A day with Manual

Litha couldn’t suppress for long an uneasy feeling that was haunting her mind from the time of Maya’s selection.

“The first two names are all right. But I’m not sure whether Sanpo will agree on the third one. Won’t it be better to replace it?” She suggested.

“I know what I am doing,”  retorted Manual. “What Maya did or didn’t do will be acceptable to Sanpo also.”

“Can we be so sure about it?” She asked.

“You are doubtful because you don’t know what a complicated process the birth of a child is.  You don’t know the efforts Jehovah has put in to create man’s generations.  If you had known it you wouldn’t have disagreed with me.”

“Was creation a difficult task for God?” asked Litha innocently. “Let there be sky, he said, and there was sky. Let there be waters, he said and there was water. Like that the earth, and the birds and animals and the mankind. Everything was completed in just six days. What was so complicated about it?”

“How did man start precreation?” Manual asked

“The  God said to woman in sorrow you shall bring forth children and they were born. This is written in the Bible.”

Manual gazed at her intently for a long moment.  Would she be ignorant about the importance and complications of genesis?  Would none have told her about it?

“Is your knowledge about the Genesis so little?  Are you interested in knowing more about it? “ asked Manual and was answered in affirmative. He let her repose on a rock and started revealing the facts of Creation.

“You got it right when you said six days. But they were the days of Jehovah. Time and the sun that gives you day and night were created only on the fourth day. One day is with the Lord as a thousand  years and a thousand years as one day, be not ignorant of this fact. When the God said, let the earth bring forth the living creatures and cattle, and creeping things and beasts and plants, there were legions of angels to fulfill his commands, be not ignorant of this fact too.

“Let there be and it was there- Adam, Eve and every other living being. That was my impression till now.”  She said without concealing her ignorance.

“When the Lord said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind, it was so. But they were not blessed to be fruitful and to multiply and fill the surface of the earth. The water born creatures, and the winged fowl that could fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven were blessed to multiply. The grass, herbs and trees were with seeds and fruits.

The Lord God formed man, to have dominion over all that was created, out of the dust of the ground with his own hands and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Later Lord God found Adam lonely and created the woman out of him to give him company. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and consequently they were outcast from the Garden of Eden. He cursed the woman to multiply her sorrow and conception greatly. She had to bring forth children in sorrow and pain.

The Lord God wanted to fulfill in Adam’s children what he couldn’t in Adam.  But he hadn’t foreseen Adam and Eve to give birth to their children at the time of their creation. He had blessed Adam to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that move on the earth before the woman was taken out of him. Now Eve was created out of Adam and the Lord God was in a dilemma. It was impossible for him to perish them and recreate them in such a way that they could procreate. Jehovah restrained from appearing before them as he had driven them out of the Eden Garden.

The Lord God, though he realised that the creation of man was giving him more troubles, decided to go ahead. The angels who were kept away from the creation of man couldn’t give suggestions on how to solve it. Jehovah took the responsibility on his shoulders. The woman was the one to give birth, so he decided to prepare her first.  Adam and Eve started having dreams in their sleep. Over a period of time the organs for procreation were developed and attached to those that were given for pleasure. It was functional but not perfect. The first imperfect creation of the perfect God who  seeks perfection is everything!  Exposing the nakedness to strangers was the ultimate punishment to a woman, so felt Jehovah. When he was angry with his chosen people he threatened to expose their woman’s nakedness before strangers.

The Spirit of God shadowed over Eve and she gave birth to Cain and then Abel. God had taken precautions so that their children were capable of procreating. He thought them to be perfect and fit to eat the fruit of everlasting life. He rejoiced at their growth. He warned Cain against sin and asked him to do well and fill his mind with good thoughts so that he could rule over the sinner. But Cain slayed Abel and proved himself imperfect. Jehovah, who wished to terminate the activity of creation was let down by this murder. Now he had to create a woman for Cain.  And he hadn’t even touched Adam to make him a real man.

Jehovah created many perfect sons and daughters in the likeness of man in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. Cain left his parents and came there. Lord set a mark upon Cain so that none who found him slayed him.

Cain married a daughter of God and she conceived and bare Enoch and he built a city and named it after his son. To E’noch was born I’-rad and he begat Me-huja-el. They had children and grandchildren . A generation blossomed there. Lord God let them free as they were his own children. He expected them to stay away from sins, but he was mistaken. They indulged in sins letting the sinner rule over them. They were not fit to have their names written in the book of life. After thousands of generations during the time of Noah they were wiped off from the face of earth by a flood.

