Genesis 25 & 27

woopydalan · Jul 15, 2015

Hello,

I want to give a brief introduction about myself so you guys know where I'm coming from. At this time I am not a Christian, but I am reading the Bible for the first time to learn more about it before I make a decision whether or not this is right for me. I have always been secular, so I never grew up in a church or had any religious affiliation. I was using another Bible forum to ask questions, since I have no one else to consult with, so I thought a forum would be a good place to get clarifications on The Word. Unfortunately, the rules of that forum seemed segregationist, as non-Christians were ONLY allowed to post in the non-christian forum, and all posts made by non-Christians had to be pre-approved by a moderator, which is not conducive to dialogue.

1. I am reading these chapters in Genesis, and I am quite frankly baffled by what is going on. First off, I am wondering how Abraham is sleeping with so many women? As far as I knew, this is immoral, but he had children with Sarah, Hagar, and in Gen 25 he takes a new wife Keturah. I think at this point Sarah has already died, but why does God grant Abraham the right to sleep with Hagar only because Sarah is infertile?

2. Why are the children of Abraham (except Isaac and Ishmael) ignored, other than stating their birth? Abraham gives all his inheritance to Isaac, which seems peculiar to me. Why does God seem to favor Sarah over any other woman, since Isaac is the son of her? As a bit of a side note, the bible so far seems to be one big family tree that I can't keep track of. It's hard enough just to know all the people in my own family!

3. Anyways, in Gen 25 Isaac has two sons, Jacob and Esau. Esau went out hunting and was famished. He asked Jacob for some stew, and for some odd reason Jacob requests Esau's birthright (which birthright?) from his own brother. I'm just glad when I asked my brother if I could eat his chocolate today that he didn't force me to give him my birthright. Jacob seems to have some moral deficiencies. What is going on with Jacob?

4. Gen 27 is totally confusing me. Apparently, Isaac can't even distinguish his own two sons when they bring him food to eat. Is he really senile or something? There is some really weird scenario where apparently Isaac will curse Jacob if he brings the food instead of Esau, all which can be determined by hairy hands. All these brothers are desperate for their father's blessing. So much that Esau plots to kill Jacob over a seemingly trivial blessing from a senile, old man.

5. Lastly, in Gen 27:46, Rebekah clearly displays her disdain for Hittite women, saying she would rather die than see Jacob marry a Hittite. So is there some early evidence for racism present already in the bible??

I want to finish by mentioning that I am not saying that God is bad or anything, since I understand all these people have their own free will. But from my view it appears that Isaac's family has some moral deficiencies and God seems to keep blessing Isaac.

valiant · Jul 15, 2015

woopydalan said:

hi, welcome to the forum. what you must recognise as you read Scripture is that the Old Testament is the story of how God prepared the way for the coming of Jesus Christ. It begins with the creation of the world, and how man rebelled against God until the whole world was affected.

Then God made Himself known to one man Abraham with a view to raising up a people who would act as His witnesses to the world. Thus it concentrates on the sons through whom this was brought about, Isaac and Jacob.

However, may I make a suggestion? Perhaps if you wish to discover the truth about God you would be best first to read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They will tell you the truth about the life and teaching of Jesus. For it is Jesus Who is the center of the message of the Bible. He is its central truth. And He is the One Who can most of all bring us to God. I will now try to deal briefly with your questions.

In those days there was no way of solving the problem of infertility. There was therefore a custom that where a wife was unable to have children, her maidservant could have them on her behalf. The maidservant then became a second wife. In the case of a tribal leader like Abraham it was important that he had children to take over headship of the tribe. That was why there was this custom. That was why Abraham went into Hagar so as to produce a son for Sarah.

they are not totally ignored. but in fact they are passed over because they did not contribute to the promised line which would produce the chosen nation and finally Jesus Christ. The writer was not telling us the life of Abraham. He was telling us how the promised line was produced.

Abraham did not give everything to Isaac (Gen 25.6). But Isaac was the leader of the tribe, and had to maintain the large household of around 2000 people for whom he was responsible. In those days no one lived for himself alone, he lived for the tribe.

