Covenant Relationship in Genesis 18-23

 In Genesis 12 Abraham enters a covenant relationship with the Lord, which we discussed in my pervious blog. In the chapters we read in Come Follow Me this week we get to see what it means to be in a covenant relationship. One of the insights I gained this week is that a covenant is more than just an agreement--if you do this then I will do that.  Instead it is a relationship with God that grows as you and God learn to trust each other. 

There is a modern way of talking about relationships that deals with “bids” and how someone responds to them.  A “bid” is when someone does something to seek your attention or involvement in their life. How you respond to the bid largely determines how good your relationship is with that person. You can respond in three basic ways: you can turn toward them, away from them, or against them.  When you turn toward the person, you are acknowledging their need and offering some kind of support or aid. Turning away is when you change the interchange from being focused on the person, to being focused on something else, or on yourself. Turning against a person means that your reply to the bid with some kind of comment or action that feels like an attack. 

In Genesis 18-23 we see several short vignettes which involve either the Lord or the covenant family member putting out a "bid" and what response to the bid comes from the other party. The stories demonstrate that when the covenant family of Abrahams reaches out to the Lord, he responds by turning toward them. When God puts out a "bid" to one of the covenant family, they mostly respond by turning toward him, but not all. Those who do turn toward the Lord are blessed, but those who do not are punished. 

I taught this principle to my class of teenagers today.  Here are the stories we considered. We made a chart that showed who it was who made the bid and what the response was. 

Genesis 18: 1-5 Abraham entertains the three messengers

The Lord makes the bid to Abraham. Abraham turns to the Lord by welcoming the messengers with extreme hospitality, The Lord blesses Abraham and Sarah with the ability to have a child. 

Genesis18: 22-33 Bargaining over Sodom and Gomorrah

Abraham makes the bid to the Lord by asking him to Spare Sodom and Gomorrah if some righteous can be found.  The Lord turns toward Abraham by actively bargaining and giving the concessions Abraham seeks. In the end, even the lowest concession is not met, but the Lord still tries to save Lot and his family from the coming destruction.

 

Genesis 19: 12-26 Lot’s family escapes Sodom and Gomorrah

The Lord makes the bid by sending messengers to save Lot's family.  Lot's son-in-laws turn away because they are not willing to leave the city.  Lot's wife turns away as well and is destroyed. The people of the wicked cities turn against the messengers, threatening to kill them, and are destroyed. 
Genesis 21:15-19 Hagar and Ishmael are cast out

After Hagar and Ishmael are cast out from the family of Abraham they are about to die of thirst.  Hagar makes the bid, asking the Lord to save their lives. The Lord turns toward Hagar by providing water, but also by blessing her to be the matriarch of a great nation through Ishmael.

Genesis 22:1-3 Abraham is willing to offer Isaac

The Lord makes the bid by asking Abraham to sacrifice his miracle son. Despite the horrific nature of the bid, Abraham turns toward the Lord by preparing to sacrifice his son straightaway. 

Genesis 22:9-14 Abraham is spared from offering Isaac

Abraham make perhaps a silent bid to the Lord to not have to sacrifice his son.  The Lord responds by turning toward Abraham and sending an angel to stop the sacrifice.  He instead provides a ram for the sacrifice, and accepts Isaac as the heir to the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant. 

In each of these cases when the supplicant made a bid to the Lord, the Lord blessed them beyond what was strictly needed.  When the Lord made a bid from one of the covenant keepers, and the person turned toward the Lord, the Lord blessed him. The time when the covenant keeper turned away, the outcome was dire. Through these repeated experiences the relationship between the family of Abraham and the Lord grew stronger because each came to see that the other could be relied upon to maintain the relationship and the covenant. 

In real life, even the faithful don't get exactly what they want when they petition the Lord.  That is not because he is not keeping up his part of the relationship, but because he knows better than we do what we really need in the eternal scheme of things.  If we both keep making and receiving "bids" from the each other, we come to trust each other so that when, in a specific situation, we don't receive what we would like from the Lord, we have enough relational cache that we are able to trust that God actually does know what is best for us. That helps us endure our trials with faith. 

