There is not really anything tonight that I can comment on, other than realizing that the bible is clear about Esau’s heritage and these are the descendants who ruled while the children of Isreal were under Egyption Slavery.

Jacob heads back to his homeland which he fled when his brother Esau was going to kill him. This passage shows a very diplomatic side of Jacob.

First he refers constantly to Esau as his master and to himself as “servant”.  Then he begins sending out gifts of livestock to his brother. Esau comes with 400 men and Jacob gets scared. All night he wrestles with God and his new name becomes Israel meaning “God Wrestler”.

When Esau finally meets up with Jacob he welcomes him with open arms. He meets his family and all is well.

Tonight, I am having my own issues with my brother and his family. I refuse to go into details, but I need to do some soul searching about that situation. Please pray for me as I struggle with anger towards them all. It is a rage that even I wasn’t aware it was so strong until today.

I actually need to learn from Esau how to love people I am furious at, and have NO respect for.

Next the passage goes into how Jacob’s daughter Dinah was raped and how her brothers concoted a plan for revenge on him and the village for her rape. It is a great read.

Finally we read that Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin. I didn’t know that she died in childbirth with him. How very sad. Her tomb still remains in Bethlehem to this day.

Questions:

• Once again we see how murder is almost condoned. Why is it OK back then and not anymore?
• What is the deal with all the alters and anointing stones? Was that a ritual from other religions of the time?

First, lets look at Laban.  He reminds me of a few people in my life, one in particular. He is out for what is best for him. He has a young guy come and offer to work on his land. He tells Jacob that for seven years of work he will give him his daughter Rachel. Then Jacob finds out that Laban cheated him by giving him Leah instead. Laban tells Jacob that he needs to work another seven years to get Rachel.

Finally those fourteen years are over and now Laban asks Jacob what he wants. Jacob asks for the speckled and spotted livestock. Laban immediately takes all what Jacob asked for and gives those animals to his own children.

Jacob proceeds to mate animals in front of sticks to create a strong herd for himself. He then notices that Laban changes towards him.

Have you ever worked for someone like Laban? I know I have. Look at this passage where Jacob describes what it has been like to work for Laban.

Genesis 31:38-42

I  almost had to laugh at that, because I could identify so well with it.  How many times have I worked for someone and given my all and it is never appreciated or commended. I have felt my talents and personality used to better the business, but at the end of the day I have nothing to show for it but a measly paycheck.

Yet God gives Jacob assurance in his frustration. He reminds Jacob that even though Laban has changed towards him, He never changes. He stays the same and he loves Jacob and his family.

What an assurance! In the midst of everything in life changing around us, people, jobs, economy, presidents, health, etc. GOD STAYS THE SAME!

I do have a few questions about this passage:

• Why did Jacob use those particular branches? Is there some significance there?
• Was it magic or a Miracle from God that made the babies speckled or spotted?
• What gods did Rachel steal? Why wasn’t she honest?

I really hope I get some more feedback soon. I would love for you to leave a comment. Thanks.

Esau is FURIOUS!!! Jacob has to flee and go to Laban, his Uncle to avoid his father’s wrath. On the way there he has a dream of a ladder reaching to heaven with angels going up and down the ladder. Then God gives Jacob a blessing:

Then God was right before him, saying, “I am God, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. I’m giving the ground on which you are sleeping to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will be as the dust of the Earth; they’ll stretch from west to east and from north to south. All the families of the Earth will bless themselves in you and your descendants. Yes. I’ll stay with you, I’ll protect you wherever you go, and I’ll bring you back to this very ground. I’ll stick with you until I’ve done everything I promised you.”

It is almost like God was giving Jacob an assurance despite what was to come. Jacob named the place Bethel, which means God’s House.

One day I was in church and I got a vision of me holding a newborn baby boy.  I asked what the baby’s name was, “Caleb Scott” The vision me answered. I asked if he was healthy… “Oh yes, he is perfect” the vision me answered.

