed quickly, it was elaborate enough for Rebekah and Jacob to have time for second thoughts. Yet they plowed ahead with no apparent reluctance.
Gen 27:18-20 – Does Jacob really think that God is behind what he and his mother are doing? It is more likely he is not thinking about God at all.
Gen 27:21-23 – Isaac had a feeling something wasn’t right. He could have called his wife for help, but, as we know, the two of them weren’t on the same page regarding treatment of the sons.
Gen 27:24-25 – Jacob shows no hesitancy in advancing the subterfuge.
Gen 27:26-29 – Isaac had the chance to ask his sighted wife for help, but instead foolishly trusted his own diminished senses. He pronounced the blessing; it was done and couldn’t be undone. The ancients put much more value on words spoken that we do. Based on what Jesus said about the importance of our words (Mt 12:26-37), the ancients were much closer to the truth than we are.
Gen 27:30-33 – Once the jig is up, Isaac immediately and intuitively realizes the gravity of what has taken place…and physically feels the effects.
Gen 27:34-38 – Esau does a lot of crying for a grown man. Yet these are not tears of repentance; rather, they’re tears of frustration at not getting his way. He wrongly accuses Jacob for deceiving him out of his birthright. Esau had willingly disregarded and sold his birthright to Jacob. Esau is throwing a fit like a spoiled child. His father had pampered him all these years and Esau had thus never spiritually matured – marrying Canaanites being a flashing neon sign of his disregard for both God and his parents (Gen 26:34-35). Thus we understand the New Testament’s verdict on Esau – that he was “immoral and godless” (Heb 12:15-17). Esau never outgrew the narcissism with which we all come into the world. Jacob, on the other hand, for all his conniving, will show himself to be humble and teachable as his story continues in Genesis.
Gen 27:39-40 – In contrast to Esau, Isaac is mature enough to realize that he’s not going to get a do-over on the blessing so he goes ahead and pronounces Esau’s secondary status.
Gen 27:41-45 – “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” Rebekah and Jacob sought to enhance Jacob’s status in the family and only made it worse – to the point that his physical life is now in danger. He’s going to have to put himself in exile – an exile that Rebekah thought would be a few days but will turn out to be many years.
Gen 27:46 – The descendants of Heth were also called Hittites; and since Heth was a descendant of Canaan, his descendants were also Canaanites. Thus Rebekah is referring to what is described in Gen 26:34-35, which says that Esau had married two Hittite women. While Isaac and Rebekah had their obvious and long-standing differences about Esau and Jacob, they were in complete agreement that Esau had done a great wrong to himself, the family, and God by marrying Canaanites. Therefore, Rebekah appeals to this point of agreement with Isaac in order to gain his support for sending Jacob to stay with her family in Haran.
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Genesis 28
Gen 28:1-5 – This passage about Jacob sets up a contrast with the next passage, which is about Esau. Jacob humbly receives direction and blessing from his father before going on his way.
Gen 28:1 – Jacob was not to follow Esau’s example. Specifically, Jacob was to take a wife, not wives; and he was not to take her from the daughters of Canaan.
Gen 28:2 – Jacob was to take his wife from his parent’s kin, as Isaac had done.
Gen 28:3 – Isaac blesses Jacob with the hope and command God expressed to Adam: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28).
Gen 28:4 – Isaac passes on to Jacob the blessing of Abraham, which had already enriched Isaac’s life.
Gen 28:5 – The point of this verse is that Jacob did what he was told.
Gen 28:6-9 – It’s not clear how Esau thought adding a non-Canaanite wife to the two Canaanite wives he already had was going to improve his parents’ opinion of him. Esau was not one to thoroughly think things through before he acted.
Gen 28:9 – Ishmael was not a Canaanite; his mother Hagar was an Egyptian and his father was Abraham. But taking this action independently, without consulting his parents as would have been appropriate, demonstrates the willfulness that made him unsuitable to be the one to pass on the promises and blessings of his grandfather Abraham.
Gen 28:10-17 – In this passage, Jacob receives a word from the Lord through a dream. In the next, he’ll memorialize that word.
Gen 28:10 – Beersheba is on the southern end of the land of Canaan. Haran is over 600 miles to the north of it. There will be no quick trips home.
Gen 28:11 – This is one of the first mentions of the word “stone” in the Bible, but “stone” will come to have great significance as a frequent figure in the imagery of messianic prophecy – including “the stone laid in Zion” and “the tested stone” in Isaiah 28:16, “the stone that was rejected” and “the chief cornerstone” of Psalm 118:22, and the “stone cut out of the mountains without hands” in Daniel 2:45.
Gen 28:12 – Jesus alludes to this ladder in John 1:51 when He says of Himself, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
Gen 28:13 – This imagery calls to mind a contrast with the tower of Babel in Gen 11. Man’s way is to build a structure so we can get to God, but God’s way is to provide a ladder that lets Him descend to us and then ascend with us. This is what Jesus and His resurrection is all about.
Gen 28:14 – This is the blessing of Abraham, and God was now designating that it was going to come through Jacob, just as He had designated that it was going to come through Isaac. ***** The Hebrew word translated twice in this verse as “descendants” is “ZERA,” meaning “seed.” As Paul says in Gal 3:16, such a reference refers to Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed). And thus while “all the families of the earth” have been through the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – that is, the Jews – in a general sense, they have been blessed even more through the most glorious Jew of all: Jesus.
Gal 3:16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.
Gen 28:15 – God is promising Jacob a return to the land of Canaan, the land that would one day be granted to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The land that was merely a foreshadowing of the Jesus inheriting the entire earth (Matt 5:5 in the Sermon on the Mount) on behalf of the human race.
Gen 28:16 – We tell the little children that “Jesus is everywhere,” but do we adults believe it ourselves and live by that belief?
Gen 28:17 – Truly, the earth is the Lord’s and all it contains (Ps 24:1), and truly Jesus is the gate of heaven (“I am the door” – John 10:9).
Gen 28:18-22 – Jacob now memorializes the word of the Lord he has received. This is always wise because unaided human memory is not reliable. “The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.” Jacob didn’t have a pencil and paper, but he established a memory device. And that could be passed from one generation to the next until Moses could write it down here in the book of Genesis for generations like ours.
Gen 28:18 – Jesus is not only the stone on which we stand, He is the pillar on which we lean. The oil poured out on that pillar is the Holy Spirit which came upon Jesus at His encounter with John the Baptist, and empowered Him throughout His earthly ministry. (“You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” – Act 10:38.) Similar references to Jacob setting up a stone as a pillar are Gen 28:18, 22; 31:45; 35:14.
Gen 28:19 – In Hebrew, the word “Bethel” means “house of God” – “Beth” meaning “house,” and “El” meaning “God.”
Gen 28:20-22 – The first time giving a tenth to God was mentioned in the Bible was in the story of Melchizedek (Gen 14). The second is here. This idea would be incorporated into the Law of Moses as the “tithe.”
Gen 28:22 – Similar references to Jacob setting up a stone as a pillar are Gen 28:18, 22; 31:45; 35:14.
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Genesis 29
Gen 29:1-3 – We saw a stone having significance in the previous chapter; we see a different kind of stone in this chapter. But both stones hint of Messiah, and all the more so as we view these two chapters from a New Testament perspective. The stone in this chapter conceals and protects the way to the water which gives life. Water that quenches the thirst of sheep.
Gen 29:4-8 – The stone cannot be rolled away for the sheep to be watered until all the sheep are present. Similarly, Messiah does not come and show the way of salvation until everyone – Gentile as well as Jew – can have access.
Gen 29:9-12 – The sight of Rachel must have been very motivating for Jacob to move a stone that normally required a group of men to move it. Jacob found the wife he was seeking as quickly as Abraham’s servant had found a wife for Jacob’s father. That said, Jacob’s kiss was more likely a familial kiss (since the two were related) than a romantic kiss, especially given his weeping. Rachel must have been similarly touched, given that she rushed to tell her father.
Gen 29:13-14 – Laban, too, is caught up in the emotion of the family reunion. Of course, he has never met Jacob before, but in Jacob he sees his sister whom he has not seen for decades.
Gen 29:15-20 – The simple story now gets complicated. Jacob has met match in Laban. It wasn’t at all the match he came to Haran to make, but it was one that he was destined to make given the way he’d lived his life up to this point. And being connected to Laban would have more control over the time he spent in Haran than his connection with the wife he came all this way to find.
Gen 29:15 – Like Jacob, Laban is prone to bargain. As Jacob turned Esau’s request for some food into an opportunity to haggle, so Laban is using this opportunity to see what advantage he can gain.
Gen 29:16 – Uh oh. Two siblings – an older and a younger. Furthermore, one was desirable and the other was not. This means more trouble for Jacob.
Gen 29:18 – As Jacob wanted to alter the natural order of siblings in his own family, so he wanted to alter the order of how Laban’s daughters would normally be married.
Gen 29:19-20 – Laban says nothing at this time, but makes sure to collect his seven years of service from Jacob before anything else is said or done. Jacob and Laban had bargained over Rachel. Even though some may think Laban got the better deal, Jacob was not complaining because he deemed Rachel to be worth a great price. This reminds us of the parable of the pearl of great price that Jesus told (Mt 13:45-46). Isaiah’s costly cornerstone and David insisting that he pay full price for the temple site. also come to mind. There is even Jesus’ story about the poor widow who “put in more than all of them; for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on” (Lk 21:3-4). Throughout the Scriptures, there is an appreciation for the true cost of valuable things. God paid dearly for relationship with us. How much more we should be willing to pay dearly for relationship with Him.
