BibleProject - Under the Trees with Yahweh – Genesis E3

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

Blessing, testing, failure, success, God’s plan for the nations—you’ll find all these themes woven through the story of the Bible, often accompanied by … trees? While it might not seem obvious, trees play an important role in the Bible and, notably, in the life of Abraham. In this episode, join Tim, Jon, and Carissa as they dive into the second movement of Genesis and trace the theme of trees through the story of Abraham.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Part one (00:00-08:25)Part two (08:25-20:26)Part three (20:26-27:28)Part four (27:28-38:00)Part five (38:00-50:20)Referenced ResourcesThe Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus, L. Michael MoralesInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTS“Invisible” by Philanthrope and mommyShow produced by Cooper Peltz. Edited by Dan Gummel and Zach McKinley. Show notes by Lindsey Ponder. Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

From the very beginning of the story of the Bible, trees represent God's blessing. Then on day 6, God gives the fruit trees for the humans and the animals to enjoy. So that sets you up to see trees as a special divine gift to the land creatures from Genesis chapter 1. Then in the next literary unit in the Garden of Eden narrative, the intra-ductory narrative shows God forming human from the dirt outside of Eden,

then planting the garden with the trees in it, and then putting the human in the garden. And then saying, eat from all the trees, and there's that really good one, the tree of life in the middle. Trees also represent a moment of testing, but then there's another one that'll kill you. If you take the wisdom about knowing good evil on your own terms, there's a test. They have to choose to trust God, to continue eating from the blessed tree of life, and if they don't, then they'll find themselves cut off from life and so on. The second movement of Genesis is all about Abraham and Sarah, how God is going to use

this couple to bless the world. Abraham and Sarah depicted as a manoeuvred manoeuvred, who God is calling to return to the Garden so he can bless all the nations to them. And so it isn't surprising that we see the theme of trees continue. What does Abraham do after taking a tour of the land God promised him? As part of his blessing, he sits under the great trees of Maumarrang. Later, there's a story of God himself meeting Abraham at those sacred trees. All of a sudden Yahweh becomes visible by these sacred trees, Abraham. God comes to meet with his chosen one at the door of the tentate,

home Hayam, heath of the day. It sounds just like the Garden of Eden when God shows up in the wind of the day. So, we've had Eden moments, but now he's meeting with a visible physical appearance of Yahweh and they're going to eat. We're starting to sense a reversal of the failure in Eden. Blessing, testing, failures, reversals. You never knew trees could be this exciting. I'm John Collins, this is Bible Project Podcast. Today, Tim Mackie, Chris Aquinn, and I talk through the second movement in the Genesis School.

It's a part of a year-long journey walking through the Torah movement by movement, and this movement is all about Abraham tracing the theme of trees. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hello, Chris. Good morning. Good morning. Yes, it Yeah. Who knows what time it is when someone's listening to this But it's morning for us and hi Tim. Hello. Good morning. We are walking through The Bible movement by movement. Hmm Tim. What's a movement in the Bible? Oh, well the Bible is made up of two mega collections Old Testament new Testament. It's a new term. The Old Testament mega collection. The Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible, also known as Tanakh and Friday Feather Titles,

consists of three large sections, the Torah, the prophets and the writings. In the Torah, there are five scrolls. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy. And each of those scrolls has Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and others. Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy. And each of those scrolls has been organized by the authors, not into chapters. The chapters that are in, you know,

we pick up a Bible today, they're helpful, but they are not original. The original design structures that the authors put there are signaled by all kinds of other cues of repeated words. And so what we are calling the largest level of blocks of material, within each scroll, we're calling them movements. On analogy with symphonies. Yeah, yeah.

Symphonies have usually three or four. Yeah, usually four. Four movements. And biblical books have usually three, sometimes four, large literary movements. I was just wondering to myself, why didn't the authors break up the text into chapters or sections in the first place

into movements and indicate it? And then I realized, well, they did indicate it with repeated words and just with other devices than a chapter number, like we do. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so the biblical authors just had different devices for how to structure the contents of a scroll. Also, this is a couple conversations ago in this series on the Bible as communal literature that these texts were designed to be performed aloud. Yeah. Resided, memorized and then recited. And so in the recitation,

and when you hear it in larger chunks, you start to notice the signals through repetition. And so it's just a different culture's way of organizing the contents of a scroll. We're not trying to make up where to read the Bible in these different movements, we're trying to discern the literary structure of the text that the author's intended to put there. Yep, that's right. So, and usually the larger scale movements, it can take some work and scholars debate on the boundaries, you know, of the literary movements. But for Genesis, it tends to follow the sequence of the main characters and generations. So literary movement one goes from creation to Noah

and his sons, so from Adam to Noah, literary movement two, which we're gonna talk about today. Follows the life of Abraham, his emergence out of Babylon, and then up to his death. Movement three is the story of the next two generations from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, their stories are combined in a really interesting way. And then the fourth movement is about Jacob's sons, which focus on Joseph and his brothers. There you go. There you go. So we're gonna do movement two, stories of Abram.

