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Genesis Chapter Twenty-five
Preface
In this chapter the Bible student learns of Abraham’s marriage to Keturah, the children resulting from this marriage, Abraham’s death and burial, the generations of Ishmael and Isaac, the birth of twins (Esau and Jacob) to Isaac and Rebekah, and the struggle between these twins ending in the historic sale of Esau’s birthright to Jacob for a bowl of lentil soup and a piece of bread. But the significant spiritual lesson of this chapter is the depiction and valuation of spiritual principles as seen in the lives of Jacob and Esau and the historic and prophetic sale of the birthright from Esau to Jacob, which included the Messianic birth line. Genesis 25:1-6 Abraham again took a wife and her name was Keturah. And she bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. Jokshan begot Sheba and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim. And the sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abidah, and Eldaah. All these were the children of Keturah. And Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac. But Abraham gave gifts to the sons of the concubines which Abraham had; and while he was still living he sent them eastward, away from Isaac his son, to the country of the east.
Although commentators differ as to exactly when Abraham married a second time, and though the time is not critical from a doctrinal perspective, it appears that he remarried after the death of Sarah (chapter 23) at her terminal age of 127 years. Abraham was ten years older than Sarah (cf. 17:17), making him 137 years old at her death. Since his age at his death was 175 years, the feasibility of Keturah bearing him six children within a 38 year time span is reasonable. It is argued by some commentators that because she was a concubine, like Hagar was to him, and because of the number of the children born to him by Keturah, the marriage to Keturah must have transpired prior to the death of Sarah. But this writer suggests that the marriage was after the death of his first and true wife. The term “concubine” conveys only the meaning of a “secondary” wife, and Keturah is listed as a concubine here and in 1 Chronicles 1:32.
CONCUBINE. Though lawfully united to a man in marriage, the concubine was a secondary type of wife and inferior to a full wife. Concubinage was a natural part of a polygamous society. The custom was recognized and regulated in the code of Hammurabi (13th cen. B.C.), and also in the laws of Moses (Ex 21:7-11; Deut 21:10-14). Concubines were usually taken from among Heb. or foreign slaves or from foreign captives. They enjoyed no particular rights in family affairs and could be sent away with a mere present and their children excluded from an inheritance (e.g., the sons of Hagar and Keturah, Gen 25:1-6). . . .
In patriarchal times following Mesopotamian customs concubines particularly served to continue the line of a family when the real wife was barren (Gen 16:3). Levirate marriage on the other hand, supplied this need when the husband died without descendants. Then his brother was to take the widow to wife (Deut 25:5-10; cf. Mt 22:23 ff.).
Some men who had concubines in the OT were Nahor (Gen 22:24), Abraham (Gen 25:6), Jacob (Gen 35:22), Eliphaz (Gen 36:12), Gideon (Jud 8:31), Saul (2 Sam 3:7), David (2 Sam 5:13; 15:16; 16:21), and Solomon (1 Kgs 11:3). The problems and dangers of the practice are shown in the OT, particularly in Solomon’s case where his many wives and concubines caused him to permit pagan worship and thus to sin (1 Kgs 11:1-8).
The later prophets encouraged monogamy (Mal 2:14 ff.). Prov 31 urges this as the ideal. In His teaching on marriage (Mt 19:3-9) Christ implied that polygamy was among the things permitted by Moses only because of the hardness of men’s hearts (Mt 19:8), thus showing that it is excluded for all Christians. The teaching of the epistles is clear that any leader of a church must be the husband of only one woman (1 Tim 3:2, 12; Tit 1:6), and that every believer should love his wife (singular) as himself (Eph 5:33). (Wycliffe Bible Dictionary, Allen R. Killen, Th.D., Professor of Religion, Union University, Jackson, Tennessee)
Although some may argue that due to Abraham’s age he would not be able to bear any more children after Isaac, it is apparent that when God made him and Sarah fertile from their “dead” condition as a result of his faith (Romans 4:18-22), the fix was not only efficacious but lasting.
It is noteworthy that even though Abraham had these other sons, it was only Isaac, the miracle-child that he received by God’s grace through Sarah, who was to receive his inheritance and only through Isaac that Abraham’s seed is called, as promised by God. His other sons would propagate other nations (many of these names have been identified with various Arab tribes); fulfilling God’s promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations (see 17:4). The Midianites and Medanites, later mentioned in Scripture, as the others, were nomads of the desert. Their early lot was to receive gifts (probably starter flocks and herds) and be sent away to the land of the east. Genesis 25:7-11 This is the sum of the years of Abraham's life which he lived: one hundred and seventy-five years. Then Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, the field which Abraham purchased from the sons of Heth. There Abraham was buried, and Sarah his wife. And it came to pass, after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac. And Isaac dwelt at Beer Lahai Roi.