Gen 29: 21-30 – We do not know if Laban had this plan in mind from the beginning, or if he hatched the idea sometime during the seven years Jacob was working for him for free. What we do know is that Laban got his way. Jacob may have come out okay when he met his match as a bargainer, but when he met him as a fellow deceiver, Jacob surely lost. He came to Haran seeking one wife, and now he has two. At least Esau chose two wives because he wanted them both; Jacob only wanted the one. But who is Jacob going to complain to? He’s stuck. There’s nothing he can do but accept reality – just as there was nothing Esau could do after Jacob deceived Isaac about the blessing except accept reality. Jacob was reaping a harvest of deceit from the deceit he had sown.
Gen 29:25 – It may seem strange to us that a switcheroo like this would work, but ancient nights without electricity were surely a lot darker than modern ones with it. And then there was probably the customary bridal veil Leah would have been wearing when Laban presented her to Jacob.
Gen 29:31-35 – Poor Leah. Can she help it if Rachel is prettier? Can she help it if Jacob doesn’t want her? Can she help it that her father has so little confidence in her prospects for marriage that he puts her through the humiliation of tricking a man in order to make him her husband? No wonder God had compassion on the woman and made her so fertile! Even more significantly, think about the eternal stature of the children she bore. Through Leah came the first four of Jacob’s twelve sons. This included Levi, from whom came the Levitical priesthood…and Judah from whom came Israel’s kings, including the mighty David, and even the King of kings Himself! Though she could have had no idea of the greatness of those who would come through her womb, she rightly recognized the Lord’s compassion on her for she named these sons with the Lord in mind.
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Genesis 30
Gen 30:1-24 – Having seen the birth order and names of Jacob’s first four sons in the previous chapter, we now see the birth order and names of the rest of his children – including his daughter (who will figure prominently in Gen 34), but not his last son Benjamin (whose birth will come in Gen 35). In all, Leah will have birthed six of the sons, the one daughter, and 2 more sons by her main Zilpah. And the man who was having a hard time having one son will have a dozen grandsons. God’s plan to make Abraham into a great nation just got a major boost.
Gen 30:25-26 – Jacob now has a son from the only person he wanted to marry and decides, after 14 years, it’s time to return to Canaan.
Gen 30:27-28 – Apparently unable to let Jacob go in peace, Laban once again starts bargaining.
Gen 30:29-33 – Jacob himself is a bargainer, and he comes up with a way that God can prosper him and that Laban won’t be able to successfully challenge.
Gen 30:34-36 – Laban cheats.
Gen 30:37-43 – Jacob ends up with the bigger, stronger flocks. Laban’s cheating could not keep God from making Jacob prosperous.
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Genesis 31
Gen 31:1-16 – After two decades, Jacob decides to leave Mesopotamia and make the 600-mile return migration to Canaan. Laban and his sons had soured on Jacob’s presence. God gave the order for Jacob to go home. All that’s left is convincing the womenfolk. The majority of these 16 verses is spent telling how Jacob went about securing their support. Rachel and Leah were Jacob’s wives, but they were also Laban’s daughters so it’s appropriate that Jacob took pains to give his rationale for the move, and all the more so to include God’s involvement in his decision. The women see God’s hand in the situation and agree to the relocation.
Gen 31:13 – God brings back to Jacob’s mind the dream God gave him when he was en route from Beersheba to Haran – including the anointed pillar (foreshadowing Messiah being anointed with the Holy Spirit) and Jacob renaming Luz as Bethel (meaning house of God, for truly Messiah is the place God may be found).
Gen 31:17-21 – Jacob and family set out. Given the number of wives and maids, other servants, children, and livestock Jacob had accumulated, it must have seemed like the Israelites leaving Eqypt in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments.
Gen 31:19 – Given the way Leah and Rachel named their children and made their decision to leave Haran and go to Canaan, it’s obvious that they feared the Lord. But it’s also obvious that they kept idols, too. It’s called serving God with a divided heart and, unfortunately, we see signs of such double-mindedness from one end of the Bible to the other.
Gen 31:20 – We hate to see Jacob leaving without informing Laban, but it’s hard to imagine Laban graciously accepting Jacob’s decision. As it is, we’ll see that God had to get involved to get Laban to accept it at all.
Gen 31:22-24 – When Laban finds out that Jacob has left, he behaves like Pharaoh trying to chase down the Israelites after they left Egypt. Through a dream God warns Laban – a warning which Laban, to his credit, takes to heart.
Gen 31:25-32 – Laban catches up to Jacob and they have a showdown.
Gen 31:27 – Laban sounds ridiculous when he says that if only Jacob had informed him about leaving he would have sent them away “with joy and with songs, with timbrel and with lyre.” On the contrary, it would have been a tarpit of haggling at the very least. Apparently, Jacob wisely just let Laban blow his hot air.
Gen 31:29-30 – Laban may worship idols, but he does fear God and therefore he’s not going to try to stop Jacob. There’s no apparent sign that Laban recognized the incongruity of fearing the one true God and worshiping idols, but we humans have the ability to live with high levels of cognitive dissonance.
Gen 31:31-32 – Jacob has no idea that Rachel stole the household idols.
Gen 31:33-35 – The daughter of a deceiver uses deceit against her father. We reap what we sow.
Gen 31:36-42 – Not knowing that Rachel has stolen the household idols and lied to her father about them, Jacob feels vindicated by Laban’s inability to find the idols anywhere in Jacob’s camp. This feeling of vindication unleashes Jacob’s fury and he pours out on Laban twenty years of pent-up frustration. Yet Jacob’s anger and speech were not irrational; and his concluding statement was to pronounce a verdict from God with which no reasonable person could disagree – not even Laban.
Gen 31:43-55 – Laban proposes that he and Jacob settle their differences by agreeing to a covenant with each other. The two would agree to leave each other alone, and Jacob would additionally agree not to take any other wives and not to mistreat Leah and Rachel in any way. Was this proposed covenant a result of Laban coming to his senses…or was he merely recognizing that he couldn’t win and was just trying to save face…or some combination of the two? In any case, Jacob agrees to the covenant because it was a no-brainer for him; it would cost him nothing because he had no interest in harming Laban or his wives.
Gen 31:45 – Here’s another reminder of the experience Jacob had with a stone at Bethel (Gen 28:10-22). Similar references to Jacob setting up a stone as a pillar are Gen 28:18, 22; 31:45; 35:14.
Gen 31:47 – The two names had the same meaning: “the heap of witness” or “witness heap.” The reason for two names was that Laban named it according to his language (Aramaic) and Jacob named it according to his (Hebrew).
Gen 31:49 – “Mizpah” means “watchtower” or “watching post” (an observation or lookout post). The point was that the God or gods watching over this boundary marker would take notice if either party crossed it – and not just observe the transgression but also set in motion negative consequences for it.
Gen 31:53 – Although the text has been vague, you have to wonder if what’s going on here is a distinction between Jacob’s monotheistic faith and Laban’s polytheistic faith. Abraham left his polytheistic family to establish a monotheistic life for himself and his descendants. Laban, having descended from Abraham’s brother Nahor was still showing signs of that polytheistic orientation (with the household idols that Rachel stole).
Gen 31:55 – Peace having been secured by the covenant between the two men the day before, Laban returns home. The peace is kept because it’s the last we see of him.
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Genesis 32
Gen 32:1-2 – As Jacob had a divine encounter on his way from Canaan to Haran 20 years earlier (the dream, the angels ascending and descending on a ladder, the stone, the pillar, the anointing, the name Bethel – Gen 28:10-22), so he is having another encounter on his way back. “Mahanaim” means “two camps” or “two companies.” There are multiple ways to see two camps in this narrative (Gen 31-32). To start with, there are Jacob’s camp and Laban’s camp, which just separated. And there is the angels’ (God’s) camp and Jacob’s camp together now.
Gen 32:3-5 – Now we contemplate the two camps that are Jacob’s and Esau’s. Jacob has just parted from one rival and now is headed to meet another. Jacob’s mother Rebekah had said she hoped Esau’s anger at being being deprived of his blessing by Jacob would dissipate in “a few days.” It’s been 20 years. We’ll see. Jacob is certainly approaching his brother in hope of peace.
Gen 32:6-8 – Esau is coming with 400 men! That’s more than the army of over 300 Abram had put together to rescue Lot and his family. Deathly afraid and now hoping only to save as much life as he can, Jacob divides his enormous entourage into…two companies.
Gen 32:9-12 – Jacob turns to God for help. Taking courage from the fact that since God had directed him to return, it’s unlikely God would allow him to be slaughtered. Still, he was humble with God, knowing he’d been blessed beyond anything he had deserved.
Gen 32:13-15 – The magnitude of Jacob’s gifts to Esau gives a sense of the magnitude of resources Jacob had accumulated during his time in Haran.
Gen 32:16-21 – Jacob now arranges his gifts so that they presented to Esau in waves – each wave being impressive in and of itself, but the cumulative effect would be even more impressive.
Gen 32:22-23 – Now, after all the flocks and herds have been sent, Jacob sends his wives, maids, and children. He is the last to set out.
Gen 32:24-32 – Left alone, Jacob now has the encounter that would be more determinative of his fate than his encounter with Esau. I’m speaking of his encounter with God.
Gen 32:24 – During his time alone, Jacob wrestles with “a man,” whom we may presume to be an angel of the Lord…if not THE angel of the Lord.
Gen 32:25 – The angel dislocates Jacob’s thigh…but Jacob keeps wrestling!
Gen 32:26 – This is the secret of Jacob’s success with God – He wants God’s blessing. Would that we all wanted God’s blessing as much as Jacob did!
Gen 32:27-28 – Jacob had yearned so much for God’s blessing that he had shed his reputation as a “supplanter” in the process and would henceforth be known as a man who wrestled with God until he got the blessing he sought. Going forward, his name would be Israel – “Isra” referring to “wrestles” and “El” referring to God. Everyone who wants a good relationship with God wrestles with Him, just as any mature and successful marriage is the result of a man and a woman working through the struggles of learning to understand each other.
