Who Were The Nephilim? Part 5 - Jude and the Hebrew Scripture Connection

Ruins from Bashan

Before we left Jude behind, I wanted to pause and address the two passages that are cited to refute the idea that Jude is quoting from the Book of Enoch. As I studied these passages, I quickly realized that the information presented ties the passage in Jude to the Nephilim as firmly as any Enochian quote. The link is not as straightforward, but just as real. Furthermore, as these are canonical they do carry more weight.

So let’s jump in. The first passage is:

He said, “The LORD came from Sinai and dawned from Seir upon us; he shone forth from Mount Paran; he came from the ten thousands of holy ones, with flaming fire at his right hand. Deuteronomy 33:2

This chapter is Moses’ blessing upon the Hebrew people prior to their entrance into Canaan, the Promised Land. He is giving his final words before he retreats to Mount Nebo and dies. He would have chosen his words carefully. Dying men who are still in possession of all their faculties do not speak lightly or without purpose. And as readers, we need to ask why did Moses reference these two locations, Seir and Paran?

To answer that we have to back up to Genesis 14:1-16, sometimes referred to as the War of Four Against Five Kings. I want to direct you attention specifically to verses 4-6:

Twelve years they had served Chedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled. In the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him came and defeated the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim, and the Horites in their hill country of Seir as far as El-paran on the border of the wilderness. 

Notice who was defeated: the Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, and the Horites. Why is this important? Who are these people? According to Josephus, ancient Hebrew historian, they are “offspring of giants”, (The Antiquities of the Jew 1.9. 174), and his conclusion is supported by Deuteronomy 2:17-25:

The LORD said to me, ‘Today you are to cross the border of Moab at Ar. And when you approach the territory of the people of Ammon, do not harass them or contend with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the people of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot for a possession.’ (It is also counted as a land of Rephaim. Rephaim formerly lived there—but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim—a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim; but the LORD destroyed them before the Ammonites, and they dispossessed them and settled in their place, as he did for the people of Esau, who live in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites before them and they dispossessed them and settled in their place even to this day. As for the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and settled in their place.) ‘Rise up, set out on your journey and go over the Valley of the Arnon. Behold, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to take possession, and contend with him in battle. This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.’

Now think about this with me for a moment, when the original twelve spies were sent into Canaan they came back with a report:

So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” Numbers 13:32-33

Moses had already watched the first generation to escape Egypt miss entering the Promise Land because they feared the giants. He understood that this time they could not afford to let fear rule. They needed to rise up and face this enemy confident in God’s power to defend and advance their cause in the fulfillment of the promise God had made to Abraham so many years ago. So when Moses speaks in Deuteronomy 33, he reminds the people that these sons of giants, the children of Anak, who come the Nephilim, were not invincible. They could be defeated. It had happened before, and it would happen again.

In Deuteronomy 33, we find a connection between the “ten thousand holy ones” and the land where the Nephilim lived. Not only that, we see that the holy ones are coming to defeat the Nephilim with God fighting at their side.

This brings us to the second passage using the phrase “ten thousand holy ones”, Psalms 68:17:

The chariots of God are twice ten thousand, thousands upon thousands; the Lord is among them; Sinai is now in the sanctuary. 

If you take the time to read the entire chapter one thing becomes clear, the central theme of this Psalm is God’s victory over his enemies. Within it we find direct references to the Exodus, the wilderness wanderings, and the conquest of Canaan, tying it back to the same events presented in Deuteronomy. However, there is an additional curiosity – the mention of Bashan in verses 15 and 16.

In Deuteronomy 3, we find the battle between the Hebrew people and Bashan, a land ruled by King Og. Verse 11, provides some interesting information about him.

For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.

The thing I almost missed was where King Og lived, you know the precise street address. Thankfully, Joshua thought to write it down.

…and Og king of Bashan, one of the remnant of the Rephaim, who lived at Ashtaroth and at Edrei… Joshua 12:4

If the city of Ashtaroth sounds familiar, it should. Look back to Genesis 14:5, Ashteroth-karnaim was city in Bashan, east of the Jordan River. The same place where the original war against the offspring of the giants went down. And what is David hoping to accomplish with his Psalm? The same thing Moses was doing in Deuteronomy 33, he was reminding the people that God is victorious no matter what enemy tries to stand before him.

