Book of Zechariah 1-14, Book of Malachi 1-4, First Book of Maccabees 1-5

Book of Zechariah is another one that's set during the time of Darius.  Zechariah himself is the grandson of Iddo, one of the last figures of the Bible.  His is another book filled with prophecy.  Notably, it takes the foreshadowing of Revelation's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse more literally than the last time we saw such a thing, by including actual horsemen.

"Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for lo, I come and I will dwell in the midst of you, says the Lord!"  Hmm, perhaps as Jesus?

Satan is referenced directly.  But it amounts to a more or less throwaway reference.

Greece is referenced directly for the first time, even though there have been constant allusions to close Jewish contact with its various nation states.

There's a payment of 30 pieces of silver, which is not as well-received as it first seems.

"When they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn."

Book of Malachi, meanwhile, is another book concerned with the doings of the house of Esau.  It's a little odd that so many later books in the Bible do this while so many of the former ones completely ignore Jacob's brother.  It's a book mostly in the form of a screed against bad priests.  It also includes a prophecy concerning Elijah's return.

First Book of Maccabees begins somewhat curiously with a warped portrait of Alexander the Great.  I happen to know a bit about the famed Macedonian conqueror, so the summary provided here runs afoul quite notably in a few places, not the least in how it presents his final days.  He most certainly did not appoint successors.  That's how his empire crumbled so spectacularly.  But here, he's said to have done exactly that.  In fact, that's common for the Bible.  Basic human fallibility is routinely reduced to character judgments, both on individuals and nations, usually predicated on their religious observance.  But then, the Bible is a book primarily concerned with religious observance...Still long story short, and maybe this is simply a matter of how historic views change or don't always line up together, but don't take Alexander the Great's legacy strictly from what can be found in First Maccabees.

Anyway, after Alexander departs this mortal realm, things don't go so well for his successors, who are none of them half the man he was.  One of the men who was definitely not half the man was Antiochus, the main villain of this piece, the instigator and religious persecutor who riles up Mattahias and his five sons, including Judas Maccabeus.  Mattahias begins a full-scale revolt of Jews against tyranny, bringing back the fervor and battle success of the holy warriors of old, until he dies and Judas succeeds him.  Judas has among his allies a group known as the Hasideans.

A couple notes worth including:

Antiochus, as part of his rampage sacks Egypt (whose fortunes were never again quite at Exodus levels).  He plunders the temple.  (I'm not clear on this because of the wording, but I think Judas later repairs it.)  The temple at this time features "the bread of the Presence," which certainly sounds like a precursor to Catholicism's Holy Communion (which is quite literally the bread of the Presence).  Jerusalem becomes occupied.

Oh, and Rome is referenced for the first time in the Bible...

Phinehas is fairly important in the theology here.  Also invoked: Abraham, Joseph, Caleb, Joshua, David, Elijah, and Daniel.

The descendants of Esau are once again prominent, naturally, fighting against Judas and his warriors.  And to think, way back in Genesis, Esau sounded like he was going to have such a good legacy.

Book of Daniel 1-14

There's an alternate account of how the Babylonian exile came about to start off Book of Daniel.  Later, Daniel himself is introduced as a select group of exceptional, handsome youths (such a biblical trend!) who are to be trained and educated to serve Nebuchadnezzar.  He opts to remain religiously pure, overcoming the first of many such challenges.  He's the only one to who can interpret Nebuchadnezzar's dream, which creates a parallel with Joseph.  There are tons of parallels in this book, as in virtually every other narrative book of the Bible.

This just in: apparently the Babylonians had bagpipes.

There's the famous Daniel's-companions-in-the-fiery-furnace episode.  Then the writing-on-the-wall episode.  This one features Nebuchadnezzar's successor and son, Belshazzar.  Then Darius of the Persians takes over.

It's under Darius that perhaps the most compelling parallel can be found.  See if you can't tell me what it reads like: "Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other presidents and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.  Then the presidents and the satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom; but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault, because he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him.  Then these men said, 'We shall not not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.'"

Daniel is subsequently sent into the lion's den, another classic episode from the book.

