Seder 44: Gen 50---The Deaths of Jacob and Joseph

 So great was the respect of the Egyptians for Joseph and his family that they embalmed Jacob's body and mourned his death for 70 days (Gen 50:1-3).   God had promised to make Abraham's name great (Gen 12:2), and we see here further fulfillment of this promise.  

Even so, Joseph's request that he go to Canaan to bury his father was a sensitive one (vv 4-6).  Some interpreters--e.g., Rashi---have proposed that Jacob had Joseph swear to take his body to Machpelah (Gen 47:31)  in order to give Joseph more leverage with Pharaoh.  It has also been proposed that this request caused the Egyptians to begin to question the loyalties of Joseph and his family, a first step toward the enslavement that came later.  The request reminds us of the later even more difficult requests that Moses and Aaron made to a later Pharaoh.

An impressive funeral procession, including Egyptian dignitaries along with Israel's children, traveled to Canaan for the burial.  We are reminded of prophesied times when the nations will accompany Israel to Zion to worship the true God (Isa 2:1-4; Zech 8:20-23; Zech 14:16).  

The procession was also a sort of Exodus, with Egyptian horsemen and chariots as part of the entourage.  We do not know the location of the threshing floor of Atad---which side of the Jordan it was on depends on the vantage point of the writer---but if Atad was near the Jordan, then the route followed by the procession  bore some resemblance to the actual exodus route.   

With Jacob gone, Joseph's brothers worried about what steps he might take against them.  They still felt guilty about selling Joseph into slavery.  They needn't have worried.  Joseph had always shown himself to be concerned about what God thought (Gen 39:9), not about what any human being might think.  Joseph repeated what he had told his brothers 17 years before (Gen 45:5-8).  God had worked out events in order to save many lives and further his plan.  

Early in the book of Genesis, brothers Cain and Abel had been unable to get along.  At the end of the book of Genesis, we see reconciliation among brothers.  

Joseph was about 56 years old when his father died.  He went on to live another 54 years.  Commentators point out that in ancient Egyptian culture, 110 is considered to be an ideal lifespan. 

We might imagine that since the patriarchs lived long lives---Abraham lived to be 175, Isaac 180, Jacob 147, Joseph 110---that people typically lived longer lives then.  But that doesn't seem to be the case.  In his commentary on Genesis, John Walton points out that evidence from Egyptian mummies indicates a life expectancy of 40 to 50.  The long lives enjoyed by the patriarchs were part of God's blessing to them.  

When Joseph died, he asked that his bones be taken back to Canaan when the Israelites returned there.  In doing so, he showed faith in God's promises (Heb 11:22).  This time there was no big funeral procession to Canaan, a possible indication that Joseph's influence and prestige had already waned a great deal by then.

Kyle Kettering gave a message on Seder 44 at Church of the Messiah on Feb 13, 2021.

Seder 14: Sarah and Hagar in Gal 4:21-31

There are at least a couple of New Testament passages that refer to both a section from the Pentateuch and the corresponding reading from the Prophets in the Semiseptennial Cycle (see chapter 10 of  Lois Tverberg's Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus for further discussion).   One of those is Gal 4:21-31, where Paul presents an analogy involving Sarah and Hagar from Gen 16 and 21 and also quotes Isa 54, which is linked with Gen 16 in Seder 14.

To understand Paul's analogy, it will help to review the probable historical setting of the epistle to the Galatians.  Here I will follow the work of Mark Nanos and the insights of the scholars in the "Paul within Judaism" school of interpretation.

The primary venues for Paul's preaching of the Gospel were Diaspora synagogues (see Acts 13-14, e.g.).  These were the places where he could find the people who were most interested in the message of the Bible.  He announced in the synagogues that the promised Messiah had come and inaugurated the Kingdom of God.

His audiences consisted of (1) Jews and (2) Gentiles who were interested in the Bible, in adopting some parts of the Torah, and in supporting the synagogue.  These Gentiles were known as "God-fearers."  Synagogue communities didn't make great demands upon these Gentiles, but on the other hand didn't accept them as full-fledged members.  Socially they were on the fringes of synagogue communities.

After Paul visited a particular synagogue, a subgroup of Christ-followers---people who accepted Paul's Gospel message---formed within that synagogue community.  Within that subgroup the Gentile God-fearers were full-fledged members.  On the other hand, more was required of them by the Christ-followers.  They were expected to completely renounce the pagan activities that were expected of Gentiles in the Roman Empire, the everyday ways of honoring the many gods that were all around them in the Greco-Roman world.

