Genesis 25:1-18

We’re in the 25th chapter of the book of Genesis,
which marks about the halfway point,
but we have a lot of story yet.
And as we kind of today,
Michael’s kind of…
I don’t want to call them loose ends,
but there are these threads of the story that we kind of
wrap up today that really,
I think, officially make the transition as we move to focus on Isaac.
Yeah.
I mean, let’s just say that explicitly,
because we will read some text here,
but today’s going to be very broad.
There’s going to be a lot of overview in this.
So we’ve been following
God’s covenantal calling and then promise to Abraham,
right?
Abraham renamed Abraham.
And then we have all of these stories with Sarah,
who we’ve already seen her death and burial,
and then had all of these Ishmael and Hagar and Lot,
and all of these characters have had these
intertwined yet often very much distinct storylines.
And so now,
with Sarah’s death being very much the beginning of many other transitions,
we’re going to begin to see
all of these taking different turns as we make the transition to the next generation of God’s promise.
And
this is very artfully done.
And I don’t mean that it’s not historical or that it’s
telling us what happened,
but it’s done in such a way that it’s clear that what is happening now
is fulfilling one season and opening the door to the next.
And that sort of sets up for us,
all of what we’re going to talk about today,
sets up for us for the continuation of a promise,
which is very clearly one that was made long ago.
Is that fair, Clint?
No, I think it is.
And we start in kind of a surprising place,
I think, Michael, given the story.
We start with the news that Abraham,
who is now somewhere along the order of 130,
gets remarried.
He marries a woman named Keturah,
and Abraham and Keturah produce
six sons.
And given the rest of the story,
given the amount of time that we have seen,
Isaac took in terms of the patience demanded for the birth of Isaac,
this is kind of dropped in here,
which is much like the Ishmael story.
Here we have descendants from Abraham that do sort of count in his lineage,
but don’t count in the covenant.
It says here that Abraham gave all he said to Isaac,
but the sons of his concubine,
so that means the word concubine,
he is married, but it’s like a secondary marriage.
The Bible sort of draws a box around Sarah and sets her off as kind of
at a higher status than say Hagar or now Keturah.
And says he gave the sons of Keturah gifts
while he was still living and then sent them away from his son Isaac eastward to the east country.
So again, we have that kind of protection,
that kind of separation of Isaac,
the idea that he’s
exalted and that there is something.
It’s not that Abraham is bad to these other children,
he gives them gifts,
but in terms of his property,
his people, his estate,
and the lineage of the covenant promise,
that all runs through Isaac and I think the scripture wants there to be no confusion
about that.
It’s particular,
right?
It’s a particular promise that was made to Abraham and Sarah.
Isaac is the son that comes from that union and so
that is given preeminence.
You know, the scripture didn’t need to include this,
Clint, you know, and I’m sure there’s some
carried knowledge, some historical knowledge about who these
individuals were, where they went when they moved east and what that means to the people of Israel.
So I’m sure that there’s
more cultural knowledge embedded here than what we know,
but fundamentally we remain focused on
that core central promise as Abraham is to the end of his life and that’s exactly we got six verses
with this remarriage on children and then we move directly into the description of Abraham himself
and his own death.
Right, and here we get told that he’s 175 years and he breathed his last,
died in a good old age,
an old man full of years,
and was gathered to his people.
And then a very interesting note,
his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him.
So Ishmael is, I think we said 27 years
older than Isaac according to the text
and yet they both stand here honoring Abraham as their
father.
If there’s any bad will between Ishmael and Abraham or then Ishmael and Isaac,
we have no hint of it and there’s no reason I guess.
It seems like the scripture would tell us if it
wanted us to know that or if that had been the case,
but here they together present themselves,
no mention of these other children,
but those two children,
those two sons preside over the burial.
He’s buried with Sarah in the cave that we saw him purchase a couple chapters ago
and then it says specifically Abraham,
after the death of Abraham,
God blessed his son Isaac.
And again,
I think in lots of ways this portion of the story,
Michael, is kind of whittling away the details
and really just dialing the knob down to focus on Isaac in the next part of the story.
Yeah, so look at how quickly this moves.