No matter how we slice it, Jude is referencing the Nephilim. Whether we base his quotes on the Book of Enoch or those from the Bible. He wants his readers to make the connection between the unholy ones of Genesis 6 and the judgement that will be executed by the ten thousand holy ones. Now who exactly are these ten thousand holy ones? We will look into that next time.

Part 6 of our series: http://misdirectedmusings.blogspot.com/2016/09/who-were-nephilim-part-6-who-are-holy.html

Reader's Question: Why Did Noah Curse His Son?

Reader's Question: Why did Noah curse his son for uncovering his nakedness? Was it such a sin to see your father naked or did he look just a little too long?

This is the part of Noah’s tale that Veggie Tales skipped and we don’t often include in the flannel graph presentations at Vacation Bible School. If you are unfamiliar with the tale, you can find it in Genesis 9:18-28, but it basically goes like this.

Noah and his family had survived the flood and were beginning to put their lives back together. For Noah, one of the first priorities was to plant a vineyard, and it wasn’t because he liked grapes and raisins all that much. No, Noah had a hankering for some wine which he promptly made and then proceeded to get smashed. (That’s drunk for all of you good Southern Baptists.) And he didn’t get just a little tipsy or buzzed. No, he was black out drunk.

While he incapacitated, his youngest son Ham decided to take advantage of the situation and this is where the story gets a little murky. The Bible plainly says that Ham uncovered his father’s nakedness, but we don’t know precisely what that means. We do know that whatever went down was bad enough for Noah to curse, not his son, but his grandson. That’s right. Noah curses Ham’s son Canaan.
I, for one and along with many other Biblical scholars, highly doubt that this was a simple case of seeing his father naked. Remember the time frame we are dealing with, there are few houses and no indoor plumbing. And the houses that might have existed would have been small one room dwellings that have a way of creating a level of family togetherness that we just don’t experience all that often today. So if it as more than looking what, was it?

There are actually three options:

The first is that Ham sexually assaulted his father. That’s right, we are talking about homosexual, incestuous rape committed against his drunken father. (You can see why reenacting this with Bob and Larry might pose some difficulties.)  Typically when the Bible uses the phrase “uncover the nakedness of…” it is referring to a sexual act, check out Leviticus 18 to see this in action. However, this explanation does not explain why Noah would curse Ham’s son. I mean, sure maybe he was the one drinking with Noah, egging him on to the next glass, but the timing is all wrong. I just don’t see Noah whose first significant act upon leaving the ark is to plant a vineyard taking the time to age wine for well over a decade before sampling it.

Which brings us to the second option, supported by the following two verses:

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. Leviticus 18:7

If a man lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. Leviticus 20:11

The nakedness of the father is the nakedness of the father’s wife. In other words, Ham may have had sex with his mother while his father was to inebriated to defend her. Why Ham would do such a thing is a matter of debate. Was it lust? Who knows? It could have been that simple, but it also could have been part of a larger statement. In Biblical times having sex with another man’s wife or concubine was political move. We see this in 2 Samuel 16:22 when Absalom has sex with David’s concubines. In essence, Absalom was saying if, “I can take his place between these women’s legs, I can take his place as king.” This was also why Absalom did so publicly or, as the Bible says, “in the sight of all Israel.” He wanted everyone to know what he did, and he wanted everyone to see how powerless his father was to stop it.
Ham may have been doing the same thing. Notice verse 22:

Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside.

There was no cover up or attempt to hide what he did. He did not even bother to cover his “father’s nakedness”, which in this theory was his mother, but instead left the scene for his brothers to witness. He told them what they were going to find and where to find her. Which causes me to ask, why would he do that unless he was trying to make a statement? I think he was trying to claim his position of dominance. He wanted them to know that he was going to rule in this rebirth civilization. He was not going to be subservient or even respectful to his own parents or his older siblings. He wanted power and he was going to take it.

If this is correct, then it also answers why Noah would curse his own grandson and not the father responsible this act. For it is entirely possible that the Ham’s son was born to his mother, the product of incest and defiance. This may be why the author felt the need to identify Ham as Canaan’s father, not once but twice. It is possible he wanted there to be no doubt that the Canaan while born to Noah’s wife was not Noah’s son. Bloodlines are highly important within Jewish culture, to confirm this just wade through all the “begats” in Numbers, and the writer seems to be intent on making sure there was no mistakes or confusion about Canaan’s parentage.

