Lecture

This is number eight. In this lecture, we continue with some of the incidents that are told in Genesis 12¬-25 concerning the life of Abraham. Again, we must say that we have illustrations from archeological information discovered particularly from the town of Nuzi that illuminate these particular customs.

It used to be thought that Genesis 14 was a very troublesome chapter. Genesis 14 is indeed a different chapter; this is the one that tells of the invasion of the kings of the east who came from Mesopotamia down on the Transjordan side and conquered the territory of the Dead Sea. Abraham was concerned about this, of course, because Lot, his nephew, had separated from him when Abraham had generously told Lot to take the land that he chose. Lot had gone down toward Sodom, and now there was an invasion of four kings from the east against the five local city-states down there, apparently, in the south end of the Dead Sea. There is the peculiar reference to Melchizedek, king of Salem, in the end of the chapter and how Abraham worshipped the Lord through Melchizedek; Melchizedek, therefore, was both king and priest.

Because Melchizedek was king and priest, and because there is no situation like this in the later parts of the Old Testament, we’re thinking particularly of course of the days of the monarchy, when the kingship—as we learned from the Old Testament and from Hebrews— was in the tribe of Judah and the priesthood was in the tribe of Levi. We might say never the twain should meet. In prophecy, of course, they were to meet in the Messiah, and in history they met in the person of Melchizedek. We have in Psalm 110 a reference to Melchizedek and how the Messiah was to be a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

This, of course, is developed in the book of Hebrews. But because there was a reference to a king priesthood here, it was held by early critics that this chapter was one of the latest in the Old Testament. Indeed, they said that it was probably composed around the days of the Maccabees; the Maccabees in the intertestamental period from 165 on down were from the priestly line. So it was thought that because this chapter fitted there that it must have been a very, very late chapter. This, I suppose, is a lesson to us because we don’t know that much about the situation in life. The Germans call the Sitz im Leben of these chapters; we might find indeed that parts of this story would fit in the days of the Maccabees. Not knowing much about the other parts of ancient history, the early critic put it there.

I think nobody puts it that late now; of course, for one reason, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls makes it very difficult to put any part of the Old Testament as late as that. But more than that, we have discovery of the background of the patriarchs which we have been speaking about and the names here in Genesis 14:1 are names that are suitable for the early times. The name, for instance, of the title King of Nations Kedorlaomer and Arioch and Amraphel King of Shinar. Shinar is the territory which we call Sumar. In former days there was very little if anything known about Sumar, but the Bible uses the name Shinar, which is a very accurate representation of what the Samarians call themselves and their land. The Bible speaks of that Southern Mesopotamian land this way.

So it is now understood to be quite believable and it fits the early days. I might say that the 318 retainers of Abraham, the words for an armed servant of the house, is a word used— borrowed apparently—from the Egyptian at an early time so even some of the words fit the early days. I think that practically everyone now realizes that this chapter is indeed a good representation of history, that of the days of Abraham himself. So archeology has changed considerably the attitude towards Genesis 14.

There are two other passages with regard to Abraham that have given a good bit of trouble and concern, I guess, really from the moral and theological angle than anything else. One of them is in chapter 12 and another in chapter 20. In chapter 12, we have the story of Abraham going down into Egypt because there was a famine in the land. And while he was down in Egypt, it says that Pharaoh saw Sarah, Abraham’s wife, and wanted her. He brought her into the court and did not actually marry her but he apparently had this in mind. Abraham said of her, “She is my sister.” This is one of the two cases where Abraham denied his wife and many people have felt that Abraham was indeed a cad to do this. Of course, it is quite true that as Christians we do not need to defend Abraham and everything that he did. He certainly was not a perfect man, and if he lapsed somewhat here when he went down to Egypt, it is too bad. It seems strange for him to do the same thing a second time in chapter 20 when he went down into the Philistine country. Because it is reported twice, critics who find a different authorship and emphasize the doublets— so called in the book of Genesis—they ascribe one of these incidents to a tradition about Abraham denying his wife; the other one is a double tradition of the same event, according to that. So Genesis 12 is in general the J-document and Genesis 20 in general is the E-document.