Gen 32:29-30 – When the angel won’t reciprocate by giving his name, Jacob names the place as if he’d been wrestling with God Himself. In Jesus Christ, we all come face to face with God (2 Cor 4:6).
Gen 32:31-32 – Penuel is considered just another way of spelling Peniel. It is only right that the Jews remembered Jacob’s experience in this way because it was through this experience that their nation received the name by which the world would know it: Israel. As for me, I see myself limping through life because of my sin, but with “the sun of righteous” (Mal 4:2) having risen upon me – which is the face of Christ, my God (Rev 1:16).
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Genesis 33
Gen 33:1-2 – A sad picture indeed. Just as no man can serve two masters, no man can please two wives. Polygamy is suboptimal, and that’s putting it as mildly as possible. The picture we see before us helps explain the severe family dysfunction we’ll see on display in Jacob’s sons for the rest of Genesis. That Joseph is the only one of Jacob’s children mentioned by name in this passage indicates the partiality he was shown, and that, of course, fueled his brothers’ enmity toward him. As Jacob’s parents had been guilty of showing favoritism, so Jacob was, too. That gets some resolution by the end of Genesis with the reconciliation of Joseph with his brothers which extended past their father’s death.
Gen 33:3 – Jacob may have purchased Esau’s birthright and stolen his blessing, but the younger brother is asserting neither advantage in this moment. It’s all about showing deference to his older brother – something he could have done from the very beginning and saved himself a lot of headaches. Why do we wait so long to come to our senses?
Gen 33:4-7 – Did all those presents from Jacob assuage Esau’s anger…or was Esau coming to Jacob in peace all along and only bringing along the 400 in case they were needed for self-defense? Was it Jacob’s prayer to God (Gen 32:9-12) that brought about this outcome…or had God already arranged this outcome long before Jacob even thought to pray? We’re not told the answers to these questions. What we do know is that Jacob was scared to death to approach someone he had deeply offended…but ended up surprised by the good will he found. Just like so many of us and God. That is, we fear going to God because we know deep down how poorly we’ve treated Him…but when we finally go to Him, after having tried everything else first, we find mercy instead of anger. We could have saved ourselves a lot of grief had we sought Him sooner.
Gen 33:8-9 – Esau shows no greediness.
Gen 33:10 – Jacob obviously has in mind his wrestling the night before (“the face of God,” “Peniel,” “Penuel” – Gen 32:24-32).
Gen 33:11 – Jacob is determined to pay his respects to his older brother, and the older brother gracefully allows it.
Gen 33:12-14 – Again, Jacob pleads and Esau concedes.
Gen 33:15-16 – And yet again. Yet Jacob doesn’t completely trust Esau to remain friendly, and who can blame him? There’s no need for them to be bosom buddies; they just need to be at peace with one another.
Gen 33:17 – So much of what we see in the Law of Moses (Exodus through Deuteronomy) comes from little seeds found in the book of Genesis, even though Moses seldom makes a point of connecting fruit back to the seed. For example, consider the connection between this verse and the Feast of Booths (Lev 23; Deut 16). Another more prominent example of this sort of connection would be circumcision, which Jesus rightly pointed out to His fellow Jews (Jn 7:22) when He said that circumcision originated not with Moses but with “the fathers.” Also called “patriarchs,” it is these men – such as Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – who comprise the stories of Genesis, for Moses is not even born until the second chapter of Exodus. (See Roots in Genesis and also Feasts)
Gen 33:18 – Jacob is following in his grandfather’s footsteps. For when Abram left Haran and first came to Canaan, Shechem was the first Canaanite location mentioned (Gen 12:6).
Gen 33:19 – We’ll hear more about the sons of Hamor in the next chapter.
Gen 33:20 – The name “El-Elohe-Israel” is in memory of Jacob wrestling with the angel and receiving the new name “Israel” from God (Gen 32:24-32). That was surely a time for Jacob to remember and commemorate, for God made even Jacob’s enemies be at peace with him (Prov 16:7) – Laban whom Jacob had just left, and Esau whom he was about to meet. The God of Jacob’s grandfather and father had become Jacob’s God as well.
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Genesis 34
This is a difficult chapter to read…especially for anyone who looks to the Bible for moral edification. However, the world can be brutal and anyone seeking a discussion about moral behavior has to be prepared to acknowledge and navigate that reality. There was no government to police the land of Canaan. This was frontier territory and that’s where frontier justice is often the only justice. The American western movie genre gives us a taste of what that can mean. Nowhere in this chapter is God’s name mentioned. Such stories in the Bible are opportunities for us to stretch our consciences and try to put ourselves in the shoes of these people to think about what we would do facing the same circumstances. A chapter like this provokes more questions in us than answers. But wrestling with such questions is good for us.
Just to get one minor linguistic point out of the way: The man Shechem was probably named after the city of Shechem, where his father was “the prince of the land.” Thus Jacob and his family having to deal in this chapter with a man named Shechem from the city of Shechem where they had recently settled (Gen 33:18-19).
Gen 34:1-2 – Jacob and his family had moved here from hundreds of miles away (Gen 33:18-19). Jacob’s only daughter Dinah has 12 brothers and none was available to escort her in this unfamiliar turf? What were they thinking?
Gen 34:3 – Did Shechem think he could romance Dinah at this point? What was he thinking?
Gen 34:4 – Shechem was the typical narcissistic son of a mayor – used to having his way and getting everything out of order. But then this was the way it was with Canaanites (Hivites were descended from Canaan), and this is why they were going to have to forfeit their land one day to Abraham’s descendants. They couldn’t control their impulses.
Gen 34:5 – Jacob sensed trouble, so he held off telling Dinah’s brothers for a while.
Gen 34:6-7 – Shechem’s father comes to Jacob but it seems to be Jacob’s sons running the show. Does this mean Jacob is a weak man or is this just another downside of polygamy rearing its head. That is, is there uncertainty among the sons about how strongly the father will react to this atrocity? Specifically, since Dinah is the daughter of Leah (the “unloved” wife), there’s probably uncertainty among Leah’s sons about whether the father will care as much. And then there’s the sheer number of sons. That much testosterone in one place would be hard for any one man to manage.
Gen 34:8-12 – Shechem and his father turn on the charm and ramp up their sales pitch. Why did it not occur to either of them that it was too late for that? Apparently, Shechem got his out-of-order thinking style from his father. I suppose we could say that it is better that they wanted to “make things right” with marriage rather than walking away from Dinah, but where’s the remorse? Where’s the shame for the heinous act? I’ve never been able to think of a sin worse than rape.
Gen 34:13 – And here, on the other side of the bargaining table, is another “like father, like son” dynamic: Jacob’s deceit shows up in the next generation.
Gen 34:14-17 – Although God’s name is not mentioned in this chapter, it’s blasphemous that Jacob’s sons are using the sign God gave of His covenant with their family to exact vengeance without even consulting Him about the matter.
Gen 34:18-24 – Hamor and Shechem use all their influence – which must have been considerable – to convince the local males to undergo this personal and painful procedure. The selling point was that these Canaanites could absorb Jacob’s family and his wealth into their culture.
Gen 34:25 – The two brothers named as the ones who killed all the Shechemite males were, like Dinah, children of Leah. No comment is made about the other children of Leah or the other children of Jacob with respect to the killing.
Gen 34:26 – The fact that Dinah was apparently in Shechem’s custody while he was pitching his “proposal” makes his behavior even more reprehensible.
Gen 34:27-29 – The looting is attributed not just to Simeon and Levi, but to Jacob’s sons in general.
Gen 34:30 – Jacob whines. His statement is undoubtedly true, but there’s hardly anything else in it that’s commendable. Where is his concern for his daughter?
Gen 34:31 – Simeon and Levi excuse themselves. Of course, their sister should not be treated the way Shechem treated her. It is indisputable that “such a thing ought not to be done.” But does that justify everything they did and the deceitful way they did it?
This chapter doesn’t offer easy moral lessons, but it is food for thought.
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Genesis 35
Gen 35:1 – After the trouble in Shechem recorded in the previous chapter, God sends Jacob and his family about 30 miles to the north for safety – to Bethel. Jacob’s previous experience in Bethel (the dream, the angels ascending and descending on a ladder, the stone, the pillar, the anointing, the name Bethel) were reported to us in Gen 28:10-22. The distance of 30 miles might not seem much of a buffer to us, but we don’t walk much, ride donkeys or camels, etc. Also, because of the spiritual significance of Bethel to Jacob, he would have more confidence of God’s protection while there. The God who had delivered him from Esau twice (going and coming), and from Laban, could deliver him from other enemies. The warriors of Shechem were no threat at this point, but other Canaanite tribes would have reason to be hostile to Jacob’s family. God’s protection would be needed for survival, per Jacob’s own assessment (Gen 34:30).
Gen 35:2-3 – Jacob rightly calls his family to purify itself of other gods. This is a recurring theme we see in the Old Testament: worshipers of the one true God also dabbling in the worship of other gods. It’s one of the reasons that prohibition against serving other gods leads the Ten Commandments (Ex 20; Dt 5). And even late in the New Testament, the apostle John says in the last line of a letter “Guard yourselves against idols” (1 Jn 5:21).
Gen 35:3 – Notice the similarity between what Jacob says about God here and what he says about Him in Gen 48:15 (“who has been my shepherd [a]all my life to this day”).
Gen 35:4 -Jacob would have done better to burn these implements of false worship or at least break them into pieces (as King Hezekiah did with the bronze serpent Moses had made but that the Israelites had kept as an idol in 2 King 18:4), or better yet, grind them to powder (as Moses did with the golden calf in Ex 32:20). As long as such things are recoverable, they will present a temptation.
