Genesis 33-36

The great family reunion is about to take place!  Will it result in war or peace?

Genesis 33

• Jacob divided his family into columns — first his concubines and their children, then Leah and her children, then Rachel and Joseph.
• Esau ran towards Jacob and hugged and kissed him.  The family strife was over.
• Jacob insisted that Esau keep the livestock, so he finally accepted.
• Esau went back to Seir.  Jacob said he would follow at his own pace.  Jacob stops at a place called Succoth (meaning “shelters” — he built a house and shelters for his livestock).  Jacob and his family arrived at Shechem in Canaan and bought it from the family of Hamor for one hundred silver pieces.
• Although Jacob did not go to Seir, the Bible does say that they lived close together… see Gen. 36:6-8.

Genesis 34

• Dinah, Leah’s daughter, went to visit some women in Shechem.  But the local prince, also named Shechem, saw her and raped her.  His love for her was strong, so he asked his father, Hamor, to help him get her.
• Hamor asked Jacob and his sons to please let Shechem marry Dinah, and they could live together and trade with one another.
• Shechem said he would pay any price to have Dinah.
• Dinah’s brothers deceived (hmmm… I’ve seen this trait in this family before…) Shechem and Hamor.  They said to circumcise all the men, and then they could unite as one people.  Shechem and Hamor agreed.
• Three days after this, while all the men in Shechem were still sore, Simeon and Levi killed every man there.  They also rescued Dinah.  The other brothers plundered the town and took the women and children.
• Jacob told Levi and Simeon that they had made him stink in this land (we learn later that Jacob curses them when he is close to death… see Gen. 49:5-7).

Genesis 35

• God told Jacob to go to Bethel.
• Jacob told everyone in his household to ditch their idols (influenced by the pagans they were living close to?  They could have also been good luck charms…).  They gave Jacob them as well as their earrings (which could have been worn as good luck charms).  Jacob buried them under a tree near Shechem.
• The terror of God kept all the towns from attacking Jacob or his people.
• Once they arived at Bethel, Rebekah’s nurse Deborah died.  She was buried beneath an oak tree in a valley below Bethel.  The tree is called the “Oak of Weeping.”
• God appeared to Jacob and reaffirmed his promise of having a huge number of descendants, being given the land of Abraham and Isaac, and also that his name was Israel.
• Jacob set up a stone pillar and poured wine and anointed it with olive oil.  The place is called Bethel — “house of God.”
• Jacob then traveled to Bethlehem.  Rachel had a child while they were still some distance away and called him Ben-oni (Jacob renamed him Benjamin — “son of my right hand”).  Rachel died after this difficult childbirth.
• Reuben sleeps with Bilhah, Jacob’s concubine, and someone tells Jacob about it.  We do not see his punishment until Jacob is near death in Gen. 49:4… his double portion of the family inheritance as the oldest son is given to someone else.
• Jacob went to his dad Isaac.  Isaac died at 180 years of age, and Esau and Jacob buried him in Machpelah with Abraham and Sarah.

Genesis 36

• Esau moved away from Jacob to the hill country of Seir since the land was not big enough to support both of their livestock.
• Esau is also known as Edom.  A family tree is given of the Edomites (who later become enemies of King David).  They lived south and east of the Dead Sea.
• A family tree is also given of the descendants of Seir the Horite.
• Then a list of rulers of Edom is given (these ruled Edom before kings rules Israel).

Genesis 29-32

So Abraham has died, Isaac and Rebekah have had Esau and Jacob, Isaac deceived Abimelech, Jacob got Esau’s birthright and blessing, and Jacob has moved to Haran where Laban is.  What’s next for our fleeing hero?

Genesis 29

• Jacob comes to a well with a stone over it.  It is custom to wait for all the shepherds and their flocks to arrive before rolling back the stone to water the flocks.
• Jacob asks some of the shepherds at this well if they know Laban.  They say they do and that Laban is doing well.
• Jacob sees Rachel coming to water her flocks.  He rolls away the stone and introduces himself as her cousin (after kissing her).  Laban comes out and warmly greets Jacob.
• After a month, Jacob and Laban agreed that after Jacob worked for seven years, he could marry Rachel.
• After the seven years, Laban gave Leah (the oldest daughter) to Jacob instead of Rachel (it is custom for the oldest daughter to marry first).  Jacob slept with her and noticed in the morning that she was not Rachel (I’m guessing because of the veil).  The deceiver is deceived!
• Although Jacob got Rachel soon after, he still had to work another seven years for her.
• Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah.  So God made Rachel childless and gave Leah four sons (for now): Reuben (meaning “Look, a son!” and also sounding like “He has seen my misery”), Simeon (meaning “one who hears”), Levi (meaning “being attached” or “feeling affection for”), and Judah (probably meaning “praise”).

