Bible Background with Meredith
Gensis Overview – part 1
Genesis may be the first book you come to when you open up your Bible, but did you know that Job was actually written approximately five hundred years before, around the time Joseph (from chapters 37:1 through 50:26) was dying? Genesis was written by Moses, when he was between 76 and 116 years old. Not only did he write Genesis, but he also wrote Exodus, Leviticus, Number and most of Deuteronomy was also and during the same time period. These five books are also known as the Pentatuch and were all written around 1450-1410.
Genesis starts with God creating the world and everything in it in six days. The first three chapters not only cover the creation of man and woman in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and everything in it, it also includes what is known as the “Fall of Man.” God bans man from the garden for his disobedience and by chapter four, we have our first sibling rivalry and murder. By chapter 6 God has had it with the world. Starting in verse 5, “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that He had made human beings on the earth and His heart was greatly troubled.” If you take the time to add up the ages of descendants, we can figure that starting with Adam in chapter 1 and ending with Noah and the flood, was approximately 1600-1700 years.
When I think that in six chapters, God has created everything in the world, including man and woman and has completely gotten flabbergasted with what He created, because they were evil, I start to really thank Him that in chapter 8 He says “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.” He then adds in chapter 9, I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.” I love it when rainbows come out after a rainstorm. It is a wonderful reminder of God’s promises all those thousands of years ago.
Chapters 11 through 25 find once again man and woman taking matters in their own hands and not waiting on the promise that He gave. This time the promise was in the form of an heir. In these chapters you will be introduced to Abram and Sarai. God has called Abram to leave his family. The promise is that God will make him a great nation. (Genesis 12:2) Abram at age 75 did as God instructed and took off for another land. In verse 7 of chapter 12 it says that God appeared to Abram and told him that his offspring would get this land. You would think everything was great but just a few short verses later, Abram is telling Sarai to lie and say she is his sister, so they would live. (Chapter 12:10-20)
After getting out of that situation, in Chapter 13, The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted.
The Lord not only told Abram about the promise once again, but He reiterated it again in chapter 15, but by the next chapter Sarai has had it waiting for God and took matters into her own hands because she is old and has no children, so therefore no heir, that God keeps talking about. Sarai gives to Abram her maidservant, Hagar and she gets pregnant and has a son. Abram is 86 years old at this time. It has already been 11 years since God originally gave the promise to Abram, and Sarai is tired of waiting, but then she gets mad at the situation and tells Abram it is his fault.
You would have hoped that God would have taken pity and sped up His timeline but no. He had Sarai, who has now had a name change to Sarah and Abram became Abraham (Genesis 17) wait another 13 years to have her very own son (chapter 21). Sarah was 90 years old when Isaac was born. We finish the story of Abraham with God seeking to see who he loved more. Isaac or God? Read Genesis 22. In Chapter 23, not only is Sarah’s death reported, but her age is as well. Sarah is the only woman to have her age recorded in the Bible. Most scholars agree that it was given to show the miraculous power of God and His promise.
And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. Hebrews 11:11
Think about all that has happened and we are only half way through Genesis and we have covered over 2000 years.
Next month we will look at the last half of Genesis.
