The First Blessing - Was God a Conservative or Liberal?

There are two creation stories in the first two chapters of Genesis.  I have already pointed this out in other blogs.  The first chapter spells out how God created everything in six days and then rests on the seventh.  The second chapter starts over with a different version of creation.  Some say its a closer look than chapter one, and others say that they are simply two completely unrelated versions of creation. 

In both stories, God gave certain responsibilities to Adam and Eve, and through them, to all of humanity.  These responsibilities came in the form of blessings.

FIRST CREATION STORY

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground (Genesis 1:28)."

The original language for most of the Old Testament is Hebrew, and in this verse the Hebrew has five commands that God gave to humanity.

1.  Be fruitful.

2.  Increase in number.

3.  Fill the earth.

4.  Subdue the earth.

5.  Rule over.

While the English divides these into two couplets and one command that stands alone (1&2, 3&4 with 5 alone), the Hebrew connects them all equally to each other.  In other words, "Be fruitful, increase in number, fill the earth, subdue it and rule over the living things God created."

Some of these are so similar in defintion, that we could say for the use of poetry the author is being redundant.  For example, "Be fruitful and increase in number" are basically the same thing.  And "fill the earth" is the result of "being fruitful and increasing in number."

However, Subduing and ruling are commands that are pulling us into new territory.

Subdue the Earth

From Strong's Concordance, the Hebrew word 'kabash' means:

1) to bring into bondage, make subservient

2) to subdue, force, violate

3) to subdue, dominate, tread down

But as the word kabash is used in the Old Testament it seems that it means bringing under control.  In other areas of the bible, violence is sometimes a part of the process of subduing. 

Rule Over...Every Living Creature

'Radah'

1) to rule, have dominion, dominate, tread down

   a) to have dominion, rule, subjugate

This word is used both for violent power over others but can also be used for ruling over in a good way.  It is a word used to say pretty much the same thing as "subduing the earth".  When God created Adam (as male and female), before he gave them commands, God gave them this same authority, not as a commandment, but as the purpose of creating Adam.

COMMANDMENT AS A BLESSING

When God gave the commands to rule over and to subdue, He gave them in the form of a blessing.  The text states that "God blessed them" when He told them to rule over, subdue, be fruitful, fill the earth, and multiply. 

Blessings in Genesis were considered far more powerful than what we do today.  We don't give much weight to a blessing, but in the ancient world, words held far more clout than they do today.  My first thought is that this was because people of the ancient days were far more focused on the spoken word  than the printed word.  Being focused on the spoken word, the people would give more weight to certain forms of speech like blessings and curses, vows and so on, than over regular speech.

In Genesis 1, when God blessed humankind, He placed purpose and responsibility into Adam and Eve.

Before I introduce the responsibilities of chapter two of Genesis, I would like to point out that the day before God made Adam and Eve, he likewise blessed the animals, birds, and fish with "being fruitful, multipying, and filling the earth.  However, he did not give them the blessing of ruling over other created things.

THE SECOND RESPONSIBILITY

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it (literally: to serve it) and take care of it (Genesis 2:15).

In Genesis 2, we have a much more earth friendly God-given responsibility.  Whereas in chapter one God told Adam and Eve to dominate and control, in chapter two, God told Adam to serve, to care for, and to protect the garden.  When Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, they were given the responsibility to serve the ground.

These God-given purposes did not come in the form of blessings, as chapter one's responsibilities.  Rather, they were statements of fact.  People were created to serve and protect the earth.

WAS GOD A CONSERVATIVE OR A LIBERAL?

In chapter one God seems far more the Conservative (as we view it in the U.S.) in that He wants us to take control and dominate the planet (some Conservative Christians even go so far as to say that Christians are told in Genesis to take control and dominate the political realm as well).  But in Chapter 2, God is far more the Liberal who wants us to take care of the planet. 

Putting both of these together tells us (Genesis speaks to all of humanity - not just Christians) to rule and to control the planet while protecting and caring for it.

Back to the question, though.  In the beginning of creation, God shares a balance of the best qualities of both conservative and liberal. Maybe we need to be able to borrow the best from both sides.

Themes in Genesis: How Covenants Began

Imagine living in a world where very few people read or write.  How do you make contracts?
You and your neighbor fought for years over who gets the well that's in the middle of your property lines.  Eventually, you agree to share it somehow.  20 years later, that same neighbor says he never agreed to share anything, so you are back at square one.

Today, we settle things in court with written records of any deals we make.  But in that other world, there were no such documents between a man and his neighbor, because in most cases neither one of them could read or write, and neither could anyone else in town.

In that time, there needed to be a way to make deals that both parties could look back and say, "We remember!"  Thus a covenant was born.

