Devotional
Short Note to Genesis 22
I do
not know why someone would suggest Isaac to be fifteen years old for this
chapter? But that is what someone did. Abraham was then 115 years old in 2125
BCE to be exact (calculated not with the Septuagint shortening of the Word of
God but the Hebrew text for the period length of the enslavement). The Septuagint
is a Byzantine degenerative text full of errors and “tricks” since it was
copied in those days by Christians’ hands only and the original pure one got
lost. The errorful one originated already in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes
with additions, harmonizations, omissions, and a long list of word-substitutions,
syntax reformulations circa 164 BCE. The “Xerox copyists” of those days got too
involved with a heavy Hellenistic hand and Hellenistic mind on the text (just
like they did in Ptolemaic Alexandria with Homer’s Iliad) and the result was
the same. Not only regular slips of the hand, ear, eye, tongue and memory
(which is innocent human errors) but blatant ones of degeneration. So the
Septuagint will not be followed here. So Hebrew calculated biblical chronology
have us in the 115th year [? uncertain] of Abraham in 2125 BCE calculated from
1450 BCE as the date of the Exodus and 970 BCE as the death of Thutmosis III,
the Napoleon of Egypt of those days. So 2125
BCE is the date for this chapter. If the scholar of Bibliotheca Orientalis
26 number 3/4 of 1969 is correct on pages 162-167 with the dating of Gudea of
Lagash between 2143-2124 BCE, then this governor of Lagash in Mesopotamia heard
of the Sodom and Gemorrah destruction and the Salty Dead Sea aftermath result
during the beginning of his reign, and he became very religious. He placed a
statue of himself with praying hands on every street corner and descriptions of
his piety to his goddess Ningirsu, all published and available at archive.com.
He must have thought that maybe his city is next in line. The last thing he
wanted to be is a statue of salt due to the anger of the gods, maybe. The news
of Sodom and Gemorrah reached the Levant fast and all rulers were worried. This
was a paradigm shift time in the Levant. There never was such a pious ruler
before and after outside the Bible in Mesopotamia. Hyper-religious. No other
ruler wanted to appease the gods as this governor Gudea. He was not going to
take any risks and repeat Sodom and Gemorrah. The gods are crazy and he had to
keep them at bay, so he thought. Sumerian Mathematics were seximal and decimal
but in his texts, Gudea is concerned about the sanctity of the number seven! It
appears regular in his expressions of worship. Some Hebrew theology about the
week and Sabbath as seven days, probably rubbed off on him, and he mixed it
with his own paganism. See the original texts in German by F. Delitzsch. In
this context God wanted to take Abraham on a typology lesson. He had to go to
mount Moriah and offer Isaac his son. Abraham did what God requested since the
vividness with which God spoke to him as a prophet, was so clear, so direct
that Abraham would be foolish to refuse. It was a strange request, the meaning
of which he did not understand yet, setting out on the travel. What
God is going to show Abraham is that the shocking aspect of offering one’s son
is stopped by the Trinity themselves but the Trinity did not intervene to offer
Christ in the functional role of Son of God when He came to die for everyone’s
sins in 31 CE. No one stopped the hand of the killers. Christ was determined to
die and He did from a broken heart. Even for those who killed Him and caused
Him to be killed. Today,
Mount Moriah is that rock in the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount,
according to tradition. Abraham did not leave a sticker to say, this was it. God
then promised to increase his seed so that all the nations of the earth will be
blessed (Genesis 22:18) “and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed; because you have listened to My voice” = וְהִתְבָּרְכוּ בְזַרְעֲךָ כֹּל גּוֹיֵי הָאָרֶץ, עֵקֶב, אֲשֶׁר
שָׁמַעְתָּ בְּקֹלִי. The Apostle Paul is right in Genesis 3 that the “seed” is
singular here but it also included Isaac, Jacob and Joseph and what followed.
Both Christ and the real generations from Abraham in the Isaac line. It is in
the promised seed and not the seed as a result of sinful machinations. God
works with obedience and faithfulness not in ecumenical embracing. God is very
particular and specific. Then in Genesis 22:19-24 Moses took an excerpt from the Book
of the Patriarchs dealing with the generations of the brother of Abraham
and especially Rebecca is mentioned since Moses wanted to move over to the link
with Isaac later.
Dear God Christ for us, yes it is Christ for us and the Father’s
grace, the Son’s love and the Spirits’ patience. For us. In Jesus Name, Amen.