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Author and presidential historian Jane Hampton Cook is scheduled to speak at the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. on inauguration weekend, Sat. Jan. 18, 2025, at 1 p.m. Her topic is the Bible and Washington’s Inauguration. Stop by if you’re in town.
On April 30, 1789, Washington took the oath of office on a 1767 King James Version of the Bible printed in England. After reciting the oath from Federal Hall’s balcony in New York overlooking Broad Street, he kissed the Bible.
Washington made it clear that his first official act as president was to offer supplications to God and point Americans to his Providence. In fact, he explained that failing to call upon God would be “peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act.”
Washington described God as “that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations.” This comes from Genesis 35:11 in the King James Bible: “And God said unto him (Adam), I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins.”
Washington used his inaugural address to declare that God’s “providential aids” made up for “every human defect” in the nation’s founding. He said that “Every step, by which they (the American people) have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.”
For example, in mid-December 1776, Washington knew his army was about to dissolve because his men’s enlistments expired at the end of the year, on December 31, 1776. He wrote an officer: “I trust under the smiles of Providence, we may yet effect an important stroke.”
That important stroke came two weeks later when Washington and his men crossed the Delaware River and defeated the enemy at the Battle of Trenton. Afterwards, Washington wrote his stepson, Jackie Custis, that “Providence has heretofore saved us in a remarkable manner, and on this we must principally rely.” He continued to look for the hand of Providence throughout the war.
In Genesis 35:11, God was speaking to Jacob, not Adam. Adam was long gone from the scene at this point. This was the promise of God, first spoken to Abraham, then repeated to Jacob, that God would bless the nations through the Israelite people. It is a prophecy that the Messiah who is going to bless the nations will be born through the Israelites.