The Abraham Story Part 19: Birth of Isaac

The Abraham Story  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  1:02:09
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In chapter 20 we have seen Abraham behave like the deceiver again and the king who is not a believer act like the righteous.
Genesis 20:8–18 CSB
8 Early in the morning Abimelech got up, called all his servants together, and personally told them all these things, and the men were terrified. 9 Then Abimelech called Abraham in and said to him, “What have you done to us? How did I sin against you that you have brought such enormous guilt on me and on my kingdom? You have done things to me that should never be done.” 10 Abimelech also asked Abraham, “What made you do this?” 11 Abraham replied, “I thought, ‘There is absolutely no fear of God in this place. They will kill me because of my wife.’ 12 Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. 13 So when God had me wander from my father’s house, I said to her: Show your loyalty to me wherever we go and say about me, ‘He’s my brother.’ ” 14 Then Abimelech took flocks and herds and male and female slaves, gave them to Abraham, and returned his wife Sarah to him. 15 Abimelech said, “Look, my land is before you. Settle wherever you want.” 16 And he said to Sarah, “Look, I am giving your brother one thousand pieces of silver. It is a verification of your honor to all who are with you. You are fully vindicated.” 17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female slaves so that they could bear children, 18 for the Lord had completely closed all the wombs in Abimelech’s household on account of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
"So Abimelech got up early in the morning," like you would too, "and he called all his servants, he called all the men, right? And he told them, 'Don't go near this lady.' And the men were freaked out very much. 
And so Abimelech called to Avraham and he said to him," and what he says to him is exactly what God said to Adam and Eve, and exactly what God said to Cain. "'What is this that you have done? 
What moral failure have I done against you that you would bring on me and my kingdom this great moral failure? Doings that should never be done. That's what you've done to me.'
And Abimelech said, 'What is it that you saw that you have done this thing?'"
There's a wordplay in this section, 'cause the word "to be afraid" in Hebrew is spelled with the same letters in different order for the word "to see."
So Abimelech told the, his servants and they were afraid. And then he asked Avram, what did you see? Like, what did you, when you came into my city, what did you see that motivated you to do this really stupid thing? And Avraham said, "Well, it's because when I entered this, you know, pagan sin city, I thought to myself, 'Oh, people don't fear God around here.
They're gonna murder me on account of my wife.'" So do you get the irony here? Who actually does fear God?
Abimelech does. Who is the one who doesn't fear God? 
So Avraham was afraid he would get murdered, but in fact he has no fear of God in this story and he almost got the whole city murdered. Yeah, that's what Abimelech said. And then look at this, remember the blame shifting thing from the garden? 
"She technically is my kind of my sister, right? She's the daughter of my father, just not the daughter of my mother. And so she became my, with a family marriage thing.
And so when Elohim made me wander from the house of my father, I said to her, 'Here's how you can show loyalty to me. Wherever we go just tell people you're my brother.'" He's trying to like lessen it, make it seem less offensive. Like he almost put the whole life of the city at stake for his own, like, insecurities.
"So Abimelech took flocks and cattle and slaves and female slaves." Have we been here before?
Abraham, "He gave them to Avraham. He returned him to Sarah his wife. And Abimelech said, 'Look, you're clearly really special to your God, 'cause he puts up with you and woke me up last night.
So listen, you can stay wherever you want in my land.
Wherever it's good in your eyes, make camp.'
To Sarah he said, 'Look, here's a thousand silver pieces that I just gave to your brother. Let's just consider it a covering of the eyes.'" Think Genesis 3, where it was all about your eyes will be opened.
Let's just pretend this never happened. Let's cover it all up. Here's the money. Let's pretend it's covering over the eyes for everyone with you. No one will think I slept with you. Here's the hush money, it's hush money. "'As for everything, you were beyond dispute.'
So Avraham prayed to Elohim, and Elohim healed Abimelech and his wife and his female slaves, and they were able to give birth because Yahweh had restrained the wombs of the house of Abimelech on account of Sarah, the wife of Avraham." And that's the last sentence in the story.
So you remember God said, return the man's wife and he'll pray for you. Avraham will pray for you, so that you can have life. And you were kind of like, "Okay, I guess. I guess your life was at risk if you don't return him." And now you realize, like, Yahweh was withholding fertility from the whole city because he had ignorantly taken of the forbidden thing.
And so look here, finally, Avraham is playing the right role, interceding so that there can be Eden for the nations. But man, it's like Yahweh has to really work overtime to get Avraham to do the thing that he called him to do. And so these stories are so interesting.
It's once again, God working with very imperfect covenant partners. And Yahweh has to get so involved and clean up after his chosen one. And for me, the stark image here is the righteous king who's so righteous he has to intercede for himself. Whereas the guy we think would be the righteous chosen one is totally abdicating his responsibility. And God puts up with it. He puts up with it. And he has to, like, force Avraham to play the role that he wants him to play.
God's people are often God's biggest obstacle to his purposes among the nations, yeah. It's a fascinating theme that you would not expect to find in, well, I don't know what we should expect to find in the Bible, but there it is and it's a big thing.
It's also true.
It's just like true historically. Whether it's Israel or the Church or whatever, it's just, it's very true to life, isn't it?
Genesis 20:17–18 CSB
17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female slaves so that they could bear children, 18 for the Lord had completely closed all the wombs in Abimelech’s household on account of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.
One last little note just to say, when Avraham prays and the wombs are opened, it's because Yahweh had restrained the womb. You remember back in chapter 16, when Sarah had this great plan about how she was gonna build herself up. Do you remember what she said to Avraham? She said, "Listen, Yahweh's the one who has restrained my womb." And here Yahweh is restraining the womb and, because of what happened, and so Avraham prays and there's healing for the womb.
Can you just guess what the next sentence is going to be?
"The Lord did with Sarah just as he said, she conceived and bore a son." So his prayer for the nations ends up becoming the vehicle of the release, or the coming to fruition of his own wife's womb.
So out of even this terrible situation, it's this humans are stupid and do terrible things and God is this, he does the work around and is able to bring about his purposes through and despite his own people. So chapter 21, we've got babies on the brain.

