Genesis 12-13 and Early Church Writings [Clement of Rome] 51-55

Chapters 12 through 25 embrace the story of Abraham

Genesis 12 - Abraham is the next “Seed of Eve” by whom redemption will come to man, the first having been Noah.

God addresses Abram and tells him to leave Haran, the home of his father’s clan, to go to “a land that I will show you” (12:1). And then come the great promises – that God will make of him a great nation, that He will make Abram’s name great and him a blessing to “all the communities of the earth” (12:2-3). Abram is 75 when they leave Haran.

When they get to Shechem, a land inhabited by Canaanites (12:6), the Lord appears to Abram and tells him that this is the land he is promising him.  Abram builds an altar there and dedicates it to the Lord (12:7). 

Then we are told that they go further south and “set up camp in the hill country, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built another altar and dedicated it to the Lord” (12:8). This location is just a little to the north of where Jerusalem will eventually be.

They continue traveling south in stages. A severe famine hits the land of Canaan, and Abram is forced to “go down to Egypt, where he lived as a foreigner” (12:10).  Abram worries about Sarai’s beauty being a source of conflict, so they agree to say she is his sister.  The Pharaoh indeed does send for her, and we are not told what transpires there, if anything did.  But Abram benefits from the Pharaoh’s favoritism; the Lord is very displeased and strikes Egypt with severe plagues.

There are a number of “foreshadowing details” here in this story—a move to Egypt forced by famine, a position of honor accorded the wandering man of God from Canaan; God’s infliction of a series of plagues; and sending of God’s favored one away from Pharaoh’s kingdom to bring peace back to the kingdom. Even the wealth that Abram gets to take with them when they go. Surely this is a “type” of the later exodus.  And what then could Sarai be as a type - the beloved spouse of God, “Israel”?

Returning to the story, it is the Pharaoh who sets things right and sends the pair away. Abraham is the first of the three key players in our redemption story—to be followed by Moses and Jesus—who will in a sense “come up out of Egypt” to begin their ministries.  The story of his sojourn in Egypt (one of a triplet of like stories) establishes his prosperity, even if it comes as a result of deceit, and Sarah’s value and importance.  Like his people he comes out of Egypt loaded with goods, so much he must separate from Lot (13:5-11).

While Noah foreshadows him somewhat, Abram is the first “seed” of Eve through whom a redemptive process will be introduced into the creation.  Abram is told from the first that he is only the beginning, that it will be through him that a faithful people will be formed, and that this people will have an impact far beyond the borders of the nation they will form—that blessings will come through him and his seed to all mankind (12: 1-3; also 17: 3-8 and again in 22:16-18).  There will be much hardship along the way—exile, slavery and oppression and who knows what else in the distant, distant, future that will come before “all the nations of the earth” will “bless themselves by [Abraham’s] descendants.  But the redemptive process is set in motion through Abram.

The process begins with Abram hearing God’s voice and obeying it.  The voice tells him he must leave the traditions and ties of his father’s people, and we know from what we know of mankind at this stage of history, that family and clan ties were the life-blood of individual people.  To wander away, to break the ties, meant undertaking a great risk, divorcing oneself from the society of man generally.  God is not calling Abram to go to a new land to take up their ways, but to develop a way that God will lead him to—a new way.  That Abram will go down into Egypt briefly en route to the land God is promising is interesting mostly because it will be the start of a narrative motif that will repeat itself many times—for Joseph, for Moses and later for Jesus.  Abraham, Moses and Jesus will all “come up out of Egypt” to begin their ministries.

        

Genesis 13 - In response to God’s call, Abram goes to the Negeb and on to Bethel where he had built an altar on his way down. And they worship there again.

“Lot, who was traveling with Abram, had also become very wealthy with flocks of sheep and goats, herds of cattle, and many tents. But the land could not support both Abram and Lot with all their flocks and herds lving so close together. SO disputes broke out between the herdsmen of Abram and Lot” (13:5-7). Abram suggests to Lot that he go off and find himself a separate place to settle. Lot chooses the Jordan plain.  Abram stays in Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain, near Sodom. 

The first thing we hear about Sodom is that in inhabitants were very wicked (13:13).

The chapter ends with the Lord recapitulating the promises he made to Abram: “Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see will give to you and to your offspring forever.  I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that is one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to you” (13:14-17). Abram builds an altar at Hebron.

First Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (96 AD)

Section 51 – “So let us beg forgiveness for all our misdoings, and the wrongs which our Adversary’s intervention has moved us to commit. Those who have taken the lead in promoting faction and discord should bethink themselves of that Hope which is common to us all” (44).

If we are living in the fear and love of God, we would rather suffer than see our neighbor suffer. “It is better for a man to admit his faults frankly than to harden his heart, as the hearts of those who rebelled against Moses . . . were hardened” (44).

Section 52 – Our “Master,” our God has no “need” and he asks nothing of us of us “save frank confession to Himself” (44). He wants us to call upon Him in times of trouble.

Section 53 – You all know the Sacred Scriptures. “Therefore we write to remind you how, when Moses went up into the mountain and has spent forty days and forty nights in fasting and self-abasement, God said to him, Make haste and go down from here, for your people. . . have broken my law. They have left the way you told them to follow, and have been making molten idols for themselves” . . .Now let me destroy them (44-45).

But Moses pleaded for his people, “No Lord, . . Forgive this people their sin, or else blot me too out of the book of the living” (45). “What immeasurable love! Perfection beyond compare! A minister speaking up boldy to his Lord and demanding pardon for the multitude” (45).

Section 54 – “Is there any man of noble mind among you? A man who is compassionate? A man overflowing with love? Then let such a one say, ‘If it is I who am the cause of any disorder, friction, or division among you, I will remove myself” (45). There have been people like this in the past and we have them still today.

Section 55 – Even among the pagans you will occasionally find kings and rulers willing to suffer to save their people. “As for our own people, we know that many have surrendered themselves to captivity as a ransom for others, and many more have sold themselves into slavery and given the money to provide others with food. Even females have frequently been enabled by God’s grace to achieve feats of heroism” (45). He mentions Judith and Esther. “In fasting and humiliation she made her supplication to the all-seeing Lord of eternity; and when He saw the humbleness of her spirit, He delivered the people for whom she had put herself in jeopardy” (45).

Daily Bible Reading: Jeremiah 7:21 through 9:26 and 1 Corinthians 11:17 through 12:30

Jeremiah 7:21-34 - Jeremiah tells them that God’s message to him is that when He brought them out of Egypt, He did not give them any commands concerning “holocausts or sacrifices” (7:22). But what about Leviticus? There were incredibly detailed rules there for the various offerings and sacrifices they were instructed to make. I think what Jeremiah is trying to convey is that at the HEART of all God laid out for them was the command to obey God, to “live the way [He] commanded them” (7:23). Their hearts were HARD then and they continued to be for Jeremiah’s message: “they will not listen to you; you will call them, but they will not answer . . . Faithfulness is dead. No longer is it even talked about” (7:27-28).

The people of Judah have placed idols in the Lord’s Temple, and they have even adopted the practice of child sacrifice in Hinnom Valley [location of this disputed according to Wikipedia]. All of this is so far from what God wants. Jeremiah says, “This rather is what I commanded them: Listen to my voice; then I will be your God and you shall be my people.  Walk in all the ways that I command you, so that you may prosper” (7:23).

This is a terribly important line of prophecy, one Catholics especially should think about; for we more than any other church point to particular promises we rely upon, sometimes perhaps over-rely on.  We say our church was founded on a special commission and that it carries a special promise – that the gates of hell will never prevail against it – but we have not been better than the Jews.  We too have been corrupt, unfaithful.  We too have forgotten the mandate to be servants, to walk humbly, to be not of the world. If we neglect the truth, if we presume upon God’s favor and go off and violate the trust God placed in us, we too can be set aside as Shiloh was.  Probably a good many Protestants think we already have been.  But I continue to hope our repentance and at least partial reform may have saved us from that.

Also, the theme of this chapter is a Quaker theme: Listen to God’s voice – this line appears so often in scripture, you would think people would take it seriously, but I don’t find that people really take the idea seriously, as if the idea of listening to God’s voice is really something only mentally ill people ever claim they can do.  Here is some more Isaac Penington and Howgill, my hero saints, on the voice of God:  “There is no raising of a dead soul to life, but by the immediate voice of Christ.  Outward preaching, reading the Scriptures, &c.[and I would add sacraments] may direct and encourage men to hearken after and wait for the voice; but it is the immediate voice of Christ in the soul, which alone can quicken the soul to God: and till the light of life shine immediately from Christ in the heart, the true knowledge is never given. 2 Cor. 4:6.” (241, Penington, Works)

Another Penington quote: “All, therefore, that see the darkness that you live in, return home, that which is low mind, the meek spirit; and be not forward nor rash, but stand still in quietness and meekness, that the still voice you may hear, which till you come down within, you cannot hear. . .So be low and still, if you will hear his voice, and wait to hear that speak which separates between the precious and the vile, now that which you must wait in is near you, yes, in you” (Howgill, EQW, 176).

