40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 40 Minutes In The Old Testament: Episode 35

Episode Date: December 30, 2015

Chad, Daniel and Brandon are back to talk about Abraham dying but not before getting married again, Jacob and Esau coming together for the funeral and Rebecca finally getting pregnant but there is a war inside her womb.

Welcome to episode 35 of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. I am Daniel Emery Price, and I am joined by Brandon Hanson. Hello, everybody. And Mr. Chad Bird. Hey, everybody. We're actually on 35. We've done 35 of these. 35. That's awesome. I know, right?

You could listen to 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. If you started from the beginning, you could listen to them all day. and we're and we're we're almost in chapter 25 so we're actually covering more than half a chapter every time that's impressive it is well it is to me anyway i don't know if it is everybody else but it is to me i'm always looking for reasons to be impressed with myself chad i know i am that's my daily goal so uh yeah so where where are we well we're uh halfway through chapter 24 and we're actually going to wrap that up pretty quickly it's the uh concluding conclusion of the story of the uh the journey that abraham's servant took to acquire a wife for isaac so that's where uh

That's where we left off last time. All right. Well, let's pick it up. All right. Very good. So the first half of the chapter, if you listen to the last episode, talks about how Abraham was old, of course. And Isaac himself was 40 years old. So he was no young man.

And he had not yet married. So Abraham sent his servant back to the land of Abraham's birth in order to find a wife for Isaac. So the servant goes, he is loaded down with riches, and he has the prayer for God's guidance. And sure enough, God answers that prayer almost as soon as he prays it, because Rebekah appears. and she fulfills exactly what the servant had prayed and as the story goes on uh the servant meets rebecca's family meets in particular her brother laban who's going to figure prominently in the story later on when we get to when we get to jacob and jacob's uh flight from his brother esau so he's introduced early at this point and laban is is all about this uh this courtship

because he sees that the servant has brought all these camels full of lots of riches and Laban is all about riches so they bring the servant in the servant tells him the stories tells him who he is all about his master Abraham how wealthy he is how God has blessed him and pretty much gets to the point to where Rebecca's family says it's obvious that this has come from God and so we really can't say yes or no. This is God's decision. That's kind of where we left off, I believe. That's verse 50 of chapter 24. And the rest of the story picks up with, just to kind of summarize it, the servant of Abraham wants to leave right away. He wants to go back to take Rebecca with him so that she can be the wife of Isaac. But the family wants him to

wait, to give them, say, 10 days to, I guess, say goodbye to Rebecca and to, you know, have their farewell parties and whatnot. But that's not going to happen because Abraham's servant is ready to hightail it back to Abraham and take Sarah with him. Rebecca agrees to this. And so they take off. She leaves her family behind, never to return. And she begins this pilgrimage to meet her groom to be and when they get back uh rebecca meets isaac they see each other the servant tells isaac all about what happened while he was uh while he was gone and the story concludes with isaac taking his wife into uh what was his mother's tent because she's going to be the new matriarch. And she becomes his wife. It says that he loved her and Isaac was comforted after his

mother's death. So it's one of the longest chapters. It might be the longest chapter, in fact, in the book of Genesis, 67 verses. A lot of detail there, but it's important because it takes us from the story that was all about Abraham and his life and his relationship with Sarah and everything that they went through now to a focus that's going to be upon Isaac and his wife, Rebecca, and we'll hear more about their children in the chapter that we're just about to start. Chapter 25, just to kind of give you a broad overview, is the record of the death of Abraham. Of course, Sarah has already died, buried in the cave that Abraham purchased for her

from the Hittites. so this chapter is going to record the uh the last days of abraham not before he fathered six more children i might add but the story's going to wrap up with abraham and we will pick up with a focus upon on isaac in in verse 19 and it's also in the closing part of this chapter where we have this unforgettable scene of two sons struggling within the womb of Rebecca and what the Lord tells her about these two boys and the nations that will come from them. And then at the end of the chapter, to whet your appetite, we have the story of the birth of these two boys and their names and the whole story of the lentil soup episode

when Esau sells his birthright for a bowl of soup from his brother. So that's what the chapter contains. Lots of good stuff here. So we'll dive in and see what all we want to talk about. Now, the first thing to talk about is the fact that the story opens with a rather unexpected and remarkable description of what Abraham did. It says, now Abraham took another wife whose name was Keturah. You guys anticipated that, right? You were waiting for that?

