February 2024

On Genesis, Part 47: Figures of the Messiah

In our last presentation of this commentary, Vessels of Destruction, we had discussed Genesis chapter 36, where there was a break in the narrative of the life of Jacob so that Moses could conclude his account of Jacob’s early years. So following the death Isaac he had then described the progeny of his brother Esau. Where Moses had listed the descendants of Esau, in addition to his Hittite wives it was also apparent that at least one family of the Horites were intermingled into his genealogy, and both Esau and his son Eliphaz were described as having taken wives from of that family. Then, comparing the earlier mention of Esau’s first wives in Genesis chapters 26 and 28, it is evident that over the course of time the situations with his wives had changed, and the offspring which are described in Genesis chapter 36 are from wives other than those, so the concise and incomplete account beckons questions for which there will probably never be answers.

But from the beginning, it is evident that the Edomites were mixed with two different branches of the Canaanites, both the Hittites and the Horites. However even this seems to be contradicted much later in Scripture, in Deuteronomy chapter 25 where we read that “12 The Horims also dwelt in Seir beforetime; but the children of Esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the LORD gave unto them.” This is repeated again, in part, a little further on in that same chapter. So while it seems to contradict the fact that Esau and his sons had intermarried with the Horites, the circumstances are not mutually exclusive. The Edomites evidently had displaced the Horites, since there is no apparent record of a specifically Horite or Hurrian presence having been prevalent in Mount Seir in later times. But at the same time they took their women as wives to the extent where one family of the Horites had been incorporated into Edom, and since so many Horite men are reckoned along with the genealogy of Esau, it is certainly plausible that they also had taken of the daughters of Esau.

On Genesis, Part 46: Vessels of Destruction

The literary style which Moses had employed in Genesis serves a specific purpose, as it relates a family history from Adam through Noah and his sons, which contains just enough information so that the children of Israel may know from where they had come, so that they may recognize those nations to whom they were related, and so that they may be warned concerning those to whom they were not related, or at least, not fully related. Then, after a space of at least thirteen hundred years concerning which there are only a few vague statements, it continues with an account of the family of one man, Abraham, and over a period of two generations the focus is narrowed to Jacob, whom, at this point in Genesis chapter 35, has now been renamed as Israel, or “he who prevails with God”.

Interwoven in accompaniment with this outline of history are descriptions of primordial events which are presented in a manner that the society of the children of Israel may use them as foundational documents. Writing Genesis, Moses must have already expected the children of Israel to utilize these accounts as the primary elements of their education, a sort of constitution, so that they may form a Godly worldview which is tailored according to a pattern which is presented in the Word of Yahweh their God, who had led them out of Egypt, and govern themselves in a manner which He had deemed appropriate. But Genesis itself is actually only a preamble to that constitution, since the later books of Moses which contain the law along with the early history of Israel as a developing nation are all predicated upon the Genesis account, and they had all been instrumental in the function of Israel as a society, containing the formative document of the nation in Exodus as well as the laws by which they were expected to be governed.