Summary #3

Wow! This week we get through Abra(ha)m's life, Isaac's life, and start on Jacob. Quite the family... Just a little warning: This is a LONG summary, but there's a lot that happened. Hope you can stick with it! :-)

Abram listened to God, who told him to head to the land he would give his descendants. He took his wife, his nephew and his household and headed into Canaan. He got there, but there was a famine there, so they headed to Egypt. Now Sarai was quite beautiful, and Abram didn't want to come between a beautiful woman and the pointed end of a king's spear, so they made a pact to say that they were brother and sister, not husband and wife. Sure enough, Sarai caught the attention of the Pharaoh. Once Sarai was in his household, though, great plagues came upon them and he sent her back to Abram with a scolding and free pass out of the land.

Back in the Negeb, Abram and Lot part ways because the land can't support the huge flocks that they have acquired. Abram settled in Canaan, and Lot headed into the Jordan valley. God renewed his covenant with Abram, telling him to look around at the land which would belong to his children.

All was not quiet around Abram and Lot -- the kings of the area go to war, and Lot gets caught up in the middle. He is taken hostage, along with all of his possessions. This doesn't sit well with Abram, who leads his small army (who knew he had an army?!?!) and they rescue Lot and all of his household and possessions. Abram is blessed by Melchizedek, who is a "priest of God Most High" (the first priest we encounter in the Bible), who gives Abram a blessing, and receives a tithe from him.

God appears to Abram in a dream, and further reveals his covenant with him and his descendants. Sarai gets tired of waiting for the promised descendants to appear, and gives her Egyptian servant to Abram so she can bear him children. Once this actually happens, she is NOT happy about it, and punishes Hagar, her servant. When Hagar tried to run away, God appeared to her and told her that she should go back, but that he would make a great nation out of this child, Ishmael.

Thirteen years later, God appears to Abram and changes his and Sarai's names, establishes the covenant of circumcision, and again promises that Abraham and Sarah will be the parents of a child. Abraham suggests that God settle for Ishmael, doubting that he and Sarah are even capable of producing a child. God holds out for his own promises, however, but says that he will also bless Ishmael. The next morning -- mass circumcision of every male in the household. Must've been a couple people that day that questioned Abraham's dedication.

God comes again, this time with two men/angels. God finally sets a time parameter for this long-awaited son: next year at this time Sarah would be a mother. She laughed, because she was no longer of childbearing age, then argued with God about whether or not she had laughed. She lost.

Fresh from this conversation, the two angels head to Sodom, while God explains to Abraham that he will be destroying the city because of its wickedness. Abraham pleads with God, and bargains him down to letting the city stand for as few as 10 righteous men. Turns out there weren't even that many, and Lot and his wife and daughters are physically dragged from the city the next day before they are destroyed with sulfur and fire. Lot's wife looked back. Never look back at a burning city. Lot's story continues with his daughters, who he had previously offered as sexual playthings for his neighbors, now get him drunk and sleep with him on successive nights so that they can continue the family. From these two come the Moabites and the Ammonites. We'll see them again, and it won't be pretty.

Back to Abraham. He and Sarah are in Gerar, and Abraham hauls out the old lie that kept him out of trouble in Egypt. Apparently, even though Sarah is quite old and past childbearing age, she is still beautiful-- enough that Abraham fears for his life if the king sees him as an obstacle to having Sarah. So they go right back to lying about their relationship. Or sort of lying. Turns out that Sarah really is Abraham's half sister, but Abimilech, the king they lied to, still called him on it after hearing about the whole situation in a dream from God. Abimilech sends them away with money and livestock to show that he did not sleep with Sarah, and Abraham prays to God and God healed Abimilech from the barrenness that had come upon his household.

Sarah finally bears the child that God promised, and once he arrives, Sarah sends Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness. God saves the two of them. But he asks Abraham to sacrifice this long-awaited son as a sign of his obedience. When Abraham is obedient, God spares Isaac and sends a replacement for the sacrifice. We'll see this again.

When Sarah dies, Abraham negotiates for the first piece of land that he will own in the land promised to him: Sarah's tomb. Once he loses Sarah, he sets his sights on finding a suitable match for Isaac, and he sends his servant to his brother's lands. The servant frets the whole way there that he won't be successful in convincing a virtual stranger to come back with him to be Isaac's bride, so he prays that certain things will happen so that he will know he has the right girl, and get the right girl he does: Rebekah, the sister of Laban and daughter of Abraham's brother returns with the servant to become Isaac's wife. Abraham takes another wife and fathers more children, but leaves everything to Isaac, and dies at 175.

Still reading? Way to go - go ahead and claim a free coffee or cappuccino at the coffee bar on Sunday!

Anyway, back the story. After twenty years of marriage, Rebekah is still waiting for a child. Isaac prays, and Rebekah conceives twins: Esau and Jacob. As they grew up, Esau was his father's favorite child, and Jacob was his mother's. Jacob, a good cook, got Esau to trade his birthright for a pot of stew. One has to wonder what Esau was thinking. Or maybe the stew was REALLY good.

So, a famine hits the land again, and Isaac and Rebekah head into Gerar, where Abimilech is king -- probably not the same Abimilech, but we don't know for sure. Rebekah attracted some notice - still quite attractive, apparently, and Isaac quickly responds that she is his sister, lest they kill him to get her. (One wonders if Abraham taught his son this little trick). Anyway, Abimilech sees the two them behaving in a way totally inappropriate for sisters and brothers, and calls Isaac on the carpet, saying that he had endangered all of the people of Gerar by lying to them.

Isaac thrives in Gerar, and gets so wealthy that the king sends him away, and God renews his covenant with Isaac as he had with his father.

When he is old and ready to die, Isaac tells his favorite and firstborn, Esau, to kill and cook some game for him and he will give him a blessing. Rebekeh hears this, and gets Jacob to deceive Isaac and take the blessing intended for Esau. Their plan succeeds, and Isaac blessed Jacob, saying that his brothers will serve him. Esau is furious when he finds out, but Isaac can only give him a consolation blessing. Esau is so mad that he plans to kill Jacob on the day that his father dies, and apparently shares this plan with someone who then shares it with Rebekah. Rebekeh gets Isaac to agree to send Jacob away to find a good non-Hittite wife (since Esau's Hittite wives vexed both Isaac and Rebekeh). They send him to Laban, Rebekah's brother.

On the way, he hears from God in a dream that the covenant of Abraham and Isaac is now given to him. After setting up an altar to mark the spot, he continues to Paddan-aram, and meets Rachel, the love of his life. He willingly works for 7 years to earn the right to marry her. The wedding night holds a frustrating surprise for him, though -- Laban has given him Leah, the older sister instead. Jacob agreed to work an additional 7 years, and married Rachel as well. Just as sibling rivalry had dominated his life in Isaac's household, he now contended with it in his wives: Rachel was barren, but loved, and Leah was bitter, fruitful, and unloved. She bore Jacob four sons, but still didn't get the love she wanted.

That was a long summary -- a lot happened as the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" sets up a covenant with the promise of a huge people, and these patriarchs, these fathers of the faith stumble around as they try to follow the decrees of God. What will this great nation look like? How many more of them will claim that their wives are their sisters? Are we ever going to find siblings that get along? Tune in next week...