BibleProject - Can a City Be Good? – The City E6

Episode Date: May 29, 2023

At last, there’s a positive example of a city in the Bible, the capital city of Egypt under the rule of Joseph. In this episode, join Tim and Jon as they explore how a city—usually a perpetrator of death and violence—can become a source of life under the leadership of a wise human image of God.View more resources on our website →Timestamps Part one (00:00-10:55)Part two (10:55-34:49)Part three (34:49-49:38)Part four (49:38-59:35)Referenced ResourcesInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience our entire library of resources in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTS“Onteora Lake” by McEvoy & Stan Forebee“Firefly Field” by Aso, Aviino & Middle School“Alone Time” by Sam StewartShow produced by Cooper Peltz with Associate Producer Lindsey Ponder, Lead Editor Dan Gummel, and Editors Tyler Bailey and Frank Garza. Mixed by Tyler Bailey. Podcast annotations for the BibleProject app by Hannah Woo.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hi, this is Dan at Bible Project, and before we get into today's episode, we wanted to give a quick content warning. In this episode, Tim and John start by summarizing the themes from our previous episode, and this may be triggering because it includes mention of rape and sexual assault. So if you prefer to skip over this part, you can skip ahead to the rest of our episode that starts about the 1055 mark. Also, later in the episode, Tim and John briefly discuss the sexual assault accusation that Potiphar's wife brings against Joseph. That's it. Thanks so much.

Here's our show. Our last episode was a heavy one. We talked about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. God's judgment against oppression and injustice. It's a low point in the story of the Bible, and It's a low point in the story of the Bible, and it's a low point in the theme of the city. But today, we turn a corner and look at the first positive example of the city in the Bible, and it's not Jerusalem, it's Egypt, specifically Egypt under Joseph's charge,

who turns the city into a food bank to feed the world in a time of famine. Under the leadership of a wise human image of God, cities can become storehouses of life. This is the first redemptive, positive portrait of a human city. This positive moment, unfortunately, does not last long. We very quickly go from this era of abundance and wise leadership, and it turns as you flip from Genesis into Exodus. So it's good to celebrate the good moments, but it's also good to recognize how fragile it all is.

A later Pharaoh, who doesn't know about Joseph, enslaves Joseph's ancestors. He brutally puts them to work, forcing them to build, none other than storehouses and cities. The storehouses that Joseph ordered to be built led to life. And now here's the stored cities that this fairer orders to be built and it leads to the death and enslavement of God's chosen one. So now the supply storage is for the benefit of one people in one city at the expense of the many. Today Tim Mackey and I discuss the city of Ancient Egypt under the leadership of Joseph.

I'm John Collins and you're listening to Bible Project Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey Tim. Hey, Tom. Hey, we ended our last conversation in a really dark place. Pretty low moment in the depiction of human nature in the story of the Bible. We've been tracing the theme of the city and where that led us is to then look at the narratives

of a very infamous city in the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah. And Sodom and Gomorrah, as you've said, becomes a picture. Yeah, like an icon of what's wrong with humans when they get together in cities. Alongside Babylon, Sodom is one of the worst cities in the Bible. Babylon, Sodom, first and second place. Yeah. Alongside Babylon, Sodom is one of the worst cities in the Bible. Babylon, Sodom, first and second place. Yeah. In one way, what we're doing over and over is kind of workshopping,

how do we get through this theme? Mm-hmm. So that's what these conversations are for. So often, we kind of start over and we just say, okay, how did we get here? Yeah. I'm going to try a really quick version just to kind of workshop this. Yeah. Great. When God and humans are together at the beginning of the Bible, the idea is that heaven and earth are together, that humanity and God can work together to rule creation. There's this union of heaven and earth, this union of God and man. And the setting of that is in a garden on a high place. And it's a picture of a type of sacred kind of temple kind of place. And when the city is introduced in the story of the Bible,

it's when humanity had been exiled from that place, and that the generation after Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, we see Kane kill his brother, get banished further from the garden and decide I need to protect myself by building a city, a wall in a city. Yeah. And then we learn about Kane's city and the generations that follow

that a lot of like innovation is coming out of the city. Yep, in metallurgy, metal smithing, art and music and then animal domestication. Yeah. But then it's the seventh generation. Seventh generation from Adam down through the line of king. We get this character named Limack. We don't learn a lot about him, but his name means let's name his king backwards. Yeah, he's like the distorted king. It's the distorted king. The upside down king. And he takes wives, he has two wives,

and he has this murderous song saying, like, I get to kill people and you get to deal with it. If God protected Cain, which God said he would protect Cain, then God will like avenge me no matter how murder I am. And so you just get this picture of like, whoa, where did this guy get there? All of a sudden this guy is drunk with power and violence. How did humanity, all of a sudden get there?

And it's happening in a city. And then we get the story of the flood, which I guess you kind of are imagining that the whole land is full of kind of limit kind of people. Limit type people living in limit type cities. Yeah. And then after the flood, as we trace the genealogies, you get this one of the sons of Noah,

who's a rascal. He's a rascal. And through his line comes like all the bad guys of the story of the Bible. Yeah, so with the line of ham, from whom comes Nimrod, builds Babylon, and then Assyria. But then there is another son born of ham that leads down to the birth of Egypt, which is going to be relevant for the conversation that we have today. Okay. So both all of them, that come from Jaffa?

