July 31, 2004

Reading through the Bible in one Year: 2 Kings 21-25

Weekly Memory Verse: Hebrews 4:12

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

Genesis 25:1-11 (NASB95)
¹ Now Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. ² She bore to him Zimran and Jokshan and Medan and Midian and Ishbak and Shuah. ³ Jokshan became the father of Sheba and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim and Letushim and Leummim. ⁴ The sons of Midian were Ephah and Epher and Hanoch and Abida and Eldaah. All these were the sons of Keturah. ⁵ Now Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac; ⁶ but to the sons of his concubines, Abraham gave gifts while he was still living, and sent them away from his son Isaac eastward, to the land of the east. ⁷ These are all the years of Abraham’s life that he lived, one hundred and seventy-five years. ⁸ Abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe old age, an old man and satisfied with life; and he was gathered to his people. ⁹ Then his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, facing Mamre, ¹⁰ the field which Abraham purchased from the sons of Heth; there Abraham was buried with Sarah his wife. ¹¹ It came about after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac; and Isaac lived by Beer-lahai-roi.^[1]

Abraham took another wife, after Sarah had died.  All of his sons turned into great nations, including the ones from the second marriage.  One that we run across later is the Midianites, V. 4. The point of this is that God continued to bless Abraham in his old age up to the point of his death.  God is faithful beyond all of our wildest expectations.  He lived a total of 175 years and was buried in the cave with Sarah. 

It is interesting though that he sent all of his other kids away since they were not the children of promise. He did not totally cut them out of the inheritance though, they were given gifts while he was alive.  but once he died, everything went to Isaac.  I was reading up on this, and it seems that the laws are different for concubines. Keturah was considered a concubine, which is an interesting word, it means a secondary wife, or one which is of lower rank than another wife.  In this case Keturah was legally married to Abraham, but still considered to be a concubine. The concubine or second wife did not have the privileges that the first wife did.  This was introduced when polygamy came into being.  Some consider Hagar to have been a concubine, but she fell under a different distinction, she was considered to be a slave-wife, which also robbed her children of the privileges of being heirs.  Webster defines concubine: "a woman with whom a man cohabits without being married: as (a:) one having a recognized social status in a household below that of a wife, (b:) Mistress."  For what it is worth, it was a loophole which established that the sons of the concubines were not entitled to any of the privileges of the original sons.  They were allowed to receive gifts from the father during his life, but were cut out of the inheritance.

Genesis 25:12-18 (NASB95)
¹² Now these are the records of the generations of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maid, bore to Abraham; ¹³ and these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, in the order of their birth: Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael, and Kedar and Adbeel and Mibsam ¹⁴ and Mishma and Dumah and Massa, ¹⁵ Hadad and Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah. ¹⁶ These are the sons of Ishmael and these are their names, by their villages, and by their camps; twelve princes according to their tribes. ¹⁷ These are the years of the life of Ishmael, one hundred and thirty-seven years; and he breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people. ¹⁸ They settled from Havilah to Shur which is east of Egypt as one goes toward Assyria; he settled in defiance of all his relatives.

Genesis 16:9-12 (NASB95)
⁹ Then the angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.” ¹⁰ Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.” ¹¹ The angel of the Lord said to her further, “Behold, you are with child, And you will bear a son; And you shall call his name Ishmael, Because the Lord has given heed to your affliction. ¹² “He will be a wild donkey of a man, His hand will be against everyone, And everyone’s hand will be against him; And he will live to the east of all his brothers.”^[2]

Ishmael had twelve sons, God certainly blessed him and made him a great nation, just as He had promised Hagar in 16:10.  Also according to the words of the Angel, Ishmael had his hand against everyone.  Reflecting on this, I can understand part of the problem, Ishmael was Abraham's firstborn, he should have stood for the inheritance of Abraham.  Yet he was banished from the land, can you imagine the bitterness that was possible in his life?  To add insult to injury, the laws of the land made it legal for Abraham to cut a son of a slave wife out of the inheritance. We have stated before that he was the father of the Arabs, and the contrary spirit continues in his descendants to this day. Please note:

“But as elsewhere, Genesis is not interested in sociological observation or historical anecdote for its own sake but in theology, in the fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham. At first blush, this family history of Ishmael has nothing to do with this fulfillment theme; Ishmael is, like Cain, Ham, or Esau, one of the cul-de-sacs in divine history, a man who is by-passed in the unfolding of God’s promises recorded in Genesis. Yet he, too, was the subject of divine promises. His mother, Hagar, was assured that he would “dwell opposite all his brothers” (16:12), while his father, Abraham, was assured that he would father twelve princes and become a great nation (17:20). This short family history of Ishmael records the fulfillment of both these promises (25:16, 18). If the Lord fulfilled these rather minor promises, he will surely fulfill his much greater promises through the chosen line of Isaac. This section therefore encourages the reader to follow with eager anticipation the family history of Isaac that is about to begin. If God did not overlook his promises to Ishmael, how much more certainly will he fulfill those guaranteed by oath to Abraham about Isaac and his descendants.”^[3]

