The Abraham Story Part 26: Not Chosen But Blessed

Not Chosen But Blessed

Let's think through the cycle. The Eden's been planted.

The wife, the ezer, has been provided. And so what I'm expecting is maybe something that's disappointing, some sort of mistake or tragedy that's going to lead to division, strife.

Genesis 25:1–18 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. 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.

"And Abraham did it once more." What is that? "He took a wife and her name was Keturah." Smoke, Keturah.

"And she birthed for him Zimran and Jokshan and Medan and Midian," "and Ishbak and Shuah.

And Jokshan birthed Sheba and Dedan. the Sons of Dedan were Ashurites and Letushites and Leummites Oh yeah, and Median, yeah, his sons were Ephah, and Epher and Hanoch and Abida and Eldaah. These are the sons of Keturah."

Now, pause. You may or may not recognize any of these. Do you recognize some of these names from like later in story? 

Midian

Midian, they're gonna play a big role, especially in the book of Judges and then somewhat in Samuel, but they're, they will be hostile all around.

Hostile to the Israelites and cause a lot of problems.

There's a few Shebas or Shevas. There's one that's down in Sudan from what we call south of Egypt. They call it different, up river from Egypt. And that's the famous Queen of Sheba.

What we're talking about here is all of the tribes that are going to live in the in the east, what we would call the north part of the Saudi Arabian peninsula. So modern day Jordan and then northern Saudi Arabia. 

So these are tribes that are out there, and the Midianites and the Dedanites are gonna feature big. And they're always hostile. 

Avraham took a wife and gives birth to what will become big, big problems for Isaac's descendants.

Now, there's no like overt statement here that he shouldn't have done this.

But it's just one of those things where a biblical character does something and then you watch and bad things happen. And you just have to stop and say, "Huh, huh, I wonder if they were supposed to have done that. It didn't work out well."

"Avraham took everything that belonged to him, and he gave it to Yitskhaq.

To the sons of the other wives of Avraham," that is to Yishmael, he has two other wives now, Hagar and Keturah, "he gave them gifts. He gave everything to Yitskhaq, he gave some parting gifts to the other sons.

And he sent them away from Yitskhaq his son, while Yitskhaq was still alive. He sent them to the east, to the land of the east." How you guys doing?

This is our Genesis 3 beat here, and it's our Genesis 4 beat as well. The division of the brothers. Both ended up with exiles being sent to the east. Remember in Genesis, they're sent to the east. In Genesis 3 and in Genesis 4, they're sent to the east.

It's very clear, there's a favored chosen one, and then there are the non-chosen. What's interesting, this is Avraham doing this. In Genesis 4, it was God showing favor.

So what's interesting is the sin of Avraham, that's not really the focus. The moral is he made a choice and it resulted in these consequences, which was just, added hostility to everything that's already happened. And it ends in the east, which is never awesome.

"And these are the days of the years of the life of Avraham, which he lived 100 years and 70 years and five years. And he expired. And Avraham died in good old age, old and complete," or fulfilled.

This is where the symbolism of seven as a symbol of completeness. It's because the word "seven" and the word "complete" are spelled with the exact same Hebrew letters. So it's called a homonym. Most languages have them where you can have two different words spelled with the same letters.

"Lead," which was something that used to be in pencils when I was a kid. And I would just chew them all day long, and it turns out it was actually a low-level poison. And then "lead," you know, whatever, you lead something around. So same four letters in English, totally different words.

Sava‘ complete, sheva‘ seven. So he both went through a cycle of 175, but he went complete. His life is a seven, his life is a seven cycle. Think through Genesis 1.

"And God blessed the seventh day." It's a complete blessing. "And he was gathered to his people." That's interesting. What does that mean? Gathered to his people?

It's referring to burial of some kind, but what an interesting way to say it. Gathered to his people.

"So they buried him, Yitskhaq and Yishmael his sons in the cave of Machpelah. Remember in that field of Ephron, son of Zohar the Hittite, remember it's opposite Mamre, you know the field that Abraham purchased from the sons of Het. That's where they were buried, Avraham and Sarah.

And it came about after the death of Avraham that Elohim blessed Yitskhaq his son." And where did Yitskhaq experience that blessing? You know, at this just amazing miraculous provision of water in the wilderness out at the well of the living one who sees me.

You can just watch the torch being passed here.

So Avraham joins his people and in theory, who else is buried there?