No, it's him. Oh, that comes from him too. Him, yeah. Yeah. So basically all of the big, bad imperial cities in the Bible come from one of Noah's sons and he's the son who's... He's the snaky son. The snaky son.

And you're just like me and cities in the Bible. They're just no good. Even if like little bits of good come out like it just corrupts people Yeah, and it just destroys things Yeah, and then you get the story of Abraham and he doesn't live in the city He lives out in the hills and he's the righteous one that God's gonna choose Yeah, where God's gonna use his family to restore What was lost and crush evil and Bless the nations and then we get a story of Abraham's nephew

Lot who's hanging out with Abraham in the hills. They have a little conversation about there's not enough room out here for both of us Why don't we spread out a lot goes east to a place that looks like the Garden of Eden. Yeah. With a city. And there's a city in there. There's a number of cities. Yeah, number of cities, one of them called Statenberg. And he goes and he's like, I'm going to be a city boy. Yeah. Yeah. Done with this country life.

Done with this country life. And the city just ruins him. Well, and of what's interesting, this is the last conversation we just had. When he encounters visitors, he's very generous and hospitable. All right, this guy's just like his uncle. It's generous, right? He must be a righteous guy. But then, when the men of Sodom come, and they want to bring the two men, who are actually angels, out into city square and gang rape them.

What's good in his eyes is to say, no, actually rape my daughters instead. And the whole scene is just one distorted moral of the matter. How did you get there, Lon? Like how did you get to that conclusion? Yeah, totally. And you're just like, this guy's been living in Sodom for too long. He thinks bad is good and good is bad. And so do the people of Sodom. And that makes a limit kind of like move. Yes, yes.

Where it's just like, where did you get the idea that that's good? That that would be a solution to this crisis. And so I guess what we're saying is the setting of the city is the setting that seems to just yeah, corrupt or even just like hyper and flate. Yeah, the human condition. Yep. To do the cane kind of move, which is to let sin come in and just take over. Yeah. To the point where you're like, you know what would be good? I'm just going to kill my brother. It just distorts your sense of right and wrong. It perverts it. And so cities, man, let's burn them down. Yes, totally. So what we are going to encounter in today's conversation

is the first positive portrait of the city in the storyline of Genesis. So you have to read, you know, 40 plus chapters in before you get something good about a city. So we follow the city to the bottom and we're just trying to honor the fact that these are the cities mentioned in the first scroll of the Bible and they're all hyperlinked to each other and it's all bad up through Sodom and Gomorrah. So you walk away after Sodom and Gomorrah get, you know, toasted by fire from the skies, and you're like, man, those cities are done with cities. Let's just, can anything good come out of a city? Can we all just be shepherds in the hill?

Yeah, totally. Yeah, and it makes you think like, yeah, I guess the garden, it is all about the garden. There's no city involved in God's future for the human story. You think that. It feels that way. Walking away from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. So you follow the story through the rest of Abraham's life.

He dies in Genesis 25, but he's given birth to a son with his wife Sarah named Isaac. In Isaac, like his father is a traveling migrant herdsman and he never enters cities except for one time where he does exactly what his father did, which is lie about his wife, puts her in danger, and it's a replay of the son. That happens in a city. It happens in a city, a city of Gharar. So God bails him out of that situation.

And Isaac goes on with his wife to have two sons, Jacob and Esa. They're all still living out in the fields, in the wilderness, migrating around cities but never living in them. One of the sons Jacob has 12 sons and a daughter, and that's where we're going to pick up the story here. So, Joseph's story, well known story we've talked about it many times over the years. So I'll summarize real quick to get to the next city that's mentioned in the story of the Bible because it's not in the land promised Abraham, it's a city down in Egypt. It's really interesting.

So the Joseph story, you could say how as one big arc, you can summarize it pretty simply. Jacob's second youngest son, Joseph. So of his many, many sons, his second youngest son, Joseph, and he loves him the most, gives him the famous Technicolor Dreamcoat. And not of many colors. Col. Color many colors and that sun has dreams, two dreams, about being elevated to become a ruler over all the members of his family and even over the star, sun, and moon, like cosmic ruler. And his brothers don't like that at all. Yeah.

So they're jealous and they first planned to murder him. That's what they want to do. But instead, they throw him in a pit and then sell him as a slave to go down in Egypt, and then they take the coat and dip it in the blood of a goat to trick their dad to think that he's been killed by a wild animal. It's kind of an innovation on the Cane Enable story. Yes, stories riddled with language from the Cane-Enable story. Yeah.

Because it's the blood of a goat that cries out, so to speak, to the father. These stories are amazing. So anyhow, you follow Joseph down to Egypt. And Egypt, we've been in Egypt a few times in the story's narrative so far, Abraham goes down there. Yeah, it's not associated with anything good. Yeah. Because it's exile.

It's far away from the land that God promised for this family. And some meditating on the Bible, reading it over and over and over, Egypt's going to be the place that enslaves and oppresses Israel. And this whole story is the long complicated set of events for how they got to Egypt in the first place. So Joseph was the first. So he's down there in prison, but then he becomes the chief slave in the house of a Egyptian official.

