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Tuesday 21 July 2015

Wife confused for sister 'featuring Abraham, Sarah, and Abimelech'



Her insolent treatment of Sarah was utterly indefensible. First, Sarah died. (Incidentally, the Hebrew word used in verse 12 is the same word describing the “deep sleep” that Adam fell into when the Lord took his rib to make Eve.) This detail about Abraham’s sleep is given to stress the covenant was completely unconditional. It was a completely one-sided covenant.

Genesis Commentary chapters 24:61-27 (part 10)

Jacob separated himself from his flocks and family and remained on the far side of the Jabbok river. In any case, the isolation of Jacob there at Penuel matches his isolation at Bethel at the beginning of his journey. Or he was going to call on God for help again (see 32:9–12), or it may have been both. This whole sordid plan was, after all, her big idea. Should Jacob’s behavior be construed as an act of cowardice, or did he just need time alone to contemplate his future? The narrative does not tell us for sure. In its Priestly form the covenant was termed everlasting. So they came to the land of Canaan” (Gen. Covenant. (That’s close to the head of the Persian Gulf in a region that is part of present-day Iraq.) Abraham’s hometown was a famous urban center known as Ur of the Chaldeans. A succession of covenants progressively builds and defines the relationship of God with his world beginning with Noah, continuing with Abraham, and culminating with Moses at Mount Sinai.

Genesis | Jerry and God: The Pictorial, Archaeological, and ...

Yet God kept giving her reasons to hope. The covenant was a unilateral promise from God to Abraham about what He, YHWH, would do. 12:5 NKJV).

Sarah Abraham's Wife

The Angel of Yhwh called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, “I swear by myself (Yhwh’s oracle) that because you did this, you did not withhold your son, your only one, I will richly bless you and greatly increase your offspring, like the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea shore. Yes, as the spiritual head of the household, Abraham should have rejected Sarah’s plan out of hand—but it’s still not quite fair to pin all the guilt on him. It may have been part of his scheme to distance himself from Esau, using his dependents and estate as buffers. No doubt, Hagar knew all too well about Sarah’s extreme grief over her own barrenness. Now she was deliberately putting salt in Sarah’s wound. And your offspring will inherit the gate of their enemies. It is significant that verse 12 says a deep sleep fell on Abraham; then the Lord single-handedly carried out the covenant ceremony. God bound himself by oath to fulfill his promises. Scripture tells us, “Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. Joseph is the son who receives the greatest attention; although he was the firstborn of Rachel, he was not the firstborn overall. Both leaving and returning, Jacob met his God alone.

It is true that Sarah was being unreasonable. Judah was one of the youngest sons of Jacob and Leah, yet he became one

b. Reuben was the firstborn, but he was denied preeminence because he slept with one of Jacob’s wives. In Genesis 15:7–21, YHWH restated and expanded His promise to Abraham, then formally ratified the covenant. Since Hagar was the servant and Sarah the one in charge, this was the most brazen kind of deliberate impudence.

Notice that the biblical account of Abraham’s life likewise doesn’t really begin until he was seventy-five. After the testing of Abraham, the cycle seems to end quickly. It made no demands of Abraham or Sarah whatsoever. On the other hand, this fit of Sarah’s was deliberately provoked by Hagar. Abraham approached Ephron, a Hittite who owned property near Hebron, and bought from him a field that contained a cave, called the Cave of Machpelah, where he buried Sarah (Figure 2.4).

Leaving Haran after burying his father, Abraham still had quite a large caravan. All the nations of the earth will bless themselves through your offspring, because you obeyed my voice.” (22:15–18)

The Joseph cycle continues the theme of birth order and birthrights found in both the Abraham and Jacob cycles. All we are told is that he had been born and raised in Sumeria, lower Mesopotamia, near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The relationship between God and the ancestors was formalized by covenants.

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