Tag: slavery

Slave of Sarai

Posted on by jovial_cynic

The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
Genesis 16:7-8 (NIV)

When the angel first speaks to Hagar, he identifies her as “slave of Sarai,” and the rabbis debated over why this title is applied. Isn’t slavery bad?

It may be that the angel was telling her that she would be a slave forever, stating that this is her identity.

But there is another view, and it’s far more hopeful. After saying “slave of Sarai,” the angel draws a line in the sand:

Where have you come from?
Where are you going?

In these questions, perhaps clarity is given to us: the blessing Hagar is about to receive is not because of her status as an Egyptian, where hard labor and works defined her worth, but as her status as a member of the house of Abram. Of the blessings of God.

It’s awful that Sarai is harsh and cruel and that she chooses vengeance instead of grace, and that Abram says nothing. We can be that way at times.

Despite this, perhaps the angel is affirming Hagar’s proximity to God’s blessing. Perhaps it’s not about her her slave status.

If you’ve been mistreated by the people of God, but long to draw near to God anyway, perhaps the angel of God will come to you and ask you the same:

Where have you come from?
Where are you going?

God is with you.

Strange Fire

Posted on by jovial_cynic

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on the fire and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them.
Leviticus 11:1 (NASB)

I recently read a post regarding the “Strange Fire” of Leviticus 10:1. Aaron’s sons are killed for burning an incense that God had not commanded. The post said that God just hates when we do stuff without permission and that we should take God very seriously.

This is a bad teaching.

For starters, this wasn’t some new issue that just came up out of nowhere. God had already told them about “strange” fire and incense in Exodus. He already told them “Don’t do it.”

You shall not offer any strange incense on this altar, or burnt offering, or meal offering; and you shall not pour out a drink offering on it.
Exodus 30:9 (NASB)

But what makes a fire or flame “strange?”

Perhaps an answer is given to us in Leviticus 6: a strange fire is any fire that didn’t come from the continually burning fire that God provided.

The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it. It shall not go out, but the priest shall burn wood on it every morning; and he shall lay out the burnt offering on it, and offer up in smoke the fat portions of the peace offerings on it. Fire shall be kept burning continually on the altar; it is not to go out.
Leviticus 6:12-13 (NASB)

Good fire is GOD’S fire.

Therefore, strange fire is man’s fire. It’s not good.

So what does this have to do with Genesis?

Back in Genesis 11, we learned that Shinar and the bricks of the Tower of Babel point to Empire. Slavery. Bondage. Ur of the Chaldeans means “FLAME of the Chaldeans.” These bricks are baked in Babylonian furnaces, fueled by humanity. The furnaces are fueld by us.

Strange Fire consumes us. It devours us. It spends us like fuel to keep the machine of Empire and slavery burning. And not just us. Our children as well.

Jeremiah, in his outcry against Israel repeats this warning. This the fire God “did not command,” echoing Leviticus 11.

They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, and it did not come into My mind.
Jeremiah 7:31 (NASB)

The Fire of Man is lit to bake the bricks of bondage, idolatry, and confusion.

The Fire of God stays continually burning and is the source of Life for those who seek Light and Warmth.

Thick as a Brick

Posted on by jovial_cynic

They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
Genesis 11:3 (NIV)

The Hebrew word for “bricks” is found twice in this verse, and then seven times in Exodus.

Isn’t that interesting? It’s like the writers want to show us something about this word. They want us to look more closely.

Here, a point is made: Bricks instead of stone.

What’s significant about bricks and stones? Why the distinction? There are clues in the following verse.

And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
Genesis 11:4 (NKJV)

Verse 4 shows us arrogance and pride. Maybe it’s our accomplishments and self-sufficiency, and patting ourselves on the back.

But actually, it’s much worse than that.

“Let’s make A NAME for ourselves.”

What’s lost in the English is that this word “name” (שֵׁם) has a quirky meaning in Hebrew. It’s the same word as a certain person’s name: Shem. That’s right. Shem’s name means “name.” And as we learned in the last chapter, Shem is BLESSED.

But the Jewish reader will also note that one of the designations for God is “HaShem,” which means “THE NAME.”

So when the people said “Let’s make A NAME for ourselves,” this is heavily packed with meaning: “Let’s seize our own blessing. Let’s make a god for ourselves.”

This is idolatry, but it’s a kind of idolatry that’s going to be echoed later in Scripture.

When Israel is delivered from Egypt and are given the 10 commandments, it starts with a reminder of their freedom.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before Me.
Exodus 20:2-3 (NASB)

It’s in this context of deliverance from slavery that the bricks come up again in the story:

Exodus 1:14 – Bondage and bricks
Exodus 5:7 – Make bricks
Exodus 5:8 – Quota of bricks
Exodus 5:16 – Make bricks
Exodus 5:18 – Quota of bricks
Exodus 5:19 – Daily task of bricks

They were delivered from bondage, from the land of slavery under the Egyptian gods, but they were also spared from God’s wrath, poured like a flood against those who harmed His people.

So God cautioned Israel: Have no other gods; idolatry is intrinsically tied to bondage.

But in the land of Shinar, the people forgot about the flood and God’s mighty hand that preserved humanity in an ark. “Let us make a name for ourselves,” they said, and they stepped into the slavery of brick-making for the first time.

