Bible in a Year January 12: Gen 35:1-37:24

 

January 12: Gen 35:1-37:24

While the end of our reading today is pretty familiar, the beginning and middle seem rather random. I found a few interesting tidbits:

1. When Jacob requested that everyone get rid of their foreign gods, they also had to get rid of the rings in their ears! Did you know these ear rings were a pagan religious custom?

2. Were you surprised to learn that Isaac was still alive and lived to 180? When we last saw him he was bedridden and basically blind, and that was over 30 years earlier.

3. I know genealogical lists can be boring, but there are always a few interesting facts to be learned if you read them carefully. For instance, the wives of Esau are also acknowledged as grandmothers – we don’t see this often in such lists. Also, did you see the reference to the man who discovered hot springs in the desert when he was feeding his dad’s donkeys? (Gen 36:24). And only one wife of an Edomite king is recognized – Mehetabel, who may have had famous relatives (Gen 36:39).

4. Did you notice that Joseph was only 17 when he was sent by his father to find his brothers (who subsequently threw him in a well)? He had to go from the Hebron Valley to Shechem (yes, the same town where Simeon and Levi killed all the men), approximately 89 miles via roads today. Then he had to travel on to Dothan, another 13 miles further. I can’t imagine sending a teenage boy on such a journey alone these days!

What other things did you find that were surprising/interesting today?

TOMORROW’S TEXT: Gen 37:25 – 40:8