Mount Moriah

Something was pointed out to me this week-end that I had never seen before.

In Genesis 22, very early on in the forming of the foundation of the Judeo-Christian faith, God told Abraham to take his son Isaac to Mount Moriah, and offer him up as a sacrifice to God. Now, of course, after Abraham went through all the motions, up to trussing Isaac up and placing him on the altar, and raising the knife to end Isaac’s life, then God told him, essentially, never mind, you have proven your faith, that’s all that was necessary.

Now, in First Chronicles 21, David sent Joab out to number Israel. Joab tried to talk David out of it, but David insisted, and he was the king, so all the men of Israel were numbered (except Benjamin and Levi, because Joab saw the folly in actually numbering Israel). God decided to punish Israel for David’s sin, but David saw an angel (the death angel?) by the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. David, and the elders that were with him, cried out to God for mercy, and God stayed the angel. God then commanded David to build an altar at the threshingfloor of Ornan. For some reason, 1 chronicles doesn’t really tell us where Ornan’s threshingfloor was, but, in Second Chronicles 3, we are told that Solomon began to build the temple at the site where his father had seen the angel. In other words, the temple was built on the same mountain where Abraham built the altar for Isaac. So Abraham built an altar there, David built as altar there, and Solomon built an altar there. That’s not a coincidence.

By the way, the term Moriah means, chosen by God. Apparently, this was the spot chosen by God for building altars. In Genesis 22, there is a messianic prophecy, as Abraham and Isaac are headed to the mountain, Isaac asks his father why they didn’t bring anything to sacrifice, and Abraham tells him that God would provide Himself a lamb. Of course, in the New Testament, when the Lamb of God is sacrificed for our sins, the veil of the temple (used to separate the common people from the Holiest of Holies) was torn in half. It is through that sacrifice that we have access to God Himself.

Polygamy

The practice of polygamy has been in the news some, lately, and, even though it is a controversial subject, I thought that I would weigh in on it. It has been pointed out that it was generally accepted in the Old Testament, and never specifically forbidden in the New Testament. Let me first point out that just because something isn’t specifically forbidden, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is okay.
Let me also say that it may not have been as common as you may think, even in the Old Testament. Granted, David had multiple wives, and so did Solomon, but they were both kings, they were not commoners. Abraham had a wife, Sarah, and a concubine, Hagar. He did marry another wife, but not until after the death of Sarah(?) It’s an interesting discussion, because Keturah had six sons by Abraham, and he was already old when Sarah died, so perhaps Keturah was a concubine (in fact, 1 Chronicles 1:32 refers to her as such), that had sons while Sarah was still alive—possibly even while Abraham was still young. I have to question that, though, because if Abraham had sons when God promised to make a great nation from Abraham’s seed, then wouldn’t Abraham and Sarah have assumed that God meant from his existing sons? There would have been no point in enlisting Hagar as a concubine, if Abraham already had a concubine that had already given him children. Isaac only had one wife, Rebekah. Jacob had four wives, or two wives and two concubines, depending on who you listen to. Gideon also had multiple wives. Very rarely is there any mention of anyone else having multiple wives. (Some have said that Moses had two wives, but the Bible only names one: Zipporah. Zipporah’s father has two names, though, and is sometimes called Reuel, and sometimes called Jethro).
The question arises, though, what is the difference between a wife and a concubine? Easton’s Bible Dictionary says that a concubine was a wife of secondary rank (it says more than that, but I only have so much space, and I don’t want to get sued for plagiarism). Smith’s Bible Dictionary points out that a wife could be divorced, whereas a concubine could not. Smith’s goes on to catalog four types of concubines: A Hebrew girl bought from her father, a gentile captive taken in war, a foreign slave bought, or a Canaanitish woman. The first two had rights under the Law of Moses, the third did not, and the fourth was actually prohibited by the Law (not to suggest that it didn’t happen, though). I should point out that, although Zilpah and Bilhah are mentioned as being Jacob’s wives, they were only with Jacob because they were Leah and Rachel’s slaves, and, in fact, Bilhah is mentioned as being Jacob’s concubine in Genesis 35:22. Apparently there wasn’t considered to be much difference between a wife and a concubine at that time.
By the way, from what I understand, a supporter of Biblical polygamy once challenged Mark twain to find any place in the Bible where polygamy was forbidden. Twain responded with Matthew 6:24. Quite frankly, though, even though one of the parables that Jesus told seems to support the idea of polygamy, Jesus also made it clear that when God created marriage, he created Eve to be Adam’s wife. He did not create a harem for Adam, he created a wife. The parable was intended to convey the idea that although many people can be saved, only those that are ready when He comes will be. Keep in mind that Jesus used parables to relate spiritual things to physical things that people could understand, but not necessarily physical things that he approved of; remember the unjust judge?

