After Abraham’s full life has ended he is “gathered to his people.” This is a very interesting study for you. Generally when a faithful man dies in the OT, the Scriptures say that he was “gathered to his people.” There is a theory that faithful men (and women) of the Old Testament, did not go straight to heaven, but were gathered in a waiting place called Sheol. Christ came and declared His victory over sin after His death and they ascended into heaven. Jesus tells a parable in Luke 16:19-31 that gives credence to this idea (though it is only a parable). This is only a theory, though not totally unreasonable.

Isaac and his family are the focus of the second half of this chapter and you are about to witness an extremely dysfunctional family. Verse 28 is obvious foreshadowing of the impending drama. You also see more obviously here a theme in the book of Genesis. That theme is that God is going to choose who He wants to choose. Esau should have been the one to receive the blessing from God, but instead God chooses Jacob. Remember that God explicitly told them that Jacob was to be the one to receive the blessing since this will be important later.

The last story seems absolutely ridiculous. Even though Jacob took advantage of the situation, Esau is the one whom the author blames. He must have been incredibly short-sighted to give up his future for something to eat. Rarely does the Bible blatantly criticize someone’s actions, usually it just shows the consequences. Here the author makes a point to say what Esau did was wrong.

We also see someone who has great faith besides Abraham. The servant shows faith in believing the sign will happen and Rebekah and her family show faith by allowing her to go (though I’m sure the jewelry helped too). Rebekah was obviously very kind and patient if she was willing to take the time to water 10 camels. And the jewelry she was given seemed to have been a sign of great wealth to her family since Laban is very cordial after seeing it. Once again we see extreme hospitality to outsiders. People do not appear to mind sacrificing so that guests are comfortable.

The writer must have really enjoyed the story of the servant because he tells it once and then tells it again as the servant recaps. Probably because it shows God’s providence in continuing His promise to Abraham. Overall it is difficult for us to fully understand the situation of this story because the culture is so different. We are uncomfortable with arranged marriages, while it appears that God wanted this to happen.

This chapter shows Abraham’s faith once again as he has officially purchased land and decided to settle permanently in the land that God told him to travel to originally. Normally I think people would bury their family in their homeland, but Abraham shows everyone that this is to be his homeland from now on and he will not be heading back to the Mesopotamia region. Abraham’s descendants will also use this place to bury their families.

Also interesting to note is that Sarah is the only women in the Bible whose age at death is given.

I would think that Isaac would have a firm understanding of his place in his father’s eyes after this event. He now knows for sure that he is not the most important thing to Abraham. I wonder how that affected his relationship with his father. I would guess that this was not a story that was often relived at family dinners.

Regardless of the morality of the command, it did serve as a final testing of Abraham’s faith and we likely realize how small ours is in comparison. God assures Abraham that He will fulfill His promise and make a great nation through him and Isaac. And the lineage of Abraham’s brother was probably placed here because Rebekah will be introduced into the story soon to help continue that promise.

I wonder if God had in mind the same thing Abraham did when He gave the go-ahead to kick out Ishmael and Hagar. Abraham was a pretty wealthy guy and I feel like he could have given her more than bread and one thing of water. He probably could have given her servants and livestock. I am sure God was indifferent because He planned to provide for her anyways, but I would think He would want Abraham to send her off with a little more.

In the last part we see Abraham as a good business man as well. Abimelech is obviously more powerful and wealthy than Abraham, so it is wise for Abraham to make this alliance. I think the importance of the well is something lost on us because we have running water. A well is no easy thing to dig by hand and it can be your only source of water, so it is something worth giving up a couple lamb for.

Abraham is always known as this great man of faith, because of his willingness to do as God commands without questioning. In this passage I realized that he does have great faith in God for his own life, but he seems to doubt God’s sovereignty in dealing with the rest of the world. He knows that Abimelech and his people do not fear God, yet he doesn’t trust God to prevent them from interfering with the Abrahamic covenant.

I still have trouble understanding the role of women in Abraham’s time. I cannot imagine a wife who would agree to the sort of thing that Sarah did. She had to have known the consequences of saying this (i.e. being taken by other men). Of course this is a different culture, but also a different society where law was not set up to prevent injustice.

You also may want to note a small piece of trivia here. Abraham married his half-sister…awkward.

As for Lot, it is pretty horrible to think that he would offer his daughters to the crowds, but maybe it shows faithfulness too. Thought if it were faithfulness, he probably wouldn’t have tried to appease the crowd, but stood up to them and trusted the Lord to deal with him and them accordingly. When the angels are trying to get Lot out of the city, I was a bit annoyed at Lot’s constant questioning and begging to do something else besides what they told him. Then I thought about how I would react if I were told to flee from my house immediately. I would definitely be as unprepared as Lot.

The last part of this chapter is slightly awkward. I don’t have maternal instincts (being not a woman), so I am not sure if starving them can lead you to do such crazy things. My guess is that these two people groups that come from this act were relevant to the people at the time, so it would be good for them to know where they came from. I do wonder what Lot said when he found out his daughters were mysteriously impregnated.

Apparently Abraham did not mistake them for any one else, as evident by his generosity. I have heard it said that this was just basic common courtesy in this time period, but I find it hard to believe that Abraham, who had hundreds of servants, would single out a random group of men walking down the road. There must have been something about them or maybe there was just something about Abraham that let him recognize God. They were truly in the form of men since they ate the food.

Abraham then starts to taking a very noble, yet annoying attitude. I do admire his love for his fellow man, but I feel like he could have gotten to the bottom line a little faster. Do you really have to go down in increments of ten or can you just ask what is the minimum?

I think I underestimate the value of having a multitude of nations come from me. Generally when we think blessing, we think about what benefits us right now and in monetary value. But if you consider the fact that you are infact going to die and none of your valued stuff will matter to you, then having your name remembered as the father of a multitude of nations sounds good. We still talk about Abraham and he died thousands of years ago. How long until people stop talking about you? A generation or two?

There are a lot of things that God ordered the Israelites to do that might seem weird, but a lot of them were so that they could flourish and avoid being decimated by disease or other natural things. I think the circumcision is definitely one of those since we do it today even for hygiene. Of course at 99 years old I can’t really imagine that experience. And it says every male in the household was circumcised that day. How did that announcement go over? I think I might resist a little if I was a servant. They must have all looked back and laughed at collectively the most miserable day in their lives.

I wonder at what point do you commune so often directly with God that you feel comfortable laughing at one of His statements? God has been promising these offspring for a few years now and I guess Abraham just assumed that it would be through Ishmael. But God once again shows us that He will choose to work through whomever He wants, regardless of convenience.

I don’t know exactly what looking at someone with contempt is like, but it is enough for Sarai to tattletale to her husband, even though she is clearly the initiator of this fiasco.

We have here the very first appearance of the Angel of the Lord. Not really sure if this is actually the Lord or if it is an angel speaking for the Lord. He speaks as if He is God, yet other times He speaks as if doing it in the place of God. More about that here. You can’t read what the Angel of the Lord says though without thinking of the Middle East conflicts now. I am amazed at how many things in this book about the first years of earth, still resonate and have effects in today.