The Haven Church
Making Jesus Known in Sovereign Harbour
Bible Soap 2
Episode 8
“The Quiet Man”
I’ve given the story of Isaac the title ‘The Quiet Man’ because of the film with John Wayne. It’s an oldie (in colour) that goes on for ever, but only lasts for 129 minutes! But nothing much happens in the film! And with the story of Isaac there are 7 chapters in Genesis that cover his story, but very little happens. Isaac is like a transitional character. We have had Abraham the father of the faithful, and we will be moving on to Jacob and all that he goes through, but in between there is Isaac.
As Bible characters go Isaac is not up there with the famous. He was the son of a famous father and the father of a famous son.
But Isaac can teach us things about God and about family life. Remember that this series is called “Bible soap” with the subtitle, “The Adam’s Family”.
Isaac was the promised son – God chose his name (
We don’t hear anything about this family life until Isaac is full grown and God tells Abraham to offer him in sacrifice. And this is probably the only highpoint in Isaac’s life. He was a full grown man; he was probably stronger than his old dad; but he was willing to be offered to God in sacrifice.
What a hero!
He is totally obedient, even to death. That puts him on a level with Jesus, almost (Philippians 2: 8).
It’s a pity that he doesn’t keep it up. He gets married, he has kids and he settles into a typical domestic life. And, it seems, he forgets God.
But his marriage is worth looking at. Chapter 24 is the longest chapter in the book of Genesis and it tells the story of Isaac meeting Rebekah.
Isaac is 40 years old and Abe decides it’s time he should get married. But Abe didn’t like the neighbours. It’s always a good move if you are looking for a wife to check out the family background and Abe knew the family background of the Canaanites – it wasn’t good. So the only place he could find a suitable girl for his boy was from his own family. And so his servant, Eliezer of Damascus is sent out to find a wife from Abe’s family. And he finds Isaac’s cousin’s daughter, Rebekah . It involves camels and wells and things like that which I won’t go into.
But the important thing in fairytale/soap language is that for Ike and Becky it’s love at first sight (Genesis 24: 62-67).
And then Abraham dies, but before he goes he writes his will and with the exception of a few gifts he gives everything to Isaac (25: 5-6) which makes Isaac quite rich as he starts his married life.
But as with Abraham, Isaac finds that he can’t produce children – it’s 20 years before they are able to have children. You’ll notice in both cases the woman gets blamed! In Sarah’s case it’s right because Abe has a son with Hagar, but it does look like infertility runs in this family!!
Isaac knew that God was going to make a great nation of his descendants, but it was 20 years of childlessness before they pray consistently for this child (well, twins as it turned out).
Both these boys had the same parents, but they turned out so different, but more of that next time.
The next event in Isaac’s life is when yet another famine hits the Promised Land (26: 1) . And what does Isaac do? He learns from his dad’s mistakes and does the same thing! He goes to the Philistines. What is different in this case is that God appears to Isaac and says, (26: 2-5). But if you read what God said to Isaac you can see that God is not impressed with Isaac (26: 4-5). It is because of Abe’s faithfulness, not Isaac’s!
I don’t know about you, but if God appeared to me and told me to stay where I am, with the assurance that He will bless me and give me all the land I would be a bit encouraged. But not Isaac! First God speaks to him, then the men of the place speak to him – 26: 7-11.
God has said He will bless Isaac and Isaac gets worried that these men will kill him because of his wife! Not too much faith being shown there!
After a while God blesses Isaac so much that the Philistines ask him to leave their country and he ends up back in the Promised Land. It is interesting to note that God is increasingly blessing Isaac, but it is not making him into a better person. It doesn’t guarantee his obedience of God. He cannot deny God’s blessing, but he still has free will and chooses to go against God’s plan.
It is when he is old that we get to see Isaac the family man. Isaac’s main flaw is that he had a favourite son. You find that in some families. There is one boy that stands out among the other children – he’s athletic or intelligent and he gets all the attention. Or there is one girl who has all the looks and charm and gets all the attention.
We have a book in our church library – very old but still up to date ("Hide or Seek") that talks about this issue. It is one of the techniques that soap operas use to get a storyline; it’s one of the major parts of so many fairy tales. Cinderella has two ugly sisters. Who decides that they are ugly – apart from the make up dept of the panto? The stepmother demonstrates that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. She doesn’t think her daughters are ugly, but she doesn’t think much of Cinderella.