Women In the Bible (Part III)

The Queen of Sheba was apparently a good woman, even though she was not of Israel. The Bible doesn’t say anything negative about her, only that she admired Solomon’s wisdom.
Solomon, on the other hand, wound up with enough wives and concubines to keep him busy for years. I personally don’t understand how a man that wise could tie himself down to so many women. It just doesn’t seem, you know, wise. The Bible doesn’t even tell us much of anything about Solomon’s collection of women, except that they turned away his heart. Of course, if he had married one faithful woman of his own kingdom, that wouldn’t have happened.
We could talk about Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, but Ahab’s heart wasn’t right with God to start with, and he married this woman who was not Jewish by birth or by faith. There were a lot of men that would have done as much damage to Israel as she did if they had only been given the opportunity. One thing I will say for Jezebel: She was very faithful to her god and to her husband.
Athaliah was the mother of a king, and when the king died, she went and slew as many of the royal blood as she could find, and she ruled over Israel for several years. She missed one, and eventually he was placed on the throne in her stead (she called that treason). Certainly that was a wicked woman, but no more so than many of the men in the Bible.
Esther was a well-favored woman that became Queen of Babylon during the captivity, and she was able to use her position to save Israel from what would have otherwise been a great slaughter.
In the New Testament, of course, God chose a woman who was a virgin to bring Jesus into this world. He could have simply sprung Jesus upon us, fully grown and ready to preach, but he chose to live a human life, including being brought up as a son of Israel.
I’ve mentioned before that the Bible really tells us very little about Mary Magdalene. We know that Jesus cast seven demons out of her, and that she was one of the first, if not the very first person to see Jesus after the resurrection. Of course, that means that she is one of the few people in the entire Bible that we cannot ascribe any faults to. She was human, so she was not perfect, but we really don’t know of anything that she did wrong.
Lazarus had two sisters, Mary and Martha, who are mentioned very prominently in the Gospels. One interesting thing about them: When Jesus went to Martha’s house, the Bible tells us that Mary sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard His teaching. Martha complained to Jesus that her sister wasn’t helping her serve. Jesus told her that Mary had chosen the better part, and that He wouldn’t take that away from her. Some people, in those days, would probably have questioned Mary even being allowed to learn from Jesus (especially if she’s not helping with the ‘women’s work’), but Jesus makes it clear that He was in favor of Mary learning everything she could.
In the Book of Acts, There are some women that are mentioned prominently: Tabitha was a faithful woman in the early church who died, and was subsequently raised from the dead. That puts her in a very exclusive club: The Resurrected.
There was also mention that Philip had four daughters that prophesied. What prophesies did they utter? We don’t know, they are only mentioned in passing; apparently their prophecies only dealt with the early church.Paul shared with a couple, Aquila and Priscilla, who went on to share with Apollos. Apollos shows up again in Corinth as a leader in the church (1 Corinthians 3:4-6). Would he have if it had just been Aquila that shared with him? I’m thinking probably not, but, of course, that’s speculation.

