Bible in a Year, Week 3: Genesis 29-42, John 12-17, Psalms 10-13

So many BIG topics and people get covered in these chapters, so I'll try to be as brief as possible . . . but no guarantees, okay? If anyone can guess why I chose a CHASM for this week's picture, kudos go to you.

Genesis 29-42

I could spend a long, long time talking about the whole love triangle between Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, but I already did in a Medium article I wrote in 2016. If you'd like to read that, click here. Because outside of that article, which covers pretty much everything, I'm not going to talk about it. I don't like Rachel, and it's actually always made me angry how openly favored her and her sons were in the Bible. Not necessarily by God, but by Jacob. She's a brat (and I'd be curious how old she was and how old Jacob was when all of this went down) who steals her dad's idols, which leads to Laban hunting down Jacob in the desert. I mean, there's more to it than that, but that's pretty much the gist. Then, after that panic-inducing event, Jacob has to mentally prepare himself to meet Esau - you remember Esau. That big, hairy, manly man who got his birthright and blessing stolen from his more effeminate younger brother. Spoiler: Esau was actually ecstatic to see Jacob. They hugged, and everything worked itself out.

It is wild to me though that Jacob wrestles with God. But my question with this whole interaction is, why would God in the form of this man not be able to overtake Jacob? He's GOD. So, he kind of cheats and touched the socket of Jacob's hip. That's disgusting, first of all, and second of all, Jacob must have been pretty strong! To almost overcome God?? So, they wrestle all night and Jacob is now (also known as) Israel.

THEN, we have this other crazy story about Jacob and Leah's daughter, Dinah, and Shechem. I picture Shechem as being a douche bag - you know how they look. Because we already know he's actually a spoiled asshole - pardon my judgment. He sees Dinah, who I'm sure is very beautiful, and pretty much rapes her on the spot. THEN GOES TO HIS DADDY and says, "Please! I love her! You have to talk to Jacob and ask if I can have her as my wife. Please!" So, sure enough, Hamor the Hivite takes his son and goes to Jacob. Based on the Bible's phrasing, it sounds like Jacob overheard the fate of his daughter from his sons talking about it in the fields and decides not to lead on that he knows about it. But, of course, as good brothers do, they come to the aid of their traumatized sister. When Hamor is speaking with Jacob, the brothers butt in and strike a deal, which is basically: "Circumcise yourselves - every man in your city - and then you can have our daughters and we can have yours. And we'll be one big happy family, okay?" The Bible says Shechem lost NO time, which makes me wonder if he, like, dropped trou right in the tent and was like, "Let's do this! Anyone got a knife? Snip, snip guys!"

After him and his father do this, they convince every man in town to do the same - sex really does sell, right? But then . . . God love 'em. Simeon and Levi, who are Jacob's second and third oldest sons (and also Leah's sons), wait until day three of post-surgery when the men of the city are in a lot of pain and practically defenseless, and kill all of them. It sounds like Dinah was already living with Shechem, which makes me wonder if they had already married? After Simeon and Levi kill him, the king, and every other dude, they take Dinah back and ransack the city. CAN YOU IMAGINE Jacob's reaction as he comes across this scene? "Look at this BAD thing you've done! Now we all have to leave!!" So then they leave the area of Canaan and go to Bethel.

Then Rachel and Isaac die, and we get a layout of everyone's sons, including Esau's line and rulers of Edom. I'm not going to break down ALL of that as I'm currently working on a family tree to Jesus. Once I get that in a solid place, I may try to post that, but it's a lot, guys. Just to keep things straight moving forward, though, here are the sons of Jacob, in order of oldest to youngest with their mother in parenthesis:

