Abraham's Last Days, Gen. 25

25:1-18

Abraham had taken another wife, whose name was Keturah. She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan; the descendants of Dedan were the Ashurites, the Letushites and the Leummites. The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanok, Abida and Eldaah. All these were descendants of Keturah. Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac. But while he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines [see note 39]and Sarah’s Proposal, 16:1-2] and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east. 

Abraham lived a hundred and seventy-five years. Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people. His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, the field Abraham had bought from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah. After Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac, who then lived near Beer Lahai Roi. (vv. 1-11) 

The sequence of events given here in chapter is not necessarily in chronological order. The sending away of Hagar and her son (vv 5-6) took place before securing the bride for Isaac (Gen 24), and the birth of Keturah's sons may also have been earlier. They are put here for topical reasons: to show at the end of Abraham's life how he disposed of the issues of parallel lines to the line of promise which went through Isaac to Jacob. 

Note the structure of vv. 1-18. Two sections of genealogy (1-4, 12-18) frame a two central sections: vv 5-6 which states the testamentary primacy of Isaac, and 7-11 which contains the report of Abraham's death. Moses will use a similar literary pattern when later he separates off Esau's descendants from the primary line of Jacob.

Why are descendants so important to the life of Abraham? (Because God had promised he would become a nation as numerous as the stars and the sand. And because the true 'seed of Abraham', the Messiah Jesus, was to be born in Abraham's line [Matt 1])

Let's review the elements of God's primary promises to Abraham (12:2-3; 15:4-7; 17:1-8): 

#1 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram ; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. (Genesis 17:4–6)

#2  As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. (Genesis 15:12–15)

#3 Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.” … But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. (Genesis 17:19–21; 21:12)

Descendants (12:2; 15:5), land (15:7-21; 17:8), blessing through descendants on entire human race (12:2b-3). 

Why were such promises so incredible in Abraham's case? He was old and childless, and he owned no land. 

These were the primary promises of the covenant. But there were ancillary or secondary ones as well. Can you remember any of these? He was to be the father of many nations (ʾaḇ raham) and kings (17:4-6). The kings are not just Israel's kings but the kings of the descendants of Hagar's and Keturah's descendants: King Saʿud of Saudi Arabia would be one of those. But they are not part of the line of blessing on all nations. 

25:12-18

This is the account of the family line of Abraham’s son Ishmael, whom Sarah’s slave, Hagar the Egyptian, bore to Abraham. These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, listed in the order of their birth: Nebaioth the firstborn of Ishmael, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah. These were the sons of Ishmael, and these are the names of the twelve tribal rulers according to their settlements and camps. Ishmael lived a hundred and thirty-seven years. He breathed his last and died, and he was gathered to his people. His descendants settled in the area from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt, as you go toward Ashur. And they lived in hostility toward all the tribes related to them. 

The first genealogy (1-4) is of his descendants through the concubine Keturah  [see note 39 and Sarah’s Proposal, 16:1-2]. The second (12-18) is of those through the concubine Hagar. 

By the word "concubines" (pîlagšîm, plural of pîlegeš) verses 5-6 relate to both the first genealogy (Keturah), and the second (of Hagar's descendants). These two women were 'married' to Abraham and had children before Sarah died. So—contrary to what the sequence of the narrative in Genesis might suggest—Keturah [weblnk: Wiki, Ant. ch 15 weblnk:JosAntiq] was not taken to compensate for the loss of Sarah. To the descendants of these two women Abraham gave material gifts from his great wealth, but he sent them away to the East—i.e., into Arabia—so that they would have no part in Isaac's descendants' claim on the land God had promised. Abraham's giving preferential treatment to Isaac with regard to the major inheritance and the fulfillment of the promises was not based on prior birth ("firstborn"), since Ishmael was his oldest son, but because of God's choice of Isaac, communicated to Abraham by revelation. We will see the same pattern with Esau and Jacob later in this chapter. St. Paul seems to see in this also the principle that God acts in sovereign grace when he calls some to faith and allows others to pursue life through 'dead works'. 