Genesis 30

• Rachel was jealous of Leah having all the children.  She gave Jacob her servant Bilhah so he could have children through her servant.  (Good grief, is it just me or does this family repeat the same things OVER and OVER?  Abraham and Isaac both deceived two different King Abimelechs, Abraham and Isaac both slept with their wives maids for a child, Laban and Jacob both deceived family members…)
• Bilhah bore Dan (meaning “to vindicate” or “to judge”) and Naphtali (meaning “my struggle”).
• Leah, realizing she was no longer bearing children, gave Jacob her servant, Zilpah, in order to bear more children through her.  Zilpah bore Jacob Gad (meaning “good fortune”) and Asher (meaning “happy”).
• One day Reuben brought Leah some mandrakes.  Rachel exchanged letting Leah sleep with Jacob for the mandrake roots.
• Leah bore Issachar (meaning “reward”) as a result of that night, and Zebulun (meaning “honor”) later on.  She also had a daughter named Dinah.
• Rachel finally has a child and names him Joseph (meaning “may he add”).
• Jacob tells Laban he wants to go home (after twenty years of work… seven for Leah, seven for Rachel, and six for wages — the livestock).  Laban knows that Jacob’s hard work has made him much richer and does not want Jacob to go.
• Jacob says he will take all the spotted sheep and goats as his wages to take care of his family.  Laban removes them and gives them to his sons, who took them three days’ distance away.
• Jacob uses some fancy method for mating that made all the strong livestock spotted (belonging to him) and all the livestock without spots weak (belonging to Laban).

Genesis 31

• Jacob realizes that Laban and his sons are not liking him very much anymore.  They see that all the good livestock belong to Jacob… even after Laban changed the agreement for which ones were Jacob’s quite a few times.  God is taking care of Jacob.
• Jacob tells Rachel and Leah that it is time to go.  They are fine with this, as Laban has not been treating them very well either.
• They all leave privately, along with Jacob’s livestock.  Rachel steals Laban’s household gods, hides them, and takes them with her (not telling anyone about it).
• Laban did not know they had left for three days.  However, he took off after them when he figured it out and caught up with them in Gilead after seven days.
• Laban said he would have parted with them with a party.  But he also wanted his household gods.  Jacob swore to kill the person who had them.
• Rachel took them and put them under her camel’s saddle.  Then she sat on her camel.  Laban searched everywhere and could not find the gods.  Rachel told Laban that she was on her period, so she could not get up (my own side-note: wow, she used that excuse?  LOL).
• Jacob became very angry and told Laban a lot of the bad things he had done to him.
• So Laban and Jacob made a treaty to not hurt each other.  They shared a meal and setup a monument.  The name of that place is called Mizpah (meaning “watchtower”).
• The next morning Laban kissed his daughters and grandchildren, blessed them, then went back home.

Genesis 32

• Going to his homeland, Jacob sent messengers to Esau with news of his coming (in peace, hopefully).  The messengers returned saying Esau was headed their way with an army of four hundred men!
• Jacob divided everything he had into two groups (so the other could escape if one was killed).
• Faced with this difficult situation, Jacob prayed.
• Jacob sent a huge number of animals to Esau through his servants as appeasement.
• Jacob sent his wives, concubines, sons, and possessions across the Jabbok river and stayed alone in his camp.
• A man came and wrestled with Jacob.  When the man saw he could not win, he knocked Jacob’s hip out of socket and asked to be let go.  Jacob refused unless he blessed him.  The man changed Jacob’s name to Israel (meaning “one who struggles with God”).
• Jacob named the place Peniel (meaning “face of God”).  To this day, Israelites don’t eat meat near the hip (in memory of this event).

Genesis 25-28

Abraham and Sarah finally got their son Isaac.  Hagar and Ishmael have gotten the boot.  Sarah has died and Isaac has gotten a beautiful wife in Rebekah.  It’s about time to make our main character the next generation…

Genesis 25

• Abraham married Keturah and had several sons through her.  While he did give them gifts, he made them go to the east, away from Isaac.  Isaac would still get the inheritance.
• Abraham dies at 175 years of age and is buried in the cave of Machpelah with Sarah.  Isaac settles near Beer-lahairoi in Negev.
• A list of Ishmael’s sons and descendants is given.  They all lived close together east of Egypt (from Havilah to Shur).  Ishmael died at the age of 137.
• Isaac married Rebekah when he was forty.  Rebekah, like Sarah, had trouble having a child.  Isaac pleaded with God, and when he was sixty, Rebekah had twins.
• The twins struggled in Rebekah’s womb.  God said this is because they would be rival nations.  The older son’s descendants will serve the younger son’s descendants.
• The first child was very red and covered with a lot of hair.  He was named Esau (which probably means ‘hair’).  The second child was birthed while grasping Esau’s heel.  He was named Jacob (meaning “he grasps the heel” or to figuratively mean “he deceives”).
• Esau became a hunter (Isaac’s favorite) and Jacob stayed at home a lot (Rebekah’s favorite).  One day, Esau came home from a hunt very exhausted and hungry.  Jacob made Esau trade his birthright to him in exchange for some bread and lentil stew.  Esau seemed indifferent to what he had just done.