And we're gonna be tracing a new theme. So in movement one, we trace the theme of God's Ruach. And actually in movement two, God's Ruach doesn't show up, right? Yeah, yeah, the word doesn't appear. The word or synonyms or even reference to it. You're so acclimated to Hebrew, you just say Ruach. But John, please translate for somebody in the audience. Rua meaning spirit or wind or breath.

And so it's the great conversation walking through the Movement One, looking at that. We're going to pick up a new theme, and it's the theme of trees, which would not be on my hit list of biblical themes, except that we did make a theme video about it. Yes, yeah. And it was really, really wonderful. And what's it called? Is it called?

Tree of Life. Tree of Life. Yeah, really beautiful. Really beautiful. I love that one. Video. So let's just jump in, because in the theme of trees we'll start making sense, I guess, as we can find it. Yeah, well, we'll introduce it because it first appears in the theme of trees, we'll start making sense, I guess, as we and we can find it.

We'll introduce it, because it first appears in the Garden of Eden narrative. So we'll just kind of register that real quick, and then we'll jump in. So yeah, first, let's talk about recap real quick, what trees mean in the Garden of Eden story, and then how trees on high places become an image that the biblical authors, especially in the Abraham narrative, can pull out and put in front of you as a way of echoing the

Garden of Eden melody. So to speak, so if the opening movement of Genesis 1 through 11 begins with God, creating a high garden refuge where he offers life and blessing to his people. Eden. Eden. Yeah. And then that is forfeited and lost. But the whole goal is to restore humanity to that Eden blessing symbolized by access to God's life through the sacred trees. This probably happens a lot where when we're in further sections or further movements, that they still begin back in Genesis one through three. Yeah. So we'll probably recall that a lot.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's right. And that's where the symphony movement metaphor is so helpful, because the opening, you know, whatever, however many minutes it is of a symphony, the first movement is giving you the baseline melodies and notes that are gonna be developed and tweaked.

So this is a good example. The tree is right on pages one and two. Well, what we call pages. Yeah. In the opening, literary units of Genesis. Scrolls didn't have pages. two. Well, what we call pages. In the opening, literary units of Genesis. Scrolls didn't have pages. Correct. And then that image gets picked up and employed and developed in really neat ways throughout

the story of Abraham. Because Abraham, as we're going to see in a moment, is depicted as Abraham and Sarah, depicted as a new Adam and Eve, who God is calling to return to the garden so he can bless all the nations through them. And unfortunately, things don't quite go that way. So first, real quick, trees first place, maybe one of the only places most people would think of is the garden. If I think about trees that are significant, and then maybe the burning bush, but that's well, even there.

Yeah, we categorize that differently in English. Exactly. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So, in the opening, literally, a unit of Genesis, the seven-day creation narrative trees play a really key role on day three and day six of God's creative work. So after God's separated waters from waters, called the dry land to emerge, he calls specifically fruit trees

to emerge up out of the ground with seed in them. Those are the best kinds, really. up out of the ground with seed in them. Those are the best kind, really. The day tree. Especially avocado. Ooh. Avocado leaves. Bless the Lord for avocado. We eat so much guacamole in our house.

I us too. Sometimes I just have a big bowl of guacamole and chips for dinner. Healthy fats. Sometimes I pretend it's not a fruit, but a vegetable, because it's green. That makes me feel better. A lot of people think it's a vegetable. It's an expensive item too. We need to move to

Hawaii and just have on the car trees in the yard. They taste good there. We'll different there too. Anyway, sorry. So fruit trees on day three, then on day six, God gives the fruit trees for the humans and the animals to enjoy. So that sets you up to see trees as a special divine gift to the land creatures from Genesis chapter 1. Then in the next literary unit in the Garden of Eden narrative, the intra-ductory narrative shows God forming human from the dirt outside of Eden, then planting the garden with the trees in it, and then putting the human in the garden. And then saying, eat from all the trees, and there's that really good one,

the tree of life in the middle. But then there's another one that'll kill you. If you take the wisdom about knowing good, evil on your own terms. Tree of good bad. Knowing good bad. So right there, the image of trees, and Eden is depicted as on a high place,

because there's one river that flows out of it, and then supplies the holy and Eden blessing water to the rest of the world. So the sacred tree, we're having an earth or one, God's eternal life and blessing is available to the humans freely, but there's a test they have to choose to trust God, to continue eating from the blessed tree of life, and if they don't, then they'll find themselves cut off from life, and so on. And that is what happens. And so you walk out of these first stories, creation story in the Eden story, and returning to the place of the Garden to eat the tree of life and half God's blessing.

These all become key images that are gonna be deployed later on in the story. For example, the first literary movement of Genesis goes from Genesis 1 to 11, but there are three parts to it. And the first part goes from creation to the flood. And then what's interesting, when you move on to the next part of Genesis 1 to 11, it begins with God sending his ruaugh out, his spirit out over the waters,

so that the dry land can emerge after the flood, so to replaying the days of creation. And then what you learn is, Noah starts sending out birds and eventually on the third try, one of the birds comes back with a little shrub plant and you're like, oh, the plants are emerging. Now, the dry land is a tree's are back.

