Genesis 32-35
Jacob decides he needs to make peace with is brother Esau so he sends a slew of gifts for him (200 female goats. 20 male goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, 30 female camels with their young, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys) He splits them into 3 groups and sends them each with a servant to butter up Esau. Then he follows behind his 3 sets of gifts. In Genesis 32 Jacob wrestles with God and God changes his name to Israel. Jacob names this place Peniel (means face of God). I love how everything gets named like this so far, kinda cracks me up, but I guess it is good to help us remember the things God has taught us. Anyways, Jacob finally meets up with Esau (Gen 33), who embraces him with a hug and tells him he is crazy for sending all of these gifts. So Esau tells Jacob (still not calling him Israel interestingly) to come with him, but Jacob says his kids are young and can't travel that fast, so he will follow but slower.
In Genesis 34 we have the story of Shechem in the land of Canaan. Jacobs Daughter Dinah is out visiting women in the area when the local prince sees her, thinks she is beautiful, takes her and rapes her! Jacob finds out about this, and lets just say he is less than thrilled (drama, drama, drama!) Shechem thinks he can convince Jacob that he should marry Dinah (I am sure he was excellent husband material) Jacob tells him he can't marry her because he is not circumcised, but if the whole town gets circumcised than they will marry all of their daughters off to them towns people. So the King and the Prince go to the town counsel with the brilliant idea that they should all get circumcised, the counsel agrees and all of them men in the town get circumcised. (stick with me this is where it gets good!) So 3 days pass, the men are feeling horrible and Jacob's sons come into the town and kill them all! They also take all of their animals and take all of the wives and children as captives. Jacob finds out about this and is mad because now all of the canaanites would be mad and will come and 'crush' them.
Genesis 35: Jacob heads to Bethel, has everyone get rid of their idols, God appears to him, names him Israel. In v 16-27 Rachel goes into labor and dies right after giving birth to Benjamin and Jacob builds a huge monument at her grave. So when I looked up the "stone monument" I figured it would be a little pile of rocks, oh not even close! This is what it looked like in 1976 (after several repairs, but still!)
Genesis 36 - the Genealogy of Esau: sorry I am not going to recap this for you. You can read it if you are really interested, I will mention who is related to who as it becomes important.
Genesis 37 On to Joseph and his sweet dreams
A preview:
I have always loved the story of Joseph, probably ever since my mom played in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. Basically Joseph is a favorite son of Jacob, because he was Rachel's son (one of 2) One night Joseph has a dream that all the bundles of grain bowed down to him. He tells his brothers (actually his 1/2 brothers), and they get all hurt about it and say that he thinks he is going to be their king. So they devise a plan to kill him, then they decide this is too harsh so they just sell him into slavery and let their dad think he was killed by animals by brining back his coat.
Next we have another scandal (man is the Bible filled with these!) Genesis 38:
Judah moves out, gets married and has 3 sons. He marries his first son (Er) to Tomar, but Er is "a wicked man in the Lord's sight" so he takes his life. Judah tells his next son (Onan) to marry Tomar and give his brother a heir, but Onan does not want to give his brother a heir so he sleeps with her but "spills his semen on the ground" so she does not get pregnant. The Lord considers this evil so he kills Onan. Judah then tells Tomar to go live with her parents until his youngest son is old enough to marry, but he has no intention of letting her marry this son because he does not want him to die as well.
Years pass and Judah's wife dies and he makes no move toward marrying Shelah (the youngest) off to Tomar, so she takes matters into her own hands. She poses as a prostitute, propositions Judah, and gets pregnant (she also gets his cord and walking stick as proof). Judah finds out Tomar is pregnant and calls for her to be killed, but she pulls out the cord and walking stick and he realizes it was he who impregnated her!
When Tomar goes into labor she has twin. One baby's arm comes out first and the midwife ties a red ribbon around his wrist, but then he pulls it back in and the other brother is born. So the baby that came all the way out first was named Perez (means breaking out) and the baby with the red string is named Zerah (meaning scarlet)
Genesis 39 - back to Joseph
Joseph goes to live in Potiphar's house in Egypt (the captain of the guard for Pharaoh), he is an awesome servant so he moves up quickly. Potiphar's wife thinks Joseph is a good looking guy so she hits on him when her husband is not home. Joseph declines her and she is so offended that she takes his cloak as he runs away and uses it to tell her husband that Joseph was trying to sleep with her. Potiphar believes his wife and has Joseph thrown in jail. Joseph is super awesome in jail too so he is put in charge of all of the prisoners. (Joseph is such an awesome example of being a good worker for the Lord)
Genesis 40
Joseph is still in jail and interprets 2 different dreams from 2 of Pharaoh's former servants. He tells the Cup-Bearer that he will get his position back in 3 days, and the chief baker that Pharaoh will kill him and the birds will eat his flesh. He asks the Cup-Bearer to remember that he interpreted the dream for him. Both of his dream interpretations come true, but the Cup-Bearer forgets about Joseph (I don't know how, what a lame "friend")
Genesis 41
2 years pass since Joseph interpreted the dream for the Cup-Bearer. Pharaoh starts having crazy dreams and no one knows what they mean. All of the sudden the Cup-Bearer remembers about Joseph and Pharaoh brings him out of prison to see if he can interpret his dream. Joseph tells him that there will be 7 years of prosperity and 7 years of famine and they need to save up grain for the 7 years of famine or they will die. Pharaoh decides to put Joseph in charge of this plan since he is so smart. Joseph creates such a stockpile and the famine is so severe that people from all over the world come to get grain from him.
Genesis 42: Joseph's brothers come to Egypt for food
will post more later....
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