A Few Thoughts on Marriage

Just a few thoughts on the subject of marriage:
Eve was created specifically to be Adam’s wife. Of course, Adam didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter (I’m sure you’ve heard the joke where God told Adam He would create for Adam the perfect wife, but it would cost him an arm and a leg. “Gee, that’s pretty steep, God, what can I get for a rib?”), but she was the right woman for him. Cain had a wife (Where did she come from? The Bible doesn’t really say). A wife. Abraham had a wife, but then, after the promise was given, Sarah had a hard time believing that she could have a child, so she turned over her handmaid, Hagar, to Abraham (apparently Abraham had a hard time believing it, too). God later made it clear that this was not what he had intended, but, for whatever reason, very little in the way of punishment was meted out to Abraham for his lack of faith, although he had to deal with the consequences. Isaac had his Rebekah, and there is no mention of any other woman in his life.
Jacob (also known as Israel) ended up with two wives and then two more wives (Genesis 30:4-9), but not really by his own choice. The love of his life was Rachel, but Rachel’s father, Laban, tricked Jacob. When Jacob first asked about marrying Rachel, Laban agreed that if Jacob worked for Laban for seven years, then the marriage could take place. Perhaps Laban thought he could marry off his older daughter, Leah, within seven years. It didn’t happen. Custom dictated that Laban marry off his daughters in order (at least, that was the reason he gave Jacob as to why he switched daughters on Jacob). So Jacob goes through the wedding, thinking that he’s marrying Rachel, and wakes up the next morning, only to find that he is married to Leah (I’m thinking that there was probably an inordinate amount of alcohol consumed before the wedding. I wonder how that made Leah feel, that her father felt like he had to get her sister’s suitor liquored up in order to get Leah married off?). A lot of men would have simply kicked Leah to the curb, “I didn’t work seven years for YOU!” and demanded satisfaction from Laban. Jacob, however, knew that Leah was no longer a good candidate for marriage, and that it was because of him (granted, because of something that he was tricked into doing, but something that he did, nevertheless). Jacob, apparently, also understood that Laban did what he felt he had to do (can’t let Rachel marry until Leah is married, but Leah doesn’t have a suitor, and Rachel has been promised). Later on, as the two sisters competed with each other, they brought their handmaids into service. It seems to me that Jacob would have been happy with just Rachel, and yet, he allowed himself to be (what’s the plural of henpecked?). Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not suggesting that Jacob’s problems were all because of Leah and Rachel; I’m not even suggesting that those problems were all because of Laban; a lot of his problems were simply because he was such a nice guy, and he tried to make everybody happy. This probably should have served as an example to his descendents as to what NOT to do, but a lot of them seemed to think that it was okay to have multiple wives and concubines as long as they weren’t nice about it…
King David had many wives, and a few concubines, and it wasn’t so much them that got him into trouble (although Michal was troublesome at times) as the fact that, for him, they weren’t enough. Solomon had an incredible number of wives and concubines, and they definitely got him into trouble, but, again, not so much because they were evil, or wicked, but because he allowed himself to get spread so thin trying to see to their needs that he stopped attending to God.
Of course, Jesus said that when a man marries a woman, they two become one flesh. Paul also told us that a bishop or a deacon should be the husband of one wife—and I think it’s fair to assume that he was not commanding marriage, he was specifying quantity… It also occurs to me that, even though he specified bishop or deacon, that doesn’t necessarily exclude the rest of us from that, because sometimes callings change (just because I’m not filling the position of a deacon now, it doesn’t mean that I won’t get called into that position later).

Solomon's Temple

(Image from www.mishkanministries.org/architectural_modles_kst.htm )

I have heard a lot of discussion about King Solomon's Temple; King David wanted to build a temple for God, but God refused him. Later King David told Solomon that it would be Solomon's responsibility to build the temple. There are multiple theories about why God wouldn't allow David to build the temple, but most of them seem to be out in left field to me.

If you look at the text where David found out God didn't want him to build the temple, God starts out saying that He doesn't need a house (after all, why would a spiritual being need a physical house), and a lot of the rest of it actually sounds like Messianic prophesy. God certainly told David that after David's death, God would raise up one of David's sons and establish his kingdom; I have to wonder though, did God mean immediately after David's death? He says that He will establish that throne forever: Does that mean that Solomon's throne is established forever because we still remember King Solomon today? It seems to me that God is talking about Jesus, of the lineage of David, whose throne is established for evermore.

