RTW January 13
Genealogy Is For Us
This is the account of the descendants of Esau (also know as Edom).
Genesis 36:1
My Takeaways
Something Old
If you have some extra time read Matthew Henry’s thoughts.
We are part of God’s genealogy.
- All things that pertain unto life and godliness – 2 Peter 1:3
- Partakers of the divine nature of Christ – 2 Peter 1:4
- Power and anointing in the Holy Spirit – Acts 1:8, 1 John 2:27
- Forgiveness of sins and freedom from guilt – 1 John 1:9, Romans 8:1
- Divine health and healing – Matthew 8:17
- Freedom from poverty – assurance that our needs will be met – Matthew 6:26
- The prosperity in all things including our soul – 3 John 1:2
- Love, joy, peace and righteousness in the Holy Spirit – Romans 14:17
- Victory and freedom from the bondage of sin – Romans 8:11
- More than conquerors in all things – Romans 8:37
- An abundance of grace for every good work – 2 Corinthians 9:8
- An understanding of the mystery of God’s will – Ephesians 1:9
- Divine guidance – Romans 8:14
- Blessed – Matthew 5, Beatitudes
- Security – Psalm 91.
- Seated in heavenly places with Christ – Ephesians 2:6.
Something New
Jacob and Esau didn’t stay in touch. I wonder what their relationship was like.
Facts about the Edomites (Descendants of Esau)
- Edom and the Edomites are mentioned some 130 times in the Bible.
- When the Israelites came through the wilderness to the Promised Land in the time of Moses, the Edomites refused them passage through their land (Numbers 20:21).
- In the days of Saul, Edom was made subject to Israel (1 Samuel 14:47), and David established garrisons there (2 Samuel 8:14).
- Joram, the son of Ahab, the Edomites became independent of Israel (2 Kings 8:16-22).
- Several of the prophets spoke about and against Edom, including Jeremiah (Jeremiah 49:17-18) and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 25:12-14).
Something to do
Trace God’s faithfulness through your genealogy. If you feel you can’t trace His faithfulness, determine to be faithful, so those who come behind you can trace what you could not.
Something Old:
~The importance of these genealogies and records of kings. They don’t mean a whole lot to me but God included them in His Word so that makes them in important.
~I’m guessing they are also important as historical facts giving credibility to this whole account in Genesis. These are not just “stories” someone made up. And some of these names are encountered later in the Bible.
Tough read for me today. I don’t understand all of these geneologies, but like Wendy and Mary JG mentioned they must be important if they are included in the Bible. I appreciate the link Wendy gave us on Matthew Henry’s thoughts. At any rate I’ll share what I learned from others.
Zondervan’s NIV Study Bible noted this about verse 11. “Eliphaz: Teman – One of Job’s friends was named Eliphaz the Temanite (Job 2:11), and Job himself was from the land of Uz (Job 1:1). Thus Job probably lived in Edom (see verses 28 & 34 in Genesis readings today).”
I also learned from others that Esau’s genealogy reads similarly to that of Cain in Genesis 4.
God’s name and calling out to God are noticeably absent in Esau’s genealogy.
Esau’s descendants produce great men, one of which is Chief Amalek, whose descendants will appear again later in the story.
In fact, Esau’s descendants produce kings before Israel produces kings.
According to Iva May
The insertion of Esau’s genealogy into the story reveals a number of truths about God and people:
God keeps track of all peoples.The belief and practices of a patriarch of a family or people affect all of his descendants. Men who live according to the flesh cannot please God.Those who live outside of the presence of God abuse marriage.
OK that’s all I got, but knowing this information hasn’t really helped me to apply today’s reading to my life :-(.
Just a couple observations: Esau married not only his Uncle Ishmael’s daughters, but also many Canaanite women. And then he had all these descendants. So God, if I am not mistaken, is keeping His promise to Ishmael in Genesis 21:18 – that He would make a great nation of his descendants. God also blessed Esau mightily with wealth and family and possessions. God blesses those outside His will.
This showed me that God also cared about Esau. Although Jacob received the blessing, God also gave Esau a large family, land, and wealth. I also thought it was interesting that Esau married a daughter of Ishmael.
Reading each and every name in the genealogy (struggling with pronunciation) reveals that God is in the details. The scriptures that came to mind were Psalms 139. Each individual stated, God formed, knit together in their mothers womb and were fearfully and wonderfully made. Their frames were not hidden from God and intricately woven together!
Psalms 139
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a]
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
In Isaiah 43:1 But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, oh Jacob, he who formed you, oh Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.
He created us, formed us, calls us by our name, we belong to Him! I physically heard the Lord say my name!!
Wendy – thank you for your encouraging words to create a heritage of faith if you don’t come from a heritage of faithfulness. I did not come from a heritage of faithfulness but am determine to be faithful, so those who come behind me can trace what I could not.
The name in today’s reading (day 13) that caught my attention is Lotan’s sister – Timna (Gen 36:22; 1 Chron 1:39). I had wonder why a woman’s name was mentioned/included in the list of male clan leaders. (There is another woman that I didn’t have time to research – Oholibamah.).
From what I read below, Timna attempted to convert and join Abraham’s household but was not accepted and the consequences was Amalek’s lineage that caused Israel to suffer.
My take away is that we all are part of God’s genealogy – we have His DNA! Genesis 2.7 “Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into man’s nostrils, and man became a living person.” We were all created with faith.
Timna, concubine of Eliphaz: Midrash and Aggadah
by Tamar Kadari
Timna was the sister of Lotan, one of Esau’s chiefs, and therefore the daughter of royalty. The Rabbis relate that she sought to convert and join Abraham’s household. She went to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but since they would not accept her, she went and became the concubine of Eliphaz. She declared: “Better for me to be a handmaiden to this nation [Israel], and not a noblewoman of that nation [the chiefs of Esau]” (Midrash Tannaim on Deut., 32:47). The Rabbis assert that Timna’s willingness to exchange her status of noblewoman for that of concubine attests to her pure intent to convert. The Patriarchs did not understand her true aim; instead of rejecting her, they should have drawn her to the bosom of Judaism. They were accordingly punished, for her union with Eliphaz produced Amalek, who would cause Israel to suffer (BT Sanhedrin 99b).
According to another tradition (Tanhuma, Vayeshev 1), the description of Eliphaz’s “marriage” to Timna teaches of corruption and degeneration among the descendants of Seir. This midrash is based on the inconsistency concerning Timna’s lineage between Gen. 36:20–22, in which she is presented as the sister of Lotan (the son of Seir), and I Chron. 1:36, that mentions her as the daughter of Eliphaz. The Rabbis reconcile this discrepancy by explaining that Timna was indeed Eliphaz’s daughter, as a result of his adulterous relations with Seir’s wife; to compound his sin, Eliphaz took his own daughter as his concubine. The Torah charts the lineage of Esau’s descendants at length, in order to show that this lineage was founded in adultery.
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/timna-concubine-of-eliphaz-midrash-and-aggadah