Isaac’s Birth

We just finished up another round of Avraham exposing his wife to risk, exposing a whole city to the risk of God's justice to protect his own life. 
And what we're about to encounter in this story, what we call Genesis chapter 21, is yet another repetition of an earlier failure. The failure of Avraham and Sarah with Hagar is about to go into round two here. 
These moments where you're reading the Bible and you feel like, "I've been here before." I hope through this experience, how we're approaching it, like, that's very much on purpose.
And it's not just to remind you, but it's also to set your expectations for what's going to come because usually you're both right and then there's always a twist. 
we've been through chapters 11 through 19, we went through three cycles of the melody.  I've shown this chart already. So this was from the departure from Babylon to the Babylon following them back, the battle of the kings, the two covenant rounds, failure in the middle, and then the Sodom and Gomorrah saga. 
We're now in the stretch from 20 to 22. And what we just read in chapter 20 is a repetition of the failure that happened in the first section of 11 through 19. So and that's actually, it's repeating the failure from the middle section of this first stretch. 
What we're about to read is another replay of Avraham and Sarah's sin against Hagar and Ishmael, which is a replay of the middle failure of he next section, Genesis 15-17. Do you see how you're being trained?
So it's as if we're recalling the main failures from the previous, earlier kind of macro section. And so that's training you to think, "Okay, so I think I'm supposed to know what happens next." So let's just remember what happened the first round.
Let's think about this failure that happened in chapter 12, which was the famine and going down to Egypt. So this was Avram's, at that time, not Avraham, it was Avram's cowardice and fear. He put his wife and Pharaoh at risk. But do you remember he got really rich from his deception, like really rich. And then we watched the chain of consequences from that ill-gotten gain wreak havoc in his life and his family's life. It's what causes he and Lot to separate, in chapter 13. And then that separation that ends with Lot saying, "Oh, that's a nice city down there. I like that little Eden." And he goes down to Sodom and Gomorrah.
Why is Lot in Sodom in the first place?
It goes all the way back to Avraham's sin. 
And so it's as if Avraham's sin begins a chain of sad consequences that leads to his family member's life being at risk. And why is Lot's life at risk? Because of God's justice that's going to come down on Sodom. But it's Avraham's fault that his nephew was even there in the first place. 
And so remember this whole narrative block in 18 and 19 ends with Avraham on the high place. And he's interceding before God to spare the righteous in Sodom and, by implication, to spare his family member who's at risk of death because of his own sins. 
Avraham has both his, he's both a problem, but then he both, he's God's covenant partner, so he needs to play a role in the solution of that problem. And that's what that whole stretch was all about.
Genesis 20 story comes out of the gate and it just hits replay.
Failure number two that's exactly like the first failure. He gets rich again because of his sin. And so that's training you. "Oh, man, I know what happened last time that he did this thing. His sins followed him." Like it didn't end in Egypt the first time, and odds are it's not going to end here in Gerar.
The next story is going to replay yet another failure, and it's going to cause him to lose his firstborn son, Ishmael, and send him off. And so it leads you, wondering, I wonder if Avraham and Sarah's sins are gonna catch up with them again? I wonder if he'll have to go up to a high place and do some act of surrender or intercession for a family member's life that's at risk because of his sins? 
We call this Genesis chapter 22.
So this has been hugely helpful to me because, you know, we'll get there in a few sessions that God's test of Avraham and he, you know, tells him to go offer up Isaac as a sacrifice. And if you just pluck that narrative out of context, God actually becomes the meany in that story, right? 
Why would God do something that's so sadistic? How mean. And that's how that story has struck many readers throughout history. But the only way you would arrive at that sense of who God is in that particular story is if you haven't paid attention to the design of the whole flow of the Avraham stories. 
So the point is that Avraham and Sarah, they're the bad guys. 
And it's their sins that have caused this whole chain of consequences that leads up to the great test of their trust. 
In our church communities, which is one of the main ways now that Christians encounter the Bible, church life in most traditions is structured so that we only ever encounter the Bible in pretty small, isolated chunks. And even if you're going through a book of the Bible, like in a class or a sermon series, there's like a week apart between everything. 
you're mostly gonna encounter each of these stories by themselves. And so I'm just trying to show how the meaning of any individual story is totally determined by how it appears in these larger organizations. And so, and the stories that we're gonna look at right now in the next few sessions are a really, really great example of that.
As we think about how to approach these stories, the macro view is always as important to meditate on as the micro/individual view. - Tim Mackie Bible Project
In the previous session, just walked through Avraham and Abimelech's conflict.
And that was resolved by both the integrity of Abimelech and then also God's mercy.
Chapter 21, we feel like we know what's coming, but remember there's always a twist. 

