Or, Closing the Book on Abraham
Scripture: Genesis 25:1-18
Date: August 28, 2016
Speaker: Sean Higgins
We come to the end of Abraham’s life and to the end of the largest of the “generations” in Genesis so far. Book Six started in 11:27 - “these are the generations of Terah,” Abraham’s father. We’d already seen five generations through the flood:
Then there are five more generations of patriarchs. This morning we’ll see the end of Abraham’s story in 25:1-11, then we’ll cover Book Seven with the (beginning and) end of Ishmael’s story in 25:12-18, and get ready for only three more:
Adam, Noah, and Abraham are the three key men in the beginning: Adam for the start of humanity, Noah for the restart of humanity, and Abraham for the start of God’s chosen people. God elected Abraham to be the father of many nations and the father of faith. Chapter 25 records his death, burial, and the generations to come after him. The sons of three women are listed: of Keturah (1-6), of Hagar (12-18), and of Sarah, starting in verse 19.
The first section of chapter 25 provides new-to-us information as we’re introduced to another woman in Abraham’s household before reading the summary of Abraham’s life.
It sounds as if after Sarah died Abraham met another woman. The placement of these details after Isaac’s marriage to Rebekah and Isaac’s being “comforted after his mother’s death” also suggests chronological order. Yet hardly anyone believes that Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah after Sarah died. Most believe that this report is out of chronological order, that Keturah came before he took Hagar or as a replacement after Hagar. Either way, she isn’t mentioned until now and isn’t mentioned again in Genesis.
Keturah was in Hagar’s category as a wife and as a concubine . The second description is most important because if either Keturah or Hagar had been equal to Sarah then their sons would have deserved a part of Abraham’s inheritance. Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac. But to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts and while he was still living he sent them away from his son Isaac, eastward to the east country . He settled the inheritance questions before he died, a point Abraham’s servant made to Rebekah’s family (Genesis 24:36).
Something has to give. If Abraham had six sons with Keturah after Sarah, then wouldn’t we also need to call these miracle boys? He was 100 years old when Isaac was born and Sarah said at least nine months before that, “my lord is old” (18:12); it’s part of the reason that she laughed out loud when the angel announced a birth. Abraham was “as good as dead” when Isaac was born (Hebrews 11:12) Did God renew Abraham’s vitality such that it carried over for a additional decades, a position that “amplifies the glory of the miracle” as Augustine supposed? But why would Abraham even want another woman? Is it because, as Calvin thought probable, that “his mind had been wounded, by the divorce which Sarah had compelled him to make with Hagar”?
If, instead, he took Keturah before Sarah’s death, why is this the first we’ve heard of it? Sarah had significant territory issues with Hagar and Ishmael, but we should believe that she had none with Keturah or her six boys?
Without more details, like how old Abraham was, it’s hard to know for sure, though I don’t think it too fantastic that Zimrah, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah were born in his old age and after Sarah died. These sons of his with Keturah, and some grandsons through Jokshan and Midian, and some great-grandsons through Jokshan, become more of Israel’s future neighbors in the land we know as Arabia and the Arabian desert, eastward to the east country . (For example, Bildad the Shuhite, one of Job’s counselors, was part of Shuah’s tribe. The Midianties were the ones who bought Joseph from his brothers and sold him to Potiphar.)
Death makes people attentive, not only the one dying but those preparing for or recovering from the passing of a loved one. There is not a lot in these verses, but the last details are encouraging.
These are the days of the years of Abraham’s life, 175 years. Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. (Genesis 25:7–8)
175 is old. He had seen a lot, a century’s worth in Canaan. Full of years typically means good, not just many. It described a condition of contentment rather than resentment. Good old age means that living wasn’t wearisome, fulfilling God’s promise that “you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age” (Genesis 15:15). Even breathed his last means that he passed peacefully and not in the frenzy or agony of battle.
That he was gathered to his people means that there was a place he went where he was reunited with others. The phrase is used ten times in Scripture, all of which are in the books of Moses (Hamilton). It’s not that he was buried in a family plot, it “denotes the reunion in Sheol with friends who have gone before, and therefore presupposes faith in the personal continuance of a man after death” (Keil & Delitzsch).
