Rachel's Lament: From Bethel to Bethlehem's Tomb
by Jeremy Painter
September 16, 2026 · Abundant Hope Fellowship, Bremerton, Washington
Kind: Bible study
Scripture: Genesis 35:16-21, Micah 4:1-8, Micah 5:2, Genesis 35:22-29, Genesis 36:1-43

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/jeremy-painter--rachels-lament
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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Let's begin with Genesis the latter half of chapter 35 where we left off. I think we left Jacob asking his family to offer up or give him their idols and then they bury the idols and then Jacob is on his way where God is calling him to Bethel. That's verse 16 now, Genesis 35. All right, then they journeyed from Bethel. Oh, I left out a little piece there. They stopped at Bethel. They set up an altar. They gave thanks to the Lord and then they left from Bethel to go back home to nearby where Jacob's family, Jacob's family, Isaac and Rebecca lived. They journeyed from Bethel when they were still some distance from Ephraff. Rachel went into labor and she had a hard labor. And when her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, do not fear for you have another son. Okay, there's a little bit of a play on words there with the name Joseph. Remember, Joseph? When

Joseph was born, finally Rachel had a child. Her first words were, may the Lord add another son. All right, so she was already thinking of the next child and the midwife says, don't fear, you have that additional child, another son. And as her soul was departing for she was dying, she called his name Ben Oni. But his father called him Benjamin. All right, the names here are important. Ben Oni, there's no explanation given for it, but the name means anytime you see Ben in the Bible, it means son. It's Hebrew for son and then Yami or Oni is, O-N is sorrow and then the I on the end. If you have the an I on it on the end of a root word, that means my. It's first person possessive, son of my sorrow. All right, so she names him son of my sorrow. Now women in ancient Israel had naming rights. They named their children typically. Oftentimes they didn't name the child

until the eighth day, the day of circumcision because there's a high mortality rate in those first, that first week. Once they passed that first week, the blood begins to clot better and circumcision, they do that on the eighth day. And after the circumcision ceremony, usually the mother then gives the name, but she's not going to make it eight days. So she, she, she calls him son of my sorrow. She names him right then and there and his father holds rank right there. Usually again, the mother gets naming rights, but he knows that his wife is about is about to die or she is dying and he doesn't want her or that child saddled with such a name, son of my sorrow for the rest of his life. And so he turns it around and names him son of my right hand. In other words, son of my strength, Ben Yamin, Benjamin. This is, is a fascinating verse of scripture because of the way

it ripples throughout the rest of scripture. She dies around Bethlehem and she's going to be buried there as we're going to read the next couple verses, verse 19. So Rachel died and she was buried on the way to Ephraff, that is Bethlehem. And Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb. It's the pillar of Rachel's tomb, which is there to this day. Okay, we'll stop there for just a moment. I've been to Rachel's tomb. It's on the outskirts of Bethlehem. Bethlehem is a Palestinian city, Palestinian PLO controlled city, and it has cement, high cement, 20 foot cement walls all around it and barbed wire on top. If you have this idea of the deal like Bethlehem, the sleepy streams of Bethlehem, that's not what it's like at all. It's a war-torn area. But the Palestinian Muslims control the area and there are a few Christians, Palestinian Christians, who are, they attend to the church of the Nativity, which is there for memorizing Jesus'

birth. But outside of that, it's mostly, it's Muslim controlled. And so I've been there, but there's not the whole lot that you can see. You have to look through several partitions since I'm not Muslim. But anyway, the author wants you to know it's there to this day. Okay, and that doesn't necessarily, I guess it's not, this is, we don't know when this was written, but it seems that Moses is the accredited author. And so Moses seems to be saying to this day, which would be four or 500 years after this. It's still there. All right, now I said something about this having ripples through scripture. Okay, I want to read the next verse and then try to pull it together. All right, the next verse is verse 21. Israel journeyed, that's Jacob. His name's been changed to Israel, remember? And you'll see Jacob in Israel, it'll be interchangeable at times. Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Eder, or

