Bournagain

Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall.  Genesis 49:22

This curious verse is found in Jacob’s blessing of his son Joseph.  The fruitfulness of Joseph is a constant theme in the last thirteen chapters of the book of Genesis, and “fruitful vine near a spring” seems consistent with devices used throughout Hebrew poetry, where an initial thought is repeated and expanded upon in in the following phrase.  But what’s the idea with “branches climbing over a wall?”

I have an aunt whose neighbours have a very prolific grapefruit tree.  This tree has a few branches reaching out over the fence into my aunt’s property, and they are usually laden with delicious grapefruit.  Rather than cut the branches off, the neighbours freely invite my aunt to pick and enjoy the grapefruit on her side of the fence.  My aunt does not own the tree, she does not prune or care for it in any way, and she does not pay for the grapefruit she takes.  All she has to do is pick them, and enjoy them.  Sometimes there are so many grapefruit that she gives some away.  But she has no right to the grapefuit tree as such – it is the property of someone else.  The grapefruit are simply a free gift from the person who owns and nurtures the tree.

Some have accused the God of Israel of being an exclusive God, who shows favouritism toward one particular people.  There were strict laws governing intermarriage and even association between Israel and people of other ethnic groups, and the Bible is clear that God identifies himself as the God of Israel, and gives special blessings and responsibilities to this people.  It is as if there is a wall around this people, preventing other nations from entering in and sharing the blessing, and indeed down through the centuries many Jews have perceived their particular “blessing” in this way.

But the fruitfulness of Israel is like a tree that has branches that climb over a wall.  There are hundreds of ways of showing from the Scriptures that the covenant blessings God bestowed upon Israel were in fact for all nations, and that Israel was to be the bearer of this blessing to the nations.  Like with my aunt’s grapefruit, the nations outside the wall do not own the tree, but they can nevertheless enjoy its fruit, as its branches extend well beyond the confines of Israel.

Joseph’s own life is a clear example of this, as it was a result of his intimate relationship with the God of Israel that Egypt was finally saved from a devastating famine.  And the saving work of Joseph simply foreshadows the life of the most famous and most influential Jew of all history, who also made a trip to Egypt in his early years, and whose house would be called a house of prayer for all nations, and who, many centuries before his birth, was identified by the prophets as being a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel.

My aunt could choose to react to the branches of the grapefruit tree in different ways.  She could complain about the intrusion of wayward branches into her property and insist that the neighbour cut them down.  She could become jealous, wishing that she herself had such an excellent tree on her own property.  She could refuse to pick the fruit because she doesn’t want to feel indebted to the neighbour in any way.  The nations have reacted to the fruitfulness of Israel in all of these ways and more.

But the most intelligent thing for my aunt to do (and the approach she has in fact chosen) is to gratefully take as many grapefruit as those branches can produce, to enjoy them herself and share them with her guests, and to express her appreciation to her neighbours – something which she has been able to do in a variety of practical ways.

Quite a good deal, really, when you think about it…

Jumping ahead a few chapters in Genesis so as to not get too far behind in this year’s reading programme.

Have you ever noticed how often the figure 70 appears in the Bible?  There are a few occurrences in Genesis that are particularly interesting.

Terah was 70 years old when Abraham was born.  Genesis 11:26

There are 70 names in Genesis 10, leading to the Talmudic tradition of the 70 nations.  The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Tanakh, the version that is quoted in the New Testament) counts 72 names.  Interestingly there is a similar discrepancy in the gospel of Luke, where in relation to the number of disciples that Jesus sent out to preach and demonstrate the kingdom of God, the numbers 70 and 72 are more or less evenly distributed in the manuscripts (Luke 10:1).  Rather than getting upset about the fact that the manuscripts don’t all the same thing, let’s be intrigued by the fact that this same discrepancy exists both in the Old and New Testament texts, probably a strong clue that they are referring to the same issue.  Other examples:

The members of Jacob’s household as they travelled down to Egypt during the time of the famine were 70.  Genesis 46:27

When Jacob died the Egyptians mourned for him 70 days.  Genesis 50:3

So what?  What does it matter how many days the Egyptians mourned for Jacob?  Traditionally the Jews have strongly associated the number seventy (or seventy-two) with the Gentile nations.  Terah’s age at Abraham’s birth could have been coincidental, but it is certain that his illustrious son was the first to receive the call to be a blessing to all nations, a call which to a greater or lesser degree has always featured in Jewish thought as being a significant part of their national identity.

Long before his descendants were conscious of being Jews, or Israelites, Jacob led the 70 members of his family southward to escape a terrible famine.  It is not clear to what extent Jacob, was actually conscious of his particular mission, as Abraham’s grandson, to take the blessing of God to the nations.  But he ended up doing it in spite of himself.  His own son Joseph became the saviour of Egypt, which opened the way for his whole family to set up shop in a corner of that land where they became a shop window for the kingdom of God.  Why 70 family members?  Perhaps a reminder of the call to go out into the world and demonstrate what being a righteous nation was all about.