Gen 35:5-6 – How much of this fear was driven by word spreading of the slaughter and looting inflicted by Jacob’s sons on the Shechemites and how much was supernaturally imposed by God, we do not know. Neither do we know how united or disunited the various Canaanite tribes were at that time and in that particular vicinity. What we do know is that Jacob and his family had safe passage from Shechem to Bethel.
Gen 35:7-8 – Last time in Bethel (which everyone else had called Luz), Jacob set up a stone as a pillar. This time he builds an altar – something more substantial to reflect his growing stature and confidence in God. This is like what we see happen when the tabernacle of Moses (essentially, a big tent – or, if you will, mobile home) was replaced by a stone temple after Jacob’s descendants took possession of the promised land. The burial of Rebekah’s nurse is also an indication of some permanence with Bethel. We had not seen these sorts of signs with Shechem. These differences are also indications of God’s promise to protect Jacob and all that was his – even though, like his father and grandfather before him, he would be a sojourner in this land. It’s their descendants who would inherit it. (Men, are we thinking enough about our descendants?)
Gen 35:9-15 – God reinforces His promises and the change of Jacob’s name to Israel. As God renewed His promises to Abraham and Isaac to strengthen their faith, so He renewed His promises to Jacob. This renewal brings together the promises originally made at Bethel (Gen 28:10-32) with the promises made at Peniel (Gen 32:24-32). Recall that Bethel was the place of Jacob’s encounter with God when leaving Canaan for Paddan-Aram (where the city of Haran was located), and Peniel (Penuel) was the place of Jacob’s encounter with God on the way back. In Bethel, Jacob encountered God in a dream; in Peniel, the encounter was an all-night wrestling match. On the pillars of these memories Jacob’s position as the heir of God’s promises to Abraham and Isaac was solidified. He was now a man of God in his own right.
Gen 35:13 – Can you see Jesus in this verse? It’s a picture of Jesus rising from the dead and ascending into heaven after He had spoken to humanity (think of the red letters in the New Testament) during the time He lived as one of us. (FJOT)
Gen 35:14 – Similar references to Jacob setting up a stone as a pillar are Gen 28:18, 22; 31:45; 35:14.
Gen 35:16-21 – Rachel gives birth to the last of Jacob’s sons: Benjamin. Rachel dies in the process, giving rise in part to what Jeremiah wrote in Jer 31:15 and Matthew quoted in Mt 2:18. The theme is the pain and danger of childbirth, including the death it sometimes brings – whether to infant or mother. Recall that Rachel had said, “Give me children, or else I die” (Gen 30:1). Recall also the infants that Herod slaughtered trying to kill off the Messiah (Mt 2). God’s promise to Eve stands firm to this day (Gen 3:16).
Gen 35:22-26 – Jacob’s 12 Sons
Gen 35:22 – Because of this incident, Jacob will strip Reuben of his firstborn rights to the inheritance (Gen 49:3-4).
Gen 35:23-26 – This list of Jacob’s sons is in order by the respective mothers. To see a list in birth order, see The 12 Sons of Jacob. Technically speaking, Benjamin was the only one not born in Paddan-Aram; he was born on the trip between Bethel and Ephrath (which would become known as Bethlehem) as noted in verses 16-18 of this chapter.
Gen 35:27-29 – Abraham lived to 175, and Jacob would live to 147 – so Isaac outlived both his father and his son.
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This chapter consists of a genealogy of Esau’s descendants. After this chapter, the rest of the book of Genesis consists mainly of the story of how, through Joseph, Jacob and the rest of his sons ended up in Egypt. This will set the stage for the book of Exodus. Therefore, this chapter tidies up and finishes off the story of Esau.
Gen 36:1 – Esau acquired the nickname Edom, which meant or sounded like the Hebrew word for “red.” This goes back at least to the incident of the red stew that Esau purchased from Jacob in exchange for Esau’s birthright (Gen 25:30). The descendants of Esau are not called “Esauites” – rather, they are called Edomites. And as a nation, they were known as Edom. The nation of Edom shows up as an occasional rival of the nation of Israel after the descendants of Jacob left Egypt under the leadership of Moses.
Gen 36:2-5 – We learned earlier in Genesis that Esau had married two Canaanite women, and later a daughter of Ishmael. Moses recaps those marriages here.
Gen 36:6-8 – Esau left Canaan and re-settled in “the hill country of Seir.” Hereafter, the Edomites will be associated with Seir whenever they appear in the Old Testament. Esau the man, Edom the nation, Edomites the people, and Seir (or the hill country of Seir, or Mount Seir) the place are mentioned at various points in the Old Testament; however, not in a prominent way. The prophet Malachi does speak of the rivalry which began between brothers and persisted through their descendants – and that Israel (both the man and the nation) was the one through whom the promises to Abraham were to pass (Mal 1:1-5). Esau the man is also mentioned three times in the New Testament.
Gen 36:9-19 – The descendants of Esau continue.
Gen 36:20-30 – The Horites occupied Seir before Esau arrived. Esau’s descendants, however, ended up controlling the region.
Gen 36:31-43 – The remaining genealogy of Esau, including notable figures.
The benefit of a chapter like this is not found in reading it like prose, but rather by simply familiarizing ourselves with it as a table of data – like a phone directory or address book, or even like our own family genealogy. We don’t read such lists as if they were a narrative or poem; rather, we seek to understand the framework, scan the data elements, and then refer back to the information only if and as necessary.
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Genesis 37
Although the birth of Joseph was reported in Gen 30:24-25, and he was mentioned very briefly two or three times in the intervening chapters, his story begins in earnest here – and continues to the end of Genesis. Although Joseph was, technically speaking, the 11th son of Joseph, he was the firstborn son of the beloved Rachel, and therefore “the firstborn son in Jacob’s heart.” Jacob’s preferential treatment of Joseph certainly suggested that attitude on his part; he had never sought Leah or the maids. With God’s help, Joseph acted in the manner of a godly firstborn, looking out for the best interests of his siblings…even when his siblings gave him reason not to. In this regard, Joseph is a magnificent type of Christ. (FJOT)
Gen 37:1-4 – This is like Cain hating Abel…and like the Pharisees hating Jesus.
Gen 37:5-8 – This is like Jesus acknowledging to the Jewish leaders that He was the Messiah (meaning He would have authority over them). It only made them hate Him more.
Gen 37:9-10 – Thus the sun, moon, and stars are a metaphor for the nuclear family. God’s design is that 1) every family should bring light to the world, and 2) the father should be the family’s leading light. Speaking more broadly of the human race, there was Adam, Eve, and all their descendants – one of whom all the rest, including Adam and Eve, should bow before. We know which Son that was. Joseph is a type of Him. (FJOT)
Gen 37:11 – Compare “his father kept the saying in mind” here with “His mother treasured all these things in her heart” in Lk 2:51 (speaking of Mary’s thoughts about the acts of the young Jesus).
Gen 37:12-14 – A concerned father sends his most capable and dutiful son to check on the welfare of his many other sons. As expected, the special son is willing and obedient to his father’s will. Does this story line continue to sound familiar?
Gen 37:15-17 – Without the Holy Spirit, even Jesus would’ve gotten lost.
Gen 37:18- 20 – Hatred of the favored one intensifies until death is the only desirable outcome – as with Cain and Abel, as with the enemies of Jesus.
Gen 37:21-22 – Reuben’s motive seems less about compassion for Joseph and more about trying to find himself a way back into his father’s good graces after taking liberties with his father’s concubine (Gen 35:22).
Gen 37:23-24 – They “stripped Joseph of his tunic” as Jesus would be stripped on the day of His crucifixion (Mt 27:28). As for what followed for Joseph, the pit wasn’t it. And because of Jesus, the pit isn’t it for you either. In the following verse, the NASB translators say in a footnote that the word “destructions” can also be translated as “pits.”
He sent His word and healed them,
Psalm 107:20
And delivered them from their destructions.
Thus God is in the business of delivering men from their pits. Most importantly, Jesus arose from the pit of death (Sheol/Hades) – a pit that had never before allowed such an escape (Ps 68:20). From there, Jesus led captive a host of captives” (Eph 4:8; Ps 68:18). And we have all become part of that jailbreak.
Gen 37:25-28 – As their father Jacob was prone to bargaining (for example, seeing a way to profit from his brother’s hunger), Jacob’s sons saw a way to profit from their brother rather kill him. And thus did Joseph get a deliverance from death that involved an all-expenses paid, one-way trip to Egypt. (Some 1700 years after this, Judas would see a way to profit from the sale of his brother, though he knew it would not spare that brother from death – see Mt 26:14-16).
Gen 37:29-30 – Upon learning about Joseph having been sold into slavery, Reuben expresses no concern for him; only for what Jacob will think about Reuben when he gets bad news about Joseph. This makes it even clearer that Reuben’s concern was never for Joseph but rather for Reuben’s reputation with his father after the dalliance with his father’s concubine. See note on Gen 37:21-22 above.
Gen 37:31-33 – As Jacob deceived his father with garments, so Jacob’s sons deceived him with a garment. “Whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Gal 6:7).
Gen 37:34-35 – Jacob’s sorrow over the loss of Joseph is overwhelming. He is saying he will mourn this loss as long as he lives, and may even be saying that this sorrow will hasten his death. As for death, it consists of going down to the pit that is Sheol/Hades. This is the first time that the word “Sheol” appears in the Bible, but you can tell from the way Jacob is saying it that everyone knew what he was talking about. Further to that point, this word for the place of death occurs over 60 times in the NASB Old Testament, and 10 more times as the Greek word “Hades” in the New Testament. It was a concept widely understood and believed by ancient Israelites. I explain how Jesus delivered humanity from this pit in the book The Biblical Case for Everyone Going to Heaven. For those of us who live on this side of the Second Coming (Jesus Christ Has Already Come Again), however, death leads straight to heaven. There is no more pit for us to descend to. Praise be to the name of Jesus Christ our Lord!
