Genesis is situated before four books of the Law, all of which were believed to be written by Moses by most people until the past couple of centuries. I believe that Genesis provides us a background for the books of the Law, showing us in part why the Law was needed.
Genesis is filled with Laws of Moses that were broken or obeyed. For example, in the very early chapters of Genesis we are given a story about how Moses' Law, which said, "Thou shalt not murder," was broken. Later in Genesis, Joseph's brothers almost killed their own brother, but decided last minute to sell him into slavery instead, which broke another of Moses' Law which condemned kidnappers to death.
There are other stories as well that spell out other broken Laws. Here are just a few examples:
REDEMPTION
If two brothers are living together on the same property and one of them dies without a son, his widow may not be married to anyone from outside the family. Instead, her husband’s brother should marry her and have intercourse with her to fulfill the duties of a brother-in-law. The first son she bears to him will be considered the son of the dead brother, so that his name will not be forgotten in Israel. (Deuteronomy 25:5-6)
When Reuben's son (Er) died, Er's brother was suppose to have sex with the widow in order to insure that Er's name would continue, and to give the widow a child to take care of her in her old age. Reuben's son did not fulfil his end of the bargain, and so the Lord slew him. It was only through the widow's (Tamar) deceit and cleverness that she was able to get the child she wanted, thus fulfilling a Law that was not yet in existence.
TREATMENT OF THE FIRSTBORN
If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and the firstborn son be hers that was hated: then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn. (Deuteronomy 21:15-16)
The whole reason Reuben had sex with his mother-in-law was a reaction to finding out that he was not getting the first born honor... and in the end he did not receive the inheritance or the honor of the first born.
TREATMENT OF STRANGERS
And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:33-34)
There are several places in Genesis where strangers are either treated well (Abraham and Lot) or treated poorly (Sodom).
INCEST
Many different incestial relationships are forbidden in Leviticus 18, 20 and in Deuteronomy. These relationships of incest were abominations and some of the reasons God destroyed nations that lived in the promised land (Leviticus 18:24-30).
Here are some of the forbidden relationships found in Genesis:
1. Abraham married his half sister Sarah.
2. Lot's daughters had sex with their father.
3. Tamar slept with her father-in-law.
4. Reuben slept with his step mom.
I think it may be that by the time Moses' Law was written, people were changing their values. In Genesis times it was common and acceptable to do anything in order to have children. Having children was more important than avoiding incest.
Secondly, because Abraham had come from a nomadic family and continued to wander, marriage in his tribe tended to be in the family. They didn't build long term relationships with the locals, so they did not trust them; and because they didn't trust them, it was only natural to marry inside the family.
By the time the Law was written, Israel was no longer nomadic, Israel's culture had changed so there were literally thousands of partners to choose from in one's own tribe. Incest was no longer needed and its popularity was waning.
These are the stories from Genesis that come to mind. I suppose there are others, anybody know of any?
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah - What the New Testament Writers Saw
As I studied what the Old Testament I learned that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah was a story that never lost its popularity or its power to illustrate that God could and would destroy a city or nation for sin.
I found out that in using Sodom and Gomorrah for illustration, Old Testament writers used the story of their total destruction to focus on the sins of their own day. Only Ezekiel directed his attention to the sins of those two ancient cities; and those sins were not gleaned from the Sodom and Gomorrah story but from Ezekiel's own time. Another way to look at it is that through inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Ezekiel knew something about Sodom and Gomorrah that wasn't in the original story.
Finally, I learned that according to Ezekiel there are worse sins than those of Sodom and Gomorrah. And this brings us to the New Testament.
JESUS - SINS WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S
In the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke, like the Old Testament, Jesus assumed his audience knew the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. He did not explain the story or tell it again, but rather, he drops their names like everybody knows everything about them - the sins and the total and permanent annihilation of the city.
Jesus used the story of the two cities in two ways: to illustrate greater judgment for those who reject the Gospel and to illustrate that Jerusalem would be destroyed for rejecting him.
Rejecting the Gospel
When Jesus sent out his disciples on a short missions trip to preach, teach and heal; he told them that if a city or town did not receive them, it would be better for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment (Matthew 10:15, Mark 6:11, Luke 10:12).
Rejection of the Good News about Jesus is a sin worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrah's.
Rejecting Jesus
When Jesus had finished his ministry in the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, he pronounced woes that judgment would be worse for them than it was for Sodom and Gomorrah (Matthew 11:23-24). They were doomed because they had seen so many works of Jesus, but still rejected him.
So for Jesus the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were never spelled out, in fact, the story served to illustrate the judgment more than the sin. Secondly, for Jesus, there was a sin far worse than anything that Sodom and Gomorrah did. And that was for a city to see the miracles that Jesus did and reject him. And in the same way, if a city rejected one of his messengers, its fate was worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.
JUDE AND 2 PETER - TWO VERSIONS OF THE SAME SERMON
If you read through 2 Peter 2 and Jude you will notice that they both follow the same outline.
1. There are people coming into your group that are bad.
2. They will be punished by God.
3. They talk big about things they don't really understand.
4. They will be judged.
My take on this is that there were two versions of the same sermon. Most of the ancient world relied more on memory, passing down stories, proverbs and sayings, more than on reading, because most people did not read. So a good sermon may have been passed on like a good story. People just repeated it to others.
I think 2 Peter 2 and Jude are like that. Even though there are some differences between them, they both have the same outline and both use some of the same illustrations to emphasize their points. One of those illustrations is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
2 PETER
The issues Peter writes about are the same as Jude's, but Jude goes further into the issues than Peter. Nevertheless, let's start with this verse from 2 Peter.
Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people (2 Peter 2:6).
This is exactly what the Old Testament writers and Jesus did. They used the story to emphasize God's certain judgment on those who boldly sin. Both Peter and Jude did the same.
Sodom and Gomorrah became the ultimate example of God's wrath on any city whose sins have maxed out. And Peter used it in his sermon alongside of other wrath of God judgments which included angels who were dispelled from heaven and the world in Noah's day which was destroyed by a flood.
The sin that Peter and Jude were warning against was the sin of deception; deceivers were leading Christians astray. I believe the people who Peter and Jude were warning against were actually political rebels who hoped to overthrow the Roman legions. These rebels were recruiting Christians into their ranks, pulling them out of the Christian church.