Genesis 21::1-7

Genesis 21:1–7 LEB
1 And Yahweh visited Sarah as he had said. And Yahweh did to Sarah as he had promised. 2 And she conceived, and Sarah bore to Abraham a son in his old age at the appointed time that God had told him. 3 And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. 4 And Abraham circumcised Isaac his son when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 5 And Abraham was one hundred years old when Isaac his son was born to him. 6 And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; all who hear will laugh for me.” 7 And she said, “Who would announce to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne a son to Abraham in his old age.”
"Now Yahweh visited Sarah just as he said, and Yahweh did for Sarah just as he spoke.
And Sarah became pregnant and gave birth to a son for Avraham in his old age at the appointed time that Yahweh had spoken to him." Notice this very, clearly a very intentionally designed little paragraph right here.
Three things happened to Sarah, and every single one of them we're told is what Yahweh said he was going to do. So just why am I being told this three times over? Once would've done, so apparently this is fairly significant That long ago, Yahweh said that he was going to do this. And it happened just as he said.
"So Avraham called the name of his son, the one born for him, whom Sarah had born for him, Yitskhaq, Laughter," or it's actually a future tense verb, He Will Laugh.
"And Avraham circumcised Yitskhaq, his son, a son of eight days just as Elohim commanded him.
And Avraham was a son of 100 years when Yitskhaq, his son was born for him.
And Sarah said, 'Elohim has made me laugh, he has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh with me.'"
Has laughter been a kind of motif carrying us through?
Has it ever been positive?
It hasn't. So you're gonna have a son, Avraham, Yitskhaq. And God says, "You're gonna name him Yitskhaq to always remember that you didn't believe me."
Sarah in the tent, she laughs in the tent. It's a sign of unbelief. 
So when we come, and then so, you know, he gets named Laughter. And then Sarah's first little speech here is, "Yahweh's made laughter for me." Now just by itself, you're like, "I'm so happy for you," right? I mean, this is what they've been waiting for since, like, chapter 11. The first time we even met Sarah back in chapter 11, the first thing we knew is that she wasn't able to have a child. 
And so it's so amazing. So on one level, this is just pure celebration and we are happy for her. But notice that there are two speeches of Sarah here.
So Sarah, the first thing is, "Yahweh's made me laugh and I'm gonna spread the joy."
And she also said something else, "Who would have ever told Avraham that Sarah would nurse sons? But look at this, I've given birth for him in his old age. I mean, it's beyond imagination that anyone would've ever said that something like this would happen."
This is a wonderfully designed little paragraph here.
'Cause on one level, you're so happy for this woman.
I mean, when you really think inside the characters, infertility is a very painful experience for couples.
And to think of decades of that inability, and then the moment, it's a moment of, it's a Eden gift. Remember what she said? Will I have Eden? When she laughed, what she said is, "Will I have Eden even though I'm old?"
And so there's on one level, there's a very personal and touching portrait of a gift of God bringing laughter. 
But just the fact of the use of the word "laughter" also echoes. It kind of, it's like a fly in the ointment so to speak. 'Cause you as the reader, you're like, "Well, I actually know somebody who told Avraham and who told you." And so even in her celebration, there's this shadow of doubt, this shadow of unbelief.

God’s Promise Fulfilled and Sarah’s Tenuous Belief

The three-step design of this paragraph contrasts Yahweh’s actions and Avraham’s actions with Sarah’s response.
Notice the emphasis in each sub-unit on the spoken word of Yahweh that promised the birth of a son, “… just as Yahweh said … just as Yahweh spoke … just as Elohim commanded.”
This emphasis on Yahweh’s fulfillment of the promise makes us evaluate Sarah’s words in a deeper way. Her question, “Who would have told Avraham that Sarah would nurse sons?” is easily answered: “Yahweh told you both, back in Genesis chapter 18!”
In other words, Sarah’s response is first grateful (“laughter”), but the key word “laugh” reminds us of Avraham’s laughter that demonstrated his lack of trust in Yahweh back in Genesis 17:17.
Genesis 17:17 CSB
17 Abraham fell facedown. Then he laughed and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a hundred-year-old man? Can Sarah, a ninety-year-old woman, give birth?”
Sarah’s laughter can be understood in two ways.
At first her laughter seems to be a celebration of God’s generosity toward her (“Elohim has made laughter for me!”).
But, like Avraham, laughter can be a response of unbelief, as if she simply can’t believe that this was the work of Yahweh to fulfill the covenant promise. Thus her question, “Who would have told …” seems to be more than simply rhetorical. The obvious answer to her question is “God told you!” Sarah’s laughter seems to indicate an abiding lack of trust in the promise of God.
And it's all these little, what seems like an unnecessary repetition ends up being a really sophisticated tool for the author to depict a moment of both happiness and of a shadow side of that happiness. 
And it doesn't erase the beauty of the moment, but it also shows human nature being what it is. That even our joys are often filled with other mixed motives.

