The
Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
A new phase of the story begins when God calls a man named Abraham, who lived in the area near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (in what we now call "Iraq" and "Syria"). The word "Abraham" means "father of my people." God told Abraham to go to a land that God would show him, promising that Abraham would have many descendants and that the nations of the earth would be blessed through him.
Abraham responded to God's call, and with Sarah, his wife, he finally settled in the land of Canaan (modern-day Palestine or Israel). The period was about 2000-1700 B.C. ("B.C." means "before Christ." Some people object to this way of dating the years before the time of Christ and instead use "B.C.E." which is interpreted "before the common era.") Abraham and Sarah became old and had no children until God gave them a son, whose name was Isaac.
At left is Rembrandt's rendering of the story of Abraham's sacrifice of his son Isaac in Gen. 22. In this scene, the angel has just knocked the knife from Abraham's hand. Of course, Isaac was saved and went on to be the father of Jacob and therefore the rest of the Israelite nation. But it is one of the great scenes of the Bible.
Isaac in turn had two sons, Jacob and Esau. By means of trickery, Jacob obtained the blessing from his father which should have gone to his brother who was the oldest. When his brother, Esau, became angry, Jacob fled to the home of an uncle, where he married and became wealthy before returning to Canaan. Jacob--whose name was changed to "Israel"--had twelve sons, but because of a trick played by jealous sons, his son Joseph was sold as a slave and taken to Egypt. There Joseph become a high-ranking official and, when famine drove the rest of the family into Egypt, the brothers became reconciled and settled there permanently.
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Question 1
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Was it right for God to command Abraham to offer up his son as a sacrifice to God? Please describe your reaction to the Abaham and Isaac image. |
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Question 2
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Abraham had another son by a female slave. Go to the search engine Google to find out who this second son was and why he is so important to current conflicts in the Middle East. Hint: he was the "father" of the largest group of people in the Middle East. |
The descendants of Jacob, who were called Hebrews or "children of Israel," continued to live in Egypt from about 1700 to 1275 B.C. During that time they were enslaved by the Egyptians and forced to make bricks and mortar. A Hebrew named Moses saw an Egyptian beating one of his kinsmen. Moses killed the Egyptian and fled to the desert regions east of Egypt. While there, he was called by God to return to Egypt and deliver the Israelites from slavery.