The Abraham Saga-- Part Twelve<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\" Without question Gen. 21 is a crucial chapter in the Abraham saga.\u00a0 Here, finally, and after many many anxious years of waiting we hear "and the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Abraham Saga-- Part Twelve\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\" Without question Gen. 21 is a crucial chapter in the Abraham saga.\u00a0 Here, finally, and after many many anxious years of waiting we hear "and the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/?p=69122\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-01-28T06:33:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" 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{"id":69122,"date":"2025-01-28T01:33:55","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T06:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/?p=69122"},"modified":"2025-01-13T14:15:34","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T19:15:34","slug":"the-abraham-saga-part-twelve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/2025\/01\/28\/the-abraham-saga-part-twelve\/","title":{"rendered":"The Abraham Saga– Part Twelve"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Without question Gen. 21 is a crucial chapter in the Abraham saga.\u00a0 Here, finally, and after many many anxious years of waiting we hear \u201cand the Lord singled out Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had spoken. And Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age\u00a0at the set time that God had spoken to him.<\/em>\u201c.\u00a0 \u00a0If Abraham knew a set time, he certainly didn\u2019t act like it, or didn\u2019t fully believe it, as it was too far off from the time of the initial promise of offspring.\u00a0 And Abraham named the child Itzak=she laughs, and he circumcises him on the 8th day as commanded , and all this happened when Abraham had turned 100 (though I still wonder if they were counting years on a lunar rather than a solar calendar)!\u00a0 Since there are 354 days in a lunar year, if they were counting on that system 100 lunar year= 1,100 days less, which is to say about 3 years less, not a big difference.<\/p>\n

Sarah says \u2018Laughter has God made me, whoever hears will laugh at me\u2019. There is ambiguity to the Hebrew noun tsehoq=laughter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>This could be laughter out of joy, but that same word can mean \u2018mockery\u2019, all who hear may mock Sarah, or perhaps laugh with her.\u00a0 It being a patriarchal situation it would matter that she bore Abraham a son \u2018in his old age\u2019. Notice the reversal, previously she called herself all wrinkled and dried up, now she speaks of suckling and weaning a son. God can make a way where there seems to be no way.\u00a0 So Abraham celebrates a big feast at the weaning of Isaac.\u00a0 This simply prepares for what\u2019s next, namely the laughter of Ishmael\u00a0 the son of Hagar over the new infant son of Abraham, and Sarah cannot abide that response and says to Abraham \u2018drive out the slavegirl and her son, for he shall not inherit with my son Isaac.\u00a0 And perhaps surprisingly God counsels Abraham to do what Sarah asks, since Ishmael will not be the seed through whom Abraham will be acclaimed. Nevertheless, God will make Ishmael into a nation as well since he is Abraham\u2019s seed.<\/p>\n

Now this story becomes important in Gal. 4 when Paul is contrasting the Mosaic with the Abrahamic covenants, and makes a big deal about the Hebrew saying seed singular here, which in a surprising turn of events he refers singularly to Jesus\u2013 THE SEED of Abraham.\u00a0 What is interesting about the Hebrew of vs. 13 is while seed seems to be a collective noun=offspring, in the second half of the verse \u2018seed\u2019 refers specifically to Ishmael, and it makes clear that Paul is not just making up the idea that \u2018seed\u2019 could refer to a particular individual, or even that the phrase \u2018Abraham\u2019s seed refers to Abraham\u2019s own contribution to his own offspring, which is singular (not seeds in a prebiological world where they don\u2019t know about semen and its many components).<\/p>\n

So Abraham gets up early the next morning, gives a skin of water and bread to Hagar for her to carry them on her shoulder, and sent them off into the wilderness of Beersheba.\u00a0 \u00a0But when the water is running out Hagar despairs, flings Ishmael under a bush as she doesn\u2019t want to see her little child die, and she wept.\u00a0 But God heard the voice of the lad, and God\u2019s messenger tells Hagar not to despair as God will make her son a great nation, and God opened her eyes to see the well at Beersheba (noting that Be\u2019er means well).\u00a0 She fills the skin, gives it to Ishmael, and long story short, he becomes a good archer, dwelling in the wilderness of\u00a0 Paran, which apparently extends from Petra down to Midian.\u00a0 \u00a0This is important even today because Ishmael is thought to be the ancestor of northern Arab tribes, who in turn involved the ancestry of Mohammed himself. Note that our text says Hagar found him a wife in Egypt, herself being an Egyptian.<\/p>\n

Suddenly the text shifts back to the story of Abimelech, another good reason to think that this saga is composed of various individual traditions which have been edited together later. The anachronism at the end of the chapter, referring this territory to the \u2018land of the Philistines\u2019 who were by no means in the land yet, being a sea people probably ultimately from Crete, reveals to us just how much later these things were edited together.\u00a0 The Philistines do not show up in the land before 1200 B.C. or about 200 years before King David.\u00a0 But as for Abraham, he lived at least 700 years earlier.<\/p>\n

So near the end of Gen. 21,\u00a0 Abimelech, having noted that God had been blessing Abraham and his flocks, and he wants an oath that Abraham, as his tribe increases will deal kindly with Abimelech\u2019s people, as he has done with Abraham\u2019s.\u00a0 Abraham says he will swear it, but while they are negotiating he criticizes the seizing of a well he had dug by Abimelech\u2019s servants.\u00a0 Abimelech pleads ignorance, indicating he did not tell his servants to take this liberty.\u00a0 And as it turns out, this is the well Hagar had previously seen\u2014 at Beersheba, which means either well of the oath, or well of the seven.\u00a0 And the etymology is explains because Abraham sets apart and gives Abimelech seven ewes as a witness that Abraham had dug that well. And so they both swore, sealing their deal.\u00a0 \u00a0Abraham throughout his existence since the call of God on his life was a nomad, a sojourner in various places in the land, and at Beersheba (which later become the southern border of Biblical Israel) he planted a Tamarisk=Oak and there invoked God\u2019s name, the everlasting God.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"