God made the plants before the sun. Did God support them
with photosynthesis before the sun showed up, or were they able to survive
until the sun showed up the next day? What day were the insects made? I would
think that they would be included with the animals. So, the poor Venus Fly
Traps would have to wait a few days before getting a snack.
2:1-3 God rested on the 7th day. My first
thought is that if God took a break, then everything would fall apart. He holds
everything together. He can’t take a break! However . . . if I take a break and
rest, I don’t die. God was setting up a pattern of behavior for us to follow.
Rest doesn’t mean not breathing, or pumping blood, or eating. Rest is an act of
renewal. It’s a conscious pause in the chaos of life in which I choose to set
aside the wastes of time and my to-do list. I can choose to enjoy life, pausing
to appreciate it. If God takes a break, I die. If I don’t take a break, I die.
2:21 I wonder if Adam had a scar from where the rib was
taken out. If God closed up the flesh, it must’ve been perfect. Also, how did
Adam know about his “surgery”? He knew that Eve was made from him, because of
what he first said. Did God tell him? It’s also interesting to think of verse
24. Eve came from Adam’s flesh, and Adam’s flesh is reunited as the two become
one flesh in marriage.
Did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons?
3:1 Why a snake?
4:7 “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you
do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should
rule over it.” This is representative of the human condition. Sin hovers over
us, but we are meant to soar free of its clutches.
5:3 Adam was 130 when he had Seth (son #3), which makes
me wonder how old Cain and Abel had been. How long did Adam and Eve live in the
Garden of Eden? Did Adam’s count of years begin before or after leaving the
Garden? Did they even know how to track the years then or did God just tell
Moses how long they had lived? Most of the people listed in the genealogy of
chapter 5 lived to be over 900 years. Perhaps they figured it out in all that
time, but if not, they must’ve had lives that just SEEMED really long, with no
means of measuring it. But, I suppose, they wouldn’t have thought their lives
were that long, since they had nothing else to compare it with. From Adam, to
Seth, to Enosh, to Cainan, to Mahalalel, to Jared, to Enoch, to Methuselah, to
Lamech, to Noah, the oldest guy (at death) was 969, and the youngest was 895.
This is excluding Enoch, who didn’t die. He only reached 365 years old, and God
took him. He must’ve been a devoted friend of God for God to take him when he’s
only lived about 3/5 of his life.
Anyways, back to Cain and Abel. I wonder if they had
families of their own. In the genealogy, the youngest age (that is listed) of
having a son is 65, and the oldest is 187 (aside from Noah, who really threw
the curve at 500 years old). So, the youngest it is listed that they have kids,
is already a senior citizen. If Adam and Eve got kicked out of the Garden and
had Cain and Abel right away, then it’s possible that they had been old enough
to have families before the murder. However, it’s not until after the murder
(and subsequent curse) that Cain begins his family. So, perhaps Abel had no
family of his own.I also wonder whether Seth was born before or after Abel was killed.
Eve: Well, they’re not eating YOU alive. You don’t have to carry them all around day or give birth to them!
Their understanding and technology must have advanced rapidly. It’s a lot of people. If they are living to be 900, they must’ve been pretty tough. If a woman had only 1 baby every two years, then she still may have had hundreds of children in her lifespan. If parents nowadays call the kid by the wrong name on occasion, it’s normal. I wonder how often the mothers called the wrong name back then. Also, let’s just give a low estimate (for living 900 years) and say that one woman may have had only 100 kids in her lifetime. Now, if each of those kids had 100 of their own, that’s somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 grandkids to remember (I leave a wide estimate because of the custom of siblings marrying back then). Just think of the size of the wallet you’d have to have in order to show all of them off. And, if you live that long, you might just have great-grandchildren, or great-great-grandchildren also. Adam himself lived long enough to have met his great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Methuselah. Seth and Enosh also lived long enough to meet their great-great-great-great-great-grandsons. However, it decreases after that. Cainan only lasts to his great-great-great-great-grandson, Mahalalel his great-great-great-grandson, Jared his great-great-grandson, Enoch his grandson (but he’s an exception because of his early departure), Methuselah his great-great-grandson, and Lamech his grandson(s).
Interestingly enough, Methuselah dies the year of the Flood. Perhaps he died in the Flood, or perhaps God delayed the Flood until after his death. Methuselah’s father was Enoch and walked with God, which I sometimes forget. I feel like they are usually treated as two very separate Bible stories. However, we are told in Exodus 20 to “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long.” Perhaps Methuselah honored his father, and that’s why he lived so long. I can just imagine an ancient Methuselah taking his last breath just as the rains began. God had told Noah the time of the Flood, perhaps He planned it, knowing that would be when Methuselah would die.
