BiblicalMastery Buddy's bible blog

Lesson 22

A New Era

Genesis 25

Me-

One of the things that I find most meaningful in my study of the Bible is trying to understand the personalities of the people found in its pages.  There is almost every type of person to be found.  I particularly want to discover how their actions impact how God interacts with the nation of Israel.  There are certain personalities like Joseph, Jesus and Paul that I want to emulate.  Others like Jacob, Esau, Isaac and even Rebekah do not represent the character traits that to me are a good witness for God.  To me this is one of the important reasons to stay in God’s word.  I want to be like those with whom God is well pleased.

We-

We see in this one chapter the different qualities of people that in this case are all descendents of one man, Abraham.  We can certainly learn that just because the father, in this case of Abraham, is a godly man does not mean that his descendents will follow in his footsteps.  We as a church give birth to multiple generations who are under our care.  The church needs to understand who it is in order to minister to the members.  Most of all the quality of integrity that was missing in the people in chapter should be dominant in our interaction with each other.  The one other quality that is even more important is unbiased, impartial love.  If we just have those two attributes we will touch many lives.

God-

Genesis 25:1-4

After the death of Sarah, Abraham took a wife named Keturah, which possibly means incense or make incense.  In his old age he sought companionship.  Isaac was married and Ishmael had been sent away.  The Bible says, that “the Lord God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” (Genesis 2:18)  It is interesting to note that although he was concerned about the purity of his family through Isaac, he himself married one who was of the land of Canaan. Through her, Abraham had six sons.  The well-known among them was Midian who would intermingle with the family of Ishmael and would later become the enemy of Israel. Three generations of sons are listed in these verses.

1. Why would Abraham take another wife after the death of Sarah?
2. Why would he think of having more children?
3. Why was he more concerned about the wife of Isaac than he was about his own new wife?

Genesis 25:5

Even though Abraham had other children, which would have included Ishmael, Isaac had been declared the heir by God.  Isaac was not the first born, but he was the child of promise who would receive the spiritual blessing from God and also the things that had been promised to Abraham by God.

1. Why was Isaac declared the heir of all Abraham possessed?
2. What future blessings did the actions of Abraham portend?
3. Why did God skip the first born Ishmael and give the inheritance to Isaac?
4. At that point what would Isaac actually be getting from his father?
5. What was the most important part of what he was to receive from Abraham?

Genesis 25:6

Abraham did not leave his children by Hagar and Keturah empty handed.  While he was living he did two things.

• He gave them gifts.
• He sent them away from Isaac to the east.  This was to insure that there would be no question in anyone’s mind that Isaac was the true heir and recipient of all his father had.

 

1. What did the treatment of his sons by his concubines show us about Abraham’s character?
2. Why did he send them away to the east?
3. What does this emphasize about the position of Isaac in the eyes of his father?

Genesis 25:7-8

At the age of one hundred seventy-five Abraham died.  The writer tells two final things about him.

• He lived to a good old age. None of his descendents to follow attained the length of his life. 
• He died satisfied with all he had accomplished. High on the list would be his relationship with God and secondly would be assurance of his posterity through Isaac.

 

1. What does the description of Abraham tell us about him?
2. How did it give us a picture of his life?
3. What do think you would like to have written on your tombstone?
4. How does your life reflect what was said about Abraham?

Genesis 25:9-10

This is the only time in their adult life that Isaac and Ishmael were together.  Here were the men representing the two worldviews, spiritual and secular, came to bury their father.  It was from a mutual love and respect for Abraham that this meeting took place.  Even though Ishmael had been sent away, primarily because of Sarah, he still had great affection for the man who had been his father for his formative years.  In these verses great care is given to make sure the reader knows that it was in the very place that Abraham had bought from Ephron that he was buried.

1. What brought the two half- brothers together?
2. What was the one thing that they had in common?
3. How could Isahmael have still loved a man who had sent him away from the only home he had ever known?
4. Why did the writer go to such lengths to describe the burial place of Abraham?

Genesis 25:11

Right after the description of the burial, Moses writes that God now began to bless Isaac.  He was the child of promise, not Ishmael. It was through him that the covenant made by God with Abraham would be carried out.  Once again Isaac returned from Hebron to Beer-lahoi-roi.

1. Why did Moses take that opportunity following the death and burial of Abraham to tell us about the blessing of God on Isaac’s life?
2. What does this tell us about Ishmael?
3. Why was it important to declare the clear distinction between the two men?
4. What does it say about the covenant relationship established by God?