Actually there is new light on this custom that comes again from the Nuzi tablets. Though it doesn’t answer perhaps all questions, it is worth giving some attention to. The matter is discussed by Dr. E.A. Speiser in his collective writings where he speaks of remnants of a fratriarchal society that are shown by these two chapters. A fratriarchal society would be a society where the brother would be in control. It is of some interest that when Rebecca left her home to go with Abraham’s servant to marry Isaac, it was her brother Laban that seems to have been in charge. There was in the Nuzi society remnants, at least, of a fratriarchal pattern in which it was not the father who had control of the whole clan, but the oldest surviving brother who had the control.

Speiser points to a rather strange situation that in Nuzi— he higher class of people, according to some witnesses we have—would go to special lengths to adopt their wives to be their sister. To us that’s a very strange situation. Why should a person adopt his wife to be his sister? We would say that it is wrong to have a sister to be the wife. This would be a case of incest for us. But there was apparently some legal advantage. Perhaps we don’t even know just what that advantage was, but there was some legal advantage to have the wife be more than a wife and to be the sister. One way, I suppose, we might envisage it—though we do not have all the details on this—would be that if a man’s wife were molested it would be too bad and he would feel the injury keenly. But if the sister of the head of the clans, if his wife, would be molested, it would bring the wrath of the whole clan down on the person doing it. So to be a sister of the man in charge was more significant, apparently, even then being his wife.

With that background, and remembering that Abraham and Sarah had gone from this territory, we can understand what Abraham says when he said that when they were married, they had made this compact that Sarah would be classed as his sister. Indeed, apparently he did not have to adopt her because she was his half-sister. But he invoked the Nuzi law which would give his wife special immunity as one of the upper strata of society. When he called her his sister, this was supposed to be an advertisement to everybody around that she was not to be touched; she had status. She was upper class and a person would not normally touch her just as Queen Mary of Scotland appealed to the Queen of England and declared that she could not be tried before of an ordinary court because she was a queen. This is the point; when people have status, they appeal to that status to protect themselves.

It is quite possible that Abraham, if he had said this in the Nuzi country and had said Sarah is my sister, everybody would have understood; Sarah would have been treated royally and there would have been no problem. The only thing is that when Abraham went down to Egypt and he said ‘she is my sister’, the Egyptians did not have this custom, so Abraham’s practice here did not work. However, God in his providence took care of Abraham and took care of Sarah too. But the point is that Abraham here was doing what, in his culture and in his background, would be a very natural thing.

Although it did not work in Egypt, it was perfectly logical for him to try it again in the territory of Gerar. It might be that it would work in Gerar. Indeed, we do not know. But Abraham may have tried this several times when it did work. There were only these two times—one in the Philistine country and one in Egypt—that it did not work. It seems as if we have been perhaps overly harsh in judging Abraham and Sarah in this matter. It is quite curious to see that we have tablets from Nuzi in which the sisterhood relationship is a matter of special status, and it is so important that men actually adopted their wives as sisters.

In later chapters here of Genesis, we have a touching story of the birth of Isaac. Abraham and Sarah finally were given in the providence of God the little boy that they had prayed for and longed for, and Sarah had her own child. It goes on to tell of the separation, and how Hagar was driven out. There is some question about this. Hagar had rights according to the code of Hammurabi, but according to Nuzi law, she did not have the right to be, we would say, uppity against her mistress. Actually, as we have said already, Ismael would have had the right of the firstborn. But when a natural son of Sarah was born, then Ismael lost those rights of the firstborn. This is how they came to a separation, and Hagar was driven out from the household. However, God did take care of her out in the desert where the boy grew up, and some of the promises to Abraham were passed on to Ismael.

We might remark that when Sarah finally died and Abraham bought the Cave of Machpelah, we have here an instance also of a typical situation where Abraham would purchase the field. In this case, it apparently is Hittite law that gives us a parallel. That is of some interest because the bargaining for the Cave of Machpelah is in what critics would call the P-document. This, you see, is a rather interesting point that not only do we have this archeological support for the Old Testament records, but we have this archeological support for all these different alleged documents that critics imagined in the Genesis account.