Then the book shifts (there's clear signs that several different works even before this point have been soldered together) into some outright prophetic talk.  "There came one like a son of man."  Yes, Daniel is another book that features this phrase.  There's one sequence that sounds like it could have come from the much later prophecies of Nostradamus.

And then there's a flashback to Daniel saving Susanna from some lecherous old men who attempt to damn her with false witness.  Then Daniel exposing the mischief of the priests of Bel.  Then Daniel defeating a dragon.  (As far as I know, even if I try to say otherwise in some of my fiction, dragons are completely fictional, for the record.)

And then it ends with an alternate version of the lion's den story, featuring Habakkuk.

Book of Isaiah 6-30

Book of Isaiah begins to really pick up with the sixth chapter.  He becomes the latest biblical personality to say "Here I am!" to God, whom he meets here.  God says Israel must be reduced to a stump.  Back into smiting mode!

7 is the the Immanuel ("God is with us") prophecy.

9 contains famous prophetic words such as, "and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."  11 contains more of that, such as, "There will come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse."  If you take the two instances of "stump" very literally, you add up Jesus as the last of the true Jews, which gave birth to Christianity.  Some more extrapolating I'll do here is that according to the Bible, the Jews were necessarily bad every time bad things happened to them.  If they were in a bad position, it necessarily follows that they were being bad.  I'm not saying these are actual correlations, but that this is what the Bible says, repeatedly.  Going so far as the time of Jesus, when Jews were under the yoke of Romans, would it not follow that they were being bad, or that it would not be a bad thing to say Jews at that time were being bad, and that whatever the New Testament has to say about their involvement in the Crucifixion does not condemn all Jews but rather specifically Jews that by definition were being bad?  Of course, by the same logic, you'd have to assume Jews were very bad indeed at the time of the Holocaust.  And by that logic we can perhaps put aside the direct correlations of bad times and bad behavior.  To be clear, I'm saying that the Holocaust is the most direct contradiction of biblical logic.  I'm saying if you need a reason to not take everything in the Bible literally and not look like a very bad person yourself, that would be a good place to start, and most of us in the 21st century are hopefully willing to agree with that.

Good, so we'll move on.

14 includes the classic tale of the fall of Lucifer, "Day Star, son of Dawn."  However, the rest of what Isaiah has to say about him certainly doesn't correlate with everything else we say about Satan now.  So that's more of how things develop.

22: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."  This just happens to remind me of the movie 300, one of the many things Gerard Butler's Leonidas bellows: "Spartans!  Ready your breakfast and eat hearty.  For tonight, we dine in hell!"

In 27 Leviathan is described as a serpent.  I think I'm not alone in always assuming the name referred to whales.  Either way, hardly the first time something in the Bible is mistaken for one of those..."And he will slay the dragon that is in the sea."  Dragon that's in the sea?  I had no idea about that either!

In 30 both fire and brimstone are referenced in relation to punishment.  And they both become staples of old-timey (and scary!) preachers from the 19th century...

Second Book of Samuel 21-24, First Book of Kings 1-11

David attempts to solve all Israel's problems forever.  It doesn't quite work.  The darn Philistines appear again.  David grows weary.  A second Goliath, representative of a remnant of giants...

Then there's the song of David, which seems to reflect heavily on later Christian theology, not to mention love of that common Books of Samuel theme, warfare.  It's very similar language to the psalms, like what they were based on.  Although war itself will remain a focus of the narrative for some time, it no longer seems quite the driving force of Israel's future.    Although there is, again, much love for it.

God's wrath is kindled again, although David is able to appease him after a selection of three punishments ends with classical biblical plague.  No overt smiting.  End of Second Book of Samuel.