Both Peter and Jude looked at their own time and pointed out the sins that were in the group were threatening the church by recruitment. And as I mentioned, that threat was the recruitment and leading astray of believers in the Christian community.
JUDE
Jude is the first Bible writer to talk about the sexually immoral sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. I believe the reason he focused on sexual immorality is because he saw sexual immorality in his own day among those who were recruiting from the churches. Those who were recruiting were sexually immoral but not necessarily homosexual. Other Bible writers who used the Sodom and Gomorrah illustration were faced with other sins that needed to be addressed (such as breaking the covenant, economic injustice, and so on), and so they addressed those sins.
as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 1:7).
This is one of the most debated scriptures. For the first time in the Bible, and for the only time, the Sodom and Gomorrah's sins of sexual immorality are clearly mentioned. So this is important to look as closely as possible.
Jude wrote in Koine Greek - a common language in NT times. The word he used that we translate sexual immorality is "ekporneuō" which is not used anywhere else in the New Testament; but in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (LXX), "ekporneuō" is best defined "to prostitute oneself out." As far as I can tell, Jude is saying that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were completely giving themselves over to whatever sexual passions they had.
This still leaves us with the question: Was the evil passion of Sodom and Gomorrah (mentioned in Jude) homosexuality? Or was it homosexual rape? After all, the one sin that was mentioned in the first destruction in Genesis (the flood) was violence.
"Going after strange flesh" is the next issue that is debated. Literally the Bible says "going after other flesh." The debate for this expression can be summed up as follows:
1. "Going after strange flesh" refers to homosexuality. In Romans 1, the Apostle Paul argues that homosexuality dishonors the body and is against nature, so it seems likely that the term "strange flesh" means homosexuality.
In Jude 1:8, Jude tells us that the recruiters "defiled their flesh," which sounds very much like the language Paul uses when he talks about homosexuality when he says it dishonors the body. But if this is the case, why didn't Peter mention this in 2 Peter 2? If this was a defining sin of the recruiters, why does Peter ignore it? Peter mentions that the group has eyes filled with adultery; could "defiling the flesh" refer to adultery?
2. The second side says that "going after strange flesh" is trying to have sex with angels. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah knew that there were two angels visiting their city and wanted to have sex with them so much that they were willing to take them by force. They may have wanted to obtain some kind of mystic transference of powers or knowledge through intercourse (as in some ancient thought), or they may have simply wanted to experience a whole new type of sex - sex with angels.
This side of the debate needs quite a lot of explanation, because most people of the 21st Century are unfamiliar with it. Jude quoted from two books that were not in the Bible; the Assumption of Moses (of which we have only some of the book) and Enoch (which we have from Ethiopian translations).
The Book of Enoch is written by at least five different people all claiming to be Enoch, the man who lived seven generations down from Adam, who according to the Book of Enoch walked with the angels [Elohim can also be translated "angels"], received revelations from the angels, and wrote those revelations down). In reality, the books were written by at least five authors (as mentioned) from around 300 B.C. to A.D. 100. Jude quoted from the first of those five books, which means that he had access to at least one of the five sections that now make up the Book of Enoch.
In that same section of the book of Enoch, there is mention of powerful angels, called Watchers, who were given the task (by God) of overseeing the world; but they misused their authority by teaching men how to war (and other stuff) and teaching women about makeup (and other things). These Watchers lusted after women and had sex with them, thus producing giants as offspring who terrorized the earth. According to Enoch, these Watchers were the "sons of god" who had sex with "daughters of men" mentioned in Genesis 6:2.
The point is this: In Enoch's view, Genesis assumed the possibility of intermingling of the species (angels with humans), and when the men of Sodom and Gomorrah saw angels in their city, and knew they were heavenly beings, they wanted to have sex with "other flesh."
Parts of the ancient world believed knowledge and something special transferred from one person to another during acts of sex. That is one of the reasons homosexuality was so popular in some cultures. It is very possible the men of the city knew there were heavenly beings in their midst and wanted to rape them for their powers.
Last words on Enoch: There is discussion and disagreement about whether or not Jude believed that the Book of Enoch was inspired by God (like the rest of the Old Testament), but whatever he believed, it is obvious Jude believed it was written by the Enoch of the Bible (7th generation from Adam). It is also obvious that Jude believed the account accurately recorded what happened before and during the flood, including the Watchers, their sexual adventures, and the giants that resulted.
SOME OF THE LISTED SINS OF THE RECRUITERS
According to Peter the group that was recruiting had sins that included:
Following the currupt desires and passions
Despising authority
Slandering the glorious ones (may refer to principalities and powers of some sort)
Being bold and arrogant
Speaking evil of that which they did not understand
Openly rioting
Reveling in their own pleasures
Eyes focused on adultery
Greedy
Leaving the right way
Compare this list to Judes':
Defiling the flesh
Rejecting authority
Slandering the glorious ones
Speaking evil of that which they did not understand
Walking after their own desires and passions
Murmuring and complaining
Speaking boastfully
Showing favoritism
Seperating from the group
What is common to both groups and what seems to stand out are these:
Uncontrolled Passions
Lusting, coveting, wanting, desiring, defiling the flesh, reveling
Rejection of authority
Speaking evil, slandering, murmuring, complaining, speaking arrogantly, speaking evil of things they didn't understand
REVELATION
The last place in the New Testament that refers to Sodom (and not Gomorrah) is Revelation 11:8 where Jerusalem is called Sodom and Egypt where our Lord was crucified.
CONCLUSIONS
The New Testament like the Old Testament uses the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as illustrations and warnings to emphasize that God can and will destroy a city or nation for its sins.
Each writer focuses on the sins of his particular time. Most of the writers throughout the Bible are unconcerned with the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, because for them, the story is not about what Sodom and Gomorrah did, but what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah. Any type of sin gone out of control could do the same thing. So in a nutshell, God utterly destroyed them for their sins, as He can destroy us for ours.
One last word about those cities, I believe that the writer of Genesis viewed the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were the epitome of evil and each Bible writer after was more concerned about the sins prevalent in their own day, oftentimes making the statement that there are worse sins than what Sodom and Gomorrah did.
I found out that in using Sodom and Gomorrah for illustration, Old Testament writers used the story of their total destruction to focus on the sins of their own day. Only Ezekiel directed his attention to the sins of those two ancient cities; and those sins were not gleaned from the Sodom and Gomorrah story but from Ezekiel's own time. Another way to look at it is that through inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Ezekiel knew something about Sodom and Gomorrah that wasn't in the original story.