You and your neighbor sit down together after you have made an agreement.  Together you will take an animal (perhaps a goat or a sheep), and you will cut it in half, with both of you walking through the middle of the animal and saying, "May I also be cut in half if I break our agreement."  In this way, you have "cut a covenant", and 20 years later when your neighbor wants to take the well for his own, you and he both remember the covenant.  He does not want to bring judgment down on himself, and you have a ritual that you can use to say, "Do you remember our covenant?"  Neither one of you will ever forget.

Today laws are made to respond to issues that surface.  It was no different in ancient days.  I believe that covenants arose as a resonse to issues such as the one I spoke about.

By the time of Abraham, covenants were common, binding agreements between two parties.

What Is the Blessing of Melkizedek

Melkizedek king of Salem blessed Abraham after Abraham saved Lot and several cities from the pillage of a small army.  Although Genesis says very little about him, he was used a lot in Psalm 110 and in the Book of Hebrews.

Psalm 110 is a Royal Psalm possibly quoted during the coronations of kings in Israel.  Psalm 110 serves as a type of blessing placed upon the new king, bestowing the promise or hope of stregnth and power, conquering and devotion from the king's people.

In Psalm 110, the royal scribe told his new king that "he is a priest for ever, in the order of Melkizedek." 

The whole reason Melkizedek was mentioned was because Abraham tithed to this priest who was not a priest of Israel (IE: who came from Abraham's grandson, Levi).  Any king in Israel came from the tribe of Judah, so could not be a priest according to the Law of Moses.  Only Levites could be priests.  So in a poetic way the scribe maneuvred around the rules and found a loop hole.  The king could be a priest who was not from the tribe of Levi, if he was like Melkizedek who was outside of the tribe of Levi.  After all, one could argue that Melkizedek was just as legitimate as a Levite, because even Abraham tithed to him, and he did bless Abraham.

So the scribe or generation of scribes who first developed Psalm 110, saw in Melkizedek a priesthood that was just as legitimate as Levi. 

I believe that the reference to Melkizedek was more poetic than literal.  I don't think people saw the king as a priest over all the other priests, but there may have been some limited authority over the priesthood that was implied in Psalm 110. 

In Hebrews 7, the writer (who is unknown to us) borrows from Genesis and from Psalm 110 to claim that Jesus is a priest according to the order of Melkizedek.  For the writer of Hebrews, Psalm 110 provides justification to say that Jesus who was not a Levite was more than a poetic priest, but was in fact a real priest greater than the Levitical priests.  As a legitimate priest, Jesus offered the sacrifice that all other sacrifices pointed to.  Jesus went into the true tabernacle that was not a mere copy of the real (Moses' tabernacle was only a copy of the real tabernacle in heaven).  As the true priest (who is superior to the Levites), Jesus brought his own blood (which is superior to the blood of animals) into the true tabernacle (which is superior to Moses' tabernacle) before the presence of God.

Here is what Hebrews says about Melkizedek:

1.  He is the king of Salem, which means peace, so he is the king of peace.
2.  There is no mention of Melkizedek's geneology, so he is eternal.
3.  Melkizedek blessed Abraham, meaning he was greater than Abraham.
4.  Levi was Abraham's grandson, so he (and his descendents - the priesthood of Israel) was in Abraham when Abraham gave 10% of the spoils to Melkizedek.  So Levi, who received tithes from the rest of Israel, tithed to Melkizedek, thus Melkizedek is greater than Levi.
5.  Melkizadek is like Jesus.

Most of the arguments used in Hebrews concerning Melkizedek would not be the type of arguments we would use today, but in Jewish writings of the first Century, these would be legitimate arguments explaining the superiority of Melkizedek and Jesus over the priesthood of Levi.

Without the explanation in the book of Psalm 110 and Hebrews, we are left with a lot of questions about Melkizedek.   With the Psalm and with Hebrews, we see that Melkizedek was an unknown figure used to justify giving kings and Jesus a priesthood.  Melkizadek was the case a lawyer could use to get around the law that says that only a Levite could be a priest.

Themes in Genesis: Sibling Jealousy and Hatred

There is a lot of hating going on in Genesis, and the hating is mostly toward close relatives.  While women competed to win the men in their lives by having the most babies, men sought to remove their competition by murdering them.

1.  Cain killed Abel.
2.  Esau sought to kill Jacob, so Jacob ran away to live with Leban.
3.  Leban wanted to kill Jacob when he ran away from him without letting him know about it.
4.  10 brothers wanted to kill Joseph.

Abraham's Blessing

Abraham's blessing is set in the context of the Tower of Babel failure.  As I have mentioned in another blog, the people who wanted to build the Tower were looking for the very same things that God gave to Abraham: a name, a connection with heaven, and something to bring them together.  In Abraham's blessing, God gave Abraham a name (a good reputation) that would be timeless and a connection with heaven (Babel tried to reach up, but failed; God reached down with Abraham).  Although Babel was an attempt to unite people, it ended up dividing them; but with Abraham, God sent him to an unknown land, and through going God promised to bring all the nations to him.

