Odin and Er

 

Many of us are on our 2nd consecutive (at least!) time of reading through the Bible in a year as part of our Bishop's Read Together initiative for 2023.

I hope that as you read,  some things in Gods Word are clearer to you, but I also hope that some things still make you stop and give pause.

Genesis has some of the greatest stories in the Old Testsment, and some of the hardest to understand as well.

In today's reading for example, let's think about how God kills people, because after all, that is the wording in our Bibles.

Genesis 38:7 "But Er, Judahs firstborn, was wicked in the Lord's sight, so the Lord put him to death."

That's all we know about Er, just that he was wicked. He was married to a woman named Tamar, who his father had arranged for him.  What was the degrading wickedness of Er that brought about his death? What did he do that was so awful that God killed  him? I wish I knew so that I had a heads up on what would make God that angry! But, all we have is this. He was wicked.

The next 2 verses recount Judah telling Odin, Er's brother, to sleep with Tamar so that she would get pregnant.

And while this sounds incredibly strange to our ears, this actually came from Deuteronomy 25:5-10.

5 If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. 6 The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. 7 However, if a man does not want to marry his brother’s wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to carry on his brother’s name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me.” 8 Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, “I do not want to marry her,” 9 his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, “This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother’s family line.” 10 That man’s line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled.

The mandate was to ensure the propagation of the tribal name. Family was everything. And the family name was to die for. Humiliation would have come from a brother who did not fulfill the familial requirements. 

But Odin did not want to do this since the child would still be considered his brothers child by the family, so "he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord's sight, so the Lord put him to death also".

2 brothers killed by God in 4 verses.  One for an unidentified wickedness, the other for not sleeping with his dead brothers widow. 

What do we do with these? I think most people skip over them, knowing that at some point the love of of God will return in another story, and we move past all this divine killing. But I think this is tragic to do, for Er and Odin, and for us. 

One thing I try to hold onto as I read hard passages like this is to view them through the lens of Jesus.  God has never changed,  God is love. Even in relation to Er and Odin. If you read one verse and it doesn't seem to fit with who God is and the nature and character of God, then don't force that verse into God, rather look a little harder for what we might learn about ourselves for a verse that says something like, The Lord killed him. 

I have said before that i take the Bible too seriously to take every word literally. I love the Bible in as much as it points me to the love of God. I love the Bible as it shows me my sin and how I can recieve forgiveness in Jesus name. I love the Bible as it shows me how to live with and love my neighbor through Jesus's teachings and actions. I spend time every day reading, studying, and praying through these sacred texts as they illuminate God's will for my life.

I believe wholeheartedly that the writer(s) of Genesis believed that Odin was struck down by God for not getting Tamar pregnant (which by the way led Tamar to pose as a town prostitute and seduce her father in law to sleeping with her, which apparently he did and never even realized it was her...and she became pregnant with twins!).

Perhaps Odin died, and the logical thought at the time was that this must have been because of what he didn't do. After all, that story would have definitely gotten around the family table by now! Life and death were viewed as direct results of God's hand and His will. If a person was born it was because God planned it, and if a person died it was because God took them. We don't see life and death quite that black and white anymore, do we? 

I think of all the funerals I have presided over, especially where an untimely or unexpected death had occurred. I never said the person died because they had sinned.  I never said that this loved one died because the Lord put them to death. And I never said that the Lord took them, or that the Lord needed them more than we did.

I never said those things because I simply don't believe them in relation to the God I know and love and am trying to follow in my day to day life. We live in a broken world. There is sin. There is disease. There are genetic health issues that are passed on to children, from fathers to sons. And people die. Just like my brother Chuck and my sister Charlene. Just like my mom and my father in law. Just like Odin and Er.

There is wickedness in the world. But there is also righteousness. There is pain in the world, but there is also hope.

And so I believe that God so loved the world long before He sent His only begotten Son (John 3), that God so loved the world before God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1), that God loved what He would create even before He created (John 1). And so I believe there was love for Odin and Er. Where are these 2 men today? Are they in the eternal presence of God or are they eternally separated from God? Only God knows, but I trust in His grace goodness, after all, that's all that has helped me make it this far in my life.

So keep reading,  keep studying, keep asking questions,  and keep close to the Lord of creation, the Lord of Scripture, and the Lord of your life. In Jesus name.