The third option is equally disturbing as the other two. Midrash claims that Ham castrated his father to prevent Noah from having any more sons. This would have somehow made Ham greater than his father by him having four sons instead of three as Noah did. So Noah curses Ham’s fourth son. I think this is less likely, but I wanted throw it out there since it has been proposed.

I think which every option you find most convincing, it all comes down to one thing – this was far more than simply seeing is father naked. Ham took advantage of his father’s drunkenness to inflict damage upon Noah. The precise nature of that damage may always be in question, but the severity of Noah’s curse reveals that Ham’s actions were to have lingering consequences throughout time.

Seeing Jesus In Genesis

Today, class, we are going to review our parts of speech. Okay, so I know that this does not sound like the most exhilarating topic for a blog, but follow me on this one and I think you will see why the journey is worth it. I stumbled across this as I was working through Genesis one word at a time, taking them all apart, letter by letter, and doing my best to understand the Bible at molecular level, if you will. And this just blew me away. So let’s dive in.

The Bible opens with these words:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

Pretty straight forward, so it would seem, but the truth is we could spend a life time on this verse and barely begin to touch the depths of knowledge that is revealed here. If you don’t believe me, just stop and consider what it means to create heavens and earth, what it tells about the one we worship, and how it informs us as to why he is worthy of worship. Look at all the components needed just to create one aspect of this reality we inhabit, a slug perhaps. Forget about the complexity of a snail, just consider a slug – can you speak one into existence? I didn’t think so. Now consider solar systems and galaxies, how powerful do you have to be for your words to make that a reality? I don’t think I will ever get over the wonder of these words, but it gets even more amazing when you have the privilege of reading them in the Hebrew.

Now this where things really start to get interesting.

One of the first things we have to recognize is we are reading translations of the Bible which are, for the most part, very well done and trust worthy. However, Hebrew is a language and not a code to be broken. In other words, you can’t just swap out the Hebrew letters for English letters and have a book that the average English reader could understand. Translators have to make judgement calls about which words best capture the meaning and intent of the passage for their audience. This is why the King James reads so different from the NIV or ESV. English was a different language back in the day, and people have ceased to talk that way, so the translators had to adjust to keep step with the evolution of our language.

Even more fun, English and Hebrew sentences have a different construction. In English, we typically have a subject>verb>direct object construction of sentences. We can look at a sentence and determine by the word order which part of speech is which. An example:

Sally hit the ball.

The ball hit the fence.

The electric fence shocked Sally.

We know that the ball did not hit Sally. We also know that fence did not hit the ball, and that Sally did not shock the fence.  No one has to tell us this, because despite the fact that each of the words serve as both subjects and as direct objects within the sentence, the forms and structures of our language tell us which part of speech the words function as.

In Hebrew things get a bit trickier as the sentences do not always follow the subject>verb>direct object formula. Instead, direct objects can float around all over the place in a sentence, so we need some way to know what is the direct object of a sentence verses the subject of a sentence.

Now if you have slept since your last English class, let’s do a quick review on what direct object is. A direct object is the object towards whom the action is directed. Another way to say this is that direct object is the noun that receives the action of the verb. So the ball in the first sentence received the hit, the fence received the hit in the second, and Sally received the shock in third.

If we go back and apply this to Genesis 1:1, we see that God (subject) created (verb) the heavens and the earth (direct objects. Yes, there can be more than one). Or in other words, the heaven and the earth received the creation, God’s action in this sentence

How do we know this? Aside from the fact that this is one of those times the Hebrew does follow the English structure for sentences, there is included within the Hebrew text a little word that indicates which words are the direct objects. It is called…..a direct object indicator. It looks like this, את.

It is not included in English translations, because we don’t need it. The sentence structure tells the reader what they need to know, and there is no English word that operates as its equivalent.

This is such an established and accepted fact that when I was going through Genesis, I almost breezed by it without a second thought. The only reason I decided to pay it any attention at all was out of a desire to be thorough and consistent with my work. And I am so glad I did, because these two letters blew me away.

