Just a short and sweet reflection today: I had never noticed that the people of Israel were the children of not one but THREE barren women: Sarah, obviously, Rachel (Jacob’s favourite wife), and the one I hadn’t spotted before, Rebekah.
Then, of course, their ultimate descendant, the true child of the promise to Abraham, was born to a virgin.
Do you think God was trying to emphasise the point that he was in control here, and the promise was not fulfilled by man’s power or good planning?!
Our circumstances and limitations are no barrier to Him. Amazing!
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LOVE this JP ☺ and yes!
Yes, I agree with Judith. But I’ve always thought how sad it was that none of them learnt from the mistakes of the generation before and ended up with such broken unhappy families which in Abraham’s case lead to the current situation in the middle east. And as you said yourself Rachel was Isaac favourite wife and so God purposely stopped her having children and allowed Leah to have them but then the ensuing problems with favouritism with her children led to the saving of the whole of Egypt and the family from famine so once again God could see the resultant good out of all those what 50 odd years of unhappiness.
Yes, and Rebekah’s favouritism of Jacob, and Jacob’s deceitfulness… they’re really not very illustrious examples to follow, are they? But somehow God used them anyway.
Yes, it’s all very strange because God is known as the god of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and yet to my mind Moses much more obedient yet doesn’t get a look in. Just shows there is hope for us!
I’ve been making soup and stews all morning and thinking about this as I’ve been reading about Moses, and it came to me that Moses was never sorry for his sins. He often pleaded with God for the sins of the people, but unlike Nehemiah, he never associated himself with them and asked for forgiveness on his own behalf and then when he was giving the people instructions for going into the promised land he blamed them that he was not able to go in with them! As for Jacob, he did go back home and make peace with his father and brother even though he didn’t sort out the problems in his own family.