A Glance at Genesis

Over a period of four weeks I plan to take A Glance at Genesis. I would love to go through the entire book, but it +is 50 chapters long! Therefore I will settle for a glance. My prayer is that this will be a help to anyone who decides to read it. I plan to post every Tuesday. Last week, Book of Beginnings. You can read it here. Today:

The Outline of Genesis

That sounds so boring, doesn’t it, “Let’s look at the outline of Genesis”? But the outline of a book gives you a general idea of the thought of the book. It is really helpful to know two things about a book if you want to properly understand it: Where is it going? and How does it get there? Where is Genesis going? That is the theme. We will look at that next week. How does it get there? That is the outline. That’s today!

I believe Moses himself has provided the outline. It can be found in the phrase, these are the generations of. This phrase occurs eleven times in the book, but as we will see, I’m persuaded there are really 10 divisions. These are the generations of means this is the history of; it is the account of the mentioned person and his descendants.

Genesis 1:1-2:3, which tells us of the creation of the world and everything on it, including Adam and Eve, serves as the backdrop for what Moses wants to say; it is the introduction for his story. If creation itself, which has to be one of the greatest events in the history of the world, is the introduction, how important is the story he tells us in the rest of the book!

Here then is the outlined supplied by Moses, along with a summary of events.

I Genesis 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

The creation of Adam and Eve; the garden of Eden; the institution of marriage and family; the fall and expulsion from the garden; Cain and Abel; it ends with Seth and his son Enos.

II Genesis 5:1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;

Moses has a pattern in his presentation, he first introduces the less important, followed by the main characters. In 4:16-25 he gives a brief account of Cain and his descendants. They are the unrighteous line. Now he gives us Adam to Noah, the righteous line. There are ten generations listed here. They all lived a long lives – 700-900+ years! Did they really live that long? That’s what the Bible says, I believe it. When God first made people, it was his intention we not die. These folks still had Adam’s blood!

III Genesis 6:9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

This is Noah, the ark, and the flood.

IV Genesis 10:1 Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.

This is the account of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and the nations which sprung from them. As is his custom, Moses reverses the order: Japheth, Ham, Shem, because Shem is the family he is focusing on. This takes us to the tower of Babel and the division of the nations by language.

V Genesis 11:10 These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:

Again, ten generations, this time ending with Abram, son of Terah. An interesting note, nobody dies! We know they did of course, but he doesn’t say so.

VI Genesis 11:27 Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.

Now we are getting to the meat of Genesis. This is really the story of Abram, his call, the promises, the covenant, the birth of Ishmael, Isaac, and after Sarah died, the six sons from his marriage to Keturah. There is a lot here!

This is interesting to trace. In 9:29 we learn that Noah lived 950 years. He was still living the life of the pre-flood folks. The first one whose years are mentioned after Noah is Terah, father of Abram, he died at 205 years of age (11:32). Sarah lived to be 127 years old, Abraham (his name was changed by God) lived to be 175. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but even I can tell something drastic happened after the flood!

VII Genesis 25:12 Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's handmaid, bare unto Abraham:

Ishmael was actually Abraham’s first-born son, but he wasn’t the child of promise. True to form, Moses tells us of Ishmael first.

VIII Genesis 25:19 And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son: Abraham begat Isaac:

This is Isaac and his son’s Esau and Jacob. Mostly, Jacob and his twelve sons. Ah, the twelve tribes of Israel! I always like to point out that Jacob also had a daughter, Dinah. This section ends with the death of Isaac. He was 180 years old.

IX Genesis 36:1 Now these are the generations of Esau, who is Edom.

Genesis 36:9 And these are the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in mount Seir:

Chapter 36 is interesting. What’s normal is we get the generations of Esau first (before Jacob); what’s unusual is we get these are the generations of Esau twice in this chapter. Both times we learn Esau is the father of Edom. I link the two together, since they cover the same people, and come up with 10 generations. But I admit, technically, these are the generations of occurs 11 times in Genesis.

X Genesis 37:2 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.

These are the generations of Jacob, with the focus on Joseph. He was hated by his brothers, sold into slavery by them (!!), rose to a position of power and prominence in Egypt, and was used by God to rescue his family. And so the book of Genesis ends with the children of Israel in Egypt, which leads us into the book of Exodus, which is the account of the greatest demonstration of the power of God in the entire Old Testament, other than creation itself!

And just like that we have covered the entire book of Genesis!


Next week: The Themes of Genesis