Genesis 25:19-26 (NASB95)
¹⁹ Now these are the records of the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham became the father of Isaac; ²⁰ and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife. ²¹ Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived. ²² But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why then am I this way?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. ²³ The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; And two peoples will be separated from your body; And one people shall be stronger than the other; And the older shall serve the younger.” ²⁴ When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. ²⁵ Now the first came forth red, all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau. ²⁶ Afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so his name was called Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them. ^[4]

It is interesting that the Lord gave Isaac a wife that was barren.  His mother was barren until an old age when God opened her womb.  Isaac had to pray to God for Him to open the womb so that she could have children.  Faith was a necessary ingredient that was passed from the father to the son, then to the nation of Israel.  There are many sons of Abraham, but the sons of promise live on faith.  Paul wrote that Christians are spiritual jews, and as a result of our belief in Jesus and our faith in Him, we are children of Abraham by faith.  Consider that faith was import enough for God to make it a point in Isaac's life as an example to all of us. 

Isaac was 60 years old when the boys were born, (v.26), he waited 20 years for God to fulfill the promise.  I wonder if he learned the lesson from his father regarding getting ahead of God in having children by another wife.  He had the same opportunity as Abraham and Sarah had, the law of the land had not changed.  Note also that Jacob's wife of the future, Rachael was also barren...

The two nations that were in her womb were the Edomites and Israel.  God repeated the pattern set by Abraham and Sarah, the older was not the child of promise, the younger was.  Esau literally meant "red", it was also similar to the word "hairy".  He was true to his name and turned out to be a rugged individual.  He was not the child of promise, and later when the Jews are exiling from Egypt, great animosity is displayed from them.  Jacob meant "one who takes by the heel or supplants" according to the NASB footnotes.  As we study further we will find out that he was quite a stinker, deception was an undercurrent that ran for his entire life.  God did not choose the "manly man" to father his nation, he chose a peace loving trickster to father his chosen people. 

Another thought on this, Abraham was called the father of many nations, and yet he did not even have any grandchildren at the time of his death.  Faith continued the lineage, where descendants almost looked impossible.

Genesis 25:27-34 (NASB95)
²⁷ When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a peaceful man, living in tents. ²⁸ Now Isaac loved Esau, because he had a taste for game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. ²⁹ When Jacob had cooked stew, Esau came in from the field and he was famished; ³⁰ and Esau said to Jacob, “Please let me have a swallow of that red stuff there, for I am famished.” Therefore his name was called Edom. ³¹ But Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” ³² Esau said, “Behold, I am about to die; so of what use then is the birthright to me?” ³³ And Jacob said, “First swear to me”; so he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. ³⁴ Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he ate and drank, and rose and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.^[5]

Jacob bought Esau's birthright for a cup of stew.  This story is famous, most Christians are familiar with this story because it tells so well.  Human nature likes it when a something for nothing story is told.  However, even if Jacob had not bought this birthright, it would have been irrelevant.  God had already promised that the blessing would fall upon him.  This is an example of a sin that was passed down from the father to the sons, Abraham had attempted to help God out by getting Hagar pregnant.  Now Jacob carries on the same line of helping God out by buying the birthright from his brother.  Sin has a stiff penalty, later we will find that in order to keep this purchase, he has to draw in his mother in the deception of his father.  So the sin that originated with Jacob drew in his innocent mother and caused her to sin, which set up the possibility of marital conflict between his mother and his father.  One deception leads to another, which draws out another and so on.  There is a high price to pay when we get in the way of God's plan.

What would have happened if he had not purchased the birthright with the bowl of soup?  Since the deception was brought between these two twin brothers, an root of bitterness was sown in their lives.  This root of bitterness will later cause tremendous problems for the Jews and the Edomites.  One thing to consider on this is that God had already stated that the older would serve the younger.  If it were done in God's way, leaning upon Him in faith, could it be that some of the later conflicts would be avoided? 

We don't think about the results of sin when we are involved in it.  Some believe that the situation justifies stretching the truth, or even outright lies.  Take for instance going to the movies, there was a time when you could get into a drive-in for a few bucks, and enjoy all the movies for the evening on that price.  Today we have gone mostly to walk in theaters, where you are expected to pay for each movie.  It is common for people to pay for the first movie, then "movie hop", cheating the theater out of the fare for the second movie.  Some justify this by saying that the tickets are too high to start with, or that they just can't afford a second ticket.  In the end, the lie colors a persons life, stealing becomes easier, deception does not seem as bad.  Consider also that their children are taught that their needs outweigh the needs of others.  Their children are taught to lie.  The point is that sin breeds more sin, deception does not stay simple, it gets complicated as it is passed on.

Heb 12:16  Esau was considered godless and profane since he was willing to pass off his birthright for a bowl of stew. 

More could be said, but I am reaching the limit of my time.  If you have additional comments, please feel free to write in. 

Questions for thought:

1.      Considering the faith that Isaac displayed in praying for sons, what does this passage teach us about faith?

2.       What is the significance of Jacob bargaining with Esau for the birthright?

Father, as we consider Your word today, we praise You for the lesson in faith.  Open our eyes so that we can see the importance of faith, and the importance of purity in our lives.  Give each one of us a heart toward removing deception and inconsistencies in our lives.

In Him,

Joe Turner.