Video Series: Communal Culture Episode 4: The Father’s House

⬤Marcia: Around the Middle East, there are construction projects much like anywhere in the world. However when you begin to pay attention, many homes appear under construction, except nothing’s happening. The first floors are complete with people living in them, while rebar is sticking out the tops, awaiting another story to be added!

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⬤Brian: Shalom! Welcome to Bridges to the Bible! I’m Brian Johnson.

⬤Marcia: And I’m Marcia Johnson

⬤Brian: So why would they live in partially constructed homes? What are they thinking?

⬤Marcia: When a couple builds a home, they’re planning ahead for when their children have children, and they get married and want to start building above them. Now, in the ancient times as the families grew, they kept growing outward on the ground level. But now with modern society, they go up instead.

⬤Brian: This is part four in a series on the communal nature of Biblical culture. Visit BridgesToTheBible.com, where you can download the episode guide which includes notes to follow along, discussion questions, and more. In the previous sessions, we looked at the concept of honor/shame culture and names and naming.

⬤Marcia: Today, we’re going to talk about the concept of the father’s house, and how this fits into the building blocks of Biblical society, and how the Bible actually uses this imagery to describe our relationship with the Lord.

⬤Brian: So, we talk about the family as the basic building block of society, and similarly for them; they would say that, but what they would call the basic building block is the “bet av“.

⬤Marcia: So what is a “bet av“?

⬤Brian: A bet av of is Hebrew for “house of the father,” but think of it more as a household than a house.

⬤Marcia: So, you mean, it’s the people that live in a house?

⬤Brian: Yes, but it’s more than that. Think of it more as a family compound. For us when you picture a house, who’s living there? You’ve got the parents and their kids and maybe you’ve got the grandparents as well. But for them a bet av has a patriarch as the head of it, and the house is identified by him.

⬤Marcia: Yeah, it’s always kind of bugged me, this idea of patriarchal society. It’s so male dominated. Like, I think of a passage in the book of Judges 13: it talks about Manoah and his wife, over and over. Manoah and his wife, Manoah and his wife; it never gives her name!

⬤Brian: That’s true, but think about our culture: when you got married, you changed your last name, you took on dad’s name. And then you’ll get stuff in the mail where it’ll say “Mr. and Mrs. David Johnson” and you’re just referred to by his name. Or it just could say “Mrs. David Johnson”

⬤Marcia: Yeah, I guess you’re right, so our society still has some remnants of this patriarchal culture. It has been changing some though in the last generation or two. So how was their bet av different than our households?

⬤Brian: Well, a bet av would be multi-generational; you’re talking three generations, perhaps four. You’ve got the grandparents, where the patriarch is, chances are, and then you’ve got the sons and their wives, and then you’ve got their children, the grandchildren. And they’re all living in one family compound. We were talking possibly 30 people.

⬤Marcia: That’s a lot of people!

⬤Brian: And think about then as people are getting married, what will happen is a daughter will then come in from another bet av and join this bet av. So the the girls are the ones that are moving, changing their identity. And then the bet av grows, as children are born into it.

⬤Marcia: Or they could also adopt. We usually think about adopting children, but in the ancient world they also adopted adults, particularly if they needed an heir. A famous example is Julius Caesar adopted Octavian as his heir, and we know him later as Caesar Augustus.

⬤Brian: Right. We should talk about these family dynamics and marriage in more depth, in more detail, but let’s save that for next time. I just want to focus in on the bet av itself and the dynamics just around that. Think about: where have you seen or heard the term “father’s house” in the Bible?

⬤Marcia: That’s actually a phrase that’s used many, many times. Here’s just one example: remember how Joseph was kidnapped and taken to Egypt, and then later his brothers show up, wanting to buy grain, and he reveals who he is to them. And then he tells them to go back and bring their father and their whole household to Egypt. So picking this up in Genesis 50: “So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father’s house.”

⬤Brian: That’s a good example. Think about though as the bet av continues to grow and expand. There gets a point when it’s gotten too big, and therefore it needs to split.

⬤Marcia: An example of that could be with Lot and Abraham. Lot followed Abraham as they went to the promised land, and then later on Abraham says there’s just not enough land now for all of our people and all of our flocks, so he invited Lot to split off and form his own bet av. So what if you wanted to just split off and go on your own?

