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Tag: jacob

  • Reflections: Israel – a people

    Reflections: Israel – a people

    Genesis 32: “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”

    28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

    When you hear ‘Israel,’ think ‘Jacob.’

    When you read Jacob after Genesis 32, remember GOD has renamed him Israel. When you read of the sons of Jacob, recall appropriately that we refer to the generations of the man Israel, born to one of his wives. (We won’t get into all that here.)

    Jacob’s Children 

    [partial list]

    • Genesis 29:32 And Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben

    Genesis 29:35 And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she ceased bearing.

    • Genesis 30:5  And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.
    • Genesis 30:10 Then Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son.
    • Genesis 30:17 And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.
    • Genesis 30:21 Afterward she [Leah] bore a daughter and called her name Dinah.
    • 22 Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb. 23 She conceived and bore a son and said, “God has taken away my reproach.” 24 And she called his name Joseph, saying, “May the Lord add to me another son!”

    God made a covenant with Abram and renamed him Abraham. God saved Isaac, son of Abraham from the human sacrifice of blood on the altar of faith. God provided the substitute offering to be slain on the mountain of God. The LORD chose Abraham from among all tribes. The LORD chose Isaac, son of Sarah, over Ishmael, son of Hagar. And the LORD chose Jacob over his twin brother Esau, son of Isaac and Rebekah. The LORD renamed Jacob, Israel.

    The LORD chose Joseph, son of Israel and Rachel, to save God’s chosen people along with saving the people of Egypt (of Hagar) and many other peoples. The LORD chose Joseph over Reuben or even Judah, oldest sons of Israel; sons of Israel’s first bride, yet sons of Leah, bride given to Jacob by deceit of Laban, father of Leah and Rachel. Along with their servants, it was the LORD’s will to make Israel father of many nations in a place contested until the end of days.

    Whether Judah, Benjamin or sons of Joseph, remember Israel is a people more than a place: chosen sons and daughters of the LORD.

    We have already explored the rebellion of the Hebrew people even as Moses led them by the Hand of the Almighty from the slavery of Egypt. We have already witnessed their covenant to obey God’s Law: the Ten Commandments.

    We have heard a later warning of Elijah to divided nations of Israel and Judah of the consequence of disobedience to the LORD their God.

    What happened to God’s chosen Kings? What happened to God’s chosen Nation? Why did Israel become divided? Why did their Kings suffer defeat?

    Why did they not follow the Law and obey God? (For that matter: are we, sons and daughters of adoption, saints of Christ’s church, so much better in these last days?)

    What happens when the LORD chooses His family and we become prodigal sons?

    To be continued…

  • A Temporary Throne – 43

    A Temporary Throne – 43

    CHAPTER 43

    The LORD had shown me Cain and Abel. The LORD had also shown me in the family of Noah; the blessing of Shem over Japheth and Ham. Now the LORD had shown me Jacob and Esau. The LORD was showing me his will for brothers.

    I was reminded once more of what the LORD had advised Cain, before his sin:

    Genesis 4:7 If you do well, will you not be accepted?

    And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.

    All Noah’s sons and their wives and offspring had to do was to ‘do well’ by obeying God.

    I had often forgotten that Canaan was the son of Ham, only remembering Canaan as a place and not a man, grandson of Noah, cursed and not blessed by the LORD.

    I had forgotten that the places so contested by descendants of brothers were part of the blessings and curses of the LORD on ancestors of these contested lands so long ago.

    Though the people sometimes were forced to fear the LORD; Jacob, Abraham and Noah had willingly worshiped the LORD our God.

    Would the LORD not bless who he will bless and curse who he will curse?

    This is what the LORD had shown me. This is what the LORD had reminded me from scripture.

    He IS our Creator! He IS the LORD!

    His blessings continue through the generations, his double-portions to the sons and brothers of His choosing.

    Then the LORD would show me another brother, a very young man (barely beyond the years of a boy).

    I had thought and observed the natural competition of Cain and Abel. I read of Ishmael and Isaac. I observed Esau and Jacob. Now the LORD showed me a young man among ten older men – ALL brothers.

    His name was Joseph.

    To be continued…

    A Temporary Throne is an original work of Roger Harned,

    © Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved by the author.

  • A Temporary Throne – 41

    A Temporary Throne – 41

    CHAPTER 41

    I then saw a tree, beside where the man Jacob stood, before his journey to the time, place and altar the LORD had just revealed.

    Genesis 35:2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments.

    3 Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.”

    Jacob stood by a grave-like hole with an ancient-type shovel to one side next to a mound of broken earth. Into the small grave Jacob tossed bhudda-like carved idols in the shapes of men, of women, of birds and of fierce animals – many of mythical proportions with attributes unlike any actual man, woman or animal.

    4 So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem.

    I observed a scene of passing time in the Presence of the LORD like snapshots of individual emotions and thoughts in a time standing still, while the caravan moved through time and place in a fast-forward movie-like scene of history moving before my very eyes.

    5 And as they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities that were around them, so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.

    I understood the terror of the people in the surrounding cities to the caravan of Jacob moving through time and place; for I was in the Presence of the LORD through all this – in awe of His Presence, though not in fear.

    We returned once more to the high place in the mountains of the altar.

    6 And Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him,7 and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother…

    9 God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him.10 And God said to him,

    “Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.”

    So he called his name Israel.

    11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply.

    To be continued…

    A Temporary Throne is an original work of Roger Harned,

    © Copyright 2014, All Rights Reserved by the author.