Lot settled in Sodom but escaped its infamous destruction and by his daughters he fathered Ammon and Moab, the nations directly to Israel's east (Genesis 19). The text says not a word about Abraham’s reaction, but we can try to imagine what went through his mind. Moreover, Isaac and Abraham will not appear together again (in the text) until Isaac and Ishmael come to bury Abraham. Where Abraham had asked Him “to forgive the place for the fifty righteous therein” (18:24), God stresses the totality: “I will forgive all the place for their sake” (18:26; emphasis added). For Abraham is dimly aware that there may be a tension between what is just for a city and what is just for individuals. There is for Abraham, of course, also some very good news: God is indeed moved by every appeal Abraham actually makes. The point is driven home the next morning as Abraham awakens to see smoke rising from the cities and all the land of the Plain, “like the smoke from a furnace” (19:28). When Sarah died, Abraham married Keturah and sired another six sons (25:1-2), among whom Midian, an Arabic nation, to where Moses fled and where he met his first wife Zipporah (Exodus 2:15-22; his second wife was a Cushite; Numbers 12:1). In view of this expanded blessing, I feel confident in setting aside a powerful and radically alternative reading of this tale, first suggested to me in conversation by my friend and colleague, Michael Fishbane, professor of Judaica. Classical societies that specialized in forming colonies all over (the Phoenicians, most notably, but also pre-. Most of these very early states have long gone (or went by other names than modern ones; very early states probably changed names much more often than states do today and were doubtlessly known to their contemporaries by multiple names), but some are clearly recognizable. The burdens of the father, the founder, and the judge are heavy indeed. Joseph became viceroy and was married to the daughter of the priest of On (or: this art was incorporated into the skill set of Egypt's primary wisdom school), and not long after that, Egypt was able to acquire the whole set of Israeli tribes and harvest these skills for economic gain. The final י (yod) of the original name Sarai suggests a possessive form: my strength or strength(s) of, whereas the new name Sarah reflects the general idea of ruling or being strong. In the New Testament, the tension between Abraham and the tower of Babel is playfully revisited in the relationship between Jesus (John 12:32) and Mary Magdalene (= Mary of God's Tower), whose signature deliverance from seven demons was not a new thing but rather based on a time honored dictum: compare Luke 8:2 to Proverbs 9:1, Exodus 2:16, Isaiah 4:1 and even Revelation 1:4. The name Abraham occurs a total of 73 times in the New Testament; see full concordance. When Sarai failed to conceive the Child of the Promise, she gave Abram her Egyptian servant Hagar, who conceived of Ishmael (16:3). It happens at the moment when Isaac discovers that he has been fooled by Jacob into giving him the blessing he had intended for Esau. There is no known gap between God’s justice and Abraham’s. . That language would cover a specific territory and that territory would determine the realm of the state that would eventually form. And while on their trek, Israel additionally absorbed 32,000 Midianite virgins (Numbers 31:18 and 31:35, also see Deuteronomy 20:14). And indeed, when Jesus commissioned his disciples, he told them to make disciples of all the nations (not simply of all people; Matthew 28:19, also see Matthew 25:32). But, for the same reasons, he is not, to begin with, well educated in the successful art of fatherhood, in the work of transmission. When John the Revelator saw the end of the present age, he saw the New Jerusalem come down from heaven and settle on the earth, and the nations (not simply the people) would walk by its light, and the kings of the earth, the local governments, would bring their glory into it (Revelation 21:24-26). Abram. Also, it is hard to see how faith-or-trust is being tested: faith or trust in what? Freed by nature from the consequences of their sexuality, probably both less fitted and less interested by nature than women for the work of nurture and rearing, men need to be acculturated to the work of transmission. Abram, Terah’s first-born, given a proud name that perhaps means “lofty or exalted father” or “the father is exalted,” seems not to be bothered by the advanced age of his father. But in the center, addressing Abram’s loss of his probable heir, God speaks explicitly and graphically about Abram’s own unborn progeny. Refusing the spoils of war, Abram attempts to return to his previous life but, we infer, he cannot. But, as the question was .not about reward or punishment but about a a gift or an offering, the guilt or innocence of the “victim” is beside the point (indeed, the offered