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AnonymousBible: Old Testament: English Standard Version
Nonfiction | Scripture | Adult | Published in 1611A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy)Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Genesis Summary
The book of Genesis describes the creation of the world and the early stages of God’s relationship with human beings. Genesis is structured in two main parts: Chapters 1-11, which deal with the primeval history of the human race, and Chapters 12-50, which focus on God’s relationship with Abraham and his family, and the establishment of nations. The chronology of Chapters 12-50 takes place mostly in the early centuries of the second millennium BCE.
The book of Genesis begins with an account of creation. Chapter 1 narrates a broad view of God creating the cosmos, including the Earth and all its creatures, with the creation of humanity as the summit of the process. Chapter 2 then offers a more detailed scene of humanity’s creation, and the placement of the first two humans, Adam and Eve, into the Garden of Eden, where they share life together in the presence of God. The following scene, in Chapter 3, narrates Adam and Eve’s temptation by the serpent, their fall into sin by disobeying God’s command not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and their expulsion from the garden, which represents a rupture in their relationship with God. The remainder of the early section of Genesis focuses on the continuing effects of sin on the human race. In Chapter 4, Adam and Eve’s firstborn son Cain murders his brother Abel after God prefers Abel’s sacrificial offering and blesses Abel. God condemns Cain to wander. This trend continues, leading to growing depravity in subsequent generations, which eventually leads God to send a cataclysmic flood in divine judgment. God recognizes that the man Noah is righteous, and provides a way of salvation through Noah and his family. God instructs Noah to build an ark to ride out the flood, together with representative pairs of all land animals (Chapters 6-8). The rain lasts for 40 days and 40 nights; eventually, Noah sends out a dove, which returns with an olive branch, indicating that the waters have receded. After the flood, God institutes a covenant with Noah’s family and all living things, promising to never destroy the world in such a way again (Chapter 9). This covenant is represented by a rainbow God sets in the sky. However, sin continues to affect human society, leading to God’s dissolution of humanity into divided groups at the Tower of Babel (Chapter 11): When humanity tries to build a tower that reaches the heavens, God causes them to speak different languages, preventing its completion.
The greater part of the book of Genesis (Chapters 12-50) relates the family history of Abraham and his descendants, covering four generations which are collectively known as “the patriarchs.” The stories focus on representative patriarchs from each generation: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Abraham (called “Abram” in the earlier stories) is called by God to travel from his Mesopotamian homeland into the land of Canaan (modern Israel/Palestine). God makes a covenant with Abraham that his descendants will flourish and will inherit that land after suffering centuries of oppression. This promise remains unrealized in Genesis, as Abraham’s son and grandson live as wandering pastoralists in the hinterland of Canaanite city-states.
While Abraham and his wife, Sarah, are still childless but advanced in age, Sarah encourages Abraham to father a son, Ishmael, with her handmaid, Hagar. God does not agree to Abraham’s request that he not destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their depravity, but he does send angels to save Abraham’s nephew Lot, who lived there. When Lot’s wife disobeys God’s command not to look back at the destruction, she is turned into a pillar of salt. Lot’s daughters get him inebriated so he will impregnate them, and their descendants go on to establish the Moabite and Ammonite nations. Later, God blesses Sarah and Abraham with a son, Isaac. After, Sarah sends Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness, but God promises to protect them and make Ishmael the founder of a great nation. Later, God instructs Abraham to prove his faithfulness by sacrificing Isaac. When Abraham goes to obey, God stays Abraham’s hand and reiterates his promise. Abraham has many more children with his other wife, Keturah, and their descendants become the Midianites. Abraham dies in prosperity.
Isaac and his wife, Rebekah, have twin sons named Esau and Jacob. Jacob, the younger twin, tricks Esau out of his birthright by convincing a hungry Esau to trade it for a bowl of stew. Jacob leaves home and works 14 years for his father-in-law to earn permission to marry Rachel and her sister, Leah. Jacob’s name is changed to “Israel” and he has 12 sons, the ancestors of the 12 tribes of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. Joseph, Rachel’s son, is Jacob’s favorite, which earns the jealousy of his brothers. They sell Joseph into enslavement in Egypt, but Joseph remains faithful to God and ultimately rises to become Pharaoh’s prime minister, partly due to his prophetic dreams. When a famine forces Jacob’s family to abandon Canaan for Egypt, Joseph forgives them. Although God’s covenant-promise of the land is still unrealized, Genesis closes with an optimistic sense of assurance in God’s faithfulness: “[…] God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (50:24).