Now, the plants are emerging. And so Noah gets off the boat, he offers a sacrifice. That's a whole other thing. But then he plants a garden. And you're like, yes. Oh, and God says to him, be- But it's a vineyard.

That's right, a vineyard. And right before that, God said to Noah, he gave him the blessing that he gave to Adam and Eve. God blessed Noah and his wife saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill the land. And you're like, he's a new Adam. Yeah. Now, you said this during the tree conversation a while back, but in Hebrew, a tree is also

a bush is also a vine, right? That's right. Yeah. The Hebrew word it covers the broader range of species than our tree does. Yeah. It can refer to bushes and plants and shrubs and what we think of as trees. Organic growth.

Organic growth. And there are other words for vegetation and growth, but if it's sticking up out of the ground, basically higher than your knees, it fits in the category of eights. Organic knee high growth. Organic knee high growth. Yep. Well, probably if it's wooded too, right?

If it's a flower, like a dolly or something, it's gonna be high, but it's not gonna be. That's true. I think it has to do with what the stalks made of. Yeah. If it's rigid and woody. Yeah, woody. Yeah, if it's 80.

80. Yeah, because the word tree is also the same word for wood, used later. That's exactly right. And so the word eights can also cover what we think of as vine, like grape vines, which if you look at them, they look woody and thick. And they can get pretty thick. Totally.

And that's what Noah plants when he gets off the boat. Yes. He plants a vineyard and a garden. Is this a tangent? But the Briar's and Thorns, are we supposed to think of those as like, would the anti-trees? Yes, exactly. Thank you for bringing that up. So good.

This is important for the tree theme in Genesis 3, 14. When God addresses Adam after they eat from the tree, God curses the ground, painful toil, you eat of it. It will produce for you, he doesn't bring up fruit trees now, but now what he brings up is anti-fruit trees. Fruitless, woodsy. Yes, thanks.

Thorns and Thistles. So they are also woody and thick, and they have a eights like quality to them, but they produce no fruit. The beneficial for humans. The anti-tree. Yep, yep. Except Thistles. Can you actually eat Thistles?

I think so, yeah. But you're right, the basic point is that the sets up opposing symbols now of fruit trees that are connected with life and blessing, and then thorns and thistles that are connected with curse and death. Well, it seems like even the fruit trees, trees that produce seed fall into two categories with a tree of, with them eating from the tree they should have or shouldn't have. Oh, yeah, that's right. And the tree of life, it's almost like there are two different kinds of seeds or fruit.

That's true, fruit trees. Some of them, yeah, even a good looking fruit tree can lead to death. And that foreshadows later how humans will be divided into two, yeah, kinds of seeds. Mm-hmm. That's right. Yeah, and how different people a good looking human can actually pose a test for another human this is gonna happen in the Jacob and Joseph stories, especially anyway, that's excellent observation. Okay, so Noah plants a garden and then he eats the fruit of his garden just like

Adam and Eve did and his nakedness is exposed, just like Adam and Eve's, leading to something shameful and divisive among his sons, just like Cain and Abel, and the whole thing replays. Sad face. So after Noah's sons multiply and divide, this is the table of nations in Genesis 10, what's followed by a narrative about why the nations divided, and it's about

the building in the city and tower of Babylon. And so you get the narrative about the scattering of Babylon, and in the literary design of Genesis 1-11, the scattering of Babylon sits in the same literary position as the flood narrative. It's God's response to an uprising of human arrogance and evil. And so the flood-like judgment is repeated, but in a different way, not through water and rain, but through the scattering of Babylon. And so closes the first literary movement with the scattering of the nations from Babylon. But the lineage continues. Yeah, from Seth. At each one of the three parts of Genesis 1 to 11,

there's in the middle some kind of genealogy that traces the seed of the woman from Genesis 3 on and constantly singling it out this line. And so this is how Abraham is introduced. His father was the 10th of 10 generations from Noah. Just like Noah was ten generations from Adam. And so you get ten generations from Noah, and what you get is a guy with three sons, just like Noah was ten generations from Adam, and he had three sons,

and you can't see how this goes. So welcome to Abraham's stories. And so Abraham's stories present him as coming out of Babylon, his family's coming out Babylon, and what God does is speak a blessing over him. Just like God blessed Adam and Eve, just like God blessed Noah after the flood, and now God's blessing. He knew Adam and Eve after the scattering of Babylon. So you can follow the progression. Yeah. So, here we walk into the Abraham story. Maybe real quick, we'll just sketch the main parts of the Abraham story. Okay.

So there's three parts to the Abraham story. So Abraham's the second movement of Genesis, and it itself has three parts. And interestingly, those three parts keep mapping on to the same plot line patterns at work in Genesis 1 through 11. So the first part of the Abraham narrative goes from the end of chapter 11 up through the end of chapter 19 and there's three blocks of material in here. It's threes within threes. If you're just listening, it starts to get confusing. Because I've got which triad I'm on. I'm lost. Yeah, but the point is that there are lots of triads.