The ugly duckling would not have been considered ugly if she had been brought up by swans!
There is a branch of psychotherapy that says all children are born princes and princesses, but their parents change them into frogs.
Isaac has given Jacob a bad name and most Bible teachers and preachers have accepted what Isaac did to Jacob as acceptable. But God didn’t agree with his assessment.
When the twins were conceived God told Isaac that Jacob would be the leader (Genesis 25: 23). But when it came to it Isaac tried to give the blessing to Esau, because Esau was his favourite.
Here’s how Genesis describes it – Genesis 25: 27-28. Even the translators ignore what the Bible says about Jacob. It doesn’t say he was ‘a quiet man’; it says ‘he was a Tam man’. That means he was blameless. It is the same word used to describe Job in Job 1: 8.
It took the scheming of Rebekah to make sure that Jacob received the blessing that Isaac was trying to give to Esau. Isaac was trying to cheat Jacob and fool God, but he failed. The technique wasn’t ideal, but the Bible never judges Rebekah, or Jacob. It judges Esau. And it doesn’t have much more to say about Isaac who leaves the Bible in disgrace. Hebrews
The problem develops in Jacob’s family, when he learns to show favouritism himself when he has children, but that is for a future episode.
Isaac himself lives on a lot longer than he expected to. He thought he was going when he gave the kids their blessings, but he actually lived another 45 years after this (Genesis 35: 28).
His older years are cloaked in silence. He whimpers away. There is no grand finale. No great achievement of faith. He disappears for the final 45 years of his life into oblivion. His death is mentioned to tidy up the facts.
Not a glorious end for a patriarch. But that’s what I was saying a few weeks ago. It’s not a question of how well we begin. It is how we end that counts.
Episode 9
The Family Man: part 1
Jacob is the Bible’s first family man. His story overlaps with Isaac’s story, so we will begin with him leaving home. This is where his life as a family man begins, as he goes to stay with his relatives 500 miles away and finds himself a wife. It’s a long story, so it will take more than one episode.
On the way to find his wife Jacob has an encounter with God. The blessing that Isaac gave him was not stolen. He hadn’t tricked his brother as so many preachers claim. God affirms that Jacob is the chosen son, by reaffirming the promise made to Abraham (28: 13-15). Do notice that this all took place in a dream. We remember Jacob’s famous son as the dreamer, but Jacob also had significant dreams. And Jesus shows himself as the fulfilment of this dream 2,000 years later (John
Then when Jacob wakes up he realises that God has spoken to him in a dream so he makes a deal with God 28: 20-22.
Then he arrives at the same well that his mum was at many years before when she was taken off to meet and marry his dad (29). His cousin Rachel was watering her sheep there. Jacob meets her and falls for her instantly.
Rachel was Laban’s younger daughter. Her older sister was called Leah and this is how they are described (29: 17). Jacob was attracted to Rachel and was in love with her. Physical attraction is a good start, but there was more to it than that (29: 18).
He is so in love with her that he agrees to work for Rachel – seven years hard labour. When the seven years have flown by (29: 20) he gets married (29: 23). Never get married in the dark! That’s the moral of this tale!
Jacob is naturally a bit put out and his uncle/father-in-law makes a lame excuse and another offer (29: 26-27).
He gets Rachel, who is now his sister-in-law, a week later, but then has to put in another seven years hard labour (29: 28).
Then it gets interesting! There wasn’t much else to do in those days and so we see the family begin to expand and grow.
As seems to happen in this family there is a case of childlessness, but at least there are two wives. And God is definitely involved in this process (29: 31).
Leah had Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah, and she hoped that these children would turn Jacob away from Rachel to her (v34).
Having children is not the best way to save a marriage and it certainly doesn’t make things easier in Jacob’s family. In fact, the more children he has the worse his home life seems to become. But Leah does show a dependence on God as she acknowledges that each child is a gift from God, not her right. We tend to forget that in our day of IVF and other available treatments, as well as child neglect and abuse. Every child is a gift from God and should be treated that way.
And Rachel gets annoyed that Jacob is obviously spending too much time with her sister, so she complains (30: 1). Her solution to the problem is learnt from grandmother Sarah who gave Abraham her maid servant. Rachel gives Jacob her maid servant Bilhah and suggests surrogacy. This didn’t work too well for Abraham and Sarah, but Rachel was willing to take the risk. Maybe things would work out differently for her. She was wrong!
But for now, there are a couple more children to add to the family: Dan and Naphtali.