Exodus Summary
The descendants of Jacob’s sons continue to multiply, becoming 12 tribes. With the growing threat of the Israelites’ rise, the Egyptian pharaoh enslaves the Israelites and undertakes a genocidal program of executing the Israelites’ baby boys. One boy, however, is saved when his mother puts him in a basket and floats him down the river, where he finds safety after being rescued by an Egyptian princess. This boy, Moses, is raised in the Egyptian royal household. As an adult, a violent altercation results in Moses being forced to flee eastward to the land of Midian, where he starts a new life as a shepherd. While working there, he sees a burning bush on Mount Sinai, a revelation of the presence of God, who calls Moses to go back to Egypt and to represent God’s intention to set the Israelites free. Moses confronts the pharaoh, who is initially unwilling to let the Israelites go. Egypt is struck with a series of 10 plagues, acts of divine judgment sent to force pharaoh’s hand and proclaim God’s divinity. First, the water of the Nile is turned to blood at the striking of Moses’s staff. Then, God sends frogs, lice, and flies to infest Egypt. These are followed by a pestilence that kills livestock, boils, hail, locusts, and a three-day period of darkness. In the final plague, the God takes the life of every firstborn son in Egypt, including the Pharaoh’s. God instructs the Israelites to mark their doors with lamb’s blood so they will be passed over by the Angel of Death. At the end of the final plague, the pharaoh capitulates and lets the Israelites go.
The Israelites leave the country but are pursued by Egyptian troops after the pharaoh changes his mind. They find themselves trapped against the Red Sea, but Moses strikes the water with his staff and God opens a path of dry land through the sea, allowing the Israelites to escape. The Israelites no longer face danger from the Egyptians, but ahead of them lies a long journey through the desert. God provides food and water for them along the way, guiding them until they come to Mount Sinai. There God delivers his Ten Commandments, as well as other stipulations of the law which he expects the Israelites to keep. The Ten Commandments are:
You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them […]. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain […]. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. […] Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s (Exodus 20:2-17).
This law is enshrined as part of the covenant that he makes with the people of Israel, in which he will be their God and they will be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). God inscribes the Ten Commandments on a set of stone tablets, which are kept in the Ark of the Covenant, an elaborate chest. The remainder of the book constitutes a code of laws and stipulations for building the ritual center at which God will be worshiped, which in this stage of Israelite history is called the tabernacle. The tabernacle is a large tent complex, built in the fashion of “Near Eastern” temples (though without any idol), where God will be spiritually present. In the tabernacle, God meets with Moses and with Aaron, the high priest, and accepts animal sacrifices to atone for the sins of the Israelite people.
Leviticus Summary
The book of Leviticus includes a few brief stories about the continuing journey of the Israelites through the desert, as they make their way from Mount Sinai to the land of Canaan. It is mostly composed of a collection of laws governing the religious ritual and practice of the Israelite people. Leviticus is written as a code for the priestly class, including the high priest and his family, all of whom come from the tribe of Levi. Leviticus details many of the requirements for conducting worship in and around the tabernacle, focusing especially on the practice of offering animals for burnt sacrifices on the tabernacle’s altar. It also details God’s commands regarding the practice of major festivals for the Jewish religious year, including Passover, a commemoration of God’s act of freeing them from Egypt. Leviticus contains detailed prescriptions for carrying out these religious festivals and for maintaining the tabernacle, with its lamps, incense altar, and other implements. Leviticus also contains a number of moral laws which apply not just to the Levites, but to the whole people of Israel. These laws include rules regarding ceremonial purity, which the priests were meant to adjudicate.
Numbers Summary
This book recounts the story of the Israelites as they walk through the wilderness on their journey from Egypt to Canaan. Its name derives from the fact that it begins by listing the results of a census. As the Israelites draw near the borders of Canaan, Moses commissions spies to enter the land and to judge the strength and capacities of the cities therein. The spies observe that the land is filled with powerful Canaanite city-states. The majority of the spies feel that the odds are insurmountable, and they deliver this bad news to Moses and the people of Israel. Because of this report, the Israelites refuse to enter Canaan, and as a result of their refusal—which is counted as an act of disobedience against God—they are condemned to wander in the desert for 40 years, until the generation that refused to follow God’s guidance passed away.
As they go on their journey, God continues to provide for them with an abundance of manna (a bread-like substance that gathers on the ground like dew) and with miraculous provisions of water. Moses eventually falls afoul of God’s commands when he gets angry and strikes a rock to bring forth water instead of speaking to it as God directed. Because of this act of disobedience, God tells Moses that he will not live to see the Israelites enter the land of Canaan. After the 40 years of wandering are complete, the Israelites move up the eastern borders of Canaan and prepare to enter it. They face a final set of challenges from the antagonism of the people of Moab, who live in that region and who seek to throw off the Israelite advance by curses and temptations to have sexual relations with Moab women and worship the Moab god Baal. The Israelites’ failure to resist these efforts leads to a catastrophic plague tearing through their camp.