But then there's a deceptive wife that tries to trick him and have sex with him and he won't. And he ends up getting accused by her of trying to rape her and then he ends up in actual prison. So low point. So he's gone from dreaming about being the cosmic ruler of the world to now being set up by his brother. Yeah. Slave in Egypt. Yeah. Now in a prison in Egypt and he calls the prison a pit. A pit who goes from cosmic ruler over the stars to becoming a enslaved prisoner in a pit in Egypt. But there, he encounters two more dreams of two other prisoners.

And those are dreams about how those two prisoners who used to serve Pharaoh in his court. One of them is going to get executed and one of them is going to get restored. So the official who gets restored to serve in Pharaoh's court, here's about two dreams. The Pharaoh has. The Pharaoh has. And the dreams are about seven good things, cows or stocks of grain that get swallowed up and destroyed by seven horrible things, seven nasty looking cows and seven diseased ears of grain. And he says, I don't know what does all this mean, right? And he freaks out. He's trying to figure out what these dreams mean. Enter Joseph. The guy who used to be

in prison says, I met this Hebrew slave who was in prison with me, and he interpreted my dream, and he was right. I think you should get that guy up here. And let's see what he says about your dreams. So, this is in Genesis chapter 41 and 42. Joseph comes into the court of Pharaoh. He gets a change of clothes. He gets some new robes to go into the royal court. And he hears the dreams,

for us to tell them the two dreams. And what Joseph says to Pharaoh, this is in Genesis 41, is, oh, listen, I don't know what these dreams mean, but God does, and God just told me what they mean. So let me tell you what he says is, Genesis 41 verse 25, Joseph said to Pharaoh, the dream of Pharaoh, even though there's two dreams, there's just one, one dream. What Elohim is about to do, he's trying to tell you through the dreams. The seven good cows are seven years.

And the seven good ears of grain, they are seven years. It's one dream. But the thin bad cows that came up after them, they are seven years. It's one dream. But the thin bad cows that came up after them, they are seven years. And the seven years of grain that shriveled empty ones, they are seven years of famine. This is the word I'm speaking to Pharaoh. What Elohim is about to do, he's showing you, seven years are coming, seven years of fullness and abundance in the land of Egypt. But after that will come seven years of famine, and all the fullness will be forgotten, and the famine will bring an end to the land.

So here's what you should do. You should find a human who has wisdom and understanding, and you should set that person over all the land of Egypt. And then you should divide the land of Egypt into five sections for the seven years of fullness, and gather all the food of those coming good years and store the grain under the hand of Pharaoh years and store the grain under the hand of Pharaoh in cities where it should be kept. Okay. How also are you going to be able to store such a surplus if you don't have infrastructure of a city? Yep, that's right. Yeah, cities can't produce all that. That happens in the farm. So remember, farms are associated with cities in the Bible. Farms are like the outlying areas of the city that the city protects. Yep, city protects.

And it's all of the abundance, an economic abundance outside of the city, but right close to it in the farms, that produces the all of the wealth that allows people in the city to specialize and develop music and art and all that kind of stuff. So to be clear, in our modern framework, you get the farm land, you get the city. And those are our dichotomy. Rural and urban. Yeah.

But in the ancient imagination, or the ancient setting, the farm and the city are kind of one unit. Yep. They exist together. The dichotomy they have is the hillside. Shepherds. Shepherds. The nomadic people versus the ones who have settled down

to farm it around a city. Exactly right. So farming is associated with cities. Shepherding and animal domestication is associated with rural and migrating. That's the main cultural opposition. So, here, cities can actually become centers of abundance and goodness for the preservation of life.

That's interesting, because as nomadic people can't carry around stores of grain. No, you need to build huge towers. And silos. Yeah, totally. I think, man, we can't sit right here from where we're sitting right now. There was a day when you could look out the window and we could see where near the river

that divides the city of Portland between East and West sides. And on the river, there's maybe just a mile and half outway. There's north of here, there's those grain silos. I think they still get used. Oh wow. I think. Now they're just always covered with huge advertisements. But yeah, cities can build huge buildings that store lots of food that sustains life. And when you have years of fullness and plenty and goodness, those are all Eden words,

when cities become joined to serve the abundance that God provides from His Eden storehouses in heaven, then cities become a gift of life to the nations. So this is true, doesn't Jesus say don't do that? The store up again and and Barnes and yeah, totally. Yep, but that's the different point in the story. Okay.

His point is that abundance can deceive the human heart and it can become a little false eaten. But he's not down on abundance. Look at the loaves and the fish man. Yeah, he's creating abundance in the garden But like the manna, he just provides it for the day. Yeah, you know So the point is in here when you know a time of de-creation's coming Like seven years of famine What you need is wise human leadership in cities. To use all of that concentrated technology,

specialization, wealth to create structure, the infrastructure, the power structure, the fact that one king can be like, okay, here's what we're gonna do, mobilize. Yeah, exactly. Like to be able to do all of that. This is the city being used for the preservation of life. Preservation of life. That's it. Yeah's it. Awesome. So what's important,

and you might just read right over this, but this is the first time a city is associated with anything good as you read through Genesis. Yeah. And this ends up being a really great king Pharaoh, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah, so we'll get to that. Okay. This is all in opposition to the Farrow to come. The Farrow to come. So Joseph continues the food can be appointed for all the land, for the seven years of famine, so that the land isn't cut off. Oh, that language comes from the flood story of life being cut off.