Genesis 26

• A severe famine struck and Isaac moved to Gerar (King Abimelech of the Philistines lived here – a different one than who Abraham deceived, according to my study Bible).
• God told Isaac to not go into Egypt but to stay in Gerar.  He reaffirmed to Isaac the promises he made to Abraham: his descendants would be countless, they would be given the land he was in, and all nations would be blessed through his descendants.
• Isaac deceives Abimelech exactly as Abraham deceived Pharoah and a different Abimelech — he says Rebekah is his sister for fear of being killed.  After Abimelech saw Isaac fondling her, he said anyone who harms Isaac or Rebekah would be killed.  Fortunately, no one had slept with Rebekah.
• The Lord blessed Isaac, and his harvest was enormous.  The made the Philistines jealous (of Isaac’s riches), and they began to fill up Isaac’s wells with dirt.  Abimelech asked Isaac to leave the country, and Isaac left to the Gerar Valley.
• Isaac’s servants dug three wells… the first two being claimed by local shepherds.  The last one was his own… no one argued over it.
• Isaac moved to Beersheba, and God reaffirms some of his promises to Isaac.  Isaac built an altar there and worshiped God.
• Abimelech, his adviser Ahuzzath, and his army commander Phicol came to Isaac asking for a peace treaty.  Isaac and the Philistines had a feast.  The day after, Isaac’s servants had dug a well, and they named the town Beersheba – “well of the oath.”
• Esau married Judith, a Hittite, and Basemath, another Hittite.  These two made Isaac’s and Rebekah’s lives miserable.

Genesis 27

• Isaac is getting older and is almost blind.  He tells Esau to go hunt and make his favorite dish for him to eat.  Then Isaac will bless Esau.
• Rebekah overhears the conversation.  She tells Jaco to get two goats, and she would prepare the dish.  Rebekah’s trying to do God’s will her way…
• Jacob also wears some of Esau’s clothes and gloves made from the goats.  Jacob gives the meal to his dad and says he is Esau.  Jacob says the Lord put the wild game directly in his path (hence why the meal has been prepared so quickly).
• Although Isaac heard Jacob’s voice, he felt his hands (hairy) and smelled his clothes (like the open fields).  So Isaac blessed Jacob, thinking he was Esau.
• Right after Isaac finished blessing Jacob, Esau came in with his meat dish.
• Isaac revealed that he had just blessed Jacob.  Esau became enrage, wanting to kill his brother.  Someone told Rebekah about this, and she told Jacob.  The plan would be for Jacob to go live with his uncle Laban until Esau calmed down.
• Rebekah told Isaac that she most definitely did not want Jacob to marry one of the local Hittite women.
• Because of Rebekah’s sin and Jacob going along with it, deceiving his father, my study Bible notes several consequences of Jacob’s actions: Jacob never saw his mother again, Esau wanted to kill him, uncle Laban deceived Jacob, Esau would become the founder of an enemy nation, and Jacob was exiled from his family for several years.  Note that Jacob would have gotten the blessing anyway based on Gen. 25:23 without this sin.

Genesis 28

• Isaac told Jacob to go to Bethuel (Laban and Rebekah’s father) in Paddan-aram and marry one of Laban’s daughters.
• Esau heard how Isaac did not like the Canaanite women, so he married one of Ishmael’s daughters, Mahalath.
• On the way to Haran, Jacob slept and dreamed of a stairway that went from earth to heaven.  Angels were going up and down it.  At the top was God.  He reaffirmed the promises to Jacob.  He also told him that the land he was in would belong to his descendants, and He would also protect Jacob wherever he went.
• When Jacob woke up, he made memorial from the stone pillar he had used.  He also poured olive oil over it.  He named the area Bethel — “house of God.”
• Jacob affirmed that he would make God the Lord of his life.  He made the memorial a place for worshipping God and also said he would give God a tenth of everything that God gives him.

Genesis 21-24

Sodom and Gomorrah have been destroyed.  Lot has been saved.  Abraham has, once again, told only a half-truth about Sarah being his sister rather than his wife.  But God remains faithful to his promises, and the time is drawing nigh for Sarah to have her first child…

Genesis 21

• Sarah indeed became pregnant and birthed her first son, Isaac (which means “he laughs”).  After eight days, Abraham circumcised Isaac.  Abraham was one hundred when Isaac was born.
• As Isaac got a little older, Sarah one day saw Ishmael making fun of Isac.  She demanded that Hagar and Ishmael be sent away without any family inheritance.  Abraham did not like this; Ishmael was still his son.  God told Abraham to do as Sarah said, and Ishmael will still be the ancestor of a nation.
• Hagar and Ishmael went away with some provisions from Abraham.  But once the water ran out, Hagar did not know what to do.  She left Ishmael in a bush and walked about one hundred yards away, not wanting to see her son die.
• God heard Ishmael’s crying and opened Hagar’s eyes so that she saw a well.  Ishmael grew up in Paran and married a young Egyptian woman.  He became an expert archer.  He would become the ancestor of the Ishmaelites (who were hostile to Israel and God).
• King Abimelech and Phicol (the commander of Abimelech’s army) came to Abraham to ask him to never deceive him, his children, or grandchildren (since they had been loyal to Abraham, letting him live in their country).  Abraham agreed.
• Abraham told Abimelech that some of his servants had been taking a well of Abraham’s servants.  Abraham gave sheep and oxen to Abimelech, and they made a treaty.  The place where this well is called Beersheba — the “well of the oath.”  Abraham live in this Philistine country for a long time.

