Today’s Scripture Reading (February
25, 2016): 1 Chronicles 5
In her book “High
on Arrival,” Mackenzie Phillips describes her decade long incestuous relationship
with her father, Mama and Papa’s singer John Phillips. According to Mackenzie,
John had been her drug partner since the age of eleven, and had even injected
her with cocaine and heroin. Mackenzie says that she remembers waking up one
night when she was eighteen and realized that she was having sex with her own
father. After that moment, a consensual relationship began that lasted a
decade, and ended only after Mackenzie got pregnant and was unsure who the
father was. At that time, dad paid for an abortion and she never let him touch
her again.
But there
are other family members who just aren’t sure that the story is true. Two of
Mackenzie’s step moms, Genevieve Waite (who was married to John at the time
that the incest began) and Michelle Phillips, are not sure that Mackenzie is
telling the truth. Both agree that such a relationship would be deeply out of
character for John. John died in 2001, eight years before Mackenzie made her public
allegations, so we may never know the truth.
The
Chronicler reveals the reason why Reuben is not dealt with first in his
writings even though Reuben was the first born son of Jacob. And the reason for
the later mention of Reuben is that he was disqualified from the rights of the
first born because he had defiled his father Jacob’s marriage bed. The story is
that Reuben slept with the Bilhah, his step-mother Rachel’s maid. Rachel was
the preferred or favorite wife of Jacob, while Reuben was the son of Rachel’s
older sister Leah. But because Jacob had also slept with Bilhah and she had
produced two sons, Dan and Naphtali, for Jacob, Jacob considered this a
defilement of his rights. And, therefore, he stripped Reuben of his rights as
the first born child, which according to some Rabbi’s included the right to
rule over his brothers which eventually went to Judah, and the right to be the
priests of the family, a privilege which was given to Levi.
But, as it
seems with any family squabble, it isn’t entirely clear exactly what it was
that Reuben did. Some evidence seems to indicate that Reuben didn’t actually
sleep with Bilhah, but rather that after the death of Rachel, Reuben moved
Bilhah’s bed away from Jacob’s. The move was an apparent defense of his own
mother, Leah, who with Rachel gone now possessed the rights as the only actual
wife of Jacob. But Jacob was angered by the move because Bilhah had become the
surrogate for Rachel. The argument is that this scenario is much more in
keeping with the personality of Reuben who seemed to be the defender of the
family structure (he even attempted to defend his brother, the dreamer Joseph,
when his brothers had decided to kill him.) But the reality is that we will
probably never know exactly what happened, only that Reuben was demoted as a
result of his actions.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1
Chronicles 6
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