Genesis 16-17 and Early Church Writings [Clement of Rome] 61-64

Genesis 16 - There is still one hurdle Abraham must negotiate—the human solution that his wife Sarai dreams up. Sarai, discouraged with her own infertility and not quite as ready as Abram is simply to trust in the word of God they have received becomes impatient and comes up with her own plan to make the promise of God come to pass.  

She offers Abram her maidservant Hagar with the idea that perhaps any children that result might be considered hers.  Hagar is an Egyptian woman (perhaps acquired when they were in Egypt?). She does become pregnant, but the success of Sarai’s scheme only creates problems.  Hagar now thinks she is better than Sarai. Sarai is jealous and blames Abram for her problems. Abram allows Sarai to decide what shall happen with Hagar (16:6) and the child, and Sarai has no pity now.  She “abuses” Hagar so much that Hagar finally runs away. The tragedy of human machinations here will require deep and on-going redemptive intervention by God—an intervention that is not yet at an end in our day.

The Lord’s messenger finds Hagar by a spring in the wilderness and asks her where she is going.  Then he advises Hagar to return and submit to the mistreatment, and in return she will be given a promise parallel to the one given to Abram.  She is the first woman with whom a covenant is contracted with the Lord.  Soon after her return, Ishmael is born.  Abram is 86.

This story is interesting for many reasons.  First there is the impatience and “unfaithfulness” of Sarai who simply cannot believe that God will be able to bring forth an heir for Abram from her aging body.  How is the promise to be realized?  Certainly God doesn’t expect them just to sit around and wait for a miracle.  “God helps those who help themselves—right?”  We reason like this all the time.  And what we learn from this story is that God, while clearly not behind this “solution,” will accept it and redeem it.  There will be many times in this story that a similar thing will happen.  God will promise something.  We will become impatient or get some inspiration of our own how we can “make” God’s promise happen, and we will get it wrong—we will grasp a way He is not behind—and He will make it work in spite of us.  It will happen with Ishmael’s birth; it will happen again with the institution of the monarchy in Israel; and perhaps it happens all the time.  Perhaps every redemptive “effort” that man has made will ultimately be transformed by God into real redemption by God’s deep and unrelenting love and redemptive work in us, in our lives and in our history.

Genesis 17 - Thirteen years later, when Abram is ninety-nine, the Lord appears to him again and restates his promises to him a third time: 17:2 - You will be the father of many nations, the covenant will be perpetual and is sealed by the act of circumcision. The first two are in 12:2 “I will make you a great nation, your name a blessing” and 15:18: “your descendants shall be countless, you will receive the land from Egypt to the Euphrates.” 

Perhaps what we have here is simply another version of the original covenant God makes with Abram, but the repetition of it highlights the fact that God’s promises and God’s intervention is on its own timetable, not ours.  Nothing Abram or Sarai do will hurry the process. God changes Abram’s name here to Abraham and institutes the practice of circumcision.  Thus, God says, “All must be circumcised. Your bodies will bear the mark of my everlasting covenant” (17:13). 

Sarai’s name is modified to Sarah and the birth of their son is foretold.  The pact with Ishmael is confirmed as well.  He shall be the father of twelve chieftains and will become a great nation (17:20).  The chapter ends with Abraham and Ishmael being circumcised even while it is clarified that Ishmael is not to be the heir God has been promising all along.

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

Section 61 – Clement assures his readers that the Lord is the source of the “sovereign authority” at issue in Corinth. Grant them “health and peace, harmony and security, that they may exercise without offense the dominion which thou has accorded them” (48). May thou, O Lord, “direct their counsels as may be good and pleasing in they sight, that in peace and mildness they may put to godly use the authority thou has given them, and so find mercy with thee” (48).

Section 62 – Epilogue: “Belief, repentance, true Christian love, self-discipline, discretion, perseverance – we have touched on these in all their aspects. We have reminded you of your duty to earn in all holiness the approval of Almighty God by a life of rectitude, truthfulness, and patient resignation, and to live amicably and without malice together, in peace and charity and unfailing consideration for others” (49).