a bidere. Okay, now a long time later, about a millennium and a half later, the Israelites are going to be taken into slavery. So these are the descendants of Israel or Jacob. And they've had a rocky relationship with God, on again, off again. And finally, God allows the Babylonian empire to conquer Israel. And there's a refugee, there's a highway, the road that leads out towards the east, towards Babylon, somewhere along the way. There's a refugee camp, people that have been displaced. And they can't be in Jerusalem anymore. And they've gathered around Bethlehem, Ephratha. And everyone's leaping in crime because they're about to be taken into slavery by Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king. And Jeremiah the prophet says, again, this is a millennium and a half later, he says, as he looks out upon this scene of these Israelites, mothers being separated from their children, children being taken off into slavery, you know, the Babylonians are going by and looking for the strong, healthy, prospective

servants, male and female, and gathering them up and leading the elderly or the older behind. And so grandparents are separated from their children, their grandchildren, parents from their children. So it's this great morning place, a great morning, there's a whale that goes up. And Jeremiah says, very poetically, Rachel, weeping for her children, for they are not. Hey, she had died a millennium and a half earlier. But in that same place, once again, there's this son of my sorrow, this great sorrow over the separation of parent from child. All right. 700 years late, not 70, 600 years later. 600 years later, there's a star that has appeared in the sky. And Magi from Persia, who were probably in the, in the, in the line of people who were trained originally by Daniel and the three Hebrew boys have been taught to anticipate the coming of a Messiah in Judea. And it's, there's going to be a star that's his star, it's going to appear.

And when that star appears, train the next generation of Magi to look for that star when it appears, follow it where it leads. And they did. And it wasn't three Weisman, Melchor, Balthazar, and I forgot the other one. It was probably an entourage, a massive, almost military feeling presence that was on its way from Persia. And so Herod in all of Jerusalem is extremely unsettled at all of these powerful Persians and princes and Magi showing up in the middle of the night saying, where's the newborn king? Herod, the king is like, there's no newborn king, I'm the king. But then he calls for the prophets to be gone out and the prophets, the scrolls, and they bring out the scroll of Micah. And Micah, they read the, they read from the scroll of Micah. And I'm reading chapter four here. In days to come, this is what they read, the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established at the highest of the

mountains and shall be raised up above the hills. People shall stream to it. And many nations shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that he may walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth instruction in the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away. They shall beat their swords into plowshares. Their spears shall turn into pruning hoes. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn more anymore. But they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fake tree. And no one shall make them afraid for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. For all the peoples walk each in the name of its God, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our

God forever and ever. And in that day, says the Lord, I will assemble the lane and gather those who have been driven away and those who I have afflicted. The lane, I will make the remnant of those who were cast off in a strong nation, and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion now and forevermore. Listen, could you Steve, could you pull up Micah 4 and 9? 4 and 8, rather, I'm sorry. And you, O tower of the flock, hill of the daughter of Zion, to you it shall come, the former dominion shall come, the sovereignty of daughter Jerusalem. Okay, look at that phrase tower of the flock. The word tower of the flock is an English translation of, go back to now Genesis chapter 35, 21 that we just read, 35, 21. Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond the tower of Yedair. That means tower of the flock. All right, so 2000 years earlier, Jacob went from Bethel

to the tower of the flock. And on his way there, Rachel dies. Okay, now this is this is so interesting to me. Let's go back 2000 years later. The Magi have found out they've been reading, they've heard reading from the scroll of Micah. Now go to Micah chapter 5 verse 2. This is what Micah continued to say, but you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth from, for me, one who is to be ruler of Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Look at that. All right, that's the prophecy of the Messiah, a ruler who's going to come to Israel from Israel right around where the tower of the flock was. The tower of the flock is where the shepherds would go up into a tower to watch over the hills, where all the sheep were raising. So they watched from up there. Okay, in the previous