The descendants of both Keturah and Hagar belong in the broad sense to the peoples of the Arabian peninsula, the large area to the south and east of Israel. Keturah's descendants seem to have been widely distributed over both southern and northern parts of the peninsula (Sheba and Dedan, but also Midian), while Hagar's were more restricted to the northern (from Havilah to Shur, v. 18). 

As the God of Adam and Eve, God is creator and father of all humanity: all peoples and races. But as the God of the promise of redemption for all peoples, he made a distinction between the line of promise, which went through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the other peoples of Earth. As Jesus said to the Samaritan woman who believed on him: "Salvation is through the Jews" (John 4). 

Application: Today's secular culture worships at the shrines of diversity and egalitarianism, meaning that there are many equally valid paths to God, many acceptable ways of believing, of worshiping, and of finding eternal life. Jesus, of course, denied that flatly when he said: "I am the way, the truth and the life: no one comes to the Father except by me" (John). As we study Romans in the morning services this coming year, we will see that Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, affirmed the same pivotal role of the Jewish people in the salvation of the world, while at the same time affirming that in this age there is no distinction between Jew and non-Jew in God's sight: all come to him by grace through faith in his Son.

A. Rebekah's Twins: Esau and Jacob, 25:19-28

25:19-28

With the death of Abraham reported in 7-11, the spotlight shifts to his son of promise, Isaac. Thus the formula "These are the generations (תּוֹלְדֹ֥ת) of Isaac" (v 19). If you figure the chronology by the figures given in the biblical text, you will discover that Abraham died when Isaac was 75 and Jacob was at least 30 years old. He may have lived to see Jacob leave for Syria to get his wife. So these paragraphs are arranged topically, not chronologically.

This is the account of the family line (תּוֹלְדֹ֥ת) of Abraham’s son Isaac. Abraham became the father of Isaac, and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean. Isaac prayed to Yahweh on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. Yahweh answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of Yahweh. Yahweh said to her,  “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau. After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them. The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob. 

25:19-21

Because of the topical sequence, it was necessary for Moses to give a brief introduction to this section to remind the reader about what was already told in ch. 24, the securing of Rebekah as Isaac's bride from her home in Paddan Aram. 

Rebekah the 'perfect bride', whose relatives (in 24:60) wished her 'thousands upon thousands' (אַלְפֵ֣י רְבָבָ֑ה) of children, was barren! Another test of faith—this time for Isaac and Rebekah instead of Abraham and Sarah.

Esau and Jacob's births are here attributed to a miracle from God in response to Isaac's prayer. This teaches us that, although God's promises to us are utterly reliable, they often require that our faith in them take the form of persevering prayer.

25:22-23

The Lord not only listened to Isaac's prayer for a son, he also listened to Rebekah's concern about violent movements in her uterus during her pregnancy. She—not Isaac—received a revelation from God about the struggle of the two boy babies in her womb, and the fact that the younger of the two would prevail in the struggle for supremacy. The fact that God had told her of the younger son's destiny was what later led her to deceive Isaac in the matter of the blessing (Rebekah & Jacob Steal a Blessing, Gen 27). 

The birth oracle can be seen as a variant of a type of omen found in ancient Mesopotamian sources: the so-called physiognomic omen [weblnk]. Other omen types interpreted circumstances such as unusual births as prophecies of successes or catastrophes on the national level, affecting the Babylonian king. But the physiognomic omens focused on the future of the individual involved in the described symptomatic appearance or event. 

A second type of parallel is found in literary texts, several of which are found in ancient Hittite literature, where an unusual circumstance of birth portends the future success or failure of the newborn. In these texts the newborn is not a mortal, but a deity.