The beginning of First Book of Kings sees David in old age given a concubine to help keep his increasingly frail body warm.  First Kings makes it clear they don't have sex, though, in case you wanted to know.  Mutinous behavior continues, this time with another son, who is also described as exceptionally handsome (I guess this is where all our modern literature gets the idea from).  Nathan quickly gets Bathsheba to put Solomon under protection, because he's the clear threat to the usurper.  David has a signature mule, which Solomon symbolically rides to drive the point home (reminiscent of Jesus on Palm Sunday).  He's soon anointed to make it official that he's the one who's king and David successor.  Like his father before him, Solomon pursues a policy of forgiveness against his rivals.  David implores him to also keep his other traditions alive.  Then the old king dies.

Solomon begins consolidating his power, settling old affairs such as finally dealing with Joab (read: executing him).  He makes a marriage alliance with Egypt, which is growing in biblical importance again.  It only figures, because this is only the start of many allusions to past events.  He also begins building up Jerusalem, making it truly fit for a king.

God grants him the choice of three extraordinary favors, and Solomon famously chooses wisdom, so he gets all of them anyway.  Then follows another anecdote you'll certainly recognize, the wise act of figuring out who the real mother is when a dispute arises, threatening to split the child in two.  It's the example everyone uses, and I guess it's the one the Bible does, too.  In short order the later psalms and proverbs are attributed to him.  Preparations for the temple are made.  Clearly Solomon was thought of in great terms by the later Hebrews, as pretty much everything their is to know about his reign is recorded in minute detail, far greater than even similar work that had been done in the Books of Samuel.  These are the most important books after the Moses cycle to the Jewish faith, and they're also the most important ones to Christian faith from the Old Testament.

It's also perhaps significant that the extreme detail that God related to Moses concerning the ark in the first place is more than represented in explaining the temple's many opulent features.

For the record, First Kings records the amount of time since the exile from Egypt to the time of Solomon at 480 years.  That's about for us modern readers the whole American continent history from Columbus to our day.

God keeps reiterating that if Solomon remains on the straight and narrow everything will be perfect for Israel.  Of course he does!

It took 7 years to complete work on the temple.  There's a great ceremony to commemorate the ark's journey to its final resting place in the temple.  It's at this point that the reader may realize that the true main character of the Bible to this point has been the ark, which has been present from Moses to Solomon.  The promise God made David that it would be Solomon who saw the building of the temple is a little like when Moses was told it would be Joshua who entered the promised land.  It wasn't until David had the idea that the temple was even considered a final destination.  God had been content to let the ark travel freely through Israel.  There are more echoes of Moses, although it's compassion and forgiveness that God prefers these days, rather than his old policy of smiting first and asking questions later (you know, basically).  It tends to read like a reflection of later New Testament theology.

I know, I keep saying that.  It's there, what else can I say?

It took 20 years in all, including Solomon's own elaborate lodgings, to complete construction work.

The Queen of Sheba shows up to test Solomon, and he passes it.  Although, on a related note or not, his many romantic conquests really start to take their toll on him.  He starts putting other gods before, or at least alongside, God.  This does not please God, who revokes his charter and then agrees to let the Hebrews keep Jerusalem but nothing else.

A new enemy (the first of several) arises, Hadad, who once had occasion to hide out in Egypt.  The same is true of Jeroboam (who in his earlier days received a prophecy that he would one day inherit a part of Solomon's kingdom, which led Solomon to try and eliminate him).  All this fleeing to Egypt evokes both Joseph in the past and Mary and the other Joseph in the future.  A third enemy is Rezon.

There's a strong indication that Solomon, like Adam before him, was always meant to fall.  Probably the Jewish people would much have preferred a permanent and considerable kingdom, but that's just not something that happened.  A good thing always ends.  Call it a proverb.

Solomon reigned for 40 years, and then he died.

Judges 16-21, Book of Ruth 1-4, First Book of Samuel 1-10

Judges picks up again with the familiar conclusion of the Samson affair, the challenges of Delilah, the lost hair and strength, and the two pillars he still manages to bring down on top of a vast assembly of Philistines.

Wouldn't it be nice if that were the last of the Philistines, or the last heroic judge the Hebrews needed?  Except Samson seemed to spend all his time doing very much his own thing.  His story is a little bit about hubris and personal redemption more than anything directly concerned with Jewish history or faith.

