The morning
Manna will be provided at 6am. Thanks. Studying
Genesis in the SSnet.org series Lesson 11, may the Holy Spirit be the speaker
to your heart. The Topic today
is: "Judah and Tamar the Prostitute". The Opening
Hymn will be 229 "Spirit of the Living God" The Sabbath
School Quarterly, downloadable from SSnet.org in the Teacher's Edition is on
page 140 and for the laymen edition or Standard Edition, on page 91. The SSnet.org
site allows anyone, anywhere to read the lesson in their own language. Choose
your own language to see God speaking also to your heart. ---Moses who
wrote Genesis said this week in Genesis 37:19 that Joseph is a ba'al hakhalomot
"lord of the dreams". Ba'al as Lord? The God of the Phoenicians? ---Moses was
properly educated in many languages, Egyptian and Akkadian. The Amarna Letters
were written in Akkadian and they are dating from 5 years after Moses' death in
1410-1375 BC. Letter 102 line 5 also used belu meaning "lords". It was property
owners. Also in El Amarna 138:49. It was common later in the time of the Judges
also in Ugarit. b'l hlb "the lords of Halba" (Ugarit 7, p. 143, see
Reviv, IEJ 16 [1966], pp. 25ff). ---Even though
the brothers were bad, there was a back-door. Not all of them were that bad.
They were the brakes to the actions and suggested a mild outcome for Joseph.
The favor of God working. They would remain free from his blood, says Ellen
White in Patriarchs and Prophets p. 211. ---Dr. Doukhan
indicated that though chapter 38 looks out of place it shows how an evil act
will be turned into a positive event linked to salvation. ---Tamar the
prostitute will be linked later to the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1:5. ---God
associates with evil sinners and transforms them into building bricks of His
salvation plan.