I'm totally going to take a second wife. If I live to be 120, that's when you're like. Dustin seems to think this is justification for it. Yeah, he's actually 140 years old. I know that when I'm 140, that's going to probably be my first thought if I'm a widower, that I need to have another wife and father, six. Six, not one, but six more sons. Abraham is impressive, isn't he?

I mean, if nothing else, physically. He's a man's man. He is definitely a man's man. now some commentators seem to think that this is a bit out of sequence and that actually and i and i suppose that you could make this argument that abraham took this the second wife uh while sarah was still living she was a concubine in other words and so he wasn't quite 140 years old when he started fathering these other children sounds more like abraham i know yeah it does it does and And the Hebrew does allow for that.

There's no word here that says afterward, after the death of Sarah, after all of this happened, then Abraham took another wife. So it certainly is allowable that Abraham did that. But whenever he did it, he was still an old man. Whether he did it 140 or 120 or 100, he's still old. You're not going to make the argument that that would be wildly outside the character of Abraham? I certainly would not. In fact, I don't think Abraham could do anything that would surprise me at this point. He's done enough at this point to where I wouldn't be surprised.

I mean, especially what he's done with regard to Sarah. So whenever he does it, whether it's after the death of Sarah or while Sarah is still living, he has another wife who is also called a concubine sort of a co-wife as i like to refer to them and of course remember this is the second time that abraham has done this the first time was actually sarah's sarah's idea which abraham was on board with when they were still trying to have children together or have a child and of course that first concubine was hagar and she had together with abraham a son ishmael but this time the second wife this keturah she uh she is is very fruitful and she has six sons that are their names are given there in in verse two and a little bit is

is told to us about each of them now what is uh i think what's significant here is that whatever you want to say about abraham whatever you want to say about his age and his uh his vigor he He did at least keep in mind and act upon the fact that the heir of his promise would solely be Isaac. Because it says, Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac, but to the sons of his concubines, two concubines, Keturah and Hagar, Abraham gave gifts while he was still living and sent them away from his son Isaac eastward to land to live uh in the land of land of the east so whatever we want to say about Abraham his moral character his uh his the choices that he made at at least he did make sure that only Isaac would be there to receive the blessings because he was a promised child he was the

the child that abraham had with sarah so we wrap it up abraham's life is about to come to an end you guys ready let's put it let's put abraham to uh to rest these are all the years of abraham's life that he lived 175 years and abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe old age an old man and satisfied with life and he was gathered to his people he uh he didn't live as long as the men did before the uh before the flood uh but he lived a long time we see a we see a decrease in lifespan of course as the old testament progresses in fact moses himself will say that uh that a man's life is what 70 years or if due to strength 80 years yet their pride is but labor and sorrow I always thought that was ironic, though, because that's from a psalm of Moses, and he says 70 or 80 years, but Moses lived to be 120 years.

So I guess he gets an extra 40 tacked on to his. There's all that exercise. Must have been, all that walking for 40 years in the wilderness. I do think it's worth spending just a moment talking about the way that the scriptures describe the death of Abraham. Luther spends about 10 pages on it. We won't spend that much time, but it is worth commenting on. It says that he lived 175 years. He breathed his last and died in a ripe old age.