⬤Brian: That’s not really a good idea. A bet av is an economically self-sufficient unit. To be on your own just isn’t a smart choice. And then, in that communal based society, it would be unthinkable to go and get your own apartment and live by yourself!

⬤Marcia: Alright, so you’ve got a bunch of these bet avs, people living together in these large extended families. So that’s basically the structure of Biblical society?

⬤Brian: Not exactly. We’re going to need some more blocks for this. Imagine you’ve got a bunch of bet avs, or a few bet avs anyways. This grouping of bet avs forms a clan. They’re going to have some common stories, background, common rivalries, but then this is a good place as you’re looking out for a spouse, to find a spouse among your second or third cousins because you share some common values.

⬤Marcia: Alright, I can think of a couple of Biblical examples of clans. I’m thinking again of Abraham, and he had left his bet av to go to Canaan. And then he has a son Isaac; well, he needs to arrange for him to have a wife, and he sends his servant back up to the clan in Haran for his brother’s descendants to find a wife there. And then, next generation, Isaac’s son Jacob also goes north to this family clan and he marries Leah and Rachel, his first cousins. Alright, so we have these bet avs and then together the broader family connections of a clan. Are we done?

⬤Brian: No, we’re going to need quite a few more blocks to understand this. So here’s a clan. Imagine that there are more bet avs around: so there, and then we’ve got some over here, like that. Imagine a whole bunch of clans working together. That is going to form a village. A village is set up around some common resources. What sort of resources can you think of that a clan could share?

⬤Marcia: Well, you could share a wine press, you could share a threshing floor, but probably most importantly they have to have a water source, that could be a well or could be a spring.

⬤Brian: Right. Or for instance, you think about in New Testament times, they would have a synagogue. Now, around the village you have the land that’s cultivated.

⬤Marcia: Kind of like Little House on the Prairie!

⬤Brian: Just like that, only not at all. You see, in Little House on the Prairie you’ve got the family home on the land, and then your nearest neighbor is a half-mile/mile down the road. For them, they are living in the village together, and the land is around them. Remember land for them is much smaller than you would picture for a farm today, or even in Little House on the Prairie because they don’t have modern machinery to work it. And the land is really a part of the family; it’s something that’s passed on from generation to generation.

⬤Marcia: Yeah, I can think about how groups of people from a same area immigrated to the United States, like people from the Netherlands left and formed the village of Holland, Michigan.

⬤Brian: Right.

⬤Marcia: Okay, so we have the bet avs; we have the clans; we have the villages. Are we done?

⬤Brian: Not exactly. We’re going to need some more blocks still! You’ve got, now, multiple villages. If you have other villages that are in the same sub-region, so you maybe have a valley that’s in common, that people are trading. And maybe a clan isn’t just all in one village; they’re in a couple villages that are nearby, for instance. So now, you’ve got kind of this dynamic going, but more than that, you’ve got, as you continue to expand out a bunch of villages, they form a tribe.

⬤Marcia: Alright, I’m familiar with that term. Think about the 12 tribes of Israel, named after the 12 sons of Jacob. After the Israelites crossed the Jordan into the promised land, each tribe was given a section of tribal land, except for the Levites because they were in charge of the temple (they didn’t need land).

⬤Brian: Right. Now, think about this though: Israel was not unique in having tribes; every nation had tribes. For instance, Jacob’s brother Esau had 12 sons also, and they formed 12 tribes.

⬤Marcia: Alright, so like tribal identity in the Older Testament, I can see that’s really important, but in the Newer Testament, not so because they’re no longer living in tribal areas.

⬤Brian: That’s true that the exile really did upset that. The people who left there and their descendants didn’t come back to the same land, so they’re not on that ancestral land; however, they’re still remembering their tribe that they’re part of. For instance, we see in Luke 2: We meet a woman named Anna, who it says is from the tribe of Asher. Or the apostle Paul says that he’s from the tribe of Benjamin. And we’re talking 1500 to 2000 years later that people are still remembering what ancestral line they’re from. If you even think down to today, people don’t generally know what tribe they’re from if they’re Jewish, but they do remember the priestly line because of the link with the temple and worship. In fact, If you’ve got someone with the name Kohen (Kohen is actually a Hebrew word for priest), there’s a decent chance someone that’s named that is actually from the priestly line. And even actually using the word Jew: Jew actually is derived from the term Judah, the name of the dominant tribe after the exile.

