Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes: Patronage, Honor, and Shame in the Biblical World

by E Randolph Richards

But in the biblical world, the father’s household included the father, his wife (or wives), his married sons and their wives and children, and all his unmarried daughters. When God tells Noah to take his family into the ark, we are told, “Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark” (Gen 7:7). This was the basic family unit.

There were also household and field servants (Ex 20:10). Although the father of the household was not the biological father (or even the adoptive father) of all these people, he was termed the father of the household.

The father was the eldest male, responsible for their welfare and their protection.

adults. Moses was elderly when God spoke to him at the burning bush; yet he still went to ask his father in law, the head of the household, to let him go to Egypt (Ex 4:18). In Hebrew culture, a father’s household generally included three generations. This could have included as many as thirty people.

Both the Hebrew and the Greco-Roman conceptions of family were different from the modern American family of a mom, dad, and 2.5 children. When the father of a household died, his eldest son would inherit the responsibility of caring for everyone in the household. This is part of the reason why Deuteronomy 21:15-17 gives eldest sons a double portion of the inheritance. He needed it to care for the others.

The father’s household was the smallest unit of kinship. When God tells Abraham, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you” (Gen 12:1), it meant more than someone leaving home for university or taking a job in another town. It meant leaving the basic building block and protections in one’s culture: his father’s house, his people, and his land.

Abraham trusted God. When Abraham left his father’s household, he didn’t go alone. “Of course,” we might add, “Abraham was married.” But he didn’t just take

Sarah. By leaving his father’s household, Abraham becomes responsible for his own household. Although Abraham had no chil...

The father’s household did not include everyone ancients considered kinfolk. It was the smallest family unit.

Next in size was the clan, a collection of multiple households.

When Abimelek says this, he means everybody in his mother’s clan (Judg 9:1-2).5 Clans generally governed themselves, maintaining justice and religious life and practices (Ex 12:21; 1 Sam 20:6; 2 Sam 14:7).6 Clans were too large for one person to lead, so fathers of households in the clan formed a group of elders. Land came to be divided and possessed by clans, and so often a number of villages or even a town belonged to a single clan (e.g., Josh 19:16, 23, 31). As a result, sometimes the names of clans and towns could be used interchangeably; hence the town of Bethlehem is also called a clan of Judah (Mic 5:2).7

the tribes, which were even larger groups of people who shared blood lineage back to a common (even more) distant male ancestor.

a tribe understood itself to be “sons” of the same (distant) father.

They shared blood, the glue of the ancient kinship world. So, they carried a sense of solidarity (albeit more diluted than that of the clan).

genealogical lists in the Bible. The lists don’t just work to outline histories; they define identities. They define to whom you belong and who belongs to you. Genealogies could define access to land, grazing rights, a...

The Old Testament refers to the tribes of Israel, as well as the entire nation Israel. We tend to think the various groups identified primarily as Israelites, and it is just a bit of an historical curiosity that there were twelve tribes. But a careful reading of Old Testament texts shows that people’s loyalty was often first to their family, then clan, then tribe. God wants them to unite as one people (the people of God), but they rarely

do.

We cite as the norm what are actually the few occasions (under Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon) whe...

Part of the book of Judges is tribal disunity.

The tribes never lost their identities; this aspect was strong.

When David first becomes king, he is king only over one tribe, Judah.

Look after your own house, David!” (1 Kings 12:16) The language is tribal: “the son of Jesse” and “the house of David.”

God underlines their kinship as his people (Israel). They, on the other hand, see no kinship but separate tribes. They break along tribal lines: ten tribes in the north unite under Jeroboam, while only two tribes in

the south remain loyal to the son of David. It was all about kinship.

The main purpose of marriage in Abraham’s time was to maintain the family. Sarah appeared barren. Ancients weren’t stupid. They understood it took two to tango. They knew the problem could have been Abraham. Sarah, though, took cultural responsibility. Women were often blamed for the

lack of children. They would say, “The Lord has closed her womb.” Sometimes the Bible means the Lord has actually intervened in a particular woman’s life to miraculously close or open a womb. Usually, though, it is meant in the sense that the Lord is the Creator of all and thus responsible for all (Rom 9:20-22).