So verse 11, which we were just reading,
Clint, after the death of Abraham,
God blessed his son Isaac and then Isaac settles and then
the very next verse breaks down Ishmael’s descendants and it’s striking once again to
the point you just made.
We see how quickly this narrative text is moving towards
bringing us some
insight to how this story pans out.
So as it is in the case of Ishmael,
Ishmael is very
blessed.
Ishmael has lots of sons.
In fact, there are 12 princes according to their tribes.
It says verse 16,
then look here, verse 17, Ishmael lives 137 years until he dies and is gathered to his people.
So not as long as Abraham,
but still obviously has done very, very well,
has been blessed with lots of,
you know, children and heirs and his name will continue.
And this is,
you know, really, honestly,
it probably should be a surprising inclusion.
I mean, really, when you factor Hagar and Ishmael and the story of how that happens and how they’re cast out,
how they’re essentially sent out without even barely a prayer,
here he comes to bury his father.
The very next section is him having done very well and living a very long life.
There’s a sense in which God has
kept God’s promise to Ishmael just as much as he has to Abraham,
even though it was a different promise,
God has been faithful to it.
Yeah, I think the difference perhaps is that
clearly,
I think Genesis treats the Ishmael story as an extension of the Abraham story.
And we’re going to see now,
Isaac really gets his own story and Ishmael is sort of treated as
one of the loose ends
of the Abraham story.
And so when the Abraham story is wrapped up,
then right away,
the Ishmael story and it is a good story.
Lots of people,
lots of land,
a long life.
There’s no reason to think that it isn’t
a good story, but it’s not the story.
Isaac now is the story and Ishmael is really
treated as a part of Abraham’s story.
And the Bible isn’t,
I don’t know, push back on this,
Michael.
The Bible is not real interested in his story for its own sake.
We don’t get a lot of Ishmael stuff.
We get told things about Ishmael,
but they’re always connected to what we’ve been
told about Abraham and they don’t really stand on their own the way that Isaac’s stories are going
to from this point.
Yes, so one way that you know that is when you look at the text here
in chapter 25 verse 19.
We’re going to see Isaac picked up again
and we’re immediately going to
move into all of this detail about his sons.
We’re going to talk about Jacob,
Esau, and I’m certain that these are going to be familiar stories to you.
They’re very much the kind of thing that gets
covered in Sunday school and children’s Bibles.
That said,
you know, I think there’s a sense when
you look at the progression of this story,
what’s clearly on display here is more than just personality.
I want to be clear here.
There is personality and the people in it matter and there’s
certainly the political family,
even regional stuff happening.
We’ve met, you know, sort of pointed that out as we’ve gone,
but we’re beginning to see as the generations move forward
that the promise is something above and beyond the family.
That this is something that has been given.
It’s a gift that exists because of God’s generosity and not because of some innate ability or some innate
intellectual capacity of the people.
And, you know, I’ll be honest, that’s one of the things that makes Genesis so compelling to me as a story of the beginning,
as a Genesis, is because when you look at this story,
you realize that as these people looked
back to their forebears,
they didn’t point out their cunning or their strength or their
head start that they had over other people.
In fact,
the Genesis story is far more about
how God saved and brought the people forward in spite of themselves,
which is a remarkable thing
to make your Genesis story to be.
If you got to choose,
I think most of us would pick one
that was a little bit more illustrious and had a little bit more,
you know, adulation for the people in it.
But this story avoids
that.
It’s far more about God being with the people as the generation closes,
a new generation comes forward and the old promise remains new because of the
I think the stage is set for that covenant story.
In some ways,
it’s the second act,
the Abraham,
the sort of first act of Abraham and all that goes with it is wrapped up as we move into
Isaac now taking the stage.
And Isaac is a really interesting character
almost in reverse.
Isaac is kind of a non-character really in a really specific way.
The Bible tells us so much about Abraham and so much about Jacob after,
but Isaac is
a kind of mystery,
a little bit of a question mark,
and we’ll have lots of opportunity to try and
flesh that out in the texts we look at next week.
Yeah, that’s exactly the plan.
So we’re going to
pick up here next week.
We’ll have four days together next week and then we’ll be taking
some time off to celebrate the holidays.
So we look forward to seeing you next week.
Come armed
with lots of readiness to talk about various Sunday Christmas things and we will see you all then.
All right, bye.