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Wednesday, December 27, 2017

CROSSED LINES & COURSE CORRECTION

Blogging Genesis 35:21-22


Then Israel journeyed and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder.
And it happened, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine; and Israel heard about it (Genesis 35: 21-22).

In every family, there are lines that must never be crossed.   So what happens when EVERYBODY in the family crosses EVERY line?   Let’s see.

Back in Genesis 29-30, Jacob, aka Israel, married Leah, thinking he was marrying her sister Rachel.  Then he married Rachel, too.  As part of their dowries and the custom of the wealthy classes at the time, each of the brides had a handmaiden.  A handmaiden, or maid, was a lifetime servant like the ladies in waiting of European royalty.  Leah’s maid was named Zilpah.  Rachel’s maid was Bilhah. To provide their husband with more children, Rachel and Leah made Jacob marry their maids, too. 
  
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/04/waity_katies_ladies.html
Why they did that involves a complex mix of ancient perceptions of a woman’s worth being tied to her ability to give her husband children, legal precedent for higher class women adopting/claiming/ abducting their servants’ children to tweak their fertility stats, and the timeless human tradition of ignoring and repeating the history of really bad ideas (see Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar).  From all that, Zilpah and Bilhah went from maids to concubines.  Concubines were kinda not full wives, but they were definitely fully off limits to any other man, which brings us to Reuben, the eldest son of Israel. 

Reuben did a very bad thing.

“And it happened, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine; and Israel heard about it.” (Genesis 35: 22)

Yep.  Reuben, first of the 12 patriarchs of the Jewish nation, slept with his stepmom who was also the mother of 2 of his brothers.1 

His dad found out and nothing.  Verse 23 moves on to a whole other subject and nobody mentions the affair until Israel brings it up on his deathbed 40 years later.   Yep. The oldest son and and his stepmom had sex, everybody knew, and for 40 years they acted like it hadn’t happened.


And this was just the latest line in a long line of lines that no one should ever cross, but they did.

The only sister in this family had been raped and Dad basically did nothing about it.  Her brothers responded by killing every male human remotely connected to the rapist, AND kidnapping all the women in their town.

Dad had 4 wives, but he only loved one, and he didn’t particularly care for the children of  his 3 baby-mamas.  That’s 11 out of 13 kids knowing their Dad who wants them to kick rocks.    And that’s 3 women whose husband has affection-less sex with them.

Now, none of this justifies an affair between a man’s third wife and first son; but in such a broken and ugly atmosphere, when the oldest unloved son and the youngest unloved concubine were likely part of the same generation, Reuben and Bilhah’s affair was not the most surprising development in the family’s history. 
 
Reuben and Bilhah made a choice: a wrong, wrong, eww, wrong choice.  Nobody made them do what they did.  But.  But the culture created by the head(s) of a household define the natural flow of decisions.  In Jacob’s house the current flowed in the wrong, wrong, eww, wrong direction. 

Parents matter.  The culture we create in our homes will push our children toward good or toward evil.   Yes, every child can use their free will to defy the odds either way.  But every statistic in history agrees that it is hard to swim upstream.  And that’s why God gives us rules.


The Law and its more perfect evolution, the Gospel, lay out guideposts for ordering the culture of our families and communities.   In a sense, the Bible is a really long manual for course correction. 

In Genesis, the Lord gave some individual revelations and a few prophetic nudges in the right direction, but for the most part God let people structure family and community according to the dictates of conscience and circumstance. 
Well, we see how well that worked.

Reuben and Bilhah’s affair was one of several relationships that caused so much damage and drama they inspired a whole set of course-corrections  in the Mosaic law:
·         Reuben and Bilhah’s Law.   Leviticus 18: The nakedness of your father’s wife you shall not uncover; it is your father’s nakedness.
·         Lot and His Daughters’ Law.  Leviticus 18: The nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover. She is your mother; you shall not uncover her nakedness. Abraham and Sarah’s Law.   Leviticus 18: The nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home or elsewhere, their nakedness you shall not uncover.
·         Judah and Tamar’s Law.   Leviticus 18: 15 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law—she is your son’s wife—you shall not uncover her nakedness.
·         Rachel and Leah’s Law.  Leviticus 18: 18 Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister, to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive.
·         Amram and Jochebed (Moses’ parents) Law.  Leviticus 18: 12 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is near of kin to your father. 13 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister, for she is near of kin to your mother.
The children of the newly prohibited relationships often became wonderful, mightily anointed people.  Nevertheless, the relationships that produced them were terrible ideas that were now officially wrong, eww, wrong.   Leviticus 18 was God saying, “Don’t do that mess anymore.”

Now remember, God delivered the Law to the descendants of Jacob’s 4 wives and 13 kids. The Law was also God’s way of saying to the heirs of family dysfunction,  “You can be better.  Here’s how.”

We have the Law, the prophets, and the Gospel.  We have the full manual for correcting the course of our culture.  With the Bible as our guide, we can establish a fresh current that pulls our descendants toward good and not evil, toward happy families not dysfunctional ones.  And yes, each descendant may choose a different direction, but most of them will swim downstream.

1  The phrasing in verse 22, contrasted to the report of Dinah’s sexual assault in chapter 34, indicates: (1) Reuben’s and Dinah’s hookup was consensual; and (2) they tried to be sneaky but Daddy found out.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama. He writes a blog called A Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com

Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
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