But it is not just about getting through trials. When we continually put ourselves in a state of humility to ask and receive communication from God, we become refined, gain capacity, and become more like the Savior. What I realized this week is the the Covenant Path our church leaders keep talking about is more than just checking of a list of ordinances we need to complete.  It is a path of relationship building where each time we respond to the Lord and he responds to us, our relationship gets closer and we become more like him.

 

The Abrahamic Covenant

 In Come Follow Me this week we read Genesis 12-17.  It has some interesting stories--some that are hard to understand.  In 2022 I wrote a blog about the story of Abram telling the pharaoh that his wife was his sister.  I still haven't heard anyone else put forward the idea I explained in that post, but I think it is an interesting one. 

This week I have been thinking about the Abrahamic Covenant and how I might teach it to teenagers. I blogged about the vision of the cut animals back in 2022. Although I found that interpretation fascinating, I think it is a little esoteric for 15-year-olds.

I have heard some teachers refer to the three "P's" of the Abrahamic Covenant: Priesthood, Posterity, Promised Land. The church's "topics and questions" article about the Abrahamic Covenant says that the covenant includes posterity and priesthood, and that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed. 

The idea that priesthood is part of the Abrahamic Covenant is unique to the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price.  Nowhere in Genesis does the Lord talk about Abraham having priesthood, though it could be implied because Abraham is clearly the spiritual leader of his clan and receives revelation in various forms. 

In Genesis, Abraham is promised that he would become a great nation, that his name would be great, that the Lord would bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him, and that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed. (Genesis 12: 2-3) Elsewhere the Lord promises his decedents the land of Canaan as an inheritance. (Genesis 15:18-21)

So what here applies to modern Latter-day Saints?  In D&C 84:33-34 it says

"33 For whoso is faithful unto the obtaining these two priesthoods (Aaronic and Melchizedek) of which I have spoken, and the magnifying their calling, are sanctified by the Spirit unto the renewing of their bodies.
34 They become the sons of Moses and of Aaron and the seed of Abraham, and the church and kingdom, and the elect of God."

This implies that we, through the priesthood, partake in the Abrahamic Covenant. What does that actually mean for us?  We are not going to inherit the land of Canaan.  We are not going to be the founder of many nations, at least on earth. It is not through our descendants that all the nations of the world will be blessed (especially if someone doesn't happen to have descendants).

I think the best answer to this for Latter-day Saints is the sealing prayer in the temple. In that prayer we are promised all the things mentioned in the Abrahamic Covenant (though not Canaan specifically) not on this earth, but in the eternal world. 

So does the Abrahamic Covenant have any application for us in this life?  We have the hope of future blessings, and that hope is itself a blessing, but is there more?

I think that the Abrahamic Covenant, especially the version found in Genesis, boils down to the idea that God is our god and will take care of us and watch our back. If you think about it, Abraham was promised that things that were of most worth to people of his time period.  He needed a large posterity to ensure his safety and success as part of a large and powerful clan. Without centralized government, people were at the mercy of any clan that was bigger and more powerful than your own. In chapters that follow the Genesis 12 we see some examples of clan wars, and that Abraham was able to assemble enough troops from his own clan to defeat invading hostile clans. He needed a great reputation to deter those who might think of invading and conquering his clan. He needed land so his flocks and family members could farm, herd, and get enough natural resources to survive. Finally, he needed divine intervention if someone with a bigger clan did attack, or if there was a famine, or any of a number of trials from the time period.

Our needs are not the same as Abraham's.  We are not part of a nomadic tribe wandering around the deserts of the Levant. We don't need a large posterity to ensure our safety and security.  We don't need to own a large piece of land to ensure that we get enough food. We don't need fame to prevent others from attacking us. But still, we partake in the Abrahamic covenant because when we accept God as our God, he promises to watch our back.  He will give us what we need to survive and be successful (at least spiritually) on this earth just as he did for Abraham.  His blessings might look different for each of us, but they will come if we follow the Lord. 

Noah's Ark and the Temple

 Noah's story about the Ark may be one of the most symbolically rich stories in all of the Old Testament.  I discussed some of the symbols in 2022 and you can read about them here. I want to talk about one more symbol here that several of my podcasters, particularly Mike Day on Talking Scriptures, and Taylor Halverson on Scripture Insights, brought to my attention this week, and that is comparing the Ark to the ancient tabernacle and temple. Of course, Mike Day compares everything to the Temple, but I think this comparison has both good evidence, and good meaning. Here are some reasons someone might compare the Ark to the temple. 