The presence of Jacob’s descendants in Egypt, or “Israel” as they came to be known, left a lasting impression on people – so much so that when Jacob died, 70 of the greatest dignitaries of the nation were in the cortege to carry Jacob’s remains back to the land God had promised him.

Whether or not Jacob understood all this, it is strongly suggestive of the mission of God to reach every nation with the message of the restoration of his kingdom.

Other “seventies” elsewhere in the Scriptures may serve to confirm this, such as the 70 bullocks sacrificed at the tabernacle (II Chronicles 29:32), the 70 weeks of years in Daniel 9:24-27 during which Jerusalem would be trampled by Gentile powers or the 70/72 missionary disciples Jesus’ sent out as forerunners.

Back to Genesis, and in light of the “christocentric hermeneutic” in the book The Bible Made Impossible  reviewed in the previous post, how should we understand the story about Noah?  A good place to start is to see how the earliest Christians understood the story.

A question before we go there: is the story historical?  In other words, did it actually happen?  Nowhere in the New Testament is the historicity of the Flood either questioned or defended.  It is simply assumed.  The early Christians certainly appear to have believed the account to be accurate, and up until about the eighteenth century it was generally assumed to be historical.  In our day it is generally assumed to be complete fantasy.  Modern scholarship tends to envisage an impassable chasm between history and myth, whereas the line between the two is actually very blurry, particularly when we are dealing with ancient history.  One way of viewing “myth” is to consider it an interpretation of events, focusing on meaning rather than simply a blow-by-blow account of what actually happened.  Part of the reason history as it is taught in schools is often a source of great boredom for children is that events are listed without any presentation of the great uniting themes that give sense to them.

Let me say that I have no compelling reason not to consider that the basic elements of the story actually happened.  That said, I cannot prove the story in an empirical sense any more than it can be disproved, separated as we are from the events by several thousand years.  I don’t believe we are intended to try to prove or disprove the veracity of the account within the limitations of modern historical method. There is undoubtedly meaning in the story that goes beyond a dry and technical analysis of whether or not the events actually occurred as written (even though I see no reason to accept that they didn’t).

The first thing to note is that Jesus himself spoke of the ark, the days of Noah and the flood, with the clear assumption that his hearers knew what he was talking about  (Matthew 24:37-39).

Similarly, the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews uses Noah as an illustration of practical faith, when he built the ark to save his family in response to God’s instructions (Hebrews 11:7)

The apostle Peter seems to have been the first to explore the theological significance of the story of Noah.  He interprets the ark as an image of salvation, pointing to the fact that 8 people (the family of Noah) were saved from the waters of the Flood thanks to the ark.  He then draws a direct parallel between the waters of the Flood and the waters of baptism “that now saves you also” (I Peter 3:19-21)  Here we enter right into a christocentric interpretation of the story.  There are many ways in which the Flood story points toward Christ.  The extreme nature of the Flood as a judgement reflects the gravity of mankind’s disobedience, in a similar way that the extreme seriousness of the cross of Christ does.  In many ways the ark is a reflection of Christ, carrying his people through the waters of judgement for sin.  Peter specifies that baptism is not so much about the removal of dirt, as the pledge of a clean conscience toward God.  A just God cannot turn a blind eye to disobedience and sin.  The dirt is real, but in spite of the dirt, if we respond obediently to the solution that God has provided in Jesus Christ, we may approach the throne of God with confidence, a major theme of Hebrews chapter 10.

In so many ways walking through door of the ark and stepping out onto dry ground was like a resurrection for Noah.  Just as baptism is an identification with Jesus’ rising from the dead, so Noah and his family embarked (no etymological relationship implied) on a completely new life in a new world which bore some resemblance to the world they had known but in many respects was completely different.  Not only a new world, but a fresh start, like the fresh start that Jesus offers us daily when we lay our dirt at the foot of the cross, pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep heading up the road, taking on more and more of his likeness as we move ahead.

There are other fascinating ways in which the Flood account foreshadows Christ.  The ark rested on the mountains of Ararat on the 17th of Nisan – the 7th month in the Hebrew calendar, which also happens to be the date of the Jewish feast of Firstfruits, the first day of the harvest, and also it would seem the date of Jesus’ resurrection, the day after the feast of Unleavened Bread.  The apostle Paul seems to confirm this.  Just an interesting coincidence?

I’m also fascinated by the following enigmatic comment, following Noah’s entry into the ark:

 Then the LORD shut him in.  Genesis 7:16

We cannot save ourselves.  Even after doing everything God had commanded him, there was still a final step that Noah was incapable of fulfilling: closing the door of the ark.  Jesus is the author of salvation in the sense that left to our own devices we can no more escape sin and live righteously than fly to the moon.  If we can live rightly, it is only through his achievements and his presence in us.