Yeah, structuring things in groups of threes within threes is a major communication device in the Bible. So what's cool about this section is it's organized in a really neat way, in a symmetry. The first group goes from Abraham and Sarah leaving Babylon with their father, and then journeying to the land of Canaan where they experience God's blessing. And this is the famous Abraham blessing. I bless you, make you a great nation, great name, I'll bless all the nations through you. What's interesting is that Abraham's family left Babylon at the beginning of his story,

and the culmination of this first part is about the king of Babylon following the family of Abraham. The king of Babylon gets a big coalition and comes over to where Abraham is. So Abraham leaves Babylon, but then Babylon leaves to come to Abraham. This is where he meets Muck Isadak. And this is the story of the Battle of the Kings and where he meets Muck Isizadak. And this is the story of the Battle of the Kings and where he meets Muck Hizadak. And there's a blessing there too. There's a blessing. Yeah, so this movement first part begins with blessing and it ends with blessing. It begins with leaving Babylon and it begins with Abram as a victor over the King of Babylon. Yeah, it's cool. Then that section is mirrored on the other side in the last part of the first part. The chapter is 18 and 19.

It was 18 and 19. It also began with a renewal of the promise of blessing in the form of the promise of a child, which they haven't been able to have. And it ends with God bringing a severe judgment on the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, but rescuing a lot out of those cities, which is exactly what Abraham did. He rescued a lot from the kings, from the kings of Babylon. So you got those two sections,

and then right in the middle is stories of real failure. Yeah, chapter 15 through 17. Yeah, totally. So Abraham struggles to trust in God's promise. God makes a covenant with Abraham, but Abraham does come to a moment of trust. Major failure in chapter 16 with Sarah and Hegar, and then you get an act of God's judgment and mercy on Abraham's genitals, with which he just used to abuse his Egyptian slave, Hegar, and if that sounds odd and severe, remember this whole thing is about the future lineage of his family. Yeah, the seed.

The seed. The family. Exactly. So that's the first, the first kind of movement there, and trees play a key role in this movement at almost every step of this sequence right here. So shall we dive in? Yeah. Some actual stories? Okay. So the first appearance of a tree on a high place in Abraham's story is right when he enters into promise land. Yeah, and as a recap in Genesis 1 through 11, the tree is this sacred, most sacred of sacred places, right in the middle of the garden, and it's connected to God's life. It's where humans experience Eden and a flourishing life themselves.

So you have that uploaded already from Genesis 1 through 3. Yeah, and then the arc of Genesis 1 to 11, humans go from exiled from Eden, ending in the debacle of Babylon. Now Abraham's reversing that. He's called out of Babylon, and God's gonna bring him to a new Eden, which is here called the land of Canaan. So the first thing God ever says to Abraham is the famous blessing. It's a poem that comes in, lo and behold, three parts. And the focus is on how God is going to give to Abraham and to his seed land. Go to this land that I'm going to show you. There in the land, I'm going to make you a great nation. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to bless those who bless you and those who curse you.

I will curse. So God's going to protect his chosen one and all the families will be gonna bless you. I'm gonna bless those who bless you and those who curse you, I will curse. So God's gonna protect his chosen one and all the families will be blessed in you. So you get this connection here of, in a land, with a big family, fruitful and multiply, blessing. Yeah, go ahead, the Eden thing. Yeah, and that word great is the same word or root for multiply. Oh, that's right, yeah, exactly.

I will make you multiply it. Mm-hmm. So where does Abram go from here? There's a little story here. These are the kind of paragraphs you read over and they're like, oh, that's interesting. So Genesis 12 or 6. So Abram passed through the land onto the place of Shachem, onto the oak of Morah and the Canaanites were then in the land. So the first place he goes is to this place called Shikim and he goes to a tree. And you're like, why am I being told this information? Well, I wasn't met, okay.

Another word Mora is spelled with Hebrew letters. They're similar to the word to see or to show to make visible. What God just said to Abraham is, go to the land that I will show you or make visible to you. And then he goes on to the land, onto the oak of showing or seeing. So it's the place that God is. He's in the land at this point. Yep. He's doing a little tour of the land that God promised him. Yeah, so Shkem is up in the northern hill country. And there, by the oak of seeing, verse 7, Yahweh became seaable. The same Hebrew word, to Abraham. And he said, to your seed, I will give this land.

And so he built an altar there to Yahweh who became seaable to him. Which is not something Yahweh does. Not to very many people. And even to the people he does become seaable, which is not something Yahweh does. Not to very many people. And even to the people he does become seeable, it's not very often. So the oak of seeing might be recalling seeing the land and foreshadowing seeing the land in other places, but also seeing Yahweh. Yeah, it's the place where God will meet with his people, become seeable to them. Yeah, Eden.

Eden. Yeah, that connection with God. Yep. He moved on from there, and he went to the mountain on the east of Bait El. Bait El is the Hebrew word house of God. And he spread out his tent, house of God on the west, and IE on the east.

