The Families of Abraham

Our Old Testament reading continues. Following the schedule, we are nearing the end of Genesis. This last chunk covers Abraham, his family, Isaac, Jacob, and we've even started learning about Joseph and the other sons.

So let's see. Quick summary ... it starts with Abram (descended from Noah), who marries Sariah. God promises to bless his seed, and changes Abram's name to Abraham. And Sariah becomes Sarah. (Just drop some letters?)

Sarah can't have children, so she gives her handmaiden Hagar to Abraham to wife. Then Hagar gives birth to Ishmael. As Ishmael grows older, Sarah starts to do despise him and Hagar, so she ends up kicking them out.

Then Sarah gives birth in her old age to Isaac -- a miracle. Isaac receives the promised blessing from his father. Ishmael also grows to be a large nation, many of which are Muslim today (Muhammad is believed to be descended from Ishmael).

Isaac marries Rebekah, and they have two twin sons: Esau (redhead) and Jacob. Esau comes out only a few minutes before Jacob, so he gets the birthright. But later, Jacob, with some help from his mother, take the birthright, and Jacob ends up with the Abrahamic blessings.

After wrestling with God, Jacob's name changes to Israel. And then he has 12 sons through four different wives -- making up the future 12 tribes of Israel.

Some random thoughts (in somewhat chronological order):

• The Old Testament can be surprisingly R-rated. People sleeping with each other, killing, cheating, and the like.
• The Bible says: "thou ... shalt call his name Ishmael." (Genesis 16:11) So, where's Ahab?
• At least twice, Abram and Sariah plan to say that she's his sister so that the people don't kill Abram and take her away. Both times, some kind of king takes Sariah, and then in a vision they learn that she is married and God threatens to curse them. And they return Sariah and ask, "Why did you say that she's your sister?" In the second story, there's a plot twist -- turns out Sariah really *IS* his sister -- from another mother. So, cool.
• Evidently -- after Sarah dies, Abraham marries again and has more children.
• Isaac ends up marrying his cousin, Rebekah. In a few generations, the idea of Levitical degrees will be introduced. But it seems that at this point in time, this type of thing is permitted.
• Laban, the father of Rachel, is a jerk. He probably would have kept Jacob as a "slave" forever. At least Jacob got two wives out of it.
• After twenty years, Jacob feared when he heard that Esau, his brother, was on the way to meet him. Turns out that he just wanted to say hi, and there were no more hard feelings.
• Judah is such an interesting person.

Trying to get a spiritual thought out of this ... sometimes it takes most of my energy just to get the stories straight. Sometimes I get distracted by all the human imperfections. But still -- these sections are filled with some good parts -- covenants, promises, miracles, blessings for those who follow God, and not so much for those who don't. With God, nothing is impossible. If we do our parts, God will keep up his end of the covenants we make.

Up next -- we're about to get to Moses and his story. Should be fun!!