It never ceases to
amaze me in 6:5 that “every intent of the thoughts of his [man’s] heart was
only evil continually.” The entirety of mankind’s thoughts and plans was merely
evil. The word for evil (ra’ah) is used twice in this verse. “Bad,
evil (naturally or morally), adversity, affliction, bad, calamity,
displease (-ure), distress, evil, grief (-vous), harm, heavy, hurt (-ful), ill
(favoured), mischief, (-vous), misery, naught (-ty), noisome, sad (-ly), sore,
sorrow, trouble, vex, wicked (-ly, -ness, one), worse (-st) wretchedness,
wrong.” (Strong’s) The evil was abundant. The Hebrew word “kol” is also used
twice in this verse. “The whole; hence all, any or every,
(in) all (manner), altogether, any (manner), enough, every (one, place, thing).”
(Strong’s) ALL the thoughts were only evil ALL the time. That just astounds me
how people are so evil, so aggressively evil. While the depths of depravity is
still a surprise, the depths of mercy is also still a surprise.
6:22 “This Noah did, according to all that God commanded
him, do he did.” This guy must be related to Abraham (Oh wait . . . hee hee),
because he’s got some awesome faith and obedience going on. My family has a
joke in our house, because my dad likes to talk about all these wonderful
things we could/should do. “We could stop by McDonalds on the way home and then
catch a movie tonight,” or, “We should all go pick out tablets, and then we’d
all have one!” He’s really not meaning most of it literally, but we like to
tease him for it. Sometimes, he gets our hopes up for no reasons, so we have
started replying, “You said it. Now we’ve gotta do it.” If only we treated the
Word of God like that. “You said it, now I will do all that You have
commanded.” It’s as simple as that.
8:2 In my mind, I think I’ve always painted this idea of
the sky raining until it couldn’t rain anymore; the fountains of the deep
exhausting themselves, stopping, and then the flood waters receding. However,
the Bible just says that they stopped. God restrained the rain. They could have
kept going! As it was, it took 150 days for the floodwaters to recede. How long
would it have taken if God had let the storms go for longer? I’m sure God could
have let it go until Noah reached outer space. I’ve always wondered that if the
ark was floating above the mountains, was the air thin? All those poor people
and animals in one big boat, with one window and thin air. I’m sure glad God
promised to never do that again.
8:20-21 Noah made sacrifices of clean animals, “and the
LORD smelled a soothing [or pleasant] aroma.” Yeah, I bet it smelled pleasant.
Barbeque usually smells pretty good.
9:6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be
shed.” People often attribute the “eye for an eye” idea to Moses (or to the law
given at the time of Moses) or to Hammurabi, but it seems like the idea of
equal retribution was originally introduced from God here, just after the
Flood.
Chapter 10 just
amazes me. It maps out the origins of nations.
Japheth’s descendents are linked to the Assyrians, the
Medes, the Greeks, the Sythians, Cyprus, etc.Ham’s descendents are linked to the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Assyrians, the Arabs, the Phoenicians, the Philistines, the Amorites, the Jebusites, etc.
Shem’s descendents (the Shemites, or Semites, where we get Semitic people) are linked to the Arabs, the Israelites, the Midianites, the Ishmaelites, the Edomites, the Assyrians, the Persians, etc.
The genealogies are just a bunch of names and numbers,
until you try to make some sense of it. Noah actually could have met his
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Terah. Shem could have met
his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Isaac. Shem
saw 10 generations after him, and outlived seven of them. That’s pretty good
for a guy who survived the flood!
12:1-4 When God called Abram to depart from his country,
his family, and his father’s house to follow God, Abram was 75 years old. His
father only lived to 205, and his grandfather only lived to 148! Abram’s life
was half over, and God was calling him away from all comfort into the unknown.
Talk about a mid-life crisis!
14:13 Abram is contacted when Lot is taken captive. Here
is the first use of the word, “Hebrew.” It means “descended from Eber.” Back in
chapter 11 we can see that Eber is Shem’s great-grandson. Since Abram was rich,
he had the resources to rescue Lot when he was captured.
Chapter 16
I’ve always kinda thought badly about Sarai. She’s
demanding, unbelieving, and she terrorizes Hagar and Ishmael. However, it’s
good to put some context to things. She’s only human, after all. When Abram had
his “mid-life crisis,” Sarai went along with it. Now, she’s old, barren, and
jealous. Her husband isn’t much help, either. He seems to shrug his shoulders
and say, “Whatever.” However, as much focus as I’ve seen so far in Genesis on
genealogy (both words coming from the same root), it’s not hard to imagine the
pressure that she must’ve felt as a barren woman. It was shameful. She had no
purpose in life. In her 127 years of life, she only bore one child. I wonder if
she would’ve died if it were a girl. Nowadays, there is not as much pressure
for women to have babies (or sons), but back then, Sarai would have faced a lot
of pressure.
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