Deuteronomy Summary
The book of Deuteronomy, which in Greek means “second law,” begins with a recounting of the stories of the people of Israel immediately before their entrance into the land of Canaan. It then proceeds into a long summary of the covenant-law, offering a synopsis and partial expansion of the legal code found in Exodus and Leviticus. Deuteronomy is stylistically different from the rest of the Pentateuch. It is presented in the form of a speech that Moses delivers to the people of Israel as they are awaiting their opportunity to enter the land of Canaan. In this speech, Moses reminds them of God’s faithfulness, in contrast to their own failings and sins. One of the continuing refrains of the book of Deuteronomy is the call to “remember” (for example, in Deuteronomy 5:15; 7:18; 8:2; and 9:7). Moses restates the Ten Commandments and underscores the importance of passing on the law of God. In this sequence (Chapters 5-6), Moses relates what is often counted as the most important passage in the Jewish tradition, called the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the LORD your God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).
The remainder of the book of Deuteronomy comprises ethical and ceremonial laws. Near the end of the book, Moses commands the Israelites to enact a ritual upon their entrance into Canaan: they are to go to the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim, there to recommit themselves to the covenant of God by pronouncing the blessings and curses of the covenant (Chapter 27). Moses concludes the book of Deuteronomy with a song of praise to God, after which comes an account of Moses’s death. Moses ascends a mountain which faces over the Jordan River, from which he can look across into the promised land. He dies there on the mountain.
Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy) Analysis
In Christian tradition, the first five books of the Bible are collectively known as the Pentateuch (Greek for “five books”), while Jewish tradition calls them Torah. Both Jewish and Christian traditions at times tended to attribute all five books to Moses’s authorship, and thus the common appellation of “the law of Moses” can refer to the entire Pentateuch. Modern scholarship has questioned this attribution, and the most widespread theories favor an authorial context with multiple authors, redactors, and compilers, probably working in several different stages throughout the history of Israel, but it should be noted that the traditional authorship model also continues to have defenders. (See: Authorial Context)
The book of Genesis contains many of the most famous stories and figures from the Old Testament: Adam and Eve in Eden, Noah and the ark, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, among others. Genesis, named after the Greek word for “origin,” offers parables and histories that propose explanations for how all of creation came into existence, and how the nations of Israel and the surrounding peoples were established. The following four books describe how the Israelite nation’s relationship with God—especially through God’s covenant with Abraham—influenced the creation and development of their laws and religious practices. The stories of Genesis establish the major themes that bind the books of the Pentateuch together, demonstrating how faithfulness is rewarded, how sin separates individuals from God, and how God leads his people through love into closer relationship with him.
Foremost among these themes is The Steadfast Love of God, especially as displayed in his covenants. The Hebrew term which the ESV translates as “steadfast love,” hesed, is also sometimes rendered as “covenant love” by other translations. Three of God’s covenants are described in the Pentateuch: those with Noah and all creation (the Noahic covenant), with Abraham and his descendants (the Abrahamic covenant), and with the people of Israel at the time of Moses (the Mosaic covenant). In each case, God makes promises to the other party, and it is the unchanging constancy of his character that ensures those promises. In the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants, God’s love is a primary theme: “[…] I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. […] you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples […]” (Exodus 19:4-5; see also Genesis 24:27; Micah 7:20).
The theme of The Problem of Sin also exercises a major role in the Pentateuch. It is the defining theme of the opening chapters of Genesis, which trace the early history of humanity in its relationship with God. Beginning from the first sin—Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God’s command—the deleterious effects of sin then continue to spread through human history like an advancing disease, leading to such increasing depravity that God must intervene (in the flood, at the Tower of Babel, and at Sodom and Gomorrah). Sin also holds a major place in the theology of the Mosaic covenant, and thus exercises a dominant role in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Many aspects of the covenant-law in those books are devoted to dealing with the Israelites’ sins, so that sin can be atoned for and a right relationship with God restored.
With the establishment of the Mosaic covenant, the idea of Faithfulness to God’s Law also becomes significant, emerging as a theme that will define much of the remainder of the Old Testament canon. Even before the Mosaic covenant, it appears in an incipient sense, seen for example in Genesis’s emphasis on Adam and Eve’s disobedience and on Abraham’s acts of faith in God, such as his willingness to sacrifice Isaac at God’s command. Later, for the Israelites seeking to end their wilderness wanderings and enter the promised land of Canaan, an aspiration to faithfully follow God’s law would become the defining attribute of their spirituality, and each act of the early biblical figures is judged by whether or not they adhere to God’s commands. This is even the case for Moses himself, who because of a single act of disobedience is blocked from entering the promised land he was sent to lead the Israelites into.
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