Gen 37:36 – God is going to use Joseph’s bondage to advance His good purposes, just as He always endures evil until He overcomes it with good (Rom 12:21).
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Genesis 38
Genesis 38 is a one-chapter digression from the Joseph-centered narrative that comprises Genesis 37-50. The reason for the digression is to explain something unusual and unsavory in the ancestry of Messiah. We know that Abraham is the descendant of Noah and of Adam through whom God chose to give so many descendants that eventually a nation could be formed from them, and ultimately a Messiah could be born to become king of that nation and to save the world. From Abraham, that Messianic bloodline went through Isaac (not Ishmael), then through Jacob (not Esau), and then through Judah (not Joseph, nor any of the other sons of Jacob). Jacob and all his sons were descendants of Abraham, but it was Judah through whom the Messiah would come. As it later says in 1 Chronicles 5:2 – “Though Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came the leader, yet the birthright belonged to Joseph),” – “the leader” being a reference to Messiah. Thus Genesis 38 records that despite the magnificent way God used Joseph in Gen 37-50, it was through Judah that Messiah would come. The events of this chapter would not be easily imagined, which is all the more reason we can appreciate why they were recorded for us.
Gen 38:1 – Joseph and Judah both broke away from their brothers. Joseph was forced into it; Judah chose to do it, though we are not told why.
Gen 38:2-5 – We are told that Judah took a Canaanite woman – which was a bad sign. He should have learned from his Uncle Esau’s bad example (Gen 26:34-35).
Gen 38:6-7 – Er was the first fruit of a bad marriage. No surprise there. The Canaanites were corrupted peoples, on their way to losing their land.
Gen 38:8 – This is the first mention of such a practice in the Bible, but it is not described as something novel. On the contrary, Onan’s duty is spoken of in this chapter as something expected, even if it was not a proposition that was attractive to the surviving brother. This custom would later be codified into the Law of Moses (Deut 25:5-6). Widowhood was even harder in ancient times than it is modern times.
Gen 38:9 – Do we men avoid teaching Jesus to our children because we don’t want them to be more devoted to Christ than they are to us? ***** For more on Gen 38:8-9, see Gal 4:17 and accompanying BSN notes.
Gen 38:10 – The first two sons of Judah through a Canaanite woman have become evil enough in the sight of the Lord to lose their lives. His bad decision keeps bearing bad fruit.
Gen 38:11-14 – Tamar waited “a considerable time” for Judah to keep his promise to her about his third son Shelah – but to no avail. Therefore, she began to take matters into her own hands.
Gen 38:15-23 – Tamar springs her trap…and then waits silently to see what happens.
Gen 38:24-26 – Judah cooks his own goose by pronouncing judgment on Tamar before he has all the facts. Sometimes, the worst judgments that come upon us are those judgments we unfairly make about someone else and then come back on us. It is always easier to see sin in others than to see it in ourselves because our desire for self-preservation can blind us to what’s right and fair. God sent the prophet Nathan to confront King David about his sin with Bathsheba by telling a story about a villain that David condemned before he knew he was condemning himself (2 Sam 12:1-15). To David’s credit, he did as we see Judah do: acknowledge God’s righteousness, admit he was the one who was wrong, and repented. Judah even pronounced Tamar more righteous than himself.
Gen 38:27-30 – This scene is reminiscent of the gestation and birth of the twins Jacob and Esau (Gen 25:21-26). In that case, it was Jacob (meaning “supplanter”) who ultimately prevailed, and in this case it was Perez (meaning “a breach”). For Matthew 1:3-6 confirms that it was Perez who would continue the Messianic bloodline from Judah to David.
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Genesis 39
Having recorded the story of how the messianic line was extended through Judah in the one-chapter interlude that is Gen 38, the story of Joseph now picks up where it left off at the end of Gen 37.
Gen 39:1-5 – The key phrase in this passage is “The Lord was with Joseph” (verse 2). This is the theme of the passage, of the chapter, and of Gen 37-50. Like cream that keeps rising to the top, Joseph, no matter how far down he is thrown, just keeps rising to the top. This is part of makes him such an prominent type of Christ. In multiple ways, Joseph exhibits the pattern of Christ which usually involves a progression from suffering to glory. (FJOT)
The types of Christ increase our perception of Christ. The better we perceive Christ, the better able we are to imitate Him. God came to earth to be an example to us. As a type, Joseph sharpens our perception of Christ as someone who does not moan, whine, and complain when he is thrown down in life. But remember that while Jesus had types to follow, we have the types fleshed out in the Son of God to follow. That is, Christ is the one with us when we are thrown down…and He is the One who causes us to rise. No matter how far down we are thrown in life – even into the depths of the deepest pit – we should expect to rise through Christ who strengthens us (Phil 4:13). He is “the Lord who is with” us (verse 2). As Corrie ten Boom said, “There is no pit is so deep that God’s love is not deeper still; with Jesus even in our darkest moments, the best remains and the very best is yet to be.” Jesus Christ is like a lifejacket: when we are clothed with Him we simply cannot sink even though we are dead weight…because He is a lifejacket strong enough to keep bringing us back up.
Gen 39:6-18 – As Joseph had enjoyed favor, success, and freedom in Canaan until his brothers conspired against him, he was enjoying favor and success as a slave in Egypt until his master’s wife sought to tempt him.
Gen 39:8-9 – Joseph walked in the spirit. It wasn’t so much Potiphar that Joseph didn’t want to offend by taking liberties with Potiphar’s wife – it was the God who was watching it all.
Gen 39:11 – Although Joseph has a good heart, he has shown himself to be naive at times, and this is one of them. Had he been wiser, he could have avoided a situation where he’d be alone with this women. Similarly, he had not been alert to just how great was his brothers’ jealousy of him when he told them of his dreams that implied they’d be bowing down to him one day. Yet God protects even the naive if their hearts are right toward God. And so God will deliver Joseph from this dilemma just as He delivered him from the pit.
Before someone complains that a type of Christ shouldn’t be naive, let me say that no type of Christ is exactly like Christ in every way because then we wouldn’t need Christ. An analogy to a thing is never exactly like the thing in every way, for then it wouldn’t be an analogy – it would be the thing. (FJOT)
Gen 39:19-23 – Joseph is thrown down again – this time from slave to prisoner. And, just as before he rises. Just like Messiah rises from the dead. And notice also that Joseph rose in the ranks of the chief jailer’s service just as he’d risen in the ranks of Potiphar’s service. Step by step, Joseph did well at one task until he was promoted to the next, until he was the right-hand man of the person in charge.
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Genesis 40
In this chapter, there are multiple allusions to things that would happen in God’s plan to save the world through Jesus Christ.
Gen 40:1-2 – Throughout this chapter – which is to say “this story” since the Bible was not written in chapter and verse – we see a theme of bread (the baker) and wine (the cupbearer) – just as we saw it in Gen 14 with Melchizedek, king of Salem. Both foreshadow the Last Supper, which was, of course, a Passover meal.
Gen 40:3-4 – As Adam and Eve were exiled from the garden of Eden, and as the baker and the cupbearer were exiled from Pharaoh’s court, so we – the descendants of Adam and Eve – are living in exile from God on earth with Jesus in our midst through His Holy Spirit. (Joseph is a type of Jesus.)
Gen 40:5-8 – We know this kind of dejection. For we have lots of dreams we do not know how to interpret. Joseph was a godsend to anyone who needed a dream interpreted. About a thousand years later, Daniel – another godsend – would walk in Joseph’s dream interpreter shoes. And about 600 years after that, Jesus would arise. (The patience of God is beyond measure!)
Gen 40:9-13 – As bread and wine were pointers to X’s sacrifice earlier in this story, so also is “three days.”
Gen 40:14 – This is but a small thing to ask in return for the interpretation of a dream, is it not?
Gen 40:15 – Though Jesus had done no wrong – that is, He committed no sin – still, He had to die just like we do…only in a far more painful way than most of us have to experience.
Gen 40:16-19 – The interpretation of the baker’s dream offers no hope for the baker. It even includes a reference to being hung on a tree – which, of course, how Jesus ultimately died. Granted, the Roman tree was deadwood, and it was nails that kept Him hung on it instead of rope…but Jesus was, nonetheless, actually hung on a tree some 1,700 years after the baker had this dream and Joseph interpreted it.
Gen 40:20 – Hmm, there’s the third day again.
Gen 40:21-22 – It all happened just as Joseph said. Just as Daniel said. Most of all, just as Jesus said.
Gen 40:23 – To me, this is one of the most poignant and haunting sentences in the Bible. It speaks of what we do with Jesus all too often. He does something wonderful for us…and we promptly forget Him. This sad truth applies to our individual lives and even to nations. In the latter regard, it reminds me of what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said gave rise to communism in Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Even now, we can see that America has forgotten God, and that why so many evil things are increasing in our midst.
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Genesis 41
Gen 41:1-8 – After “two full years” – *I wonder how hard that wait was on Joseph) – Pharaoh has two dreams which neither he nor any of the other smart people he knew could understand. (I have a hard time remembering my dreams, and even harder a time interpreting them.) ***** It’s probably impossible to overstate the importance of the Nile River to life in ancient Egypt; that country would have been just a vast desert otherwise. That the dream involved the Nile probably had had something to do with why Pharaoh was trying so hard to find an interpretation for it; the Nile meant life or death to his kingdom. Similarly, the river of the water of life means spiritual life or death to us (Jn 7:37-39; Rev 22:1-2).
Gen 41:9-13 – After “two full years” the cupbearer now sees a potential benefit to himself for mentioning Joseph to Pharaoh. (Sigh.)