If you look this word up in the Brown-Driver-Briggs, the gold standard of Hebrew definitions, you will find a rather lengthy and in-depth discussion of this word as a direct object indicator, but if you flip over a page, you will find another word that looks identical. It is only used in a handful of verses, but here is the most familiar:

Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, “I am a warrior.” Joel 3:10

Do you see it? Remember a direct object is what receives the action of the verb. So direct object indicator would prepare the reader to see what is receiving the action of the verb. Which one of the items above prepares something to receive something?

Congratulations, if you picked plowshare, because that is exactly what a plowshare does. It prepares the earth to receive the seeds.

I know, this is all well and good, but someone out there is saying, “But, Emily, I want to hear about Jesus not all this grammar stuff.” We are getting there, just keep going!

Let’s skip back over to Revelation, where Jesus proclaims:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” 22:13

How many of you know that’s probably not what he really said? Pick up your jaw, Ethel, and think about this with me. Was Jesus Greek? I don’t think so. In fact, I am pretty certain that he was Jewish, and being Jewish he would have probably referenced the Hebrew aleph-bet, not the alpha-beta, or even the alphabet.

And in the aleph-bet, the first and last letters are the aleph and tav, our direct object indicator. The word that prepares the reader to see the word that will receive the action of the verb. The word that shows us action alone is not enough if it is not received, if reality is not impacted, changed or transformed, then the action of the verb is an exercise in futility. And here is Jesus saying, he is the one through him God’s actions are translated into this realm, that it is through him we receive God’s goodness, love, and grace. Through Jesus the world sees the Father and witnesses our Father’s heart for us.

As I worked my way around this, I was brought back to the Gospel of John where we are told that:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. John 1:1-3

Do you see that? All things were made through him. Just as the action of the verb flows through the direct object indicator, creation flowed through him. It is the same picture we see in Genesis 1:1.

But despite all this, it wasn’t until I wrote it out in the paleo-Hebrew that I just sat staring at the goodness and wonders of our Lord. In the paleo-Hebrew, the first letter of our word is an ox head. It stands for strength, power, authority, and protection. The second letter is two sticks and symbolizes a sign or mark. When you put the letters together in the paleo-Hebrew, you also put the ideas together. So one possible translation is a “sign or mark of authority and power.” Or perhaps “the authority and power of the sign.” Either way, all I know is that when I look at the picture, I see Jesus. Right there, in Genesis 1:1, always and forever, the beginning and the end.

Hearing the Word Anew!

Over the past several months I have been doing a word by word break down of Genesis one, taking it back to the original Hebrew, looking at each word in the pictographs that proceeded the alphabet we currently use, seeing what is foreshadowed in this inaugural passage of our sacred text, and trying to understand what these words would have sounded like to those who heard it for the first time. To say the least, it has been an eye opening experience to study these verses that were presented to me in flannel graphs and the colorful picture books of Sunday school.

Something happens to our understanding of the Bible when you grow up with it being doled out in pretty little bite size pieces. When the stories all stand alone without any historical moorings to hold them in place or to give you perspective. We lose sight of the fact that these events happened to real people in a real world with a very real socio-economic-political-religious context that would have colored every word and phrase in a way that is all but lost on the modern reader.

To put it another way, Genesis was not dropped on a people whose minds and hearts were a blank slate. They were not automatons simply waiting for their programing to be downloaded. Just like us, they heard the news of creation with buttload of baggage and preconceived notions that had to be confronted, rooted out, and brought into alignment with this new revelation. (And yes, buttload is a proper and precise theological term – well, in my world anyways.)

So we ask the obvious questions:  Who wrote Genesis? When was it written? And to whom was it written?  

The first one is easy enough. The answer is Moses. Jesus even said so in Luke 24:44, and then Paul gives us a little more insight in Acts 7. This also answers the second and third questions. It was written after the Exodus and to the Children of Israel after they had been freed from slavery.

It is easy to brush by all that with a nod of acceptance, but we have got to stop flying through our Bible and acting as if reading the words is enough to understand what we are being shown. Think about this with me.