Sarah.So there's some sense, remember this is where we're back to that theme of there's intimations here that to be dead to each other is not to be dead to God. And so he joins Sarah, but who else is he joining? Oh, well you remember Enoch, like, where'd that guy go?

And Noakh, and you've got the whole line, that's the concept here that God knows who belongs to him. And when you die, you are gathered to your people. It's a fascinating little phrase. And then the blessing passes on to Isaac. 

but we're not done yet.

You remember the sons of Keturah, the first second wife of Abraham. We end with this now, the sons of Hagar, and you get a long genealogy of Yishmael. And here's something interesting, you're gonna get all of these sons of Yishmael, Nebaioth and Kedar and Adbeel and Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, East.

The last son is named East, Kedemah. It's the Hebrew word for "east."

"These are the sons of Yishmael by their villages and encampments." Oh, did I mention that there were 12? Yeah, there's 12. Go count them. There's 12. So now we have 12 back in Mesopotamia, 12 in, and it's that theme of like, hey listen, just 'cause they're not on the main stage doesn't mean they don't fit into God's plan to do some good here in the world. And then Yishmael passes from the scene, he expires and he dies. "And they dwell down on the way to Egypt.

And he lived, he fell against the face of his brothers."

So this whole chapter 25:1-18 is Avraham is joined to his people, the blessing passes to Yitskhaq, but it's with a whole scene of a divided and fractured family. Because of the thing with Hagar and also this thing with Keturah, which is complicated, but at least it seems less painful. But it's complicated nonetheless.

That's how the story of Avraham ends. It feels so incomplete.

And you're ending with the division of the brothers. Think how the flood story, they get off the boat and then the brothers scatter and separate, just like in Genesis 10, all of these peoples and they're gonna be hostile to each other. And so man, how is God going to bring about the blessing of Eden to all the families of the earth when it seems like they're more divided than ever before? 

That's how the Avraham story ends.

And of course it's not the end, it's actually, you're just supposed to turn the page and keep going. But it definitely leaves you with a lack of resolve that forces you to move forward in hope. And I think that's actually a very realistic, that's a very realistic way to conclude a story like this.

Decendants of Avraham and Qeturah

The design sets up a paired relationship between Avraham’s sons through Hagar and Qeturah, both in contrast to Yitskhaq. They all dwell in the south and east of the land of Canaan where Yitskhaq lives. Notice the wordplay between the sons of Qeturah who live in the east (המדק) and the last son of Yishmael who is named “east” (המדק).

The “sending away” of the sons of Qeturah from Yitskhaq is also parallel to the sons of Yishmael “falling against the face all his brothers.” The vocabulary of these opening and closing sections of closely aligned with the story of Adam and Eve and Qayin’s expulsion from Eden

The descendants of Qeturah and Yishmael are also set on analogy with the sons of Ham in through the not-so-subtle repetition of names.

Descendants of Ham

Dedan and Sheva (Gen. 10:7)

Havilah (Gen. 10:7)

Ashur (Assyria, Gen. 10:11)

Egypt (“Mizraim,” Gen. 10:6)

Descendants of Avraham Through Qeturah

Sheva and Dedan (Gen. 25:3)

Ashurim (Gen. 25:3)

Descendants of Avraham Through Yishmael

“And they lived from Havilah unto Shur, which is before Egypt as one goes to Ashur” (Gen. 25:18).

These sons of Avraham are likened to the sons of Ham, who will live at odds with the chosen line of Avraham near their borders.

Theme of Avraham Story

And so when you're talking about Scripture, we're talking about a collection of texts that have been addressed to lots of audiences over many, many years. And so in that sense, it's for all of God's people.

But the Hebrew Bible, when it was framed all together as one collection a few hundred years before Jesus, into its final shape, it was addressing real ancient Jews in their situation. And Jesus saw himself as among that early generation of Jews that the Hebrew Scriptures were all about. 

there's an Israeli scholar, brilliant Hebrew Bible scholar, Yair Zakovitch. And he made a very simple observation about the basic message and theme of the Avraham stories

When we are thinking about the storyline of story of Avraham,

In terms of big geographic locations, Abe begins his story in Mesopotamia, doesn't he? That's where we met him, in the fiery oven of the Chaldeans, Mesopotamia.

And the first major step of his journey was coming up out of Ur of the Kasdim. And he goes to the land of Canaan.

He's not in Canaan but half a page before he goes down, remember? He goes down in a self-imposed exile out of the land, not to Mesopotamia, but to Egypt.

