At first glance, the Watchtower Study for Sunday seemed it be something of a yawner. Jacob’s deathbed prophesy to the last eight of his twelve sons (the first four were last week), and for most he didn’t have much to say. At least it was blessings, the Watchtower conductor observed, and not ‘You kids are driving me crazy! You’ll be the death of me. In fact, you were!’
But, again, once you mix in the published text with fifty or sixty comments from the congregation, it turns around. What threatens to be dull becomes engrossing. The thing about the meetings, one newcomer told me long ago, is that you can prepare for them. It was a no-brainer to me, but he was contrasting it with his previous church experience, in which you cannot.
With Gad, someone observed in paragraph 8 that it didn’t go according to plan. The Israelites were all supposed to cross the Jordan and settle west, but Gad wanted to stay on the east, which he did. He didn’t beg off, though. The tribe did cross to aid in conquering the promised land, but when the conquest was complete, they crossed back. This means there’s hope for guys like me, I figure, who does not do everything the conventional way—such as spending inordinate time online—but also fully ‘fights’ in the conventional way of door-to-door and regular meeting attendance. I mean, let your unconventionality extend to forsaking meetings and you become like the ember removed from the center that goes out; it goes out, not as a punishment from men, but as a law of physics. Hebrews says (10:24-25) that you’re not supposed to do that.
Then there was Benjamin (paragraph 17), the tribe of the 700 men who “could sling a stone to within a hairbreadth and would not miss.” These are the guys you want when you are choosing up sides for dodgeball. It is also the case that when people have special abilities, they can begin to think themselves special and not subject to the norms that guide everyone else. (Sometimes I imagine I see people like this online.) Yet, the Benjaminites were loyal throughout to the cause. Even when their guy got ousted as the first king, they supported the arrangement that saw the prize going to another tribe.
All twelve sons covered within a two-week period. And no, it was not me who observed that, whereas Reuben lost some privileges that ordinarily would have come his way, he at least got a sandwich named for him. And “gadfly” has nothing to do with Gad. It derives much later as a stinging insect that torments bigger animals. Socrates described himself as a gadfly stinging the ‘animal’ that was Athens, challenging the norms then prevailing.
****** The bookstore
Leave a Reply