Moses who Paul says was “educated in all the wisdom of the Pharaohs” takes this bunch of refugees out into the desert. Refugees who had lived their whole lives in fear, who had all hope for the future snuffed out under a slave master’s whip, whose sole purpose was to toil for a people who viewed them as so sub-human that with a simple decree their children were ripped out of their arms and slaughtered. Can you imagine degradation they had endured? The sheer worthlessness that had been ingrained so deeply into their heads that they would one day beg to return to this condition because the comfort of the known held much more appeal than the rigors of the desert before them?

As we read the accounts in our comfy arm chairs, in rooms heated and cooled to our preference, and munching on our Cheetos, it is easy to proclaim that we would have never spurned God’s promises the way they did. We would never turn our backs on him after having experienced the awesome terror of the plagues or the grand wonder of the parting of the sea. How smug we can be! And yet how many of us can’t even bother with being polite to the checkout girl. Tell me again how easy it would be for a Christian today to make this walk of faith.

And yet, here they are. In a desert, carrying the only possessions they have, and wondering what is going to happen to them and their children when the food runs out. If this was not terrifying enough, there is another thought process running in the backgrounds of their minds – they may have just brought the entire world to an end.

The land they had just left was a land of cycles. Cycles of the sun personified by Ra who made his daily circuit through the sky, eaten each night by Set, and delivered from Set’s belly each morning, governing the ebb and flow of all life. Cycles of the Nile with its seasonal flooding that washed in the fertile silt and watered the crops that most of the known world depended upon for food at one point or another in history. Cycles of life, a 3000 year process of life, death, and reincarnation that only the most worthy could hope to escape. Cycles guarded and upheld by Pharaoh, the man they had just watched drown in the collapsing walls of the sea. The god-man entrusted with putting down political coups and slave uprisings so that the cycles could continue unbroken and unhindered lest the mighty Nun, the god of chaos, rise up from his watery prison and consume the world once more.

Did they not just witness the chaotic waters destroy the one charged with holding back Nun’s power? Did they not just rise up in defiance against the one the only culture they knew proclaimed to be their guardian and savior? What had they done? Was it a mistake? Could they be forgiven? Freedom? What did freedom mean to dead men?

Certainly they had experienced the fierce power of this God that Moses had claimed to follow, but hadn’t this God failed them before?  What of all the years they had languished as slaves, crying out for a savior and none was given? Hadn’t they watched their own parents, grandparents, and even their children die as this God ignored their cries? What was to say that this time would be different? And Moses, where was he? It seemed like so long ago that he had left them here in this barren waste and disappeared into the clouds that surrounded Sinai. Perhaps he had brought them here to die.

So many questions, so much fear, and so little to cling to as they waited their fates.

Then one day they seem him as he walks down the mountains, still radiant from his time with God. Moses who carries back the tablets of stone, the laws by which they are to live, but he carries back something more – the stories of a time only dimly remembered, the time of their forefathers, and the times of creation.

And the story begins with these life changing words – IN THE BEGINNING!

No more cycles to be defended or guarded. No more endless loops of time imprisoning humanity in never ending toil and hardships. No more wheels crushing them into oblivion. No! There was a beginning!  A point where it all started, a point where God acted, and a God did not conquer the chaos – he redeemed it! Fashioning and shaping it according to his desires, not reliant on a man, even a god-man to defend his cycles of life. He stood above it all.

And with the declaration of beginning came the promise of an end. Hope, purpose, and meaning! For now all of humanity would take part in the culmination of time so that the glory of God might be revealed to all men and women who walked this earth. A God who stood in power and glory above the chaos of this world, not with the need to conquer but with the desire to redeem.

I can only imagine the wonder that filled them as they heard this word we brush past. I can only imagine how the pillars of the world they knew shook and crumbled under the weight of this new revelation as they rose again. This time not as runaway slaves, but as a nation, holy, set apart, with a mission and purpose decreed by the God who defied every truth they had been trained to hold dear.

Can it mean any less for us? Even in our comfy chairs? Is the word any less vital or true for us? How many times have you felt like a rat on wheel, that life had no purpose, no meaning? That the chaos of this world had overwhelmed you, consuming all that you gave security and peace? The world does not have to be as we have been trained to see it. It does not have to be limited by the truths that everyone wants us to hold dear. For we are not slaves to this world, we have been freed so that we to might be a holy nation, set apart, with a mission, and with a purpose. We – you and I, not some person on a pedestal, not some spiritual guru, we have been set apart holy unto him! And he still the God who redeems all of creation to himself, we just need to hear the words anew.