But there’s a problem.

There aren’t enough bricks to make a proper name for yourself, friend. You’ll keep building towards heaven and never get there.

If I make enough money…
If I parent well enough…
If I have enough followers…
If I drive the nicest car…
If I work hard and get that promotion…

“MAKE MORE BRICKS!” the slaver demands.

It’s like Cain’s rejected sacrifice: “Look what I acquired!” as his first-fruits burned to ash. Perhaps his sacrifice was burned atop an alter of bricks.

God doesn’t seem to desire this.

A people who continually provoke Me to My face,
Offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on bricks;
Isaiah 65:3 (NASB)

In fact, what God wants is an altar of made of uncut stones, just the way they were found in the ground. Just stones in a pile, big enough to make an offering, as though the rocks are a reminder of who we are, and where we’ve come from. God just wants our whole selves.

And if you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not build it of cut stones, for if you wield your chisel on it, you will profane it.
Exodus 20:25 (NASB)

So the lesson I see is that every vain pursuit of “making a name for yourself” is ultimately a pursuit of idols. A pursuit of your own claim to a blessing. A pursuit of a god who will reward you and cheer your ever-growing tower.

This always leads to slavery and confusion.

Furnaces of Babylon

Posted on by jovial_cynic

They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
Genesis 11:3 (NIV)

The sages highlighted the bricks of Babel and point us to the bricks of slavery in Egypt. They also point us to the furnaces of Babylon.

There is a rabbinical teaching: “There are no stones in Babylon.” The story of the Tower of Babel is much darker than it first appears.

Now, you might think that this is strange, but it turns out that the rabbis weren’t simply giving us a metaphor or esoteric teaching about stones. In fact, the region of Babylonia simply has such few rocks that even pebbles were considered precious.

From the Wikipedia article on Babylonian ancient art:

In addition, the want of stone in Babylonia made every pebble precious and led to a high perfection of the art of gem-cutting.

So when Israel was told that they could only make altars from uncut stones (Exodus 20:25), this must have created an ache in the heart of God’s faithful during the Babylonian Exile: no temple, and no stones for altars.

All they had was the scriptures.

In land without stones, the Empire of Babylon grew from their invention of kiln-fired bricks – bricks that were “baked thoroughly,” according to Genesis. In Hebrew, they were “לִשְׂרֵפָ֑ה וְנִשְׂרְפָ֖ה.”

“Burned until burnt.” Totally engulfed with flames.

For the student of the scripture, this should make one’s ears perk up. It was meant to.

Where else have we heard about a furnace —in Babylon— with a fire so hot, the Hebrew word for “burning” is used multiple times to give emphasis?

It’s in Daniel. God’s faithful men were thrown into a giant Babylonian furnace for refusing to bow to the King’s statue.

A furnace meant to product the bricks of slavery. A furnace big enough to be fueled by humanity.

Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual.
Daniel 3:19 (NIV)

The Tower of Babel, which means “confusion,” provides us with a key to unlock understanding: the bricks of Egypt… the furnaces of Babylon… they both point to slavery. Captivity. And they both provide a starting point.

The darkness of the Egyptian empire. The darkness of the Babylonian empire.

But then God said, “Let there be Light.”

Not the light from the flames of humanity’s furnaces, fueled by our efforts, but the very Light of God, which comes to set His people free.

“There are no stones in Babylon.”

Without a temple and stones to build an altar, God’s people longed for deliverance.

When Abraham was first called away from his Babylonian home, God gave him a Promise, and there he built an altar. With stones.

The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
Genesis 12:7 (NIV)

Friend, God calls us away from Babylon, from the place without stones of remembrance, away from reliance on Empire, and away from the furnaces built to consume you.

Abraham and his family departed “Ur of the Chaldeans.”

“Ur” means flames.

God is delivering you from this.

Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there.
Genesis 11:31 (NIV)

A Problem with Noah

Posted on by jovial_cynic
Noah is a problematic character for mainline Christian theology, which suggests that once a man is “saved” or “declared righteous,” they are sort of on an upward trajectory forever, getting better with age like a fine wine.

But the rabbis point out four things about Noah. Narratively, Noah introduces the following to humanity:

1. Planting – he plants a vineyard.
2. Drunkenness – he shames himself with wine.
3. Curses – he curses his grandson.
4. Slavery – he condemns his grandson’s house to slavery.

We tend to leave out the Genesis 9 parts of Noah’s life when we teach Sunday School to little children, but there they are in glaring detail.

There’s obviously nothing wrong with planting, but Noah’s other 3 actions seem quite disastrous.

From Genesis 5 to 8, we see a man who obeys God; his heart appears inclined towards God.

But in Genesis 9, we have a different picture. I can’t help but see an angry, bitter man who yells at his grandchildren, drowning himself in wine to cope with the tragedy of the flood.

It’s a tragic end. But God uses him.

Empires

Posted on by jovial_cynic
Until recently, I’ve assumed that every empire in scripture (Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Rome, etc.) represented wickedness. But the more I’m reading through Genesis 14, the more I’m coming to a different conclusion. Perhaps Empire is not the culmination of wickedness. It is the culmination of man.

The shift for me here is that empire does represent bondage and slavery, and these things are definitely not good. But they are not the same as “wickedness,” which is also not good, but they are different, and treated differently in the text.