Because Sarah was his first wife and his chief wife, and herself a princess. It was through her that his tribe would be provided with its leader.

this was because it was this family through whom Jesus Christ would come.

the birthright was the right to lead the tribe and be its priest before God. Esau didn't really care about it. It meant little to him. Otherwise he would not have relinquished it so easily. Jacob, even though he used false methods, wanted to lead the tribe and fulfil God's will.

The Bible is quite honest about Jacob's faults. But his saving feature was that he wanted the best for the tribe and to be a faithful leader. whereas Esau married outside the tribe, Jacob married a daughter of Abraham's wider family, and retained the leadership within the family.

Isaac was blind and old. And he had no reason to be suspicious. Feeling Jacob's 'hairiness' he was convinced that he must be Esau. Remember that Esau and Jacob were twins. So they would have many similarities. To be fair to Jacob he had the right to the blessing for he had bought it from Esau.

The patriarch's 'blessing' was in fact a very serious thing. It was the equivalent to a last will and testament and was legally binding. By receiving the blessing Jacob was appointed leader of the tribe when Isaac died.

It was more a question of family. Esau married outside the 'royal family'. Jacob married within the 'royal family'. In those days this was seen as important (as indeed it is to some extent among royalty today).

God was blessing Isaac, not so much because he deserved it, but because he was the true son of Abraham and because he was to be God's chosen instrument in producing the nation through whom Jesus Christ would be born into the world.

woopydalan · Jul 15, 2015

First I want to thank you so much for the clarifications, that helps tremendously. Now I have a lot more understanding of what is going on.

Your response prompted another question, because now there seems to be a contradiction about Esau. First he is willing to give up his right as leader of the tribe for food, then later he plans to kill his brother over inheritance of the tribal leadership. Why the sudden change of heart?

atwhatcost · Jul 15, 2015

LOL Got to say, thank you for thinking some of the same things I still think! You're not nuts. There is plenty of "deficiency" going on. And, yup! It's wrong!

So let me go through these to answer what I can. Also, know I probably can't answer them all fully for the same reason there was plenty of deficiency going on -- I'm deficient too.

1. Abraham sleeping with a bunch of women? Two is a bunch? He slept with his wife. (One.) He slept with his wife's servant. (Two.) Sure, Keturah was his second wife, but Sarah had died. Are you suggesting it's immoral for a widower to remarry? (And, if you want to judge guys by the number of wives they have, ha! You haven't really gotten to know Jacob well yet. Or, bigger shocker -- David and Solomon!

I think Solomon is the record holder!) But, hey, you've gotten to Gen. 27 already. Where was that law you read that said it was morally wrong to have more than one spouse? You didn't miss it. It's not there. You know that old scenario -- the earth is destroyed and man has to start over again with just a few people? You already read the reality of that. God did start over with Noah, a wife, three sons and their three wives. Abraham is roughly generation 16 since that event. Exactly when do you implement rules on one-spouse marriages? (No need to answer, since I'm not exactly sure when God implemented that rule either. lol)

Yet, despite that, Abraham was faithful to one wife. His problem was he was a little too faithful to her. It was sin, but not because it was immoral to do that. It was sin because Abraham and Sarah didn't take God at his word. Still, note: God didn't take that out on Hagar or Ishmael. He still did what he promised to do though.

2. This isn't a history book nor an epic, (although it has history and is very epicish.) This is the Bible -- the book about God. He's the one and only protagonist in the book. Everyone else is simply there to show God in action. God "just" promised Abraham a land. (Hey, if you're eternal and created time and space, you really don't have to wait 100 years, so it's always "just" with God. lol) Up until the Israelites taking position of that land, it's a story of how God gave it to them. (He promises Jacob something more a bit further on.) So why dwell on everyone else when it's not their story? Then again, according to your aside, that's a good thing, because you don't have to decipher that family tree. lol