There are no details regarding Abraham’s death. It simply says that he died in a “good old age” and that he died as an “old man and full of years.” This depiction of his long and blessed life is in contrast with the life of his son Jacob where in Genesis 47:9 he tells Pharaoh that “my years have been few and difficult [lit., “evil”], and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.”
There is reason for Jacobs future hardships; they were his “rewards” for his greed and subterfuge, which qualities, even though exercised in accordance with God’s purpose in establishing the Messianic bloodline, are evident first in this chapter. In fact, in this chapter the “good vs. evil” theme originally introduced in the first chapters of Genesis and carried through to the book’s end (cf. 50:20), is continued in the struggle between Esau and Jacob.
The phrase “and was gathered to his people,” is an indication that those who had died were regarded as people still existing—an early testimony to belief in life after death. At his last breath, Abraham immediately took up his residence in Sheol (the equivalent to “Hades” in the New Testament, e.g., Luke 16:23).
Gr. “hades,” “the unseen world,” is revealed as the place of departed human spirits between death and resurrection. The word occurs, Mt. 11:23; 16:18; Lk. 10:15; Acts 2:27, 31; Rev. 1:18; 6:8; 20:13, 14, and is the equivalent of the O.T. “sheol” (Hab. 2:5, note). The Septuagint invariably renders “sheol” by “hades.”
Summary:
(1) Hades before the ascension of Christ. The passages in which the word occurs made it clear that hades was formerly in two divisions, the abodes respectively of the saved and of the lost. The former was called “paradise” and “Abraham’s bosom.” Both designations were Talmudic, but adopted by Christ in Lk. 16:22; 23:43. The blessed dead were with Abraham, they were conscious and were “comforted” (Lk. 16:26). The believing malefactor was to be, that day, with Christ in “paradise.” The lost were separated from the saved by a “great gulf fixed” (Lk. 16:26). The representative man of the lost who are now in hades is the rich man of Lk. 16:19-31. He was alive, conscious, in the full exercise of his faculties, memory, etc., and in torment.
(2) Hades since the ascension of Christ. So far as the unsaved dead are concerned, no change of their place or condition is revealed in Scripture. At the judgment of the great white throne, hades will give them up, they will be judged, and will pass into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:13, 14). But a change has taken place which affects paradise. Paul was “caught up to the third heaven . . . into paradise” (2 Cor. 12:1-4). Paradise, therefore, is now in the immediate presence of God. It is believed that Eph. 4:8-10 indicates the time of the change. “When He ascended up on high He led a multitude of captives.” It is immediately added that He had previously “descended first into the lower parts of the earth,” i.e. the paradise division of hades. During the present church-age the saved who died are “absent from the body, at home with the Lord.” The wicked dead in hades, and the righteous dead “at home with the Lord” alike await the resurrection (Job 19:25; 1 Cor. 15:52). (The Scofield Reference Bible, Oxford University Press, 1945, pg. 1098, 1099)
The final resting place for Abraham’s body was in a portion of the Promised Land that he rightfully owned—the field that he purchased from Ephron the Hittite. He was the second person so buried in the cave in this field near Hebron—the first being his wife Sarah (Genesis 23:19). Apparently there was reconciliation between Isaac and Ishmael during the funeral. And after the burial, Isaac went to live in his wife’s land, at “Beer Lahai Roi,” and he was blessed by God. Genesis 25:12-18 Now this is the genealogy of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's maidservant, bore to Abraham. And these were the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, according to their generations: The firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth; then Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadar, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. These were the sons of Ishmael and these were their names, by their towns and their settlements, twelve princes according to their nations. These were the years of the life of Ishmael: one hundred and thirty-seven years; and he breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people. (They dwelt from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt as you go toward Assyria.) He died in the presence of all his brethren.
This is a transitional passage from Abraham to Isaac, and it opens with a final statement regarding the line of Ishmael—an account of the generations of Ishmael, 12 leaders of Ishmael’s clan in all who were to become founders of a new and separate people, the fulfillment of God’s promise in Genesis 17:20, who would settle in the general regions of central and north central Arabia. Once the Holy Spirit finishes this account of the “rejected” line from Abraham and the death of Ishmael, there is no more mention of Ishmael in Genesis (yet the descendants of Ishmael continue to play a part in the Genesis narrative—28:9; 36:3; 37:27, 29; 39:1).