So here the too much waters of the flood is now being set on analogy with not enough water that brings the famine, but both end up with cutting off life. So this was good in the eyes of Pharaoh. Good plan, Joseph. Yeah. And Pharaoh said to a servant, is there another guy like this around who has the spirit of Elohim. And this famously is what the second time the spirit shows up. The spirit of Elohim, Ruach Elohim, that phrase was used first in Genesis 1 verse 2, which is the spirits hovering over the waters of darkness and disorder to bring life. And that's essentially what's happening. There is disorder and... Coming.

Decreation on the way. But here the Ruach Elohim appears and making plans for the preservation of life, but using a human ruler. So Pharaoh said to Joseph, you know... I like you, kid. It follows from the fact that Elohim made all this known to you. There's nobody as understanding as why is as you.

So how about this? You be over all of my house. Is that understanding and why is, sorry, I'm like, does the my geeky words, is that being not and... Yeah, yeah, I mean, look it up. Quick hair. Just 41, 30. Hocma. Yeah, yeah, look it up. Quick here. 41, 30.

Hokma. It's Navon, which comes from the bean root, to be able to discern between, and then Khakam. Where's bean, show up in Navon? Navon. Oh, the Von. The Von. Yeah, it's from the bean. And then Khakam, which is the word for Hokma, wise.

Yeah, so discerning and wise. Yeah. So you be over my house. On your mouth, all my people will kiss. So it's an interesting phrase. Only in the throne will I be greater than you. So Joseph becomes an image of the king. A wise discerning image of the king. A wise, discerning image of the king who the king appoints to store all of the

stuff in cities, that store cities that will preserve life in the land in the time of famine. It's scarcity. That's the image here. And then it's all about, he gets enthroned and gold necklaces and rings. And he rides on a chariot and everybody kneels before him. So that's the scene. You're like, oh, right, man. Okay. So we get a righteous leader in a city who's listening to God's wisdom and we're in a good spot.

We're in a good spot. And remember, this is the guy who had dreams that God would elevate him as a ruler, not just over people, but over the sun moon and stars. And you're like, that sounds like a Genesis 1 and 2 image of God supercharged human, you know, ruling over. He's an image of God. He's an image of God.

And he's an image of Pharaoh. Yeah. You know, we talk, we've been using this phrase the surprise of the city. Yes. And it is a surprise. Yeah. That when Joseph shows up in Egypt, that because we know where this is heading, Israel is going to be an oppressed immigrant population in Egypt that God has to rescue. And it's a central story to the identity of Israel. But before that story is a surprise. Yeah, a surprise. When Israel first shows up, Joseph comes up out of the pit of Egypt

and is elevated to be the image of the Pharaoh. And the city of Egypt, who you think, I mean, there's a bad city. Yeah, it's going to be. It's gonna be. Yeah, yeah. But it's starting out here as this wonderful image of what can happen when humans work with God.

Yeah, under the leadership of a wise human image of God, cities can become storehouses of life. That's the portrait. Things of course, it's the Bible. Things are going to get all twisted and go terrible again. But let's just honor the moment. This is the first redemptive, positive portrait of a human city that it's a storehouse of life when it's being led by wise human rulers who can discern God's wisdom. And so that's a surprise given the trajectory of the city, that's why.

But now we have two portraits of what cities can be in God's world. They can be agents that spread death and distorted knowledge of good and bad, or they can become sources of great wisdom and innovation for the preservation and spread of life. It feels like things are on a knife's edge in a city. Yeah, totally. Yeah, totally. Like, great, it's going great. Right.

But like... Man. Not too many dominoes have to fall before. Yeah, it's also fragile. Things are going to get bad. Yeah. You know, totally. Yeah, I'm thinking about, this is going to be some subjective personal commentary, which

I don't do very often. But you know, again, we're sitting here, or recording room, we record these on the second floor. I guess it's on a second floor. I guess it's on the third floor, with a window that used to be able to look at the Portland City skyline. Now our view of downtown is blocked by a new apartment building, which is- Just get some more humans in here.

There you go, that's right. So I grew up here in Portland, and literally in the same part of Portland where we sit here and have these conversations. So in the 70s and 80s and 90s, where my heyday cruising around Portland on my skateboard, it was kind of CD and sketchy. And I thought that was cool. And I was a teenager.

Although I wasn't a lot of unsafe situations and I thought that was cool though. Anyway, when I moved away to go to grad school, and when I moved back to Portland in 2012, there was kind of this cultural, foodie, music, renaissance era of Portland. That was kind of the like, golden Portland years. Yeah, interestingly,

made famous by that show Portlandia, which is where young people go to retire Yeah, because it was still semi affordable in the early 2000s. Yeah in comparison to Seattle San Francisco and had a great food scene great music art scene life Outdoors the mountain and great public transportation Anyway in terms of like tourism was way up, they were building hotels everywhere. However, you didn't have to look far underneath the surface

to know that all is not well in Portlandia. There's long, long history of economic, cultural, ethnic inequities in the design of the neighborhoods, the way schools get funded, housing costs, all these things. So that's not like that wasn't going on in Portland, the era. What's been interesting to live in the city is with the COVID pandemic, with all of the social upheavals around the murder of George Floyd and all of the protests and what in Portland, you know. This was the epicenter.