3. Yupper, you're not nuts. There is something seriously wrong with Jacob. Still God's story. Time for you to notice a trend. God takes the worse, the deficient, the weakest, the least, and, through them, he always gets his way. It's a really big book, but it, eventually, tells why he chose Jacob over Esau. (Romans 9.) God chooses whom he will choose. He loves whom he will love and hates whom he will hate. It's got absolutely nothing to do with our moral fiber, our will, our choices, our anything. God sees us for who we are and we're all morally deficient! He does not deny that nor excuse it. Matter of fact, he clearly lays out his law that we have always known. (The reason why Cain's excuse didn't cut it.) He judges righteously too. If we break God's law once, we deserve one punishment -- separation from him, death, and hell. Since no one hasn't broken at least one law, (and truthfully, we seem to put in effort to break them all), he had a law to cover that too. If you steal something, you're supposed to give it back and then pay 20% more than it was worth. If you can't afford that, then you become a slave for seven years to the one you stole from. If I want, I can be the substitute for you, and pay the cost myself, IF I didn't steal anything. So, if anyone wants to take the punishment of another, we can. You'll need to catch up on the implications of that when Jesus shows up later in the book, but do keep track of what the penalty for each law break is to start figuring out why we moral defects need God to intervene for us. And, in this case, and most of the cases in the OT, these guys God chooses all have another thing in common - they trust God for their lives. So, yupper, these men are all morally deficient, just like us.

4. Sounds like you need to learn what a blessing is. In this case, it's directly connected to a will, yet before wills were written on paper. Also note, as you continue to read, how often God chooses the firstborn. And make no mistakes, he understands the importance of a firstborn, (he'll show that more in Exodus), yet his will is usually brought about by the deficient. (You're going to have to keep remembering that, or you'll forever wonder why God didn't pick the obviously-good-guy all the time. lol)

5. Not really. First, again, your assuming this is a history book. It's not. (Again, it is history, but that's not the principle aim of the book.) So don't waste time figuring out historical firsts. Second, no. You just don't marry outside your beliefs. More so, if you trust God. After all, go off and marry a nonbeliever and you spend the rest of your life in full confusion. You love your spouse, but your spouse hates God? That will forever put you stuck deciding between what is more important to you. Marry a believer, and there is no in-between. There is God.

Keep asking, and we'll try to answer.

flob · Jul 15, 2015

Sarai said to Abram, Because Jehovah has prevented me from bearing, please go in to my female servant, perhaps I will obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai...Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her female servant, and gave her to Abram her husband to be a wife...And Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. And when Abram was 99 years old, Jehovah appeared to Abram and said to him, I am the All-sufficient God; walk before me and be perfect...
Gen 16:2-3, 16; 17:1

In [Abraham] all the families of the earth will be blessed
Gen 12:3.
In [Abraham's] seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed
Gen 22:18
Jesus...so it was thought, the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat...the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham
Luke 3:23-24, 34.
Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it's written that Abraham had two sons, one of the maidservant and one of the free woman. However the one of the maidservant was born according to the flesh, but the one of the free woman was born through promise. These things are spoken allegorically, for these women are two covenants...
you, brothers, in the way Isaac was, are children of promise
Galatians 4:21-24, 28.
I announce to you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people, because today a Savior has been born to you in David's city, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God and saying, Glory in the highest places to God and on earth peace among men of His good pleasure
Luke 2:10-14

He's like you and me

In [Abraham] all the families of the earth will be blessed
Gen 12:3.
Yes, all these people seem to be like us

He was hungry

'Familyism.' Sara, Rebekah, and Leah (and Rachel...) all were from Abraham's native land.
...I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated...
Malachi 1:2-3.
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him
Jn 3:16-17

Tintin · Jul 16, 2015

atwhatcost said:

AtWhatCost,

1. Try Genesis 1:26-28 and Genesis 2:24. God implemented one man/one woman marriage from the moment Adam and Eve were brought together on the 6th day of Creation Week. Um, what do you mean Abraham was too faithful to Sarah? No-one can ever be too faithful to their wife/husband.

2. Yes, the Bible's main protagonist is God and yes, the Bible is history. All of it. Some parts are just played out in different genres. But all of it is history.

Woopydalan,

1. God allows the more-than-one-wife families, but He doesn't encourage them and they always lead to strife and evil ends.

2. The Bible generally records just the key players. It's not that God doesn't think much of the other people. It's that they just don't play an important part in the narrative of Israel leading to Christ and beyond.

3. It's already been answered.

4. Isaac was close to blind at this point. What I don't understand is how he couldn't differentiate between Esau's naturally hairy and rough hands and neck and Jacob's goat-clad hands and neck. That's just unobservant! (It's interesting to note that translators seem to pain Jacob in a bad light, as the deceiver, but the Bible actually calls him 'perfect' (in the Hebrew sense that Noah etc. was 'perfect').

