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Bible History of the Old Testament |
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No. 14 Birth of Isaac - Ishmael sent away - Trial of Abraham's Faith in the Command to Sacrifice Isaac
The time had come at last for the great promise that God had made to Abraham to come to its fulfillment. He was 100 and Sarah was 90 when Isaac was born to them. It seems that God wanted to wait awhile before Isaac was born; partly to exercise and mature Abraham's faith, and also that there would be no doubt at all that the birth of Isaac was supernatural. Sarah had laughed in her heart when the angel had told them about the birth of Isaac because she was so old, but now this was a different kind of laughter. This was laughter of faith in its gratitude for doing such a wonderful thing for her. Sarah said, "God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh (be joyful) with me." According to God's direction, Abraham had circumcised Isaac on the eighth day. When the period of weaning arrived, Abraham had a great feast to celebrate. There are different thoughts about when a child was weaned in those days. Josephus, the historian, implies that a child was 3 years old. In either case, Ishmael would have been a young lad of at least 15 to 17 years old. Maybe he was already starting to have a bad spirit about him even this early. "And Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking," A German writer observes that: "Isaac, the object of holy laughter, serves as the target of his unholy wit and profane banter. He does not laugh; he makes merry. 'What! this small, helpless Isaac, the father of nations!' Unbelief, envy, and pride in his own carnal pre-eminence, - such were the reasons of his conduct. Because he does not understand, "Is anything too hard for Jehovah?' therefore he finds it laughable to connect such great issues with so small a beginning." It must have been in this light that the apostle viewed this when he was describing the conduct of Ishmael in these words: "As then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit" (Gal. 4:29). It was on this ground, and not from jealousy, that Sarah demanded that the bondwoman and her son should be 'cast out'. Abraham seems to have misunderstood her motives and was reluctant to comply. Naturally by now he would have been extremely attached to Ishmael because he was actually his first-born son. It was only when God intervened and expressly told him the same thing that Sarah had already told him, that he finally acted in the matter. The expulsion of Ishmael was necessary because of his unfitness and God wanted the heir of the promise to be separate from him so that Isaac could be kept pure. But this was also for the sake of Abraham because God wanted him to grow in faith in obedience to his Divine calling. God wanted to train him to renounce everything that would keep him from achieving that end. Because of his tender mercy, God once more made the trial easier by giving Abraham the special promise that Ishmael would become "a nation". Therefore, the casting out of Hagar and Ishmael with only the bare necessities, was a huge trial of Abraham's faith. Their poverty was only temporary, because the Angel came to them and provided for them. Then soon afterwards in scripture it is written that before his death, Abraham had enriched his sons (by Hagar and Keturah) with "gifts" (Gen. 25:6). At his burying Ishmael appears as an acknowledged son and stands by the side of Isaac to perform the last rites of love to their father (Gen. 25:9). Even though Abraham provided richly for his other sons, he did not let them live close around Isaac. The 'cast out' Hagar and her son wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba, probably on their way to Egypt. They eventually ran out of water, and courage and endurance gave way to utter exhaustion and despondency. Their cries for help reached heaven, and they were directed to a well of water by an "angel of God". In order to strengthen her, the same promise was given to Hagar as had been given to Abraham. That promise has been abundantly fulfilled. Ishmael grew up living in "the wilderness of Paran". To this day, it is the undisputed dominion of his descendants, the Bedouin Arabs. It must have been a 'bitter trial' to cast out Ishmael from the land, but this was only in preparation for a far more severe test of Abraham's faith and obedience. This seems to have been the last, the highest, but also the steepest ascent in all his life of faith. All God's previous leadings and dealings had been gradually preparing and qualifying him. This test, trial, or "temptation" through which Abraham's faith had to pass, came in the form of a command from God to bring Isaac as a burnt-offering. This no doubt, was God's way of making Abraham wholly purified as "gold in the fire". Nothing was spared him the bitterness of his sorrow. God just said: "Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest;" with not one single promise of deliverance given to him in any way. It was just a command like the other ones had been: being told to leave his homeland and go to a place that he did not even know where it was, and also being told that he must given up his first-born son Ishmael. Even though they reconciled, he still could never live too close to Ishmael because of protecting the 'promised seed' Isaac. Martin Luther said about this passage: "To human reason it must have seemed as if either God's promise would fail, or else this command be of the devil, and not of God. From this perplexity there was only one issue - to bring 'every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ'. And Abraham "staggered not" at the word of God; doubted it not; but was "strong in faith," "accounting" - yet not knowing it - "that God was able to raise up Isaac even from the dead; from whence he also received him in a figure." Even though we know the rest of the story, at the time all that Abraham had to lay hold on was the promise from God about Isaac, and the character and faithfulness of God that He would honor His Word to him. Abraham must have gone through much turmoil and pain, but ultimately he believed that he could trust God. The next morning, without even consulting another person, he took his son and two servants and went "to the land of Moriah" where God had told him to go. They traveled two days from Beersheba, and the third day came to the "mountains round about Jerusalem". God led Abraham to offer Isaac on the very mountain on which the Temple would stand years later. They left the two servants behind, with the assurance that after they had worshipped they would 'come again'. Faith was sure of victory, and anticipated it. The father and son climbed the mountain with Isaac carrying the wood, and Abraham the sacrificial knife and fire. Abraham's faith was so sure that when Isaac asked him where the lamb was for the burnt-offering, Abraham told him that God himself would provide the lamb. It seems that satisfied Isaac and he didn't ask more questions until they reached the top. Here Abraham built the altar and placed the wood on it. At some point he must have told Isaac what God had told him to do and Isaac agreed to it. He bound Isaac and placed him upon the altar and had already lifted the sacrificial knife to kill him when the Angel of Jehovah arrested his hand. Abraham's faith had now been fully proven and perfected. Just as Abraham's faith had believed, God did provide the sacrifice in a ram that was caught in a thicket. All the previous promises were not only repeated and enlarged to Abraham, but were "confirmed by an oath",,"that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie". Heb. 6: 13 says "For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, He sware by Himself". This oath stands out alone and solitary in the history of the patriarchs and is afterwards constantly referred to in the Bible, and it became "the spring whence all flowed that was promised by oath unto David in Psalms 89:35, 110:4, 132: 11". No wonder Abraham called the place Jehovah Jireh, which means that 'He seeth for us by His providence what, where, and when we do not see for ourselves'. On this very mountaintop the Temple of the Lord actually stood and from it rose the smoke of accepted sacrifices, just like the sacrifice that was acceptable to God on the day Abraham was there hundreds of years before. The name Moriah means 'the mount where Jehovah seeth and is seen', and Abraham gave it this name based on what happened there. In the next text, we will continue on with what happened to Abraham, Isaac and Sarah until they died. For more information from this book, go to the archives page at my site www.cathydeaton.com There are other articles of interest there, also. This text is taken from the book Bible History Old Testament written by Alfred Edersheim and is used by permission.
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