Yitskhaq, Circumcision, and Echoes of Noah’s Obedience

This unit is riddled with allusions to the flood narrative and to Genesis 17, an earlier Avraham narrative that also echoed the flood narrative. Avraham is obedient to the divine command given in Genesis 17:9-14 that everyone in his family should be circumcised as a sign of God’s covenant with them.
In the flood story, God’s promise of a coming flood (hammabbul / לובמה) was fulfilled, and God commanded Noah to build and board the ark to keep his family and the animals alive. The fulfillment of and the obedience to the divine word are both registered in the narrative.
In Avraham’s story, God’s promise of a coming son was fulfilled, and God commands Avraham to give his son a specific name and to circumcise (himmol / לומה) him. Both fulfillments and the obedience to the divine command are registered in the narrative.
In this way, Yitskhaq's arrival and his circumcision strike the note of the flood narrative and mark this unit as a hinge narrative that concludes the thematic cycle and also begins a new thematic cycle.

Genesis 21:8-13

So let's think back in terms of the cycle. We know that when Sarah is given the gift of fertility, she said it's Eden.
This is an Eden moment here, isn't it? 
The gift of life, it's wonderful. What a wonderful gift. What could possibly go wrong?
Genesis 21:8–13 ESV
8 And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. 10 So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” 11 And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. 13 And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.”
"So the child grew big and he was weaned.
How old? According to Tradition, Isaac was two years old when weaned. Three years is the age mentioned in 2 Chronicles 31:162 Maccabees 7:27 when weaning happens; and Samuel was old enough at his weaning to be left at the tabernacle with Eli (1Samuel 1:24). In Persia and India it is still the custom to celebrate the weaning of a child by an entertainment.
And so Avraham made a big feast," kind of like a rite of passage story. "He made a big feast on that day that Yitskhaq was weaned." So turning point in the lad's life.
Let's have a party, lots of food, yeah? It's the Eden moment. Lots of food, what could go wrong?
"And Sarah saw,"
And she saw, it's one word in Hebrew. It's two words in English, it's one word in Hebrew.
But even just, you're supposed to be trained by now, so to speak, that you're like, "Oh, no, something terrible is about to happen." And she saw, what does she see? "She sees the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, the one she had born for Avraham."
The competition
So Sarah just bore for Avraham. Oh yeah, that woman who bore for Avraham. "And she saw Hagar's or The Immigrant, the Egyptian's son, and she saw that son making laughter." Our English translations are really interesting here.
Often when there's subtle wordplays going on that's an odd usage of a Hebrew word, our English translations have to find a way to help make sense of it so it doesn't just sound awkward and strange. But the challenge is that sometimes in Hebrew it's on purpose worded awkward and strange, to sustain a hyperlink or to make a wordplay. And so our English translations have "mocking," making fun, which is not actually what the word means. It means to cause laughter, not to like mock or make fun.
ESV just has laughing
So you know, it's just, no translation's perfect. It's always good to have multiple translations in front of you. And when you see things like this, usually your little hyperlink radar should go up.
So she sees the son who didn't bring her laughter, making laughter.
And the wordplay also makes the link of competition. It's the son that she doesn't like causing laughter, who's the competition for her son who is named Laughter.
"So she said to Avraham, 'Banish, exile that slave woman and her son.  he will not inherit, this son of the slave woman, along with my son, along with Yitskhaq.'"
So this is a really fascinating moment here. You have now a rival wife, rival wives and rival brothers. Rival sons, rival wives. And we just walked out of Eden. In fact, we're about to be banished from Eden because of rivalry. 
Do you hear what story is ringing in your ears here?