1. Reuben (Leah)

2. Simeon (Leah)

3. Levi (Leah)

4. Judah (Leah)

5. Dan (Bilhah, Rachel's servant)

6. Naphtali (Bilhah)

7. Gad (Zilpah, Leah's servant)

8. Asher (Zilpah)

9. Issachar (Leah)

10. Zebulun (Leah)

11. Dinah, Leah and Jacob's daughter, is born here.

12. Joseph (Rachel)

13. Benjamin (Rachel)

So then we get into the story of Joseph. And there is SO much to talk about!! Just to add some perspective, there was an age difference of anywhere between 100 months (about eight years) or less to as much as 10 years between the oldest son, Reuben, and Jacob. So when Jacob starts telling his brothers about these dreams, he's only 17 years old, which means Reuben is anywhere between 24 and 27 - give or take, depending on when each woman conceived. #1 - that's way younger than I pictured Joseph's brothers being during this story. But also, #2 - most of his brothers were probably married and had kids by this point. So then Joseph, who is the obvious family favorite, starts talking about these dreams he has in which all of his brothers are bowing down to him. It's probably getting hella old and I understand their feelings of resentment and bitterness. Maybe not to the extremes they were feeling, but I'm sure that got really old really fast.

When the opportunity then arises for them to either kill Joseph or sell him into slavery (which, let's be honest, was worse than dying), they go for it. Reuben is the voice of reason though and talks his brothers off the ledge of brotherly homicide. "Let's throw him into that cistern (pit) over there." And then Reuben leaves because he's so filled with emotion - he goes and takes a walk. The Bible says that as the brothers were eating lunch, with Joseph still in this pit, they see a band of Ishmaelites headed to Egypt and decide to sell him. Now remember that Ishmael and Isaac were brothers, so these men are more than likely second or third cousins to Jacob's sons. Even if they don't really know each other, they at least definitely know of each other. I can't imagine they wouldn't have been familiar with who each of them were. So, Judah and his brothers sell Joseph and when Reuben returns to find an empty pit, he's distraught. He tears his clothes and basically says, "What have you done?! What are we going to do now? How are we going to break this to our dad?" We know what happens: they kill a goat, dip Joseph's jacket in it, and take it back to Jacob, who then weeps and weeps over Joseph's death. While, in Egypt, Joseph gets sold into the household of one of the most powerful men in Egypt: Potiphar.

We then get this weird story of Judah and Tamar? He left to go stay with Hirah, and married his daughter, Shua. Shua and Judah had three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. He then got a wife for Er, so he was gone for a long time - at least 15 years. Er married and had a daughter: Tamar. But Er apparently was super evil so God straight up killed him. We don't get any more details, which is another heaven question I have. Um, more deets, please? And then Onan didn't want to have children with his dead brother's wife, so he used the pull-out method during sex and God killed him for that.

Then it gets kind of weird. Tamar is asked to live as a widow in Judah's house until her uncle, Shelah, is old enough for her to marry. Shua dies. One day, Judah makes a journey to get his sheep sheared, and Tamar decides to ditch her widow's clothes and disguise herself by the entrance of the town that Judah is traveling to. Judah saw her, and thought she was a prostitute . . . AND THEN ASKED TO SLEEP WITH HER. Gross, gross, gross. She got pregnant by him, then a few months later, she's blamed for prostitution once it's obvious that she's pregnant. When Judah asks who did this, she pulls out these things that he gave her in the heat of the moment. While this isn't quite as gross to me as Lot's daughters SLEEPING WITH HIM, this is still pretty freakin' weird to me. This whole story in the middle of everything happening with Joseph.