Genesis 25:12-16

Ishmael, in comparison to Isaac, is described as “Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maid, bore to Abraham.” As promised to Abraham, Ishmael was to become a great nation.  He had twelve sons who were called princes among their people. Although the nations formed by his children are mentioned only one generation of his genealogy is listed. It would appear that God’s narrative now would begin to focus on His chosen people?

1. How was Ishmael characterized by Moses?
2. Why did he describe Ishmael the way that he did?
3. How was the promise to Abraham fulfilled in Ishmael?
4. Why was only one generation of Ishmael given to us?
5. What does this say to us about where God would now be focusing with His narrative?

Genesis 25:17

Ishmael’s life lasted one hundred thirty-seven years.  Of his death the writer said, “He breathed his last.”  There was no mention of the quality of life seen in the eulogy of Abraham.  Ishmael just died without reference to any relationship to God or anything spiritual having taken place in his life.  He just died and experienced what all other men face but in his case without God.

1. What was missing from the record given of Ishmael’s life?
2. What does that indicate that he gained from living in Abraham’s home for many years?
3. What kind of commentary is the description for a man who lives in rebellion to God?
4. Which of the two eulogies given to us in this chapter might represent your life?
5. What can you do about it?

Genesis 25:18

All of the sons of Ishmael’s sons lived in the areas now dominated by the Muslims.  Their land was located east of Egypt in the Arabian Peninsula and up into the lands east of the Jordan River. The impact of his descendents can best be described in the last words of this verse.  Moses wrote that, “He settled in defiance of all his relatives.”  His people have been a destructive force in this world from his time to the present day.  To read history one will see how his descendents through Mohammed has attempted to gain control over the entire earth. 

1. Who are the descendents of Ishmael today?
2. How has Ishmael and his descendents fulfilled the prophecy given to Hagar in Genesis 16:12?
3. By looking at Isaac and what God was doing through his life how can we be assured that the covenant will be fulfilled through his blood and spiritual descendents?

Genesis 25:19-20

The focus of the narrative now returns to Isaac.  The rest of the Bible will speak of his descendants down through the time of Christ and what resulted from God coming to earth in the form of man.  The genealogy begun here is very short.  Isaac is Abraham’s son.  He married Rebekah, the Aramean, when he was forty.  Although the event of Abraham’s death has been shared, he was actually one hundred forty years old at the time of the marriage and would live to the time when his grandson Esau and Jacob would have been fifteen years old.

1. Why did Moses give us the genealogy of Ishmael, after the record of Abraham’s death, before returning to Isaac?
2. Why did Moses not give the full genealogy of all of Isaac’s forefathers at this point?
3. Why was it strange to write about Abraham’s death when he would be alive for thirty-five more years from the time of Isaac’s marriage?
4. Why did the writer once again go into such detail about Rebekah?

Genesis 25:21

For the first nineteen years of their marriage Rebekah did not have children.  Even if she had been very young when she married Isaac she would be in her mid thirties by that time.  Isaac prayed for her and her dilemma and God answered his prayer and she became pregnant.

1. Why did Rebekah have to wait so long before she was to have children?
2. Why did God answer Isaac’s prayer at that particular time?
3. What does this story tell us about what God might be doing in our lives?
4. How do you deal with the fact that God’s timing is always best?
5. How do you handle that fact?

Genesis 25:22-23

Rebekah’s pregnancy was difficult to say the least.  The movement of the babies was so violent within her that she wondered what was going to happen to them and even to her.  Finally she sought answers from God.  God told her what was to happen in the future with the two boys.

• The children were to be the fathers of two nations.
• That the descendants of one would be stronger than the other.
• The older descendants of the older child would serve the younger.

 

1. Why would Rebekah be concerned about the violent movement of the two babies?
2. Why did see inquire of God?
3. What was the importance to her of the words spoken by God?
4. Why did God allow her know what was going to take place in the future?

Genesis 25:24-26

Finally the day of the birth came.  Esau was born first.  He received his name because he was covered with red hair.  When Jacob was born he came out holding on to his brother’s heel.  His name symbolized one who would supplant or take the place of the other person. Isaac and Rebekah had waited twenty years for the birth of children.  He was sixty years old.  Rebekah’s age is never given unlike Sarah.

1. Why did the first born receive the name Esau?
2. What did the Jacob tell the world about him?
3. What does Jacob mean?
4. Why was it important to know the age of Isaac?

Genesis 25:27

As the two boys grew into manhood they became two entirely different people.  While Esau became a hunter who was not always successful in his hunts as shall be seen shortly.  He probably felt more comfortable being in the outdoors away from people.  This would indicate that he was not very sociable. 