The point was that Ephron Hittite had this Cave of Machpelah, and Abraham asked to buy it. It sounds very polite. It sounds as if Ephron was giving the field and deed. According to parallels and Hittite terminology, when a man sells a horse, in a similar way, he says, “I give you the horse.” The man says, “No, no. Of course, I will pay you for the horse. How much do you want for the horse?” The man says, “Oh, nothing at all. Just 100 shekels,” or whatever it would be, not that high, but this is of very little matter between you and me. Actually, although he deprecates himself as it is of very little matter, it is perhaps a very high price. It may well be that Ephron the Hittite, as we would say, took Abraham through the ringer when he sold him the Cave of Machpelah. He sold the cave to Abraham, described in verse 17, chapter 23, “And all the trees that were in the field that were in all the borders round about, were made sure unto Abraham for possession…”

We must notice that here we have a truly legal document. Abraham wanted the cave alone. But he didn’t get the cave alone; he had to pay for the field. Not only for the field, but he also had to pay for the trees in it. To this day, I remember archaeologist Dr. Joseph P. Free buying property in the Arab territory. Dr. Free bought the Hill of Dothan in order to excavate there. He did not at first buy the trees in the field. He did not realize that the trees must be bought separately. When he began to dig, some of the Arab landowners were very much upset because he had not bought the trees, so he had to go buy the trees too.

Here we have a history that gives us these little artless details that archeology supports and thereby shows, again, the historicity of these documents. These details are given in standard books on archeology. I might mention J. A. Thompson, The Bible and Archeology. On page 34, he quotes from Professor H. H. Rowley these words, “In all of these cases, we have customs which do not recur in the Old Testament in later periods and which therefore are not likely to reflect contemporary society in the age when the documents were written.” That is the age when Rowley thinks that they were written. Their accurate reflection of social conditions in the patriarchal age in some parts of Mesopotamia—from which the patriarchs are said to have come many centuries before the present documents were composed—is striking. They say that as a result, “There is a disposition to treat these patriarchal documents to treat them with more respect than some of the earlier scholars accorded them.” The Nuzi documents are also mentioned in a more technical way in the book by Jack Finegan, Light from the Ancient Past about page 66 and following.

We are interested in Abraham not only because of the customs that are paralleled by the Nuzi documents and other sources which show something of the verisimilitude of these chapters. It is important to know that these chapters are historical, that they are true; the patriarchal age is illuminated by these new discoveries, but of course we are interested also to know something about Abraham’s faith. The Nuzi documents and archeological excavations do not tell us the spiritual points which the Bible makes very plain. It is true, however, that as the Bible message is supported historically, it also emphasizes to us the religious significance and the faith of these men that is testified to in these same chapters.

Abraham was called by God to come from Mesopotamia. We discussed whether Ur of the Chaldees or from the Northern Mesopotamia area. God promised him, in Genesis 12:3 and in three other passages, a special blessing. This Abrahamic blessing has passed on to Isaac and to Jacob. There are five times where this Abraham blessing occurs to different patriarchs. It included a promise of the land; it included a promise of the posterity, and it included a promise of the Messiah. In these shall the nations of the earth be blessed. This, I would say, by the way, is a true interpretation; this is in accordance with the Greek translation of these Abrahamic blessings. The form sometimes is what the Hebrew students call a niphal form, or sometimes a hithpael form. But in either case, these two forms are translated in a passive voice in the Greek, and rightly so.

The hithpael form is, in beginning Hebrew grammar, often said to be a reflexive and so some people would translate these. People will bless themselves by the name of Abraham. But from further study, and I have in mind a thesis that was done on this very subject, further study does show that the hithpael is very often used in a passive sense. Here it is not only translated in the Greek but also quoted in the passive sense in the New Testament. And so we have the decoration, I think truly. In Abraham all the nations of the world would be blessed in his seed, in the Messiah to come. This Messianic prophecy is given rather generally to Abraham, but given more explicitly as the years go by to Judah in Genesis 49:10, and then given unto David in the passage 2 Samuel 7. Through the prophets we have the promise given to the seed of David; they expected the righteous branch of David’s line yet to come and to deliver Israel. He did as the New Testament shows the fulfillment.

Abraham was given a sign of God’s covenant with him. God made promises to Abraham and these promises were based upon God’s grace. Abraham accepted this grace of God and God said to Abraham that there would be a sign of this covenant that God would give so that Abraham could be assured. There was another sign we forget perhaps; that was the sign of sacrifice. Abraham sacrificed in many places as he traveled from spot to spot. This sacrifice was not new with Abraham; it was ordained by God outside the gates of the Garden of Eden. We had the Cain and Abel story; how Abel sacrificed rightly and remembered that Noah sacrificed after he left the ark. Now Abraham sacrificed also. These sacrifices became institutionalized and multiplied in meaning and variety in the days of Moses, but Abraham sacrificed also. This was what we would call a sacrament or an ordinance. This was meaningful, and it meant much to Abraham. It meant, as sacrifice does, that someone else must die for our sins. It is typical of salvation through the sacrifice of another, through the death of another.

