Daily Thoughts From God's Word

Just an amazing story!  Jacob eventually brings his entire family down to Egypt and is told, “The land of Egypt is before you.  Settle your father and your brothers in the best of the land. Let them settle in the land of Goshen” (47:6), which contained rich pasture lands for their flocks.  And there, we know, they flourished.  This was “the best of the land, in the land of Rameses” (47:11).  As for the people of Egypt, when famine came, they sold their lands to Joseph and all

“Now the famine was severe in the land.  And when they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, ‘Go again, buy us a little food’” (43:1-2).  And so, the brothers were off again, this time, with their youngest brother, Benjamin, in tow.  In Egypt, the brothers “were afraid because they were brought to Joseph’s house” (43:18) because of the events of the first excursion when the money with which they had paid for grain was found back in t

Not due to any wrong doing on his part, Joseph found himself in jail and in a pickle.  A good reminder that, sometimes, bad things happen to good people.  This is one of those stories that encourage us by reminding that justice is ultimately in God’s hands.  In the prison with Joseph were “the cupbearer of the king of Egypt and his baker [who had] committed an offense against their lord the king of Egypt” (40:1).  Not a good thing to get on the bad side of the king!   These t

Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him and, as they saw him approaching the city of Dothan, they “saw him from afar, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him” (37:18).  However, when Reuben heard about this plot, “he rescued him out of their hands, saying, ‘Let us not take his life’” (37:21), and they threw Joseph into a pit, eventually selling him as a slave to a caravan of Ishmaelites who, in turn, sold him into slavery in Egypt.  Another sordid

An unusual, perhaps, thought from this morning’s reading.  When I began these daily words, I explained that they would not be comprised of careful, verse-by-verse expositions or necessarily weighty thoughts, just the thoughts that come to me while reading.  Today’s thoughts certainly fall into this category as I read:  “Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age” (37:3).  It’s sort of a given, it seems, that parents often ha

The story of the defiling and humiliation of Dinah, the killing of Shechem and Hamor, and the plundering of their city is one of the most sordid in all the Bible, though, there are others.  Here’s the thing, unlike many, the Bible does not try to sugarcoat the human condition.  It does not flinch from telling the truth about sin and its consequences.  Reading some of these terrible stories leads one to conclude that the Bible simply “tells it like it is.”  And if it tells the

More shenanigans going on with Jacob, his wife Rebekah, and concubines.  Rachel was barren and so, Jacob had a son, Dan, by Rachel’s servant, Bilhah, and a second son, Naphtali.  And then, there’s Leah and Zilpah.  Jealousies, competitions, broken relationships.  Oh my, how could any of this ultimately work out for good?!  After all this family intrigue and the birth of children, Jacob was ready to return home, and he said to Laban, Rebekah’s father, “Send me away, that I may

From a couple chapters previous, we read about Esau foolishly selling his birthright.  Now, we read about the trickery and chicanery and flimflam and fraud and deceit and scam and deception (Whew, that was sort of fun writing all that. J) that Jacob pulled and which resulted in Esau selling his birthright.  Jacob and Rebekah, in deceiving Isaac, orchestrated the giving of the father’s blessing to the second born, Jacob, rather than Isaac.  There’s no way we can commend the de

The Bible is full of, though not always conventional, love stories.  The story of Isaac and Rebekah is one.  It’s the story of an arranged marriage – “You will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell, but will go to my country and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Isaac” (24:3-4) – which is not all that unusual.  The irregularity of this match lies in the details.  Abraham’s servant came to the lands of Laban where he met Re

I typically find myself, here in Genesis 22, just stopping and wondering with amazement at the story:  God tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son, the son of promise, Abraham sets out to do the deed, and as father raises the knife over his son on the altar, the Lord stops him and says, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” (22:12).  “And Abraham lifted up his ey

Abraham and Sarah sure seemed to be slow learners, didn’t they?  They just had a hard time truly believing God.  One year before Isaac’s birth, they continued to doubt, and “The LORD said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh and say, Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD?” (18:13-14).  I think of others:  Elijah who despaired even though God promised to protect him, Jeremiah who questioned even though God had told him he would keep him

Repetition.  What do they say?  Well, from the internet: “Repetition is the key to success.” “Repetition Is the Key to Learning." “Repetition is the Key to Mastery.” “Repetition is the key to deep learning.”   Here in chapter 15, God reaffirms for Abraham his promise.  Abraham and Sarah need that reaffirmation/repetition; they continually doubted God.  “Abram said, ‘O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’ 

“Now the LORD said to Abram . . .” (12:1).  The story of redemption continues to unfold, and we know how it proceeds:  the covenant with Abraham passed down through his sons, Joseph, deliverance and the law through Moses, Joshua and the Promised Land, the judges, the kingdoms and the prophets, exile and restoration, and the waiting for Messiah.  It is a glorious story!  And so much time could be spent right here in these chapters along with Abraham.  As I begin to read, this

“These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  Sons were born to them after the flood” (10:1), and so, the genealogies of Noah’s descendants begin.  For several generations, things seemed to go well and, then, as the families began to migrate eastward, we read, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves” (11:4).  “A name for ourselves” . . . seems a bit presumptuous, doesn’t it? 

In the midst of all the evil – “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (6:5) – there was Noah:  “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD” (6:8) because “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.  Noah walked with God” (6:9).  After the flood, “God blessed Noah and his sons” (9:1).  Of course, Noah was not a perfect man.  After God had delivered him and h