1. Both are structures for which God gave exact measurement and instructions.

2. Both had three man sections: The tabernacle and temple had the courtyard, the holy place, and the holy of holies, while the Ark had three floors.

3. Both involved a cleansing sacrifice. The wicked were slain outside the ark in the flood to cleanse the earth, and the animals were slain outside of the temple for ritualistic cleansing.

4. Both were the origin of covenants, signs and tokens.  God made a covenant with Noah never to again destroy the world with a flood, and made a rainbow as a token.  The Israelites covenanted to be God's people in the temple, and offered sacrifices as tokens. 

5. The Ark eventually rested at the top of a mountain.  Solomon's temple was built on Mount Moriah, and temples in general have always been associated with mountains.

 6. As I discussed in my earlier blog in 2022, the flood story was a repeat of the creation story, with many of the same terms and events happening in both.  The temple also represented the creation. When the priest entered into the Holy of Holies, it represented returning to the garden of Eden and God's presence.

I like this symbolic interpretation because modern temples are places of salvation. The Lord commanded Noah to build the Ark to save his family from the sin and corruption of the world. Likewise we go to the temple to learn how to save ourselves and our families from the sin and corruption of the world. The difference between those who make and keep temple covenants and people who live by the dictates of worldly culture is so much more stark now than when I was a child. I believe the differences will become more dramatic as time progresses.  Temple covenants offer a real protection in the modern world.  Also, we don't know much about the state of those who are waiting for their temple work to be done, but we do believe that doing temple work for the dead provides some kind of saving opportunity to them that, if they accept it, will help them in their eternal progression.  

https://latterdaysaintmag.com/article-1-11639/
This image is from another article about the ark as a temple.

The Earth Will Rest: Moses 7

In Moses 7:48, Enoch is seeing a vision of his posterity who have become wicked.  In the vision he hears the earth cry out, "Wo, wo is me, the mother of men; I am pained, I am weary, because of the wickedness of my children. When shall I rest, and be cleansed from the filthiness which is gone forth out of me? When will my Creator sanctify me, that I may rest, and righteousness for a season abide upon my face?"

This chapter is full of references to the Earth mourning and being agitated because of the wickedness of the children of men.  It longs to be cleansed from a wickedness that is not its fault, but makes it suffer.  Then Enoch sees several upcoming events related to giving the world some "rest."  The first event is Noah and the flood.  The flood's purpose is to wipe the wicked from the face of the earth, leaving only righteous Noah and his family to repopulate. 

The interesting thing about this reference to the Earth resting and the posterity of Noah, is that Noah's name in Hebrew is very similar to the word for "rest." Noah's name is נח (pronounced Noach with a German ch sound like Bach) the word for rest is נוּחַ (nuach, the same word except the middle vowel changed from 0 to U). There is definitely a play on names here, which occurs repeatedly throughout the Old Testament. It is a very Biblical/Hebrew thing to do, but the reference to the Earth resting doesn't appear in the Biblical narrative. It is only in the Book of Moses. 

The Book of Moses was written by Joseph Smith in 1830 and 1831. It was a part of the Joseph Smith translation of the book of Genesis.  Later, Joseph Smith studied Hebrew, but in 1830 he was still a very young, rather uneducated, man. There is almost no way that: 1. he knew that the name Noah meant "rest" in Hebrew, and 2. he was aware that many of the names in the Old Testament were puns related to the person's life and mission. I believe the only way the name pun could have appeared in the book of Moses was through revelation. This is an strong evidence of the prophetic calling of the prophet Joseph Smith. 

We learn from the book of Moses that the rest of the Earth after the flood is short lived.  Noah's descendants would eventually fall into wickedness.  Later, Jesus' atonement is another step to the Earth finding rest, but the Earth won't finally rest until the Lord returns and reigns on the Earth. (Moses 7:64).

Two Kinds of Covering, Genesis 3 and Moses 4

I taught Sunday School today and we mostly talked about Adam and Eve's actions after taking the forbidden fruit.  In Moses 4, we learn that Adam and Eve made a conscious decision to take of the forbidden fruit because they believed it would make them wise (Moses 4:12).  They soon discovered that being "wise" brought with it a bunch of negative emotions like shame (v 13), and fear (v 16).  Do deal with these new emotions, Adam and Eve try several tactics, including sewing the apron of fig leaves to cover his nakedness (v. 13), hiding (v. 14) and justifying their actions (v 18-19).   