And there he built an altar and called on the name of Yahweh. So he goes from the land where Yahweh meets with him over in the altar at the name of Yahweh. So he goes from the land where Yahweh meets with him over in the altar at the place of seeing, and he sees God. Then he goes from there to a high mountain where he has a tent,

and near that tent is called House of God, and he builds another altar and worships Yahweh. I mean, full on, it's like he's consecrating the land. He's doing a little worship to her. And he's foreshadowing the tabernacle. Totally. Here, yeah, at a place called House of God, he has a tent where he builds an altar and worships Yahweh. This is like the origin story of the tabernacle in the way. Yeah, or it's Abram creating and dedicating this land up in these hills on the high places

to be the place where he will meet with God. And there's all Eden imagery here. Trees, tents, mountains, worship, God becomes visible. Got it. So is this an example where we're supposed to see these things together, the oak of seeing on a hill, the mountain, Betel, Bethel, House of God, and the tent. We're supposed to kind of, and now hold those of God, and the 10 were supposed to kind of now hold those things together. And the altar. And the altar, yeah.

So that later, if one or the other is brought up, we upload all of that. Yeah, exactly. The Oak of Mora. Mora? Yeah, Mora. It doesn't say it's on a hill. Where do you get that it's on a hill? Ah, the first place he goes is where there's a tree.

Then the second place he goes is a mountain near house of God. Near the tree, he built an altar, and Yahweh came see-able to him. On the mountain, with the tent by house of God, he built an altar in worships. So it's kind of like there are two separate places, one with a tree, one on a mountain. Yeah, two different parts of the Holy Land. Yeah, yeah. But they are set next to each other, literally, so that you begin to associate the imagery. So that in a way that the whole

expanse of this land is eaten. Yeah, but it's a good point. There's two separate stops on the way. But by putting them next to each other in the narrative, you're already associating tents and trees and mountains and house of God and altars and visions of Yahweh and so on. Yeah, it's a cool little paragraph. And then Abram journeyed on for a s9 going all the way down to the Negev. So he just went from north to south on a worship tour and at every stop in the core of the land especially, it's like a new

Eden. Cool. So there you go. So you're like, okay, a new Adam and Eve in a new Eden, Cool. So there you go. So you're like, okay, a new Adam and Eve, in a new Eden, blessing to the nations, what could go wrong? Everything, actually everything is about to go wrong. So we won't go into it, but the next story, which is Genesis 12, 10, onward, is a failure narrative that mirrors Adam and his failure.

And it's where he goes down to Egypt because of a famine, put Sarah's life in jeopardy, or not her life, but her safety in jeopardy. To be taken by other men and so on. So we don't have time to go into that. But what we do have time to talk about is right after God rescues Abram out of Egypt with great plagues, he sends plagues on Egypt to rescue, Abram goes back into the land at the beginning of chapter 13 and then this is the paragraph we're going to look at right now. Okay. So in that paragraph, Abram went up out of Egypt. He and his wife and all that belonged to him and lot who was with him. His nephew?

Back to the Negev, the southern desert. And now he's got loads of animals and silver and gold because, well... The king of Egypt gave him all this. Yep. And the reason he got it was because of his lying and treachery against his wife down there. And he went on his journeys from the negev back up to Bethel, the house of God, back to the place of his tent there at the beginning, between house of God and between I, back to the place of the altar that he built there at the beginning.

And he called there on the name of Yahweh. So this is... Forgetting Cluzio to that story. Yeah, it's like a restoration back to the land. Yahweh. So this is Abraham. It's forgetting Cluzio to that story. Yeah, it's like a restoration back to the land. Okay, I blew it. I blew it in Egypt, but I'm coming back. Yep, Yahweh bailed me out and I'm gonna come back

and re-dedicate my life to the Lord. That's a summer camp moment. Yeah, that's exactly right. So there, after Abram and Lot Part Ways, Lot goes down to Sodom, what Yahweh says to Abram and Lot Part Ways, Lot goes down to Sodom. What Yahweh says to Abram is, hey, lift up your eyes from the place where you are, look to the north, and to the south, and to the east, and the west, all the land you see, I'm going to give it to you and your seed forever.

I'm going to make your seed like the dust of the land. He's seeing again, just like that tree of seeing. That's right. He's seeing the land, just like when you first went into the land. He's seeing again, just like that tree of seeing. That's right. He's seeing the land, just like when you first went into the land. He's gonna make Abrams seed be fruitful and multiply, but here using the imagery of dust, he's gonna make a living family out of dust. Come on, come on, like that.

That's Garden of Eden imagery. So arise, ooh, walk about in the land. Yeah, that's like God walking about in the wind of the day. Exactly, yes. If I really say him exact, it's a unique form of the word walk for Hebrew nerds, it's called a hippyle. Walking about. Yeah, it's not an Australian thing, I'll walk about. Yeah, yeah.

It's actually what this form of the Hebrew word walk means. Not walking a straight line, but it's a straw. Yeah, it's from Halak, but it's Mithalech. Mithalech, yeah. So just like God would hit Halach without him and even the garden. Oh. And just like Noah, hit Halach with God, and so he was spared from the flood. So now you have a new Adam and a new Noah who walks about with God in the Eden land as he strolls along its length. Oh and real quick you should know that that's when Abram set up his tent and he went and dwelt by the oaks of Mamrae which are by Hebron and there he built an altar to Yahweh. All right, new tree, new altar.