A Biblical Defense for Scandalous Conversations - Genesis 3

When I wrote Scandalous, I knew I was taking on a taboo topic. I was fully prepared to meet with some resistance. What I did not expect was the full on assault that came from a few strangers, friends, and family who felt that I crossed a line that no Christian should. I was told that I was going to hell by a family member, a stranger showed up at my door to announce that I had been possessed by a demon, and friends labeled the book vulgar and crude with polite suggestions that I remove it from sales.

Being the sort of person I am, I found it rather amusing the majority of negative complaints I received came from those who either had not read the book or had only read portions of the book. However, their words did make me aware of a crucial need within the Christian community, and that is to reclaim a Biblical basis for speaking on the topic of sex.

To build a full case would require the writing of another book, and maybe one day, but for now I will offer the first and what I now consider to be the most important pieces of evidence for considering sex as a valid and vital centerpiece for Christian conversations.

We begin in Genesis 3, but first I would encourage you pause here and reread the opening chapters of this book. Really make an effort to place yourself in the story. See the lights blazing to life as God speaks the word, witness the trees erupting from the ground as he calls them into being, consider a silent world without the song of birds or the hum of insects and then feel the weight of their presence as they fill that void, and then hold your breath as the fingers of God reach out to sculpt the clay that will become Adam. Do you see his thumbs hollow out the sockets that will hold that carefully engineered bit of mastery we call the eye? Can you see how his fingertips trace the path of the blood vessels and separate the muscles, tendon, and skin? Does your mind stop there or can you see him crafting those organs that will allow Adam to pass on this precious gift of life? For many that is a thought too far, but it is what the Bible tells us God did as he created man, and then again in his creation of woman as fit together each elegant part of our anatomy.

And now, let us focus on one verse in particular: Genesis 3:16.

Adam and Eve had eaten the fruit. The purity of creation had been defiled and now they stand before God to the learn consequences of their action. God curses the serpent, and yet in the midst of the curse, he offers the hope of restoration for humanity. His addresses not just the physical aspects of this beings conditions, but looks deeper to reveal the spiritual conflict that will now encompass the realm of humanity.

Then he turns his focus to Eve, saying:

                “I will multiply your pain in childbearing;               

                in pain you will bring forth children.

                Your desire shall be for your husband

                and he shall rule over you.”

Look closely at the elements of what God is saying: childbearing, bringing forth children, desire, husband, and the husband’s rule over his wife. Now what is the unifying theme of these elements? If you guessed sex, congratulations.  God is not just talking to Eve, he is having THE TALK with Eve. He is explaining how her body is going to change, it is not going to be like before, and she needs to be prepared for this stage in her life. Sound familiar?

And God isn’t giving her pack of tampons and telling her to deal with it. He addressing both the physical changes and the emotional changes. She is going to have a sex drive, a desire for her husband, and he is going to rule over her because of it. We have softened this verse to simply mean that the husband is the God-appointed head of the household, but is that really all that he is saying here? I do not think so. I think he is addressing an issue that every woman must deal with and that is we desire the men in our lives, we live our lives in orbit around them. Be it in how we dress (or don’t dress), what we say, what cook for dinner, and if we shave our legs – it is all to demonstrate our desire for intimacy that is primarily fueled and expressed through our sexuality.

It would be tempting to designate the expression of our desire as negative as it is given after the fall, but there is no condemnation in God’s words. He is simply explaining the new situation. Before the fall, intimacy was easy. The barriers that we now consider normal for the human condition did not exist, either between God and his creation or between Adam and his wife. This separation and the longing it would create is a totally new condition for Eve and she must learn how to cope. God is gracious and kind as he teaches her of this new reality as he knows that to leave her ignorant would be an act of cruelty.

When we consider the conversation from this perspective we are confronted with two questions: 1.) If God was kind enough to prepare Eve for the realities of her sexuality, how can we consider such conversations as taboo? 2.) Are we failing to be kind when we fail to discuss the realities of sex as set forth in God’s word? I would argue that we are.

*To learn more about why I believe these conversations are important, find my book on Amazon using the link at the top of this page. 

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