INHERITANCE (Genesis 49)

Jacob's farewell blessings to his son is one of my favorite parts of Genesis. In spite of the history of rivalry and favoritism, Jacob understood his sons. He knew their natures, and he gave each one "the blessing appropriate to him." (Genesis 49:28, NIV)

So I'm not sure how I missed this before. Some of the so-called blessings read more like back-handed compliments, like Issachar: "When he saw how good the place was, how pleasant the country, he gave up his freedom and went to work as a slave." (Genesis 49:14-15)

Two of the brothers didn't even receive that much. They received, not a blessing, not a criticism, but a downright curse: Simeon and Levi. The two brothers had killed the men of Shechem after the prince raped their sister, but Jacob's words suggest their tempers continued unabated throughout their lives. He said, "A curse on their uncontrolled anger, on their indiscriminate wrath." (Genesis 49:7)  

The terms of their curse? They would be scattered throughout Israel instead of having land of their own.

That sounds close to disinheriting his sons to me. 

In case you're wondering, Jacob's prophecy did come true. As the priestly tribe, Levi received no land; and Simeon's allotment was swallowed up by Judah. 


But think about that. From the riotous, angry, murdering, Levi came the lawgiver Moses. (Come to think of it, Moses was a murderer too. Hmm.)  And of course his brother Aaron instituted the priesthood. 

God took the curse and turned it into something amazingly beautiful.  Like He had already done with using Joseph to save the known world during the famine. 

What harm I do or intend - and no matter what harm has been done to me - doesn't write "the end."

It only ends when God says so. Changed. Redeemed.

Praise the Lord. 

NOT FAR ENOUGH (Genesis 33-35)

Jacob must have thought he had the worst of his problems behind him. God had protected him from Uncle Laban's anger and given him a miraculous reconciliation with his brother Esau. When he arrived in Shechem, he built an altar to "El Elohe Israel," The Mighty God of Israel. He was praising God, and perhaps bragging a tiny bit as well. 

Oh, yes, not to mention the name change from Jacob, heel or supplanter, to Israel, God-Wrestler.

Instead Jacob's sons Simeon and Levi put him the greatest danger yet. One of the local boys fell in love with their sister, Dinah. He raped her, but loved her enough to wish to marry her. Jacob and Shechem arranged a treaty for intermarriage and exchange on one condition: that the men of Shechem be circumcised.

While they were recovering from the procedure, Simeon and Levi slaughtered all the men in the town. Jacob scolded them. "Now everybody will want to kill us!"

Funny how God appeared to be quiet all through these events. 

When God did speak up, He told Jacob, "Go back to Bethel. To where I appeared to you in a dream."

Jacob had returned to Canaan - but perhaps he hadn't gone far enough. Settling near Shechem left him and his family vulnerable to the temptations of intermarrying with the Canaanites and becoming indistinguishable from the people of the land. 

God directed him to go farther. To go all the way back to Bethel, in fact. To revisit the place where he met God in a time of renewed commitment. 

I suspect we all do this to a certain extent. We obey God--up to a point. And often God has to prod us to go all the way. 

I'd love to hear your stories of times God prodded you to go farther. 

MOVING DAY (Genesis 31-32)

Jacob had a problem. Make that at least three problems: Uncle Laban and his sons (the plural indicates at least two sons and maybe more.) After twenty years, a lot of Laban's wealth had transferred from uncle to nephew, and they were jealous.

Unlike earlier times in his life, Jacob hadn't cheated his way into fortune; rather, Laban kept trying to cheat him (remember substituting Leah for Rachel on his wedding night?) by changing his wages, but God turned the tables each time, until Jacob ended up with more, and stronger, animals. 

Jacob was under pressure and discussed it with his wives. He didn't know what to do.

That's when God showed up--and told him it was time to go home, to the place where he was born. 

In fact, the mixture of dream, circumstances, and family councils so blend together that Jacob's description of the dream from his father's God sounds a bit like Tevye's dream from Fiddler on the Roof. Final proof that they should pursue a course of action Jacob always thought was best. 

The events that forced Jacob to leave make me wonder if he had settled in Haran and never expected to go home again. 

It reminds me of my own decision to leave Colorado. I arrived in Denver in 1990 and immediately felt at home. It still holds my heart and many of my most precious memories. If God hadn't intervened, I doubt I would ever have chosen to leave. 

But God did act. My daughter died. The job I had loved for nine years changed and I no longer found the same joy in going in to work. My mother's health declined, and she had to move out of our shared apartment into assisted living. 

At the same time, my son had married and settled in Oklahoma--and was expecting his first child. The siren call of family made it clear the time had come to leave my much loved home of Colorado and go to Oklahoma. 

Like with Jacob, God had to force me out of a comfortable place to another place where He would bless in ways I never ever dreamed. (but that's a story for another day)

How about you? Has God, and how has He, made it clear it was time for you to leave your comfort zone? 

TWISTS AND TURNS (Genesis 27-28)

Today I read the passages where Jacob stole Esau's birthright, fled Canaan in fear for his life, and received a vision of a ladder reaching up to heaven. 

The sense I received in reading this passage was that the covenant God gave Abraham hinged on Jacob. Isaac asked God to pass the blessing on to Jacob, before he left on his journey. Jacob recognized that he had a choice to make. After the vision of the ladder, he said he would call God his God if He did everything He promised.

God's plan to bless the world through Abraham's descendants hinged on a series of events beginning in Rebekah's womb and lasting for years to come. What a complex, human, personal twisting and turning of God's plan to benefit all of mankind took through Isaac and Jacob.

God knew all of that. . .and He risked it anyway.

It makes me wonder where the twists and turns of my journey will lead. I'm no Abraham nor Jacob. But God has plans for me and my influence beyond the confines of the nursing home. Only He knows how long and how far my life--and yours--will reach.