He was also giving us the covenant of circumcision. Circumcision was another sign of this covenant. The Old Testament does not mention circumcision very extensively. It mentioned the fact of circumcision a number of times, but the meaning of circumcision is not given much attention except here where it says it is a sign of God’s covenant with Abraham. But exactly how it is a sign of God’s covenant with Abraham is not particularly stated.

However, in the other passages in the Old Testament, and in particularly Deuteronomy 30: 6, there’s a verse like this also in Jeremiah; there are a half a dozen verses like this that insist that circumcision is not meaningful if it is simply circumcision of the flesh. But circumcision must be of the heart. Deuteronomy 30:6, “And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” External circumcision was symbolic of internal circumcision. This is what we have in the book of Romans.

In the last verses of chapter 2 of the book of Romans, Paul says, “For He is not a Jew, who is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of man but of God.” In the Old Testament, very clearly, circumcision was a sign of a covenant. It was not something that saved, but it was a sign that God saved.

Exactly why God chose circumcision perhaps we may not know. The Bible does not say. A couple of things may be remarked, however. Circumcision was known in other lands. Indeed, it was known years before Abraham, so circumcision alone is not so remarkable. But this should be said that the circumcision that is practiced in Muslim lands today and probably the circumcision that was practiced in ancient times generally, was a heathen rite that was usually done on the boys when they attained an age of manhood—puberty. At this time, in some societies at least, circumcision became a rather licentious rite associated with licentious practices. It just may be that Abraham was given something distinctive. I have asked, and as far as I can discover, there is no witness to infant circumcision in ancient times outside of the Abrahamic family. God may well have given infant circumcision in order to distinguish Abraham and his circumcision from all of the other countries round about.

The licentious puberty rights of the surrounding people: the Canaanites did not circumcise. To distinguish the Israelites from these heathen circumcisions, he would give them the infant circumcision. This has been a characteristic of the Jewish people from that day on. Again, the circumcision is a sign of faith, and we learned more about the meaning of circumcision in Romans 4, particularly verse 11, in the New Testament than we do even in the old.

The great trial of Abraham’s faith is found in Genesis 22. Much has been written about this and we can only skim the surface, of course. Abraham was told one day by God that he must take his son, his only son, the one in whom his hopes all depended, and go to a mountain that God would show him in the land of Uriah and offer him there for a burnt offering. Abraham’s faith is shown by his obedience.

He did not ask or question but went to do what God had told him to do. There are some who feel that here we have a moral problem because Abraham was told to do something that was definitely wrong. It is wrong to kill. We should be careful here. It is indeed wrong to commit murder and this is what the sixth commandment says—thou shalt not commit murder, not just thou shalt not kill, under any circumstances. In the Old Testament, execution of the guilty is required, but you shall not commit murder is the proper interpretation of that statement.

Abraham was not called upon to commit murder. Abraham was called upon to kill. When a man dies in a great cause, when a man dies and gives his life for others, we call him a hero. Actually, we must remember that Isaac, in this case, was a hero. Isaac was a young boy, old enough to carry the wood on his back. Isaac was certainly able to get away from Abraham who was over one-hundred years old. Isaac was a hero in that he allowed himself to be bound and laid on the altar because Isaac joined with Abraham in making this supreme sacrifice. Abraham did not understand it, but he had not been told that it was wrong to sacrifice unto God the one who was dearest and best to him. Indeed we are told in Hebrews that he understood that God was able to raise Isaac up from the dead from whence also he had received him in a figure.

We should remember that here Abraham was not doing what God had told him previously not to do; he was making a larger sacrifice in a heroic gesture in strict obedience to God. He did what he was told, and God blessed him in it and saved him from the tragedy that would have struck if he had actually struck the knife into his son. The angel instead gave him a ram caught in a thicket to fulfill his own words, “My son, God will provide for Himself a lamb for a burnt offer.” After all, we are reminded that the son of God came and did die and the Lord spared not His own son but delivered Him up for us all. So in a very real sense, we have Abraham slaying his son, or willing to slay his son, as a type of the great sacrifice that was made for us on Calvary when the son of God gave His life in a heroic self-sacrifice that we might have our sins forgiven.