5. Yes, there's some racism in the Bible. Rebekah greatly dislikes the Hittite women, but God doesn't condone racism. The Bible just records history without sugar-coating it.

dcontroversal · Jul 16, 2015

Hey bro......You have to remember that a lot of history is covered in the O.T.....some of it bad, some of it good....Abraham had to learn to be faithful as we all do....even Jesus learned to be obedient by the things which he suffered.....At the time the O.T. was coming online the Law was yet to be given and God (winked) at what humanity was doing....even Abraham had failures, yet was a believer and had the righteousness of God put to his account by faith......To be honest.....the O.T. has some very difficult passages and if I were you I would read John first and maybe then start at Matthew and read through the N.T. as you read through the O.T.........It might help you understand a bit easier.....

birdie · Jul 16, 2015

The Bible is using physical situations to paint spiritual pictures. So-called 'legalists' are always making rules about physical things that they think must be kept because of the surface text of the Bible. However, they need to get at what is the spiritual picture being painted. Christ is said in the Bible to have just one true spiritual wife. If we were surface readers, we might think only one lucky woman in the world would be that. However, the bride of Christ is many true believer persons who are all a part of the term 'the bride of Christ'. Similarly, this section of Genesis is talking about Sarai (who becomes Sarah) and Hagar in particular, who contribute, in their time to the spiritual picture of 'the bride of Christ'. God expects the congregations of believers to be raising spiritual children for the kingdom of God by nursing them with the sincere milk of the gospel. These women represent these believers of the kingdom. A spiritual child is someone of any age whom these congregations of believers are to be raising. Sarah, for example, had Isaac after she was old and past normal child-bearing age. This is a picture of how congregations no longer raise spiritual children as the tribulation period comes on and they are an older phenomenon. Sarah provides a picture of this. Still, God performs his promise and there are still spiritual children saved who come out of that time period. These are pictured by Isaac, so Isaac is a picture of more than one child really, who are all in Christ, so one in that respect. The Bible emphasizes the importance of being fertile by God's own granting. It is a picture being provided with spiritual children who will be saved (being fruitful in Christ). Being saved by God is of utmost importance in the Bible and what both man and God are very concerned with. Further, we want very much to bear spiritual children by means of the gospel.

You can make this easier by understanding that the Bible is painting pictures of two groups only, really - the saved and the unsaved. The verses you are asking about deal mostly with the saved group. The inheritance you are asking about is so important because it is a way of saying "this person and his spiritual descendants will get God's salvation which is God's blessing". When God has blessed someone with salvation, no one can take that away from them because it is God who does it, it is God who determines. The Bible tells us that Jacob had respect to this blessing. He desired it and treated it as the most important of all things (he even wrestled an angel for it), and that is just the attitude that is right to have. Essau, apparently, lacked this and instead went for a physical thing.

The birthright is God's blessing of salvation and his promise in that regard, but of course that is only something someone would see if they understood the Bible as painting pictures of spiritual situations. You could just say it is a bunch of ancient customs and traditions, nothing more.

God provides spiritual food. The kind of food God likes is the word, which is spiritual food. A picture is being painted of this sort of thing. The true believers of the kingdom have such food, a Sarah is a picture of these believers of the kingdom who is able to make such food. Isaac gives good spiritual food then, because Sarah has enabled him, and that spiritual food is the gospel. Hair in the Bible is a buzz word for what prophets have. All true believers are called prophets in a certain sense in the Bible. The father perceives that his son is indeed a prophet (hairy) and therefore he is fit to be called saved, to receive God's blessing of salvation.

5. Lastly, in Gen 27:46, Rebekah clearly displays her disdain for Hittite women, saying she would rather die than see Jacob marry a Hittite. So is there some early evidence for racism present already in the bible??

I want to finish by mentioning that I am not saying that God is bad or anything, since I understand all these people have their own free will. But from my view it appears that Isaac's family has some moral deficiencies and God seems to keep blessing Isaac.[/QUOTE]

Other people have commented well on how God doesn't save already perfect persons, but often saves the neediest or most foolish or weakest to show God's own strength in saving. Also, I'm not sure that your contemporary notions of morality are at issue here, overly much. Nice to see someone reading the Bible and asking good questions.