So Leah thinks this looks like a good idea now that she has stopped producing children and she suggests surrogacy with her maid servant. And so Jacob now has two wives and two other women!
Leah’s servant, Zilpah produced Gad and Asher.
We now have 8 sons!
And then there is an interesting bit of bargaining going on. I don’t know what kind of a man Jacob was – he was fertile - but in 30: 14-16 you get this interesting little incident. Mandrakes were known as aphrodisiacs and Rachel was trying, but it backfired and Leah ‘hires’ Jacob for the night! And she gets pregnant again! Issachar is now born. And then Zebulun. And a bit later daughter Dinah is born. There are other daughters, but they are not named (Genesis 37: 35; 46: 7, 15).
And then Rachel gets pregnant and has Joseph.
And then Jacob goes back to work and asks Laban if he can go back home. But Laban knows when he is on to a good thing (30: 27).
Laban was not the most honest of men. It’s a pity that Abraham didn’t keep check on his distant relatives – he had thought that it was better to get a wife for his son Isaac from his own family rather than from the neighbourhood in which he was living, but now grandson Jacob is finding that the family has gone downhill a little over the years.
First of all Laban tricks him into marrying the wrong wife and now he wants to con him out of his earnings.
Jacob calls a family conference with his two wives to talk about their dad’s attitude towards him (31: 4-7).
He also tells them that God has called him back to the Promised Land (31: 11 & 13).
So Jacob clears off while Laban is shearing his sheep. The whole family go with him and they get a three day head start before Laban knows they have gone (31: 22) .
And then there is a wonderful scene where God steps in directly like a Mafia hit man and threatens Laban (31: 24).
And after Laban has a big argument with Jacob, Jacob reminds Laban of the threat (31: 42).
Then an uneasy truce is reached between Laban and Jacob and they set up a boundary between them (31: 48-50). These days you can get nice little necklaces to wear that contain the words, ‘May the lord keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other’.
Really romantic – well, that’s the intention, but it is not a prayer for protection in its original context. It is a threat! It’s saying, ‘If you don’t keep your end of the bargain you’ve had it’.
Laban goes back home and disappears from the Bible. We hear nothing more about him or his family.
And that’s where we are going to leave Jacob for now. He has 11 sons and at least one daughter; 2 wives; two other women; he’s fallen out with his in-laws and he’s about to be reconciled with his estranged brother Esau.
Jacob’s story is not about someone who decides to follow God and finds that life is easy. He decides to follow God; he follows God’s directions and he finds that life – especially family life – is very complicated and stressful.
But through it all he is following God. He is receiving blessings from God. He is living in this world and finding that life is not easy. There are blessings for him and those blessings spill over into the lives of the people around him, which is how it should be.
So if you find that life is not as simple and straightforward as you hoped it would be, don’t despair. God managed to pull Jacob through some of the most complicated family stuff that you could imagine – he had the one advantage that in his day social workers hadn’t been invented!
But apart from that, we have the same access to the same God that he had and with that we can trust God to see us through anything that life throws at us. Jacob was a winner and you can be one too.
Episode 10
The Family Man: part 2
We are at part two of Jacob’s story. We left him last time at the point where he has 11 sons and at least one daughter; 2 wives; two other women; he’s fallen out with his in-laws and he’s about to be reconciled with his estranged brother Esau.
So we pick up the story in chapter 32 of Genesis. Straight after his dispute with his in-laws and heading to meet his estranged brother, he runs into a group of angels (32: 1-2) like it’s the most natural thing. No comment is made about why they are there, but maybe they are to remind Jacob that he isn’t alone in the world. God is there even when we are not aware of his presence!
Jacob sends a messenger to his brother Esau to see about a reconciliation. Last time they had been together was 20 years earlier and Esau was threatening to kill Jacob, so you can imagine he’s a bit worried when his messenger came back with this message (32: 6).
Now 20 years earlier Rebekah had told Jacob she would send for him when Esau calmed down (27: 45). She never did send for him, so Jacob probably thought he was still mad with him.
Thinking he’s going to be attacked Jacob does two things: first of all he divides up his people and animals into two groups (32: 8).
Then he prays and it is quite a good prayer. He begins (32: 9). He’s reminding God that he’s only there because God told him to go back home. Then he thanks God for all his prosperity and then pleads for help, reminding God that He had promised Jacob: (v12).
The next thing he does after his prayer is to prepare three gifts for Esau (v14-15).