The words of interpretation given to Rebekah are themselves a bit of a riddle, the ambiguity of its elements allowing for opposite ways of interpretation. The physical phenomenon of the violent movements in Rebekah's womb is interpreted as portending a violent struggle between two peoples for supremacy. No physical phenomenon within Rebekah's womb prompts the prediction that the older/greater will end up serving the younger/lesser: this prediction comes unprompted 'out of the blue', and will only be connected with a physical phenomenon in vv. 24-26 (יָדֹ֤ו אֹחֶ֙זֶת֙ בַּעֲקֵ֣ב עֵשָׂ֔ו), at the time of the birth. There is nothing unusual or surprising about one of the two competing peoples becoming stronger than the other: it is only the final clause in the oracle that offers an unlikely prediction: the older and stronger will become subject to the younger and weaker. A topsy-turvy outcome, typical of the way epics and fairy tales like to end, and also typical of the way God's plans are often brought to fruition in both Old and New Testaments. St. Paul (1 Cor 1:26-29) would make of this what he made of so many similar parts of the Old and New Testaments (1 Sam 2:4-8; Lk 1:52-53; 6:20-25; Mk 10:31 w. par.): it shows how God's favor is not obtained by our merits. Esau is passed over in favor of the unscrupulous brother Jacob. Jesus said: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Not the deserving, but the undeserving.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (1 Cor. 1:26–29 ESV)

25:24-26

Esau's (weblnk: JewEncy) name—like Jacob's (25:26; 27:36)—is explained in several different ways in the narratives that follow. As an infant he had lots of hair, and the Hebrew word for hair (śʿr) is written like his name (ʿśw). Jacob emerges from the womb holding Esau's heel (ʿqb), and the word for heel sounds like Jacob's name (yʿqb). Yet we will see in vv. 27-28 and vv. 29-30 (p.  ? ) that both names have additional 'prophetic' references. 

25:27-28

The two boys are contrasted in both their lifestyles.  Esau was adventurous and different: a skillful hunter, a man of the open country; Jacob followed the traditional way of life of the tent-dwelling nomad herding his livestock. 

We can see the two lifestyles illustrated in verse 29 and following: Esau returned from a day of hunting wild game for exotic food, and found Jacob cooking a stew from lentils and the meat stock from a lamb of his livestock. Remember that later Jacob excels at livestock breeding when he lives with Laban. Jacob lived an undistinguished, normal style as a livestock breeder, while his older brother was more sensational and different from all the rest, excelling at hunting wild game, like a pharaoh or an Assyrian king might do. They are also contrasted by which parent favored each. Esau was his father's favorite, while Jacob was his mother's. 

These statements are not intended to teach that it is better to be a 'mamma's boy' than a 'daddy's boy', or to be a normal office worker instead of a Michael Jordan or Venus Williams: they merely show how opposite to each other the two men were. You couldn't be attracted to both: you had to make a choice. And that is what God himself is about to do, although not on the basis of what they were, but one the basis of his sovereign grace, "not of works, lest anyone should boast."

25:29-34

Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom [which means 'red'].) Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.” “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?” But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.  Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau considered his birthright worthless. (Genesis 25:29–34)

The opening verse tells us nothing new: it merely illustrates what we have already been told about the contrasting lifestyles of Esau the hunter and Jacob the herdsman who derives his food from the meat of his herds or from plants. In v. 34 what Jacob gives is described as "bread and stew with lentils." That stew may have contained also meat from the herds, as well as the lentils. It was a reddish-brown color,  described that way because of the need to once again play on the names of the boys. Reddish-brown was also the color or Esau's skin and hair. The ancient Jewish biblical scholars played with rearranging the three consonants in the word for "hairy", which describes Esau. Depending on how you order them, they can mean "hair" (śeʿar), "wealth" (ʿošer), "pertaining to Mt. Seir (śeʿîr) in the country of Edom", and even "wicked" (rāšāʿ). 

