Genesis 4-6
Psalm 2
Matthew 2 This is one of the first passages of scripture my mother helped me memorize before I knew how to read. "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, behold, wise men from the East came unto Jerusalem, saying, "Where is he that hath been born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and are come to worship." (You can check how close my memory is 55 years later by looking up the King James or Authorized Version.)
Already at the beginning of his life, just the reputation of Jesus could make political leaders afraid. Strange... (2:3) Not just Herod was afraid but "all Jerusalem with him," that is, the politically powerful group.
Another quotation from the prophets, about Bethlehem (2:6)
I like the star in this passage!
And the dreams that again carry God's warnings.
And how many sermons have been preached about "returning to their own country by another road," (2:12) and how the encounter with Jesus changes the course of our lives.
And here is fear, motivating the slaughter of the Innocents (2:16). Always, it is the little people who suffer the most. As one of my friends, a retired kindergarten teacher, said, so wisely about political decisions: "If it's not good for the youngest children among us, it's probably not the best solution.'
And that formula again: "Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet X" (2:5, 17)
By (less than?) a generation after Jesus lived, the Gospel writers were treating the prophets of their sacred scriptures as if their oracles referred to Jesus. That is quite a claim.
We may need to talk some time about how, in Jewish-Christian dialogue, we deal with these sorts of passages. Because clearly, at the time, Jeremiah didn't think he was talking about a Messiah who would come in 500 years. He thought he was talking about his own day and its problems. There's a term for this: supersessionism. Do the interpretations of Christian Gospel writers supersede the intentions of the original prophets?
And by the end of the chapter, Joseph has had another dream, in which an angel of the LORD appeared and told him it was okay to go home. I wonder: was it an angel that Joseph had begun to recognize by that time...
When I say this, I am not trying to insist that these stories must or even should be taken literally for us to hear their truth. But, in the logic of the story as Matthew tells it, one wonders these things.
PSALM 2: There is not really much of a progression in the psalms.
But here's one that deals with the nations (Gentiles) raging against God's people, a theme we saw enacted in the actions of Herod (not fully a Jew but rather an Idumean, appointed by Rome) against the children of Bethlehem, against "the LORD and his anointed"
But God just laughs. (Is this the source of the little saying, "He who laughs last laughs best"?)
This is a psalm that has a Messianic interpretation
2:7b: "You are my son; today I have begotten you"
A final question: How are we going to deal with the idea of the wrath of God? Especially in the context of a Christian idea of Jesus as taking the sins of the world? of grace (abounding to the chief of sinners, as Jonathan Edwards put it, quoting St. Paul)? of God forgiving before we can even ask?
GENESIS 4-6
How quickly things go bad! Cain and Abel, farmer and shepherd, two different offerings...
What was wrong with Cain's offering? Or should we ask, what was wrong with Cain?
4:7--The first explicit reference to sin. And this is before Cain kills Abel.
"Your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground." (4:10)--one of the saddest verses.
Though there is hope that no injustice goes unseen by God.
By 4:14, the story assumes the existence of other communities of human beings. Cain worries: "I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me" Also Cain has a wife. From that union came Enoch.
also note the first reference to the FACE of God --which becomes so important in the psalms, is here in 4:14.
Cain settles "east of Eden." Steinbeck borrows that phrase for his book about family discord between brothers during the time of the Great Depression, which I haven't read since high school.
References to the beginnings of the nomadic peoples (4:20) and musicians (4:21) and metal workers (4:22)
Then there's that weird poem of Lamech to his wives, which praises vengeance as a human tendency. How sad...
References to Seth and to "people [beginning] to invoke the name of the LORD.
Then in Genesis 5, we have a genealogy.
Very long ages people lived, according to this genealogy...
5:24: "Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.
5:27 Methuselah...all [his] days were nine hundred sixty-nine years; and he died.
5:28 We get the beginning of the Noah story.
6:1-4: God decides that lives don't need to be so long...
6:5: This is the reason God decides to do a "re-boot" of human program.
"the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and ...every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continuously"
6:6 "And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart."
That is a beautiful verse. It gives us a hint of what is going to come: God bringing his salvation to people who cannot save themselves.
A repeat in slightly different words: 6:12 "And God saw (n.b. the example of two different sources mashed together here. Gabriel Josepovici speaks of the juxtaposition of Hebrew texts with few attempts to smooth over the borders between them. We appear to have a "J" and an "E"--Jehovah/YHWH/LORD and "Elohim"/God--source.) that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. God goes on to say that human flesh is the reason that the earth is filled with violence.
6:8 "But Noah found favor ("Grace" in KJV) in the sight of the LORD"
And so we are about to see the first example of God preserving a remnant for the accomplishment of his will.
Instructions about an ark
First reference to God establishing a COVENANT --a technical term borrowed from the surrounding nations 6:18. The language just slips in kind of un-introduced in any formal way. And it is so important as the rest of the Hebrew Bible and then later the NT builds on the concept.
Animals 2 x 2 in this chapter. Also "every kind of food". So there is concern for many different species.
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