It is through the exercise of these virtues that our forefathers won approval in the past.

Section 63 – He tells them they will give him great “joy and happiness if you will lay to heart what we have written through the Holy Spirit, and will respond to the appeal for peace and harmony which we have made in this letter, by putting an end once and for all to the rancours of an impious rivalry” (49).

Section 64 – He begs them to send his messengers back with news of “truce and unity” (49).

Genesis 14-15 and Early Church Writings [Clement of Rome] 56-60

Genesis 14 - There is a war in the region between the kings of Shinar (Amraphel), Ellasar (Arioch), Elam (Chedorlaomer) and Goiim (Tidal) and the kings of Sodom , Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Bela. 

The first league of kings is victorious and in seizing the possession and food supplies of Sodom and Gomorrah, they sweep up Abram’s nephew Lot and all he owns.  Abram then goes and with 318 of his retainers, he recaptures Lot and his possessions and brings them back. 

When he returns, not only does the king of Sodom greet him, but a King by the name of Melchizedek, King of Salem (Jerusalem), greets him as well. Melchizedek is a priest of “the Most High God,” (our God, the God of Abram) and he gives Abram offerings of bread and wine (14:18-20). In return Abram givens him a tenth of all “he had recovered” (14:21).  The king of Sodom offers to let Abram keep all the possessions of his he recaptured, but Abram refuses, not wanting to be beholden to him. He accepts “only what my young warriors have already eaten, and I request that you give a fair share of the goods to my allies” (14:24).

Here is a link to a map that plots the route Abram and his family took from Ur to Canaan:

http://biblemapper.com/gallery1_files/AbramTravelsToCanaan_1_mark.jpg

Genesis 15 – God’s word comes to Abram again and takes him out to see the stars of the sky.  And God promises in words similar to those later given to Moses—“’I am YHWH who brought you out of [Ur] to give you this land . . . (15:7), and I will make [your] Abram’s descendants as many as the stars’” (15:5).  That Abram has faith (or trusts) in God’s promises is “credited . . .to him as an act of righteousness” (15:6).

Then God repeats the covenant, and solemnizes the occasion by having Abram offer a heifer, a she-goat, a ram (all age 3), a turtle-dove and a pigeon.  Each of the first three is split in two and Abram guards them all day.  In the evening, Abraham falls into a trance and “a deep, terrifying darkness envelope[s] him” (15:12). God reveals to Abram that his descendants shall suffer a period of slavery before He delivers them. 

When it is dark, a “smoking brazier and a flaming torch” (15:17) pass between the severed pieces of animal and the covenant is concluded with respect to the lands God intends to confer on Abram’s line.

It is important to remember here that Abram still has not even one blood descendant.  How could he have trusted this God? But his stubborn and resilient trust (faith plus reliance) “justifies” him in God’s eyes.

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

Section 56 – Let us “plead for those who have fallen from grace, that they may be given the unselfishness and the humility to surrender themselves, not indeed to us, but to the will of God” (45). The formal leaders of the church, the consecrated, do not seek authority to inflate themselves but rather that the will of God may be more faithfully transmitted to his flock.

“O my friends, do let us accept correction; it is something nobody ought to resent. Mutual admonition is wholly good and beneficial, for it leads us into conformity with the will of God” (46). Everyone must learn to accept correction – the men at the top, the critics of the men at the top – everyone.

“Reject not the admonitions of the Almighty, for though he inflicts pain, yet afterwards he makes whole again; he wounds, but his hands bring healing” (46).

Section 57 – “Those of you, then, who were at the root of these disorders, pray mow make your submission to the clergy. Bend the knees of your hearts and accept correction, so that it may bring you to a better frame of mind. Lean to subordinate yourselves; curb those loud and overbearing speeches. It will be better for you to be lowly but respected members of Christ’s flock, than to be apparently enjoying positions of eminence but in fact to be cast out from every hope of Him” (46).