Genesis 22

• God tells Abraham to go from Beersheba to Moriah and sacrifice Isaac there on one of the mountains.  Abraham does so the next morning without question (that the Bible lets us know of anyway).
• It tooks three days just to get close to the mountain where they would sacrifice.  Abraham told his servants to wait there while he and Isaac prepared the wood for the burnt offering.  Even as Isaac is being tied up and put on the altar, the Bible does not say one thing about Isaac offering any resistance or saying anything.  Talk about honoring your father and mother!  And what faith Abraham must have had also…
• An angel stopped Abraham just as he was about to sacrifice Isaac.  Abraham found a ram nearby and sacrificed it instead.  Notice the parallel of this story and God sacrificing His own Son for our sins… except God did not stop the sacrifice of His own Son.
• As a result of this test of faith, God told Abraham once again that his descendants will be countless millions.  Also, he will be blessed richly and through his descendants, all everybody will be blessed (hmmm… foreshadowing of Jesus…).
• Nahor, Abraham’s brother, had eight sons.  One of the sons, Bethuel, birthed a daughter named Rebekah.  We will hear about her shortly.

Genesis 23

• Sarah died at the age of 127.  Abraham and Sarah were in Hebron when she died, and he had no place to bury her.  Abraham went to the Hittite elders and asked to buy a burial plot.
• The Hittites said Abraham was an ‘honored prince’ (Gen. 23:6) — he could pick any tomb he wanted.
• Abraham asked for the cave of Machpelah.  Ephron, who owned it, offered to give it to Abraham for free.  Abraham insisted he pay for it and ended up giving Ephron four hundred pieces of silver for it.  This same tomb ends up being Sarah’s, Abraham’s, Isaac’s, and Jacob’s burial place.

Genesis 24

• As Abraham was getting older, he made his oldest servant promise to not let Isaac marry a local Canaanite woman.  Instead, Isaac should marry one of Abraham’s relatives in his homeland.  An angel would prepare the way for the servant.
• If it did not work out, the servant would be free from the oath.  Isaac could not go and live there with Abraham’s relatives  since God had promised to give the land of Canaan to his descendants.
• The servant got ten camels and gifts and went to Aram-naharaim (which has a village in it where Nahor lived).  As the servant came beside a well outside the village, he prayed to God that the right woman would offer him and his camels a drink upon him asking for a drink for only himself.  While he was still praying, Rebekah came out.
• Rebekah was very beautiful and was a virgin.  After she drew water into her water jug, the servant asked her for a drink.  She gave him some from her water jug and offered water for his camels too.  She kept refilling and giving the camels water until they had their fill.
• The servant gave Rebekah a gold ring for her nose and two bracelets.  He asked who her father (Bethel) was and if he could stay with them for the night.  She said that would be ok.  The servant worshiped God as a result.
• Rebekah went home and told her family about this.  Laban, Rebekah’s brother, went to the servant and told him to come to their house.  They had a place for his camels and were about to feed him, but the servant had to tell his purpose for coming first.
• The servant told them every tiny detail, from Abraham’s request, to his prayer, to how Rebekah had been an answer to that prayer, and even how he worshiped God after it.  Laban and Bethuel were convinced.  They allowed Rebekah to go to be the wife of Isaac.  The servant gave Rebekah and her family many nice things.
• The next morning, Rebekah’s brother and mother wanted Rebekah to stay ten days before heading off.  The servant wanted to leave right then though.  They asked Rebekah, and she left that morning with a woman who had been her childhood nurse.
• As Rebekah was leaving, her family bless her saying she would become the mother of millions, and her descendants would defeat their enemies.
• As the servant and Rebekah enter Negev (where Isaac lives), Rebekah sees Isaac and puts her veil on.  Isaac and Rebekah go in his mother’s tent and become husband and wife.  Isaac loved Rebekah a lot; she comforted him from the death of his mother.

Genesis 17-20

Abram has a son through Hagar, but still no son from Sarai.  Abram’s descendants are supposed to be like the stars or the dust!  Sarai’s not getting any younger either.  In the next few chapters, we will still see promises that God makes, but we will take a quick detour involving Lot in the next few chapters.

Genesis 17

• God appears to Abram and tells him he will be the father of many nations.  His name will be changed to Abraham (meaning the ‘father of many’).  Kings will even be among his descendants.
• In order to keep his side of the covenant, Abraham must circumcise all children on the 8th day after their birth.  Everyone belonging to Abraham (his family and servants) must be circumcised or will be cut off from the covenant.
• God changes Sarai’s name to Sarah.  He says that she will have a son.
• In Genesis 17:17, Abraham shows the first sign of disbelief in God’s promise.  With Abraham being close to one hundred and Sarah being ninety, Abraham just thinks God will bless Ishmael and will not have a son through Sarah.
• God says in about a year, Sarah will have a son who should be called Isaac.  Both Isaac and Ishmael will be blessed.
• When God left Abraham, Abraham had Ishmael (now thirteen) and all the other men with him circumcised.