Gen 41:14-16 – Joseph rightly gives God the glory for the gift of interpretation.
Gen 41:14 – (FJOT) A quick snapshot of Jesus being called forth from the dead on the third day and then ascending to heaven 50 days later to be seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Gen 41:17-24 – Pharaoh tells Joseph his two dreams, and that none of Pharaoh’s “wise” men have been able to interpret them.
Gen 41:25-31 – Through the insight God gives him, Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dream for him.
Gen 41:32 – Joseph now gives an additional benefit Pharaoh did not request – that is, Joseph gives a sense of the timeframe for fulfillment.
Gen 41:33-36 – Now Joseph really goes the extra mile, giving Pharaoh a strategic plan to make the most of the advance warning God has given. A fifth works out to be a double tithe, which makes perfect sense because the tithe of the second seven years will hardly be worth anything, so collecting a double tithe in the first seven years will given them what would have been a full tithe for the fourteen years.
Gen 41:37 – There were dumb Pharaohs and smart ones. This is a smart one. Moses encountered a dumb one.
Gen 41:38 – (FJOT) Compare this to the scene at Jesus’ baptism when the voice from heaven said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased” – Mt 3:17.
Gen 41:39-44 – (FJOT) Notice how Pharaoh exalting Joseph in this way foreshadows how God would exalt the Son of God. Here’s one New Testament passage among many which show the similarity.
For this reason also, God highly exalted Him,
Philippians 2:9-11
and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW,
of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
(God and Moses are taking great pains to lay out the full story of Joseph because it is illustrative of Messiah’s mission in so many ways.)
Gen 41:45 – (FJOT) The NASB translators say that the name Pharaoh gave Joseph – “Zaphenath-paneah” – was “Probably Egyptian for ‘God speaks; he lives’.” Pharaoh had gotten the message! And I love the way he put that. Lots of people try to prove that God exists, but if you know that God speaks, you don’t have to prove that He exists. Moreover, you can go straight to heeding what He says; whereas, if you invest all your energy in proving that He exists, then you’ve still got to find a way to prove that He speaks, and, after that, figure out what He’s saying. It’s so much more efficient to start with what you know God has said. More specifically, and even more efficiently, what Jesus has said! ***** Just as Joseph was presented a worthy wife, so Jesus was presented with the New Testament church as His glorious bride. The people who comprised that church were the greatest generation of all humanity. ***** As Joseph went forth into all of Egypt, so Jesus went forth into all the world.
Gen 41:46 – (FJOT) Jesus similarly began His ministry when He was about thirty years of age and “went through all the land of” Israel during the few years of His earthly ministry.
Gen 41:47-49 – Success in the first seven years! Plus, during his “full” years of waiting Joseph had gained a lot of wisdom – really 13 if you start counting from when his brothers threw him into that pit. That’s a lot of time to think…and learn. Storing the food close to where it was harvested was prudent for two reasons: 1) it kept transportation costs low for both storing and retrieving the food, and 2) it kept the outlying citizenry happy because they were able to keep an eye on the food they had produced and would consume, which would not have been the case if Joseph had stored it all in, say, the nation’s capital, where only residents of the capital city would be able to keep an eye on the food supply.
Gen 41:50-52 – (FJOT) Manasseh (“God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household”) and Ephraim (“God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction”) are two great names – not just in Joseph’s case but also for Jesus, and through Jesus, us, too! Both names speak of great things God has done: the first regarding Joseph’s past, and the second regarding his present and future. With all God had done, He was comforting Joseph regarding the difficulties of his past life, and He was blessing Joseph with children, which implied future blessing because they would have children who would have children who would have children and so on. Further to this second point, God in the beginning with Adam and Eve had said, “Be fruitful and multiply,” but sin and death had made the world a place of “affliction.” Through Christ, God shows that He can make us fruitful in “the land of our affliction” while we forgive all the sins against us (“all my trouble”).
Gen 41:53-54 – Success in the initial years of famine, too! For over seven years now, things have turned out exactly how God said through Joseph that they would. God’s word is trustworthy!
Gen 41:55 – (#FJOT) Notice the similarity between what Pharaoh said about Joseph here to what Mary said about Jesus in Jn 2:5 (“Whatever He says to you, do it.”). Notice also how Ruth 3:5 and Matt 21:6 evoke this pattern. ***** “Whatever He says to you, do it”
Gen 41:56-57 – (#FJOT) – Through Joseph, God has made Egypt the breadbasket of the world. This reminds us of Bethlehem, to which the wise men came. (In Hebrew, “beth” means “house” and “lechem” means “bread; therefore, “Bethlehem” means “house of bread” and Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”) When people are hungry, they’ll go to where there’s bread. God has therefore now set up the situation that will draw Joseph’s family to him.
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Genesis 42
Gen 42:1-2 – I don’t know that Jacob or Moses were trying to inject humor with that line – “Why are you staring at one another” – but it strikes me as hilarious. Of course, apart from any humor, it was a very serious situation – literally, life and death.
Gen 42:3-5 – Recalling that Rachel was the only wife Jacob sought and that she was only able to give birth to two sons, and that Jacob deemed Joseph to be dead. Remembering all this we can understand why Jacob was so protective of Benjamin, even if we cannot get comfortable with the partiality that both he and his parents (Isaac favoring Esau while Rebekah favored Jacob) had shown with respect to their children.
Gen 42:6 – Recall that Joseph had a dream about his brothers bowing down to him (Gen 37:5-8). Until this moment, however, the only fulfillment he’d seen of that dream was his brothers bending over to look down on him in that pit into which they’d thrown him. That must have made him particularly thankful for this moment! Crucifixion, like a pit, can seem like something you’d never sign up for; but if you knew it wasn’t an end, but rather a beginning, and a beginning that would lead to an end far more wonderful than anything you had ever imagined, you’d start to think differently.
Gen 42:7 – When Joseph was 17 and had the dream about his brothers bowing down to him, he naively told them about it. Now, in his late 30’s, Joseph demonstrates so much more wisdom. Knowing that he doesn’t know if his brothers have changed, he keeps his cards close to his vest. This reminds us of Jesus, who was wiser even than Solomon, and of whom it was said: “But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men…” (Jn 2:24).
Gen 42:8-17 – Joseph has obviously concocted a plan by which he can test his brothers and find out what was in them. He knows the jealousy the brothers had of him must now be directed at his only full-brother Benjamin. He wants to see if Benjamin is okay, and if he’s in danger of sabotage by his brothers as Joseph had been.
Gen 42:18-25 – Reuben was the firstborn, but Joseph passed over him and selected Simeon, who was the second born, to be the hostage. Of course, at this point the ten brothers have no idea that this Egyptian ruler before them knows who they are, much less their birth order. We can assume Joseph was favorably disposed to Reuben because of what he said on Joseph’s behalf to the other brothers. ***** That Joseph wept reminds us of the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept” (Jn 11:35). Strong men don’t weep easily or often, but when they do, it is to process great grief so that they can move on from it and do the things that must be done. ***** Binding Simeon was for visual effect on the brothers’ character. ***** The money Joseph had put in their sacks was to strengthen his test of the brothers. Joseph didn’t just want to know their true attitude toward him; he wanted to know what kind of men they’d become. He himself had become a better man through all trials and troubles; had they?
Gen 42:26-28 – Joseph doesn’t get to see this scene, but we do – and it is so encouraging to see. It turns out they are not greedy men, for their is no giddiness at this discovery. On the contrary, they don’t know how the money got there, but they do know they will be considered thieves for having it in their possession. This turns their attention toward God, for they sense His justice must be at work in these mysterious happenings – that undeserved evil is coming on them because of the undeserved evil they brought on Joseph.
Gen 42:29-34 – Jacob’s sons return to him with a story they never expected to tell and that he never expected to hear.
Gen 42:35-38 – Jacob’s reaction to all these unexpected and unwanted events is to sit tight and do nothing.
Gen 42:35 – The bad news for Jacob’s family gets even worse with the discovery that all of them left Egypt with money not their own.
Gen 42:36 – As we have seen, for all of Jacob’s virtues, and they are considerable, he whines when trouble comes.
Gen 42:37 – Reuben is sometimes well-intentioned, but he rarely displays the kind of wisdom a family needs in its firstborn. What good is it going to do anyone for his children to be killed? And why should they be executed for his failure? For his failings, Reuben would be passed over for the messianic line. In fact, Simeon and Levi also had failings that disqualified them. By contrast, Judah, the fourth in line, managed to eventually distinguish himself and thus became the ancestor of David and of the Messiah.
Gen 42:38 – For the second time in the Bible, we see Sheol mentioned as a way of describing death. But Sheol wasn’t just a metaphor; it was the place everyone actually went when they died…until Jesus changed it (Everyone Is Going to Heaven).
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Genesis 43
Gen 43:1-10 – In this paragraph, Judah demonstrates that he has become the de facto leader of the family. (We’re momentarily excluding Joseph from view, of course.) This explains why Jacob will later give Judah the rights and responsibilities of the firstborn in his blessings to all the sons in Gen 49. (Judah’s older siblings – Reuben, Simeon, and Levi – were excluded from considerations because of their failings.) That Jacob didn’t give the firstborn’s role to Joseph is perhaps a sign that at age 147 Jacob had matured out of the partiality he’d shown toward his sons earlier in life. Joseph did distinguish himself, and Jacob did give Joseph a double portion of the inheritance by including grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh among the sons. More on that in the notes below on Gen 49. Jacob had become wise enough to appreciate that even though we may distinguish ourselves in doing right, the final call is still God’s because He can see things we cannot.
Gen 43:1-2 – Given the severity of the famine, it was only a matter of time before Jacob told the brothers to go back to Egypt – but he had put it off as long as he could.
