Royal Priests

In the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2:5-15, when Adam comes to the garden "to work it and care for it" we naturally assume the task of farming, tending the trees and plants, caring for the ecology of the garden.

The Hebrew word ‘abad’ in v.5 and 15 is a common word for agriculture and working a field, but in fact, it is more frequently used for the work of a priest.

Harvest Providence

This week-end is Canadian Thanksgiving. . .

And this word from Psalm 65 seems like the perfect 'water' text for the occasion

You care for the land

and water it;

you enrich it abundantly.

The streams of God

are filled with water to

provide the people with grain,

You drench its furrows

and level its ridges;

you soften it with showers

and bless its crops.

Psalm 65:9-10

A Large Family Circle

In the previous two posts Fertile Crescent and Beer-sheva, we have followed the journey of Abraham from the rich waters of Mesopotamia to the arid land of the Negev where Abraham settled in response to the call of God. He named his settlement Beer-sheva, ‘the well of the oath’ to commemorate both his treaty with the resident king who recognized Abraham’s legitimacy and his ownership of a contested well that Abraham’s servants had dug.

Gerar Valley

It turns out this was not the only well Abraham dug to sustain his herds and flocks. A generation later when Abraham’s son Isaac settled in the Gerar Valley, 15 miles west of Beer-sheva (about 10 miles east from modern day Gaza) the locals harassed him by plugging all his wells with dirt and debris, ‘wells that his father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham,’ Genesis 26:15.

Wells and cisterns were crucial in the Negev for economic survival, and clearly Abraham had invested considerable effort to acquire them as means for prosperity. Wells were an important

Flood Season

This week-end's news told of swollen rivers over-flowing their banks in the Assinoboine and Mississippi flood-plains and disastrous floods in Colombia. Today's post focuses on the challenge of a river in flood-stage.

In the spring of the year, the Jordan River runs at its highest level, swollen by melting snow and late winter rains. This was the season when God chose to lead Israel into the Promised Land, perhaps for two reasons. Pragmatically, it brought Israel into their new homeland in time for the abundance of the spring barley and wheat harvest. But more significantly, it provided a dramatic sign of God’s amazing power for both Israel and the nations.

Radical Equality

Here’s a wonder of water – sunrise and rainfall support democracy!

Your Father in heaven causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matthew 5:45

Jesus says that God is a large-hearted, even-handed Giver. He points out that God is generous to us regardless of our degree of virtue or vice. Sunshine and rain are gifts from the Creator to his creatures with no moral pre-conditions. Jesus echoed the Psalmist a thousand years earlier who said “The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all that he has made.” Psalm 145:9.

New World Comin'

A river runs through it – from start to finish, from the Garden of Eden to the last chapter of Revelation, the story of God and Earth is told as a river-story.

At one of the lowest points of the story, in exile far from their homeland, the prophet Ezekiel (Ch. 47) imagines a trickle of water bubbling out of the dry ground in Jerusalem. It flows from the temple of God across the desert hills to the Jordan valley and into the Dead Sea.

The further it flows, the deeper and wider the current grows and, astonishingly, the more lush the barren landscape becomes. Everything is refreshed and renewed. Fishing and agriculture burst into life. Trees flourish along the banks of the river. The Dead Sea becomes a fresh-water lake.

Nile Nightmare

The nightmare jolted him awake. Pharaoh stood beside his beloved Nile as seven fat cows climbed out of the river and begin grazing along the bank. All was well until, ominously, seven scrawny cows came out of the same river, stalked the healthy cows and devoured them.

Cannibal cows! – a bad portent – something nasty was afoot on the banks of the sacred Nile.  Pharaoh woke with a start.

Dew of Heaven

Moses stood on the verge of the Promised Land and prayed for God’s blessing on the twelve tribes. For Joseph's tribes Moses prayed,

"May the LORD bless his land with the precious dew from heaven above and with the deep waters that lie below; … with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness and the favor of him who dwelt in the burning bush.
Deuteronomy 33:13-16

A prayer for ‘precious dew’ would mean a lot to people who have lived in the dry desert for 40 years. Add ‘the deep waters that lie below’, the unseen wealth of aquifers, and you have the conditions for bountiful agricultural prosperity.

Moses believed that God is not stingy, that God would prosper Joseph’s tribes lavishly. Abundance, not scarcity is God’s signature, though with an invisible anonymous hand.

Rain, Rain, Rain

The annual migration of Serengeti wild-life is a desperate drama -- two million desperately thirsty animals traveling hundreds of miles in search of the life-giving rains. Without the rains, they die.

We all do.

Ancient Israel's Earth-maker hymn, Psalm 104, celebrates Rain as a sign of God’s generous providence. And as Jesus noted, rain does not discriminate; it falls on "the just and the unjust alike"!


He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
the earth is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
Psalm 104:13

Rain photo from 'The Water Cooler' blog
http://www.centralbasin.org/blog/category/drought/