Reading Genesis 25-29
Apologies for the lack of posting. I have been really caught up with school and outside commitments. The past few lessons carries on the story from the Abraham to the all important lineage to Jacob (aka Israel).
Genesis 25 starts with the death of Abraham, not before he had many more children. Interestingly, 25:9 records that both Isaac and Ishmael were there to bury Abraham, but 25:11 only records that God blessed Isaac. Again, reinforcing that Isaac is the (Biblical) chosen descendent from whom God will carry out his plan of redeeming mankind.
It was not until recently that I found out that there are 25 Islamic prophets, of which there are 5 Ulul Azmi, of which 3 come from the line of Ibrahim i.e. Abraham. In fact, of the 17 of 25 Islamic prophets after Abraham, only 1 is from the line of Ishmael (excluding Ishmael himself), that is the Prophet Muhammad. This is just an interesting fact which I think is worth knowing. The link to the video is below.
Genesis 26 to 29 have many parallels that I would like to list. In Chapter 12, we see Abram lying about Sarai being his sister. This is parallel by Isaac lying about Rebekah being his sister in Chapter 26. Genesis 27 records for us that Abraham had 2 main sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Isaac had 2 main sons Jacob and Esau. While there is “rivalry” between Ishmael and Isaac stemming from legitimacy, we see the same thing with Jacob and Esau, with “rivalry” stemming from birthrights. The Bible makes it clear that the nature and story of mankind is passed from one generation to another. Critically, the sinful nature of mankind is one of those things that are passed down. Finally, Genesis 29 and 30 parallels the many descendants that Abraham has by recording for us the many descendants of Jacob with Leah and Rachel (often through their own means). The covenant of God carries on despite the death of Abraham.
We are about 3/5 through Genesis but we still see the same themes in the life of Ishmael/Isaac and Jacob/Esau repeating from the Abrahamic arc. We enter the period of history where we may have first (debatable) evidence of the existence of a monotheistic group of people. However, till now, none of the characters of the Bible could be categorically proven. Regardless, as I mention, this is a story and the existence of any of these human characters do not matter. Instead, it’s the themes and messages that are key. Thus, the key message up till now is:
- Mankind is sinful. God has a redemptive plan.
- God chose to enact his redemptive plan through the line of Isaac.
We are thus interested in the descendants of Isaac, and in particular the line of Jacob.
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