Yep, new tree and now the tree and the tent are in the same place. Oh, yeah. Remember in the matching part of this, the beginning, the tent and the tree were in different spots. Now they're at the same tree. And instead of the oak of Mouré, now it's the oaks of Mamre.

And what does a Mamre mean? Oh, Mamre, it's the same letters scrambled. Mouré, Mamre. Just test two limbs in there. So this is a good example where this little narrative bit matches Abram's entry into the land that we just read, and it's like an envelope structure around the two stories of failure.

The failure in Egypt and then the unfortunate division between him and Lot, but you have Eden restoration images on both sides. Yeah, so so far we're seeing that whenever a human goes to a tree on a high place, it's this way of signaling, this is a mini Eden moment connecting with God, probably involving blessing or seeing God or something like that. Now, this is awesome. This is where the good stuff begins. So, we had a God bringing his chosen one out of Babylon into a new Eden. They went into that new Eden, then met with God by the tree and the tent and the mountain and that. Then there were the failure stories that mirrored Adam and Eve's failure,

and Cain enables division. Then you get a restatement of the blessing. And note, remember, in that restatement, it's specifically this language about, Abraham is one who walks with God. Now, when Noah walked with God, that's what marked him as chosen to be spared out of all of the chaos and violence that was going on in the generation of the flood. Isn't it very interesting that the next story is going to be about a great outbreak of violence among the kings of the nations led by the king of Babylon. So I'm talking about Genesis 14 here. Yeah. The next story, but do you check this is so rad? So the very next story is about how the king of

Shinar, which is what Babylon was called. In the valley of Shinar. Yeah, the people build Babylon in the valley of Shinar. In Genesis 11, yeah. Yeah, so the king of Babylon comes, and do you remember, in Genesis 10, the guy who's responsible for the building of Babylon, Nimrod, he was called one of those mighty warriors. He was one of the Nephilim, one of the mighty warriors. So just think through it.

This is when Noah lived. Noah lived in the days of the Nephilim, in the mighty warriors. And he was spared from when God destroyed them with the flood-like judgment. And so now here you have a new Noah, Abraham. And what we're going to see is he is not only going to be spared from the violence

of these new Nephilim-like warriors, but he's going to see is he is not only going to be spared from the violence of these new nephelium-like warriors, but he's going to be victorious over them. He's going to conquer them. By God's help, yeah. So we have all these kings, the whole story. We can't get into it. But the narrative of Genesis 14, it goes on in verses 1 through 10, just this long description of all these kings and their huge battle armies, and they go and

they're just like their sland canonites and they're just like battle rampaged through the land and there's five kings, canonite kings, who come out to battle these other kings and they just they're broken and they flee. And so that's the whole scene and then lot Abrams Nephew is there and he's captured. Where is Abraham during all this? This is so great. Well, here's the thing, verse 13. Um, where? Yeah, Genesis chapter 14 verse 13. Refugee from the battle came and reported to Abram, the Hebrew. And where was he? Oh man, he's chilling. He's chilling by those oaks of Mamray. Yeah, he's living the good life. He's living the good life. He's up, he's up. He's chilling by those oaks of Mamre. Yeah, he's living the good life.

He's living the good life. He's up by a tree. And you know, sorry, now the narrative says, you know what, it's called the oak of Mamre. Well, Mamre is the name of a guy. Yeah, he's an Amorite, which is a subcland of the Canaanites. Not a Hebrew. He's not a Hebrew.

So you have Abraham the Hebrew. And he's chilling by the oaks of Mamre. And this little plot of land is actually owned by this Mamrae the Amrite and Mamrae was actually the brother of two guys Mamrae was the brother of a guy named Garden grape cluster as cold

And he was also the brother of another guy named Anir. So let me look this up real quick. Yeah, what Anir means? I forget Anir. I've looked it up before. I remember I just had a flag. So Abrams hanging with a guy named... Fruit cluster. Seeing and grape cluster. Yeah, named Vision.

And meanwhile, like the Canaanite Kings and people are fallen into tarpets and lots captured. Yeah. And then there's Abram. Exactly. War in the Valley and blood and violence. The Abrams up in the garden place. Yes.

It's not, yeah, it's not clear what the meaning of on there is. Yeah. Look, see, the violence of the Ghiburim and the violent warriors of the nations down low in the valley, but up on the high place, near the tree, you've got Abram chilling, and remember this was where he had his tent built in altar. And you know, it's a very Eden place.

Yeah, and who's there with him? Well, there's canonites with him. That's interesting. The blessing is extending. Yeah, and the name of one of those canonites is Garden Great Cluster. And you know why they were up there? Well, they had entered into a covenant with Abram. It's such a rad scene.

So it's life-sale. It's a random detail, right? Totally. Totally. Why are you telling me about these guys in this covenant? That's right. Because is it brought up again? No.

Yeah. So the whole question is, why am I being told this? So let's just paint the scene. Below this hill are a bunch of Canaanites getting their butts handed to them by the kings of Babylon, right? But then you've got a handful of the nations. Who's spared?