And then one of Jacob’s most famous experiences happens. Once again he meets an angel. This one has a wrestling match with him and wins.
The way Jacob divides his family up is interesting and leads to the family problems that come later (33: 1-3). If Esau was going to attack then Rachel and Joseph were going to be at the back, but his step-brothers wouldn’t have a chance! And they noticed!
The favouritism is there already. The maids’ children are in the firing line because they were not important to Jacob; Leah’s children were next, but the important wife and the favourite son were in the place of safety.
As it turned out Esau had missed his brother and he ran to kiss him. There was no need of a reconciliation because Esau had forgotten his death-threat.
The next incident introduces Jacob’s daughter Dinah. This is the first record of rape in the Bible! The rapist wanted to marry his victim and even his dad considered that acceptable. Just shows what the morals of the Canaanites were like! Jacob must have wondered what kind of place he had come to!
But then what were his own sons like! Simeon and Levi were a couple of murderers – well they soon would be!
There was a lot of dodgy dealing going on as the men of Shechem were planning on intermarrying with Jacob’s family and taking all his possessions for themselves, so in the end it worked out OK for Jacob – although I’m sure he would have preferred the bloodless version, to the Quentin Tarantino version that we have in the Bible, which sees everyone lying in pools of their own blood.
But where was Jacob in all this? He was the head of the home, but he sat back and let it all happen. His family was not turning out the way he had hoped at all!
After this incident Jacob gets a message from God to go back to
Just as Jacob is moving house again Rachel gives birth to Benjamin and dies in childbirth. This is 15 years after Joseph was born! She calls her son Ben-Oni ('Son of my trouble') but Jacob changes the name so that he doesn’t grow up with a complex – Benjamin means ‘son of my right hand’. So Jacob’s favourite wife is now dead and has left him 2 sons. They naturally become his favourites, which makes the other children feel second best .
God has just renewed his promise, but still his favourite wife dies in childbirth!
Then Reuben, Leah’s son, has sex with Rachel’s maid Bilhah. And Jacob heard about it. He doesn’t do anything yet, but there are always consequences and he gets disinherited later on.
And then Isaac dies. It’s not a happy time! God renews the blessing and the family starts to fall part! Where is the blessing in that?
Life still happens even when God is blessing. Maybe we need to see the bigger picture. Jacob wasn’t happy with what was happening in his family, but from a distance you can see God at work, despite what the individual members of his family get up to.
And then we get to the cause of Jacob’s biggest heartbreak. His favourite son Joseph (17 years old) is out with his stepbrothers – the sons of the two maids (37: 2) Dan & Naphtali; Gad & Asher. Benjamin is 2 years old at this time!
So far, 7 of the 12 sons have been a disappointment to Jacob. His family isn’t doing too well at all as the example of how to live in this world in a relationship with God.
It’s not all of the brothers who have a problem with Joe. But remember that when it came to possible trouble Jacob kept Joe safe while he put these brothers on the firing line. And then when Joe takes a bad report to Jacob they are not too happy with him.
The coat causes a problem with the whole lot of them (37: 3-4).
And then he has the first dream (v5). After the second dream Jacob says (v10). As Joseph’s mum is dead it is probably Leah that Jacob means. At this point Jacob is probably thinking that God is following the same pattern as before and is going to choose one of his sons to bless (v11). He doesn’t know that all 12 will become leaders of God’s people. That explains why he falls apart when he is told that Joseph is dead (v34-35).
It’s interesting that it is Leah’s sons who try to spare Joseph’s life (v21) . Reuben wanted to get back in Jacob’s good books. Then v26-27.
That’s where will leave Jacob. The story moves on to the events in two of his sons’ lives. Joseph takes up most of the story, but
It is not a perfect family by any means, but it is the family through whom God blesses the world.
I don’t know if there is a perfect family anywhere, but God is not looking for perfection, He is just looking for faithfulness. As we put him first and build our families on the foundation of his teaching, we will find his blessing.
Episode 11
Joseph and the amazing technicolour dreamcoat.
So his step-brothers get rid of Joseph and tell thieir father that his favourite son is dead, killed by a wild animal. They sell him to some passing Midianite traders who take him to Egypt to sell in the slave market.
He's sold to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's bodyguard, as a house slave.
This is family life at it's lowest. Where is God in this? This is soap life! All doom and gloom! Jacob fades out of the picture for a while here as the attention moves to the next generation. But there are signs of hope.