chapter of Micah, there's this reference to the tower of the flock. And in the next chapter, to you, out of you, Bethlehem Ephrathah shall come the ruler. And what was happening 2,000 years later, after Jacob's time, we have shepherds up in the surrounding hills of Bethlehem, probably out in the tower of the flock watching over their sheep by night. And angel comes from the sky and says, peace on earth and good will toward men. Go into Bethlehem. You're going to find a child wrapped in swarming clothes. This is Christ the Lord. Go and worship him. All right, so Micah has given us this prophecy of the tower of the flock, shepherds, and then out of Bethlehem would be born this one. Okay, so Herod finds out that there's going, there's a king, a Messiah was born in Bethlehem. What's he do instead of going to go and worship this Messiah? He sends his soldiers out there and they slaughter all the baby boys

under the age of two. All right, Jesus had been taken away by his father Joseph into Egypt, so he escaped that. But once again, in Bethlehem, there's this great mourning of mothers separated from their children. And so Matthew says this happened that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, Rachel weeping for her children for they are not. Okay, so that's what I mean by ripples all the way through scripture. So Rachel dies, her last words are, son of my sorrow. And then that just echoes down through time and it tells the story or anticipates the story of the Israelites being taken into slavery, children being separated from their parents in the mourning of the refugee camp, and then the birth of the Messiah in which the wicked king kills all the children under two. Okay, first, let's go back to Genesis 35, the proceed forward. Verse 22 is where we're at. Now the sons of Jacob were 12. Oh

wait, I'm sorry, I read too far. While Israel lived in that land, Reuben went, so maybe flash. All right, this would have been a great place for a chapter division, by the way. But for whatever reason, the chapter, when the chapter divisions were created a thousand years ago, they didn't separate it here. So you experience whiplash, you're hearing this story about Rachel dying and they're going on to meet up with their family. And then all of a sudden, you get this 22. Look at this. While Israel lived in that land, Reuben, who's Reuben? Reuben's Israel's oldest son, oldest of the 12 now. Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel heard of it. Now the sons of Jacob were 12. All right, so what in the world, why are we getting this information right here? There was a very charming revival in the family, and all of a sudden we're way back in the dark ages now, again. And we've

got the oldest son sleeping with one of Jacob's wives, really. Concubine was a wife, a second-class wife, but a wife. All right, this is condemned utterly under the Mosaic Code later on, and it warrants the death penalty. This was a terrible move. It's going to be, this is something that happens again later on in Israel's history in the world. What happens in that case is instructive for what is happening right here. You might think, Reuben is this lustful guy, and all of a sudden he started getting this attraction for this concubine of his father. That's not necessarily what's happening here. This is a power play. To have the wife of the patriarch is to step into the place of the patriarch. It's to try to become the head of the family. Reuben is trying, in spite of the fact that he's the oldest, and he already has kind of inheritance. He's the firstborn. Still, he decides for whatever reason he's going to try

and secure his place as the head of this great big family now that there are 12 sons and a very wealthy family. He wants to make sure he's first, even charge of the whole family. He takes his father's second-class wife. That's what's happening. We do not understand why he's doing this until later in the story. That's why we needed to have this little note right here because it's going to shed light on something that happens later that's mystical. It seems mystifying to us. I'll hold that in place for right now. Just remember, it's a power play to become the head of the household. Now, the sons of Jacob were 12, verse 23. The sons of Leah were Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulim. The sons of Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Billa, Rachel's servant, Dan and Matali. The sons of Silpa, Leah's servant, Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him