How many times have we seen Genesis 3 and 4 kind of mashed onto each other in the hyperlinks? And so here's another one.
And remember, that's not arbitrary in Genesis 3 and 4, there's all of these hyperlinks between the two to show how Cain's sin is a replay of his parents' sin at the tree. And so this is showing an awareness that those are just mirrors. It's just two generations doing the same thing. And so also here. 
So we have rival moms, rival brothers or half brothers.
And so who's going to be banished?
The older son.
the non-chosen older son is going to be banished. So that's exactly what happens in the Cain and Abel story. But in this replay of the Cain and Abel story, who's the jealous, selfish one? 
The chosen or the non-chosen?
The chosen. It's the chosen.Do you see it? It's like a swap. People have swapped roles. So Sarah has become Cain.
And Hagar and Ishmael have become the innocent victims, except their roles as chosen and non-chosen are a match. Does that make sense?
So we tend to think, chosen ones, good guys. Non-chosen, bad guys. And the biblical authors are having none of that.
More often than not, the chosen ones are the bad guys and sometimes the good guys. And just as often, the non-chosen ones are the bad guys but also the good guys. 
And in fact, we saw with Abimelech in the previous story, the non-chosen king is actually the righteous intercessor that Avraham is supposed to be. And so there's something similar happening here.
So the non-chosen will be banished, but because of the jealous anger of the chosen. What is God to do?
Like, we're back here again. The behavior of God's chosen ones puts God in a very difficult situation because he said he would honor this promise. He already said it, the son from Avraham and Sarah will be the one to inherit. I'll bless Ishmael and I'll take care of them, but they're not the chosen ones.
Verse 11, "This whole situation, this whole matter was very, very evil in the eyes of Avraham on the count of his son." He is so bummed, heartbroken. And it's evil in the eyes, come on Genesis 3, Genesis.
"So Elohim said to Avraham, 'Don't let it be evil in your eyes about the young boy and about your slave woman.
Everything that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice.'"
This is a double hyperlink.
Okay, remember the last time we were here, in Genesis chapter 16, Sarah says, "You know, I can't stand this slave woman." And Avraham said, "Yeah, do what's good in your eyes." So Sarah oppressed Hagar. 
Genesis 16:2 NASB95
2 So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
New American Standard, "And Avram listened to the voice." He listened to her voice.
Genesis 16 verse 2. Okay, so we're hyperlinking back to here. He listened to the voice of his wife, but that itself, remember this story is itself a replay of Genesis 3
Genesis 3:17 CSB
17 And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life.
And what is it? One of the things that God's frustrated with Adam about is "because you listen to the voice of your wife."
Mm-hmm.
So Avraham's got, whose voice is he gonna listen to here?
And he's blamed for listening to the voice of his wife.
Genesis 21:11–13 CSB
11 This was very distressing to Abraham because of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and about your slave. Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her, because your offspring will be traced through Isaac, 13 and I will also make a nation of the slave’s son because he is your offspring.”
But now look at this story, "Listen to her voice.
It's by Yitskhaq that your seed will be called. Now listen, the son of the slave woman, I'm gonna make him into a nation. I've got him covered. He's your seed too, he's gonna be blessed, but he's not the chosen."
This is a very morally complex story, isn't it?
This is hard Hagar is separating, loosing her home that security if there was any. Ishmael is going to be cast out from his fathers sight. How is that right.
at the same time this is also her Jubilee. She is slave no more.
These stories are deeply interested in tracing cause and effect sequences over long periods of time and across generations, as well as how the sins of the parents affect their children. - Tim Mackie, The Bible Project