Genesis 18

• Abraham notices three men near the entrance of his tent.  He gets his servants to wash their feet and prepare a very nice meal for them.  My study Bible says that in this day, a person’s hospitality is based a lot on his hospitality (strangers were to be treated as highly honored guests).  Just to be honest, we are supposed to be nice to strangers in this time… remember, we might be entertaining angels!
• They inquire about Sarah.  One of them says she will have a son next year.  Sarah hears this from a nearby tent and laughs.
• God asks Abraham why Sarah laughed and if anything is too hard for Him (of course not!).  Sarah denied she had laughed (being afraid).  God said “…’That is not true.  You did laugh'” (Gen. 18:15).
• One of these three men was the Lord (because the Lord talked to Abraham, telling Abraham His plan of why He was heading to Sodom, while the other two went on ahead).  God was planning on going to Sodom and Gomorrah to see if everything they did was wicked… and if so, He would destroy them.
• Abraham, ever mindful of Lot, talked to God so that even if ten righteous people were in Sodom, God would spare the city.  My study Bible makes a good point… Abraham did not change God’s mind, but through Abraham’s probing, he realized that God is kind and fair. Prayer helps us better understand God’s mind.

Genesis 19

• This chapter notifies us at once that those other two men were indeed angels.
• Lot insisted that the strangers stay at his house, have their feet washed, and have a feast.  Although they first declined, they accepted upon Lot’s insistence.
• That night, all the men of Sodom surrounded Lot’s house and asked for the men so they could have sex with them (here the Bible shows that homosexuality is a sin).  Lot offered his daughters to them!  Lot, Lot, Lot… what has the sinful city of Sodom done to you?
• The men of Sodom became mad at Lot for not giving them the angels.  The angels saved Lot by pulling him inside his house and bolting the door.  Then they blinded all the men outside.
• They warned Lot that they were going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.  He must take his family and flee to the mountains.
• Lot’s two fiances thought he was joking and stayed in the city.
• The next morning, the angels had to FORCE Lot, his wife, and his two daughters out of the city.  Lot asked them if he could stay in a village nearby instead of the mountains.  They said they would spare the village (the village of Zoar), but the family must hurry there and not look back.
• Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.
• Abraham saw the smoldering Sodom and Gomorrah, but the Bible does not say what his response was.
• Lot became afraid of the people in Zoar, so he actually did go to live in a cave in the mountains with his two daughters.
• Lot’s two daughters became desperate, thinking they would never marry.  They wanted to preserve the family line… so they resorted to incest (morals of Sodom?).  Incest is wrong (see Deuteronomy 22:30 for example).  Ironically, their sons (who would be the ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites) would become great enemies of Israel.  Instead of this incest, all Lot or his daughters had to do was perhaps go to Abraham and get Godly husbands for example.  There were Godly ways of preserving the family line.

Genesis 20

• Abraham moved south to a place called Gerar.  Once again, he told the people there that Sarah his sister.
• King Abimelech of this area started being nice to Sarah.  In a dream, God warned him that Sarah was married.
• King Abimelech and the others in this area were apparently God-fearing people.  He returned Sarah to Abraham and gave him servants, silver, and other goods as well.  He also allowed Abraham to choose any place in his kingdom to live.
• Abraham prayed for Abimielech and the people in his household.  The infertility that God had given them was lifted due to Abraham’s prayer.

Genesis 13-16

So Abram and Sarai have been booted out of Egypt.  God is still on their side though… a lot of worse things could have happened for lying to a pharoah.

Genesis 13

• Abram, Sarai, Lot, and all that they owned went north to a place between Bethel and Ai (where ABram had built an altar before).  Abram and Lot’s herdmen started feuding… this land was not big enough to support both of their servants and livestock.
• Abram, although he should have been able to choose (due to him being older), allowed Lot to choose which section of land to settle in.
• Lot chose the better and more fertile Jordan valley.  He settled close to Sodom, where the people were very wicked.
• Abram settled in Canaan.  God promised him this land would be given to him and his offspring.  God also promised Abram that his offspring would be uncountable… a pretty bold promise for a man whose wife to this point has still been barren.

Genesis 14

This chapter begins with war breaking out!  These notes come from my perspective as well as some of the notes in my study Bible.