Finally, I learned that according to Ezekiel there are worse sins than those of Sodom and Gomorrah. And this brings us to the New Testament.
JESUS - SINS WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S
In the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke, like the Old Testament, Jesus assumed his audience knew the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. He did not explain the story or tell it again, but rather, he drops their names like everybody knows everything about them - the sins and the total and permanent annihilation of the city.
Jesus used the story of the two cities in two ways: to illustrate greater judgment for those who reject the Gospel and to illustrate that Jerusalem would be destroyed for rejecting him.
Rejecting the Gospel
When Jesus sent out his disciples on a short missions trip to preach, teach and heal; he told them that if a city or town did not receive them, it would be better for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment (Matthew 10:15, Mark 6:11, Luke 10:12).
Rejection of the Good News about Jesus is a sin worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrah's.
Rejecting Jesus
When Jesus had finished his ministry in the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, he pronounced woes that judgment would be worse for them than it was for Sodom and Gomorrah (Matthew 11:23-24). They were doomed because they had seen so many works of Jesus, but still rejected him.
So for Jesus the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were never spelled out, in fact, the story served to illustrate the judgment more than the sin. Secondly, for Jesus, there was a sin far worse than anything that Sodom and Gomorrah did. And that was for a city to see the miracles that Jesus did and reject him. And in the same way, if a city rejected one of his messengers, its fate was worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.
JUDE AND 2 PETER - TWO VERSIONS OF THE SAME SERMON
If you read through 2 Peter 2 and Jude you will notice that they both follow the same outline.
1. There are people coming into your group that are bad.
2. They will be punished by God.
3. They talk big about things they don't really understand.
4. They will be judged.
My take on this is that there were two versions of the same sermon. Most of the ancient world relied more on memory, passing down stories, proverbs and sayings, more than on reading, because most people did not read. So a good sermon may have been passed on like a good story. People just repeated it to others.
I think 2 Peter 2 and Jude are like that. Even though there are some differences between them, they both have the same outline and both use some of the same illustrations to emphasize their points. One of those illustrations is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
2 PETER
The issues Peter writes about are the same as Jude's, but Jude goes further into the issues than Peter. Nevertheless, let's start with this verse from 2 Peter.
Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people (2 Peter 2:6).
This is exactly what the Old Testament writers and Jesus did. They used the story to emphasize God's certain judgment on those who boldly sin. Both Peter and Jude did the same.
Sodom and Gomorrah became the ultimate example of God's wrath on any city whose sins have maxed out. And Peter used it in his sermon alongside of other wrath of God judgments which included angels who were dispelled from heaven and the world in Noah's day which was destroyed by a flood.
The sin that Peter and Jude were warning against was the sin of deception; deceivers were leading Christians astray. I believe the people who Peter and Jude were warning against were actually political rebels who hoped to overthrow the Roman legions. These rebels were recruiting Christians into their ranks, pulling them out of the Christian church.
Both Peter and Jude looked at their own time and pointed out the sins that were in the group were threatening the church by recruitment. And as I mentioned, that threat was the recruitment and leading astray of believers in the Christian community.
JUDE
Jude is the first Bible writer to talk about the sexually immoral sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. I believe the reason he focused on sexual immorality is because he saw sexual immorality in his own day among those who were recruiting from the churches. Those who were recruiting were sexually immoral but not necessarily homosexual. Other Bible writers who used the Sodom and Gomorrah illustration were faced with other sins that needed to be addressed (such as breaking the covenant, economic injustice, and so on), and so they addressed those sins.
as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 1:7).
This is one of the most debated scriptures. For the first time in the Bible, and for the only time, the Sodom and Gomorrah's sins of sexual immorality are clearly mentioned. So this is important to look as closely as possible.
Jude wrote in Koine Greek - a common language in NT times. The word he used that we translate sexual immorality is "ekporneuō" which is not used anywhere else in the New Testament; but in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (LXX), "ekporneuō" is best defined "to prostitute oneself out." As far as I can tell, Jude is saying that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were completely giving themselves over to whatever sexual passions they had.
This still leaves us with the question: Was the evil passion of Sodom and Gomorrah (mentioned in Jude) homosexuality? Or was it homosexual rape? After all, the one sin that was mentioned in the first destruction in Genesis (the flood) was violence.
"Going after strange flesh" is the next issue that is debated. Literally the Bible says "going after other flesh." The debate for this expression can be summed up as follows:
1. "Going after strange flesh" refers to homosexuality. In Romans 1, the Apostle Paul argues that homosexuality dishonors the body and is against nature, so it seems likely that the term "strange flesh" means homosexuality.
In Jude 1:8, Jude tells us that the recruiters "defiled their flesh," which sounds very much like the language Paul uses when he talks about homosexuality when he says it dishonors the body. But if this is the case, why didn't Peter mention this in 2 Peter 2? If this was a defining sin of the recruiters, why does Peter ignore it? Peter mentions that the group has eyes filled with adultery; could "defiling the flesh" refer to adultery?
2. The second side says that "going after strange flesh" is trying to have sex with angels. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah knew that there were two angels visiting their city and wanted to have sex with them so much that they were willing to take them by force. They may have wanted to obtain some kind of mystic transference of powers or knowledge through intercourse (as in some ancient thought), or they may have simply wanted to experience a whole new type of sex - sex with angels.
This side of the debate needs quite a lot of explanation, because most people of the 21st Century are unfamiliar with it. Jude quoted from two books that were not in the Bible; the Assumption of Moses (of which we have only some of the book) and Enoch (which we have from Ethiopian translations).
The Book of Enoch is written by at least five different people all claiming to be Enoch, the man who lived seven generations down from Adam, who according to the Book of Enoch walked with the angels [Elohim can also be translated "angels"], received revelations from the angels, and wrote those revelations down). In reality, the books were written by at least five authors (as mentioned) from around 300 B.C. to A.D. 100. Jude quoted from the first of those five books, which means that he had access to at least one of the five sections that now make up the Book of Enoch.
In that same section of the book of Enoch, there is mention of powerful angels, called Watchers, who were given the task (by God) of overseeing the world; but they misused their authority by teaching men how to war (and other stuff) and teaching women about makeup (and other things). These Watchers lusted after women and had sex with them, thus producing giants as offspring who terrorized the earth. According to Enoch, these Watchers were the "sons of god" who had sex with "daughters of men" mentioned in Genesis 6:2.