Abraham’s Covenant with Abimelech

Bibliography

https://bibleproject.com/classroom/abraham
Middleton, J. Richard. Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2021.
Cotter, David W. Genesis. Edited by Jerome T. Walsh, Chris Franke, and David W. Cotter. Berit Olam Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2003.
Josephus, Flavius, and William Whiston. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987.
Richard N. Longenecker, “The Melchizedek Argument of Hebrews: A Study in the Development and Circumstantial Expression of New Testament Thought,” in Unity and Diversity in New Testament Theology: Essays in Honor of George E. Ladd (ed. Robert Guelich, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 161.
https://bible.org/article/melchizedek-covenantal-figure-biblical-theology-eschatological-royal-priesthood#P8_421
Anders Aschim, “Melchizedek and Jesus: 11QMelchizedek and the Epistle to the Hebrews,” in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St. Andrews Conferences on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus (eds. Carey Newman, James Davila, and Gladys Lewis, JSJSup. 63; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 130.
Paul J. Kobelski, Melchizedek and Melchiresa (CBQMS 10; Washington DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1981), 126-7.
https://bible.ca/manuscripts/Septuagint-LXX-Shem-was-Melchizedek-Masoretic-chronology-Messiah-Jesus-Christ-priesthood.htm
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/history-circumcision-0010398
https://www.gotquestions.org/city-gate.html
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