In the class we talked about what an apron of fig leaves would be like. The word translated as "apron" in Hebrew is חגרת and everywhere else it appears in the Old Testament it is translated as a "girdle".  When it occurs in 1 Kings 2:5 it specifically is worn "about his loins".  So it sounds like a wide belt or loincloth. How effective would a loincloth made of leaves be to cover nakedness? The answer is, not very effective, and these are some reasons why:

1. Fig leaves, though fairly big, have finger shaped lobes instead of being solid.  It would be different to overlap them in such a way that there would be no gaps/holes. 

2. Fig leaves contain a natural poison that can give people rashes.

3. Fig leaves would dry up and become brittle after just a few days.  

 

The message here is that fig leaves are not a good choice for covering you.  They are ineffectual because of their shape, poisonous, and temporary. (note, I didn't know until this week that fig leaves gave you a rash, but the people of Israel would have known because they grew a lot of figs.  I could imagine everyone in the audience of an ancient synagogue cringing when they heard of a loin cloth made of fig leaves.)

After Adam and Eve confessed their sins, God made them a better covering, a coat of skins (Moses 4:27).  How is the coat of skins better than the fig leaves?  It is much more permanent, durable, comfortable, and effective. Yet, to make the coat of skins required the sacrifice of life.  The symbolism is fairly clear.  In order to cover Adam's sin in a way that would work and would last, a sacrifice had to be made. In the story it was the sacrifice of an animal, but symbolically it represents the sacrifice Jesus himself made to atone for the sins of the world. 

The word, atonement, does not appear in the New Testament, but it does appear in the Old Testament in relation to animal sacrifices. The word for atonement used in Leviticus 17:11 and repeatedly in the Old Testament is כפר. It also mean "a covering." (it is used to describe the covering of pitch that Noah put on the ark)  So when God makes a coat of skins for a covering, that passage could be translated (if we had it in Hebrew, but we don't since it is from Moses, not Genesis) as "God made a coat of skins as an atonement."  The atonement is the only durable, effective, and non-poisonous way for us to do away with the shame and fear associated with sin.

So we have a choice, we can try to cover our own sins with a loin cloth made of fig leaves i.e. by hiding, justifying, or blaming, but none of these fixes are permanent, comfortable, or even effectual. The only true way to rid ourselves of the shame and fear resulting from sin is to accept the Lord's covering, his atonement. 

Adam's Rib, and other translation questions in Genesis 2-4

 This part of the Old Testament is so rich in symbolism and meaning, one could spend an entire year studying just Genesis 1-5. Last time we did the Old Testament I wrote two posts on The Fall

Fall part 1

Fall part 2

So I want to narrow my focus to discuss two translation issues concerning mother Eve. 

The first was brought to my attention by my daughter.  She texted me one day and said, "I heard on a podcast that the word translated in Genesis 2:21 as "rib" in the KJV doesn't mean rib, but side." So when I got a chance I used my Bible Vocab app to look at all the other places that word is used in the Torah.  She was right.  The word is צלע and all the other times it appears in the Torah it just means "side."  Most of the references refer to building the tabernacle and the sacred objects it held,  such as in Exodus 25:12 (talking about the ark of the covenant,) "And thou shalt cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in the four corners thereof; and two rings shall be in the one side of it, and two rings in the other side of it." The words for "side" are צלע.  Also, in Exodus 36:32 it refers to the two sides of the tabernacle itself.  In 2 Samuel 4:6 in the JKV the word "rib" appears, but there it is a different word in Hebrew, חמש. 

So the question is, where did the idea of the "rib" come from? I looked up the Latin translation of the passage, and the word there, "costa," is ambiguous.  It is used to mean "rib" or "flank" of an animal, but also the coast, as in the shore of a lake or ocean. The word in the Greek Septuagint, πλευρῶν, specifically refers to a rib, the side, or flank of an animal or human. It doesn't have the broader sense of a side of an object, so maybe that is where the idea of the "rib" started to creep into the English. (click here to checkout my blog post about Biblical languages) In all of these languages it would have been justified to translate the passage as, "And God took one side of Adam, and God made from the side...a woman." (paraphrasing.) In Hebrew, the original language, that would have been the more accurate translation.