Gen 43:3-5 – Judah is respectful with his father, but straightforward, too.
Gen 43:6 – Jacob whines. Whining is always unpleasant to witness, but never more so than when a grown man is the one whining.
Gen 43:7 – Wisely, the brothers follow Judah’s lead and confirm his logic for Jacob’s sake. By staying respectful to their father, the sons are able to keep advancing the discussion.
Gen 43:8-9 – Perhaps buoyed by his brothers’ support, Judah makes a much wiser and more appropriate offer than his older brother Reuben had made (Gen 42:37). Rather than offering his children to bear the punishment for any failure, Judah offers to take any punishment on himself. And Judah does not even attempt to limit the degree of punishment he’s willing to bear – he leaves that completely to Jacob’s judgment. Of course, Judah is hoping against failure, but the point is that he is fully prepared to bear any negative consequences. This makes Judah a type of Christ, who would one day be descended from Judah. (FJOT)
Gen 43:10 – I don’t know any other way to interpret this concluding statement by Judah but as sardonic humor. It seems the perfect call to action for his pitch to Jacob because it has this feel of a soft and gentle “C’mon, Dad!”
Gen 43:11-15 – Having been brought to his senses by Judah’s leadership, Jacob now demonstrates his strengths by laying out a very good plan for the brothers to follow. And, to the brothers’ credit, they do follow without another word.
Gen 43:16-25 – In this paragraph, the stage is carefully set for the first reunion of all the brothers since Joseph was sold into slavery some 20 years before.
Gen 43:18 – Because they are decent men, the brothers’ consciences bear witness against them. They see evil coming and they know they have brought it on themselves by having done evil in the first place.
Gen 43:19-22 – To their credit, the brothers do not come to Joseph’s house steward with a lie or a scheme, but rather with the simple, unvarnished truth. They’ve learned from sad experience that lying to get out of trouble is only the path to more trouble.
Gen 43:26-34 – We do not see Joseph reveal his identity to the brothers until the next chapter. Here, we just see all the brothers together, cleaned up, feasting at the table of the man that Pharaoh has put in charge of the whole country. Truly and literally, Joseph’s brothers have gone from famine to feast. Their minds can barely keep up with unfolding events as they are; just wait until Joseph tells them who he is!
Gen 43:26 – Joseph’s dream (Gen 37:5-8), which was fulfilled once (Gen 42:6), is here fulfilled again.
Gen 43:28 – Joseph’s dream is fulfilled yet again.
Gen 43:29-31 – As Joseph had privately wept at his previous meeting with the ten brothers, now he weeps privately again upon meeting with the eleventh. As before, Joseph is processing grief so that he can embrace joy. “Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning” – Ps 30:5. This is the way of Jesus (Heb 5:7).
Gen 43:32-34 – We know the story too well to appreciate how bewildered the brothers were and how fast they felt it was all happening to them. They knew about God’s justice, but did not yet know about His mercy.
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Genesis 44
Gen 44:1-5 – Though Joseph has tested his brothers and found them trustworthy to some extent, he feels the need for a final test before he decides what he’s going to do once he reveals his identity to his brothers.
Gen 44:6-13 – As in the previous tests administered by Joseph, the brothers are honest in their reactions. That they “tore their clothes” indicates that their hearts are full of grief about what has happened – not full of anger or scheming. One of the reasons they don’t recognize Joseph is that, intimidating as he must of have been to them, they were far more intimidated by God who seemed to be crushing them in His vice of justice. They weren’t focused on Joseph because they were focused on God.
Gen 44:14-17 – Yet again, another fulfillment of Joseph’s youthful dream about his brothers. Joseph’s cup of divination, especially being discovered in this way, would remind them of the household idols that Rachel had stolen from her father and hidden in her things.
Gen 44:18-34 – Judah’s thoroughly rational, truthful, and impassioned plea for Benjamin on behalf of their father is a worthy foreshadowing of Jesus’ prayers for our salvation, most notably in the garden of Gethsemane where sweat fell from Him like drops of blood as He was praying (Lk 22:44).
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Genesis 45
Gen 45:1-3 – Joseph had been thoroughly testing his brothers to see what kind of men they had become, but he still wasn’t finished because he did not yet feel 100% certain that they had told him the truth about their father still being alive. Yet he could not hold in the emotion of his twenty years of estrangement from his family any longer.
Gen 45:4-15 – The brothers had been consumed with the justice they thought God was bringing against them; much to their surprise, Joseph opens their eyes to the mercy God had prepared for them. The brothers had done evil, but Joseph had done good. Thus the brothers would be receiving goodness because of Joseph’s goodness – just as we receive goodness from God because of the goodness of Jesus. Joseph had paid dearly to secure the benefits that would now flow to his brothers, just as Jesus paid even more dearly to secure the far greater benefits that now flow to all of us. Once again, Joseph is a type of Christ. (#FJOT)
Gen 45:7 – With regard to Joseph being a type of Christ (#FJOT), correlate “God sent me before you…” in this verse with Micah 2:13, and “to keep you alive by a great deliverance” with Hebrews 2:3.
Gen 45:8 – With regard to Joseph being a type of Christ (#FJOT), correlate God “has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his household and ruler over all the land of Egypt” in this verse with “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” in Matt 28:18.
Gen 45:16-20 – Things can go exceedingly well for those who have a relative in high places. As for Joseph’s brothers, so for Jesus’ disciples.
Gen 45:21-23 – Having the same mother and father can bring about a closeness among siblings that cannot be attained any other way. This is part of the reason that destruction of the nuclear family as a model for the human race has always been high on the devil’s priority list.
Gen 45:24 – Joseph’s exhortation to the brothers not to quarrel on the way is a needed warning to us all. Sometimes great victories can just lead to squabbling over the spoils. “Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and turmoil with it” – Prov 15:16.
Gen 45:25-28 – (#FJOT) This vignette foreshadows Jesus and Thomas in John 20:24-29.
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Genesis 46
Gen 46:1-4 – It is important and valuable in this transition from Canaan to Egypt that Jacob seeks his God, the God of his father Isaac. Because Jacob does seek, he finds – just as Jesus says (Mt 7:7-8; Lk 11:9-10). God answers Jacob with an affirmation of, and His blessing upon, the migration of Jacob and his family to Egypt. God also tells Jacob that he will die in Egypt, but that God will bring him up again, which alludes to Jacob’s burial in Canaan (which we’ll read about in the last chapter of Genesis). (That God “will bring him up again” also alludes to the resurrection. Such hints are buried all over the Old Testament.) Egypt is a place Jacob has never been, so God gives him the comfort of knowing that Joseph – not some stranger – will be the one who closes his eyes. Thus he now knows for sure that though his life has been tumultuous, he will die in peace.
Gen 46:5-7 – Although Jacob was taking everyone and everything he had to Egypt, he knew that his descendants’ destiny remained in Canaan, for that was the land God had promised to Abraham and Isaac for their descendants. Therefore, however long Jacob and his descendants were to be in Egypt, it would be temporary.
Gen 46:8-27 – This is the travel manifest for everyone going on the trip to Egypt. Things may have gotten a slow start with Abraham having only Isaac, and Isaac having only Jacob and Esau – but Jacob took “Be fruitful and multiply” to a whole new level. They are now roughly 70 in number!
Gen 46:28-34 – God and Joseph recognize the good fit between Jacob’s family and the Egyptians insofar as economic activity is concerned. That is, Jacob’s family are first-class shepherds and Egyptians hate that kind of work. This establishes the potential for what economists call “comparative advantage.” Israel will likely be better at tending animals and the Egyptians will likely be better at other occupations – thus maximizing trade between the two groups of people. Of course, in the coming generations this mutually beneficial climate will eventually evaporate as Israel will be made into slaves of Egypt. That slavery is where the book of Exodus will begin.
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Genesis 47
Gen 47:1-6 – Joseph wisely gets the economic issue settled first. He brings only five of his brothers to present to Pharaoh so as not create a spectacle or distraction. The discussion goes well. This Pharaoh has a history of liking Joseph’s ideas, and this one is no exception.
Gen 47:7-12 – The blessing of a true man of God counts for something. ***** Jacob was 130 years old at this point in his life; he would live to 147. His father Isaac had lived to 180, and his grandfather Abraham to 175. ***** With respect to Jacob, Joseph honored his father; with respect to his brothers, Joseph returned good for evil. Well done, Joseph! You are a type of Christ in so many ways! (FJOT)
Gen 47:13-26 – Joseph does not become lazy but continues to serve Pharaoh with wisdom and resolve. Through the ongoing famine, Joseph accrues more and more wealth and power for Pharaoh – continuing to collect the double tithe (a fifth). The people do not complain of oppression, but rather feel themselves to be fairly treated as their needs are met under the administration of Joseph. In subsequent generations, however, Pharaoh would have at least once descendant who would abuse this wealth and power, even enslaving the people of Joseph. It is at this point that the book of Exodus will begin. The descendants of Jacob will be in Egypt 430 years (Ex 12:40-41).
Gen 47:27-28 – On a small scale, we see here a description of the creation mandate being beautifully fulfilled: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it…” – Gen 1:28. Though this prosperity would be eventually be lost, it does demonstrate that there can always be pockets of blessing in the midst of the curse that Adam’s and Eve’s sin brought on the earth.
Gen 47:29-31 – This short paragraph has several ties to previous parts of Genesis. I point them out not because that makes this paragraph different from all the others, but just to use it as an example of how Scripture is always “interacting with itself” even in the very first book written by the Bible’s very first author (Moses).