The point is this: In Enoch's view, Genesis assumed the possibility of intermingling of the species (angels with humans), and when the men of Sodom and Gomorrah saw angels in their city, and knew they were heavenly beings, they wanted to have sex with "other flesh."
Parts of the ancient world believed knowledge and something special transferred from one person to another during acts of sex. That is one of the reasons homosexuality was so popular in some cultures. It is very possible the men of the city knew there were heavenly beings in their midst and wanted to rape them for their powers.
Last words on Enoch: There is discussion and disagreement about whether or not Jude believed that the Book of Enoch was inspired by God (like the rest of the Old Testament), but whatever he believed, it is obvious Jude believed it was written by the Enoch of the Bible (7th generation from Adam). It is also obvious that Jude believed the account accurately recorded what happened before and during the flood, including the Watchers, their sexual adventures, and the giants that resulted.
SOME OF THE LISTED SINS OF THE RECRUITERS
According to Peter the group that was recruiting had sins that included:
Following the currupt desires and passions
Despising authority
Slandering the glorious ones (may refer to principalities and powers of some sort)
Being bold and arrogant
Speaking evil of that which they did not understand
Openly rioting
Reveling in their own pleasures
Eyes focused on adultery
Greedy
Leaving the right way
Compare this list to Judes':
Defiling the flesh
Rejecting authority
Slandering the glorious ones
Speaking evil of that which they did not understand
Walking after their own desires and passions
Murmuring and complaining
Speaking boastfully
Showing favoritism
Seperating from the group
What is common to both groups and what seems to stand out are these:
Uncontrolled Passions
Lusting, coveting, wanting, desiring, defiling the flesh, reveling
Rejection of authority
Speaking evil, slandering, murmuring, complaining, speaking arrogantly, speaking evil of things they didn't understand
REVELATION
The last place in the New Testament that refers to Sodom (and not Gomorrah) is Revelation 11:8 where Jerusalem is called Sodom and Egypt where our Lord was crucified.
CONCLUSIONS
The New Testament like the Old Testament uses the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as illustrations and warnings to emphasize that God can and will destroy a city or nation for its sins.
Each writer focuses on the sins of his particular time. Most of the writers throughout the Bible are unconcerned with the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, because for them, the story is not about what Sodom and Gomorrah did, but what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah. Any type of sin gone out of control could do the same thing. So in a nutshell, God utterly destroyed them for their sins, as He can destroy us for ours.
One last word about those cities, I believe that the writer of Genesis viewed the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were the epitome of evil and each Bible writer after was more concerned about the sins prevalent in their own day, oftentimes making the statement that there are worse sins than what Sodom and Gomorrah did.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah - What the Old Testament Writers Saw
Ask most people why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and they will tell you that it was homosexuality. In fact, homosexuality has become so popular of an answer that its own popularity has established it as absolute. It's one of those issues that if you say something enough it becomes unquestioned fact. In the following study, I am not looking to justify or attack homosexuality; I am only looking at how the Bible writers used the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to speak to the issues of their own day.
But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good...(1 Thessalonians 5:21).
What I am looking for in this study is what the Old Testament tells us about Sodom and Gomorrah. Does it tell us that homosexuality was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? Does it mention its brutality and gang rape? What did those two cities do that deserved total destruction? What sins destroy any country?
GENESIS
Genesis never comments on or explains anything about what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah; it never gives us a commentary. We get no further lessons or explanations...just the story.
Although Genesis offers us nothing more than the story, Genesis does give us a look into why God would destroy the entire world and all of its civilizations.
In the story of Noah, there was one sin mentioned that caused the destruction of the entire world. I'm sure there were plenty of other sins not mentioned, but only one was clearly pointed out - violence (Genesis 6:11-13). Other sins relating to the flood were generic in nature and give us no clear definition of what sin or sins were prevailent. They simply state that human thoughts were evil and they committed evils. What were those thoughts? And what were those evils? Any further definitions are human interpretations - our own reading into the passage.
In following the Genesis context, the context of why God destroyed the first time, violence was repeated both in Noah's day and with Sodom and Gomorrah as well. So in the very least we can start there. Violence is found both in Noah's day and in Lot's day. And in both stories, God destroyed and killed people.
A closer look at Sodom and Gomorrah tells us that the violence of those cities were sexual in nature, and homosexual in particular. It is imoportant here to point out that the sexual violence of the mob in Lot's daywas what sealed the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah. However, the angels came to Sodom and Gomorrah, not because of that sin, but rather because of the sins of those cities that had already been committed before the angels visited. What those sins were, were never mentioned in Genesis.
Here is how the rest of the Hebrew scriptures comment on the sin and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. For clarity, seperate the destruction from the sin, because as you will see, the Old Testament writers do seperate the two. In fact, most writers comment more on the destruction of those cities more than the sins of those cities.
DEUTERONOMY
In Deuteronomy God warned His people to stay away from idolatry, breaking the Covenant of Moses, and following other gods. To emphasize this point, Moses told he people that if they followed other gods and broke God's covenant, their land would become like Sodom and Gomorrah (IE: it would be uninhabitable and unable to produce).
Using Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of how powerful God's wrath can be is typical for most of the Old Testament. Deuteronomy is also a good template for the Old Testament, because it says nothing about why God destroyed the two cities. Instead, the OT writers used the Sodom and Gomorrah story as a lesson against the sins of their own day. In the day Deuteronomy was written, the issue of homosexuality was not as important as the issue of idolatry or breaking the covenant that Israel had with God. So Moses saw Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of the destruction that God can accomplish. Moses did not see it as a lesson against homosexuality or violence.
We will see from other OT passages that when the OT writers thought about Sodom and Gomorrah, they looked at their own day and saw how their own issues (issues usually unrelated to homosexuality) led to a "Sodom and Gomorrah like, fire and brimstone/wrath of God" kind of destruction.
ISAIAH
The very look on their faces gives them away. They display their sin like the people of Sodom and don't even try to hide it. They are doomed! They have brought destruction upon themselves (Isaiah 3:9).