Outside the community of Christ-followers, the Gentile Christ-followers didn't fit in.  They weren't completely accepted by other Jews in the larger synagogue community, and their Gentile friends and relatives didn't like the fact that they had begun ignoring their civic duty to honor the gods.

In Galatia, some Jews (Nanos uses the neutral term "influencers" to describe them) were promoting a way for the Gentile Christ-followers to resolve their precarious social situation.  Rather than sitting on the fence, why didn't they just go ahead and become full proselytes to Judaism?  (For males, this would mean, in particular, being circumcised.)  Then they would be fully accepted by the whole synagogue community and would have a legitimate reason to neglect the gods.  (In the Roman Empire, Jews were exempt from obligations to the gods.)

The influencers may have told the Gentile Christ-followers that in their present situation, they were sort of in the position of Ishmael in the family of Abraham---blessed to some degree, but outside of the chosen people.  Becoming full proselytes would give them the status of Isaac.

Paul strongly objected to the message of the influencers.  The Gentile Christ-followers were already full-fledged subjects of the Kingdom of God.  God had shown that by granting them the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:1-11).  They had been accepted by God on the basis of faith, as Abram had before the covenant sign of circumcision had been introduced (Rom 3-4).  For them to go on and become proselytes would be like denying what God had already done in their lives.  They were already part of God's New Covenant people.  They didn't need to do anything additional to earn covenant status with God.

Also, Paul believed that the days spoken of by the prophets had arrived when people from the nations would seek the God of Israel (e.g., Isa 2:1-4; Zech 8:20-23).  The prophets pictured people from all nations following God, not people giving up their national identities to follow God.  He wanted to follow God's will as revealed to the prophets.

In his analogy in Gal 4:21-31, Paul turned the tables on the influencers.  He told the Gentile Christ-followers that they already had the status of Isaac, the son of promise.  They were part of the New Covenant community, associated with Mt Zion and the future heavenly Jerusalem.

But if they through human effort decided to join the Sinai covenant, they would be like Ishmael, born through human effort, and connected to the present earthly Jerusalem, which was enslaved to Rome.

In Gal 4:27 Paul quoted Isa 54:1, seeing the prophecy as addressed to Sarah.  Just as Sarah could rejoice when Isaac was born, the Gentile Christ-followers could rejoice because they were the true children of Abraham through faith in Jesus the Messiah.     

In a sermon on Seder 14 on June 20, 2020, Kyle Kettering shared further thoughts on Gen 16, Isa 54 ,and Gal 4.

Seder 10: Gen 12:1-9---the call of Abram

After the Tower of Babel rebellion, God focused his plan to bring blessing to all mankind on the family of Abram.  Calling Abram to separate from country, clan, and family, God made these promises:

1. "I will make of you a great nation"  This promise is striking, since up to this point Abram had no children.
2. "I will bless you"---in land, livestock, precious metals, and human labor in addition to offspring.
3. "and make your name great"--in contrast to the people at Babel, who wanted to make a name for themselves.
4. "you will be a blessing" (or perhaps, "Be a blessing!") People would make blessings in the name of Abraham.  ("May you be like Abraham.") Others would be blessed by a relationship with his family--e.g., Laban, Potiphar.
5. "I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse."  God would deal with nations based on their treatment of his family.  
6. "in you all families of the earth shall be blessed"  Abram's family would be a vehicle for blessing the nations.  Christians see this blessing carried out especially through the coming of Jesus the Messiah--see Gal 3:8-9, 14, 29.  

There is some question about the proper translation of the final clause of Gen 12:3.  The ESV translation ("in you all families of the earth shall be blessed") is the traditional rendering of the clause in the passive voice, followed by the Septuagint (and thus the New Testament), Sirach 44:21, Targum Onkelos, and the Vulgate.

It can also be given a reflexive translation ("in you all families of the earth shall bless themselves"), as mentioned in the ESV footnote.  The meaning of this translation would be similar to number 4 above.

In a sense, both translations lead to the same result, as Richard Middleton has pointed out. As is pictured in prophecies like Zech 8:20-23, people who seek to be blessed like Abraham will also tend to seek the God of Abraham, which will lead to blessing.

Middleton also explains that there is a strong tradition in both Judaism and Christianity that Abram's family has a special mission to bring blessing to the nations.  We see this in the prophets in passages like Isa 42:6 and Isa 49:6.  This understanding is also reflected in Jewish traditions about Abraham as an evangelist.

One such tradition is based on Gen 12:5, which mentions Abram, Sarai and Lot traveling with "the people they had acquired in Haran".  Literally, the verse speaks of "souls that they made" in Haran.  The rabbis interpret this as a reference to converts that they had made, based on the idea that someone who has taught another about the true God is considered to have in some sense "made" that person.