The next judge is Micah, who leads all of Israel, basically, into idolatry, so he's not a very good one at all.  Bethlehem is mentioned.  The Hebrews fall into some of their worst habits.  There's a terrible story about a concubine who's raped all night and then chopped into bits.

However, it's fun on a purely Jewish cultural note when the phrase "such a thing" at the start of a sentence appears.  Apparently it has long roots!

And then they all further degenerate into inter-tribal warfare, and thus ends Judges.

The first incredibly short book of the Bible, the Book of Ruth, comes next, and it's set during the time of the judges.  It's very much a story about the Jewish faith being kept alive despite the troubled times, by a widow and her daughter-in-law, Ruth, who is rewarded by winning a husband, which results in the birth of Obid, who becomes the father of Jesse, who becomes the father of David.  At this point in the beginnings of the Bible, we have what previously could very easily have been included in a larger book, but clearly the books have already begun to be codified.  Ruth's story is intended to fill in a gap that would otherwise have existed, and explain that not all Jews were behaving badly in those times.

The phrase, "the Lord be with you," appears, which later generations of the faithful will certainly recognize.

The First Book of Samuel begins and we find ourselves in familiar echoing material.  Hannah's journey to motherhood would certainly have sounded familiar to those familiar with Genesis and how Rebekah and Isaac ended up conceiving their children Jacob and Esau. It also evokes Abraham and Sarah, Jacob himself with Rachel, and the New Testament's Mary and Elizabeth.  Hannah is the mother of Samuel, by the way.

Hannah's prayer reads a lot like a revised statement of faith in God, now that the relationship between Israel and the Lord has altered since the time of Moses and other such generations.  It's a lot more relaxed, and familiar to our own times, another touchstone in the development of everything we know and believe now.  It includes the phrase, "the pillars of the earth," as well as "not by might shall a man prevail," which is rank contradiction to the time of Moses and Joshua, when I saw all that blatant conquering going on.  It represents another clear theological shift.  One might say that the Jews had begun to distance themselves from the idea that it was God telling them to fight so much.

Eli, who previously appears as Hannah's religious confessor, becomes Samuel's mentor, including the famous moment where Samuel is confused when God begins speaking with him, confusing the Lord for his mentor.  Hey, at this point it was increasingly rare to be granted an audience with the Almighty.

It's stated that "the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with men," which the gospels later evoke with Jesus.  There's a clear connection between the New Testament and the emerging story of David, and that should come as no surprise.

There's a little summary and a little prophecy, by now standard biblical material.  Samuel is the first person in the Bible since Abraham to speak with God so freely.

The Philistines!  The Hebrew tribes, in their compromised state, do battle with their perennial foes, and make a curious decision on the battlefield.  They elect to use the ark of the covenant as a means of intimidation.  The ark has taken on perhaps a different kind of meaning at this point in history, not so much a symbol of faith and the accord with God, but a totem of power.  The Philistines are suitably impressed (though they seem to believe it represents not God but many Hebrew gods, which wouldn't be far from the mark, and shows just how far the chosen people had fallen).  They end up stealing it!

Eli dies from the shock of learning this.  He lasted as a judge for 40 years.  The ark causes the Philistines a lot of trouble.  They decide it would be a better idea to negotiate it back into the hands of Israel, and so that actually happens, which also has the effect of proving the Philistines aren't always so bad.

Like the later Egyptian pyramids and those who sought to loot them, the returned ark proves a cursed curiosity to some of the happy Hebrews.  They open it.  God smites them.  Raiders of the lost ark.

Twenty years pass.  God tells Samuel about the future Hebrew king, and he accurately describes the coming reign of Saul.  Saul is then introduced.  He's described as the most handsome man in all the land, which funny enough evokes his successor David (and Snow White).  All in all, Saul comes off well in his younger years.  He's even a prophet.  Samuel anoints him, he becomes king.  He might even be described as a sort of John the Baptist figure, or maybe he fights for that role with Samuel.  Either way, David is coming...