When I came back from the vision, everyone singing praises around me, I sat in wonder at my vision. I had two girls and was told by my doctor that I could not have another child. I started counting the days and realized that I was a week late. I whispered to my husband that I needed to stop at the store on the way home from church. A few hours later, the pregnancy test was positive!!! Then that evening, my father, who lived 2000 miles away called me. He asked me if I knew anyone named “Caleb Scott” and proceded to tell me he had a dream where he felt very strongly to call and ask me about it.

My son was born a few months later. He had a lot of problems because he was born early. I kept going back to the vision God gave me, and I realized that God was telling me that yes, I was going to have a son, and that everything would eventually be all right with him. I needed that assurance and I clung to that hope when things looked dreadful with Caleb. It was that vision that got me through the darkest days with my little boy. He is perfect now and you would have no idea that he had any problems with his birth.

I believe this is the same for Jacob, this dream.

Jacob meets Rachel and falls in love with her. He agrees to work seven years for her. He does, and his love is so great for Rachel that it feels like no time at all. Then, just as he decieved his father to get his blessing, Jacob is decieved as well. Leah, Rachel’s older sister is who he married!!! He married the wrong girl!

Laban agrees to give Rachel to Jacob after his honeymoon with Leah, but only if he works for seven more years!

Jacob begins having children. Here is the Record of his children from this scripture reading:

1. Reuben (Look-It’s-a-Boy!)
2. Simeon (God-Heard)
3. Levi (Connect)
4. Judah (Praise-God)
5. Dan (Vindication)
6. Naphtali (Fight)
7. Gad (Lucky)
8. Asher (Happy)
9. Issachar (Bartered)
10. Zebulun (Honor)
11. Dinah (Daughter)
12. Joseph (Add)

Jacob had the children listed in black with Leah. The children in Red were concieved with Bilhah, Rachel’s maid. The children listed in Green were concieved with Zilpah, Leah’s Maid. Finally, the child in blue was concieved with Rachel.

Joseph was a busy man…that is for sure!

Today we get deeper in the life of Isaac.  First we read about Jacob and Esau and how Esau gave up his birthright for a bowl of stew. It occurs to us early on that Esau isn’t the brightest kid on earth.

Next we see that there is a famine and Isaac and Rebekah went to Gerar. God instructs them NOT to go to Egypt. There was a verse here that struck a cord with me:

^2-5 God appeared to him and said, “Don’t go down to Egypt; stay where I tell you. Stay here in this land and I’ll be with you and bless you. I’m giving you and your children all these lands, fulfilling the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. I’ll make your descendants as many as the stars in the sky and give them all these lands. All the nations of the Earth will get a blessing for themselves through your descendants. And why? Because Abraham obeyed my summons and kept my charge—my commands, my guidelines, my teachings.”

I attended a church with my family my whole life. Many of the people who attended that church attended with their families. Most of us were brought up by parents who walked with God.

Then I attended a church were most of the people came to know God at a point in their life. I felt silly for not having this great salvation story. It seemed the deeper you were in sin, the more amazing and revered your story was.  The first church like this I encountered I told the truth, that I had been brought up in church, attended Sunday School my whole life. They insisted that I was not a real Christian until I asked Jesus in my heart. I felt I always had Christ in my heart, since I was little.  They insisted that it wasn’t real unless I remembered it. This sent me on a very destructive spiral. I started a very bad rebellious streak against my family and friends.

When I encountered this type of thinking agian I was able to tell them that I was a run away who did drugs. In truth the farthest I ever ran was to a K-Mart two miles away, and I tried marijuana only once and decided it was stupid. But that story did the trick. Everyone there was jumping for joy that I was saved from Satan’s clutches and rejoiced with me that God delivered me from my sinful path. I thought they were all silly because I really had my faith, a faith my parents, my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins all shared since I was a child. I just wasted a whole lot of years and hurt those who loved me so this church would believe I was “really” a Christian.