Jacob on the other hand was pictured as a quiet man who stayed close to home living in a tent and probably helping with the flocks and herds owned by his father.

1. What impression do you take away from the above descriptions of each man?
2. How could two men from the same family be so different?
3. How do their personalities fit into the prophecies given to Rebekah?

Genesis 25:28

This verse is a turning point in the history of God’s people.  Like all too many families Isaac and Rebekah were divided in their affections for the two sons.  Isaac was living vicariously through Esaus who was the kind of man that Isaac would like to have been.  Although not particularly mentioned in the last lesson, he was a passive man who allowed others to make decisions for him and do the things that he could not or would not do for himself.  What a shallow reason for loving someone is given here.  The writer says, “Isaac loved Esau, because he had a taste for game.”

Rebekah, on the other hand, loved Jacob. The reason for the favoritism she felt toward Jacob was not given.  Possibly, she showed more affection toward him because she did not care for the lifestyle of Esau.  She, too, was living a life through the personality and actions of Jacob.  All that follows in the rest of Genesis stems from the inter-family competition and ambition of each person involved. 

1. Why do the words in this verse represent a turning point in the history of Abraham’s family?
2. What do you think of the reason that Isaac loved Esau?
3. Why are we not given the reason Rebekah loved Jacob?
4. In what ways may the prophecy concerning the two boys given to her influenced Rebekah’s feelings toward Jacob?
5. What is the problem with divided love?

Genesis 25:29-34

Immediately the competition for supremacy in the family is played out.  Jacob used the appetite of his brother to gain what he wanted.  Esau was willing to give up his rightful place in the family to meet his physical needs.  He cared more about a full stomach than taking his position as future head of the family.  Jacob was no better because he was willing to deprive his brother of some of the food he had prepared to usurp that position and buy the birthright from his brother.  The Scripture indicates that the birthright meant nothing to Esau.  All he cared about was livingly according to his worldly desires.  This event was so unnecessary because God had already established a future for Jacob.  He did not have to take matters in his own hands and just treat his brother so unfairly. 

1. What do you think of the attitude of each brother?
2. What was the worldview of each man?
3. How did each fail in being men of integrity?
4. Why was Jacob able to wrest the birthright away from Esau?
5. Why was it so important to Jacob and not to Esau?
6. Why was this act not necessary?

You-

• Take the time to discover who you are.  (This can be done through the Life Development Classes offered by the church).
• Study the Bible to discover the attributes that are pleasing to God.
• Deal with each person with integrity from the youngest person to the total stranger that comes across your path.
• Always do what you do from a position of godly love (Agape)

We-

We have a real opportunity to show the world what people who are Christ followers are like.  Jesus called us to be light.  We are admonished to walk in the light.  As the world looks at us they should see God’s love permeating everything we do.  If we allow the world’s standards to creep into the body we can be assured that our witness will be destroyed.  Just remember if it happened to the descendents of Abraham it can happen to any of us.  Let us remain steadfast in our faith and never succumb to the world.

Additional notes:

BL- We began by looking at vv. 1-18 of Genesis 25, in which Abraham took a new wife, Keturah.  Although he provided all his children by her with gifts (probably starter flocks) before his death, he sent them away to ensure that the bulk of his estate, and most importantly, the promise of the Covenant, would go to Isaac unchallenged.  Abraham died at age 175 and was buried with his beloved Sarah.  These verses also trace the descendants of Ishmael, Abraham’s son by Hagar. 

C-Abraham married Keturah after the death of Sarah.  He had more children by her.     (Gen. 25:1-4)

C-Isaac received the full inheritance from Abraham except the gifts that his father had given to his other children by his concubines.  Once he had provided for them Abraham sent them away from Isaac to the east.  This would reduce the conflict that he had experienced with Lot. Out of jealousy his brother may have also turned on him causing him great harm. (Gen. 25:5-6)

RT-Only Isaac remained near to his father out of all of his children. (Gen. 25:6)

C-The great patriarch Abraham died.  Only Isaac, the child of promise, was left to carry on the family name. (Gen. 25:7)

C-As far we know the only time that Isaac and Ishmael came together as grown men was to bury Abraham. (Gen. 25:9)

UE-Surprising that Ishmael would return and along with Isaac bury Abraham especially after the way he had been treated as a young man. (Gen. 25:9)

C-Ishmael as promised became the father of the leaders of twelve tribes.  Those tribes settled from Havilah to Shur, east of Egypt next to Assyria. (Gen. 25:12-18)