Numbers 21-36, Deuteronomy 1-5

It strikes me as I'm reading, the deep and perhaps hidden significance of the serpent in Old Testament lore.  In Genesis the serpent was always interpreted to be the Devil in disguise, tempting Eve into enacting original sin, cursed by God ever after to wriggle on its belly, and there are other passages about this sorry fate.  And yet in Exodus God also has Moses and Aaron turn the staff trick of transforming it into a serpent, and the image returns in Numbers in an equally famous episode that the medical establishment later adopted, of serpents that God had sent against his continually mischievous people and then the one he asks Moses to place upon a staff to cure them.

So which is it?  Are serpents representations of evil, or are they perhaps after all agents of God?  The Old Testament is littered with God testing his people, who are constantly failing (except Abraham with his near-sacrifice of Isaac, which seems to be the defining point for the foundation of Judaism).  Maybe this whole time we've been misinterpreting the serpent in the garden.  Maybe God always intended man to become aware of his regular duties, which he'd already been given anyway, to be lord and master of the earth much as God is Lord of everything else (and man).  God has a terrible time accounting for all the ways mankind disappoints him, including his own chosen people, and spends a lot of time smiting them in the early books.  He could have just as easily done the job the first time, but didn't.  Sometimes failure is permanent, but the larger point is that God is constantly testing mankind.

And his agent that first time was a serpent.  Put aside the curse he levels against it.  He continues using serpents in the books that follow.  I'm not trying to upend theology here, but these things keep coming to me.  (Don't smite me!)

Anyway, Numbers gets a ton more interesting with the introduction of and narrative that follows Balaam for a while.  There's this whole story of this prophet who exists entirely outside of the Hebrew lineage, an independent phenomenon in direct communication with God.  His whole story is how he gets out of having to condemn the Hebrews as they continue their journey toward the promised land.  It's like the Bible suddenly splits off into an entirely new story filled with its own mythology, right in the middle of the Moses arc.  His own lord and master is displeased each time Balaam reports what God has told him, that he keeps evading the prospect of taking out the Hebrews.

Unfortunately, his narrative ends abruptly, we switch back to Moses, and the next and last time he's brought up Balaam is summarily executed as a collaborator with the enemy, even listed as a villainous presence who actively conspired against the Hebrews.  There's apparently even something about it in Revelation.  The guy's whole reputation is entirely slandered, even though he clearly was working the opposite of how he ends up being perceived, and to make it all the worse, probably no one outside of devoted scholars are even aware today that he ever existed.  Not cool.  So that's another way my ruminations on the Bible will deviate from the record.  Balaam represents an important development in the history of God's interaction with mankind.  He's confirmation that God didn't just pal up with Abraham and his descendants.  And another way in which Moses kind of ended up doing his own smiting along the way, when God failed to do it himself.

There's an interesting phrase to be found here, "son of man," that is associated with repentance, which is another thing later Christians could probably call their own from the earliest books even though they mostly seem concerned with the prophetic later ones.

The classic pagan god Baal is referenced for the first time, as are Hebrew judges, which becomes important later, notably in the books of Judges.

A man named Phinehas manages to talk God out of another round of smiting, which puts him on a certain kind of level with Moses, who managed the fete earlier (and himself then proceeded to smite in the same righteous manner).  This seems significant.  His name, however, has since been forgotten.  Making a note of it here all the same.

Jericho is referenced for the first time.

A second census is carried out, now that a considerable amount of smiting has occurred..  God is also asked to consider women as capable of inheriting property, which he grants.  So that's another positive indication for women in the face of a number of other examples that don't paint them in such favorable light.

Joshua is officially deemed Moses' successor.  God outlines the holy days.  The Judaic tradition of holy war continues, presaging the Crusades and much of what Islam has become.  The exiles start to settle down, which initially causes God discomfit, but he decides to play along.  Canaan, the promised land, is identified as such.  High priests are referenced for the first time, another thing Christians will definitely recognize.

Deuteronomy, the fourth book of Moses and fifth of the Old Testament, begins with something Numbers had done in a different way, recapping the journey to this point.  The Deuteronomy version highly favors the most favorable Judaic interpretation of events.  It also comes in the form of a great speech on the part of Moses, who had initially beggared God to ask for someone else (i.e. Aaron) to do the talking because he was a poor public speaker.  Here he has no problem at all, and seems to relish the role.