Jeremiah 8 - The destruction the Lord will bring is terrible.  The bones of the dead will lie out “before the sun and the moon and the whole army of heaven, which they loved and served, which they followed, consulted, and worshiped” (8:2). Some of the gods they worshiped were the stars and other heavenly bodies. God cannot fathom why the people who have so obviously gone astray refuse so obstinately to right themselves.  “Why do they cling to deceptive idols, refuse to turn back. . .Everyone keeps on running his course, like a steed dashing into battle?” (8:6) This is like modern man who is so caught up in scientific reductionism and psycho-babble that you wonder why it is they simply cannot turn away from it. In the case of the Jews, apparently the mis-interpretation of the scribal leaders provides some excuse—the people are being actively misled. “’Peace, peace!’ they say, though there is no peace” (8:11). Yahweh would like to gather their fruit but there are no grapes on the vine, no figs on the fig tree. . .” (8:13). 

This one is important in understanding Jesus and the poor little fig tree.  He is not just withering the tree.  He is referring to the fruit he hoped to find among his people and didn’t.  Similarly the previous chapter – on the tendency of Israel to presume on God’s favor toward them – even when everything in daily life is far from what it should be – I think this is the image behind Jesus’ anger in the temple and his threats to tear the Temple down.  These are just similar indications that He is come expecting to find faithfulness and responsiveness among his people; but is not finding it.  His words about the Temple and his actions with the fig tree are symbolic acts that say God is very unhappy with the Jews and will punish them – withdraw his favor.

The prophet’s “grief is incurable, my heart within me is faint” (8:18).  The suffering of his people fills him with sadness “Is there no balm in Gilead, no physician there?” (8:22).

Jeremiah 9 - Jeremiah wishes that he had in this wilderness he is in a place to lodge, a place he might go to be separate from his people, but there is not.  [The is the true prophet’s situation.  He is a faithful man in the midst of an unfaithful people.  But he is still part of them; and I think both “covers” them with his faithfulness and “suffers” with them even in his innocence.  This is the great disappointment of the reformation prophets—that they found a lodge in the desert provided by the nation-builders of Holy Roman Empire and did, to some extent, manage to separate from the people].  The marks of the idolatry the people engage in are lying tongues, evil-doing, being untrustworthy, deception, perversity, violence and inability to repent.  Therefore God must “smelt them and test them” (9:6) “I will turn Jerusalem into a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals; The cities of Judah I will make into a waste, where no one dwells.” (9:10). They follow the dictates of their own stubborn hearts.  “Let the sage boast no more of his wisdom. . . But if anyone wants to boast let him boast of this: of understanding and knowing me.  For I am Yahweh, I rule with kindness, justice and integrity on earth; “ (9:23) “I am going to punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh:. . .” [Many echoes of Paul here – the boasting theme—see 2 Cor—and the idea of fleshly circumcision]

1 Corinthians 11:17-34 - He addresses the problem of factions among them.  When they meet together it ought not to be for simple eating and drinking but rather to all be equal before God and to share in the sacred memorial of Christ’s Last Supper with them. He warns them that communion is not just eating.  It involves “discerning” Christ’s presence in the bread (11:29). Ordinary eating should be done at home.

1 Corinthians 12 – Paul addresses the question of spiritual gifts.  Among those he mentions are wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, mighty deeds, prophecy, discernment of spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues; but as long as they all serve the body, they are of the same Spirit.  The parts of the Body cannot be in competition with each other.  One cannot lord it over another and have the body remain coherent and sound.  We take cognizance of the less “distinguished” parts by granting them honors that compensate for whatever “worldly” humiliations they may have to endure (12:24).  The parts of the body of Christ, his Church, are apostles, prophets, teachers, doers of might deeds, healers, assistants, administrators, speakers in tongues—and this list is not a completely exhaustive one.