Job 10 – Job says he is disgusted with his life and must complain about it. “I will say to God, ‘Don’t simply condemn me—tell me the charge you are bringing against me’” (10:2).

Job believes God does not “see” with the eyes of men – God is eternal and so mysterious, it is pure pride to claim any kind of “knowledge.”

“You guided my conception and formed me in the womb. You clothed me with skin and flesh, and you knit my bones and sinews together. You…

Job 8 – Now Bildad of Shuah speaks to him, censoring him for talking too much. “Does God twist justice? Does the Almighty twist what is right? Your children must have sinned against him, so their punishment was well deserved” (8:1-3).

Bildad’s advice is similar to that of Eliphaz – Job or someone in his family MUST have done something to bring this misery on him, “but “if [he] pray[s] to God and seek[s] the favor of the Almighty. . . if [he is]…

Job 6 – The misery Job feels is heavier than the sands of the seas. It is no wonder then that he speaks a little wildly – carelessly. “Don’t I have a right to complain? Don’t wild donkeys bray when they find no grass, and oxen below when they have no food?” (5:5)

“”Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant my desire. I wish he would crush me. I wish he would reach out his hand and kill me. At least I can take comfort in this: Despite the pain, I…

Job 4 – Eliphaz of Teman is the first “friend” to address Job’s woes. He speaks of Job as a man who used to give support and words of advice to others. Now it is his turn to be advised. Should his piety not give him strength? “Doesn’t your reverence for God give you confidence? Doesn’t your life of integrity give you hope?” (4:6)

His advice is to recognize that God brings the unjust to destruction. “My experience shows that those who plant trouble and cultivate evil…

Job 2 – Again the Sons of God [and Satan] assemble, and again God praises Job. This time Satan asks to be given power to afflict Job’s “person,” or his personal “health” (2:4). Job is smitten with boils from head to foot. His wife seems annoyed at his patience with God. “’Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.’ (2:9)

Job responds to her with these words: “’You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand…

Introduction: The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary (Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1971), notes that while this book is typically classed as “wisdom literature,” the “wisdom” here is mostly from the mouths of the three of Job’s friends and is not much respected. The thoughts of Job form a kind of anti-wisdom writing.

The “wisdom literature” tradition was not just Jewish. There are examples of similar stories in many different…

Genesis 48 – Soon after promising his father that he will return his body to their lands in Canaan, Joseph visits his dying father. Jacob tells his son about the promise God made to him at Luz; and he says “’I am claiming as my own sons these two boys of yours, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born here in the land of Egypt before I arrived. They will be my sons, just as Reuben and Simeon are. But any children born to you in the future will be your own, and they will inherit land within…

Genesis 45 - Unable to go on any more with this, Joseph dismisses everyone and reveals himself to his brothers. “He wept so loudly the Egyptians could hear him, and word of it quickly carried to Pharaoh’s palace” (45:2).

After having put them through the wringer, Joseph now tells them they are not to reproach themselves any more: “It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives . . .  to ensure for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives…

Genesis 43 – The famine continues to ravage the land. When the grain from Egypt is gone, Jacob wants them to go back and get more. Judah reminds him what they face there is they go back without Benjamin. This time [in this Yahwist source] it is Judah who takes mature responsibility for seeing to it that Benjamin returns safely. “’I personally guarantee his safety. You may hold me responsible if I don’t bring him back to you’” (43:9).

They go back, and they take gifts…

Genesis 41 – Two years after this, the Pharaoh himself has two disturbing dreams that he cannot understand. “In his dream he saw seven fat, healthy cows come up out of the river and begin grazing in the marsh grass. Then he saw seven more cows come up behind them from the Nile, but these were scrawny and thin. These cows stood beside the fat cows on the riverbank. Then the scrawny, thin cows ate the seven healthy, fat cows!” (41:2-4). He wakes up and then sleeps again. “This…

Please forgive the long delay in posting. Had to attend a family members funeral mass in Florida over the weekend and had also to be without a computer, but everything should be back to normal now.