Now let’s come back to Adam. Jehovah made the cattle and other animals capable of reproducing and then laid his hand on Adam. It took him one hundred and thirty years to develop the necessary organs and to append it to the existing ones in Adam.  Adam begat Seth and then begat many sons and daughters. Thus the generations of Adam started from Seth and not from Cain and Abel.

Jehovah had to repeat the same developments in Seth also. Seth lived an hundred and five years and begat Enos and his life span was nine hundred and twelve years. If God had taken one hundred and thirty years in Adam, he could reduce it to one hundred and five in Seth. Seth’s son Enos, at the age of ninety and Enos’ son Cainan, at seventy and his son Mahalalel at the age of sixty five begat their first sons.”

Litha found it difficult to keep track of these numbers and Manual wrote the following details in the black cloth that was with him and handed it to her.

 

 

Litha  glanced through the list and said that Methuselah was a familiar name. She had a granny in her relation who claimed to be as old as Methuselah. Manual ignored that comment  and continued,

“Jehovah took care to stop these first borns from mingling with the generations of Cain.

Mahalalel became a father at the age of sixty five and Jehovah wished to pass on this job to the angels. They failed in Jared as they had no knowledge about the human body. Jehovah who had waited patiently took up the responsibility and Jared was blessed with a child at the age of one hundred and sixty two.

The angels asked him to pass on responsibility to them only after letting them study a human body well. Enoch, who became a father at the age of sixty five was taken to heaven by God and he was three  hundred and sixty five years old then.

Jehovah let the angels study Enoch and gave them the responsibility. Under his supervision they succeeded in Methusaleh when he was one hundred and eighty seven years old. In Lamech they took only five years less. Jehovah let them handle Noah themselves and they took five hundred years in his case.

The angels were non co-operating to express their protest, realised Jehovah.  His heart ached with grief. The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and took them wives of all which they chose. The sons of Gods were mixing up blood with those of men and this infuriated God. Cain’s generations were ruled by the sinner and they could easily be tempted to do evil. They put the Lord God in dejection and despair. They repeatedly proved that the sons of God were not above sin. A man in that lineage, Lameck by name, slayed two people and Lord God avenged seventy and sevenfold.  God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  Apart from all these, the non cooperation of the angels too!

It repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved  him at his heart. But by now he had started loving man. Man should be independent in all aspects and pure without their blood being mixed up with that of the sons of God. Not only man but all that created should be independent. For that the God decided to destroy man and beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air and all that living on earth by flood and to restart everything with a few pairs of all living beings. Only Noah, the first son of Lamech, whom God found a just man and perfect in his generation, his wife, his sons and their wives would be saved and a new generation would be brought out of them. Each man should be entirely different from another. He should bear the identification of his ancestors.  His sins would be etched in the future generations also.  From looking at a person the entire history of his lineage should be known. He should be able to adapt to the climate and geography of the place where he dwells.  The sexual organs should develop naturally as he ages. It didn’t take a long time to see whether one was perfect and fit to attain the everlasting  life. So his life span would be fixed as one hundred and twenty years.

He directed Noah to make an arc of gopher wood and to take two male and female of every sort of living thigs to keep them alive with him. Later as a precautionary measure he asked to get five more pairs of the clean beasts and the fowls of the air. The rain was upon the earth for forty days and forty nights and the waters increased greatly upon the earth, submerging the earth and its great hills  and all flesh that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and of cattle and of beast and of every creeping things that creeped on the earth and every man died. All in whose nostrils were the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land died.

The Lord God cleansed the earth with water. He and the angels made the necessary changes in all those pairs of living beings that were shut up in the arc to lead a restful life. They were the new creations, capable of living an independent life. Jehovah was happy and made a wind to pass over the earth and the waters receded. The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. Finally the arc rested upon the mountains of Ararat and the waters were abated. When the land dried up Jehovah asked Noah to go out of the arc with his family and other living beings. Noah built an altar unto the lord and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

The Lord smelled a sweet savour and he was ecstatic  and said in his heart, Lo, the man has become able now. He will produce children from his loins. He will know me, his creator. I will bless Noah and his children. I will ask him to raise his children with faith in me, for I will bless those who believe in me. The faith in me will help him rule over temptations and he will be a happy man. Fear won’t approach him. Sins will abstain from him.  Evil deeds won’t attract him. I will talk with them when they worship me with gratitude for the blessings that I have bestowed upon them. I will lead them. I will give them their daily bread. I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake, for I know the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth, neither will I again smite any more every living thing as I have done.

