Tag Archives: Isaac

Friday Bible Study Notes

Genesis 27: Rebekah, Protector of the Promise

Scene 1 v1-4 Isaac prepares to bless Esau

Blessing bestows physical property and tribal leadership. Isaac will follow social norms and bless his eldest son – however, normally done in a gathering of whole family – so Deception 1 – Isaac keeps arrangements private and attempts to thwart God’s plan (25:23)

Scene 2 v5-17 Rebekah schemes for Jacob

Rebekah overhears – is this sneaky? or social norm where women are confined to inner tent and not consulted? As Issac seeks to subvert God’s plan, Rebekah sees a way to keep that plan, “the younger shall serve the older” on track – but it also involves deception! Are these the ploys that vulnerable powerless people have to use?

In addition – is she righting Isaac’s failure to provide a suitable endogamous marriage for Esau?

“Obey my word” –  Mother’s boy? Tied to apron strings? Resolute? resourceful? 

Jacob fears discovery and the power of a curse – Rebekah, self-sacrificial? courageous? reassuring? practical. 

Scene 3 v18-25 Jacob deceives Isaac

Tension – uncertainty – suspicion – hearing – touch – smell – deception 2

Blessing – land, abundance, leadership, curse, blessing, 

Scene 4 v 30-40 Isaac & Esau grief 

Esau arrives too late, and Isaac realises the moment he is offered more food – no doubts for either about who has deceived them. 

Esau begs a blessing – but the original can not be taken back – he is to live away from earth’s riches, serve his brother, and throw off his yoke. 

Scene 5 41- 48 Rebekah: Protector of the Blessing

Rebekah overhears Esau platting to kill and Jacob. 

Instructs Jacob – advises Isaac – reassures Jacob – circumvents Esau. 

they will never meet again.

“Rebekah is truly a remarkable women. Having shown that in leaving her country and her kin her trust was equal to that of Abraham, she now challenges social mores in order to ensure that God’s plan will be accomplished, and she does this more than once. In violation of hierarchical standing in the family, she manoeuvres her second-born son into the position of privilege, thus demonstrating that social customs can sometimes be a hindrance to the working of God in the lives of women and men. Although ordinarily the primary man in the household arranges marriages, it is Rebekah who steps forward to do so on behalf of her new blessed son. She also saves the lineage determined by God by preventing the violent death of this son.” Bergant p115

Friday Bible Study Notes

Genesis 25: Isaac & Rebekah

The beginning of  a series of conflict tales – Esau v Jacob, Isaac and the Wells, Rebekah & Jacob v Esau, Jacob v Laban, Jacob, Leah, Rachel v Laban, Jacob v YHWH, Jacob v Esau.

v 19 Isaac’s descent 

v 20 Rebekah’s descent

v 21 barrenness again. Despite the careful arrangements to ensure “good stock” “ there are no natural guarantees for the future and no way to secure inheritance” (Bruggemann) 

“The role of the mother and father in this birth narrative is prayer. It is their task to cast themselves solely on God. To pay as they must is to know that life is given as a gift.”  cf John 1:12-13, James 1:18, 

“When Jacob and Esau are born, their life is already decisively shaped by this Other One to whom their parents pray. their life is encompassed in a mystery of graciousness before they see the light of day” (WB) 

v22 “struggle” – ‘means “smash” or “crash against” implying a violent encounter … represent the rivalry of siblings, the strife between two opposing nations, and the conflict between two competing ways of life.” (Dianne Bergant)

Jacob, “is born to a kind of restlessness so that he must always insist, grasp, and exploit. His life is trouble not only for himself but for those around him” (WB) 

v23 this struggle will reverse social customs of primogeniture. “the first will be last and the last will be first”

God does not align Gods-self only with the obviously valued ones, the first born. Matt 5:3-7. Social privilege is not to be taken for granted in the way God orders matters. Human conventions are not to be taken for granted.

