Following the Curses
I was reading through Genesis & I came across the following passages. It is fascinating how they intertwine.
9:20-24 - Noah is offended by his son Ham, and as a result curses Ham's son, Canaan. Canaan & his offspring would be cursed as a slave to his brothers. His offspring would become the people who reside in the land of Canaan and are long at odds with the nation Israel.
16 - Out of lack of faith & disobedience, Sarai gives Hagar to Abram and Hagar gives birth to Ishmael. Hagar mistreats Sarai, so Abram gives Sarai permission to abuse Hagar. Out of all this faithlessness and strife, Hagar flees. God gives her the blessing that her son Ishmael would have many offspring, but curses him, saying that he would always live in hostility toward others. Later, Abraham begs that God would bless Ishmael, and God promises that Ishmael would become a great nation, but never revokes the curse. Net result- both Isaac (born of Sarah) & Ishmael will bear forth great nations, but Ishmael's will forever be cursed. He goes to reside in Beersheba, in the land of Canaan. As Galatians 4 says, Hagar & Ishmael represent a nation in slavery, which is similar to the curse on Canaan.
25:21-23 - Two nations are in Rebekah's womb (Jacob & Esau), and the peoples will be seperated. The older will serve the younger.
27:39 - Isaac curses Esau after being deceived by Jacob.
28:6-9 - Jacob is told to not take a wife from Canaan. Esau has already married Hittite women, and it has caused strife in the family. Esau is still angry at Jacob and despises his father Isaac, so he goes to Canaan and marries Mahalath, who is the daughter of Ishmael.
The nation that would always be opposed to Israel has been formed- the promise of a hostile nation bourne out of Ishmael, a profane & subservient nation that would come from Esau, coming out of the people of Canaan. When Esau marries back into the line of Ishmael, the link is complete. In a great sense, Esau becoming son to Ishmael is the fulfillment of God's curse on both Canaan & Ishmael. This line subsequently becomes the nation of Edom, which is forever at war with Israel/Judah and is cursed b/c of it. Edom joins with Babylon (later to be overcome by Babylon) to conquer first the 10 tribes of Israel and later the two tribes of Judah, destroying Jerusalem & the temple in the process. The land where Babylon resided (though later conquered by Persia) becomes modern-day Iraq.
2 Comments:
Do you think the curse goes to the people or the land? The Babylonians were later conquered by the Greeks, who were later conquered by the Romans, who were later conquered by Germanic hordes, etc...
Thus, if it is the people, you could make a claim that we're all the sons of Ishmael.
What do you think of relevance of the Genesis curses today?
I've heard people say that the curse between Ishmael and Isaac is the main reason the Israelis and Arabs have cannot get along. Thus, there is no point in trying to get the two sides to make peace, simply because both sides are doomed to hate each other by a supernatural.
I, of course, think that position is 100% grade-A BS because it over-simplifies the Arab-Israeli conflict, is overly pessimistic, the lack of decent rationale of who exactly is supposed to be covered by the "curses" laid down 3000 years ago with so many population shifts in between.
There is evidence that curses can both apply to a land (Deut. 28 & 29) and of the people that reside in the land. In this case, I believe that the curse is toward the offspring of Canaan and not the land. I think this is the case b/c Canaan is the location that the Israelites are instructed to claim, but they were instructed not to intermarry with the people there.
I think the relevance of the curses today is probably mostly a matter of awareness and depends on how one interprets Genesis. You could say it's either a matter of cause & effect, or you could say that there is a correlation between what Genesis describes and our current world events. It's interesting to realize the curses shaped the formation of Ishmael's line, but it really isn't those curses that cause the warring- it was out of Israel's disobedience. God said that if His people chose not to obey Him, He would raise up foreign powers to conquer them (Assyrians, Babylonians). God distinguished between an ethnic Israel and a spiritual one (Gen. 17).
You make a good point about the shifting of populations and the question about whose origins everyone comes from. Like most things in life, people like to use these things as a crutch to remove their personal accountability. Even though the Arab nation was the 'cursed' nation, there were still many times when the two nations lived in peace. Typically they didn't get along when Israel disobeyed, which is ultimately the reason why Israel got wiped out.
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