Hi GAMErs,
Today’s passage is Genesis 35:16-29. Let’s go!
Genesis 35:16-18 (NIV)
16 Then they moved on from Bethel. While they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and had great difficulty.
17 And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid, for you have another son.”
18 As she breathed her last–for she was dying–she named her son Ben-Oni. But his father named him Benjamin.
On verses 16-18: Rachel is giving birth to a second child but there are major complications with the delivery. Rachel dies in the process but not before giving birth to a son and calling him “Ben-Oni” meaning “son of my trouble”. Back then it was believed that a child’s name reflected the child’s destiny. Not wanting his newborn son to be destined for a life of trouble, Jacob steps in and renames him “Benjamin”, meaning “son at my right hand”. In Jacob’s culture, a father’s right hand symbolized his favour.
Benjamin went from son of my trouble to son of my right hand all because his father spoke a new word into his life that changed his name, changed his identity, changed his destiny. Similarly, when we were destined for trouble, your Heavenly Father sent Jesus Christ to speak a new word into your life that would change your identity and destiny, so that we would go from being children destined for trouble to children destined to live at the right hand of God’s presence, protection and blessing. The pain and trouble that we were destined for, God placed on His Son Jesus and the status that Jesus deserved – to be a son at the Father’s right hand – was given to us. All because of a Father stepped in.