• When a city was conquered during this time, the conquered city paid tribute to the victor.  Apparently King Kedorlaomer had conquered Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela, who now formed an alliance and rebelled against King Kedorlaomer.  Sounds like he was pretty powerful.
• King Kedorlaomer and his allies defeated the rebelling kings.  They fled into the mountains or slipped into tar pits.  Then the victors plundered Sodom and Gomorrah… taking Lot and everything he owned with them!
• One of the men who escaped told Abram the news of his nephew.
• Rather than be mad about Lot and his selfishness (which the Bible never says anything about… perhaps Abram never cared or never did anything about Lot’s choice of land), Abram gets together 318 people in his household and chases after Kedorlaomer’s army.  They attacked the army during the night and won! Amazing… Abram’s household, who probably did not consist of several soldiers as in an army, defeated a powerful king’s army.
• Abram and his allies recovered everything, including Lot and his possessions.
• Once Abram returns, the king of Sodom and Melchizedek, a priest of God, came to greet him.  Melchizedek blessed Abram, who gave Melchizedek a tenth of all the goods he has recovered.
• The king of Sodom asked Abram for his people back but told Abram to keep the goods.  Abram wanted God to get all the glory for his riches and victory; therefore he refused the king of Sodom’s offer.  He returned everything (except for what they had eaten).  Abram also asked the king to share the goods with his allies.

Genesis 15

• God comes to Abram in a vision.  Abram tells God his concerns of not having a son… that one of his servants will get all his wealth.  God tells Abram that his descendants will be like the stars… countless.  Abram believes, and the Lord says that Abram is righteous because of his faith.
• God also tells Abram He will give him the land he is now in (as well as several other pieces of land named later in the chapter… interestingly, most if not all of these lands belong to the descendants of Ham).
• Abram has a scary vision that night.  God tells him his descendants will be like strangers in a foreign land.  They will be slaves to a nation for four hundred years, but God will punish that nation and Abram’s descendants will come away with great wealth (God foreshadows what the book of Exodus talks about).
• God also states that after four generations, Abram’s descendants will return to the land Abram is now in after “…the sin of the Amorites has run its course” (Gen. 15:16).  Once again, the Amorites are descendants of Ham.  But also note that they have four generations to repent!

Genesis 16

Once again, Sarai and Abram decide to take matters into their own hands and ‘help God out…’

• Sarai, still being barren, told Abram to have children through her Egyptian servant, Hagar.  Abram agreed.
• Hagar became pregnant and mistreated Sarai.  Sarai blamed Abram and said God will make him pay for this.
• Abram told Sarai that Hagar was her servant and to treat her however she wanted.  We don’t know what Sarai did, but it must have been pretty bad… Hagar ran away.
• An angel found Hagar beside a desert spring.  The angel told her to return to Sarai.  The angel also said that she would have more descendants than she could count. Her current son, who should be named Ishmael, will be against all his brothers, and his brothers will be against him.
• Abram was eighty-six when Hagar birthed Ishmael.

Genesis 9-12

The flood is over.  Now the earth is almost empty — Noah’s family and the animals are all that remain.

Genesis 9

• God tells Noah to replenish the earth.  He also tells him that the animals can be food just like the grains and vegetables.  Also, murder is forbidden since every person is living being in God’s image — every person is very special to God.  God serve justice to those who murder.
• Remember how God said He would not curse the earth and destroy all living things again at the end of chapter 8?  Now He makes this covenant with Noah and his sons, telling them He will never again send a flood to kill all living creatures and destroy earth.  A rainbow is a sign of this covenant.
• Every person living now came from one of Noah’s sons.
• Ham was the youngest of the three brothers.
• Noah became a farmer.  One day he got drunk from the wine he made from his vineyard.  Ham saw him laying naked in his tent and told his brothers Shem and Japheth (this was dishonorable to his father).  Shem and Japheth covered Noah with a robe while looking the other way to avoid seeing him naked.
• Once out of his drunken state, Noah blessed Shem and Japheth and cursed Ham.  Ham and his descendants (the Canaanites) would be servants to Shem and Japheth’s descendants.
• Noah dies at the end of this chapter.

Genesis 10

A detailed listing of sons and tribes are given that came from Noah’s Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  Most of the following notes comes from the notes in my study Bible…

• Hebrews, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Persians, and Syrians descended from Shem.  Abraham, David, and Jesus came from his lineage.
• Canaanites, Egyptians, Philistines, Hittites, and Amorites descended from Ham.  One of his descendants, Nimrod, built the foundation for his empire in Babylonia (which included the city of Babel).  He also extended his reign to Assyria (which included Nineveh).  The territory of Canaan included Sodom and Gomorrah.  Canaan, Egypt, and the rest of Africa made up Ham’s descendant’s territory.
• Greeks, Thracians, and Scythians descended from Japheth.  They settled mostly in Europe and Asia Minor.

Genesis 11

• People everywhere had the same language.  They decided to build a tower that would reach to the skies (the tower of Babel) as a monument of their greatness.
• God saw the tower and said that nothing would be impossible to them if they had a common language (that is a really interesting statement to me…).  So he gave the people different languages, effectively ending construction on the tower.  This is why it is called the tower of Babel.
• A more detailed listing of Shem’s family line is given.  Abram came from his lineage.  Nahor was his grandfather, Terah was his father, and Nahor and Haran were his brothers.
• Note that Shem’s lineage includes the Jewish nation, who eventually conquer the land of Canaan… who came from Ham’s lineage.
• Haran had a son named lot, Abram married a woman named Sarai, and Nahor married Milcah (daughter of Haran).  Haran died young while Terah was still alive.
• Sarai was unable to have any children.
• Terah, Abram, Sarai, and Lot left Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan but instead stopped at a village called Haran.  Terah died here.