One has to wonder why, when the scholars were making the King James translation, they chose to translate the passage as "rib" instead of "side."  We know from history that they mostly used the Septuagint while translating more than the Hebrew, so the Greek word would have influenced them. But they did have a Hebrew version and Hebrew scholars they could refer to when a question arose about the Greek. Did they even discuss whether they should use the word, "side" or "rib" or did their male dominant brains automatically default to "rib" because, how could a woman be made out of one whole "side" of the man. 

One also has to wonder how the world would have been different if they had chosen the other translation. What if the scriptures everyone was using said that God took one half of Adam and from that made Eve?  Would that have changed how women have been treated in Western society for the last 2000 years? Thinking of Eve as one half of Adam makes Genesis 2:24 make more sense, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."  We are not just sticking one little rib back on the man to make one flesh, we are taking one half and one half and sticking them back together to make a whole.

The second translation issue about Eve isn't nearly as controversial. 

In Genesis 4:1 we read "And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord."

This translation is fine, but it misses a beautiful play on words that is found in the Hebrew. Cain's name קין is a play on the verb in the sentence, קיניתי.  The verb means to possess or acquire. It is used in Genesis 14:19 that says, "And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth:" Not only was the God of Abraham the possessor, but the creator of the earth, and the word קיניתי has the connotation of creating or establishing. The word translated "from" is the Hebrew "את" can mean "from" or it can be "with".  A Hebrew scholar I follow, Michael Carasik, translated it this way, "I have created a person, along with the LORD." I like the idea that when we have a baby, we are teaming up with the Lord to create a person. We couldn't do it without him, but he chooses to do it with our help and it is a team effort.

Genesis 1-2

 As we start back over with Genesis, I want to try to introduce new ideas that I didn't cover last time I blogged about the Old Testament. Last time I did a post about 

God's Name in the Old Testament

Creation Symbols

Today I want to expand on my discussion of the creation symbols.

One of the things that the writer of Genesis was trying to do in the creation narrative was to show that the God of Abraham was the God of the whole earth.  The people surrounding the children of Israel were polytheists. They had a different god for every aspect of nature and their lives.  They had a weather god, a god of agriculture, a water god, a god of home and hearth etc. In contrast, the God of Abraham created and rules all these different elements. He created light and darkness, the sun and the moon, sea and land, plants and animals. The creation narrative distinguished the Hebrews as monotheistic in a polytheistic world thus showing that their God was better than the surrounding gods. 

Later, in the time of Jesus, the Jews were again living among polytheists, the Romans. Paul on Mars Hill pointed out the superiority of his One God to all their idols. But the apostles were also trying to convince other Jews that Jesus was the God of the Old Testament incarnate. As the the writers of the New Testament chose which stories to include in the gospels, they conscientiously included the same symbols as are found in the creation story (and in other Old Testament stories I will discuss in later blog posts)  in order to affirm to the Jews that Jesus is the very God of their father, and to the Gentiles, that Jesus is the one true God, superseding their pantheon of different gods over different forces of nature.  Let's look at the creation symbols and then tie them to stories from the gospels to illustrate this idea.

Days of Creation

1. Separate Light from darkness

    A new star appears at Jesus' birth and when he dies, darkness covers the earth for three hours.

2. Separating waters of the ground from waters of the air

    Jesus calming the storm (waters of the air) while quieting the waters of the Sea of Galilee (waters of the ground)

3. Creating dry ground and vegetation

    Consider the lilies of the field parable. Also, more obliquely, feeding the 5,000 which shows his ability to abundantly supply physical needs for food.

4. Making the Sun, Moon, and Stars appear

    (see #1)

5. Creating sea creatures and birds

    The fishermen's nets being filled with fish. The tax coin found in the fish's mouth.

6. Creating land creatures and mankind.

    Jesus' ability to heal showed his creative power in relation to the human body. 

The creation symbols show that the God of the Hebrews is both all-powerful and good. (not all pantheistic Gods were beneficent). He created order out of chaos, light from darkness, abundant vegetation from wasteland, and man out of the dust of the ground, but in his own image. The gospel writers are trying to argue and show that God is not only worthy of our worship because of his omnipotence, but also because of his omnibenevolence.