Like Deuteronomy, Isaiah uses the Sodom and Gomorrah story as a lesson for his own people in his own time. Isaiah said that God's people paraded their sins just like Sodom and Gomorrah, thus giving an indirect warning of destruction with the rebuke. Besides being bold about their sins, what was the sin or what were the sins in Isaiah's day? The verse immediately before Isiah 3:9 stated that what the people were saying and doing were evil... but what were they saying and doing? Isaih didn't give us any more detail. But the verses following summarized what was on Isaiah's heart from the very beginning of the book:
The LORD comes forward to pronounce judgment on the elders and rulers of his people: "You have ruined Israel, my vineyard. Your houses are filled with things stolen from the poor. How dare you crush my people, grinding the faces of the poor into the dust?" demands the Lord, the LORD of Heaven's Armies (Isaiah 3:14-15).
Isaiah 1 also uses the example of the two cities for the same purpose and because of the same sin. In a nutshell, according to Isaiah, Israel's sin was their bad treatment of the poor.
In other Isaiah passages:
1. In chapter one (verse 10), Isaiah called the leadership of Israel "Rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah," who practiced God's Law in sacrificing and festivals but ignored the needs of the poor and the powerless.
2. In the same chapter (1:9), Isaiah used Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of what Israel would become if the Lord did not intervene and leave behind a remnant of survivors.
3. Babylon would be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah because of its pride and because it conquered Jerusalem and its temple (Isaiah 13-14).
JEREMIAH
Chapter 23
Like Isaiah, Jeremiah used the story of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of his own time. The sins in Jeremiah 23 were:
1. Prophets committed adultery.
2. Prophets lied.
3. Prophets led people astray.
4. Prophets didn't warn people about the consequences of their sins, instead they encouraged them.
5. Prophets didn't warn people of God's coming wrath.
6. Prophets said they spoke for God when they did not know what God really wanted to say. In other words they spoke from what was on their own hearts.
In other Jeremiah passages:
1. Because Edom terrified people and was proud, God would make it like Sodom and Gomorrah - nobody would live there again (Jer. 49:15-19).
2. Because Babylon gloated over the taking of Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and grew fat from the spoils, God would make them like Sodom and Gomorrah - nobody would live there again (Jer. 50).
EZEKIEL
Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen
(Ezekiel 16:49-50).
Although every other biblical writer mentioned above and below focused on the sins of their own day, and compared those sins to the undefined evil of Sodom and Gomorrah; Ezekiel took this to a whole new level. Indeed, we will see that in other verses Ezekiel used the Sodom and Gomorrah story in the same way as the other writers - pointing out that like Sodom and Gomorrah they would be destroyed by the wrath of God, and like those two cities, evil permeated his present era - but in this passage, Ezekiel saw the sins of his own day, and said those same sins are the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. In doing this, Ezekiel was the first and only Old Testament writer to tell us the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were.
What were the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah?
1. The sins were the same sins we see everywhere in our own day - people in Sodom and Gomorrah were living a good life while they were unconcerned about the needs of the poor and the needy.
2. They were arrogant.
3. They practiced detestable things.
Even though detestable things were not defined, I would assume that they are related to Sodom's men wanting to rape the two visitors of Sodom. Notice I said, "assume," because there is no clear definition of what Ezekiel meant when he said they practiced detestable things. For all I know, he may have been referring to idolatry, which was considered detestable.
At this point one might say that the context of Genesis nowhere stated idolatry; but the context of Genesis likewise nowhere stated anything about the rich and the poor which Ezekiel did say was the sin of Sodom and her sisters. It is possible that Ezekiel felt that homosexuality was considered detestable (Leviticus conisidered it an abomination), but homosexuality was not openly stated by Ezekiel. And to make homosexuality the "detestable thing" in Ezekiel's mind is to put it there artificially from our own judgments.
It is possible that Ezekiel didn't mention homosexaulity in particular because it had gone underground in his day and was therefore not considered a big deal in his day. Remember, the prophets (like us) were mostly concerned with the sins of their own day - not with the sins of the past or the future.
In the end, Ezekiel was the only one who named the sins that compelled two angels to come into Sodom in order to judge whether or not to destroy the cities. The sins that Ezekiel named that were committed before the angels came were the sins that compelled angels to come down from heaven. They were the sins that reached to the heavens because they were so evil. And they were the sins that had built up to an incredibly burdensome amount. Homosexual rape was only the outward manifestation of deeper evil that had been brooding within the culture of Sodom and Gomorrah... the sins of injustice and pride and the sin that was considered detestable - whatever sin that was.
THERE ARE SINS WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S
You not only walked in their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they (Ezekiel 16:47).
In the same context of the previous section, Ezekiel told his audience that Israel's sinfulness, corruption and depravities are worse those of Sodom and Gomorrah's. This means there were sins that were worse than neglecting the poor and worse than homosexual rape. In fact, Israel's sins during the time of Ezekiel were so bad than it made Sodom and Gomorrah righteous in comparison (Ezekiel 16:51-52).
WHAT IS THE SIN WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S?
Ezekiel 16:59 briefly mentioned breaking the Covenant, which is possibly the sin that Ezekiel believed was worse than Sodom and Gomorrah's sin. I say "possibly" because although it is the only sin mention in this section, it is very possible that Ezekiel was generalizing about all types of sin. And yet, it is intriguing that he does mention breaking the covenant....
If breaking the covenant is worse than any sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, we have a whole new can of worms, a whole new study. How was Israel breaking the covenant? For that you will need to look elsewhere.
OTHER BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Amos 4:11 uses Sodom and Gomorrah as comparisons to the overthrow of Jerusalem.
"I destroyed some of your cities, as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Those of you who survived were like charred sticks pulled from a fire. But still you would not return to me," says the LORD.
In Zephaniah 2:9, Moab was compared to Sodom, and Edom was compared to Gomorrah because they would be destroyed.
Neither of these two verses reveal anything new about Sodom and Gomorrah.
CONCLUSIONS
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah must have been a popular story in Israel. After Genesis the writers of the Bible never needed to retell the story because their audience knew it already.
We cannot go back and ask the common person what lessons and warnings they gleened from the story of the two cities; but we do have a few writers who gave their own commentaries on the story. For these writers the lessons were not about homosexuality, violence, treatment of the stranger or rape. For them the lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah were precisely this: God can and will destroy a city or a nation when it becomes too sinful.
The sins that destroy any nation depended upon the time the writer was writing. Throughout the Old Testament, idolatry, breaking God's covenant, corrupt leadership and neglecting the needs of the poor were on top of the list of the sins that best mirrored the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The only place in the Old Testament that clearly mentioned the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah was found in Ezekiel. Surprisingly, Ezekiel did not point to the rape, homosexuality, or violence of Sodom; rather he focused on the economic immorality going on in Sodom and Gomorrah more than anything else. As a sidenote he mentioned that they also committed detestable things. Unfortuneately, "detestable things' is left undefined, leaving us to our assumptions.