one is almost invariably pure, innocent, unblemished). Jesus not only represents ultimate sacrifice but also the only thing people from all variously specified cultural backgrounds (low entropy) must eventually agree on (high entropy), namely the summing up of all natural law, unified by what scientists label the Grand Unified Theory, and theologians know as the Word Of God. God Himself undertakes Abraham’s education in order to address and to overcome the natural, psychic, and social human obstacles to righteous and reverent living, obstacles amply displayed in the pre-Abrahamic stories of Genesis. But Abram remains attuned to matters political, and he still hasn’t reconciled himself to the loss of Lot. As a result, now at the end of his adventures, Abraham is ready to replace the “reasons” for being a follower of God: Originally, he answered the call largely out of a desire for the promised reward; now, in a reversal, he is ready to follow out of awe-fear-reverence for the One Who promises. After this, he has but a few remaining tasks to perform in order to complete his work as father-founder, after which he can quietly leave the scene. Likewise, the Lord promises that Abraham's half-sister and wife Sarai would "become nations" or rather: "become international" (היתה לגוים, heyata le'goyim) and changed her name to Sarah (17:16). Whether we like what Abraham did or not, we have it on the highest authority that Abraham passed the test. Everything appears to be set, ordered, and harmonious: Abraham is ready to be both father and founder of his—and God’s—great nation. But despite the efforts of many an emperor, it appears that humanity is designed to operate by means of nations (albeit nations of the fourth stage; see below). . Israel's and later Judah's royal dynasty (which culminates in the Messiah) was probably more than half foreign: king David's great-grandmother Ruth was a Moabite and Solomon's mother Bathsheba was almost certainly Hittite (2 Samuel 11:3, see Ezekiel 16:3). What follows is a new blessing bestowed by the angel upon Abraham, God’s last and best blessing of the patriarch: The image of innumerable progeny here combines the two previous ones (stars and sand), the lofty and the earthly. Finally, the true founder knows and accepts the fact that his innocent sons will suffer for the sake of the righteous community and that their “sacrifice” is no proof that they are not properly loved as sons. I have considered the story solely from Abraham’s point of view. When the family began their famous journey, brother Nahor remained in Paddan-aram and from his descendants would later come wives for Abraham's son Isaac and grandson Jacob. The initial formation of a state out of a society of foragers occurs as activities synchronize, population density increases in areas of natural benefit (coasts, rivers, fertile plains), and a tradition of primitive chiefdoms develops into a complex central authority. Father Abraham: The Life of Abraham: Original Meaning Explores the original impact these stories were intended to have on the nation of Israel as they followed Moses toward the Promised Land. The name Abraham consists of the same root but now followed by the independent masculine third person plural personal pronoun: הם, they or them. What He intends to do about it is not stated. Date.There is a difficulty in the chronology at this point. The core of the name Abraham comes from the exquisite root אבר ('br): The verb אבר ('br) means to be strong or firm, particularly in a defensive way (rather than offensive). Abraham learns that one must come to care about the righteousness or wickedness of the world, and not only about one’s own kin and one’s own goodness and its rewards. Apparently, this highly valued art of translating the images of the subconscious mind into images of the conscious mind didn't do much for the welfare of the rest of Israel, and this commodity was sold to a caravan of Midianite (or Ishmaelite) merchants, who introduced it to Egypt, where it too failed to impress anyone. The adjective אביר ('abbir), meaning strong in a defensive way; protective. Abraham, who risked his very life—and with it the divine promise—to rescue Lot in the war of the kings, will certainly not have become indifferent to the fate of his kinsman just because he now has an heir in Ishmael. But of which disposition? The “Queen of Tejano Music,” Selena Quintanilla Perez, was shot and killed in 1995. Not bad work if you can get it, and Abram, age seventy-five, sets off immediately, “as the Lord had spoken unto him.” But not unaccompanied: “and Lot went with him” (12:4). In the immediate sequel, Isaac on his own initiative calls, blesses, and, for the first time, commands Jacob—not to take a Canaanite wife but to find one at the ancestral home of his mother, Rebekah. The Lord appeared again to Abram, changed his name to Abraham and Sarai's name to Sarah, instituted