Tag: covenant

Separating

Posted on by jovial_cynic
Genesis 1 and 2 show us God creating through a process of separating: light from dark, land from water, Isha from Ish. I think the pattern here in Genesis 15 is related.

Here, it’s Abram who cleaves the animals. We might agree that this is a destructive act, rather than a creative one. However, we see that God dwells even in those separations, shown as a torch that passes between them. It’s quite powerful imagery: God in the spaces between.

I like to think that God healed those animals that were cleaved, and He brought them back to life so Abram could see that God is Lord over death and life as well.

To Cut a Covenant

Posted on by jovial_cynic

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying,
“To your descendants I have given this land,
From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.
Genesis 15:18 (NIV)

When the scriptures tell us that God “made a covenant” with Abram in Genesis 15:18, the word “made” is the hebrew word כָּרַת (kaw-rath). It means to cut down. The idiom is to “cut a covenant.”

1. to cut off
– 1. to cut off a body part, behead
2. to cut down
3. to hew
4. to cut or make a covenant
H3772: כָּרַת (kāraṯ)

I wonder if scripture gives this because God is responding to Abram’s action.

Cut in Pieces

Posted on by jovial_cynic

So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.
Genesis 15:9-10 (NIV)

It seems very sad to me that Abram cut up the animals. If you look closely, God did not ask him to do this.

From the Fire

Posted on by jovial_cynic

Then [God] said to him, “I am יהוה who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to assign this land to you as a possession.”
Genesis 15:7 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS 2006)

The Midrash contains a fascinating story about Abram, suggesting that Nimrod (king of Babylon) threw Abram into a blazing furnace for not worshipping his idol. “Ur” means “flame.”

He was in the fire, but not consumed by it.

The rabbis say that Genesis 15:7 is the first time God tells Abram His name.

Later, when God meets Moses, He presents His name and another fire, this time on a bush that is not consumed.

Perhaps this is how Moses remembers the covenant God made with Abram: these are intentionally linked stories. God preserves us, even through the fire that should consume us.

Undoing Death

Posted on by jovial_cynic

Whoever sheds human blood,
By man his blood shall be shed,
For in the image of God
He made mankind.
As for you, be fruitful and multiply;
Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.”

Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, “Now behold, I Myself am establishing My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you.
Genesis 9:6-9 (NASB)

Rabbi Ovadiah Seforno in the 1500s suggests that the Covenant God makes with Noah in Gen 9 is a CONDITIONAL covenant tied to the previous verses about the shedding of blood.

Ie., “I won’t destroy the earth with a flood IF you deal rightly with murderers.”

He ties this conditional covenant to Numbers, saying that if human blood is spilled and not addressed rightly, the land will need to be wiped clean again; there is no atonement otherwise.

So you shall not defile the land in which you live; for blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.
Numbers 35:33 (NASB)

I’ve given a lot of thought to the nature of death, and how we read clearly that God killed many people in the flood. Going back to the start, we read that God Himself positioned death in the garden by way of a certain tree. It wasn’t “IF” you eat the fruit, it was “WHEN.”

So when we read that God was “sorry” He made humanity, and that this word “sorry” has a meaning tied to a desire for comfort and repenting, the Numbers passage suddenly resonates.

An image of what the Messiah will do emerges.

It will take His blood.

So you shall not defile the land in which you live; for blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.
Numbers 35:33 (NASB)

This is not the same as saying that God made a mistake in introducing death. It is acknowledging that despite death being here, God will undo all of it with His own blood.

Abel’s Offering of Meat

Posted on by jovial_cynic

Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I have given everything to you, as I gave the green plant.
Genesis 9:3 (NASB)

Prior to Genesis 9, humanity wasn’t given meat to eat. The rabbis debate the reasoning and implications, but what stands out in my own reading is that Abel sacrificed a lamb to God in Genesis 4. I can only assume this was a burnt offering. A cooked offering.

But he didn’t eat it.

Have you ever roasted lamb before? Have you smelled it?

It’s hard to fathom the depth of self-control and restraint required to present something wholly to God like this, and not reach my hand out and take some for myself. But perhaps that’s part of the story of Abel. Maybe there’s a lesson in there about not reaching out your hand and taking what belongs to God. And this points us right back to a certain Tree in the Garden of Eden.

After the flood, all food is permissible, although the rabbis note that God prohibits some food later, so the permission granted here may not mean all animals. Regardless, what was previously withheld by God can now be enjoyed within the context of the Genesis 9 Covenant.

The Bow in the Sky

Posted on by jovial_cynic
Most translations render the symbol of God’s covenant to Noah and humanity as “rainbow,” and we all agree that’s what God was referring to, but the Hebrew word here also the word for “bow,” as in an archer’s bow. A weapon of war.

The imagery is that God has hung up the weapon.

My bow I have given in the cloud, and it hath been for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth; and it hath come to pass (in My sending a cloud over the earth) that the bow hath been seen in the cloud, and I have remembered My covenant which is between Me and you, and every living creature among all flesh, and the waters become no more a deluge to destroy all flesh; and the bow hath been in the cloud, and I have seen it — to remember the covenant age-during between God and every living creature among all flesh which [is] on the earth.’
Genesis 9:13-16 (YLT)

Noah’s Family

Posted on by jovial_cynic

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Genesis 6:8 (NIV)

But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.
Genesis 6:18 (NIV)

Genesis 6 clearly states that the world was entirely wicked, full of violence, every thought and intent was evil… except for Noah.

But God also saves Noah’s entire family: his wife, his sons, and his sons’ wives, despite them falling into the “entirely wicked” category.

What does this tell us?