But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good...(1 Thessalonians 5:21).
What I am looking for in this study is what the Old Testament tells us about Sodom and Gomorrah. Does it tell us that homosexuality was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? Does it mention its brutality and gang rape? What did those two cities do that deserved total destruction? What sins destroy any country?
GENESIS
Genesis never comments on or explains anything about what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah; it never gives us a commentary. We get no further lessons or explanations...just the story.
Although Genesis offers us nothing more than the story, Genesis does give us a look into why God would destroy the entire world and all of its civilizations.
In the story of Noah, there was one sin mentioned that caused the destruction of the entire world. I'm sure there were plenty of other sins not mentioned, but only one was clearly pointed out - violence (Genesis 6:11-13). Other sins relating to the flood were generic in nature and give us no clear definition of what sin or sins were prevailent. They simply state that human thoughts were evil and they committed evils. What were those thoughts? And what were those evils? Any further definitions are human interpretations - our own reading into the passage.
In following the Genesis context, the context of why God destroyed the first time, violence was repeated both in Noah's day and with Sodom and Gomorrah as well. So in the very least we can start there. Violence is found both in Noah's day and in Lot's day. And in both stories, God destroyed and killed people.
A closer look at Sodom and Gomorrah tells us that the violence of those cities were sexual in nature, and homosexual in particular. It is imoportant here to point out that the sexual violence of the mob in Lot's daywas what sealed the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah. However, the angels came to Sodom and Gomorrah, not because of that sin, but rather because of the sins of those cities that had already been committed before the angels visited. What those sins were, were never mentioned in Genesis.
Here is how the rest of the Hebrew scriptures comment on the sin and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. For clarity, seperate the destruction from the sin, because as you will see, the Old Testament writers do seperate the two. In fact, most writers comment more on the destruction of those cities more than the sins of those cities.
DEUTERONOMY
In Deuteronomy God warned His people to stay away from idolatry, breaking the Covenant of Moses, and following other gods. To emphasize this point, Moses told he people that if they followed other gods and broke God's covenant, their land would become like Sodom and Gomorrah (IE: it would be uninhabitable and unable to produce).
Using Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of how powerful God's wrath can be is typical for most of the Old Testament. Deuteronomy is also a good template for the Old Testament, because it says nothing about why God destroyed the two cities. Instead, the OT writers used the Sodom and Gomorrah story as a lesson against the sins of their own day. In the day Deuteronomy was written, the issue of homosexuality was not as important as the issue of idolatry or breaking the covenant that Israel had with God. So Moses saw Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of the destruction that God can accomplish. Moses did not see it as a lesson against homosexuality or violence.
We will see from other OT passages that when the OT writers thought about Sodom and Gomorrah, they looked at their own day and saw how their own issues (issues usually unrelated to homosexuality) led to a "Sodom and Gomorrah like, fire and brimstone/wrath of God" kind of destruction.
ISAIAH
The very look on their faces gives them away. They display their sin like the people of Sodom and don't even try to hide it. They are doomed! They have brought destruction upon themselves (Isaiah 3:9).
Like Deuteronomy, Isaiah uses the Sodom and Gomorrah story as a lesson for his own people in his own time. Isaiah said that God's people paraded their sins just like Sodom and Gomorrah, thus giving an indirect warning of destruction with the rebuke. Besides being bold about their sins, what was the sin or what were the sins in Isaiah's day? The verse immediately before Isiah 3:9 stated that what the people were saying and doing were evil... but what were they saying and doing? Isaih didn't give us any more detail. But the verses following summarized what was on Isaiah's heart from the very beginning of the book:
The LORD comes forward to pronounce judgment on the elders and rulers of his people: "You have ruined Israel, my vineyard. Your houses are filled with things stolen from the poor. How dare you crush my people, grinding the faces of the poor into the dust?" demands the Lord, the LORD of Heaven's Armies (Isaiah 3:14-15).
Isaiah 1 also uses the example of the two cities for the same purpose and because of the same sin. In a nutshell, according to Isaiah, Israel's sin was their bad treatment of the poor.
In other Isaiah passages:
1. In chapter one (verse 10), Isaiah called the leadership of Israel "Rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah," who practiced God's Law in sacrificing and festivals but ignored the needs of the poor and the powerless.
2. In the same chapter (1:9), Isaiah used Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of what Israel would become if the Lord did not intervene and leave behind a remnant of survivors.
3. Babylon would be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah because of its pride and because it conquered Jerusalem and its temple (Isaiah 13-14).
JEREMIAH
Chapter 23
Like Isaiah, Jeremiah used the story of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of his own time. The sins in Jeremiah 23 were:
1. Prophets committed adultery.
2. Prophets lied.
3. Prophets led people astray.
4. Prophets didn't warn people about the consequences of their sins, instead they encouraged them.
5. Prophets didn't warn people of God's coming wrath.
6. Prophets said they spoke for God when they did not know what God really wanted to say. In other words they spoke from what was on their own hearts.
In other Jeremiah passages:
1. Because Edom terrified people and was proud, God would make it like Sodom and Gomorrah - nobody would live there again (Jer. 49:15-19).
2. Because Babylon gloated over the taking of Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and grew fat from the spoils, God would make them like Sodom and Gomorrah - nobody would live there again (Jer. 50).
EZEKIEL
Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen
(Ezekiel 16:49-50).
Although every other biblical writer mentioned above and below focused on the sins of their own day, and compared those sins to the undefined evil of Sodom and Gomorrah; Ezekiel took this to a whole new level. Indeed, we will see that in other verses Ezekiel used the Sodom and Gomorrah story in the same way as the other writers - pointing out that like Sodom and Gomorrah they would be destroyed by the wrath of God, and like those two cities, evil permeated his present era - but in this passage, Ezekiel saw the sins of his own day, and said those same sins are the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. In doing this, Ezekiel was the first and only Old Testament writer to tell us the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were.
What were the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah?
1. The sins were the same sins we see everywhere in our own day - people in Sodom and Gomorrah were living a good life while they were unconcerned about the needs of the poor and the needy.
