Genesis 25

Sarah has passed-away, and Isaac has gotten married. Isn’t Rebekah a nice girl for Isaac? I’m sure they will be very happy together. Abraham sure didn’t spend much money on the wedding. If your kids want an expensive wedding with reception, just tell them that you are going to pay for a Biblical wedding. Transportation to their new home, a night in a nice hotel and perhaps the marriage license. If it was good enough for a Patriarch, it is good enough for our kids.



So, what does Abraham up and do? He gets married. The bride’s name was Keturah. And there were more kids. When God restored Abraham’s vitality, it was not a temporary fix. This guy was downright frisky. His wife gave birth to six kids with Abraham. God did say that he would become the father of MANY nations. His kids could have formed their own version of the United Nations.

Isaac could have gone around with a T shirt that says, “Dad loves all his kids, but I’m his favorite.” In verse 5 it says that Abraham left everything he owned to his one and only favorite son, Isaac. But, lest you think he was being mean, he gave to all of the other sons, including those born from concubines (plural, notice) many gifts before he died. Concubines were “secondary wives” and polygamy was very common.  Perhaps because of wars there were more women than men. If they weren’t allowed to marry more than one wife, the only other option would be for the women to turn to prostitution.

So, he took care of everyone. By giving gifts to all the children while he was still alive was a way of preventing disputes after his death. He gave them their inheritance and sent them away. Why? Because they were not to become children of the promise, only Isaac was the child of the promise, the Abrahamic Covenant.

Abraham dies at the age of 175. In verse 8 it says, “Then Abraham breathed his last, at a good old age, an old man full of years; and he was gathered to his people.” Breathed his last, gathered to his people. Jacob’s death would not be characterized as at a good old age. In Genesis 47:9 it says that his years were “few and difficult. We sure do love to use euphemisms for death. Doctors sometimes use the term “expired,” like a quart of milk or an old bottle of aspirin you found in a drawer. Shakespeare used the term, “Shuffled off this mortal coil.” We pass away, take a dirt nap. We like to use euphemisms to discuss subjects that are uncomfortable. Even being old is difficult for some to talk about. Abraham was an old man who died. But here it says he was at a good old age and full of years. I’ve heard old people referred to as “ninety years young.” Can’t we even admit that people who are ninety are old?

Being gathered to his people does not mean that his body was taken back to his original homeland in Mesopotamia. Here it is referring to the immaterial portion of all of us, indicating faith in the afterlife. The chronology here is: breathing his last, dying, being gathered to his ancestors, and being buried.

Abraham was buried in the family plot, you remember, the cave with some land around it that he bought initially for Sarah.

In verse 11 it says, “God blessed his son Isaac, who then lived near Beer Lahai Roi.” Now God has blessed him in his own right, not just because he was part of Abraham’s household, showing him that the covenant given to Abraham has been transferred to Isaac.

Say, whatever happened to that son of Hagar? What was his name again? Oh, yes, Ishmael. In verse 13 it gives an update. He got married and had quite a few kids himself. He had twelve sons, and these became “tribal rulers” (verse 16). This fulfills the promise made in Genesis 17:20, where God told Hagar that there would be many descendants from Hagar, but there was no promise of LAND to the descendants of Hagar. The land promise was to Isaac.

Ishmael lived for 137 years near the border of Egypt and “they lived in hostility towards all their brothers.” Two different family lines and they can’t get along with one another.

Meanwhile, let’s get caught up with what is going on in the Isaac/Rebekah household. Poor Rebekah, she couldn’t have any children, even after twenty-years of marriage. Isaac prayed for his wife and then she got pregnant. He did not resort to concubinage as Abraham did.

Are you familiar with the Lamaze Method of childbirth? It is one of several ways to conserve energy and reduce fear and discomfort in pregnancy and delivery. Knowing what is going on, what is normal, helps ease fear and pain. Well, Rebekah was feeling some strange movements and asked, “Why is this happening to me?” Kind of scary for a first-time mother. The Lord told here that “two nations are in your womb.” Not literally, there were only two babies, twins in her womb, but they would grow up to become two nations. “And the older will serve the younger.”  God can choose whoever He wants to accomplish his purpose. Abel, Seth, Isaac, Rachel, Joseph, Judah were all younger than their siblings and used by God. The blessing was not a natural right, as a right of the firstborn son would be.

Are you the firstborn? The firstborn would usually get a “double portion” of an inheritance and be the new leader of the family. This means, if you are the first-born, you can tell your parents that they should add one to the number of kids they have, divide the estate that many ways, and give you two portions. If there are four siblings, divide by 5, the firstborn gets 40%. Did I do the math correctly? Why wait to damage sibling relationships after Mom and Dad die, let’s set in motion the wheels of family destruction early. Tell them it’s the way it was done in the Bible.

Come time for delivery, the first born came out a redhead and very hairy. They named him Esau. The second baby came out holding onto his older brother’s heel. “Hey, don’t leave me in here in the dark, get me out of here.”  They called the second born, Jacob. And they were very different personalities.

Did you know that Herman Goring, the Nazi war criminal, had a brother, who was the opposite of him? Albert Goring, who was an anti-Nazi, a Holocaust hero who devoted himself to saving hundreds of Jews persecuted by the very regime his brother had helped to forge.

Here we have two brothers who are quite different, though I am not suggesting that one could have become a psychopathic war criminal today. Esau was an outdoorsman, a hunter, a man of action. Jacob was a quiet person, more of an intellectual than a sportsman. Isaac was closer to Esau than he was with Jacob. Rebekah was closer to Jacob than she was with Esau. The term translated, “quiet” is translated elsewhere as “perfect” or “upright” and was used to describe Noah.

One day Jacob was cooking, and Esau came in from a hunt, very hungry, and asked for some of what Jacob was cooking. Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.” Look, I am about to die. What good is it to me.” He was not going to die, he could have gone to the tent next door and grabbed something to eat. He was willing to sell his birthright because he didn’t value it. “Esau despised his birthright.” In other words, he had no spiritual sensitivity to the things of God. And selling a birthright was perfectly legal. Jacob did not take advantage of Esau in any way.

I imagine that this isn’t the first time the subject of birthright came up in the family. Imagine if a dad started a business and it grew to become a huge enterprise. He plans on having his son, his namesake, his firstborn, become his successor and take over the business when he dies. But the son doesn’t have a good work ethic, cuts corners with regards to business ethics and will probably drain the company of money and loose most of it gambling and paying off ex-wives.  A younger son, one better suited for the responsibilities, can legally step in, and make the older son an offer to take over the business.

Next time we will see God reconfirming the Abrahamic Covenant. He made the covenant with Abraham; it will be reconfirmed to Isaac. He may have heard about it earlier, but sometimes we need to be reminded. And then there is that strange struggle at the well.