So we return to Joseph, who is just such a source of inspiration. He gets sold into slavery at 17, is taken to Egypt and sold into Potiphar's household, who is the Captain of the Guard for Pharaoh. My pastor said that could be equivalent to like the head of the FBI today, or someone who is in charge of making sure Pharaoh stays alive. Either way, Joseph is doing great work in his household, and it doesn't go unnoticed. He's put in charge of everything Potiphar owns, and is titled with running his household. WHAT. However, all of these trials keep happening. First, from his own family, and then with Potiphar's wife. You can tell that Potiphar doesn't actually believe her because he sends Joseph to prison instead of killing him. And, of course, as Joseph does, he gains the trust of the prison warden, who lets him basically run things. The Bible says, "...because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did" (39:23). Then this ray of light comes in the darkness, which is the opportunity to interpret dreams for two important people in Pharaoh's cabinet. His cupbearer (who I was taught was the person who drank anything given to Pharaoh to test if it was poisoned), and his baker both had dreams they didn't understand. The poor baker had the bad one, but when the cupbearer was released, Joseph made sure to throw in, "HEY, when you get the success I've told you, remember me! Get me outta here, man!"

And the cupbearer did no such thing. UNTIL Pharaoh had some dreams that no one could interpret. Needless to say, Joseph is let out of prison and basically put in charge of ALL of Egypt because of the work he did for Pharaoh. Which is insanity to me. All of these trials, and Joseph kept the faith. Nowhere in the Bible does it say he complained, that he questioned God or got angry at him. It's incredible. And we've seen it with ALL of the major players in the Bible so far - it's like yes, they're human because they went through some very real trials, but are they? Because not once did I read that they questioned God, that they cursed him or asked what the heck was going on. They accepted it! And then . . . GREAT things happened to them! Nations, major world religions, whole countries! Wow, wow, wow. It really is spectacular if you think about it. Joseph being the most recent example.

So Joseph is put in charge of Egypt and told to manage it during the seven good crop years and the seven bad crop years. He's 30 when he's given this assignment, so that means he was maybe around 20 when he was thrown in prison. When the bad years kick in, Joseph is 37. He's already married an Egyptian woman, the daughter of one of Pharoah's priestesses, and I'm sure has some kids. Things are going well. He's found his groove, I'm sure, and we don't hear anything else until his brothers appear. 20 years later. And based on what the Bible tells us about how the brothers reacted, you can tell Reuben had been carrying guilt with him over selling Joseph into slavery. At the end of chapter 42, none of them know who Joseph is - they think he died and probably never thought they'd see him again - but Joseph is hyperaware of who they are. And he starts playing mind games, which I can appreciate! Haha. He gives them back all of their silver, which freaks them out, and calls them spies. He understand them still, but continues to use an interpreter to keep up appearances (this is amazing!!), and then he snags Simeon and says he's keeping him there until the brothers bring him Benjamin. To top it all off, the brothers don't even realize they have all of their silver until they've left Egypt. Joseph knows what he's doing by asking them to bring Benjamin, and it's just so good. Like, man! Joseph with the mind games!

Psalms 10-13

10:14 - "But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper to the fatherless."

John 12-17

This is when things start getting heavy for me as we're getting into his last weeks. We have the story of Mary anointing his feet, in such a beautiful description. She sacrificed so much to purchase that perfumed oil for his feet - the part of a person that was the absolute dirtiest. And there, she washed his feet and submitted herself to him.

I'm sure Jesus is feeling overwhelmed, maybe panicked. I wonder if he had moments where he asked himself, "Am I doing enough? Am I reaching the people that needed reached? Will my disciples carry on after me?" It's during this time, he himself takes to washing his disciples' feet, which must have been an uncomfortable, emotionally confrontational experience. His time was coming, quickly. He predicts his betrayal by Judas, and then by Peter.

I mean, most of chapters 14-17 are him comforting his disciples, preparing them for what happens next. Were they crying? Were they emotional? Did they understand what he was saying? And then he gives this deep, heartfelt prayer for himself, his disciples, and the believers they've reached and have yet to reach. Just before he gets arrested. It had to have been an exhausting day - so many feelings, so many prayers and words that I'm sure they wished they could have held forever, and feelings of like, "No wait, not yet. This can't be happening yet." Did they want to stop time in that moment?

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for those moments. I feel like the disciples, while so human and relatable while reading the gospels, would have been so vulnerable and that much more relatable in those last moments with Jesus. Another set of heaven questions, I guess.