And that didn't go very well. So he comes back up in chapter 13, back into the land of Canaan. And that's where he hangs out for the rest of his story.

Well, he sends the servant back to Mesopotamia and then Rivqah comes back with him, but that's where he stays for the rest of his story.

That's where Yitskhaq is gonna leave. Yitskhaq is actually, there's gonna be a famine and Yitskhaq is gonna be tempted to go down to Egypt. And God stops him in a dream and says, "Hey, don't go to Egypt.

It won't go well." And he's a smart guy, so he listens to God. So Yitskhaq, he's in the land of Canaan. I'll just give it the English spelling here. When we get to the story of Jacob, or Yaaqov, something interesting happens. Yaaqov is born in the land of Canaan, but then he and his mom deceive their dad with this meal.

In fact, the dad can't see, his eyes are closed. And he uses deceptive food and drink to get the blessing. They've got their own plan for getting the blessing. And so his brother is so mad at him that the younger- his brother Esau is so mad his younger brother, that his younger brother is now the chosen one that he gets angry and he says he's gonna murder his brother. Are you, yeah, that's exactly where it goes. And so Jacob ends up in an exile for 20 years. And where does he go? He goes exactly, like, exactly to the house of Laban where Rivqah came from. Which is exactly where Avraham, Avram came from.

So after the 20 years of exile, he comes back to the land of Canaan, and he's gonna be there until one day he sends his youngest son Joseph to go out and check on the brothers. And his brothers hate the younger brother. The older brothers hate the younger brother 'cause he's the favored one. He gets this fancy coat and he has these dreams about being the king of the universe.

So his brothers throw him in a pit and sell him as a slave. And where do they end up?

Down in Egypt.

So these Mesopotamia, Babylon, and down south, Egypt, these two empires formed these kind of, like, alternate exiles. Both are places of descent, of slavery, of subjugation and death. And to return up out of Egypt is a return to Eden, but to come out of Babylon is to return to Eden as well.

It's as if Avraham's story has been designed to anticipate the story of his future descendants. So let's take this another step forward because of course when Jacob's descendants come up out of Egypt, we call this the story of the exodus. Yep. And they go into the promised land and they stay there for quite a while. They don't deserve to, but they stay there for a long, long time until Assyria comes, shaves off the northern tribes, Babylon comes, ruins everything and takes them all back to, and here you go, Mesopotamia.

And so this becomes, is Israel's story.

It makes a person wonder if the story of Avraham's calling and exodus out of the fiery oven of Babylon was very meaningful, very, very meaningful to these later generations. 

Why a story about a brother's sin that leads him into a long exile in Mesopotamia, I wonder if that would be a story that's very, very meaningful. 

I wonder if a story where God performed great deeds to bring down one of the greatest empires in the world to bring them up out of exile. 

You know, it's interesting when you read the book of Isaiah, for example, the exodus from Babylon is very often set on analogy to the exodus from Egypt. And so this is such an astute observation, and it seems a very intuitive and simple one that Zakovitch made, but all of a sudden you realize like, oh, the Hebrew Bible is a unified story (Tim laughs)

and it's pointing to some greater exodus out of Babylon.

And so there is absolutely no coincidence, for example, that the Gospel of Mark begins by saying, "Yeah, the good news of Jesus, the Messiah. Just read Isaiah 40," which is a long poem calling the generation of God's people to come up out of Babylon. Now, of course, some returned from Babylon a long time ago, but is the new temple glowing with the presence of God like it did in Eden? Are all the tribes reconciled? Are all the families of the earth? Like, no, the whole world's in Babylon.

The whole world's in Babylon. And so Avraham's story is the whole nation's story.

It's all humanity's story told just in the micro form of one person's life. But then Jacob's life is Avraham's story in the form of, and because, remember all of it is Adam and Eve's story, think of the melody and the cycles. And so the Hebrew Bible, it is actually a unified story on all of its levels. And the way Mark's Gospel begins, it just takes that all for granted.

Avraham’s story is the whole nation’s story. It’s all humanity’s story told in one person’s life. It’s Jacob’s life, it’s Adam and Eve. The Hebrew Bible is a unified story on every level. - Tim Mackie, The Bible Project

These are very intimate personal narratives, but they are addressed to God's people sitting in Babylon, wherever that is and whenever that is. Babylon becomes an image for the time before the coming of the Kingdom of God and awaiting the new ascent to Eden. 

these stories speak a message as current as any story in the Hebrew Bible.

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

https://www.gotquestions.org/hand-under-thigh.html