In the passage above we see that God is fulfilling an Oath, a Promise he made to Abraham and he is doing it through Abraham’s son, Isaac. How awesome as a parent to know that God’s promises to us are for our children as well.

Finally we come to the story of how Jacob steals Esau’s blessing. I have to admit I struggle with this story pretty hard. The blessing goes to Jacob as a result of a lie that Jacob tells.

^23-24 But as he was about to bless him he pressed him, “You’re sure? You are my son Esau?”"Yes. I am.”

Jacob gets the blessing, not Esau. Jacob gets the inheritence, not Esau. We follow Jacob’s descendents, not Esau’s.  And he lied to get it!!!

Any thoughts or ideas why this is acceptable? I thought we weren’t supposed to lie.

Finally, in the end Rebekah orders Jacob to her brother Laban who lived where Abraham was born. He asks him to find a wife there among her brother’s family. Rebekah didn’t care for the Hittite wives that Esau had.

What struck a cord with you today? Anything in particular?

My lovely wife has not vanished.

She has, however, managed to douse her keyboard with a good deal of water, so tonight’s regularly scheduled post will be a bit delayed . . .

Today’s reading was shorter than most and didn’t cover so much ground. Tonight I learned that Abraham remarried after Sarah died, he married a concubine and had children with her as well. I have read Genesis more than any other book of the bible, yet I never comprehended that until tonight.

We read that he sent the sons by the Concubine out to the East and Isaac is who inherited everything he owned.

Ishmael also had tribe of children and prospered where he was. I wonder if Abraham had a part in his older life, with his sons and grandsons by Ismael.

Finally we read about Rebekah having the twins in her womb, fighting constantly. She seeks God about it and God tells her:

Two nations are in your womb,
two peoples butting heads while still in your body.
One people will overpower the other,
and the older will serve the younger.

Esau is born first and he is red and Hairy. His very name means Hairy. Jacob is born holding Esau’s heel. They name him Jacob which means Heel.

Once again today’s Bible passage was pretty straight forward. No questions. I wonder what happened to my readers though, I haven’t had any comments in a while.

We cover a whole lot of ground tonight. I am not going to get so much into God’s testing of Abraham by sacrificing his son Isaac. There is all kinds of commentary on that, you can do your own search on that subject.

The part that I found interesting tonight was this, Sarah is the first woman that it mentions how old she lived to be. So far, we have only been following the men lines for age. Sarah is the first woman that the bible mentions her age when she died. It also goes into very specific detail about her burial.

As a woman this warmed my heart. I felt a connection to Sarah that I hadn’t felt before reading this passage. I like to think that she walked closely with God and was his Servant right along with Abraham.

Next we have a story of how Rebekah comes to meet Isaac and marry him. The servant goes to Abrahams family and waits for the first girl to offer to water him and his camels, that is how he knows who he should take back with him.

Rebekah, the first to the well meets that criteria. They are sure this is of God and Rebekah goes back with the servant and marries Isaac. The last line of today’s passage lifted my heart:

So Isaac found comfort after his mother’s death.

How sweet.

Once again I have very few questions about today’s passage. Do you have any that you would like to share?

First, Abraham. Some men come into Abrahams camp and he rushes around to feed them his best. They ask Abraham about his wife, Sarah. They tell him that she will have a baby. Sarah hears the men speaking in the tent and laughs. She can’t believe a woman at age 90 would be blessed with a child.

These men then go to Sodom to destroy the city. First Abraham tries to reckon with God. He can’t believe that God would destroy both good and evil people and he asks him to spare the city for 50 people and finally for only 10. God agrees that if there are 10 good people he will spare the city.

The men stay with Lot at his home and the men outside call out to them because they want to have sex with them. Lot offers the men his virgin daughters, but the men refuse them. God destroys the city after saving Lot and his family. Only his wife looks back and turns into a pillar of salt. (Just a note, Sodom and Gomorrah are located on the Dead Sea, named because of its exuburant salt content).