After Abraham was gathered to his people, his body was buried with Sarah in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron….There Abraham was buried, with Sarah his wife . Both Isaac and Ishmael buried him; it’s interesting that none of Keturah’s sons, just listed in the previous paragraph, were present.
Then the transfer of attention and blessing: After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac his son. And Isaac settled at Beer-lahai-roi . There was a well in this spot where the angel of the Lord met Hagar. The generations of Isaac are coming soon, but God chose Isaac as the covenant son. The Book on Abraham is closed.
This is the next toledot or “generations” formula and, as is typical, the non-elect line is given first (Cain then Seth, Esau then Jacob). It is Book Seven according to Moses’ divisions, and “surprisingly…[Moses] devotes a whole book to the genealogy of a concubine” (Waltke).
After restating Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s servant , we meet twelve sons named in the order of their birth . More than name, Moses added by their villages and by their encampments, twelve princes according to their tribes , most of whom also lived in Arabia. “The term for tribal group is ʾummá, which occurs only three times in the OT (here; Num. 25:15l Psalm 117:1)” (Hamilton), translated “peoples” in Psalm 117:1. There are historical references “that the Ishmaelites were once a confederation of tribes like early Israel” which demonstrated the combined power of these brothers (Wenham).
Ishmael lived 137 years. He breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people .
Ishmael’s descendants lived south and east of Israel, settled from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite Egypt in the direction of Assyria . Even the last statement about Ishmael fulfills the last piece of God’s prophecy to Hagar about her son (Genesis 16:12): He settled over against all his kinsmen .
Abraham is obviously a major figure in Genesis with over 14 chapters devoted to his story. The author of Hebrews also gives more attention to Abraham than any other character in the Hall of Faith in chapter 11, describing his faith in a section of twelve verses when most others get only one. So rather than move into Book Eight and start the Esau and Jacob rivalry, I thought we would finish this morning with two summary reminders from Abraham’s life.
From the human perspective, obeying God led Abraham into an uncertain future.
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. (Hebrews 11:8–10)
God called Abraham to leave his homeland and family and the life that he’d known. God called Abraham to adjust to uncertainty in his circumstances and to embrace the certainty of His promises.
Our Christian faith is similar. Faith is not a one-time-in-the-past assent to news we heard about Jesus’ death on the cross for our sin, though it includes that. Faith is a ongoing-in-the-present trust that God will take care of us as we obey His Word. Do you know what will happen tomorrow? None of us do! But for those with faith in God, we meet the unexpected with, “the thing has come from the Lord.”
From the human perspective, obeying God led Abraham to an impossible loss.
By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. (Hebrews 11:17–19)
God called Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. Even though Isaac was the promised son, let alone the cherished son of Abraham and Sarah’s old age, Abraham was willing to do it because he trusted that God would do another impossible thing. Abraham was “as good as dead” (verse 12) when God brought life through him, and God could “raise [Isaac] from the dead” (verse 19).
What defines us as Christians is that we believe that God took on flesh in the person of His Son, that He was born of a virgin, that Jesus lived without any sin in order to be a sacrifice for sinners, that He died, was buried, and rose again. To believe the gospel at all is to believe the humanly impossible, it is to believe in God who works through what we see and what we can’t. That’s why “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). God is not limited by our visibility.
Not everything Abraham did was driven by faith. No man in Genesis, or after, has. But God called a sinner to salvation by grace and promised to bless him and make him a blessing to others. We are blessed in him, blessed through Abraham’s generational offspring, Jesus. We are children of faith and trusting that God has prepared for us a city, designed and built by Him.
God sustained him through his whole life, amidst the most boisterous waves, amidst many bitter griefs, amidst tormenting cares, and in short an accumulated mass of evils; let us also learn—that we may not become weary in our course—to rely on this support, that the Lord has promised us a happy issue of life, and one truly far more glorious than that of our father Abraham. (Calvin)