Jacob at the River

Morning Light

From Genesis 32:  The same night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.  He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.  Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

At the riverside alone at night, Jacob wrestles with an unknown power, in the end revealed to be God.
The divine can lurk at the water's edge.  Jacob limped across the Jabbok in the morning light, with a new name and a blessing, Israel.

Three Views

I tokk the picture above at about 8:30 in the morning,  In the early afternoon,  Jack and I walked to the lawn visible in the picture above as a small triangle just to the right of the riverbend.  I took a picture looking back to the bridge.

I took another looking a the "rapids" just downstream.

Clear River

The river flows clear,

Still with strength from recent rains,

Carrying its weight.

For the Healing of the Nations

In the book of Revelation, the river running out of the City of God has the tree of life on either side. The leaves of the trees are "for the healing of the nations."  This evocative phrase does not lend itself to easy interpretation in the Biblical context.

In our current environment, knowing how the leaves of trees work to absorb the carbon dioxide loading up our atmosphere, all our leaves serve as healers, for all nations, for all Earth.

Revelation

Rivers run through the Bible.  The four in Genesis 2 begin the river theme.  The very last chapter of the last book, Revelation, begins with this description, "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.  On either side of the river, is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations."

Genesis

Rivers do better in the Bible than the sea.  The opening words of Genesis describe "the spirit of God moving over the face of the waters," and all being "without form and void," the ocean as primal chaos.

The second story of creation, found in Genesis 2, describes the Garden of Eden, which has not one, but four rivers flowing through it.  If Eden were our corner of Vermont, these would be the Ompompanoosuc, White, Ottauquechee and Black Rivers.  Summer in Vermont, close to Eden.

Return

A break in the rain today brought some late sunlight.  

"This river begins as all rivers do, with a drop of rain, a wisp of fog.  It gathers on stone, amid fern, and weeps from the branches of wind-shaped spruce."  - Nathaniel Tripp, from Confluence

I took this picture just before I left for Virginia, at 6 a.m.