An old man is satisfied with life and was gathered to his people. Now, one of the reasons I think this is significant is because if you've ever taken a class on the Old Testament, say at a university or somewhere, chances are at some point in the class, the topic of afterlife and resurrection came up as far as what the Old Testament people believed. And it's highly likely if you were in this university class that you were informed that there was no belief whatsoever in the afterlife until the Babylonian captivity, which was in the sixth century BC. And then early on there's no hint whatsoever of any idea of a of a life after this one in in the scriptures well the problem with that particular theory is that it's it's undermined by verses such as this

in fact it's undermined by a story that we've already covered way back in genesis chapter chapter 7 chapter 5 rather where we had the story of uh of enoch who was translated from this life to to the life to come notice it says he was gathered to his people it doesn't say that he just simply died and was buried or died and was no more but he died and was gathered to his people which is a which is a biblical way of saying that he left this life in order to join other believers his people in a life that is that is beyond this one so was there a belief in in an afterlife in the old testament of course there was there there never was not a belief in that it wasn't as if these it wasn't just abraham and and adam and all these guys were were living

and believing in god and thinking that as soon as they breathed their last that was it after that was just nothingness they held uh they held to the belief that this life was was the life that was a preparation for the life to come as jesus says uh that uh god says that i am the god of abraham the god of isaac the god of jacob he's not the god of the dead but of but of the living so when abraham dies he dies in the same way that we die a physical death but he goes to be he's gathered to his people he sleeps with his fathers he goes to he goes to the bosom of of christ there to await the resurrection i think maybe um when people hear that that phrase you know gathered to his people they think like oh well he was like you know putting them in the

the family family graveyard that kind of thing um but uh he doesn't have like a lot of people to be gathered to his wife is buried and like that's that's kind of it it's not like it's not like he had you know had like all the like his father and his his brother and uh you know all that kind of stuff are all buried in this one spot and like that's where he's gonna go get buried no he just he ends up in a right next to sarah and it's just them two and so it doesn't really make a lot of sense for that to mean that he was gathered you know to his relatives his earthly relatives that doesn't doesn't really work does it no no this yeah i have heard that before too that it's this idea that well all their bones were resting together so it was this

reunion of skeletons they were gathered to their people but uh no that doesn't fit i mean you're right sarah is the only one there uh it doesn't say he's gathered to his wife it was gathered to his people and the people to whom he was gathered are the people that he was a part of the the fellowship of the faithful those who believed in god and uh trusted in the promise of the seed so i mean we could we could say the same thing in fact i kind of wish we would we use the you know the language that we use these days to speak of the death of believers is not always the best language you know he's in a better place something like that or even he passes away i i wish we would use more more biblical terminology you know he's he is with christ or she is in the bosom of christ

or even he was gathered to his people to use this the biblical image of the fact that this believer has died to this world experienced physical death but doesn't simply continue to live but lives in abundance now lives in the presence of christ is gathered there with all the saints the angels and the archangels and whatever life is like before the resurrection it's it's a good life because it's lived there in the presence of presence of christ who is the resurrection and the life yeah yeah yeah so uh abraham is uh abraham has now passed from the story he has served his purpose and uh then we have his burial described in in the following verses and i do find this interesting it's it's a little tidbit i think that's often missed the the beginning of

verse 9 says that then his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, buried him in the cave of Machpelah. I find that intriguing because Isaac and Ishmael have not been on the best of terms, and yet they come together to bury their father. So there is this kind of a reunion, if you will, where these two first sons, one from Sarah and one from Hagar, come together to bury to bury their father and they bury him as it goes on to describe in the plot of ground that abraham had purchased for his for his wife sarah so that wraps up this story um the verses that follow that give us a bit of a of a genealogy and it actually what we've already covered and this genealogy that comes next is is in some ways an an affirmation of god's promise to fulfill what he had spoken

to abraham and to and to hagar because the genealogy describes the sons of ishmael there were 12 of them 12 princes according to their tribes so god had promised way back in chapter 15 to abraham that he would die at a ripe old age and it is fulfilled here he promised abraham that he would be the father of a multitude of nations well abraham had isaac he had ishmael and he had six more sons so he had he had eight sons in all and he becomes the father then of a multitude of multitude of nations so all the promises that god made to abraham in that regard were fulfilled But God also made promises to Hagar. He promised her that her son would be the father of a multitude of nations as well.