Genesis 12

• God told Abram to leave his country and relatives to a place that He would show Abram.  This great man of faith left not knowing where he was going with Lot, Sarai, and his livestock, and the other people who had joined his household.
• Abram traveled through Canaan and eventually came to Egypt due to famine.
• Abram was afraid that the Egyptians would kill him in order to marry Sarai, who was very beautiful.  They agreed to say that she was Abram’s sister (a half-truth… she was his half sister [see Gen. 20:12]).
• The Egyptians treated Sarai very kindly and sent Abram many gifts until God sent a plauge on Pharoah’s household.  Pharoah then had Abram and Sarai escorted out of Egypt by armed guards.  Even Abram, the great man of faith, was not perfect…

Genesis 5-8

So sometime after the Creation, sin enters the world through Adam and Eve.  Sin shows its nasty side quickly, as Cain kills his brother, and Lamech is also attacked by an unnamed person (who he kills).  What is the world coming to?

Genesis 5

Adam’s family tree is given.  Some noteables:

• Enoch lived 365 years close to God, then was taken by Him.  Enoch’s son, Methuselah, lived 969 years, which I believe is the oldest age recorded in the Bible.
• Methuselah had Lamech, and Lamech had Noah.
• Noah had three sons by the time he was 500 years old: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
• Perhaps later on I will go through this chapter in more detail to see just how long (how many years) it took for man to get to such a state that God would cause a flood.

Genesis 6

Head for the hills!  There’s a flood coming!

• The ‘sons of God’ started to want to wed the beautiful women of the human race.  Regardless of who exactly the ‘sons of God’ refers to (whether angels or Seth’s descendants or another group), this shows that sin is getting worse…
• God says that the people will live no more than 120 years.  My study Bible makes a good point: some commentators interpret it to mean that God was giving the people in Noah’s time 120 years to turn back to Him.
• Giants resulted from the sons of God having intercourse with human women.
• God was sorry he ever made people.  “…It broke his heart” (Gen. 6:6).  So God decided to destroy the human race and the animals.
• Noah was close to God… and apparently the only one!  God told Noah his plan to wipe out all living creatures on the earth.
• God commanded Noah to build a boat that would be longer than a football stadium (450 feet), 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.  It should have 3 decks – a lower, middle, and upper one.  A male of female of each kind of animal, as well as Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives would board the boat.  God also told Noah to take enough food for his family and the animals.
• Noah did everything God told him to do.

Genesis 7

• More detail is given about what will board the boat —  seven pairs of each animal that would be used for eating and sacrifice, as well as seven pairs of every kind of bird.  One pair of everything else.
• There will be forty days and nights of rain.
• The flood began two months and seventeen days after Noah’s 600th birthday.  Noah’s family and the animals were safe on the boat.
• Verse 11 says “…the underground waters burst forth…”.  Remember the water that was underground that God used to water the plants during the Creation?  I believe that this is that same water that is bursting forth.  Also, remember how the sky separated the waters below and the waters above?  Perhaps all this rain came from the water above the sky.  This is just what I think… but the Bible does say for sure that the waters burst forth from underground.
• The waters came to more than twenty-two feet above the peak of the highest mountain.  Everything that was living died.  Only those in this boat survived.
• The water covered the earth for 150 days…

Genesis 8

• God sent wind to make the flood go away.  After the 150 days (my Bible says this time is exactly five months as well), the boat rested on the mountains of Ararat.  After another two and a half months, other mountain peaks were visible.
• Fast forward forty more days.  Noah sends out a raven, which flies around until the earth was dry.
• Noah also sent out a dove, which returned since it could not find a place to land.  After seven days, Noah sent the dove out again.  It returned with an olive leaf.  After another seven days, Noah sent it out again, and it did not return (so the earth is drying up – the dove found a place to land and stay).
• After twelve and a half months, God told Noah it was time to leave the boat.  Over a full year in a boat!
• All the animals were released so that they could replenish the earth again.
• What’s Noah’s first response to getting off the boat?  Building an altar and sacrificing some of those sacrificial animals that were on the boat to God.  Noah sure is one genuine guy!
• God was pleased with the sacrifice.  While He acknowledges that people are inherently evil starting as early as childhood, God says to Himself that He will never again curse the earth or destroy all living things.

Genesis 1-4

I know this passage deals with the Creation and the introduction of sin.  A great deal of in-depth discussion could be posted here, but my purpose in this first run-through of the Bible is to just highlight the main points… a Sparknotes summary of the Bible, if you will.