There was one other dynamic in Abraham's covenant that was not contrasted to the Tower of Babel.  Abraham received a blessing from God, and that blessing is set in contrast to curses made.
1.  Abraham
"I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing (Genesis 12:2)."

God blessed Abraham with with three blessings:
a.  Abraham would become a nation.
b.  Abraham's name would be made great.
c.  Abraham would become a blessing to others.  The next verse reveals how God would help Abraham to be a blessing to others.

"I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:3)."

God promised Abraham that any curses that come his way would not only be deflected, but return back to the one cursing.  This is big for those who believe that curses and blessings have power to harm or to bring good.

Blessings Given Before Abraham

Genesis is filled with curses and blessings, and those curses and blessings carried weight that we in the Western culture know little about today.  As much as curses held power in the world of Genesis, blessings were every bit as powerful.

In Genesis there are 64 times the word "blessing" (barak) is used.

BLESSINGS IN CREATION

God set the standard for blessings when he created the world, blessing birds and sea creatures on the fifth day of creation, with this blessing (Genesis 1:22):
God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”
On the surface it looks like a command, but on closer examination, we can see that it is called a blessing.  The verse does not say, "God commanded and spoke," the verse says, "God blessed them...."

On the sixth day, God again gave a blessing; only this time it was to humanity (Genesis 1:28):
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Again, what looks like a command is actually a blessing.  This verse is repeated in Genesis 5:1-2.

Finally, God blessed the seventh day in Genesis 2:3:
And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.


GOD'S BLESSINGS BEFORE ABRAHAM

As Noah left the ark, he was blessed very much like the fish and birds were in creation in Genesis 9:1&7:
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. ...As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."


Between the blessings in verses 1&7, which are quoted here, there were two rules God gave to humanity through Noah.  In the first rule, God gave humans permission to kill animals and to eat their meat (for the first time), with the qualification that the animal must be drained of its blood first.  The second rule forbade killing humans, at the cost of capital punishment.  Both of these emphasize the importance of blood and life.

In the middle of this blessing, related to attacking and killing animals, God placed the fear of humans in the animals.  In other words, because they were to be hunted, they began to fear us for their own protection.

THE FIRST BLESSING A HUMAN SPOKE

Noah was the first human to speak a blessing.  He had been passed out drunk the night before, but was aware enough to remember (or somehow else concluded) what his second born son did during his inebriation.  Ham (the father of Canaan) saw his father drunk and naked in his tent and went out to tell his brothers.  On the surface one would wonder why Noah got so upset, but this will be better explained in the section about the curses in Genesis.  For now, let's just leave it with this:  For some reason, Noah felt violated by what Ham did.

After being violated by Ham, Noah blessed his other two sons because they respected him by covering up his nudity and protecting him from his own shame.  While cursing Ham and his descendants to servitude, he blessed the other two and their descendants with blessings that foretold prosperity.

Themes in Genesis: Curses in Genesis

I have seen a few horror movies wherein someone (usually a black woman from Haiti or from the deep South where voodoo is popular) curses her tormenters and their offspring.  For the rest of the movie the tormented and their children suffer scary results of the curse placed upon them.

Curses were not all that different in the book of Genesis.  People believed in curses and the effects those curses held on others.  Curses that people made were every bit as nasty as they are in horror movies and curses held their power for generations, if not all time.

These are the curses mentioned in the book of Genesis:

WHEN GOD CURSED

1.  As a result of the first sin, God cursed the serpent to crawling on the ground, and He cursed the ground so that it would not yield its full potential in growing crops.  As a result, humanity would have to work hard and suffer for a living.

When Noah was born, he was named Noah, which means "rest," because his family had hopes that he would be able to help work the fields, and thus bring some rest from all the hard work that was a result of the curse.

2.  Because Cain killed his brother, God cursed him to a nomadic life.  The wandering God cursed him to was a result of a curse that God put on Cain's crops.  No matter how hard he worked the ground, it would  not be enough for him to live on, so he had to wander in search for good soil. 

Furthermore, because he had to wander, Cain was also removed from God's presence.  AS in many places in the Old Testament, people believed that God inhabited a certain area and was distant from other areas.  Jonah tried to flee from the presence of God.  One grand revelation he got on a ship was that God was there too.

