Day 7: God's Covenant With Abram

 Today's reading: Genesis 14-15, Job 3-4, and Proverbs 1:8-19.

I. Today in Genesis begins with an alliance of four petty Mesopotamian kings making war against five petty kings in the Dead Sea Valley, subduing and plundering the region (14:1-11). Lot is among those captured and taken away, but is rescued by Abram, who leads a raid to rout the Mesopotamian kings (14:12-16). 

Not being a specialist in this region's history or era, I assume that these kinds of bloody raids were a regular thing in the area back then.

Next, we have a mysterious scene that Hebrews in the New Testament will return to much later. The king of Salem (later Jerusalem), Melchizedek, brought out bread and wine and blessed Abram (14:17-20). Who was this Melchizedek? Was he yet another minor king? An angel? Who, exactly? That is where the mystery lies, and numerous theories have been proposed over the millennia. The Ignatius Bible states in the footnotes:

Melchizedek: A royal title or throne name meaning "king of righteousness" (Heb 7:2). He is the first person in the Bible to be called a priest and is mentioned elsewhere in the OT only in Ps 110:4. The identity of Melchizedek is a mystery... in the actions of the priest Melchizedek the sacrament of the Lord is prefigured; for Melchizedek is a type of Jesus Christ, who offered the bread and wine of Melchizedek, that is, his body and blood (St. Cyprian, Letters, 63, 4). (p. 76)

So, in short, to the Fathers, whoever he really was, Melchizedek was seen as a Christ-like figure who blessed Abram with something that prefigured the Eucharist.

Abram then despairs of having promised children, fearing that an adopted slave will inherit everything once he dies (15:2-3). God assures him that he will fulfill the promises made to him, and commands Abram to make a sacrifice, upon which God then strengthens His promises to Abram by making a covenant with him (15:4-20). And it is here that today's reading in Genesis ends.

II. In the third chapter, Job begins to break somewhat in his grief, asking why the day he was born isn't cursed. He has been severely tested, and one could argue that he has much to be grief-stricken about, but he doesn't yet turn this on God Himself. In the next chapter, we see Eliphaz react in some astonishment, as noted in the Ignatius Bible:

He argues that Job has no grounds to claim himself innocent because no man is perfectly righteous before God (4:17). He adheres to the traditional doctrine of retribution, which holds that a man reaps from God whatever he sows by his actions - sin brings suffering; righteousness brings him rewards (4:7-8).

And with this, today's reading in Job ends. This must have been difficult for Job to hear his friend talk like this in the midst of his suffering, as it certainly is to read of it. I do like how BIY Companion, Vol 1, gives us this reminder:

We will discover later why God allowed Satan to strike Job down, which seems cruel of the Lord. But God is never unfair. He always loves us, even in the midst of suffering, even when we do not understand his will. (p. 20)

III. Still "trusting the process," but I must admit I'm not exactly liking the breaking up of Proverbs like this thus far. At any rate, today we go through verses 8-19, leaving the rest of the first chapter for tomorrow. It reads like a father warning his son to avoid a violent, selfish, and hedonistic lifestyle of essentially "eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" (Is 22:13). All good advice and proper for a father to give to his son. 

That's it for today.