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The Prime : Joseph

Jacob lived in the land of Canaan shortly before the death of Issac. Issac died when he was 190 years old full of age,Esau and Jacob buried him where Abraham and Sarah and Rebekah was buried. Esau and Jacob lived nearby  and as their riches and population were so big for them to live together they separated and lived  in distinct places. Descendants of Esau became dukes in the land of Edom(Esau).Detailed reading can be done in Gen 36.

   Joseph was the son of Jacob's old age.When he was 17 years old he used to give evil report of the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah to Jacob.So they hated him.He was Jacob's favourite, and the family dreamer according to them.His brothers delivered him to Midianite merchants when he was sent to Shechem one day to know their well being by Jacob.Jacob was misinformed that Joseph died of an animal attack.

 Joseph comes to be bought by Potiphar an officer of Pharaoh where he gains favour with the officer.But he gets cast into prison due to false allegations of misbehaviour by Potiphar's wife.

 Even in the prison God gives Joseph favour with the keeper of the prison.He was given the responsibilty of keeping the prisoners.

 He interprets the dreams of a cupbearer and baker of Pharaoh.The cupbearer gets released to his office.
But forgets about Joseph to recommend him to the king.Then Pharaoh has a dream and Joseph is remembered and summoned to Pharaoh.There he interprets Pharaoh's dream and lets him know that a 7 year famine is coming up after a 7year bumper harvest. He counsels Pharaoh to set a wise man to store grains during the years of plenty in store for the famine.Joseph gets the job and becomes second to Pharaoh.

His brethren are sent by Jacob to get grain and after much threats and making them go back and forth and troubling them Joseph reveals himself to his brethren and seeks to bring Jacob to Egypt.

Jacob is brought to Egypt with all his sons and families.They are given a place in the land of Goshen by Pharaoh. Jacob even blesses Pharaoh.

When Jacob nears his time of death he calls unto him all his children and blesses them prophetically.Though he dies there he asks his children to bury him with Abraham,Sarah,Issac,Rebekah and Leah in the land of Canaan. Joseph makes his servants embalm Jacob's body and they ask permission from Pharaoh to bury Jacob and they are granted permission.They go with a great company in chariots and horses,they bury him in the cave at Machpelah.
Joseph lived on to be 110 years.

Gen 50:23 "And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation: the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph's knees."

Gen 50:24

"And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob."

thus Joseph instructed his brethren to carry his bones to Canaan, he died in Egypt ,was embalmed and buried in a coffin.

Then his brethren died and all that generation.The children of Israel increased mightily ,and the land was full of them they even became more than the Egyptians. There arose a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph and he was counseled to bring the children of Israel under hard labour and they were made slaves for more than 400 years.

The Promised: Issac and Jacob

When we consider Genesis 18 there we see God himself coming to Abraham and speaking to Him among various plans He has and how warmly He considers Abraham as His friend, and tells Him of things to come.
Mainly there they come to announce the impending judgement upon Sodom and Gomorrah and also He reaffirms Abraham about His promise of a seed through Sarah Abraham's wife. Right from the beginning Issac was a special child in the sight of God and absolutely to Abraham and Sarah. A year after the visit   of God to Abraham's tent and judgement upon Sodom and Gomorrah,they have Issac the much awaited offspring,whom God promised to Abraham to make as the sand of the sea or as the stars of heaven. Then God is seen testing Abraham to offer up his only begotten son by promise,but God stops him from offering up the child providing a ram instead.

Issac grows up and a wife is sought after for him among Abraham's family. God leads Eleazar his servant to the family of Bethuel Abraham's brother's son. Rebekah decides to leave her family for her groom Issac.

Isaac and Rebekah have children after he prays for her as she was barren. They have twins. The firstborn being Esau favourite of his father and Jacob the favourite of his mother.

Once Esau sells his birthright (headship) to Jacob for a meal.

Jacob gets blessings from Issac,dressed up as Esau. Then flees away from home fearing the wrath of Esau to Laban Rebekah's brother in Padanaram.

Though Esau wept later to Issac he never got a blessing.
On the way Jacob meets God at Bethel.

Laban decieves the cunning Jacob to marry Leah his elder daughter after he serves for Rachel for seven years. They have 5 sons and a daughter.
Jacob meanwhile serves another seven years for Rachel, Laban's younger daughter,whom Jacob loved.
They had two sons Joseph and Benjamin.Rest of the sons that Jacob had were through his concubines Zilpah and Bilhah.

Totally Jacob had 12 sons and a daughter.

Reuben,Simeon,Levi,Judah,Issachar,Zebulun and Dinah from Leah

Gad and Asher through Leah from Zilpah her maid.

Dan and Naphtali through Rachel from Bilhah her maid.

Joseph and Benjamin from Rachel.

More about Joseph and the migration of Jacob and his family to Egypt and the resultant enslavement in the next post.