Judah leaves home because he can't face the guilt of what he has done to Joe and to his dad. He has a family of his own but they don't turn out too well. Two of his three sons die young - struck down by God because of their wickedness. And so Judah gets a taste of what his dad went through when he thought Joe was dead.
Meanwhile in Egypt Joe wasn't doing too badly. He was learning about the Egyptian way of life: administration etc. and he was being blessed. He was living in slavery, but God was with him. God being with him didn't mean he was released from slavery. God being with him didn't mean that everything went well for him. This is the morally upright part of the story as Potiphar's wife, who was used to getting what and who she wanted, found that Joe wouldn't succumb to her charms and so she had him arrested on false charges of atttempted rape. Potiphar was a eunuch, so his relationship with his wife was probably a bit strained! He doesn't completely believe his wife's claim of attempted rape, because he has Joe put in the Political Prisoners' jail. So God being with Joe doesn't mean he escapes false allegations either. In Egypt there were all kinds of sordid goings on going on! At least Joe knew he was innocent!
In prison Joe found that "the Lord was with him". He was there for at least 2 years. We know this because the story of Pharaoh's butler and baker and their dreams give us a timeline. The butler forgot Joe for 2 years after he was released. We just don't know how long Joe was in prison before the dreams. We do know that there were 13 years between his being taken to Egypt and his being made Pharaoh's Second-in-Command. That's a long time for someone with magalomania/delusions of grandeur or a good sense of his own destiny.
Two more years and Pharaoh has his dreams that no-one can interpret and suddenly Joseph gets his promotion. Joseph has now changed! He doesn't tell Pharaoh that he is destined for greatness; he denies his ability to interpret dreams and gives all the credit to God. And so we get the two dreams and the interpretation. There were to be seven years of good harvests followed by seven years of famine. Famine was common in the Ancient Near East but this was going to be so bad that the seven good years would be completely forgotten. Joe's advice was that Egypt needed a good administrator to make sure that there was enough food to last through the famine.
We don't know if Joe thought about his family much at this point. If there was going to be a famine they were going to get hungry. But maybe when he was put Second-in-Command of the greatest nation in the world at that time he may have remembered those two dreams that got him into all this trouble in the first place. He must have thought about it a lot because he realised that God had been with him in slavery and in prison and now his dreams were coming true.
All that time in dire circumstances was part of God's plan to save his people from starvation. There may have been another way of doing it, but this was God's plan! And Joe at some point recognised that, so he lost any bitterness he may have had towards his brothers.
He gets married. He doesn't choose the girl - Pharaoh picks him a wife. Pharaoh changes Joe's name to Zaphenath-Paneah. It wouldn't do to have a name everyone could pronounce! He had a couple of sons during the good years.
Then there is a big family reunion! That would have been a reunion to be at! Can you imagine what the brothers were thinking when Joe told them who he was! The last time they had seen him he was being dragged off into slavery and now he was the second most powerful man on the planet! Could he be thinking of revenge? Who would stop him?
Then, once they realised they were getting away with their lives, they had to go and tell their dad that Joe hadn't actually been torn apart by a wild animal 22 years earlier. They had accidentally sold him into slavery and forgot on their way home! They had to confess to Jacob what they had done to Joe. They had to let Jacob know that they had let him go through 22 years of grief while they knew that Joe was actually still alive in Egypt- living the life of a slave!
Jacob moves to Egypt with all his family and is reunited with his favourite son and he doesn't die for another 17 years. He gets to meet the Pharaoh - the most powerful man on the planet meeting the spokesman of the Creator of the planet! That would have been an interesting meeting!
But time passes and Jacob dies. As he is dying he blesses each of his sons and he makes his funeral arrangements. We learn that Leah, his first wife, died before the family moved to Egypt. She never got to meet Joseph again. And when Jacob dies it's a massive state affair. His sons took him back to Canaan to be with Leah as he had requested.
It is funny though that they all returned to Egypt. They had only intended to stay during the famine and it had ended 12 years earlier. They were not in slavery but for some reason they stayed. But then the brothers get worried about Joe again. They thought he was holding back while Jacob was alive. And that would be a natural assumption. It's what they would have done if they were in his place. But Joe wasn't like them!
And so Joe lived to be 110 years old and saw his great-grandchildren. When he died he was placed in a coffin in Egypt but 400 years later, as he had requested, his body was taken out with the Exodus. That's a thing you don't often see on the films. Those 40 years wandering in the wilderness they were carrying Joseph's sarcophagus with them!