in Padan Aron. Jacob came to his father, Issach at Mamre. He finally reunites after 20 years with his father. There's a second name for the place Mamre, Kyriath Arba, that is Hebon, where Abraham and Issach had sojourned. Now, the days of Issach were 180 years and Issach breathed his last and he died and was gathered to his people old and full of days. And I like this right here. His sons Esau and Jacob bury him. So Esau comes from afar all the way down to southern Canaan to reunite with his brother that he'd had front relationships with and they together they bury their father. Same thing had happened, remember, with Ishmael and Isaac, they came back together in order to bury their father, Abraham. All right? There's all like a family reunions happen at funerals. It's a sad reality still today. You'll never see some people until there's a funeral. It was that way back then too. All right, now chapter 36. I'm

just going to read 36. It's just a genealogy, a list of he begot and he begot and he begot for for Esau's family. Okay, let's just read it because this is about us going through every verse, but we don't need to comment on everything. These are the generations of Esau, that is Edom. Esau took his wives from the Canaanites, Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, the Hall of Obama, the daughter of Anna, the daughter of Zibion, the Hibbite, and Basimov, Ishmael's daughter, the daughter of Nabiath, and a dog bore to Esau, Eliphaz, the sonnet bore Rua, and a Hall of Obama bore Jehosh, Jallim, and Korah. Better get your tongue untied if you're going to read through this out loud. These are the sons of Esau who were born to him in the land of Canaan. Esau took his wives, his sons, his daughters, and all the members of his household. I don't think anyone has ever in the history of the

church preached from Genesis 36. But it's still in the Bible, and there's a blessing in patiently going through everything, right? So let's do it. He went into a land far away from his brother Jacob, for their possessions were too great for them to dwell together. Who's that son like? And for them, it was Abraham the Mott. Their possessions were too great. The land of their sojournings could not support them because of their livestock. So Esau settled in the hill country of Sierra. Esau is Edom. Okay, I want you to, I should have shown a map, but if I had a map of Israel right here, to the southeast of Israel is the land of Edom, southeast. All right. So their Dead Sea is towards, is in the southeast corner of ancient Israel. Beyond the Dead Sea is the country of Jordan, and in the south of Jordan is Edom, the Edomites. Okay, the Edomites became a powerful people. In fact, let's put up

a, I don't know if Phil gave you the order of the pictures, but look at the, I got a picture of, okay, this is, this may be familiar to you. This is in Edom, or it's called today Petra. Okay, it appeared in Indiana Jones, the last crusade, I think. Okay, this is a awe inspiring place. You're walking through these, through this sandstone, beautiful, layered, many colored sandstone. Hasn't been a drop of water and eons there apparently. And, and all of a sudden it opens up into this, like, you're in the, you're down in the Grand Canyon, essentially, and you look up and you see built into the sides of the, of the canyon are these massive and beautiful and intricate structures, again, built out of the sandstone, carved out of the sandstone. All right, go to the next picture. I think there's the Indiana Jones scene right there. All right, now Edom became a, became kind of a favored nation, is one of

the four nations that got along with ancient Israel for a little while. They were, according to the book of Deuteronomy, Israel was supposed to treat the Edomites well, and Deuteronomy says they're your brother. That's reflecting back to Jacob and Esau, coming from the same parents. Okay, but, but around the time of the Babylonian Empire, the Edomites became very wealthy, and they built these great big structures. They were one of the marvels of the ancient world. And the book of Obadiah talks about the treachery of Edom. The Edomites actually cooperated with the Babylonian Empire to help throw, overthrow Israel and sack Jerusalem. So they betrayed their long lost cousins. And so Obadiah, read the book of Obadiah, and it's basically an oracle against the Edomites. And he says, though you build your nests up in the stars, talking about these high kind of places up here, God will bring you down. And sure enough, you go through Petra today. It's just tourists from other

nations. Nobody lives there. Right. Obadiah said, though you build your nests up amongst the stars, it will become a hunt for jackals and vultures. It'll be nothing. Okay. And the Edomites eventually became, once they were subdued and punished, they actually, the remnant became somewhat friendly with Israel again. And irony of ironies, during the time of Christ, just before the time of Christ, I should say about 50 years before the time of Christ, Rome ruled the world and Rome picked a ruler for Israel or the Israelites. Mayem king in Jerusalem, his name was Herod. And we call him Herod the Great. Herod the Great was an Edomite. He was descended from Esau. And he's the one that dispatched the soldiers to go and kill all of those children in Bethlehem. All right. Again, everything comes full circle. God tells these really long stories to the world. There are no loose threads or no loose ends at the end of every day. Okay, let's keep