3.  When He made a covenant (binding agreement) with Abraham in chapter 12, God told Abraham that He would bless those who blessed him and curse anyone who cursed Israel.  This was illustrated when the King of Moab tried to curse Israel through Balaam.  Sent to curse Israel, all Balaam could do is bless Israel and say, "There is no sorcery against Jacob, no divination against Israel. It will now be said of Jacob and of Israel, 'See what God has done (Numbers 23:23)!' "

Furthermore, after blessing Israel, Balaam repeated what God said to Abraham:  Like a lion they crouch and lie down, like a lioness—who dares to rouse them? "May those who bless you be blessed and those who curse you be cursed (Numbers 24:9)!"

After blessing Israel and repeating what God promised Abraham, he cursed Moab and other nations surrounding Israel, claiming that God would cause Israel to become great and that Israel would rule over and even destroy the others (Numbers 24:15-25).  Thus God's word to Abraham was fulfilled, "Those who curse you will be cursed."

WHEN PEOPLE CURSED

God was not the only one who cursed.

1.  Noah cursed his second born son's descendants, for something Ham (the second born - although he may be third) did when Noah was drunk.  In order to understand what Ham did, one needs to understand that languages often have things called idioms, which literally do not mean what they say to a culture.  For example, let's say that archeologists 4,000 years from now find the remains of 21st Century New York City, and find a book wherein they read that someone "had to take a leak."  Unless there is context, that archeologist will have no clue as to what taking a leak means.  The archeologist will try to read it very literally and get confused as to its meaning, possibly coming up with wild conjectures as to what it means to "take a leak." 

In the English language, there are over 7,000 idioms such as "bend over backwards," "smell a rat," "something's fishy," and "bite the dust."  The people in the Bible times also used idioms such as:
Uncover the feet = Expose the genitals
Seed = Descendants
Possess Gates = Take a city
The way of a woman or her sickness = menstruation
Cover his feet = relieve himself

So when Ham went into the tent and "saw his father's nakedness," he told his brothers, and for that, he was cursed a horrible curse.  At first glance, this episode looks like Noah was way overexagerating his response to a son who did nothing more than tell his brothers about their drunk dad, but there is more here than meets the eye.  When the Hebrew language says that Ham "saw his father's nakedness," we are dealing with a Hebrew idiom.  This passage carries several possibilities due to its idiom or possible idioms:

a.  He did something sexual to his father.  The story of Noah parallels Lot in many ways.  Both were delivered from cataclysmic destruction and both got outrageously drunk afterwards.  In Lot's case, his daughters committed incest with him and became pregnant.  It only fits the pattern to say that Ham had some kind of sexual encounter with his dad. 

b.  He had sex with his mother.  This could be the case if we have two idioms going on in the verse.  In the Law of Moses, when dealing with incest, exposing a man's nakedness meant having sex with that man's wife.  So if one had sex with his step mom, he was exposing his father's nakedness, or if a person had sex with his aunt, he was exposing the nakedness of his uncle, and so on.

There is an interesting side to this story.  Noah did not curse Ham who did whatever evil that was done; He cursed Ham's son Canaan and his descendants.  I think this had to do more with the Canaanites than with Ham, but that's a whole other story.

2.  When Isaac blessed Jacob, he passed on the same blessing and curse that God gave to Abraham.

Genesis 27:29

May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed."

3.  Simeon and Levi were Jacob's 2nd and 3rd eldest sons.  Simeon should have received the blessing from his father when his father was dying.  Reuben who was the oldest ruined his possibilities of receiving the blessing, because in his anger he slept with one of his father's wives when he was much younger. 

When Jacob passed out the blessings, he skipped Reuben and skipped Simeon and Levi because when they were younger, they had slaughtered an entire town of men, to revenge the deflowering of their sister.

Rather than receiving a blessing, the two boys were cursed by their father:   Cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel! I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel (Genesis 49:7).

The curse that the two boys received were very much like the curse God placed on Cain for killing his brother.  Cain was doomed to wander because he killed his brother; Jacob's two boys were doomed to be scattered throughout the land because they killed their neighborhood city.

4.  Even though Jacob did not pronounce a curse on his wife Rachel, he did pronounce a very solemn word of death to whoever stole one of his father-in-law's idols.  In reality, Rachel had stolen one of her father's idols and had hidden it away, and Laban accused Jacob of stealing it.  Jacob didn't know that Rachel had stolen it, so he answered his father-in-law with harsh words condemning to death anyone who stole it.

But if you find anyone who has your gods, he shall not live. In the presence of our relatives, see for yourself whether there is anything of yours here with me; and if so, take it." Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the gods (Genesis 31:32).

A little later, when Jacob entered into the promised land, he asked all of his household to deliver over all the idols they had to be buried.  It is not said here, but it is very possible that when everybody delivered the idols to be buried, he saw that Rachel had taken the idol from her dad.  Rachel died very shortly afterward.

QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION

Are curses really that powerful?
Is there a proper time to curse?
Does the New Testament encourage us to forgive so that we should not curse others?