And that ends the first chapter of Adam's family. They become a great nation. In good times and in bad, in times of blessing and of tragedies, God is there with his people. When we fail He is ready to forgive, when we are faithful He is ready with a blessing.
Episode 12
The Great Escape
This time on Bible soap we have jumped about 400 years. There is a big gap between Joseph and the next family down the line, which is the family of Moses!
When we think of Moses we think about his great escape in the bulrushes, or his having to escape from
But this is Bible soap so I want us to look at his family. So what do we know of Moses’ family?
Well, it’s as entertaining as any other biblical family.
Moses starts off well. He belongs to the tribe of Levi (one of Joseph’s brothers), of the clan of Kohath and to the family of Amram. Amram was married to Jochebed (his dad’s sister!)
There was a lot of inbreeding going on in those days in that part of the world. The Pharaohs married their mums, their sisters, their daughters. And we know it happened outside
When it came to establishing the law for the newly liberated people of
It’s no wonder Moses had to write in such detail who could marry who.
Anyway, at least in his generation, it’s not too bad. But you have to remember that while all the public stuff with Pharaoh and all the irritating Israelites was going on, Moses had his family problems to deal with as well. So let’s look at his family:
Moses had an older brother and an older sister. Miriam was much older and she watched Moses when he was in his basket in the river and suggested to the Pharaoh’s daughter that her mother should look after Moses. She only gets a few mentions: mainly as a prophetess. Along with Aaron she rebels against Moses when Moses marries an Ethiopian woman but the real reason was jealousy of his position – this younger brother!! Miriam is struck with leprosy, but Moses prays for her and she is healed. She died at Kadesh and is buried there. There is no mention of her being married.
Aaron was 3 years older than Moses and the more eloquent of the two brothers. He acted as spokesman for Moses and he did all the fun stuff with the staff and then the plagues. Aaron was married to Elisheba from the tribe of
In the same way that Aaron and sister Miriam had been envious of brother Moses, Aaron found himself the subject of jealousy when Korah and some of the other Levites became jealous of his privileged position. And in the same way that Moses was barred from entering the Promised Land, so was Aaron.
They obviously weren’t a close family, because although Miriam and Aaron would have grown up together, Moses was being brought up as a prince in
Just in case you don’t know the story: after Joseph had moved all his family into Egypt they kept separate and they grew into a big race of people and the Egyptians got worried about them. This is projection on the Egyptians’ part – this is what they would do if they were in the Israelites’ position. So, to prevent this happening they decided to kill all the male Israelite babies.
By this time Aaron was already born, so it was Moses who was in danger and he is hidden for 3 months, but then he got a bit noisy, so his parents put him in a watertight basket and put him in the river to see how he would get on.
They would never get away with that these days, but with a government like Pharaoh’s anything could happen.
So Moses grew up as an Egyptian prince and would have been trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He may have been married there and had children, but we don’t hear about that. If he was, he lost them when he left
But he knew who he was and when he saw a Hebrew slave being beaten by an Egyptian he rescued the Hebrew and accidentally killed the Egyptian (remember that thing about ‘Thou shalt not kill’? It hadn’t been written yet!). The next day a couple of his own people turn on him when he’s trying to stop them fighting and he decides he’d better leave town. This is his second great escape!
He heads for the hills and finds himself in Midian. He marries Zipporah, the daughter of the local priest, Jethro.
There seems to have been a bit of tension between Moses and Zippy over how to bring up their children, because Gershom their son wasn’t circumcised and as Moses was heading to Egypt to confront Pharaoh there was a strange incident. God has a go at Moses and so Zippy circumcises Gershom and throws the foreskin at Moses!! Now if he got married immediately, he has been married 40 years at this point, because that’s how long he was in the desert. If the children were born straight away Gershom would be in his late 30s!! If not there is no mention of Moses being worried that he had no children after 40 years of marriage. It’s all very quiet!
Moses sent Zippy back home to her dad at this point and after the plagues and the exodus Jethro comes out to meet Moses and he brings Zippy with him. There’s another son born sometime as well.
Things weren’t working out too well at home for Moses, but there are only hints because he’s keeping the attention on the work and away from his personal life.