going. I need to just read through this first line. These are the generations of Esau, the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir. These are the names of Esau's sons. Eliphaz, the son of Agha, the wife of Esau. Ruel, the son of Basin, the wife of Esau. You saw the name Eliphaz right there? That name's going to reappear where? In the book of Job. That's Job's first friend, friend. Okay, Eliphaz. In fact, see, this has never been preached out of, but it's full of all kinds of stuff. Job was more than likely an Edomite. Oz is associated with Edom and the name of he and his family are Edomite names. Job was the most perfect man in the Old Testament, the best of all men in the Old Testament. It may well be that the pinnacle of virtue in the whole Old Testament was a descendant of Esau. Remember, God blessed Esau too. All right, okay, let's keep going. Verse

11, the sons of Eliphaz were Timon, Omar, Zepho, Gautam, and Timon. Timon was a concubine of Eliphaz, Esau's son. She bore Amalek to Eliphaz. Amalek, that's not going to be good. The Amalekites are going to be great enemies of Israel. Okay, these are the sons of Adah, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Ruel, Nahath, Zarah, Shema, and Miza. These are the sons of Asimov, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Ahul, Obama, the daughter of the Nah, the daughter of Zibian, Esau's wife. She bore to Esau, Jehush, Jalaam, and Korah. Are you trying your patience yet? These are the chiefs of the sons of Esau. I have to keep on saying and insisting when we read the Bible, not always looking for fascination or novelty or interest. Sometimes it's just a discipline and a patient practice. And you go through it and you don't check out. Just pay attention. There's a blessing in listening to the Word of God. These are the

sons, chiefs of the sons of Esau. The sons of Eliphaz, the first form of Esau, the chiefs. Did I read that already? Okay, the sons of Eliphaz, the first form of Esau, the chiefs Taman, Omar, Zafo, Ghanaz, Korah, Gautam, and Amalek. These are the chiefs of Eliphaz in the land of Edom. It was naming all the kings that descended from Esau. The chiefs Nahath, Zarah, Shema, and Miza. These are the chiefs of Ruel in the land of Edom. These are the sons of Basimov, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Ahul, Obama, Esau's wife. The chiefs Jehush, Jalaam, and Korah. These are the chiefs of Ahul, Obama. That's the last time I'd say that name. The daughter of the Nahah, Esau's wife. These are the sons of Esau. That is Edom, and these are their chiefs. Not done, though. These are the sons of Sier, the Horite. The inhabitants of the land, these are the people that Esau's tribe drove out. These are

the original inhabitants. Lothan, Shobal, Zivian, Nah, Dishon, Ezur, and Dishon. These are the chiefs of the Horites, the sons of Sier and the land of Edom. The sons of Lothan were Horai, Mom, and Lothan's sister was Timna. These are the sons of Shobal, Alvin, the Nahath, Ibal, Shafo, O'Nam. These are the sons of Zibia, Aya, and the Nah. He is the Nah, who found the hot springs in the wilderness. Little biographical note right there. We don't know what the world of means. As he pastured the donkeys of Zibia and his father, another little eccentricity right there. I'll never understand why it's in there. But we get this little historical note about somebody who found the spring because he was looking for his donkeys. Oh, by the way, in 1945, in the Judean desert, a Muslim boy was looking for his father's goats, and he thought one of them went into the caves up in the hillside. And he didn't want to go up

