The life and times of Sarah and Abraham rolled on as they raised the son that had caused them so much laughter. The usual frustrations and tensions of life in the wilderness came and went. Abraham continued to live a life of righteous faith in the land for all to see.
For three days, Abraham did not waver in his faith. God had commanded him to do the unthinkable...to offer his own son as a sacrifice...the very son that God had promised him as a gift so many years before.
Abraham and his entire tribe continued to move as nomads through the land, waiting on and trusting in the promises of God. While they were staying in the region of Hebron, which is part of Canaan, Abraham’s beloved wife died. She was one hundred and twenty seven years old.
Abraham was getting older, and he had lost his beloved wife. Yet he had been greatly blessed by God in every way. His mind turned to thoughts of Isaac, his son, and the future that lay ahead of him. Isaac would inherit all of the vast wealth that Abraham had received from God’s hand over the years.
The Lord guided him to a beautiful young virgin named Rebekah as she took water from the village well. He knew she was the one for Isaac, and so he gave her bracelets of precious gold and asked to be taken back to her home. She ran ahead and told her mother everything that had happened during her time at the well.
In the early days of Isaac and Rebekah’s marriage, long before they had their twin boys, they went through many trials and struggles. At one point, a great famine came upon the land. It grew more and more difficult to find enough to eat.
Isaac and Rebekah lived in Abimelech’s land for quite some time, and everyone believed that they were sister and brother. It was quite a charade. But then one day, King Abimelech looked out a window of his royal palace, and he saw Isaac caressing Rebekah with the kind of tender affection that belongs only between a husband and wife!
Isaac was getting older. His eyes were becoming so weak that he was almost blind. He was a hundred, and his aging heart and limbs could not move about as they used to. He feared that the time of his death was coming. Before he was gone, he was determined to speak a blessing to Esau, his firstborn son.
What a sad and distorted picture of a family. Isaac, Esau, Rebekah, and Jacob each worked out of their own selfish ambition, competing over the powerful and potent blessing of the firstborn son. What great blessings and harmony they could have shared together if they had all submitted to the will of their faithful God.
Esau was a bitter man. He had been foolish enough to let his brother trick him out of his birthright, and now Jacob had taken his father’s blessing, too. In his seething anger, he began to plot and scheme. As soon as Isaac died, he would get his revenge.
Jacob continued on his journey. His trek led him away from the Land of Promise where his family faithfully waited on the LORD. He was heading back to the region that Abraham, his great and honorable grandfather, had left over a hundred years before when he was called by God into the wilderness.
The LORD looked on Leah and saw that she was not loved by her husband. To make things even worse, she had to watch his tender ways with her sister. How his eyes lit up whenever Rachel came near! How he treated her with the deference of masculine passion!
In those early days of his marriages, Jacob’s family had grown to eleven boys and a girl! For fourteen years, he worked as the chief shepherd for Laban so that he could marry Rachel and Leah. He had worked very hard, often in harsh weather and for long hours.
Jacob had escaped from his uncle with all of his wives and children, their servants, flocks, and tents. Ten days into their journey back to the Promised Land, Laban and the men of his household caught up with them.
As Jacob and his family left the land of Laban behind, they were headed towards something that could become an even bigger problem. Twenty years before, Jacob fled his family. He had tricked his brother and father and taken the birthright and the blessing of the firstborn, and then he had to leave.
The sunrise came and a new morning began. The conniving sneak was transformed. In the past, Jacob had showed some glimpses of faith. Unlike Esau, he had not married Canaanite women. He truly believed in God’s promise that the land of Canaan would one day belong to the descendants of Abraham.
Jacob and his clan settled on land that he had purchased near the town of Shechem. They could see its buildings off in the distance from their home. This was the place that Abraham had built his first altar in the Promised Land.
Shechem had grown up in the brutal town that shared his name. It was a world where manipulation and corruption were the name of the game. And when it came to how a man should treat a woman, it was even more brutal still.
The children of Abraham had earned a new kind of reputation. Abraham was a man of peace, venturing into war only to protect and defend. His military might had restored his neighbors from slavery and abject poverty.
