Skip to main content

To A Thousand Generations

             Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments. (Deuteronomy 7:9)

The first thing that comes to mind as I read this verse is that Scripture can and does include figurative language. The thousand generations is not some magical limit. When the 1001st generation comes along, God can and does remain faithful and keep His covenant. The reality is that within those thousand generations, there is likely to be another generation, perhaps the 848th, that also loves God and keeps His commandments. If the thousand-generation bit was literal, that would require that God keep His covenant to the 1849th generation. God’s certainly capable of keeping track of such things, but that would make His behavior contingent upon the behavior of those who love Him and keep His commandments. That would mean that those who love Him would be His gods, in control of the situation.

Instead, the point is simply that God keeps His covenant of love for so long it’s effectively immeasurable and far longer than we deserve.  This is further complicated by the question of what God considers loving. He tends to use what we consider evil for our long-term benefit.

The other idea that comes to mind is that when God is The Light, we case a much longer and broader reflection or refraction than we might think. We tend to consider that something like starting a family or saving a life might influence a few people besides ourselves, but most of our decisions and our actions are for us alone or shed light on or illuminate those immediately connected with us or some event. But consider that from Jacob to Moses was about 400 years and 5 generations. There is debate about how many Israelites left Egypt, with estimates ranging from 30,000 to 2.4 million. We sometimes talk about “generational curses.” How about the idea of generational blessings? Either way, what we do ripples out in the present and the future like a rock dropped into a lake. And what God does travels much farther. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more