Tag: flood

Those Who Wander

Posted on by jovial_cynic
I think we’re meant to understand that the characters in Genesis know the previous stories in the text. Noah likely knows about the Garden of Eden; Abraham knows about the Flood.

And I think Sarah kicks Ishmael out because she knows the story of Cain and Abel. She’s afraid.

I think this is also a cipher. The text points back, not just to give us some extra character detail, but to tell *us* to look back at what is happening.

Ishmael and Isaac are linked to Cain and Abel.

We wonder about Cain’s offering and how God feels about him, but the text isn’t clear. We know that Cain left the face, or presence, of God, and God placed a mark of protection on him.

Does God love Cain? Is Cain in God’s heart, despite Cain’s wandering?

Perhaps this story of Ishmael’s exile gives us a clue.

Hagar and Ishmael are גָּרַשׁ (garash) “driven out” from Abraham’s household. It’s this same word in Gen 3:24 when Adam and Eve are exiled from the garden. It’s also the same word Cain uses when he wanders in Gen 4:13.

If these stories are linked, the way God treats Ishmael tells us how he viewed Cain and how he viewed Adam and Eve.

God heard the boy crying; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Get up, lift up the boy, and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

And God was with the boy, and he grew; and he lived in the wilderness and became an archer. He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
Genesis 21:17-21 (NASB)

And perhaps how he views us when we wander.

Abimelech’s Challenge

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But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, “Lord, will You slay a righteous nation also?”
Genesis 20:4 (NKJV)

When Abimelech, who does not know Abraham’s God, is challenged by God in a dream, his response is fascinating.

“Will you slay a righteous nation as well?”

On the one hand, Abimelech defends himself and his actions, so his statement can be rendered this way: If you destroy this nation with me in it, you’ll have destroyed a righteous man.

This links to the previous chapter, where a city was destroyed.

On the other hand, Sodom and Gomorrah are like the wicked world destroyed in the flood. The rabbis say that Abimelech’s word might be as follows:

“If this is how You judged the generation of the Flood and the generation of the Dispersion, perhaps they too were innocent.”

You might think, “how could Abimelech possibly dare to speak to God like this?!”

Perhaps this is why God came to him *in a dream,* and why Abimelech merely refers to God as Adonai, and not as the divine name or as God Himself.

Flood and Fire

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But he urged them strongly, so they turned his way and entered his house. He prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
Genesis 19:3 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS, 2006)

There are all sorts of links between the Genesis flood and the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but the theme of alcohol afterwords is striking.

The rabbis point out that the word “feast” here in Hebrew means a “drinking feast.” That’s what מִשְׁתֶּה means.

A feast. Literally, “a drinking feast.” Lot offered them wine because he was fond of it himself.
Sforno on Genesis 19:3

The teaching isn’t that alcohol is “bad,” but perhaps it’s one of those things that people turn to after grief of loss, and when they do, it leads to greater grief and shame.

Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside.
Genesis 9:20-22 (NIV)

One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.”

That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up.
Genesis 19:31-33 (NIV)

This is a kind of idolatry.

Perhaps the angels abstained to give this hint.

Weeping with God

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The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do…?”
Genesis 18:17 (NIV)

The word “hide” in Genesis 18:17 isn’t the word khabah (חָבָא) that Adam used in Genesis 3:8-10. Khabah means to hide away to avoid being seen. It’s secretive.

God uses the word kasaw (כָּסָה), which is the same word used to describe Japheth and Shem covering Noah, shielding him. They aren’t trying to conceal their father. They are protecting him from shame and grief.

Similarly, God is not musing over obsecuring the truth from Abraham. It’s heavier than that. God is about to break Abraham’s heart by bringing him into the same grief that God experienced back in Genesis 6. It’s a spiritual and emotional burden.

So the Lord was sorry that He had made mankind on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
Genesis 6:6 (NIV)

Now, in the prior chapter, the rabbis suggest a special union was made between Abraham and God through Covenant. This brought in the divine Presence and in-dwelling of God into Abraham and changed the relationship. In this new relationship, God says: “You will share in my glory; and you will share in my heartache.”

So when God asks, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do,” this marks the first instance where a man of God is being brought into that heartache on a personal level. Abraham’s response gives us a clearer picture of God’s heart.

When God destroyed the world by flood, the text says that the thoughts and intents of the heart of all man was evil continually, except for Noah. Would God have destroyed the world if there were even more righteous people?

Look at Abraham’s words that reveal God’s heart.

Abraham approached and said, “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous people within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?”
Genesis 18:23-25 (NIV)

So when Abraham pleads with God, asking “What if there are 50 righteous people in the city? What if there are 40? 30? What if there are only 10?”, we are shown the kind of consideration God gave back in Genesis 6. God’s own heart broke over the rising wickedness.

Later, fire falls from the night sky to destroy the cities.

We have to picture Abraham watching and weeping, coming to the realization that there weren’t even ten righteous people in the city, just like there weren’t even two righteous people in the world before the flood.

Abraham weeps. God weeps.

“Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?”

If you walk with God, you will weep, too.

Totally Wicked

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But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.
Genesis 9:4-5 (NIV)

Someone recently commented that God’s prohibition on eating meat with blood in it pointed to the pre-flood world being filled with people who literally ate other humans alive.