Yeah. And nationally, I mean, George Floyd didn't happen here, but in terms of like that, what happened after that? In terms of demonstrations and just what could happen to a city when things just kind of go crazy? Yeah, that's right. Portland became like the image of like, look what can happen to a city. Yeah So to me, and it's just it's my first time experiencing this personally. That's why I'm telling this story was what felt like in a very short matter of time downtown Portland

Yeah, became like a ghost town compared to what it was in the early 2000s and compared to what it was in the early 2000s. And now you walk into the city that was packed with people and every other business has boarded up and closed with the literal plywood. Mental health support systems in the city

have crumbled the financial system to support people who are experiencing houselessness have all gotten scrambled through COVID. And so it's just interesting to watch a city turn and all of a sudden face all these social crises in a really short amount of time. So I'm just meditating on this comment that you made. Oh, the knife says.

It feels like the knife edge. So I just, it's a reason, in my own experience in the city where I grew up and that I love and where I live, that it's true. It's like this social contract we all have when humans gather together. It's pretty thin, isn't it? It's so fragile.

And just a few, you know, a series of social events, and then a pandemic, and it all just, yeah, the fragility of the whole system just is exposed for what it is and the inequities that have been there all along just bubble up bubble up and become visible and that's the it's like life in cities it's just this more condensed compacted form of the human experience in general. Because that happens, all the same things happen in smaller towns, anywhere. But it's like, it's intensified, both in its intensity and the timelines get compacted

in cities, and they can just turn. And in a way, that's what happens with Egypt at the end of Genesis. We very quickly go from this era of abundance and wise leadership. The Portland, India, Egypt. Yeah. And it just, it turns on, as you say, on the nice edge, as you flip from Genesis into Exodus. So it's good to celebrate the good moments, but it's also good to recognize how fragile it all is.

That was kind of a digression. It's a personal digression. That's great. Yeah, and I don't leave the city a lot, or leave this area a lot, but when I do, the sentiment now is always, are you guys okay? Is everything okay out there?

Oh, important. I'm not sure. Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah. People are worried about us. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, unenuellable. It's just like any other city. It's screwed up. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it.

I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it.

I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it.

I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to do view. I usually don't know where that conversation is going to go. So I just say, yeah, Portland, it's a quirky town. And it hasn't always been. It's a quirky. It's never been otherwise. Yeah. So, okay, but cities in the Bible, I think what I'm chewing on is, you know,

as a theme in the Bible, we're talking about it as a theme, meaning the biblical authors are trying to give us God's wisdom by developing a pattern, a thematic pattern for us to meditate on. And at this point, we kind of have this one little glimmer of like, oh, this thing that we thought was so rotten in a problem, like, can actually look at what could happen. Something good could happen. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think part of me would go, okay, but still.

It seems like if we're really shrewd about this, and because we know what's gonna happen. Yeah. Even though we could have bright spots in cities, still, I mean, convince me. We're really shrewd about this. Because we know what's gonna happen. Even though we could have bright spots in cities, still, I mean, convince me, really, like maybe we should all just be nomadic people. Yeah, sure. Maybe we should all, like, yeah.

The city, it seems like such a big problem. Now I also know where the whole story of the Bible is going. Where the garden and the city are merged into one thing that comes out of heaven. With a slaughtered lamb sitting on the throne at its center. Yeah. So, something's happening where the city isn't lost, the innovation, the beauty, they can come out of the city is recaptured and what was supposed to be. Yep, and in this snapshot scene, it's of when the leader of the city, Pharaoh, recognizes the one whom God has elevated and filled with his spirit and wisdom to bring about the rescue of life in the time of scarcity and death.

That's when the city transforms into an ark. It's like Noah's ark. And actually, there's lots of language here that evokes the language of Noah's ark, especially the packing the ark with food. There's a whole speech God gives about packing the ark with food. So that there's enough food during the flood. And now here, it's the cities in Egypt to get packed with food under the Wisdom of this righteous ruler that lead to the preservation of life. Yeah. So there you go Cities can become a place of rescue or they can become a place of death

It all depends on whether the rulers recognize God's just chosen one. So, a lot more we could do there, but we're just going to turn now to the next scroll in the story of the Bible. Exodus. Yep, Exodus. And Flash Forward, Joseph ends up making Egypt and its cities become a storehouse of life. All the nations start streaming down to Egypt to get food. And Joseph saves everybody. He, like, the plan works. He to Egypt to get food. And Joseph saves everybody, like the plan works. He saves the world.

Yeah, saves the world, at least, you know, that region, which is depicted as the world in the story. And- It's like a Marvel movie here. Also, his family and his brothers, who betrayed him, come down looking for food, and he goes through a hole or deal with them, reconciles with them.