The descendants of Esau and Lot are encountered, who are not part of the Hebrew exiles from Egypt.  They are part of separate traditions.  Imagine a Bible that includes their stories as well, or even Balaam's.

The most striking element now seems how easily war-like and conquer-happy the Hebrews are at God's behest.  They sound like Alexander the Great, or Attila the Hun, that sort of phenomenon.  They fight and beat everyone, and assume their territory for their own, a small (relatively speaking) scrappy band of warriors always good for a fight.  You could easily make a movie about Moses and do almost nothing but warfare.

The ten commandments are referenced again, specifically as a covenant.  My interpretation of them will continue to be in the air.  The familiar ones end up being reiterated, in case you'd forgotten, although at that point are not spoken of in relation to a covenant.  God, as I will argue for now, seems far more interested in emphasizing the way to worship him than the moral codes that dominate the latter of the traditional ten commandments, some of which he goes to great lengths to interpret given specific circumstances again and again, such as murder.

That is all for now.

Numbers 1-20

Numbers, the third book of Moses, fourth overall in the New Testament, takes its name from the fact that God asks Moses to conduct an census of all the Hebrews he's led out of Egypt.  Each of the twelve tribes of Israel (descendants of Jacob's twelve sons, in other words) are counted.  For the record, Judah's family was the most productive in the fruitful-and-multiplying business, with Dan coming in second.  Joseph's was a comfortable middle-of-the-pack performer.  Levi's brood is not counted, though, since the Levites are quickly tapped as the keepers of the first temple, God's switch in exchange for the strict tithing of all first-borns he'd previously called dibs on.

I'd just like to say it's amazing what a little time will do.  Sure, the twelve tribes had a significant role in Jewish history, but in Genesis you'd hardly know that any of the brothers besides Joseph would have had a positive role to play at all.  They sold him to Egypt, after all, and tried to convince their father that he was dead.

Then again, the Hebrews after Egypt were not exactly ones to appease God or refrain from grumbling.

Speaking of the temple keepers, they seem to have been presaging Samson in God's edict that they not cut their hair.  He'd already requested his people not round their beards or trim their sideburns, but this is going a step further.  It didn't give the Levites superpowers, and they were allowed to shorn themselves without consequence eventually, but the idea that those closest to God were also the hairiest clearly was one that had some legs to it.

A lot of Numbers also reiterates things previously experienced in the other books, which can sometimes be a little confusing.  Either that or some of the same grumbling and near-smiting occur again.  There's a new one with a fire that consumes property until Moses prayed, but there's also the return of quail, or perhaps its debut.  There are also many cultural rules outlined.

The best numbers in Numbers, weirdly enough, read like a preview of the later Twelve Days of Christmas, twelve days in which gifts are presented to bless the budding temple.

Some additional early prophesying occurs with the otherwise obscure figures of Eldad and Medad, which leads to more grumbling and eventually the premature death of Miriam, the wife of Aaron, who is exiled for a week by way of penance for her role in this latest round of discontent.  Aaron himself does not so long after.

Somewhat related, but God officially declares that Moses and all his generation will not see the promised land for themselves because of their continued wickedness (Moses not so much because of his wickedness, but because he couldn't possibly live long enough to usher the next generation; he remains a humble and awesome dude).  God appoints Joshua and the less famous Caleb as the succeeding stewards.

God swallows up a couple of negative nellies into the ground, straight to Sheol (Hell) to prove he still has a few tricks up his sleeve, and fear tactics remain one of his favorite past-times.  It doesn't quite stick, however, and so he unleashes a massive plague on his people.

The Nephilim are mentioned again, but are still not actually explained.

Numbers continues.

Genesis 41-50, Exodus 1-4

The grand sweep of Genesis concludes in Egypt as Joseph talks his way out of trouble, interpreting the Pharaoh's dreams and attaining a position just below him in importance.  Joseph's brothers come to him and he hides his true identity from them, repeating another pattern in the Bible to this point.  He pushes it just far enough to have his kid brother Benjamin placed in the position God had Abraham place Isaac.  Different circumstances, same general need to play the ultimate test.

