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Procursus, Extracts 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7, 8-9.

Content created: 2018-07-10
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Hebrew Sacred History (1-2)

Extract 1: God’s Rainbow (Covenant 1)

Dramatis Personae

Background: Slightly before this passage begins, the Lord God, annoyed by persistent human iniquity, has brought a universal flood to wipe out all the creatures of the world, sparing only Noah and his family, the only virtuous humans. They have spent the flood in their boat, the famous “Noah’s Ark,” together with two of every other kind of life form so as to be able to restore the world when the waters recede. As we begin, the rains have let up, there is a beautiful rainbow, and the Lord God is speaking to Noah.

In this passage Ham sees his father naked and is cursed, but cursed by the name of Canaan. Although Ham and Canaan may be alternative names for the same person, most scholars assume two different stories were mixed together here, with the curse providing a mythic justification for the enslavement of the Canaanites by the Israelites.

[Genesis 9:11] “I will establish my covenant with you: All flesh will not be cut off any more by the waters of the flood. There will never again be a flood to destroy the earth.” [12] God said, “This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: [13] I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it will be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth.

[14] “When I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow will be seen in the cloud, [15] I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters will no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. [16] The rainbow will be in the cloud. I will look at it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

[17] God said to Noah, “This is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

[18] The sons of Noah who went out from the ship were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham is the father of [the person and land of] Canaan. [19] These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.

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[20] Noah began to be a farmer, and planted a vineyard. [21] He drank of the wine and got drunk, and lay naked within his tent. [22] Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. [23] Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it on both their shoulders, went in backwards, and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were backwards, and they didn’t see their father’s nakedness.

photo
Ham Shows His Brothers Noah’s Nakedness
Michelangelo: Sistine Chapel Ceiling

[24] Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son Ham had done to him. [25] He said, “Canaan be cursed! May he be a servant of servants to his brothers!” [26] He said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem. May Canaan be his servant. [27] May God enlarge Japheth. May he dwell in the tents of Shem. May Canaan be his servant.”

[28] Noah lived three hundred fifty years after the flood. [29] All the days of Noah were nine hundred fifty years, and then he died.

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Extract 2: God and the Fecundity of Abram (Covenant 2a)

Dramatis Personae

Background & Synopsis: Generations pass. We pick up the story with Abram, a shepherd living in a place called Haran, near the famous city of Ur, in southern Mesopotamia. To his astonishment, Abram is suddenly commanded by God to leave his home and travel to Canaan, territory already occupied, which God gives to him.

[Genesis 12:1] Now the Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country, and your relatives, and your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. [2] I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. [3] I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who treats you with contempt. All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”

[4] So Abram went, as the Lord had told him. [His nephew] Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

[5] Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother’s son, all their possessions that they had gathered, and the dependents whom they had acquired in Haran, and they went to go into the land of Canaan. When they entered into the land of Canaan. [6] Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time, Canaanites lived in this land.

[7] The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.”

Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. [8] He left from there to go to the hills on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the Lord by name. [9] Abram traveled, still going on toward the South.

Synopsis: A famine strikes in Canaan, and Abram and his household are forced to take refuge in Egypt. He is concerned —perhaps based on his experience moving from Mesopotamia to Canaan— that because he is a refugee people will take advantage of him, and in particular that they may seize or rape his beautiful wife Sarai. That indeed happens, but only because Abram has foolishly passed her off as his unmarried younger sister. In the end he and Sarai are driven out of Egypt

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[10] There came to be a famine in the land. Abram went down into Egypt to live as a foreigner there, for the famine was severe in the land. [11] When he had come near to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman to look at. [12] It will happen that when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ They will kill me, but they will save you alive. [13] Please say that you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that my soul may live because of you.”

[14] When Abram had come into Egypt, Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. [15] The princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. [16] He dealt well with Abram because of her, and Abram came to have sheep, cattle, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels. [17] But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.

[18] Pharaoh summoned Abram and said, “What is this that you have done to me? Why didn’t you tell me that she was your wife? [19] Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now therefore, see your wife, take her, and go your way.”

[20] Pharaoh commanded men concerning him, and they escorted him away with his wife and all that he had.

Synopsis: The pharaoh seems to have acted quite decently, under the circumstances, and Abram and Lot are allowed to take their large herds when they leave Egypt. But the Canaanite land into which they move is unable to support them with their many animals, and they agree to separate and occupy different parts of this fragile landscape.

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[Genesis 13: 1] Abram went up out of Egypt —he, his wife, all that he had, and Lot with him— into the South. [2] Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. [3] He went on his journeys from the South as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, [4] to the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first. There Abram called on the Lord’s name. [5] Lot also, who went with Abram, had flocks, herds, and tents.

[6] The land was not able to bear them, that they might live together; for their possessions were so great that they couldn’t live together. [7] There was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. The Canaanites and the Perizzites lived in the land at that time.

[8] Abram said to Lot, “Please, let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen; for we are relatives. [9] Isn’t the whole land before you? Please separate yourself from me. If you go to the left hand, then I will go to the right. Or if you go to the right hand, then I will go to the left.”

[10] Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw all the plain of the Jordan River, that it was well-watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar. [11] So Lot chose the Plain of the Jordan for himself. Lot traveled east, and they separated themselves from one other.

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[12] Abram lived in the land of Canaan, and Lot lived in the cities of the plain, and moved his tent as far as Sodom. [13] (Now the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinners against the Lord.)

[14] The Lord said to Abram, after Lot was separated from him, “Now, lift up your eyes, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, [15] for I will give all the land which you see to you and to your offspring forever. [16] I will make your offspring as [numerous as] the dust of the earth, so that if a man can count the dust of the earth, then your offspring may also be counted. [17] Arise, walk through the land in its length and in its width; for I will give it to you.” [18] Abram moved his tent, and came and lived by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built an altar there to the Lord.

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Review quizzes are available for Extracts 1 and 2.
Questions arranged in two "wimp" versions: 1, 2
The same questions arranged in one "normal" versions: 1

Background Design: Hebrew Lines From the Book of Jonah