And here we had the fulfillment of that in verses 11 through 18, chapter 25, where these 12 sons of Ishmael are described. And they became 12 princes according to their tribes. So it's a closing chapter of Abraham's life that underlines for us the fidelity of God to keep his promises, even when it seems like those promises are so delayed that they're never going to actually be fulfilled. They are. God doesn't work at the same speed as we do, but he works with a fidelity that we don't. he keeps his promises even when those promises are long delayed and that's what he does in the case of abraham and uh and hagar so that takes us through verse 18 chapter 25 the death of abraham his burial and then a brief genealogy of the sons of sons of ishmael now beginning of verse 19 we have a completely new section beginning i think we talked about this way back i don't know episode

one two three something like that how genesis is divided into several different sections that all begin with something like these are the records of the genealogy of so and so we had that we have these are the generations of the heavens and the earth and then we have these are the generations of adam and so forth verse 19 starts out this whole new section now these are the records of the genealogy generations of isaac abraham's son and then we pick up with uh pick up with the story there so isaac uh as we talked about before it was was 40 years old when he married when he married rebecca and we don't know how old we don't know how old she was i don't believe i don't remember an age given for her anyway but it's uh it's interesting that as soon as the story begins

As soon as the story of Isaac and Rebecca begins, it turns out that it's like same song, second verse. Because what Isaac and Rebecca are facing is the same thing that Abraham and Sarah faced, and that is barrenness. Verse 21 says that Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, Rebecca, because she was barren. And the Lord answered him, and Rebecca, his wife, conceived. But what's interesting, and I think something that's a detail that's not always noticed, is it wasn't as if they waited five years or 10 or even 15. It was 20 years between the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah and the birth of their twin sons. Because later on in verse 26, it says that when these sons were born, that Isaac was 60 years old. so isaac and rebecca waited almost as long for the birth of their sons as abraham and sarah

waited the promise was given to them when abraham was 75 years old he was 100 when isaac was born so 25 years and here we have isaac and rebecca waiting 20 years for for the birth of their sons god is really about that barrenness so he's impossible he's god's all about the impossible pregnancy so i i like to i like to deal with barrenness and uh and virgins this is the uh these are the two categories in which i like to i like to deal with when i'm talking about bringing forth promises i like the impossible ones yeah why is that what's up with that well he is uh he is i mean he's showing us in a picture that uh that everything that pertains to salvation and when you're talking about bringing about the messiah the the entire

lineage then is just littered with this is impossible but i'll do it this is impossible but i'll do it because salvation is impossible for us to for us to achieve on our own and so he is good about making sure that all along the way we know that this is his work that that he's responsible that he gets the credit and uh and and we uh that we will be in the end our salvation will be fully reliant upon him i like the fact too that so often in in the old testament it's it's this long period of waiting this long period of barrenness followed by the the birth of children to to a woman who's older and then you get to the new testament and you kind of have the final story of that uh you have the story of elizabeth right

elizabeth is married to uh to a priest to zechariah and they're old they're both old and i've often thought that zechariah and elizabeth kind of they embody the whole old Testament story, if you will. I mean, Zechariah is a priest. He's ministering in the temple. He's married to Elizabeth. They're both old. They have no children. And they're kind of this representative pair of the Old Testament. They're like Abraham and Sarah. They're like Isaac and Rebecca. They're like the whole Old Testament, this idea of waiting so long with a barren womb, waiting for God to give the child. It's kind of like that with the Old Testament. The Old Testament is this protracted period of waiting for God to fulfill

his promises. Now, what's remarkable in those opening chapters of the Gospel of Luke is that you have the bringing together of the two Testaments because, of course, Elizabeth and Mary are relatives. And at the same time that God blesses this old woman with a child, John the Baptist. God also blesses this young virgin with a child, Jesus in the womb of Mary. And then when Elizabeth meets Mary and the child, John the Baptist, in Elizabeth's womb leaps for joy because he's in the presence of his Lord, it's almost like John the Baptist is the Old Testament come to life. And as John leaps in his womb, the whole Old Testament is leaping for joy because finally the fulfillment has come. But the fulfillment is not of an old woman becoming