circumcision (see our article on the verb περιτεμνω, peritemno, to circumcise) and again promised them a child (Genesis 17-18). The ancient Jews considered the bosom of Abraham as a place of security, both in life and after death. The presence of Lot among the wicked in Sodom captures Abraham’s attention and engages his passions; and Lot becomes the hook for catching and enlarging Abraham’s concern for justice. Abraham resists the suggestion, partly out of disbelief, partly out of his attachment to his firstborn; but the reader is given to understand that, to overstate the point, Abraham is here with Ishmael undergoing basic training, as it were, just practicing to become the father of Isaac. This letter ה (he) is one of a few Hebrew letters that may represent both a consonant and a vowel, and the Hebrew invention of vowel notation lifted the art of writing out of the realm of the esoteric and made it available to the common man (Exodus 19:6). Abraham is given a high position of respect in three major world faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But fear and shame aside, Abraham may have broken off the bargaining because he had learned something. The Lord told Abraham that he would be the father of many nations (אב המון גוים, 'ab hamon goyim; Genesis 17:4-5) — not simply the father of many people but the father of the many nations that were established right after the flood (as listed in Genesis 10). God, suggests Fishbane, is so embarrassed by Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son that He refuses to speak with him directly, but sends his messenger instead. But what about the righteous for whom he had bargained? The prophet Haggai famously foretold the coming of the Messiah, and said that the desire of all nations (and not simply all people) would come (Haggai 2:7). The meaning given to Abraham in Genesis 17:5 is popular word play, and the real meaning is unknown. If God learns about the state of Abraham’s soul, Abraham—and we—learn something equally important about God. . He senses that if the city gets judged as a whole, the results for individual city dwellers will not be just, because some righteous will suffer with and for the guilty. William Cullen Bryant published one version (with music by Luther Orlando Emerson(1820–1915). But even more attractive, in my view, than these plausible reasons for Abraham's silent acquiescence in the horrible request are the following: (1) Abraham had learned, in the episode over Sodom, that the pursuit of righteousness may require sacrificing your own; (2) he felt and feared both the awesome power of God and also His righteousness; and, especially, (3) he had understood immediately the meaning of the test, namely, that he was being asked to show what was first in his soul: Was it the love of his own (and of the promise and the covenant) or was it the fear-awe-reverence for God? We shall look at Abraham’s education in fatherhood. His story became as infused with responses to Homer and the Greco-Roman traditions as the Torah is with answers to Babylonian-Persian stories. The circumstances surrounding his birth enable both Abraham and Sarah to see the permanent truth about parenthood: Children are not man’s products or creatures, and thus the pride that human beings naturally take in their own children as their own children is vanity and self-delusion. God shows his mercy, saving Lot for Abraham’s sake. Sodom, Babel); a true founder will know from the start that there is something higher than founding and higher than politics, in the light of which one should found. Be our patron for as little as one dollar a month: https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Abraham.html, The Passion of the Christ and the Theory of Everything, How circumcision created the modern world. Israel's signature tabernacle complex was a near perfect copy of the battle camp of Rameses II. With circumcision, the child, and all his potential future generations, are symbolically offered to the way of God. God tries to put Abram in mind of his prospective paternity. Such lessons—and they will prove complicated—he must gradually learn through his adventures. Just as Abraham as true father learns the limits on the love of one’s own, so Abraham as the true founder learns the limits of politics and of the founder’s pride. In the animal world this stage would be represented by any herd or pack that follows a clearly identified alpha around a set territory. The Bible indicates that a multitude of גוים, goyim, or "nations" is the ultimate form of human society, which is remarkable because since time immemorial people have believed that they could somehow form a global empire that would unite all the nations, dissolve all borders and reign the entire world from one throne. Babylon marks the first level, Abraham the second and the resurrected Christ the fourth: From Abraham onward the Old Testament deals