The Bible by David Alley

In this video listen to Genesis 50 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 50 Jacob is embalmed and mourned for 70 days in the Egyptian style. Pharoahs usually had 72 days of mourning, so this is quite an honor given to Jacob. Jacob is then taken back to Hebron to be buried. Joseph then has to reassure his brothers who now panic that revenge might come because their Dad is...

In this video listen to Genesis 49 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 49 Jacob is 147 years old, and is on his death bed. He now proceeds to prophecy and bless his twelve sons. Some of the blessings don’t seem very good for them, but are accurate as our knowledge of history shows. The most profound of all the blessings is for Judah, his fourth son. Judah is told that...

In this video listen to Genesis 48 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 48 Jacob recounts the things God said to him, and passes it onto his son and grandsons. This is a picture of Christianity, and that God’s promises are not for us alone, but for us and our children, and spiritual descendants after us. We are a people. We need to pass on what God has given to us .Next...

In this video listen to Genesis 47 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 47 Jacob gets to meet Pharoah and says something of great interest. He confesses that though he is 130 years old, his life has been short, and full of problems. While his aged seems old to us, it is short in comparison to his forefathers and others in the Bible. It reminds us of the commandment to h...

In this video listen to Genesis 46 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 46 at Beersheba God speaks to Jacob to reassure him. THey are on teh edge of Canaan leaving for Egypt to go to Joseph, and must have had many questions. God confirms his word to Jacob, and also what he had previously said to ABraham in Genesis 15;13 that “his descendants would be strangers in a land...

In this video listen to Genesis 45 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 45 Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and they were terrified. That one word says a lot about the state of their emotions right in that moment. Forgiveness was not common in the ancient world, and revenge was. However Joseph’s reassurance must have done a lot. Another thing that would certainly...

In this video listen to Genesis 44 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 44 Joseph tests his brothers one more time with the ultimate character test. He wants to see if they hate his brother, who is undoubtedly also a favourite, in the same way they hated him. They prove him wrong, and demonstrate how profoundly they have changed as a family. Before Joseph was a slave th...

In this video listen to Genesis 43 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 43 we see that the famine is used by God in multiple ways. It was used to elevate Joseph, and to save Jacob’s family and now to force them to come to Egypt. God is remarkable in how he uses circumstances to bring about his will. Jacob is too fragile to allow Benjamin to go, so Judah displays real sa...

In this video listen to Genesis 42 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 42 Joseph must have surely realised that the dreams he had as a teenager were coming to pass. His trust in God and commitment to righteousness has paid off. But just the same, he now has to overcome possibly the greatest test so far… the desire for revenge. What looks like him being mean to his brot...

In this video listen to Genesis 41 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 41 Pharoah now has dreams, and his magicians are inept. Once again the Lord interprets the dreams. The Bible.org commentary tells us that Joseph was 30 years old here, so 13 years after he was sold into slavery. Dreams are like personal parables and the Lord speaks to all of us in our own way. The k...

In this video listen to Genesis 40 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 40 we start to see dreams and their interpretation figure in the Bible. A theological statement is made by Joseph when he says ‘Don’t interpretations belong to God?’ Finally someone here has their thinking straight. Previously of course his father Jacob experienced God at Bethel in a dream, and prio...

In this video listen to Genesis 39 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 39 Joseph is sold into the house of a prominent Egyptian, Potiphar. He serves wholeheartedly and rises to a good position. The Lord is with him. Potiphar’s wife notices Joseph and tempts him with sex, and very strangely for the times, he doesn’t go through with it. This is very contrasting to the pr...

In this video listen to Genesis 38 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 38 there seems to be an interruption to the Joseph story, but it is placed here for a reason. It is going to starkly compare Joseph’s righteous behaviour to follow, with the unrighteous things going on by his family left behind. Joseph still had much to learn, but he had the grace of God, and was ri...

In this video listen to Genesis 37 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 37 the effects of Jacob’s favoritism of Joseph end up hurting him. It’s a powerful reminder that having a favorite child is not good for your family. If you have non natural children such as foster children, step children, or others under your care, you need to seek God for grace, and determine to b...

In this video listen to Genesis 36 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 36 we have the one chapter in the Bible that goes into the family tree of Esau, Jacob’s brother. The land of Edom has a place right through scriptures. There are prophecies in Isaiah and elsewhere about Edom. Also King Herod who ruled Judea much later was an Idumean, that is an Edomite. Also the inc...

In this video listen to Genesis 35 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 35 the deaths of three people are recounted, first being Deborah’s Jacob’s mothers nurse, who would have been quite elderly, perhaps, 140. The second to die was Rachel, Jacob’s favourite wife and Joseph’s mother at a young age of perhaps 36, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia ( http://www.jewishen...

In this video listen to Genesis 34 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 34 we see the behaviour of some of Jacob’s sons. Firstly in deception, then in murder and brutality. They also acted without thought of the future consequences of their behaviour. Jacob’s daughter Dinah is taken inappropriately, and the young man Schechem wants to marry her. He is willing to pay a h...

In this video listen to Genesis 33 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 33 Jacob gets ready to meet Esau’s coming army of 400 men. He orders his family by how much he loves them, and this must have felt terrible to the women and children. Later we see in the story of Jacob how this favouritism played out. Jacob probably wasn’t aware of how his attitudes would affect his...

In this video listen to Genesis 32 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 32 Jacob gets the terrible news that his brother is coming with an army of 400 soldiers to meet him. It cannot possibly be good news. Jacob does what is practical, dividing his family into two groups, giving better odds for one group to survive, and he also sends a messenger and gifts to his brother...

In this video listen to Genesis 30 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 30 infertility is again an issue in the scriptures and Rachel is unable to have children. She copies Sarah - her grandmother in law and gives her servant to her husband. This time there is no competition between servant and owner, but there is competition between sisters and wives, Leah and Rachel....

In this video listen to Genesis 29 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 29 Jacob arrives in Haran, and helps his cousin Rachel to water her sheep. The custom at that place was to cover the well with a stone, and Rachel was too weak to move it on her own, and for this reason shepherds, who were probably young, would gather at the same time to water. Cooperation here betw...

In this video listen to Genesis 28 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. In Genesis 28 Rebekah sends Jacob away to her brother, and Esau finally realises (at the age of 77) that his Canaanite wives displease his parents. Esau now takes another wife (this makes 3) for himself from one of Ishmael’s daughters - a cousin of his. Here we see an example of him now trying to honor his par...

In this video listen to Genesis 27 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. Genesis 27 contains the fascinating story of Jacob’s deceit of his father Isaac so as to steal the blessing from his brother Esau. Isaac is at this point 137 years old and Jacob and Esau are 77, which is much older than we often think. Esau previously despised his inheritance and dishonoured his parents and ma...

In this video listen to Genesis 26 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. Genesis 26 tells of how Isaac prospered during a famine. He went to the land of the Philistines where he not only prospered, but repeated the sins of his father ABraham in lying about his wife. This shows us that we must be careful how we act, because our children pick up our values and way of life. Later in t...

In this video listen to Genesis 25 read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer. Genesis 25 shows us that Abraham actually had many more children and outlines who they are and their descendants. Abraham dies at 175, which was old enough to have met his grandsons, Esau and Jacob who would have been 15 at the time. Isaac was 75 when he buried his father and Ishmael was 88. We then go on to h...