pregnant. The fulfillment is of a virgin becoming pregnant. So it's like the old is passing away and something radically new is coming through the Virgin Mary. I've always been impressed with how those opening chapters of luke really summarize the whole biblical narrative in these these two pregnancies yeah yeah it's cool because there's um uh here's here's god doing what he always does it's a barren older woman uh but then we also see here's god doing sort of the same thing but also something completely new and different and here's a young girl uh who it's equally impossible to get pregnant uh you can't uh virgins don't get get pregnant and barren people don't get pregnant but it is sort of this um this the start of a start of something that is the same

as as what was before but also also very new and very very different yeah there's there's this idea of uh i guess continuity between the testaments between the old barren womb and the the young virgin womb uh but but also this idea of uh something greater taking place so there's what we usually do unfortunately is we we separate the the two stories the old testament story the new testament story too much we what what we needed to do is bring them together to see the continuity between them but at the same time to stress the fact that something greater has happened that there is there is one thing that's new under the sun and that is that god has become man that the creator has assumed flesh in the incarnation and that radically new gift is what

uh is finally bringing all of these old waiting gifts to uh to their fulfillment all right good stuff so um isaac prays god opens rebecca's rebecca's womb and she conceives but she has a she has a very interesting pregnancy uh not the kind of pregnancy that i would assume most women desire because it says the children struggled together within her it's the hebrew verb that she used there is uh almost this idea of a fighting match is taking place in the womb this is This is not two children who are just, you know, playing around, touching each other. This is like a shoving match that's taking place in the womb, a fighting match that's there. And so that her pregnancy is prophetic.

It's the struggle that takes place within her womb between these two sons is a foreshadowing of the struggle that's going to take place throughout the lives of Jacob and Esau. because not only between them but between their their descendants as well so what happens in utero is what's going to happen not only in the in the lifespan of these two sons but from the nations that come from them come from them as well of course rebecca doesn't realize all this all she knows that these kids are fighting inside her and she she doesn't know why so it says she goes to inquire of the lord and here's what god tells her this is verse 23 the lord said to her two nations are in your womb and two peoples shall be separated from your body and one people shall be stronger than the other and the older shall serve the younger so here we have a extremely

significant uh promise and prophecy that god that god speaks to rebecca and this this becomes it's pretty important in the rest of the scriptures, doesn't it? How this promise is used. Yeah. Yeah, especially the older, the idea of the older serving the younger. Yeah, I like that he doesn't say,

you have two nations in your womb. One of these guys is going to be amazing. One of these guys is super righteous. The other one's a real bummer. And you know what? I hate him already.

Yeah, it's like God's choice doesn't depend on how good or bad the person is, doesn't it? It's kind of like that. I mean, you know, you have like your Romans 9 stuff, right? Or Jacob I have loved, Esau I hated, this kind of thing, right? Mm-hmm, right. But I don't think it's the best way to look at it, you know, because it also says like before they had done good or evil. and i think we automatically assume that that's uh like god hated esau before he even did all this bad stuff and i'm like i don't think that's what it's saying i think it's saying like god

loved jacob before he found out what a turd he is it's like because jacob sucks man like yeah that that whole chapter all of romans 9 is is uh is focused upon the mercy of god right uh it says that uh i'm reading here from romans romans chapter nine it says that rebecca had conceived in twins by one man one father isaac for those the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad in order that god's purpose according to his choice might stand not because of works but because of him who calls it was said to her the older will serve the younger now if you I love the fact that Paul chose to use that particular verse, because this is a great example of how when Paul reads the Old Testament, he's reading it with a predetermined way of interpreting it. He's reading it as if this story is about salvation by grace through faith for the sake of Christ.

Yes. Because that's what the story is about. that's what we don't have to wait till we get to the new testament to begin to read scripture that way that's what the story is always about because god is always god is always choosing according to mercy he's acting according to grace before these boys it wasn't like you know yeah that uh jacob was just pious fetus and had done all this good stuff and because of that god's gonna choose him He was nicer in the womb than Esau was. It has nothing to do with that.