Yeah, restores his family, saves the world, like let's just end the story of the Bible. Yep. So Genesis ends now with all of the family of Abraham and called the sons of Israel down in Egypt. That's how Exodus scroll begins. So opening lines of the Exodus scroll are these are the names of the sons of Israel, the ones who went to Egypt with Jacob, each one, and his household went, and you get a list of the sons of Jacob. Every person who came out of the loin of Jacob, 70 people. Now Joseph, of course, was already in Egypt. So it was all the family coming to join him. So in just in recalling Joseph, of course, was already in Egypt, so it was all the family coming to join him. So in just in recalling Joseph, he's like, oh yeah, Joseph, the righteous, wise, chosen ruler that Pharaoh acknowledged, and when Pharaoh did that, it brought blessing to the land

through the cities. For six, now Joseph died, and all of his brothers, and all of that generation. And the sons of Israel were fruitful. They swarmed. They multiplied. It became strong, very, very much, and the land was filled with them. This is a Genesis 1 moment. Yeah, you can just feel the language, right? For Genesis 1. You can be fruitful and multiply, and swarming creatures when multiplying, and they're like the swarming creatures when multiplying in the land.

Yep, and the land was filled with them. Almost every key word in Exodus 1, verse 7, is drawn directly from the seven day creation story of the blessings. So word blessing is not used here. But this is a blessing moment. But it's the narrative imagery associated with idea blessing. Yep. So Egypt has become like a little Eden. It needn't refuge. And the cities have become that source of Eden life all around. Verse 8. Now a new king arose over Egypt, and problem has no idea who Joseph was. He didn't know Joseph, and here's what he says to his people.

Ah, look, the people of the sons of Israel, they are more multiplied and stronger than us. Come, let us act skillfully with them. It's the word wisdom. Let's use wisdom here. They will more... Which word for wisdom? Here, skillfully. But what's the word? Oh, ha-ha-kam.

From the word ha-kam, wisdom. Yeah. So we got to play it right here. Yeah. Like, there's a situation that requires... He's singing a liability here. Yep, that's right. And here's the liability in his mind.

They're going to multiply. And it will come about... Even more. With when war happens to us, that they will add themselves to those who hate us. Yeah, they're not gonna fight for us. They might fight with our enemies. They might, they might.

And he's making a lot of assumptions here. He's, yeah, my wife says he's catastrophizing. Totally, that's right. Yeah, totally. And so when those who hate us make war against us, they're gonna join our enemies and then they'll go up out of the land and we'll lose this big resource right here in our midst.

So let's contrast this with the mindset of the Pharaoh who did know Joseph. So the Pharaoh who did know Joseph said, here's the image of God who's filled with the spirit and wisdom, and he's got a plan that will bring abundance and life. So let's elevate him. He's not a threat. He's not a threat. He's an ally. Yes.

We're back to this theme that we explored in our previous series on the first born, where when God elevates a chosen one to be a conduit of Eden blessing in the world, that forces others around them to make a choice. And the first Pharaoh saw that and he made the wise. He blessed those whom God has blessed with what God said to Abraham. And it results in union across ethnic culture, national groups, and the preservation of life for everybody. And this is being painted as the sad opposite of that.

So there's a lot more to this speech than just what's on the surface. There's the mind set. Yeah, a whole mindset of fear, scarcity, of looking at people are different than you, And thinking that it's them or me. Yeah, seeing it as like a zero sum, their flourishing will surely come at my expense. Right. Because that's how well it's just the world work.

Like there's this assumption. Yeah, it's tribalism. Yeah, that's right. If you flourish, it means I won't. So I guess if I want to flourish, I've got to find a way to leverage what's happening with you to my advantage. Yeah. Because we both can't win here. That's not the real world. Right? That's the mindset. So yeah, there's a lot to meditate on in Pharaoh's speech that is unstated, but that is

surely going on. This is the mindset of Cain. Yeah, I mean, we've been talking about the knife's edge. And what tips you over? It's like this attitude of, we can't trust each other. Yes. Yeah. We can't trust God. I need to protect myself. Yeah. This is Cain's logic too. Yeah, you're different. Yeah. The logic of Keynes was God's elevator, my brother, which I guess means that there's not enough elevation for me, too, because God hasn't elevated me yet, so that's what God says to them. Listen, if you do the right thing here, there's elevation for you as well. But here it's made corporate and we're really drawing attention to the fact that these are two ethnic cultural groups. Yeah.

And it's one group looking at it. And every cultural group is a brother in a sense. We all come from. Yeah, we're all humans. We're all humans. Yep. So there is a can enable kind of thing happening here. Farrow is the older brother.

Farrow is thinking he's worried. In the canable story, like Cain saw that Abel is favored. Oh, I guess Ferro is here is looking, man, look at the favor. That's pouring out. Oh, much abundant. On this immigrant population looks at us. They're just flourishing. With this continues, they can turn on us. That's right.

I guess the portrait here is in the life of a city, the knife edge of the city, is when the diversity and the difference between ethnic cultural groups that make up here, the cities of Egypt, is viewed as a threat to those in leadership, currently in power. And then one group's productivity becomes leveraged or exploited to benefit those in power. That's the portrait here. I mean, this is a, this is not, there is no generation of the human family that hasn't had its own version of this.

