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Aug.16,2012
Rebekah and Abraham’s Servant at the well. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
I admit it: I’m stuck on Genesis 24. It’s such a beautiful, complex chapter. In sixty-seven verses, it say so much and has so may allusions to other stories that I struggle to capture it all. This is the story of Abraham’s servant’s search for a wife for Isaac, a job that both seems incredibly important (his family will inherit Israel) and also unimportant. After all, neither Abraham nor Isaac could be bothered to do the mate-searching for themselves. Between that and fact-checking my Torah family tree, I’m just behind!
As I finish writing some actual content, here’s a blog that has some: Pondering Scripture by Justin Honse. The author is slowly working his way through the bible, but is still in Genesis after several years of writing. That sounds very familiar…
Two that I liked about Genesis 24:
- Genesis 24:10 – Camels, and Other Good Things – I didn’t realize that camels weren’t domesticated in biblical times.
- Genesis 24:61 – Rebekah Has… Maids? – An interesting look at the story. Rebekah drew the water from the well for herself, and yet she seems to have more than enough servants.
Check out Justin’s blog.
Up next: Nahor, brother of Abraham
Tags : abraham, genesis 24, isaac
Further Thoughts on Onan
After completing my post explaining Levirate marriage and Onan from a few days ago, I stumbled on a blog post that ended with “Honesty like that is almost as rare as a really good exegesis of Genesis 38:8-10.” And then I fell out of my chair… a few minutes later when I realized that Genesis 38:8 was the Onan story. It also includes an awesome image that I may print out and hang on my wall. Check it out.
The commenters on that post pointed out one major element missing from my examination of that story: how the biblical law of inheritance may have influenced Onan. So, do you think Onan may have been in it for the money?
One side note: I’ve discovered a veritable treasure trove of bible-related blogs off of of the Biblioblog site. I must have been hiding under a rock for the last year to not know about that site.
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