Esau is exhausted. He has been working hard to catch and kill wild animals for his and his father's favorite food. Jacob too has worked hard tending his flocks and cooking. But Esau thinks his need is greater. He says, "I am exhausted," which probably also means "famished." At that moment he was weak and vulnerable. He was physically weak because of the exertion of hunting, but he was spiritually weak and vulnerable because he valued tangible and physical things above invisible things that required faith in God's promises to properly value. If he had believed the promises to Abraham—and we have no reason to believe that he knew of God's secret revelations to Rebekah—he would certainly have denied himself the instant gratification of food, when Jacob set the terms for giving him food. 

There are questions we might have about this story that the Bible doesn't see fit to address: Could someone sell his own status as the firstborn son? So far there is no evidence—biblical or extra-biblical—to answer that question. It seems to us improbable, but we do not belong to that ancient milieu and culture. A second question concerns the situation here. Couldn't Esau have just taken the food by force? It is of course possible that in his weakened condition he would have been no match for Jacob, who although he lived a less glamorous style seems to have been physically strong as well. Wrestled with the angel and prevailed (Gen 32:28 "you have struggled with God and men and have overcome").  

But what the Bible does have to say about the incident in the closing verse (v 34) is that Esau had the wrong set of values: he considered his birthright—all that God had promised to Abraham and his seed—to be worthless (that is what "despised" means). In Hebrews 12:16 believers are warned against those in their midst who are like Esau: sexual immoral or unappreciative of what is sacred. The sexually immoral reference may be to the fact that unlike Jacob, Esau took wives from the local Canaanites. But this too shows his lack of appreciation of the promises of God, for the promise of the land of Canaan implied that Abraham's seed not assimilate or intermarry with the local Canaanites. And the insensitivity to what is sacred is explained by his selling his birthright for a single meal. In Philippians 3:19 Paul wrote about people like Esau, that: "Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things." For such people everything of value is what brings immediate physical satisfaction: food, clothes, sex, entertainment, money, reputation. Malachi 1:2-3 is quoted by Paul in Romans 9:13 to illustrate God's freedom to choose whomever he wishes: "Jacob I have loved [i.e., chosen], but Esau have I hated [i.e., rejected]" (p.  ? ). He who doesn't value God loses God. He may think that he has lost nothing—just as Esau did and many people today do. But in fact, he has lost everything. The stew last only for a short while in this life; the birthright lasts for eternity.

Application

Life is always about making choices on the basis of weighing relative values. All of our life decisions require us to do this. And faith in Christ is no different. The interests of the gospel and the kingdom of God must always influence our daily choices. How do I decide if I do X or Y? No other Christian can be counted on to make these decisions for us. They are ours to make. We are not wise to make them, however, without consulting God. To do otherwise makes us like Esau. 

I'm not saying—nor is the biblical text—that we are expected to admire everything that Jacob does or to assume that even what he did here was done out of purely spiritual motives. In our studies of the following chapters we will see many things in Jacob that are not admirable (27:18-29; 31:26-28; 33:12-17; 37:2–4). Even here we might ask why he couldn't have just given Esau some of the stew without requiring he give up his birthright. Maybe he was just testing his brother: to see if he really cared about the birthright at all. If Esau regarded them as so worthless, why should he be allowed to have them? Regardless of Jacob's motives here, he had one thing going for himself: he himself did value the promises God had made to his father, and wanted them for himself and his descendants. Non-believers who wish to devalue Christianity often point to conspicuous examples of professed Christians who do bad things. Well, there many of us who like Jacob aren't always living up to the standards of the God we have chosen and whom we trust. But we have made a choice: God and his promises are more valuable in our eyes than the goods of this present life. As much as we deplore our own behavior when it is inconsistent with what we profess, there is a fundamental truth that remains. It is also the truth we will hear repeatedly in the current College Church Romans series: obtaining eternal life is not about our moral merits, it is simply about faith in the promises of God. And that faith, Paul says, is "not itself a human accomplishment: it is the gift of God … so that no one can boast". Jacob had received that gift of God, and he used it here.