This is like pretty endemic to the human experience. And it's so powerful that Exodus begins with this portrait. I mean, it's almost, it doesn't do justice to it to say just evil or selfishness, but it's a lack of trust. Yeah, lack of trust. So what Pharaoh's response to this is to begin... His response kind of shows his character. Yeah, that's right. Because you can be like, man, I'm worried about these guys. And there's a number of solutions. Yeah. Yep. So alleviate your concern. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. All we get in his speech is the concern. Yeah. Yep, that's right. And verse 11 tells the deeper story of this guy's character. The Egyptians placed over the Israelites' captains

of forced labor in order to oppress them with their burdens, and they had them build cities of supply storage for Pharaoh, Pithome and Ramses to the cities. And as much as they oppressed them, so the Israelites multiplied and just broke out, which is a positive image of like, spilling over the banks,

and the Egyptians experienced dread because of the sons of Israel. So here's our storage cities appearing yet again. But it's just the sad, inverted version of what the store cities that Joseph thought up. You can see that contrast there. Yeah, so it gets further. Verse 13, Egypt enslaved the sons of Israel with brutality.

They made their lives bitter with harsh enslavement, with mortar, and with brick, and with every kind of enslavement in the field, all the enslavement with which they enslave them with brutality. It's an awkward sentence. It's very awkward. It's beautifully designed as a chiasm, which is why it feels repetitive because it is on purpose. Every kind of enslavement in the field, meaning like,

in every way you could do forced labor, they're doing it. That's right. There's innovation happening here, all right. But it's innovation for how to enslave and exploit this immigrant population. And I just mentioned, versus 13 and 14, there's lots of repetition. And if you pattern them all out, these sentences are designed as a symmetry, as a chiasm, and the center line, the very center of it, is highlighting

that these cities are made with mortar and brick, which is hyperlink. Of course, it's a hyperlink. Actually, in more ways than one, when Pharaoh says, come, let us deal wisely with them, and then they have them build cities of storage with mortar and brick. These are all the keywords from the story of the building of Babylon. In Genesis 11, where they say, come, let us build the city.

And they use brick instead of stone and tar for their mortar. Also, this language of enslavement in the field is recalling the language of the curse on the ground from Genesis 3, where God says, Thorns and Tistles, the ground will produce for you. You'll eat the plants of the field, and God sent them out to work, which is the same Hebrew root word of slave service, slave work. There's another word for work, which is more related to worship, right? So does it differ in words?

Oh, no, this is it. Well, this is it? Service. Service, yeah. It can mean enslavement. Yeah. In other words, the context. The context.

Word is just a vod as verb to produce in service for another? And the question is, if you have Yahweh as your Redeemer and covenant partner, then any avad work you do for him will bring life to you and others. But if you've got Pharaoh as your master, then it's work that leads to death. Okay. Not for Pharaoh, leads to life for Pharaoh, but leads to death for you, for you. So both this language of slavery and the language of building cities with brick and mortar, especially that phrase, brick and mortar and building of a city, there's two stories in the whole Hebrew Bible that use these words to describe the building of cities and its Babylon.

Building Babylon and Pharaoh building the storehouses with slaves. That's right. So Pharaoh's storehouses here recall the storehouses that Joseph ordered to be built that led to life. And now here's the stored cities that this pharaoh orders to be built and that leads to the death and enslavement of God's chosen one. So this pharaoh is painted in exact contrast to the pharaoh of Joseph's day. And this oppression both comes out of an Egyptian city and leads to the building of even more Egyptian cities. So now the supply storage is for the benefit of one, people in one city, at the expense of the many. They're just two portraits and it's a knife edge between the two of them.

I like to, you set that. So I think that's what I wanted to set in front of us for this conversation. It's as if Genesis took us on this long, downward trajectory from Cain City, to Babylon, to Sodom and Gomorrah. And then when it comes to the cities of Egypt, we get a good and a bad. And that we're just creating more complexity and nuance

to the portrait of the human city. And so this city that this pharaoh wants to build becomes the monument to enslavement and death. And so Yahweh decreates it. And this is the calling of Moses and the ten plagues and Passover. Yeah. Becomes the equivalent of the flood or the scattering of Babylon

to those earlier cities or the fire that rains down on Sodom and Gomorrah and all those get put in a blender and turned into what we call the ten plagues. Okay. Okay, so I'm having this random thought maybe we can end with. I would love your feedback on. So the story of the Bible in one sense is God saying, I want to share my power and rule with these creatures.

And the story just shows over and over how incapable we are of doing that because we want to trust on our own wisdom instead of connecting to divine wisdom. And God could just say, I had that was a mistake. I'm done. But there's this relentless desire of God to make it work. So it's almost like the surprise of humanity. Oh, interesting.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, right. That God's going to just do what it takes. It's going to get messy. It's going to be frustrating. Yeah. Long timelines involved. Yeah, and God almost compromises himself in certain ways it seems like. Yeah, at least

I think that's what these moments from the last episode of these internal divine speeches. Yeah, where it's like depicting the moral puzzle that this whole partnership represents. Right. Is God going to be true to his justice, or is he gonna be forgiving? Yeah, and true to his purpose and promise. To work with your enemy. Yeah, that's right. And so, cities are just an extension of that, same problem. Yeah, they magnify it.

