Description
Genesis 3:14-19 must be read with great care because these are stories that were handed down in Jewish communities for centuries before they were written in any form. During the millennia since they were first written, countless faithful hands have transcribed them for future generations so that their experiences of being people who followed the ways of the Divine could be passed on.
In every language group and culture, words naturally change their meaning and spelling as evidenced in the ways in which words within our Australian lexicon have changed usage and meaning through the centuries. People and their values change as certain eras come and go. For example even though South Australia was the first place to enshrine the right of indigenous males to vote in 1856, it took another 40 years for women both indigenous and later settlers to be able to vote. This right was short lived because the Commonwealth over rode the right of first peoples to vote in 1902.
So the words of Genesis must be read in the light of the culture and normative practices of that ancient time. They must then be viewed through the lens of the teaching of Jesus who promoted women, children and those known as ‘foreigners’ as of equal worth to God.
Similarly, there are those who still treat ‘the land’ that we live and work upon as something they can exploit as much as they desire instead of taking notice of the enormous scientific wisdom that has proven our planet is in sever danger if we continue to abuse our planet and climate.
Psalm 139:7-12 is one of those comforting poetic songs that affirms the presence of the Divine is a reality from which we can never be separated.
Given that the writers and translators of this beautiful song did not know the reality of flight or escaping the planets atmosphere as we have come to appreciate since mid last century. Their world view was based upon a three layered flat earth understanding. Sheol was understood as being below the surface of the earth, heaven being above the earth and our present reality on the face of land. There was no understanding of earth being a sphere that was held by gravity within the greater vastness of the universe.
Despite our modern day knowledge of the planet earth and its place in the cosmos, the translated words still hold a marvellous gift of hope that God is never apart from us. The writers and translators of the Psalm could have never imagined the wide brown land on which we live and yet when speaking with elders and leaders of our first peoples, so many of them without prompting tell you that this same experience of God being with them throughout their 10’s of thousands of years of history on this land is the same for them.  That is a mystery that is beyond words and imagining.