Anyway, God had appeared to Moses in the back end of the desert. Shortly after this Moses is reunited with his brother Aaron. And then there’s all the plagues and exodus and lawgiving and wouldn’t you know that it would be Moses’ brother who is at the centre of the trouble encouraging the people to make an idol to worship when Moses was up the mountain with God. And when it’s all over he uses the lame excuse that he just threw all the gold jewellery into the fire and out came a golden calf..... as if!!!
Anyway things move on and during the next 40 years there is a lot of wandering around in the desert and there are problems with the people and problems with his brother and sister as I have already said.
But then he does get married again – to an Ethiopian woman. It is assumed that Zippy had died, but we don’t get the details, only that Miriam wasn’t happy with the marriage. If she wasn’t married, then maybe she thought that she could have more influence with Moses after Zippy died, but now that he was married again, she became jealous and roped Aaron into helping her.
Altogether it wasn’t happy families for Moses behind the scenes. He achieved a great deal for God and he was the greatest leader that
He blew it in the end with his anger problem and God wouldn’t let him into the Promised land and so like Aaron before him Moses went up a mountain to die and had the best funeral recorded in the Bible because it was God himself who buried him.
And from Moses we can take some comfort. Life wasn’t working out smoothly for him and yet he was willing to be used by God and so God used him.
So if you are not living the dream; if things are not perfect at home, don’t let that put you off serving God.
Moses came from a troubled background; he lived in troubled times, but look at what he achieved.
All that God asks is that you offer him your life and he will take it and use it.
Episode 13
Pop's Idol
I often wonder if anyone ever looks at the titles I give to these talks, especially for the Bible Soap weeks. This weekis called Pop's Idol. I just wondered if anyone could guess who the subject is for this month!
But before I tell you who he is there is one brief family story that I want to fit in. We are in the book of Judges, which is the 7th book of the Bible. I’ve missed out the book of Joshua. There is only mention of Achan’s family in Joshua – they get stoned (literally, not figuratively) and Joshua’s family who agree to serve God rather than all the false gods on offer. There is not much to say about their families, so Judges it is.
The first brief family story will take seconds to tell. It is in Judges 1: 12-15. Caleb offers his daughter to the hero who captures Kiriath Sepher. The hero just happens to be his nephew, Othniel, who becomes the first of the judges in chapter 3. So Caleb marries his daughter to her cousin. It wasn’t his intention, but it is legal as far as the Law of Moses goes.
And that’s that. So, onto our current story:
This is the story of Joash, his more famous son Gideon and his son Abimelech. They lived in one of the bad times of Israel's history when the people were not living as they should (Judges 6: 1).
God sent Moses’ in-laws to oppress them. If you remember from his story, Moses married a Midianite. Several centuries later, the two peoples are no longer friendly.
We don’t know what was happening in Israelite society that upset God, but reading between the lines it seems that it was the worship of the false gods Baal and Asherah (Judges 6: 7-10). This is worse in God’s sight than any amount of immorality in society.
So it wasn’t a good time in Israel.
We are dealing with 3 generations of one family several centuries after Moses. The stories are getting really scattered now.
Gideon was the son of Joash, of the clan of Abiezer, of the tribe of Manasseh (one of Joseph’s sons). He was also called Jerubbaal, but we’ll stick with Gideon.
Gideon had several brothers who are not named. All we know about them is that they came to a sticky end (8: 18-19).
Gideon wasn’t the bravest of people. We first meet him hiding from the Midianites (Judges 6: 11). We don’t know how old he was, but he wasn’t a child. In fact, by the time he has finished fighting, by the time he has delivered Israel, which wouldn’t take more than a few years, he was a granddad (8: 22).
He is greeted by the angel as "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior" (6: 12). Which is nice! God can see his potential, even when he’s hiding from his enemies. But what is interesting is that while his family have publicly compromised with the false religion all around them, there is evidence of a private family religion rebellion, because Gideon knows the past glories of God. His response to the angel is: ‘If God is with us, where is the proof?’ (6: 13).
He was being taught the lessons of God’s salvation. His dad was fulfilling his God-given role of priest and teacher to his family (Deuteronomy 11: 19). Joash doesn’t give the whole story, because the proof that God was with them was that He had sent the Midianites to punish them. That is what God promised then and it’s what He does now.
So a look at Joash, because he only appears at the beginning of the story.
One of the first tasks that Gideon is given is to destroy his dad’s idols (6: 25-26). With his characteristic bravery Gideon does this (6: 27-28).
