It is a sunny day in Alaska, and it is time to return to what gives me light, studying scripture.  I am cataloging the imperatives in scripture, specifically the commands spoken by God.  Last time, Abram and Sarah learned to wait on God’s promises.  Let’s move onto the Isaac and Jacob stories.  In this latter part of Genesis, God talks less, but he certainly is active.

Gen 24:2 – “Put your hand under my thigh.”  Abraham commands his servant to take an oath that he will continue the family line by finding an appropriate wife for Isaac.

Gen 24:12 – Lit. “Make it happen before me-Please! and Do kindness.” Many translations have something like, “Give me success… show kindness”.  This prayer uses the imperative form but in an inviting or even pleading way.  The English translations make the servant sound like he is asking for success in his actions, but the more literal translation is a request that God would do stuff.

Gen 24:60 – “May you increase to thousands” in NIV is lit. “become thousands of ten thousands.”  The only verb is the imperative form of the “being” verb.  Rebekah’s family blesses her with the entreaty to multiply.

Gen 25:30-31 – Jacob and Esau are born and the treachery begins.  “Now feed me… Sell me your birthright.”  The word Esau uses for feed is more of a term for cattle.  Esau is so hungry he would eat like a beast.  Interestingly, this is the first recorded dialogue between the brothers.  Certainly, the boys talked before, but their first recorded words are words of power: feed me, sell to me.  Also, Esau says his imperative with an interjection grunt that means “Now please.”  Jacob straight up demands selling.

Gen 26:2-3 – “Do not go down… sojourn in this land.”  God speaks to Isaac and tells him how to thrive through the famine.  Egypt is off limits, but possessing the Promised Land is off limits too.  Isaac is forced to depend on the not so good graces of the inhabitants of Canaan.  The locals fluctuate from hot to cold as God grows Isaac’s wealth.

Gen 27:19 – “Get up… sit… eat of my game.”  The treachery is at a climax.  Jacob under a false name tells his ailing father what to do.

Gen 27: 29 – Isaac blesses, “Be master of your brothers”.  The trickster wins.

Gen 27:38 – “Bless me too, my father!”  It is interesting that the following blessing, which doesn’t sound nice, contains no imperatives.  Nothing is certain.  It is not as strong as Jacob’s blessing.

Gen 29:15 – “Tell me what your wages should be.”  Laban sounds so generous and accommodating.  How’d that work out?

Gen 30:1 – “Give me children, or I’ll die!” Jacob has a good answer for Rachel, “Am I in the place of God.”  Husbands are not God over their wives.

Gen 32:26 – God says, “Let me go.”  The whole Laban saga has no direct quotes from God.  God shows back up to wrestle Jacob before crossing into Esau’s territory.  God wounds Jacob’s hip and then commands to be let go.  Jacob disobeys.

Gen 32:29 – “Tell me your name, please.”  Jacob is changing.  He uses the article that makes his command more of a request, “Please tell me.”  He hardly uses that phrase in all of his other commands, but in his first conversation with God – after getting injured – he is starting to see his place.

Gen 35:1 – Lit. “Arise… go up… dwell… make an altar.”  God is directly commanding Jacob where to go and what to do.  Notice that God has changed the commands from Isaac to Jacob.  In 26:2-3 the command was to sojourn and wander in the land.  God has told Jacob to lay hold of it and make it holy.

Gen 35:2-3 – Jacob responds to this new command by telling his people, “Get rid of the foreign gods… purify yourselves… change your clothes… let us go.”  Jacob is the leader of his party.  The boss is saying God is changing things, so get ready.

Gen 35:11 – After Jacob gets to the land God restates an old command, “Be fruitful and multiply.”  These two verbs are from 1:28.

The rest of Genesis 35 wraps up the lineage of Jacob and Jacob begins being called Israel at 35:21.  After Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin the name Israel sticks with the narrator. The Isaac and Jacob sagas continue the commands of God.  God speaks less, but in some ways he does more.  I am curious.  Is God just more silent, or are no commands issued because they would have fallen on Jacob’s stubborn ears?  It takes many years before the father of Israel learns to say please.  Most importantly, God has issued the command for Jacob to dwell, not just wander around, the land.