“God chose what is low and despised in the world to bring to nothing the things that are.” 1 cor 1:28

v24 Esau named for his appearance, Jacob for his character – “supplanter,” which is often interpreted as someone who seizes, circumvents, or usurps. or “heel, – one who kicks his way out.”

v27 The boys have different ways of life – hunter/urban, rough/sophisticated, loud/quiet, irresponsible & boorish/shrewd and sophisticated, Edom\Israel

v 28 The parents have chosen sides. 

“Jacob is a scandal from the beginning. the powerful grace of God is a scandal. It upsets the way we would organise life.”

v 29 The brothers negotiate what God has already determined! 

  • Jacob drives a hard bargain – but Esau gets his food
  • Esau/Edom is destined for pottage and no more – Jacob/Israel is destined for birthright. Birthright concerns security, prosperity, fertility, and land.
  • Esau is hungry and can not wait, Jacob may also be hungry – but he can wait. Waiting can be done if one trusts God and does not doubt the outcome
  • contrast between material blessings that can be taken managed and controlled and well-being that must be received only as a gift. “Here (but not always in his life) Jacob is a man who will depend not on seizing  and grasping but the sureness of God’s promise. 

Hebrews 11:20-21 – By faith Isaac invoked blessings for the future on Jacob and Esau. 21 By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, “bowing in worship over the top of his staff.”

Hebrews 12:12-17 See to it that no one becomes like Esau, an immoral and godless person, who sold his birthright for a single meal. You know that later, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, even though he sought the blessing with tears.

Romans 9:6-13 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants. … Even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose of election might continue,not by works but by his call) she was told, “The elder shall serve the younger.” As it is written,“ I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.”

Friday Bible Study Notes

Genesis 22: Abraham and Isaac

Another story that seems horrific. All sorts of questions arise, how does God even ask such a thing? How can Abraham even contemplate such an act? What might God ask of us? 

Bruggemann suggests that our understanding of God is as a tester at the beginning of the text and as a provider at the end, is the frame within which we must read this story. Earlier theologians also struggled, “Calvin says. ‘The command and promise of God are in conflict.’ Luther says, This is a ‘contradiction with which God contradicts himself.”

v1 “Some time later” – Isaac is old enough to carry the wood, and to know what constitutes a sacrifice. 

v2 Ishmael has been forgotten, “only son” 

relationship is recognised “who you love”

v3 Abraham had argued for the lives of the people in Sodom – but here he obeys without any argument. Is this faith or blind obedience?

“God is shown to be freely sovereign just as he is graciously faithful. That God provides shows his gracious faithfulness. That God tests is a disclosure of his free sovereignty.”

v5-9 Is Abraham carrying out God’s orders but excepting intervention? The narrator does not let us in on Abraham’s emotions, just tell us what is happening – the emotion is for the reader to imagine.

v10 Parallels with Job? “Like Job, Abraham is prepared to trust fully the God who gives and who takes away (cf Job 1:21).

“Neither the Joban poetry nor this Abraham story are about evil or the justice of God. Rather, they ask about faith which as Kierkegaard has shown, drives us to dread before the self is yielded to God.”

“It is evident in Exodus 20:20, Deuteronomy 8:16, 13:3,33:8 that testing is a common theme for a time of syncretism, like the Ahab-Jezebel period (cf 1 Kings 17-19). The term testing (nasah) is prominent in Deuteronomy, which faced syncretism most directly. The testing of Israel by God is to determine if Israel will trust only Yahweh or if it would look at the same time to other gods.”

v 11-14 God provides. “To assert that God provides requires a faith as intense as the conviction that God tests… In a world beset by humanism, scientism, and naturalism, the claim that God alone provides is as scandalous as the claim that he tests.” 

“Abraham’s obedience, though difficult to understand at times, is active not passive. He accepts and he responds. He does not initiate because it is God’s plan that is unfolding, not his. If that plan is to be brought to completion, and if Abraham is to play any part in it, he will have to accept the role into which he has been cast and trust the one whose story is being told – and that one is God.” Dianne Berget

v15-19 Promise repeated.

v20-24 a family tree – and Rebekah is introduced. More on her next time.