Next we get into some interesting stories about Lot’s daughters getting him drunk and having sex with him to get pregnant. Both daughters become pregnant and the sons are the ancestors to the Moabites and Ammonites.

Then there is a story about Abraham going south and once again telling everyone that Sarah is his sister. The king takes Sarah into his castle but does not sleep with her. That night the king has a dream which God reveals the truth about Sarah being Abrahams wife. He questions Abraham about this. Abraham reveals that Sarah is his half sister in reality, so it was not a total lie.

Finally, Sarah gives birth to Isaac which had been promised so many times. I can’t count the number of times I have yelled out and screamed at God because I didn’t get a quick fix. I wanted God to fix our financial problems NOW!!! Then I yell and scream and throw my fist into the air when nothing has changed the very next day.

How silly I must seem to God when I think of how he sees me in those moments. How amazing that God has given so many answers so quickly to me. I need to thank him for those quick answered prayers he has granted. Abraham and Sarah waited over 90 years to get the child they had been promised over and over and over again by God! They took matters into their own hands even and realized that was a mistake.

I would have laughed at the tent like Sarah did if I was in her shoes. I know there have been things I wanted so badly, and get angry at God when it seemed his promises were empty. God was telling me to wait. Sarah had to wait for that child. With God there is always Hope where is no Hope.

I don’t have any questions tonight, but perhaps you have a question or two about this passage. Please feel free to write them in the comments.

Abram’s descendents, today we studied a whole lot about God promising Abram a family. Yesterday we read that God promised Abram as many descendants as dust of the earth he walked on. Today He tells Abram to look up at the sky and count the stars. He tells him he will have this many descendants.

Imagine Abram and Sarai, who are elderly, being told that they are going to be parents of great nations. They must have thought God was crazy! They decided that God must mean that Abram would have children with someone else. Sarai offers him her maid, Haggar.

How often has God spoken to us and we took things into our own hands thinking this is the way God meant?

I remember when my husband and I were purchasing our home. This was in 2004 when it was a sellers market and homes were getting contracts the day they went up for sell.

I felt strongly that we were supposed to buy a house in a certain area. I felt God calling us to that area. My husband also felt that call and we had our minds set on purchasing  in that area. Sure enough, the first house we looked at in that area my husband and I fell in love with.

As the weeks continued we both started noticing little things about the house that bothered us. My husband noticed structural things. I was watching the economy begin to take a dip in the housing market. I noticed that things were starting to slow down and that still small voice in my head told me to wait a year before buying.

My husband and I both had convinced each other so thoroghly that this is what God wanted that as these things began to get noticed we didn’t want to dissapoint each other by bringing them up. We moved forward with the closing, both with a knot in our stomachs and a smile on our face for each other.

It wasn’t until nearly two years later when the housing market had collapsed, our daughter diagnosed with cancer, and foreclosure notices coming in the mail that we each spoke of the concerns that we had about buying that home. We both realized that God had a bigger, better promise waiting for us but we were impatient.

This is what Sarai and Abram did. They got impatient and Abram had Ishmael with Sarai’s maid Haggar. God still blessed this child, dispite the situation. He still promised to make a great nation from this child.

Imagine the 13 years before God came and promised another child to Abram. There must have been many lessons learned, and even more patience than what was originally required of Abram.

I can say that we too are learning lessons from our impatience. We did eventually lose that home. We struggle fincancially still today. We have no hope of ever getting another home. Through it all I can say my faith is stronger than it ever has been. I learn lessons daily. I know that God will bless us despite our impatience.

God changed Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sarah. He told Abraham he would have a son named Isaac from Sarah. God came through on his promise for Abraham.

Is there anything that you got impatient for?  Where has God blessed you for being patient and waiting on Him?