Maybe! The world was described as completely, totally wicked, and this certainly enters the imagination.

Loving the Dirt

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Genesis is full of patterns, and a break in a pattern is meant to call your attention to it.

There’s a break in the pattern with Noah, and it is profound.

In Genesis 5, we have this repeating pattern in the genealogy. A person was born, they had a son, then they had other sons and daughters, and then they died. Over and over again, from Adam to Lamech.

But not so with Noah.

You might first think, “Well, of course not with Noah. Noah is still alive by the end of Genesis 5,” and you’d be right. He is.

But jump to the end of Genesis 9, and what do you see?

After the flood Noah lived 350 years. Noah lived a total of 950 years, and then he died.
Genesis 9:28-29 (NIV)

Where is the “and had other sons and daughters?” It’s missing.

Remember – the pattern (and deviations from it) IS the story. And in the case of children, it is explicitly tied to the blessing of “be fruitful and multiply” in Genesis 9:7.

But Noah is not fruitful. He does not multiply. This is meant to catch your attention.

The rabbis wondered about this. In the Midrash, one teaching suggests Ham’s sin wasn’t about “shaming dad’s nakedness,” but rather was about castration. In doing this, he prevented Noah from having more children. So Noah retaliates against Ham’s child.

Another view points to Leviticus, where the phrase “your father’s nakedness” comes into view, and it’s associated with sleeping with your father’s wife, although this is generally about a second wife, and not one’s own mother. But maybe Ham is Oedipus?

The nakedness of your father’s wife you shall not uncover; it is your father’s nakedness.
Leviticus 18:8 (NKJV)

I have another view.

When Noah is reintroduced in Genesis 9:21, we are told he is a “man of the soil.” Literally, Noah is “ish ha’adamah.”

Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard.
Genesis 9:20 (NIV)

This word “ish” does mean “man,” but when we first saw this word, it was in Genesis 2, when man met his wife: Ish and Isha. Husband and Wife.

Perhaps Noah fell in love with the ground. Perhaps he first loved the Creator, and then turned and loved the created thing, and devoted all of his time to it, neglecting God and his own wife.

How much dedication does it take to tend a vineyard so you can get drunk from it?

In any event, this is my view. In Jewish studies, this is called “drash,” and it’s only as true as it holds up to other clear teachings/truths in the Torah.

From this drash, I see: love God, love your neighbor. Don’t love the earth or the things in it above people and God.

A Covering

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Now it came about in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first of the month, that the water was dried up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the surface of the ground had dried up.
Genesis 8:13 (NASB)

If you’ve been paying very close attention to the boat building project, you’ll see something odd in Genesis 8.

Noah removes a “covering” that was never mentioned before. It’s meant to be understood like a giant sheet. It must have been massive.

This Hebrew word for “covering” is new to the text. We haven’t seen it before, but it comes up again in Exodus, when the Tabernacle is being described. It, too, is being covered.

The cubit on one side and the cubit on the other, of what is left over in the length of the curtains of the tent, shall hang over the sides of the tabernacle on one side and on the other, to cover it. And you shall make a covering for the tent of rams’ skins dyed red and a covering of fine leather above.
Exodus 26:13-14 (NASB)

The next time we see this covering happen is when the Ark of the Covenant is being described in Numbers.

When the camp sets out, Aaron and his sons shall go in and take down the veil of the curtain, and cover the ark of the testimony with it; and they shall place a covering of fine leather on it, and spread over it a cloth of pure violet, and insert its carrying poles.
Numbers 4:5-6 (NASB)

In these two later cases, the Holy Place is being covered.

But in Genesis, the ark is being uncovered.

And if we see this symbols of Holy Places being covered and uncovered, perhaps we should consider the contents.

In the Ark of the Covenant, there are three things: the 10 commandments in stone, Aaron’s staff, and a golden pot of manna.

In the Arc of of the Flood, Noah has THREE sons.

Perhaps these three things are related. Perhaps it points to the future.

And on this mountain He will destroy the covering which is over all peoples,
The veil which is stretched over all nations.
He will swallow up death for all time,
And the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces,
And He will remove the disgrace of His people from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken.
Isaiah 25:7-8 (NASB)

In the Dark

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Genesis 8:6 says 40 days, but this is not the 40 days of rain at the start.

Before this verse, it says that after the rains, in the tenth month is when the ark bumps into the top of Ararat. That’s when Noah opens the window. So a LOT of time has passed.

In the dark.

At the end of forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made.
Genesis 8:6 (The Contemporary Torah, JPS 2006)

On the Boat, Off the Boat

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Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives.
Genesis 8:15-16 (NIV)

God told Noah to enter the Ark. Twelve months later, God told Noah to exit the Ark.

A Midrash points to a Psalm and says it’s about Noah, crying out to be freed from the Ark.

“God spoke to Noah, saying: Go out of the ark” – “release me from confinement to thank Your name. The righteous, through me, will give glory when You perform kindness with me” (Psalms 142:8). “Release me from confinement [masger]” – this refers to Noah, who had been confined to the ark for twelve months.
Bereshit Rabbah 34:1

Perhaps. But I wonder if he didn’t want off the boat. He would have to face the world again.