The points I really want to stress, however, are how Joseph and his brothers echo Cain/Abel and Jacob/Esau and even the later Moses/Aaron, and just perhaps Jesus, whose single existence comprised the dual nature of God and man.  Which of the two sides wins in the struggle?  The point is never really the victory, because victory is sometimes not even possible, but rather to strike a contrast between them, and illustrate God's relationship to man and therefore man's relationship to God.  More narrowly, Joseph may simply be called a predecessor to Jesus, how he relates to the Pharaoh, how he represents both himself and his people.  His people, by the way, who continue to live, by choice, in exile, but always preferring in personal matters their own.  By the end of Genesis, Jacob has died and then Joseph dies, but not before, as Jacob has done before him, prophesying about the future, or in other words the fulfillment of the covenant God has been making with Abraham and his descendants for all prosperity and a land to call their own.

Then begins the second book of the Bible, Exodus, and with it a swift contrast in the fortunes of Hebrews in Egypt.  The old pharaoh who came to rely so favorably on Joseph has passed away and the new one greatly fears the shear number of Hebrews living within his kingdom, so he subjugates them rather than allow his fear of a revolt or uprising to come to pass.  Like Jesus later, all the male offspring become subject to genocide, but the Hebrews prove crafty and avoid the inevitable fate of their kind, saving their little boys, and of course famously in the case of Moses.

He's sent in a basket down the river and ends up in the Pharaoh's palace, and grows up a regular Joseph, until he remarks on the oppression of his own people, and then goes into exile, finds his birth family, and then incidentally runs into a bush lit by an angel and then inhabited by God, who charges him with the salvation of the oppressed Hebrews, who are suddenly keen to begin looking for that promised land.  He doesn't feel up to the task of doing the speaking for himself, so he asks if it's okay that his brother Aaron do it for him.  God says it's okay.

The way God presents himself is a key difference, by the way, between Exodus and Genesis.  God even gives himself a name, which is later translated for simplicity's sake to Yahweh, although the basic statement is that he is God because he's the only being in creation who's always "is."

What's really notable here is how definitive the transition from Genesis to Exodus really is.  Although the circumstances around Joseph serve as a bridge, Exodus makes no attempt at the same kind of genealogical comprehensiveness as Genesis.  Moses is left pretty much to appear at random.  He is descended from Levi, marking the first point this particular son of  Jacob is considered significant, much less in a positive light.  

It's just as if Exodus originally stood apart from Genesis, or that it was composed first and Genesis second, like a prequel, to explain where the Hebrews came from in the first place and how their faith developed, or a justification for the new emphasis on finding a homeland, which makes Genesis to become the first work of prophecy in more ways than one in the Bible, assuming there's an equal chance it developed first.  It seems as if Moses came about independently, certainly within the awareness of the Abrahamic tradition but separate from it, which is why in the early parts of Genesis some knowledge is implied whereas in the later parts it's inferred.  Moses is the start of the Jewish traditions still practiced today.  That's why the first books of the Bible are dedicated to him so completely, even Genesis, where he doesn't even appear.  The way Christians view the Old Testament is how Jews view Genesis in regard to Moses.  He's the whole reason anyone should care about it.  Pretty shocking, when you consider how significant most of that material is, at least culturally.

Genesis 21-40

The action picks right back up with Abraham and Sarah, those crazy old founders of the whole Jewish faith, and the birth of Isaac.  You'll remember that Abraham has previously had a child with the handmaiden Hagar.  Ishmael temporarily reaches a bad end after they're both cast out of paradise, run out of water, and Hagar believes they'll both die, but then God shows up and reiterates that all's well in this family line.