Father of Nations

Now in Genesis 16 we see how since Sarai Abram's wife was barren, she gave her maid to Abraham to be his wife and so that they might have children through Hagar. Abraham consented and, they had a son Ishmael when Abraham was
86 years old.Ishmael was cast out along with his mother according to the word of God to Abraham,but God did not forget him but made him a great nation.
Ishmael became a mighty man and he settled to the south of the dead sea, east of Egypt.He had 12 sons who became princes over their villages. They gave, rise, to arabs.
One of Ishmael's daughters Mahalath was married to Esau and they rise to the Edomites.
Further details of sons of Ishmael and their descendants can be seen in the link provided http://lavistachurchofchrist.org/LVanswers/2005/03-17.htm .
Abraham died when he was 175 years old and was buried in Macphelah with Sarah.Ishmael and Issac buried him.
Descendants of Issac are Israel(Jacob) and Edom(Esau).
Abraham gave rise to Midianites through Keturah a wife he had after Sarah's death.
Thus according to God's promise Abraham died in a, ripe old age and became the father of many nations.
More on Jacob and his children in the, next post.

Abraham's family

Skipping the Tower of Babel and resulting scattering of the people of the earth due to introduction of languages and the movement of continents.The people have separated and have moved to various places.
In the Ur of the Chaldees ,Mesopotamia was Nahor a descendant of Shem.

Nahor had a son Terah and other sons and daughters.

Terah had three sons he named them:

1. Abram (Abraham).
2. Nahor.
3. Haran.

Nahor took Milcah as his wife they had a son Bethuel from whom came : Laban and Rebekah ( wife of Issac)

Haran had a son whose name was Lot  from whom came the Ammonites and Moabites.

Haran died in  Ur of the Chaldees.

Nahor and his descendants stayed back at Ur  I assume.

Terah Abraham's father took Abram his son and Sarai,Lot and his wife and migrated to Haran.

Terah died at Haran.

God appeared to Abraham at Haran and told him to go to the land that He would show him i.e. Canaan.
More on Issac , Jacob, Esau in the next post.

Good day.

Noah and descendants

Noah as we saw, in my previous post was the only person who himself and his family made it through from the pre-flood era.
Noah was 600 years old when the floods came upon the earth. Shem, Noah 's son was approximately 100 years old during the flood.
Now it is surprising to note that Abraham was a contemporary of Noah.
We can observe from the portion succeeding the flood that.
1.Abraham was a contemporary of Noah and that Noah dies when Abraham was 60 years.
2.Assuming that Abraham met Noah he must have got a first hand information about the life in the pre-flood times, even perhaps information about moments before the fall, passed on from Seth[Adam's son].
If we take the geneology of generations from Noah to Abraham,we can discover that
Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah and Eber all outlived their descendants : Peleg,Reu and Serug.
Abraham never saw his grandfather Nahor but still may have seen Noah, Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah and Eber his ancestors.
We see a sharp fall in life span with each generation from Noah till Abraham. With an even depressed life span in the times of Peleg, Reu and Serug probably due to the separation of continents during Peleg's time.
A rise in life span is seen from Nahor.
More about Abraham's kindred and family in the next post.
Good day.

Adam to Noah

If we were to consider the geneology of patriarchs who lived in the pre-flood era, we arrive at some conclusions that may go unnoticed at myriad occasions. People tend to omit geneologies of the Bible simply because it appears dry as to read through just names and more names.As I happened to go through Genesis 5 the other day, it made me think why not take a pen and calculate the ages of the patriarchs from Adam to Noah.When I started calculating their ages I found out to my surprise that many of them were contemporaries to each other due to their startling longevity of as long as 9 centuries, which I never knew before till now when a friend of mine told that Adam was a contemporary of Lamech (Noah's father).This had sparked my curiosity.

First I listed their life span or total number of years they lived on the earth according to the Bible.

1. Adam                     -     930 years.

2. Seth                       -     912 years.

3. Enos                      -     905 years.

4. Cainan                   -     910 years.

5. Mahaleel                -     895 years

6.  Jared                      -     962 years.

7. Enoch                    -     365 years (translated/raptured).

8.  Methuselah             -     969 years.

9.  Lamech                  -      777 years.

10. Noah                     -      950 years.


If one was to closely examine these in the order that they are written in the bible,
We can find out that :

1. Adam and his descendants were a contemporary of Lamech (Noah's father).

2. Seth (Adam's son) and his descendants was a contemporary of Noah.

3. All the patriarchs died before the flood.

4. Lamech died before the death of his father Methuselah by 5 years.

5. Methuselah died in the year of the flood or we can interpret it as : the flood came on the earth, in the year that Methuselah died.

6. Cainan died before his father Enos died.

7. The floods came upon the earth when Noah was 600 th year of his life.

8. Perhaps Noah was helped and encouraged by many of his ancestors when building the ark.

9. The floods came approximately 1712 years after the creation.

Seth and his descendants could have shared their experiences with Noah including the era before the fall passed on by Adam along with how the fall happened.
Hope these change our perspective of the book of Genesis.

More about Noah in the next post.