It has to do with God's mercy, with his grace, according to his will and according to the way that he calls. From what I know about Jacob, he probably started it, whatever was going on. He probably did, yeah. You know, Jacob was a jerk. There's no way around it. He was a jerk. He was a liar. He was a deceiver.

He was the manipulator. He lied to his dad. he manipulated the whole situation i mean even when they're being born we haven't got to that yet but even when they're born he's holding on to esau's heel because he wants to yank him back into the womb and get ahead of him he's he is not a nice guy you know if anything it'd be like god would choose esau because jacob was such a jerk even in the womb yeah no that's not the way works no we'll see in this story with the soup i mean this is a real jerk move yeah it is totally so uh the older shall serve the younger which is a which is just one more of god's ways of

turning things topsy-turvy god is always working contrary to the ways that we expect him so let's get to their birth before we run out of time when her days to be delivered were fulfilled behold there were twins in her womb the first one came forth red all over like a hairy garment and they named him esau uh the the hebrew name esau is is sort of related to the word for hair and that's that's that's where we get that's where they got his name so he was hairy that's going to come in later in the story too and afterward his brother came forth with his hand holding on to esau's heel so he was called heel well jacob but yako means heel and isaac was 60 years old when she gave birth to them so they come forth as as often happens in the scriptures they're named according

to something that happened at at the time of their birth uh sarah laughed so isaac's name laughter uh esau's hairy and red he's also called edom later on edom is the hebrew word for red but Esau means hairy so he's a hairy guy he's red he's got this red color to him and uh then Jacob the only description of Jacob that's given is that he's holding on to Esau's heel he's trying to supplant him even even as they're they're being born he's trying to get ahead of the game yeah which is like a perfect description of Jacob yeah that's what he does the rest that's what he does the rest of his rest of his life uh he uh we have the story that comes next uh of the whole mental suit but then we have the longer story when he and cahoots with his with his mother

deceive isaac when he's old and blind into giving him the uh the blessing of the firstborn instead of his his brother and understandably esau wants to kill him he's so angry and so jacob has to run away but he's not done deceiving because he deceives laban later on i'm telling you that he uh it is not easy to like jacob whatsoever yeah he's one of those people that's very easy to dislike in fact and yet and yet god chooses him he's the he's to be the one who is to inherit the uh the blessing of the firstborn it's not like you see esau like doing a bunch of bad stuff really but he sort of just seems like he's getting shafted all the time oh yeah totally yeah he uh in fact if anything esau turns out to

be a a pretty good guy at the end because when jacob finally does come back esau's buried the hatchet he's at peace with uh with jacob he doesn't you know he's like what's what's up with all this stuff you're sending ahead of you all these presents to pacify me i don't need any of that i'm glad you're back and so yeah jacob is uh in story jacob and esau esau is the one who really looks good and jacob doesn't uh which which it just is a brilliant way of illustrating the fact that god's choice does not depend upon who's good or who's or who's bad or who's more sinful who's less sinful this is all according to grace and mercy not according to morality i don't know Well, I was just reading a book that kind of touched on this, and it was interesting that it compared God's sovereign will here to serving, I should say, it compared it.

It showed that God's sovereign will here wasn't the penultimate point in this passage or in passages that commentate on this. what's going on here is his sovereign will is actually serving his penultimate characteristic, which is love and mercy. So God chooses Jacob here because of his mercy. Mercy doesn't serve his sovereignty, but that really paints a brilliant picture for us that God god um does not act how we expect him to that god doesn't uh follow our culture traditions um he'll choose the second son or he'll choose the downtrodden and the outcast and all through the scriptures we see this he'll choose the the younger rather than the uh the firstborn And he does it all because he's God and his ultimate purposes here are mercy, the Savior who is to come.

And he's chosen Jacob to be the bearer of Abraham's seed along the way until we get to Mary. And that's just the way it's going to be. Very good. Amen. That is true. All right. Well, we are out of time, so next week we will bring your appetites. We're going to be talking about delicious lentil soup, which is everybody's favorite. Everybody's.

I can't wait. I can't wait to see my teeth. It's so good it's worth a birthright. So good. Apparently the greatest soup ever. So we will see you guys next week.