Tintin · Jul 16, 2015

Oh, good grief, Birdie. Not you again. The Bible contains parables, but it's not a parable! Stop misleading this earnest OP.

MarcR · Jul 16, 2015

woopydalan said:

woopydalan,

1. I am reading these chapters in Genesis, and I am quite frankly baffled by what is going on. First off, I am wondering how Abraham is sleeping with so many women? As far as I knew, this is immoral, but he had children with Sarah, Hagar, and in Gen 25 he takes a new wife Keturah. I think at this point Sarah has already died, but why does God grant Abraham the right to sleep with Hagar only because Sarah is infertile?

While in our time and culture, slavery is virtually unknown; in Abraham's day it was simply a fact of life.

Hagar was Sarah's slave (her property). God had promised a child to Abraham and Sarah; but Sarah became impatient with God's timing. God NEVER granted Abraham permission to sleep with Hagar; except that it was common practice for a man to have more than one wife and to keep concubines; and God had not yet spoken against such practice.
Sarah gave Abraham permission to sleep with Hagar; and in fact urged him to do so in spite of his reluctance.
Abraham married Keturah after Sarah's death; and even in our society there is nothing immoral about a widower remarrying.

2. Why are the children of Abraham (except Isaac and Ishmael) ignored, other than stating their birth? Abraham gives all his inheritance to Isaac, which seems peculiar to me. Why does God seem to favor Sarah over any other woman, since Isaac is the son of her? As a bit of a side note, the bible so far seems to be one big family tree that I can't keep track of. It's hard enough just to know all the people in my own family!

It is not the intent of the bible to discuss all offspring of every person mentioned in Scripture.

The primary intention of Scripture is to help people learn how they can have a meaningful relationship with God.

Additional information is given at God's discretion, for His purposes.

3. Anyways, in Gen 25 Isaac has two sons, Jacob and Esau. Esau went out hunting and was famished. He asked Jacob for some stew, and for some odd reason Jacob requests Esau's birthright (which birthright?) from his own brother. I'm just glad when I asked my brother if I could eat his chocolate today that he didn't force me to give him my birthright. Jacob seems to have some moral deficiencies. What is going on with Jacob?

The birthright of the firstborn was the Spiritual leadership of the family (somewhat like a priesthood). Because of the way Esau lived; Jacob rightly suspected that the birthright was not very important to Esau. Jacob used the birthright to test Esau's commitment to serving God; because serving God was very important to Jacob. Rebekah was alive and present at the time; so Esau had other options to get fed.

points 4 and 5 to follow

atwhatcost · Jul 17, 2015

Tintin said:

AtWhatCost,

1. Try Genesis 1:26-28 and Genesis 2:24. God implemented one man/one woman marriage from the moment Adam and Eve were brought together on the 6th day of Creation Week. Um, what do you mean Abraham was too faithful to Sarah? No-one can ever be too faithful to their wife/husband.

2. Yes, the Bible's main protagonist is God and yes, the Bible is history. All of it. Some parts are just played out in different genres. But all of it is history.

Woopydalan,

1. God allows the more-than-one-wife families, but He doesn't encourage them and they always lead to strife and evil ends.

2. The Bible generally records just the key players. It's not that God doesn't think much of the other people. It's that they just don't play an important part in the narrative of Israel leading to Christ and beyond.

3. It's already been answered.

4. Isaac was close to blind at this point. What I don't understand is how he couldn't differentiate between Esau's naturally hairy and rough hands and neck and Jacob's goat-clad hands and neck. That's just unobservant! (It's interesting to note that translators seem to pain Jacob in a bad light, as the deceiver, but the Bible actually calls him 'perfect' (in the Hebrew sense that Noah etc. was 'perfect').

5. Yes, there's some racism in the Bible. Rebekah greatly dislikes the Hittite women, but God doesn't condone racism. The Bible just records history without sugar-coating it.

Too faithful:
Honey, sleep with my maid servant, It will please me.

OK.

Dumb....Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb! Sometimes the better idea is to just say NO!

Tintin · Jul 17, 2015

atwhatcost said:

I see what you mean now. Thanks sister.

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Genesis 25 & 27

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