The next morning this act of vandalism is noticed. This a genuine case of an act of God. Joash could have put in an insurance claim for this! Even though Gideon claims that his family are unimportant (6: 15) they are important enough that the neighbours are concerned with the sudden loss of idols in their garden. This is not the same as finding your garden gnomes smashed overnight. It’s a bit more serious than that.
So an enquiry is made and someone drops Gideon in it (6: 29-30). And this is where Joash comes into his own (6: 31). This is Joash being like Elijah several centuries later. If these idols represent real gods then they will answer with their own judgment. Elijah put the challenge to the followers of the same false god that if their god is real then he will answer with fire. This is probably where Elijah got the idea from.
He’s a bit of a hero is Joash and I think that’s why Gideon was chosen. He came from a family where God was worshipped, if only behind closed doors.
These were dangerous days and it wasn’t safe to openly admit to being an Israelite. There was a lot of compromise going on. And there was a lot of fear. But, for once, we find something of a decent family. But don’t be disappointed – it doesn’t last!
We move on to Gideon’s family, but we don’t get the details till later, so I’ll read ahead. They may have been the least of the least, as Gideon says, but Gideon has several servants (6: 27 & 7: 10).
He also has several wives and a few children:(8: 30). The oldest is called Jether (8: 20) and the youngest is called Jotham (9: 5b). We don’t know the names of the other 68, but we will look at them a bit later. For now, we can see that Gideon wasn’t living in a two-up-two-down kind of terrace.
It must have been a decent sized house! And on the whole, despite the noise, it must have been a case of happy families. We don’t hear of anything wrong – yet!
But then we get to the heart of the story of Gideon; his mission in life. Judges 7 tells of Gideon’s victory over the Midianites with his 300 men.
We saw earlier that Gideon’s brothers had been killed by the enemy and this great victory ends with Gideon taking revenge. What started out as obedience to God turned into a vendetta, and without going into the detail, he becomes pretty ruthless. This is Gideon the avenger! He’s riding through the Wild West in pursuit of the baddies who killed his brothers. And despite the motive, God’s will is ultimately done and Israel is delivered. Look it up in the Bible!
After this victory the people asked Gideon to become their king and to set up a hereditary monarchy, but he refused. He wasn’t perfect though and he accepted gold earrings from the spoils of war. These were made into ephod, which was a priestly vestment and that led the people to abandon God (again!)
Gideon ends his life peacefully, with his several wives and 70 sons!! He then has a concubine who gives him his 71st son and he causes big problems! But the delusions of grandeur that afflict Abimelech, the 71st son, come from his name, which means, ‘My father is king’. What was Gideon thinking, giving him that name!
But then Gideon dies, an old man, (8: 32) and the Israelites go back to their old ways (8: 33), but more important for our story is what happens in his family. We don’t hear how many wives he had. He seems to have counted his sons, but lost count of his wives. And remember that daughters weren’t counted, so there could have been a number of them. Anyway, he forgot how many wives he had and so got himself a concubine! And she gave him the son who caused the most trouble. The sons of concubines stayed with the mother’s family, so he didn’t grow up with his step-brothers. That would explain why he wasn’t so close to them.
Abimelech decided that being king was a good idea even if his dad didn’t want it. There was just the problem that he was 71st in line to the throne. So the simplest solution was to kill his 70 stepbrothers (9: 5-6).
He gets 69 of them, but Jotham, the youngest escaped and later stood up to denounce the people and then he runs away and we hear nothing more from him.
As for Abimelech, well he lasts for three years as Israel's first king, and then God, who has been absent from the pages for a while, starts stirring things up (9: 56). And so Abimelech has a rebellion on his hands and he ends up dead: (9: 50-54).
And that is the end of the family of Joash. It started out well. There was a bit of underground, persecuted church stuff going on in the family. It was followed by outright obedience to God, but human nature took over and destroyed what could have been a great dynasty.
This family was at its best when it was following God, and maybe that is the lesson that we learn from Gideon. As Jesus put it, ‘Without me you can do nothing’ (John 15: 5).
Gideon had a decent, but compromising, dad. He learnt some of the ways of God from him. The trouble was that he went ahead of God and ended up in a worse state than before he met God. Then that meant his children had no good example to follow.
Maybe that is the lesson to learn: Joash was a good dad because he taught his children about God; Gideon was not a good dad because he didn’t teach his children about God!
Offer him your life and He will take it and use it.
Office Address:
Atlantic Drive
Sovereign Harbour South
Eastbourne
East Sussex
BN23 5SW