into the hillside. He was feeling it was too hot outside, and he didn't really just didn't want to do it. So he decided he was going to make sure that goat was up there. So he picked up some big rocks and threw them into the cave. He started, instead of hearing the blah of a goat, what he heard instead was sounded like it was hitting something metallic almost. What's that all about? Should be making the sound of a goat or a thug was up into the cave. We see that his rocks had been hitting these old clay vessels, jars, and inside the vessels were these scrolls that fell apart in his fingers. So he went and got his dad. And his dad decided, well, they'd been looking for, people had been looking for antiquities, artifacts from museums. I mean, we can make some money. And he called out some of the antiquaries. Come check it out. And they opened up these vessels and

they pulled these scrolls out very tenderly. And they say, oh my goodness, the greatest discovery of the modern age, archaeologically and historically, they saw the earliest known manuscripts we have of most of the Old Testament written in Hebrew, the earliest manuscript we had of the Old Testament, the Masoretic Test. It's like from the 11th, 12th century after Christ. The events that are described are 1000 years before Christ. So we had this, we had these relatively modern manuscripts. That's what we had of the Old Testament. But what this boy found looking for his goats were manuscripts from before the time of Christ. They had been sitting there inside these clay jars put there by the Ascene community when the Romans were, when the Roman Empire was destroying Israel. These were left in the cave, these holy sacred vessels and books. And so we have the Dead Sea Scrolls today because somebody was looking for a goat. This must have meant something to somebody a

long time ago. He's the Anah who found the hot springs in the wilderness as he pastured the donkeys of Zeppi and his father. These are the children of Anah, Deshaun and the whole of Obama, the daughter of Anah. These are the sons of Deshaun, Hemden, Eshban, Ifrin and Chira. These are the sons of Ezra, Billan, Za'avim and Akim. These are the sons of Deshaun, there's that name that is associated with Job and Iran. These are the chiefs of the Horites, the chiefs of Lothan, Shobal, Zivian and Anah, Deshaun, Ezra, Deshaun. These are the chiefs of the Horites, chief by chief in the land of Seir. Oh, this reminds me of something. I was just talking about the Dead Sea Scrolls. I went to the place where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discard all up in the hills of what's called Qumran. And right next to it is a fortress that the Israelites built called Masada. And I went to the top of Masada.

It took Rome a long time to conquer this particular place. At the top of Masada, there's all kinds of huts, clay huts that are built. And inside the clay hut with one little window, it looks like something from the planet Tataline in Star Wars. It's a desert, and even on top of Masada, it's just dirt, sand. And in the side of the clay hut, at the little window, there's a scribe, a rabbinical scribe. He's up there, he's copying, copying the Torah, the Old Testament, copying it out. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is there's such intricacy in the transmission of the Bible through the ages. If you listen to a skeptic of the Bible, they will say it's a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy ad infinitum. There have been so many errors introduced into the Bible. There are people who are wanting to distort the text in order to bolster their own unique

idiosyncratic doctrine. And so we don't, we can't trust any word that's in the Bible. It's been, it's been so much has been added to, it's been copied and transmitted generation after generation after generation. And who knows what was original anymore, right? The trouble with all of that is there's such care, there's been such care used in the transmission of the biblical text. It is amazing. You could open up this, these old manuscripts from 1200 after Christ, the Old Testament, read the book of Isaiah, and then you could go back to the Dead Sea Scrolls and see the same exact text, every single letter in the same place. That's at least 1400 years of consistent transmission. And these rabbis, these scribes, they tell you, they know what the middle letter of each book is. They know what the middle word is, as they count in pencil every single word. They know how many words are in the book of Genesis. And if they find

out that there's one too many words in the book of Genesis, they have to throw it out and start over. They know what they know what the middle word is. They know what the middle letter is of each and every single one of the books. They know what the middle letter is of the Old Testament. It has been transmitted with so much care. So much so that you've got this irrelevant detail that can be of no possibly use to anybody. But here it is, it just sits there. Nobody can preach from it. There's nothing to know about it. It just says, he was the one who found the hospital's in the wilderness. He pastured the donkeys as they'd be in his father. And we never hear anything about any of these people again. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the authenticity of Scripture. It has been handled with the greatest care for thousands of years, thousands of years. Let's go to 31.