Now, if you look at the text where David assigns the task to Solomon, it reads very differently. David seems to think that it is because of the bloodshed during his reign that he was not allowed to build the temple. There was no mention of bloodshed before... Further, David says that God prophesied that Solomon, by name, would build the temple. There was no mention of Solomon's name before, and, quite frankly, it would have been meaningless if there had been; Solomon hadn't been born yet, David could have named any of his sons Solomon... God definitely told David that the temple would not be built until after David's death, but there's no mention of that when David spoke to Solomon. So what happened? Well, it's certainly possible that the writer of First Chronicles (Nathan?) simply left out some of what God told David. It's also possible (and more likely, IMHO) that David had thirty years to ponder what God had told him, and that he formed his own opinions about what God meant, and he paraphrased or embellished the instructions unintentionally. I have been asked if I thought David lied to Solomon: No, I don't think he lied, but I think what he said wasn't entirely true; lying implies intent to deceive, I don't believe that there was any such intent.

I also want to point out that a lot of people believe that when David talked about bloodshed, he was specifically referring to the death of Uriah the Hittite. I would tend to agree. All of the other blood that was shed during David's reign was the blood of enemies of God, or at least, enemies of Israel (if there was a difference). Uriah was one of David's mighty men: a hero of Israel. David had not yet met Bathsheba (Uriah's wife, for whom David had Uriah killed) at the time Nathan told David that God did not want David to build the temple. We know this because there are two places in the Bible where it talks about David sending Joab to besiege Rabbah at the time "...when Kings went forth/out to battle..." and both times, David tarried still at Jerusalem. The point, of course, being that David was not where he was supposed to be. The first time is in Second Samuel 11:1, the second being First Chronicles 20:1. Obviously, these are both references to the same battle, but in Second Samuel, the narrative goes on to spell out the whole story of David suffering from insomnia, and going up on the roof, and seeing Bathsheba (the original bathing beauty), and thinking that she could put him to sleep; not caring that her husband, Uriah was off at Rabbah, putting his life on the line for his nation, Israel. For some reason, First Chronicles doesn't mention Bathsheba or Uriah; perhaps an attempt to reduce redundancy. Amazingly, only two chapters later, David charges Solomon, his son by Bathsheba, to build the temple. That should make it clear that First Chronicles is somewhat abbreviated. In any case, there are also two places where it makes reference to God saying no to David when he was seeking to build a house for God: Second Samuel 7:5, and First Chronicles 17:4--both times, several chapters prior to his encounter with Bathsheba. So, even though David may have still felt guilty over the encounter when his son Solomon was old enough to assume the throne, it really had nothing to do with why God denied him the opportunity to build the temple.

Maternal Instinct

We are taught, generally from a fairly young age, that mothers have a natural instinct to take care of their children. Of course, there are ways to suppress it; in today's society the obvious way would be with drugs: A strung out mother will sell her baby to get money to buy drugs. In this time of year, when we always think of Mary and the Baby, I thought I would share a little bit about what the Bible says.

In First Samuel chapter 1, we are told about a woman named Hannah, who very much wanted children, but couldn't have any. She went to temple and prayed, and ended up later giving birth to Samuel, the prophet for whom the book is named. In Genesis 30, Rachel became distraught that she didn't have children. Now, in both of these cases, the woman in question was one of two wives, who had no children, while the other wife bare children. Interestingly enough, in both cases, the barren wife was actually the favored of her husband; I'm not sure if there's any significance to that.

In Judges 11, Jephthah's daughter bewailed her virginity. Of course, I should point out that she was in trouble for celebrating her father's return from a victorious war (it's complicated); but, if she had not been a virgin, she would not have been celebrating her father's return, she would have been celebrating her husband's return, and would not have gotten into trouble. The end of this story has been interpreted many different ways, but, my reading is that she died, still a virgin.

I think that we are all familiar with King Solomon's famous exercise in wisdom in First Kings 3: He had to rule in a case where two mothers both claimed the same child, and he depended on the the maternal instinct to determine which woman was the child's mother (the other woman was willing to let the king kill the child).

In Second Kings chapter 6, there is a rather gruesome story that shows that it doesn't take drugs to override maternal instinct, just a very desperate situation. It's hard for me to imagine such a situation, but that may just be because I'm spoiled.