Once Abraham is old, Sarah offers her handmaiden Hagar to Abraham, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her” (Gen 16:2). Sarah (like everyone) is th...

Sarah wants to build a family for herself through Hagar. Hagar is just a pawn in Sarah’s (perhaps selfish) plan.

They urged me to look at the rest of the picture Genesis gives us of Sarah. “She is a harsh woman,” they explained. Every time Sarah speaks to someone, she is harsh. Furthermore, she doesn’t seem to be a model wife.

When Abraham sees three visitors (one of whom is the Lord), he runs and bows down before them. He implores them to enjoy his household’s hospitality:

‘get three seahs of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread’” (Gen 18:6).

I must confess I then missed what went without being said until my Mediterranean friends pointed it out to me: there is no bread.

It seems Sarah hadn’t bothered to make it. As they eat, his visitors point out that Sarah is missing, “Where is your wife Sarah?” (Gen 18:9). Abraham responds, “There in the tent” (Gen 18:9). Sarah has not honored their guests. Amazingly, one of them responds by saying, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son” (Gen 18:10). God is showing great grace to Sarah.

When Sarah suggests that he sleep with Hagar to produce an heir, he simply follows her command. Abraham doesn’t show any leadership in the decision. When Hagar becomes pregnant, ...

yet Abraham doesn’t protect Hagar. “‘Your slave is in your hands. . . . Do with her whatever you think best.’ Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her” (Gen 16:6). Hagar is part of Abraham’s household, and he is not

We are supposed to notice the only one who acts with care and compassion in the entire story is God. God takes care of all three of them. He blesses Abraham with an heir, removes Sarah’s shame, and rescues Hagar in the desert.12

Brothers should look out for each other, so when Esau is hungry, Jacob should help him. Instead Jacob offers to sell his help.

Esau despises his birthright because he considers the promise of God to be worthless. It has become a joke between brothers. But God takes it seriously, even when no one else does. God honors the sale.

“I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex 3:6). He doesn’t say, “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Esau.”

Jesus is the inheritor (Rev 5).13

Birth was not just a matter of biology, though it included that. Birth was the way ancients received their identity. Their blood, their family, their place in their family, all determined who they were and where they stood in society. Birth was not something you chose. If you were born high or born low (1 Cor 1:26), this was almost always the place you would remain throughout life.

When Jesus says to Nicodemus, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again” (Jn 3:3), he is saying something very profound. To see the kingdom of God, you need to belong to a new family.

Although in the Greco-Roman world, the setting of the New Testament, adoption was a fairly common practice, people’s motivation for adopting was quite different from ours. Modern Westerners usually adopt so that they (the family) can care for the (young) child. In the ancient biblical world, people adopted so that the adopted son could care for the family.

Apollodorus:

Apollodorus adopted him to sonship to ensure his estate was well managed, since his own biological son had died.

Jacob adopts Manasseh and Ephraim even though their father, Joseph, is alive. Why? The context is inheritance and land. Future lists of the twelve sons of Judah generally include Manasseh and Ephraim in the place of Joseph (Num 26:1-51).

When Paul wrote to the Ephesians that God “predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will,” (Eph 1:5), there would have been a gasp from those who heard the letter read. The family of God was growing, and this had very real implications for the lives of those involved; they were about to join a new family with new siblings. Gentiles and Jews were co-inheritors with equal honor and standing in the family of God. Their identity was brothers and sisters. Likewise, slaveowners and slaves were now brothers and sisters. They all had the same honor: co-heirs.

Paul wants to reconcile Onesimus with Philemon his owner. Paul writes: I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment. . . . For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved

brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. (Philem 10, 15-16)

involved. The Bible assumes that we understand that marriage forged kinship links between many more people than just the husband and wife.