It looks like we're not going to be able to get into 37 tonight, chapter 37, which introduces Joseph. But we can at least finish 36 here. These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the Israelites. Bellow the son of Beor. He saw it, reigned in Edom, the name of his city being Denhaba. Bellow died, Jobab, Jobab, the son of Zira. He sounded like he was from the south, Jumbraub. The son of Zira of Basra reigned in his place. Jobab died, and Hushan, of the land of the Timonites, reigned in his place. Hushan died. Hadad, son of Bidad, who defeated Midian in the country of Moab, reigned in his place. Oh, Hadad means thunder. And that name comes up. The Edomite and Moabite kings, Syrian kings, took a throne name, and it usually ended in Hadad. So for instance, when Elijah, or rather Elijah hears the sound of the wind and the thunder and the still

small voice of God, and God commissions him for tasks. One of them is to go to Syria and anoint to be the king of Syria, a man by the name of Ben Hadad. That would mean son of thunder, which if you know your New Testament, that's strange because that's what Jesus calls James and John, the sons of Zebede, John the Revelator, son of thunder, then the Hadad. All right, verse 36. Hadad died in Samma of Maserika, reigned in his place. Samma died. And Shaul of Rehoboth. Shaul is the name of Saul. It's the same exact about Saul. So it seems that Saul, King Saul, the Benjaminite, had the name of an Edomite, for some reason. Shaul died and Baal, Hanan, the son of Akbar. After Akbar means in Hebrew, Akbar means Rat. So there's some really interesting stuff under here that his name, the son of Rat, reigned in his place. Baal, Hanan, the son of Akbar died, and Hadar reigned in his

place, the name of the city being Pa'u. His wife's name was Mahataba, the daughter of Matrid, the daughter of Mezahab. These are the names of the chiefs of Isam, according to their clans, their dwelling places, by their names, the chiefs, Timna, Alva, Jehes, Olabama, Ella, Canaan, Canaz, Taman, Isbar, Nabil, Tower of My God, and Iran. These are the chiefs of Edom, that is, Isal the father of Edom, according to their dwelling places in the land of their possession. All right, I don't want to go too deep into 37 at all, but I had a picture up here, but I was just kind of dying to get to it. So this may be a preview for next one. Remember the story of Joseph in the Code of Many Colors? Okay, that's one of the first things that we're going to learn about Joseph, is his father gave him a code of many colors. Now, why this is significant is because when you give somebody,

when you wear multi-colors in the ancient Middle East, it means you're a ruler, you're in charge. And one of the reasons why it means that is because if you wear a code of multiple colors, you're wealthy, you're wealthy. It took so much care to make a garment of a single color, let alone multiple colors. The kind of warp and weaving that was needed to intermingle multiple colors exorbitant cost thousands of dollars would be like going to Louis Vuitton, is that the name, and buying a suit there. Nothing is ever on sale there. They don't need to go on sale. And it's extremely expensive. I once saw a preacher wearing a Louis Vuitton suit. And I don't know what to say, but anyway, it's like a $10, $15,000 suit there. Anyway, Joseph was wearing a $10, $15,000 suit. All right, his dad made for him, had made for him. Okay, and that happened around 1900 BC. It's going to get him in a lot

of trouble, that code of many colors. It's the code of rejection actually, code of rejection. Now, there's a sermon. It's going to get him in trouble with his brothers. His code's going to get him in trouble with Potiphar's life. It's going to be used to lie about Joseph. Now, if you could put up that picture of the Egyptian hybrid lifts, it's not really hybrid lifts, it's a historical scene. All right, I don't know how well that shows up to you, but these pictures show Egyptians, Egyptian soldiers, generals, wearing garments with multiple...