He quotes from the book of Proverbs or Wisdom: See now, I am going to put before you the utterance of my Spirit, and teach you my word. Because I called you and you would not listen, because I uttered my words and you would not attend, but made light of my counsels and refused to heed my reproofs, therefore I will smile at your destruction” (46).

Section 58 – Let us be obedient to “His all-holy and glorious Name” and “dwell in trustful reliance on the most sacred Name of His majesty” (47). “As surely as God lives, as Jesus Christ lives, and the Holy Ghost also (on whom are set the faith and hope of God’s elect), so surely the man who keeps the divinely appointed decrees and statues with humility and an unfailing consideration for others, and never looks back, will be enrolled in honor among the number of those who are saved through Jesus Christ, by whom is God glorified for ever” (47).

Section 59 – “But if there are any who refuse to heed the declarations He has made through our lips, let them not doubt the gravity of the guilt and the peril in which they involve themselves” (47).

“For our part . . .we will entreat the Creator of all things with heartfelt prayer and supplication that the full sum of His elect, as it has been numbered throughout the world, may ever be preserved intact through His beloved Son Jesus Christ, by whom He has called us out of darkness to light, and from ignorance to the clear knowledge of the glory of His name” (47).

“[Teach us, O Lord] . . . to hope in thy Name, which us the source and fount of all creation. Open the eyes of our hearts to know thee, who alone art Highest amid the highest, and ever abidest Holy amidst the holy. Thou does bring down the haughtiness of the proud, and scatterest the devices of the people . . .” (47-48).

Section 60 – “Lord, by thine operations didst [thou] bring to light the everlasting fabric of the universe” (48).

“Wisely has thou created, prudently hast thou established, all things that are. To look around is to see thy goodness; to trust in thee is to know thy loving kindness. O most Merciful, O most Pitiful, absolve us from our sins and offences, from our errors and our shortcomings” (48).

“Deliver us from such as hate us without a cause; to us and all mankind grant peace and concord, even as thou didst to our forefathers when they called devoutly upon thee in faith and truth; and make us to be obedient both to thine own almighty and glorious Name and to all who have the rule and governance over us upon earth” (48).

Genesis 9-11 and Early Church Writings [Clement of Rome] 46-50

Genesis 9 - God makes a covenant with Noah, expanding Noah’s “dominion” over the creation by giving him meat to eat as well as plants, providing man refrains from eating the blood of the animals, for the blood is the life of the animal and “the life” is God’s in a special way--man’s lifeblood especially for God will require “an accounting” for the “life” that is so precious to him:

“I will require the blood of anyone who takes another person’s life. If a wild animal kills a person, it must die. And anyone who murders a fellow human must die. If anyone takes a human life, that person’s life will also be taken by human hands. For God made human beings in his own image. Now be fruitful and multiply, and repopulate the earth” (9:5-7).

In this way God seems to concede man his freedom and imperfections while at the same time insisting on accountability for what he chooses to do. 

Wildlife will look at man with “fear” and “dread” just as man will now look to God (9:2). The familiarity and warmth of relationship that characterized pre-fall Genesis is now a thing of the past. But there is to be a covenant between the Creator and His Creation; it is the first of many: “Then God said, ‘I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come. I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth. When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life” (9:12-15). I see in this a covenant with our Creator to always bring life out of death, hope out of the clouds that cast shadows over our days on earth. It is the first “covenant” mentioned in the scripture narrative. 

Noah, being a descendant of Cain, is a man of the soil (9:20); he plants the first vineyard.  Then he proceeds to get drunk, and his son Ham, “the father of Canaan” (9:18), disgraces himself by looking on his father’s nakedness while he is drunk.  In punishment for this disrespect, Ham is consigned to servitude.  19th century Southern pro-slavery apologists used this to justify the perpetual slavery of the black race, which was believed (by them) to be included as descendants of Ham.  Noah dies when he is 950 years old. Noah is a redemptive figure for Cain, a new man of the soil.