They magnify it. And I was thinking about how, you know, a creature like a snail, like it creates its shell, like it's part of the snail. Like it creates its shell Like it's part of the snail. Mm-hmm, but it becomes its home, right? Yeah, it's protection and protection. Yeah, and we don't grow cities from our actual selves like our fingernails don't like grow out and become like our Very protective in casing. Yeah, right. Oh my sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is our shell. This is our like the place we then can like protect ourselves. Even though we don't make walls around it for the most part anymore. Right. Some cities still do, but for the most part not. Yeah, the walls are different now. Yeah, it's different kind of walls.

Different types of walls. Yeah. It's diplomatic walls. It's symbolic walls through law enforcement. But I guess all to say, you don't have to take too far of a step off of just the main storyline of God working with humanity and how problematic that is to then what is God going to do when humans come together and build what's just very natural. I guess what I'm proposing is it's as natural for humans to build cities as it is for a snail to go to a shell. Yeah, sure It's just like what humans are gonna do and in a way it's

Hmm. I think I had the sentiment early on as conversation. It's like of course God put us in a garden Like where else are you gonna start? But if you're gonna stay in the garden long enough, right? There's enough humans there We're gonna be building infrastructure. Yes. Yeah. Eventually, you're going to have a garden city. I mean, it's just inevitable. Yeah. No, that's right. It's the shell we produce. You're saying, so in a certain way, you're saying, something like the city is just inevitable given what humans are and that God would partner with such creatures to continue his work of creation in the world. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. It just so happens that the portrait of that occurring in the storyline in Genesis

is of cities. Well, yeah, designed as the snail shell because now there's other humans are going to want to kill me, right? Yes. In other words, the reason you need a shell is because there's like ravens that want to come get you and pet through your shell and kill you. Yeah. Imagine, you know, a creative retelling of Adam and Eve spending generations in the garden of Eden. Sure.

Yeah. Just naked and don't need the wall and don't need clothes and we just eat from the trees and it's great. But at some point, they're gonna be like, it's a little chilly. Right? Yeah, right. And at some point, they're gonna be like,

you know what, like, it's nice, I kind of have my little space right here, you have my little space right there, we can work together. You know, like, there going to be little innovations. They're going to create what we might consider city type of adaptations. Maybe the point is that's not how humans are supposed to live. Interesting. One thing, speaking of my teenage years when I was skateboarding around Portland,

one thing I wasn't doing was attending any of my Western civilization history classes. I skipped all those and tried to make up for it later. So I don't know, I'm just gonna bring up like the romantic movement. Right, no, romanticism. That's a cultural movement in Europe after the Industrial Revolution.

So the little bit I do know, and this is what John Jacques Rousseau, what his novels and poetry represented was this cultural resistance movement against the urbanization of Europe, longing for the ideal of the garden, the pasture, the countryside, and then it had off-shoots and art and music and so on.

So I don't know very much about that culture movement other than saying I know what happened. But it does rep, there's something there. I think there's something in the human soul that can get easily squelched or extinguished in the suffocating environment of the snail shell. Yeah, as we're in the city, we're creating our own gardens. Yeah, we're wanting to have that balance. But what I'm hearing you say is, isn't it kind of inevitable that as humans flourish and do their image of God thing, they're going to build places. And those places will be organized into those people and that people and it doesn't have to be tribal and that's all a part of the sad human condition. But isn't there an inevitability to something like the city as humans just

spread and do their thing? Even if it's good. It's something like the city. And maybe that's what we're seeing reflected in the fact that when you get to the depiction of new creation, it's a garden city. Yeah. Ah, that's a good observation. And maybe that's what these two versions of the cities of Egypt do for us. In Genesis and Exodus, cities can be a source of life when they recognize the glorious image of God, Chosen One, that God elevates to rule with wisdom, then cities become a source of life. But it's a knife's edge. And I guess that's the wisdom of this portrait of the city. Okay, where we head next? Ah, where I want to go next is, given we just

got our first portrait of the positive city, I want to move to a story Which is about the founding of the almost entirely positive city in the storyline of Bible which is Jerusalem? Okay, the city of God the city of God. Yes. So there's the story about David founding Jerusalem as the capital city bringing Jerusalem as the capital city bringing the portable Eden, the tabernacles there, and establishing it as a city dedicated to God. And there's all these Psalms in the Psalms scroll connected to the choirs from David's time, the priestly choirs, and the songs that they sing about Jerusalem, and it's hard

to tell if they're singing about heaven or earth. I'm not think that's on purpose. So what is possible when a city of humans becomes a city of God? That's what we'll meditate on next. Okay well tell me who you are, where you're from, what's your names? My name's Kaif, my name's Adria, my name's Hr's Cass, my name's Adiris, my name's Harper, my name's Ruby, my name's Sophie, my name's Guy, my name's Karris, my name's Arya, my name's Emmett, my name's Josiah, my name's Sarah. And what do you guys from? There's my husband and I. 34th grade at Barathon Academy. What is one way you've used the Bible project in your own life and your house or school or anything? What did you say?

Videos. You watch the videos? I hope you understand what's happening in the Bible. It gives you a better idea and you can use your imagination. Does anyone have a favorite video? Probably the last show last go-be-sus. Yeah, that's not what I wanted to. Actually, I like that one. I watch all of them over and over again from the same. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus.

We believe that we make His ring because it's our identity. a story that will lead to Jesus. We have to look now in H's rig, because it's hard and big for us. I also want to give people just like me. Five videos, Fedos, podcasts, classes, and more.

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