When they look at Abraham, they're like, this guy's got the connection. Yeah, let's go make friends with. Yeah, his tents is a place where heaven and earth are united. So let's go hang out by his tent by the sacred tree and enter a covenant with him. And lo and behold, they find themselves spared from the violence of the nations. So the Canaanites unconnected to Abraham are taken out in battle and the ones that are connected to him

are experiencing Eden and like blessing with Abram. Yeah, so it's a foreshadowing of the way that Abram will become a blessing to the nations, is when the nations enter into a covenant with his family, they will find themselves experiencing blessing. So the story's going to go on and talk about how Abram and these buddies get 318 like guerrilla warriors together and they go and chase the kings down and strike them in the middle of the night. And they're victorious. And then when Abram's returning, it gets another blessing that matches the first blessing he got. One you got from God, chapter 12, and now he gets the blessing of Melchizedek, and that's all rabbit hole.

And that's ends of this little unit. And that ends this first, and we've just walked through the sequence of Genesis 1 through 11. Except now the storyline has been played not out in multiple generations, but just in the life of one man. Yeah, one little part of his life. Yeah, exactly. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Let's go to another one.

We're going to unfortunately skip over the story of Genesis 15 through 17. Not that there isn't cool stuff there, but there aren't any trees. In there. But essentially God makes a covenant and says, there, but there aren't any trees. Okay. In there. But essentially God makes a covenant and says, hey, listen, I got your back. Debra. Like, think what I just did for you. Abraham, I got your back.

I'm going to give you the land, give you a big family. And Abraham struggles a trusting God. He struggles so much that in the next chapter, he and Sarah fail because they stop trusting God and try to produce the seed. This promised family on their own by abusing, sexually abusing their Egyptian slave. So God shows mercy and blesses, promises to bless this slave and her son, but also says it's going to be through a son from Abraham and his first wife Sarah that the child's going to come. So God shows an act of judgment and mercy on Abraham, chapter 17,

and then boom, we're back in 18 and 19 back to the plotline and this story's rad. So Genesis 18 begins and Yahweh became seable to Abraham by the oaks of Mamrae. Okay, here we are again. Here we are again. First it was Moray, now it's Mamray, but it doesn't matter. They are one letter different. And then they're spelling, yeah. Which means they're... The coming sea bowl, additry,

we're in Eden territory. Exactly. And here the focus is going to be on the tent. Again, Eden. Eden image. So he was dwelling. Sorry, how is a tent in Eden image? It's not from Genesis 1 through 11. It would be from reading the Bible backwards and realizing the tabernacle

Is put up on the mountain. Remember when Noah got off the boat. Oh, he planted a garden. Uh-huh. Eight of its fruits his naked was exposed and he went into his tent So you had a tent in a garden with the first tentness. That's the first tent. So that was the... Yeah, Noah's tent was a story of a tent of shame. Yeah, it was a tent of shame. So then Abraham went into the land in chapter 12, and he went to the tree, then to the mountain called House of God, and on that mountain, or by that mountain, he put up a tent,

and he met with God and built an altar by the tent. So this is like reclaiming the tent? That's right. But you're right, it's all designed with an eye towards the tabernacle. Yes. It's meditation literature. If you've read forward the tabernacle on the mountain high place that is eaten. Yeah, exactly. Then you're thinking of that too. Yep. So this is the way the narrative, I'm using the language of a Hebrew Bible scholar Michael Morales, who wrote a book called The Tabernacle Prefigured.

And he's tracing how the Tabernacle is the realization of all of these clues and motifs that are building throughout the books of Genesis, Exodus. I like that. There's a prefiguration of the Tabernacle. So all of a sudden Yahweh becomes visible by these sacred trees, Abraham,

oh yeah, and he's sitting at the door of the tent, which is exactly the same phrase used to describe where the priests offer sacrifices at the door of the tent and the tavern after. Oh, okay. And it's the heat of the day. Yeah, it's something about that. HOME HAYUM. HOME HAYUM. God comes to meet with his chosen one at the door of the tent at the Khum Hayam, heat of the day.

It sounds just like the Garden of Eden when God shows up to Adam and Eve at the wind of the day. The Ruach Hayam in the wind of the day. Yeah, there's one letter different. Oh is it? Yeah, one letter different. Oh is it? Yeah, in Hebrew.

Yeah, the Ruach Hayam, the Khum Hayam. Yep. Okay. So he lifted his eyes and he saw, and look, three men standing by him, and he saw, and he ran from the door of the tent to meet them, and he bowed to the ground. So the Yahweh becomes visible in the form of three men. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. And he said, my master, please, if I found favor in your eyes, don't pass on from your Serpent, let me get a bit of water so you can wash your feet. Oh, here. Sit with me under this tree. Yeah, come and join me in this eating place. Yeah, yeah. Water tree. And God's about to sit down with his friend under a tree. Who rests in the garden?

