Bible 3
h13.
[12] And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations:
[13] I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
[14] When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,
[15] I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
[16] When the bow is in the clouds, I will look upon it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth."
[17] God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth."
n13.
[18] The names of Noah's three sons were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham is the ancestor of the Canaanites.)
[19] From these three sons of Noah came all the nations of the earth.
[20, 21] Noah became a farmer and planted a vineyard, and he made wine. One day as he was drunk and lay naked in his tent,
[22] Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and went outside and told his two brothers.
[23] Then Shem and Japheth took a robe and held it over their shoulders and, walking backwards into the tent, let it fall across their
father to cover his nakedness as they looked the other way.
[24, 25] When Noah awoke from his drunken stupor, and learned what had happened and what Ham, his younger son, had done,
he cursed Ham's descendants.
A curse upon the Canannites, he swore.
May they be the lowest of slaves
To the descendants of Shem and Japheth.
[26, 27] Then he said, God bless Shem,
And may Canaan be his slave.
God bless Japheth,
And let him share the prosperity of Shem.
And let Canaan be his slave.
[28] Noah lived another 350 years afater the flood,
[29] and was 950
years old at his death.
h14.
Genesis 11
[1]
Now the whole earth had one language and few words.
[2] And as men migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
[3] And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen
for mortar.
[4] Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for
ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."
[5] And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built.
[6] And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning
of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
[7] Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."
[8] So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
[9] Therefore its name was called Ba'bel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the
LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
n14.
[10, 11] Shem's line of descendants included Arpoachshad, born two years after the flood when Shem was 100 years old; after that he lived another 403 years, and
lived another 500 years, and had many sons and daughters.
[12, 13] When Arpachshad was thirty-five years old, his son Shelah was born, and after that he lived another 403 years, and had
many sons and daughters.
[14, 15] Shelah was thirty years old when his son Eber was born, living 403 years after that, and had many sons and daughters.
This confuses and frustrates me very much about the years for this and that...I do not see its significance. My attitude is poor in typing this, I stop here for now.
The reason for my even mentioning this here is that hopefully one day I will look back on this and it will help me in my
spiritual growth somehow. Rather than pretending that I understand all that I type and enjoy it as I do, although this is just one
particular part I do not enjoy...it is not to say I do not enjoy any of it.
h15.
11:27 This is the account of Terah.
Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot.
11:28 Haran died in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans, while his father Terah was still alive.
11:29 And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah.
11:30 But Sarai was barren; she had no children.
11:31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot (the son of Haran), and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram's wife, and with them he set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan.
When they came to Haran, they settled there.
11:32 The lifetime of Terah was two hundred and five years; and he died in Haran.
What I see here: Nahor took his niece Milcah as his wife.
The place Haran is the same name as the dead brother of Abram. Maybe they just stopped somewhere in the nowhere, they liked the place and did not like to continue and called it to Haran thus honouring him.
After the Flood something must have happened with the creation as the ages are going downwards.
h16.
Genesis 12
[1]Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
[2] And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
[3] I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves."
[4] So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
I find this a moving passage. Abram knew it was God who spoke to him. God was determined to fulfil a plan with him.
The measure of happiness for the people was just how their reaction was on a chosen man by God.
h17.
[11] When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sar'ai his wife, "I know that you are a woman beautiful to behold;
[12] and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, `This is his wife'; then they will kill me, but they will let you live.
[13] Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account."
[14] When Abram entered Egypt the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.
[15] And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.
[16] And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, he-asses, menservants, maidservants, she-asses, and camels.
[17]
But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sar'ai, Abram's wife.
[18] So Pharaoh called Abram, and said, "What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?
[19] Why did you say, `She is my sister,' so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone."
[20] And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him; and they set him on the way, with his wife and all that he had.
The famous Flavius Josephus wrote about Abram: 'He was a person of great sagacity, both for understanding all things and persuading his hearers, and not mistaken in his opinions; for which reason he began to have higher notions of virtue than others had, and he determined to renew and to change the opinion all men happened then to have concerning God; for he was the first that ventured to publish this notion, That there was but one God, the Creator of the universe; and that, as to other [gods], if they contributed any thing to the happiness of men, that each of them afforded it only according to his appointment, and not by their own power.'
and 'Berosus mentions our father Abram without naming him, when he says thus: "In the tenth generation after the Flood, there was among the Chaldeans a man righteous and great, and skillful in the celestial science."'
Bible 4