The Philistines enter the picture for the first time, however, as Abraham transports the family to live among them.  Then follows one of the most famous episodes in the whole Bible, in which God tests Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his own son Isaac, in what Christians would later suggest is the template for Jesus.  Then Sarah dies and makes agreements with the Hittites to use their land for her burial.  It's the first time we really get to see how respected Abraham is by others.  They quickly acquiesce.  Next he barters with Mesopotamians through a proxy for Isaac's future bride, who turns out to be Rebekah.  Abraham in turn takes another bride, Keturah.  You are probably not familiar with her name because she's not really significant otherwise.  And anyway, Abraham is dead himself very soon after in the narrative.

Things become interesting again when you realize that Isaac's sons Jacob and Esau are basically a new version of Cain and Abel, and although you may be familiar with certain inheritance shenanigans Jacob and his mother pull, it's perhaps more intriguing that these brothers manage to make peace with each other despite everything.

A name that keeps popping up in these passages is the Philistine Abimelech, who first interacts with Abraham and then later Isaac.  He is perhaps a representation of significant individuals outside of the people we're really supposed to care about.  Around this time, Isaac pulls the same trick his father did, calling Rebekah his sister rather than wife, thinking it'll make things easier.  But Abimelech is no fool.  He correctly surmises that if he treated Rebekah as Isaac's sister rather than wife (to be fair, the whole idea was that Rebekah, like Sarah before her, is incredibly beautiful, and therefore would make every man jealous and therefore uncooperative), he would be falling into sin, like a trap.  So Isaac agrees that it was a bad idea.

Around this time in Genesis, names that are supposed to mean something start being explained better, perhaps because these are known entities to the first recipients of the stories, so they're more reminders than things they were supposed to have learned, such as in the case of the name Eve from earlier.

Abimelech also begins to represent those people outside the line of Abraham who understand what's going on faith-wise.  They're outsiders acknowledging God, in other words.

Jacob is set up for his own bride, but first experiences the first prophetic vision of the Bible, the famous Jacob's Ladder episode.  He soon meets and falls for Rachel, although her father makes marrying her incredibly difficult, to the point where he accidentally marries her older sister Leah first, and then has to marry Rachel later.  Because Jacob clearly prefers Rachel, Leah is rejected, but God intervenes by making her womb far more fertile, leading to plenty of offspring and in fact most of the twelve sons who helped found the twelve tribes, including Judah.  Rachel eventually has Joseph, however, as well as Benjamin.  Joseph of course is the most significant of these children.

Laban, Rachel and Leah's troublemaking father, causes Jacob great anxiety, and in fact a full-blown crisis in which he undertakes great preparations for an all-out confrontation, or at least to avoid one.  Laban, for the record, manages to find peace with Jacob all the same.  Jacob has another apparent crisis concerning his brother Esau, but they make peace, too.  During this, he wrestles with God.  I believe it's traditionally described as wrestling with an angel, but as I read it Jacob literally wrestles with God himself, perhaps the last of the notable face-to-face interactions (and then some!) with the Creator.

Although it might also be notable that this section seems to indicate that not only were these people aware of other gods, worshiped by others, but found no great struggle in knowing they existed alongside God.  The real point is that God is God Almighty, or other words the supreme divine being (read the First Commandment again if you're wondering how accurate this interpretation is).

Rachel's daughter experiences a rape, leading to holy vengeance on the part of some of Jacob's sons, although after Jacob has already made peace with the culprits, who don't intend to convert to the faith of Abraham.  It's the first time a clear distinction is made between a community that will and a community that won't.

God renames Jacob Israel.  He also personally smites a few people dead.

The Joseph-and-his-special-gift-of-the-coat episode occurs, which angers his brothers, leading to their plans to get rid of him.  He winds up in Egypt, but not before his brothers convince Jacob that Joseph is in fact dead.  I suppose it only figures, because Jacob was himself previously guilty of trickery.  It's also worth noting that in Egypt we hear the term Hebrew for the first time, that being what the Jews were known as at that time, so Abraham's faith was now fully established.  Joseph winds up in prison after refusing to give in to the Pharaoh's wife's sexual desires, but this leads to his experiences with the same kind of prophetic abilities as his father and thus one of the defining themes of the Old Testament, which is revisited in the New Testament.