Take a bit of bread so you can sustain your hearts. Then you can pass on. Surely this is why you've passed by your servants. You can meet with me and have food under the tree. So we're like, wow, we've had Eden moments, but now he's meeting with a visible physical appearance of Yahweh and they're gonna eat under the tree Yeah, this is as close to it. This is great because when when God was

Drown around in the garden in the wind of the day last time without a manoeuvre Things went south totally so it's like oh good. Maybe this can be reclaimed. Yep. Yeah, we're starting to sense a reversal of the failure Mm-hmm, so the men said yeah, do as you've spoken this can be reclaimed. Yep. Yeah, we're starting to sense a reversal of the failure in Eden. So the men said, yeah, do as you've spoken. So Abram hurried into the tent to Sarah and he said, hurry, three measures of wheat flour need it and make cakes. Chris, you and I are actually studying through Leviticus. Leviticus right now.

All this vocabulary is exactly the vocabulary. Yeah, right. The flour, the cakes. This is priestly the stuff. The flower, the cakes. This is priestly. The stuff. Leviticus chapter 2. Oh wow. Offering, thank offerings or.

The mincha. The gift offering. Yeah. And where is the apron? He goes into the tent. Into the tent or the priest's work. Yeah. So Sarah is depicted as a priest.

Making up the offering that's described in Leviticus chapter 2. Oh wow. Otherwise, this all sounds so weird. It's like I know so random. Yeah quick bake some cake. Yeah, and then the with the cattle to the calf good and tender. Okay. Oh yeah, so we'll talk about that. Okay, this is my this is my favorite. I remember like sitting at my dining table It was like an early morning and this hit me. And I was like, oh man, I probably said something out loud. So the verse seven, then Abram ran to the cattle and he took a calf, good and tender, and he gave it. Okay, God and humans gonna eat under a tree.

Yeah. He took and he gave. And that's vocabulary from Adam and Eve to. Yes, exactly. And what about the good, the tov? He took and he gave. And that's vocabulary from Adam and Eve too. Yes, exactly. And what about the good, the Tove? He took what is good. So in Genesis 3, this signaled failure. Yeah.

But what's so rad is the word good here, it's the Hebrew word Tove. So Eve saw the fruit of the tree of knowing good and bad, Tove and raw. And she took it and she gave. Here, Abram takes a calf that is tove and raw. Tove and raw. Yeah, tender is raw.

So the tree of knowing good and bad is tove and raw. And here he takes the calf, tove and raw. Good and tender. Oh wow. It's so good. I like that one. So this is hyperlinking to the fall narrative of taking of the tree of good bad Yep, that's right, but it's all it's a reversal. It's a reversal. It's all a reversal. He's undoing the fall

Mm-hmm at least in this moment So he hurried to make it he took the curds and the milk and the calf he made and he gave it to them and then He stood by them under the tree and they ate together. That's a third time tree is mentioned in this. Yeah, totally. Eight verses, yeah. So what's about to happen is, right, as they sit neat, they start having a conversation about how next year,

at this time, you're going to finally have that sun, the blessing of seed. Be fruitful and multiply. So this is a high point right here. Mm-hmm. Lots of blessings under trees so far. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I love this little story. Yeah, that's really cool. And what's great is the trees are just kind of the surface image on the story. Yeah, there's so many more hyperlinks in here.

But then it's like an invitation when you see trees, you know, by the tent, to reread the narrative more carefully and what you'll start to notice is all this other vocabulary from Eden, but it's all being inverted. That's my favorite one in Abraham's story. Okay, so the arc so far is we went from entry to Eden, trees, tents, mountains, blessing, failure, but a restoration to it, and then a rescue. The story of the violent kings down below.

Well, the nations that cling to Abraham through covenant by the tree find blessing and safety. Then you have another round of failure with Heagar and then here now a restoration to the Eden blessing again. So we're just cycling it through. Yeah, so cool. So somebody's reading through and they come across a tree so far at least in Genesis 12 and on. The reader is supposed to be thinking, oh, I think this is going to be a positive Eden moment and a blessing moment. Yep, that's right. So there's a handful of other tree moments and I guess we'll talk about those next, but it's really cool because they just pick up the same melody

It's the melody of Genesis 1 to 11, but now playing it so forward and it's all about how God is gonna Trying to restore the Eden blessing to nations through this very flawed man and woman. That's the story Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast. Next week we continue to trace the theme of trees in this second movement of Genesis. Remember, the whole thing is that the nations are going to be blessed through you and your seed. That's exactly what these four stories are exploring and meditating on. How the nations get in on the promise.

But what if the promise is put into the hands of a guy who is a blind treacherous snake whose family is dividing? So lo and behold trees play a role in Genesis 21, the story of Abraham and Schmell, Genesis 21, the story of Abraham and Abimlek, and the story of Abraham and Isaac. All three have Eden tree moments that really pop with cool significance. Today's show is produced by Cooper Peltz, edited by Dan Gummel and Zach McKinley, and our show notes are by Lindsay Ponder. Bible project is a crowdfunded nonprofit.

We exist to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. This journey through the first five books of the Bible, known as the Torah, is gonna continue throughout this year. We'll work through the Torah movement by movement tracing different biblical themes. You can also read through the Torah with us in our Bible project, App, and unlock these themes

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