While the earth remain, seed time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. God blessed Noah and his sons to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. He gave them authority over all living things. Man could eat everything but without shedding blood. Blood was as important to life as the breath and only Jehovah had the authority over it. He said, surely I will require your blood of your lives, at the hands of every beast will I require it and at the hand of man, at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.  Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.

 Later, Jehovah settled for the blood of animals sacrificed unto him instead of man’s blood and still later Jesus shed his blood as ransom for the whole world.  He who drinks his blood of the new testament bears his identification at the time of judgement.”

Manual paused when he realised that he had gone off track and started again. “Jehovah, satisfied with the new man, established a covenant with Noah and his sons. He set his bow in the cloud as a token of the covenant, between him and the earth, that whenever he brings a cloud over the earth, that bow shall be visible in the cloud to remind him of the covenant and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

Time became as it is today. The life span of man was fixed to be one hundred and twenty years.

Noah’s son Shem begat Ar-phaxad when he was an hundred years old. He lived for five hundred years and died. Ar-phaxad begat his son Sa-lah at thirty five and Sa-lah begat his son Eber at thirty. Eber begat Peleg at thirty four, Peleg begat Reu at thirty. Reu begat Serug at thirty two and Serug begat Nahor at thirty. Nahor became a father when he was twenty nine years old. Jehovah rejoiced and was proud when  each first born was begat. He asked the first borns of men and the beasts to be dedicated to him in return for his blessings.

The life span was also brought down to one hundred and twenty years. Though Jehovah had a role to play at times, by and large man became capable of standing on his own legs.

Nahor’s son Terah begat Abram totally independent of God’s help. Abram thus became the first true son of man.  Abram became the most favored among mankind. Jehovah decided to separate Abram and his sons from others. He said to Abram, get out of your country and from your kindred and from thy father’s house unto a land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. I will bless them that bless you and curse them that curse you, and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.

He turned a blind eye towards Abram’s follies. His leaving that place without permission and presenting Sara to be his sister, to save himself from the Egyptians, were pardoned. Rather the Egyptians were punished for Abram’s mistakes. Abram’s enemies were handed over into his hands and he was blessed with immense wealth.

Abram came out of Egypt with his wife and all that he had and took Lot with him into the south.  Abram and Lot separated and Lot decided to choose the plain of Jordan and journeyed east.

Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan and the Lord said unto him, Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are northward, and southward, and eastward and westward. For all the land you see, I will give it to you and to your seed for ever. And I’ll make your seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall your seed be also numbered.

Abram was worried when he delayed to begat a son. The Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not Abram, I am your shield and your exceeding great reward.  Abram complained that he was given no seed to be his heir.

The Lord comforted him by saying, he that shall come forth out of your own bowels shall be your heir.  He brought him forth outside and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if you are able to number them, so shall your seed be. The Lord God asked Abram to offer him an heifer, a she goat and a ram each three years old and a turtle dove and a young pigeon, And he took unto him all these and divided them in the midst and laid each piece one against another and the birds full. When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram and lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. Lord God made Abram a complete man while he was sleeping and when he woke up talked to Abram about the generations that was to proceed from him. When the sun went down, and it was dark, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces.

Sarai, impatient at her inability to bear Abram children compelled him to take Hagar and she conceived a son. Abram was eighty six years old then and the Lord God let out a sigh of relief for Abram was a complete man now.

Hagar was cast out by Sarai. But Jehovah sent an angel to protect her son  The angel asked Hagar to return to Sarai and blessed her, saying, I will multiply your seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. You shall bear a son and shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord had heard your affliction. And he will be a wild man, his hand will be against every man and every man’s hand against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.

Abram was ninety nine year old and the Lord decided to appear before Abram to reassure him that he had not forgotten about his heir from Sarai. The Almighty appeared before Abram and asked him to walk before him to be perfect. He made a covenant with Abram that he shall be a father of many nations. Abram shall be called Abraham henceforth. He said, I will make you exceeding fruitful and I will make nations of you and kings shall come out of you. I will give unto you, and to your seed after you, the land wherein you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their God, and make a covenant between me and you and your seeds that every manchild among you shall be circumcised. And the God continued, As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her and give you a son also of her. Yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations, kings of people shall be of her.

But Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his mind, shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old?  and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? to which God said, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son indeed and you shall call his name Issac.

When Abraham was staying in the plains of Mamre, God decided to appear before Sarah and to talk with her to strengthen her to bear a son to her husband though she had ceased to be after the manner of women. Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the Lord along with two angels. He treated them with food and they said unto him after they ate, Where is Sarah your wife?  He answered that she was in the tent. And God said, I will certainly return unto you according to the time of life and Lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son.

Sarah heard it and laughed within herself saying, after I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also. And the Lord said unto Abraham, wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old?  Abraham, is anything too hard for the Lord?  At the time appointed I will return unto you,  according to the time of life and Sarah shall have a son.

Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not, for she was afraid. And he said, Nay, but you did laugh. God and his angels rose for they had appeared before Sarah and had talked with her to strengthen her. Very soon Sarah conceived and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called him Issac and got assurance from God that in Issac shall his seed be called. The Lord wanted to strengthen Issac from his childhood onwards. For that he wished to appear before him, He said unto Abraham, Take now your son, your only son Issac whom you love and get you into the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell you of. Abraham rose up early in the morning and started with Issac and servants to that place.

Abraham was about to sacrifice his son when the angel of the Lord called him and said, lay not your hand  upon the lad neither do you any thing unto him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, thine only son from me!

Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and saw a ram caught in a thicket by his horns and he offered the ram up for burnt offering instead of his son. The angel of the Lord called Abraham from the heaven the second time and blessed him again that his seeds would be multiplied as the stars of the heaven and as the sand upon the seashore, and that his seed shall possess the gate of his enemies and in his seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice when I asked you to bring him before me and sacrifice him.

Issac was forty years old when he took Rebekah as his wife. She was barren and Issac intreated the Lord for his wife and the Lord was intreated and Rabekah conceived twins when Issac was sixty years old. The Lord said unto her, two nations are there in your womb and two manner of people shall be separated from your bowels, and the one people shall be stronger than the other people and the elder shall serve the younger.

Esau came out of the womb first and Jacob came out holding on his brother’s heel. Esau angered God when he despised his birthright for  a single serving of food. He was cursed and Jacob was blessed for he fought for the birthright. He grabbed the blessings of his father deceitfully and the elder had to serve the younger.

Jacob fled from that place and on his way he dreamed of a ladder set on earth that reached to heaven and saw the angels ascending and descending on it. Lord God appeared to him in his dream and blessed him the same blessing that he had given to Abraham.

He married Leah and Rachel, daughters of Laban but the Lord God had to open their wombs. The Lord God decided to cast his hand upon Jacob and rectify the minor mistakes so that he hadn’t have to interfere in man’s affairs ever again.

When Jacob was alone, the Lord wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. He touched the hollow of his thigh and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint and he wrestled with him. By day break he had achieved his purpose and wanted to leave. But Jacob asked for his blessing and the God blessed him saying, your name shall not be called Jacob anymore,  But Israel, for as a prince you have power with God and with men and has prevailed.

This was God’s last direct interaction with mankind. Never after did he appear before man for this purpose in his true form. Abraham, Issac and Jacob, the first borns, became the favorites of God!” Manual stopped. Then continued after a while, “Do you understand why Jehovah flare up when the mankind, that he had brought up so meticulously, with deep involvement, hoping the keep them away from tempters, to make them perfect so that he could give them everlasting life, deny him and ignore him and waver in their faith and ridicule him by turning to idol worship?  He, who rejoiced at every child’s birth, had started loving mankind so much.  Can you imagine the quantum of his love for mankind whom he had sustained over thousands and thousands of years and multiplied as the stars of the heaven and as the sand that is on the  seashore? When you are amazed by a mother’s love for her child whom she carry in her womb for only nine months, how much should you be amazed by your Heavenly Father’s love?  Do you understand why Jehovah gave the first commandment as, You shall have no other Gods before me. You shall not make unto you any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them, for I Lord, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing  mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments?”

Litha shook her head in answer to that. And Manual continued, “But most of the mankind didn’t understand Jehovah’s love for them.  They murmured against him. They worshipped idols. They succumbed to temptations and became the sons of Satan. It was as a last attempt he had sent his son to reclaim them and give them the fruits of everlasting life on which they had their rights. There are many who still don’t believe even on him! What can be said about them! Man, shame upon you for indulging in sins without understanding the love of God.”