⬤Marcia: I don’t usually think about tribes today, except thinking of missionaries going to tribes around the world. But think about it, I guess that’s because they were communal cultures like in the Bible.

⬤Brian: Right. And when you’ve got a bunch of tribes together that forms the nation!

⬤Marcia: Okay. So we have all these bet avs; we have the clans; we have the villages; we have the tribes; and we have the nation.

⬤Brian: Exactly.

⬤Marcia: But it all centers around the bet av. I can think of one verse that a lot of these terms are used. In Joshua 7, the Israelites have crossed over into the promised land; they’ve conquered Jericho and God tells Joshua they have sinned. And they have to figure out who has done it, so picking up in verse 14: “In the morning therefore you shall be brought near by your tribes. And the tribe that the Lord takes by lot shall come nearby clans. And the clan that the Lord takes shall come nearby households. And the household that the Lord takes shall come near man by man.” Alright, so ancient peoples, including the Israelites, had this complicated nested society, but what does this matter to us?

⬤Brian: Hold that question for just a bit. I need to explain a little bit more, as we focus back in on the bet av itself. Think about: the bet av is headed up by the patriarch; he is responsible for the bet av, for its safety, for its protection, for its prosperity. So if something happens to somebody in there, maybe some bad circumstance, a bad choice, a bet av is his safety net.

⬤Marcia: I think of another example with Abraham: his nephew Lot was living in Sodom, and there was a raid and they captured him in his possessions. And Abraham pursues Lot a really far distance, gets him back and his possessions, rescuing him.

⬤Brian: Right, and even though Abraham had divided his possessions with Lot and separated off, he’s still viewing himself as the patriarch that he’s going to protect and take care of Lot.

⬤Marcia: But what if you’re not part of a bet av? Does that mean you don’t have any protection?

⬤Brian: Yeah, that’s basically what it means. And to be outside of a bet av is to put yourself at risk. Think about when the Bible talks about widows and orphans who aren’t attached to a bet av, when the males of the family have died or been killed in battle or something; they are in dire straits generally because they have no one to look out for them. They’ve lost their safety net! This is what the book of Ruth is about.

⬤Marcia: So you would want to find a way to join a bet av, like she did.

⬤Brian: Exactly. And then the New Testament uses this imagery to describe us, how we were far from God. In other words, that we were outside of God’s bet av and in dire straits without hope. For instance, the apostle Paul talks about this in Ephesians 2: “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers in the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

⬤Marcia: So then there was this really big debate in the early church; what do you do with Gentiles who have accepted Jesus? The covenants had been made with Israel; God had chosen Israel. So they were debating about: do we need to have all these Gentiles formally convert to Judaism? So in Acts 15 we see a record of the debate, and then the decision which is given by James, the half-brother of Jesus. And so let’s look at part of that decision, starting in verse 14, “Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, (now he’s quoting Amos) the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all of the Gentiles who are called by my name.” We’ve been talking about how the people within a bet av were identified by that patriarch and took on his name, and so now in the same way, Gentiles are called by God’s name; they’re brought into his bet av.

⬤Brian: And this is why the Bible says we can call God “our Father”. He’s our Father, our Patriarch, that we’ve been brought into the bet av; we’ve been adopted into his family. The apostle Paul uses this imagery. Ephesians 1 says: “In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.”

⬤Marcia: Wow! Understanding this concept of the bet av, it’s this imagery the Bible is using, about us becoming part of the household or the family of God.

⬤Brian: And him being our loving Father, our Patriarch. And we’re called by his Name and we carry his Name; we represent him. And by the way we act, we either bring honor or shame to his bet av, and we’re under his authority but also under his protection as well. We’re part of the family of God; we call each other brother and sister. We’ve been adopted through Messiah into this family. God is our Father, our Patriarch, and he’s also the King of all the nations! Continue the conversation at BridgesToTheBible.com. You can go to the discussion questions to discuss more about this subject. Coming up next time, we’re going to look at issues around family and marriage in the bet av. Until next time, SHALOM!

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