with the intensification of international exchange (more and more sharing and less and less hoarding; hence the era of the great empires) and obviously culminates at the level of personal transcendence (no more self) and full dedication to exchange (only sharing). Abraham, when he speaks next, repeats God’s use of “all,” but he clearly hasn't grasped the point. So Abraham, the father of the faithful, kept on believing God, and any person, if he or she believes like him, will also be reckoned righteous (see Rom. Looking away from all the city, he wants God to look only at the group of the vulnerable fifty righteous: “Perhaps there shall lack five of the fifty righteous; wilt thou destroy all the city for the lack of five?” (18:28; emphasis added). “Before Abraham Was Born, I Am” Understanding John 8:58 . Contrary to many interpreters, I do not believe that this is a test either of Abraham’s obedience or of his faith-or-trust in or love of God. He purchases the cave at Machpelah as a burial place for Sarah, a deed simultaneously of familial and political significance; done not least for Isaac’s and his descendants’ sake (Abraham will also be buried here, as will Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah), the ground is consecrated as a memorial, helping to keep alive in memory the deeds of the founding mothers and fathers. After the episode with Sodom and Gomorrah, which teaches Abraham both about God’s awesome power and about the need to serve righteousness, and after the (second) wife-sister episode involving Abimelech, which completes Abraham’s education regarding the meaning of wife, Sarah at last conceives and Isaac is wondrously born, when his mother and father are, respectively, ninety and one hundred years old. He will not finally love his son solely because he is his own, but will love only that in his son which is good and which is open to the good, including his son’s own capacity for awe before the divine. As everyone knows, this appearance is deceiving. Shem, we know not how, appears to have divined the sacred meaning of the authoritative relation of father and son. Ham becomes the father of peoples—including the Canaanites and the Egyptians— whose abominable sexual practices (and, hence, whose family life) will be the antipodes to the Jewish laws of purity. The story moves toward its climax, Abraham acting with the same simplicity, austerity, and dignity as before: He built (the altar), laid (the wood), bound (Isaac his son), laid (him on the altar, upon the wood), stretched-forth (his hand), took (the knife) to slaughter his son (22:9–10). With fear and trembling, I am suggesting (and hope to show) that, far from being irrational, this test makes pretty good sense, as a test both of the father and of the founder. That God will turn this awful deed into some discernible good, or, more shallowly, that He doesn’t really mean it? We trust a Person. Download Video ( High Standard Phone (3GP) ) The phrase contains no "r", for instance, while our name does. By showing his willingness to sacrifice what is his for what is right and good, he also puts his son on the proper road for his own adulthood—the true test of the good father. For many of us, interpreting what God is saying in our lives can be a challenging thing, especially if He is asking us to give up something that we love. Is it possible that Abraham (like Noah in his tent) un-fathered himself on Mount Moriah? In Islam, the prophet Muhammadclai… But, as the question was .not about reward or punishment but about a a gift or an offering, the guilt or innocence of the “victim” is beside the point (indeed, the offered one is almost invariably pure, innocent, unblemished). As the whole story suggests, Abraham, newly a father of the promised-son-of-the-covenant and newly the founder of a new nation, understood that the true father and true founder must devote his offspring and his people to something higher than offspring and peoplehood, even at the cost of losing them. "Originally called Abram, or "exalted father," the Lord changed his name to Abraham as a symbol of the covenant promise to multiply his descendants into a great nation that God would … Isaac married Rebekah of the Chaldeans, who bore him Jacob and Esau. Abraham, the founder of a great nation, must do righteousness and justice, and command his children after him to do likewise, for only in this way can Abraham bring the Lord’s righteous ways to the entire world, and thus be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. They are summoned to continue the chain by rearing their children looking up to the sacred and the divine, by initiating them into God’s chosen ways. We don't know how large this village was, but the chances are excellent that it was of similar or larger size than Israel. Examples of first-stage states are very early Egypt and Mesopotamia.
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