2. They were arrogant.
3. They practiced detestable things.
Even though detestable things were not defined, I would assume that they are related to Sodom's men wanting to rape the two visitors of Sodom. Notice I said, "assume," because there is no clear definition of what Ezekiel meant when he said they practiced detestable things. For all I know, he may have been referring to idolatry, which was considered detestable.
At this point one might say that the context of Genesis nowhere stated idolatry; but the context of Genesis likewise nowhere stated anything about the rich and the poor which Ezekiel did say was the sin of Sodom and her sisters. It is possible that Ezekiel felt that homosexuality was considered detestable (Leviticus conisidered it an abomination), but homosexuality was not openly stated by Ezekiel. And to make homosexuality the "detestable thing" in Ezekiel's mind is to put it there artificially from our own judgments.
It is possible that Ezekiel didn't mention homosexaulity in particular because it had gone underground in his day and was therefore not considered a big deal in his day. Remember, the prophets (like us) were mostly concerned with the sins of their own day - not with the sins of the past or the future.
In the end, Ezekiel was the only one who named the sins that compelled two angels to come into Sodom in order to judge whether or not to destroy the cities. The sins that Ezekiel named that were committed before the angels came were the sins that compelled angels to come down from heaven. They were the sins that reached to the heavens because they were so evil. And they were the sins that had built up to an incredibly burdensome amount. Homosexual rape was only the outward manifestation of deeper evil that had been brooding within the culture of Sodom and Gomorrah... the sins of injustice and pride and the sin that was considered detestable - whatever sin that was.
THERE ARE SINS WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S
You not only walked in their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they (Ezekiel 16:47).
In the same context of the previous section, Ezekiel told his audience that Israel's sinfulness, corruption and depravities are worse those of Sodom and Gomorrah's. This means there were sins that were worse than neglecting the poor and worse than homosexual rape. In fact, Israel's sins during the time of Ezekiel were so bad than it made Sodom and Gomorrah righteous in comparison (Ezekiel 16:51-52).
WHAT IS THE SIN WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S?
Ezekiel 16:59 briefly mentioned breaking the Covenant, which is possibly the sin that Ezekiel believed was worse than Sodom and Gomorrah's sin. I say "possibly" because although it is the only sin mention in this section, it is very possible that Ezekiel was generalizing about all types of sin. And yet, it is intriguing that he does mention breaking the covenant....
If breaking the covenant is worse than any sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, we have a whole new can of worms, a whole new study. How was Israel breaking the covenant? For that you will need to look elsewhere.
OTHER BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Amos 4:11 uses Sodom and Gomorrah as comparisons to the overthrow of Jerusalem.
"I destroyed some of your cities, as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Those of you who survived were like charred sticks pulled from a fire. But still you would not return to me," says the LORD.
In Zephaniah 2:9, Moab was compared to Sodom, and Edom was compared to Gomorrah because they would be destroyed.
Neither of these two verses reveal anything new about Sodom and Gomorrah.
CONCLUSIONS
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah must have been a popular story in Israel. After Genesis the writers of the Bible never needed to retell the story because their audience knew it already.
We cannot go back and ask the common person what lessons and warnings they gleened from the story of the two cities; but we do have a few writers who gave their own commentaries on the story. For these writers the lessons were not about homosexuality, violence, treatment of the stranger or rape. For them the lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah were precisely this: God can and will destroy a city or a nation when it becomes too sinful.
The sins that destroy any nation depended upon the time the writer was writing. Throughout the Old Testament, idolatry, breaking God's covenant, corrupt leadership and neglecting the needs of the poor were on top of the list of the sins that best mirrored the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The only place in the Old Testament that clearly mentioned the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah was found in Ezekiel. Surprisingly, Ezekiel did not point to the rape, homosexuality, or violence of Sodom; rather he focused on the economic immorality going on in Sodom and Gomorrah more than anything else. As a sidenote he mentioned that they also committed detestable things. Unfortuneately, "detestable things' is left undefined, leaving us to our assumptions.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Themes in Genesis: Why God Destroys Cities, Nations and the World in Genesis
FACT: GOD DESTROYS GROUPS OF PEOPLE
In Genesis 6 - 9, God was disappointed with the earth and regretted that he made people, so he sent a flood on the earth to destroy everyone, including animals, except Noah, his family and 2 of each animal (7 each of the clean animals). Several chapters later (chapter 19), he destroyed a city with fire and brimstone (probably a volcano). Finally, in chapter 15 God promised Abraham that he would give him land that was then inhabited. But God let Abraham know that he could not take the land until God was ready to destroy another group of people. But to destroy them there was a certain prerequisite that had to be met - a prerequisite that was tied into the other two destructions.
So in Genesis, we see that God destroyed the entire world, regreted destroying it, so narrowed down his destructive energies to a couple of cities and then to several tribes of people.
QUESTION: WHY DOES GOD DESTROY GROUPS OF PEOPLE?
When God Destroyed the Entire World:
1. Genesis 6:5: "Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." From this we can say that God destroyed the world for two reasons:
a. Humanity was very wicked, not just wicked, but very wicked.
b. Humanity in heart and in intent was filled with evil.
2. Genesis 6:12: "So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth." Corrupt in the Hebrew language is "sachath," which means "rotten, spoiled, ruined, corrupted."
The author of Genesis played with this word "corruption/ destroy (sachath)." In 3 verses he says, The earth was corrupted (sachath), people corrupted (sachath) their ways on the earth, so God said, "I will destroy (sachath) the earth."
Throughout the Old Testament, the word sachath defines the destruction of cities and land by the hand of God or the corruption of people's hearts and ways done by themselves. To be specific, what corrupts humaninty in the OT is most often idolatry, but sachath is also the result of adultery, laziness, pride, and giving God inferior sacrifices. But in the days of Noah it was something else that corrupted humankind.
3. Genesis 6:11 and 13: "Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. So God said to Noah, 'I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!'"
God destroyed the world because people corrupted themselves with violence.
When God Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
Contrary to popular opinion, homosexuality is not the major sin of Sodom. Ezekiel tells us that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was pride, economic injustice, and an undefined abomination which many attribute to homosexuality. I would rather define the abomination as homosexual rape, because:
1. That is what Sodom intended to do to the angels.
2. It fits the context of the book of Genesis where God destroyed the entire world, not because of sexual sins, but because of its violence.
I conclude that according to Genesis, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of its violence which was sexual in nature. But remember, that one act of sexual violence was not why the angels went into the city to see if it should be destoyed. The city was doomed for destruction before the men wanted to rape the visiting angels.