Gen 47:29 – “he called his son Joseph” cf. “Joseph will close your eyes” in Gen 46:4 (God’s promise to Jacob when he left Canaan for Egypt 17 years before)
Gen 47:29 – “place now your hand under my thigh” cf. “Please place your hand under my thigh” in Gen 24:2, 9 (the way Abraham charged his servant to find a wife for Isaac)
Gen 47:30 – “you shall carry me out of Egypt” cf. “I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you up again” (God’s promise to Jacob when he left Canaan for Egypt 17 years before)
Gen 47:30 – “you shall…bury me in their burial place” cf. “the cave of Machpelah” in Gen 23 (which Abraham purchased for Sarah and which thereafter became the family burial plot).
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Genesis 48
Gen 48:1-22 – Jacob Blesses Joseph’s Sons Manasseh and Ephraim
Gen 48:3-4 – Jacob is referring to events recorded in Gen 28. Recall that it was then and there that Jacob renamed Luz as Bethel (“Bethel” means “house of God).
Gen 48:5-7 – Although Manasseh was born before Ephraim, Jacob here reverses the order of their names in anticipation of reversing the order of the two sons in the blessing he is about to give them. Reuben and Simeon are, respectively, Jacob’s first and second born sons. Thus Joseph’s sons are about to receive quite the promotion. Rachel was Joseph’s mother, so it’s natural she would come to Jacob’s mind as he looked at these two grandsons. By “adopting” Joseph’s two sons in this way, the blessing he was about to give would have even more meaning because it would be the blessing of one who is both father and grandfather.
Gen 48:10 – Jacob’s eyes were dim from age as were his father Isaac’s eyes at the time Jacob deceived him.
Gen 48:11 – Jacob (Israel) thanks God for a blessing he never thought he’d receive. (Through Christ, we receive blessings we never thought we’d receive; we should, like Jacob, be especially appreciative.)
Gen 48:13-14 – Jacob now follows through on the intention he signaled in v. 5 above when he spoke of “Ephraim and Manasseh” instead of the more customary “Manasseh and Ephraim” (which was their birth order).
Gen 48:15 – Notice the similarity between what Jacob says about God here and what he said about Him in Gen 35:3 (“who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone”).
Gen 48:16 – “And may my name live on in them.” (And may the name of Jesus Christ live on in us!)
Gen 48:17-20 – Jacob wants to use Ephraim and Manasseh to remind their descendants that God can reverse the normal order of things…and usually has good reasons when He does so. As Jacob was known for having eclipsed Esau in the blessings of God, so Jacob wanted Ephraim to be known for having eclipsed Manasseh. These alterations in order illustrate the wisdom and power of God. Both reversals foreshadow the reversal of order seen when David’s descendant (Messiah/Christ) eclipsed David in the first resurrection and God in the coming of the kingdom of God. (See Mark 12:35-37 and accompanying BSN notes; also see the essay Jesus Christ Is God.)
Gen 48:21-22 – Jacob concludes by invoking the land of Canaan, which is where he wants Joseph’s mind, and the mind of Joseph’s sons, to be focused for the long term even though they’ll be living in Egypt for a while longer. (Likewise, our minds should be focused on heaven even though we may be living on earth for a while longer.)
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Genesis 49
Gen 49:1-2 – What Jacob (Israel) is about to speak to his sons just before his death is both a father’s blessing (v. 28) and prophecy (“tell you what will befall you in the days to come”). ***** Notice that here Jacob begins to speak in Hebrew poetry. This continues throughout his blessings of the sons. ***** Note that the two longest blessings (prophecies) are to Judah and Joseph. This is because Judah is the father (forefather, ancestor) of Jesus the Messiah and Joseph is a type (prototype, pattern) of Jesus the Messiah. More than any of the other brothers, these two point to X. (FJOT)
Gen 49:3-4 – Reuben
Gen 49:5-7 – Simeon and Levi
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- Re: Simeon, see Josh 19:9 and accompanying BSN note which show how his descendants were absorbed by Judah’s descendants from the standpoint of land allocation.
- Re: Levi, they will inherit no land at all because of their assignment as the nation’s priests.
Gen 49:8-12 – Judah (#FJOT)
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- Jesus Christ will come through the line of Abraham>Isaac>Jacob>Judah. Therefore, Jesus inherits this prophecy/blessing to Judah.
- Do we not “praise” Jesus Christ? Do we not “bow down” to Him? Has He not been given dominion over His “enemies”?
- “lion” – Rev 5:5 refers to Jesus Christ as “the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah.”
- “scepter” – Heb 1:8 quotes Ps 45:6 in referring to the scepter of Jesus Christ in this way: “A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom.”
- “Shiloh” – See BSN note on Josh 18:1. This was when Israel set up the tabernacle at Shiloh upon conquering the land of Canaan. **** NASB translators say that “Until Shiloh comes” could also be translated as “Until he comes to Shiloh” or “Until he comes to whom it belongs.” Wording similar to the latter – “until He comes whose right it is” can be found in Ezek 21:27. I think this alternative works best, and the Ezekiel reference is just reinforcing evidence.
- Of whom else can it be said “To him shall be the obedience of the peoples” but Jesus Christ? (“peoples” is a reference to the Gentiles – that is, all the nations, not just Israel).
- Only time prevents me from demonstrating even more connections between Jesus and elements of this blessing/prophecy.
Gen 40:13 – Zebulun
Gen 49:14-15 – Issachar
Gen 49:16-18 – Dan
Gen 49:19 – Gad
Gen 49:20 – Asher
Gen 49:21 – Naphtali
Gen 49:22-26 – Joseph (FJOT)
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- There are so many ways that Joseph foreshadows Jesus Christ. Even in this brief passage, I only have time to name a few. (FJOT)
- “a bough” with “branches” – Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches” – Jn 15:5.
- “bitterly attacked” – Would the crucifixion not qualify as a “bitter attack”?
- “the Shepherd” – Did Jesus not say He was “the good shepherd” in Jn 10:11, 14?
- “the Stone” – Is Jesus Christ not “the stone that the builders rejected” (Ps 118:22; Acts 4:11 and elsewhere)
Gen 49:27 – Benjamin
Gen 49:28-33 – Jacob wants to be buried with his parents and grandparents in the land of Canaan because God had promised them that their descendants will inherit that land. Therefore, by expressing his wish to be buried there rather than in Egypt where his descendants currently reside, Jacob is acting on his faith. Faith expresses itself in the decisions we make and the actions we take. This is what James was teaching in Jas 2:14-26 when he said, ““You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” Jacob was “showing” his faith by prophesying to his sons and instructing them to bury him in the land of their future, not the land of their present. (Abraham expressed his faith similarly as noted above on Gen 23:3-20; Joseph likewise as noted at Gen 50:22-26 below.)
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Genesis 50
Gen 50:1-3 – When I read a passage like this, it reminds me that people don’t grieve much these days – certainly not like they used to. When I was a kid, traffic would often be halted for long, slow-moving funeral processions. Wakes and visitations lasted more than an hour – sometimes way more. Nowadays, people rarely pause for long even when someone significant in their lives passes on. The purpose of grief is to process loss…and that takes time. No wonder people are acting so dysfunctionally these days – they’re carrying around loads of unprocessed loss! Someone may want to say to me, “Mike, you believe everyone is going to heaven; therefore, wouldn’t a funeral be good news?” Yes – for the deceased, but the rest of us have lost someone. Yes, we can and should be happy for the person getting to a better place, but, unless they were complete jerks, we’re still going to suffer from their absence. Godly grieving is a way to deal with the losses we experience in this life.
Gen 50:4-6 – This was a big deal. Pharaoh could have become worried that if Joseph was allowed to return to his homeland, he might not return to Egypt. Joseph was wise enough to ask respectfully, and Pharaoh was wise enough to grant the request.
Gen 50:7-11 – Joseph Buries Jacob in Canaan
Gen 50:7 – Pharaoh wisely and compassionately sends a large contingent of Egyptians with Joseph and his family to Jacob’s burial site – “wise” because it was insurance that Joseph would return, and “compassionate” because it seems Pharaoh’s signs of respect for Joseph were heartfelt.
Gen 50:8 – Leaving the little ones and the flocks behind was a signal to Pharaoh that Joseph had no intention of skipping town. Besides, little ones do not understand the grieving process, at least not to a great degree, and would not receive the edification of grieving that adults would. (Solomon describes of this kind of edification in Ecclesiastes 7:1-4).
Gen 50:12-14 – This passage refers back to when Abraham bought this burial plot. The purchase came after the death of Sarah and is recorded in some detail in Gen 23:1-20.
Gen 50:15-21 – Joseph’s Brothers Doubt His Love for Them (FJOT)
Gen 50:15 – Joseph’s brothers don’t have a problem believing that Joseph loved their father; they do have a problem believing he loved them. (We needn’t worry that Jesus only did what He did to be obedient to His heavenly Father; He actually loves us, too!)
Gen 50:16-17 – Joseph’s brothers make up a whopper. Joseph breaks down thinking about the whole thing all over again.
Gen 50:18 – For the umpteenth time, Joseph’s adolescent dream about his brothers is fulfilled before his eyes.
Gen 50:19-21 – So Jesus speaks to the human race about our crucifixion of Him. Thus He “comforts” us and thus He “speaks kindly” to us. Never was Joseph a type of Christ more than when he said to his brothers: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.”
Gen 50:22-26 – The book of Exodus records that Moses fulfilled this oath of Jacob’s brothers by carrying Joseph’s bones with him when they left Egypt some 400 years later (Ex 13:19), and, in the generation after that, the book of Joshua records how those bones were buried in the promised land of Canaan (Josh 24:32). The New Testament records that Joseph’s declaration and request regarding his remains was an expression of his faith (Heb 11:22) – just as Abraham expressed his faith by his actions in buying the cave at Machpelah (see note above on Gen 23:3-20), and Jacob similarly expressed his faith by his actions when indicating his geographical preferences for burial (see note on Gen 49:28-33 above).
The Duty of a Man 