Personal Note on Posting Timeline
We will be meeting on Palm Sunday but not Easter Sunday. So I will post on “Good Friday” March 29th. There will be no post on the week following East; the next post will be no later than Friday, April 12.
Review
See previous post for details.
Background: Gen. 26: 23 – 25: Isaac and the Promise Renewed
The whole of Ch. 26 is devoted to Isaac, the only chapter which does that. In fact, Isaac is the least well know of the ancient patriarchs. In these three verses God appears for the second time and renews the promise but there are important differences in the passage.
Let’s begin with a reading of the passage: 26: 23 – 25: – http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/26
Our Discussion
We quickly identified the characters, Isaac, God, Isaac’s servants, and a reference to Abraham.
A text that spoke to Mark raised a question for him. He wondered what is the meaning and significance of blessings. I have a quite limited understanding of the Jewish blessings. What I do know is that we, Christians, tend to ask God to bless but the scriptures are more likely to ask the people to bless God. As I understand this notion of blessing, it is to put into language that God is the giver of ever good gift. I recite each day the following, “Blessed are you Lord God, Creator of the Heavens and the Earth and giver of every good gift.” For me, to bless God is to thank God for the day and ALL that fills it, good, bad. In fact if we only thank God for the good we think happens to us, we miss much of what fills our life that might be bad in the short term but ends up being good.
V. 23. I asked if anyone could identify the “from there” location. Ken was able to find out that the “there” referred to “Gerar.” Although I don’t know the geography, the story implies that Isaac who had settled in Gerar now went north to Beer-sheba. Because of what Isaac is to do there, Beer-sheba becomes a place of significance in the Israelite history.
V. 24. As we had mentioned when the phrase, “… the Lord appeared to him [Isaac]” occurred in the previous passage, the scripture is affirming God’s involvement in the life of Isaac but it is not affirming the mode of that involving. How else to communicate this, near mystical experience, but to put into words that the people could understand in their time and place.
There are two different terms being used for the same character as I have pointed out so many times that I have quite counting. The English text has one word, God, which translates Elohim and The Lord, which translates YHWH, Yahweh, not pronounced by the Israelites. However, there is an important description of who this God is.
Which is? “I am the God of your father, Abraham.” We can learn so much in this one single phrase. Within the text, God is identifying who he is. But from a different perspective the author is telling his audience who God is for them. He is the God of our ancestors. To get at this meaning, I suggested that we think of how “Hot Button” bumper stickers say a lot. One bumper sticker says, “Right To Life,” another, “Pro Choice.” These “symbols” speak volumes; a point of view, a value system, a mindset. So what does “God of your father, Abraham” speak?
The Israelite God was not a God of Mountains, Water, Thunder. He was the God of their fathers. He was their God. God had chosen them. They were God’s chosen ones. This one phrase defined them and their relationship to their God.
Carol saw in this identification a message that God was one and what he had done for Abraham. Ken brought out the fact that it also communicated what Abraham had done before God. Both brought meaning into the lives of the Israelites then and to this day.
The God says, “Do not fear, I am with you.” The verse doesn’t tell us any content of the fear. It’s not saying Isaac don’t fear the Philistines? Don’t fear Abimelech? Don’t fear the famine? Etc. Etc. Which raises the question of “fear” in our own lives? And why fear, because I am with you. Is it possible for us to believe that what is being communicated to Isaac in the story, was also being communicated to the audience of the author, and are we not also that audience?
Mark made another keen observation. In this blessing there is both a present tense and a future tense. And, of course, the promise is couched in future terms. His observation reminded me of a similar structure that we recited in slightly different words at every liturgy. After words of remembrance of Christ’s last supper, we announce its meaning to us.
Christ HAS died. Christ IS risen. Christ WILL come again. I then commented that the last sentence always leads me to wonder if our vision of “going to heaven” is looking in the wrong direction. Not that we don’t want to “go to heaven” but that “heaven” is coming to us. A second phrase that emphasizes that point with me is in the prayer that our Lord taught us to pray, “… Thy Kingdom Come.” God is coming to us much more than we are going to God.
Another phrase deserves our attention; the blessing is being given “for the sake of Abraham, my servant.” Abraham has become God’s “servant.” He has been faithful to God; done what God asked of him. And now, for his sake, God blesses Isaac and his descendants.
For we Christians the “for the sake of” is Christ. In Christ Jesus is our righteousness. Powerful to those who believe and what is believed is the meaning of the proposition that the Father raised Christ from the dead reconciling the world with him in Christ.
There was more, but I leave that for further conversation if you should choose to enter into the conversation
Your comments, observations, questions are welcomed. See “comment” link below