I'm so excited I have two buddies on my blog - yay for Josh and Matt.
Okay most of chapter 10 is just talking about the descendants of Noah, but this is important stuff because these are the people that began the civilizations that started recording their histories. Look at the names of the sons and descendants of Noah - do any of them sound familiar? Like countries and empires and people groups you've heard of? Hmmmm? Also that dude Nimrod seems to just jump off the page, so I have to say something about him...
10:8ff - This is the only guy in the chapter who is actually described. He is called the first ever mighty man...a hunter...a kingdom builder...he's a pretty impressive guy, so who is he? Contrary to popular (youth group) belief I don't know everything about the bible off the top of my head, so I looked Nimrod up in my bible commentary. I will sum up a little of what they said. Some Jewish historians believed that Nimrod was the guy who started the whole tower of Babel thing and was also the first man to begin idol worship, and while that would sell newspapers...there's not much evidence to support that. There is a possibility that he was this Babylonian king named Hammurabi, because of some funky linguistic stuff the commentator does - the Hebrew transliteration of one of his names might come out as Nimrod. From the evidence given you cannot tell for sure who this guy was...what you can tell is that he was a great hunter and he built up a huge kingdom.
11:3 - Bricks would have been like the i-pod touch of the ancient world...this was incredible, sophisticated technology. And what do they do with it? They use technology to lead them away from God. That doesn't sound like any generation of people I know...oh wait...
11:4 - Because of their arrogance, they actually brought about the end result they were trying to avoid. They wanted to make sure that they would never be separated...they built and incredible building that would draw all people to it, but because of the tower they are scattered all over the face of the earth and they can't communicate with one another. People just can't leave well enough alone...just like Adam and Eve these people could not be satisfied...they wanted recognition...they wanted to be gods and what they got was confusion and chaos.
11:6 - When all men were completely unified, their sinfulness is exponential and the consequences of their combined actions is rebellion, arrogance and destruction. Today we have world wide communication and shared technology and what has it ushered in? Machines of destruction that can kill from afar at the push of a button, countless opportunities to look at free porn, communication that undermines relationship, etc. (Hehehe...I say this all as I do a bible study with people through a computer)
11:12ff - Notice how the ages of everybody steadily goes down after the flood...pretty interesting.
12:1ff - One of the most important passages yet in the bible...this is God's covenant with Abram - a covenant that we are the beneficiaries of. He tells Abram, leave you country, your people and your family and I will give you a nation, fame, blessings and I will bless the entire world through you (i.e. Jesus is coming to save everybody). Abram believe God and walks away from everything he has ever know. God please let me have faith like this...I want t utterly and completely trust you too.
12:7-8 - I love that Abram is constantly reminding himself that God is in control. He is always setting up altars and doing what it takes to remember what God has done for him and what God has promised. That is still a good practice for God followers.
12:13 - Here we see that Abram is definitely not perfect. He encourages his wife to lie and basically gives her over to Pharaoh's household...which is really sick! Abram is not only a leader of his people, but he should be a leader in his family life. Instead of honoring his wife, he uses her to make his life easier. How many husbands do this on a regular basis?
2 comments:
I hate the fact that I'm nowhere near as connected to God as some of these guys in Genesis. Noah, Abraham, Moses... they could all have these friendly, almost face to face conversations with God. They BARGAIN with him. I just pray that I can become this close to him.
I completely agree with you Matt. It's so hard to read this and not feel like you're far from God when these guys are actually talking to Him and getting sweet deals from Him.
One thing I noticed is how much like a story this is to God's people. The way it's told just seems like a children's storybook to me. The account of all the people and their descendants and the way it talks about their travel all seems like a word-of-mouth tale passed down from one person to another.
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