Ishmael lives to be 137 years of age and then dies and is “gathered to his people.” The Holy Spirit next addresses the Messianic line—the line of Isaac—the line that ultimately leads to Jesus Christ. Genesis 25:19-26 This is the genealogy of Isaac, Abraham's son. Abraham begot Isaac. Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah as wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padan Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian. Now Isaac pleaded with the LORD for his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD granted his plea, and Rebekah his wife conceived. But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If all is well, why am I like this?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. And the LORD said to her: “Two nations are in your womb, two peoples shall be separated from your body; one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.” So when her days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb. And the first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over; so they called his name Esau. Afterward his brother came out, and his hand took hold of Esau's heel; so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when she bore them.
Isaac, like Esau (26:34), was forty years old when he took a wife, Rebekah. Like Sarah (11:30), Rebekah was barren. Like Abraham (20:17), Isaac prayed for his wife, the Lord answered, and she bore two sons. The barrenness of both Sarah and Rebekah, as well as Rachel (29:31) and Leah (29:35), reiterates the point that the promised blessing through the chosen seed of Abraham is not to be accomplished merely by human effort. The fulfillment of the promise at each crucial juncture requires a specific act of God. (NIV Bible Commentary, Zondervan Publishing House, 1994)
For approximately 20 years after her marriage to Isaac (he was 40 years old then), Rebekah was barren. Then, in answer to Isaac’s prayer (but because of God’s promise to Abraham), she became pregnant with twins. The struggle within the womb precedes the struggle that continues outside the womb between the twins, but more significantly, it portends the struggle that started in the Garden of Eden, a struggle between light and darkness, between good and evil, between the Spirit and the flesh. Rebekah didn’t understand the struggle within her, so she inquired of it before the Lord.
Aside from the struggle signifying the eternal spiritual struggle between good and evil, it foreshadowed the struggle between the Edomites and the Israelites of which Esau and Jacob were the progenitors—a struggle that has persisted throughout all of history and continues to this day. Further, the younger would occupy the preeminent place that normally went to the firstborn (Hosea 12:3; Romans 9:10-13).
When Isaac reached the age of 60 years, his wife finally gave birth. The firstborn was Esau (literally meaning “hairy”), who was followed by Jacob (literally meaning “supplanter” or “trickster”). The term “red” anticipates the play on the meaning of Esau’s other name, Edom, which means “red,” (cf. vs. 30). “Hairy” was a Hebrew pun on the name Esau. Genesis 25:27-34 So the boys grew. And Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents. And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. And Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.” Therefore his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright as of this day.” And Esau said, “Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?” Then Jacob said, “Swear to me as of this day.” So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
The central lesson of this chapter is contained in these few verses. God does not condone Jacob’s “wheeling and dealing;” but He favors Isaac who has appreciation for God’s promise (Godly line) over Esau who has little regard for anything but gratification of the flesh, which is clearly seen in the sale of his birthright for some red stew. Esau is therefore nicknamed Edom (red), a name that carries over to his posterity (Edomites).
The only “hunter” other than Esau mentioned in the Bible is Nimrod (cf. 10:9). Esau was a person of the outdoors, a metaphor for the “world,” indicating a spiritual equivalent to the “flesh.” In Hebrews 12:16 he is mentioned as a “fornicator and profane” person, who had so little regard for things that were spiritual that “for a morsel of food he sold his birthright.” Jacob, on the other hand is described as a mild (quiet, i.e., amiable, pious, cultured) man who avoided the “world.”
The “birthright” of Esau, the eldest son, gave him precedence over his brother (cf. 43:33), which assured him a double share of his father’s inheritance (cf. Deuteronomy 21:17); although, it could be forfeited by committing a serious sin (cf. 1 Chronicles 5:1) or bartered away, as in this passage. And for mere physical satisfaction—to satisfy his hunger—Esau committed a most grievous sin of selling his God-given birthright for a bowl of lentil soup and a piece of bread. This is a picture of the lost person who instead of receiving Christ by faith alone in order to lay claim to the right God has given every person born on earth to be with Him in heaven, he chooses rather to go the way of the world and fulfill his sin-nature (flesh) with all its demands.
Rebekah supplied the spark and the scheming that secured advantage for her favorite son. He had a long way to go to become the spiritual leader of those who would worship Jehovah. But God was patient; He was not in a hurry; He would train His leader.
Esau made his home in the rocky hills of Edom. Years later his descendants, the people of the nation he founded, would reveal the same type of thinking he had shown and the same profane disregard for the eternal program of Jehovah of hosts. In spite of every discouraging incident, the kingdom of God would move forward toward the fuller realization of the divine purpose. (The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Moody Press, Chicago, 1962) |