Genesis 10 - The text traces the descent of the sons of Noah. If one looks at a map outlining Josephus’ understanding of the people generated by these three line, the “sons” of Japheth are located in the islands of the Mediterranean and the lands to the north. Europeans were said to have come from this line. Ham. The “sons” of Ham are located in the Mesopotamian region and the “sons” of Shem, Semites, were located along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and into northern Africa. This map is accessible on Wikipedia.

There is a lot of legendary detail given in this chapter. Cush [Hamite] was an ancestor of Nimrod, “the first heroic warrior on earth” (10:8); and founder of the cities of Babylon and Akkad and Nineveh. Another Hamite, Canaan was the “ancestor of the Hittites” (10:15). One of the “sons” of Shem, was named Eber and he “had two sons. The first was named Peleg, which means ‘division,’ for during his lifetime the people of the world were divided into different language groups” (10:25). This is just a tiny bit of the detail given, the ones that I recognized as having later importance in the story.

Genesis 11 - The splintering of man’s language into many tongues is gone into in this chapter. “At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words” (11:1). As they [the Shemites] go east, they arrive at a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there” (11:2). They set their sights on building a “’great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world’” (11:4).

“But the Lord came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.’” (11:5-7).

Then the line of descent is traced from Shem to Abraham: Arphaxad > Shelah > Eber > Peleg > Reu > Serug > Nahor > Terah > Abram, Nahor and Haran.  Haran dies in Ur, where he was born. Abram and Nahor marry. Abram’s wife is Sarai and Nahor’s wife is Milcah [daughter of Haran – his niece].

Then Terah, Abram, Haran’s son Lot, and Abram’s wife leave for Canaan but only get to Haran (now a land or city, not his son). Terah dies in Haran.

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

Section 46 - It is the example of such Old Testament men who suffered at the hands of the wicked – men like Daniel, Ananias, Azarias and Misael – who should be our heroes. “[L]et us take the innocent and the upright for our companions, for it is they who are God’s chosen ones” (42).

“Why must there be all this quarrelling and bad blood, these feuds and dissensions among you? Have we not all the same God, and the same Christ? Is not the same Spirit of grace shed upon us all? Have we not all the same calling in Christ? Then why are we rending and tearing asunder the limbs of Christ, and fomenting discord against our own body? Why are we so lost to all sense and reason that we have forgotten our membership of one another?” (42)

The disunity in Corinth has led many astray.

Section 47 – He tells them they should read Paul’s letter to them again. The divisions he addressed there were not as serious as today’s. “It is shameful, my dear friends, shameful in the extreme, and quite unworthy of the Christian training you have had, that the loyal and ancient church of Corinth, because of one or two individuals, should now be reputed to be at odds with its clergy” (42).

Section 48 – Do not lose any time putting an end to this state of affairs. Let us all “fall on our knees before the Master and implore Him with tears graciously to pardon us, and bring us back again into the honorable and virtuous way of brothers who love one another. For that is the gateway of righteousness, the open gate to life” (43).

“There are many gates standing open, but the gate of righteousness is the gate of Christ, where blessings are in store for every incomer who pursues the path of godliness and uprightness, and goes about his duties without seeking to create trouble” (43).

If you are a true believer and able to “expound the secrets of revelation” and virtuous in all your ways, the higher your reputation, “the more humble-minded” you need to be; and your “eyes should be fixed on the good of the whole community” (43), not just on your personal advantage.

Section 49 – “No tongue can tell the heights to which love [for God] can uplift us. Love binds us fast to God. Love casts a veil over sins innumerable. There are no limits to love’s endurance, no end to its patience. Love is without servility, as it is without arrogance. Love knows of no division, promotes no discord; all the works of love are done in perfect fellowship” (43).

“It was in love that the Lord drew us to Himself; because of the love He bore us, our Lord Jesus Christ, at the will of God, gave His blood for us – His flesh for our flesh, His life for our lives” (43).

Section 50 – “Let us beg and implore of His mercy that we may be purged of all earthly preferences for this man or that, and be found faultless in love” (43).