Genesis 39 - Returning to the Joseph story (of the Yahwist source—36 and 37 having been Elohist – together with 40, which is yet to come), we see Joseph has been sold to Potiphar, chief steward of the Pharaoh (39:1).  



Everything he touches turns to…

Genesis 38 - Judah marries Shua (a Canaanite) and has three sons: Er, Onan and Shelah. When he grows up, Er is  married to a woman named Tamar but dies with no heir; so Onan is asked to fill his role (with Tamar) and give Er sons, but he dies too after “wasting” his seed in his intercourse with her. The section ends with this – “[T]he Lord considered it evil for Onan to deny a child to his dead brother. So the Lord took Onan’s life, too” (38:10).

 …

Genesis 37 - The story of Joseph opens when Joseph is 17.  If Jacob spent 20 years in Haran and married Leah and Rachel after 7 years there, then Reuben must have been 13 or 14 when they returned to Canaan.  We see here that Joseph’s poor relations with his brothers derives not solely from his dreams, but from other things as well. 

Joseph “reported to his father some of the bad things his brothers were doing” (37:2) and his father…

Genesis 35 - Jacob is led by God to go to Bethel to build and altar “to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother, Esau” (35:1). He tells everyone to get rid of the household idols he has permitted to be carried by his family.  Bethel is south in Shechem (half way to Jerusalem)—the place where Jacob had his dream on his way to Haran in flight from his brother.   Earrings worn as amulets associated with the worship of these idols are also buried under a…

Genesis 33 – When Jacob sees Esau coming with his 400 men, he divides his family up in a way that is especially protective of Rachel, putting her last in the line approaching his feared brother, Esau. 

He goes ahead of everyone and bows down to his brother seven times, hoping to make peace with him. He [and we] are surprised when Esau runs “to meet him and embrace him, [throwing] his arms around his neck and [kissing] him” (33:3).  They weep in each…

Genesis 32 – Now Jacob turns his attention to the fears he has about what might await him at his home. He camps in a place called Mahanaim (meaning Double-Camp according to Schocken) where he sends messengers ahead and learns that his brother Esau is coming to meet him with 400 men.  He is afraid for his children, especially for his favorite wife and child, so he divides his family and his possessions into two. He begs the Lord to remember the covenant he cut with…

Genesis 31:33-55 – Laban searches for the idol taken from his home. He looks in Leah’s tent and the tents of the two serving women; finally he looks in Rachel’s tent. She had hidden the idols in her “camel saddle, and was sitting on them” (31:34). Laban cannot find them. Rachel says she can’t get up because she is having her monthly period.

Jacob gets angry and challenges Laban; he’s angry not only for this assault on his household, but because of Laban’s having taken…

Genesis 31:1-32 – Things begin to get tense between Laban, Laban’s sons and Jacob. They feel that he “’has gained all his wealth at our father’s expense’” (31:1) despite the fact that Jacob has worked very hard for him for a very long time. The Lord decides it is time for Jacob to return to the land of his father Isaac.

Interesting to note is Jacob’s position here  — he is caught between two VERY angry men - at least he feels he is.  On the one side is his brother…

Genesis 30 - Children, all but one sons, are born from the following women in the following order:

         Leah           Zilpah        Rachel                Bilhah

         1-Reuben    7-Gad          11-Joseph              5-Dan

         2-Simeon    8-Asher      12-Benjamin        6-Naphtali

         3-Levi

         4-Judah

         9-Issachar

         10-Zebulum

         Dinah

After 20…

Genesis 29 – Jacob hurries on to Paddan-Aram and sees a well in the distance surrounded by livestock waiting for the stone to be moved from the mouth of the well. The covering stone so heavy (it says) that only when all the shepherds are assembled at the end of the day are they able to move it away.  But here, when Jacob sees Rachel—the girl he falls in love with—he alone moves the stone back so she can water her father’s livestock (29:10).

At Laban’s invitation, Jacob…