Perhaps this is where we fit Ezekiel's judgment into the situation, "Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. She was proud and committed detestable sins, so I wiped her out, as you have seen." Economic injustice and pride preceded the homosexual rape. Economic injustice and pride sent the angels down to investigate. The violence of homosexual rape simply simply sealed their doom.
When God Destroyed the Ammorites
As God promised to give land to Abraham and his descendents, he told Abraham that he could not yet take the land ... (Genesis 16:15). "After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction."
In part, the prediction is that the Ammorites would reach a level of sin that would warrent their destruction. The "sins of the Ammorites" are to the best of my knowledge undefined. There is some discussion about who the Ammorites were; if they were the Canaanites who inhabited the land when the Israelites entered after 400 years, or if they were driven out of the land shortly before the Israelites came, or whatever. So it is difficult to say what the sin was that warrented total genocide. Some have suggested idolatry, child sacrifice and other sins that were practiced by the Canaanites, but this is yet to be proven.
The main point is this: God waited to destroy a people until they had reached their full potential for sin.
In Genesis 6 - 9, God was disappointed with the earth and regretted that he made people, so he sent a flood on the earth to destroy everyone, including animals, except Noah, his family and 2 of each animal (7 each of the clean animals). Several chapters later (chapter 19), he destroyed a city with fire and brimstone (probably a volcano). Finally, in chapter 15 God promised Abraham that he would give him land that was then inhabited. But God let Abraham know that he could not take the land until God was ready to destroy another group of people. But to destroy them there was a certain prerequisite that had to be met - a prerequisite that was tied into the other two destructions.
So in Genesis, we see that God destroyed the entire world, regreted destroying it, so narrowed down his destructive energies to a couple of cities and then to several tribes of people.
QUESTION: WHY DOES GOD DESTROY GROUPS OF PEOPLE?
When God Destroyed the Entire World:
1. Genesis 6:5: "Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." From this we can say that God destroyed the world for two reasons:
a. Humanity was very wicked, not just wicked, but very wicked.
b. Humanity in heart and in intent was filled with evil.
2. Genesis 6:12: "So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth." Corrupt in the Hebrew language is "sachath," which means "rotten, spoiled, ruined, corrupted."
The author of Genesis played with this word "corruption/ destroy (sachath)." In 3 verses he says, The earth was corrupted (sachath), people corrupted (sachath) their ways on the earth, so God said, "I will destroy (sachath) the earth."
Throughout the Old Testament, the word sachath defines the destruction of cities and land by the hand of God or the corruption of people's hearts and ways done by themselves. To be specific, what corrupts humaninty in the OT is most often idolatry, but sachath is also the result of adultery, laziness, pride, and giving God inferior sacrifices. But in the days of Noah it was something else that corrupted humankind.
3. Genesis 6:11 and 13: "Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. So God said to Noah, 'I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!'"
God destroyed the world because people corrupted themselves with violence.
When God Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
Contrary to popular opinion, homosexuality is not the major sin of Sodom. Ezekiel tells us that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was pride, economic injustice, and an undefined abomination which many attribute to homosexuality. I would rather define the abomination as homosexual rape, because:
1. That is what Sodom intended to do to the angels.
2. It fits the context of the book of Genesis where God destroyed the entire world, not because of sexual sins, but because of its violence.
I conclude that according to Genesis, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of its violence which was sexual in nature. But remember, that one act of sexual violence was not why the angels went into the city to see if it should be destoyed. The city was doomed for destruction before the men wanted to rape the visiting angels.
Perhaps this is where we fit Ezekiel's judgment into the situation, "Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. She was proud and committed detestable sins, so I wiped her out, as you have seen." Economic injustice and pride preceded the homosexual rape. Economic injustice and pride sent the angels down to investigate. The violence of homosexual rape simply simply sealed their doom.
When God Destroyed the Ammorites
As God promised to give land to Abraham and his descendents, he told Abraham that he could not yet take the land ... (Genesis 16:15). "After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction."
In part, the prediction is that the Ammorites would reach a level of sin that would warrent their destruction. The "sins of the Ammorites" are to the best of my knowledge undefined. There is some discussion about who the Ammorites were; if they were the Canaanites who inhabited the land when the Israelites entered after 400 years, or if they were driven out of the land shortly before the Israelites came, or whatever. So it is difficult to say what the sin was that warrented total genocide. Some have suggested idolatry, child sacrifice and other sins that were practiced by the Canaanites, but this is yet to be proven.
The main point is this: God waited to destroy a people until they had reached their full potential for sin.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Themes in Genesis: Being Kind to Strangers
Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it (Hebrews 13:2)!
Genesis emphasizes certain values that are important to the people and the readers of the book. In a past blog I already mentioned some of them. In this blog I would like to discuss the importance of being kind to strangers.
Most (but not all) of the examples of good and bad treatment of strangers are found in Abraham's time.
Abraham welcomed three strangers and fed them. It turned out that the three men were the Lord and two angels.
When Lot saw the two angels staying in the city square, he took them to his house fed them and gave them a place to stay for the night.
Sodom was the extreme bad example, showing the worst behavior in many levels, including the intent to rape strangers.
Abraham and Isaac show some interesting behavior on several occasions, when they told the local leaders that their wives were only sisters. They did this in order to protect themselves, but in telling the rulers that their wives were sisters, they did wrong to the city rulers. It seems that when foreign visitors come into the households of the patriarchs, they are given the royal treatment. But when the patriarchs go into foreign lands, survival instincts take over.
Genesis emphasizes certain values that are important to the people and the readers of the book. In a past blog I already mentioned some of them. In this blog I would like to discuss the importance of being kind to strangers.
Most (but not all) of the examples of good and bad treatment of strangers are found in Abraham's time.
Abraham welcomed three strangers and fed them. It turned out that the three men were the Lord and two angels.
When Lot saw the two angels staying in the city square, he took them to his house fed them and gave them a place to stay for the night.
Sodom was the extreme bad example, showing the worst behavior in many levels, including the intent to rape strangers.
Abraham and Isaac show some interesting behavior on several occasions, when they told the local leaders that their wives were only sisters. They did this in order to protect themselves, but in telling the rulers that their wives were sisters, they did wrong to the city rulers. It seems that when foreign visitors come into the households of the patriarchs, they are given the royal treatment. But when the patriarchs go into foreign lands, survival instincts take over.
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