Genesis 1

The Creation

1. God made the heavens and earth.  I take this to mean the clouds, galaxies, the universe, and the earth.  The simple fact that it says the heavens (huge, immense, and lots of stuff) and the earth makes me think that the earth is pretty significant in God’s eyes (comparing something so large to something so small).  God also made light, which separated night and day.
2. God made a space to separate the “…waters above from the waters below.” (Gen. 1:7)  The space is called sky… so this makes me think there used to be water above the sky and water below the sky.
3. God made land to separate the seas.  All sorts of plants were also made on the land.
4. God made the sun, moon, and stars.  These separated the seasons and the light and darkness.  They were made the day after plants were made.  Interesting…
5. God made fish and other life in the water.  He also made birds.  He blessed them and commanded them to multiply.
6. Land animals were created.  After this, God created people in His own image.  We are “…masters over all life…” (Gen. 1:26).  We are also commanded to multiply, as well as to subdue the earth.  The plants are to be our food for now.

God saw everything that He had made thus far to be good.

Genesis 2

• God rested on the seventh day.  He declared it a holy day.
• There was no rain.  God made water to come up from the ground to water the land.  Man could cultivate the soil to help the plants grow.  God used dust and His own breath of life to create man… God breathed into man!
• God put the man he created in a garden, Eden, he planted in the east.  At the center was the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
• A river with four branches flowed through the garden.  This probably has relevance, but I’m unsure what for.
• God put the man in the garden and told him to eat any fruit except that of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  If he did, he would die.
• In verse 19, the first reference to Adam is made in the New Living Translation.  I’m assuming this is “the man” as referred to before, but again, I’m not positive.
  
• Adam named all the animals.
• God sees that “…’It is not good for the man to be alone…” (Gen. 2:18).  So He makes a companion from one of Adam’s ribs (He took one while Adam was asleep).  Adam called his companion a woman (she is part of himself).
• Adam and his wife were both naked but were not ashamed of it.

Genesis 3

• That stupid serpent… it asked the woman if she couldn’t eat from all of the fruit in the garden.  Temptation!  She replied with a half-truth: she says that they can’t eat from the tree at the center of the garden (she didn’t say they couldn’t eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but I’m guessing she was referring to that tree).  But she also says she can’t even touch it. How many times have I myself not been able to tell something about God accurately…?
• The serpent says it will open her eyes to see both good and evil.  Makes sense since the name of the tree is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil….  But the serpent also lied, saying she would be just like God.  Bad serpent.  Bad, bad serpent.
• The woman took it and gave some to her husband.  Why were they right next to the tree?  At any rate, they found out they were naked and covered themselves with fig leaves.
• God called out to Adam that evening.  He hid because he was naked.  God knew instantly what had happened.
• Adam blamed the woman, and the woman blamed the serpent.  It was the blame game, but nobody won.  The serpent was cursed and now had to crawl on its belly (did it have legs before?), the woman will have pain in childbearing and be subject to her husband, and Adam will have to struggle to earn a living from a ground that will now grow thorns and thistles.  Death is also introduced.  Reminds me of Romans 6:23…
• At this point, the Bible says Adam named his wife Eve (she is the mother of all people).  This is a good reason for me to believe that Adam and Eve are indeed the first man and woman (so that earlier, when the Bible said man and woman, I assumed it refers to Adam and Eve).
• God made Adam and Eve clothing from animal skins.
• Since people now knew good and evil like God, God banished Adam and Eve from Eden so they would  not eat from the tree of life (I heard a really good discussion about this in Sunday School one Sunday… was God protecting Adam and Eve?).
• God placed cherubims to the east of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis 4

• Adam and Eve have Cain and Abel.
• Cain became a farmer and Abel a shepherd… note that they have occupations now, since they have to work for a living to survive.
• Cain brought God a gift of produce, while Abel brought a gift of the best lambs from his flock.  God accepted Abel’s offering but not Cain’s (the Bible does not say why, but perhaps it was due to Cain’s attitude or sin in his life?).
• Cain go mad and killed Abel.  When God asked Cain where Abel was, Cain lied, saying that he did not know.  God then made Cain a fugitive and banished him from his current place of residence.
• Cain feared that someone would kill him, seeing him as a fugitive (talk about family problems! I’m assuming that the human race was still just Adam, Eve, and their children…).  God said the person that killed Cain would have seven times his punishment!
• Cain settled in Nod, a place to the east of Eden and married someone.  They had a son, Enoch.
• 5 generations after Cain, Lamech (from Cain’s lineage) was attacked by a youth, and Lamech killed him.  Apparently the curse of Cain was on Lamech too, as he said that anyone that kills him will be punished seventy-seven times as much as someone who kills Cain.
• Adam and Eve give birth to Seth, whom Eve said God gave her in place of Abel.
• Seth had a son Enosh.  During Enosh’s lifetime, people first began to worship the Lord.

The Purpose

I have a few purposes in beginning this blog.

• Firstly, I wish to make myself accountable to reading the Bible.
• I would also like to help others come closer to Christ.
• I hope that it can start conversation about different passages of Scripture and different topics about Christianity, so we can all learn more about our faith.

I am going to begin by writing notes everyday on the passages of Scripture I read.  I plan to be reading from the New Living Translation.  The notes will be recorded on this blog for others to discuss and for a personal reference.  Comments and conversation are warmly welcomed, as we all may learn something from it or encourage each other by it.

After I have gone through the entire Bible, I hope to either discuss topics of Christianity or study individual passages in more detail.

I hope you get something from reading these posts.