Genesis 20-27 Recap | OT Ep 3

In this episode, we explore Genesis chapters 20 through 27, focusing on the key events in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The conversation delves into themes of deception, faith, God's promises, and the dynamics of family relationships, particularly the significance of the younger brother's favor over the older. We also discuss the implications of these narratives for understanding God's overarching plan for humanity to be saved through Jesus. 

Reading Plan - Old Testament in One Year
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Transcript

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Hey everyone,

My name is Austin. And my name is Ashley. Welcome to the Clean Slate Podcast. Where we're finding Jesus in the Old Testament.

Hey everyone, welcome to episode 3. We're so glad to have you with us. Today, we're going to be recapping Genesis chapters 20 through 27. Before we jump in, I would like to note that your Bible app did not go back to chapter 12. We do start chapter 20 with Abraham again trying someone that Sarah is his sister to save himself.

Yeah, Ash, you're right. So 25 years has gone by and Abraham finds himself in a similar predicament. It's one that he put himself his wife as a shield to try to save himself. And so God comes to Abimelek in a dream, reveals to Abimelek what Abraham has done and that needs to turn Sarah back over to and actually ask Abraham to pray for him.

or God would bring death to him and his people. Abimelech was rightfully terrified and also very confused. And he wanted to know, hey, God, would you kill an innocent people? Especially since I haven't touched Sarah. And God lets Abimelech know that it was him that kept him from actually sinning. So Abimelech gets up early and he brings Sarah back and offers a huge amount of wealth to prove that nothing the two of them.

By the way, the reason Abimelech would have offered so much wealth is just to show the people who were looking this on, which would have been, I'm sure, fair amount of the court, maybe the general public sees this whole thing happen. And he's just trying to testify to the fact that, hey, I really did not touch her. And Abraham, must have been embarrassed by all this. This behavior, know, halfway lying and not caring for your wife was really unfitting for one who the Lord himself called a prophet. 

You know, don't we do that though? We halfway lie. We try to justify our sin by partial truths. Abraham said, I mean, technically she's my sister.

Well, we try it to anyway, right? Mm-hmm. So Abraham, he does, he prays for Abimelech and God healed Abimelech and his people.

And guys, this is just such a wonderful example of why in Genesis 15, God wouldn't allow Abraham to walk through that covenant ritual himself. We talked about this in the last episode that God knew Abraham would fail. So God went through the covenant ritual just to signify that he was putting all the pressure on himself to fulfill the promises that he made to Abraham. In other words, that Abraham's mistakes wouldn't be big enough to thwart his plan.

And that's the same way Jesus does with us is that he put all that pressure, all that weight on himself so that He could fulfill the new covenant on our behalf.

So then we get into chapter 21, and the Lord made good on his a son, just as God had told them to, they named the child Isaac. Now, Isaac means laughter. And so if you zoom out,

for just a second and marvel at God's sense of humor. Think back to a few chapters earlier when God told Sarah that she was to have a son and she laughed. God knows that naturally this is comical. These two old people just had a baby. So I think it's very fitting that he told them to name him Isaac, this child of the promise that is so funny and carries so much significance. God really does have the very best sense of humor. I want to introduce a theme here that is really thick in Genesis, but it prevails even if only in the background throughout the rest of scripture. That theme is the older brother being skipped over

in favor of the younger brother. Where this is important is when we get down to Jesus, to be sure Mary, Jesus' didn't have any children before him. And Jesus was indeed the firstborn in his family.

But there's a theological way of thinking about this issue that is absolutely beautiful.

Jesus is called our older brother in Romans 8.29. That is because he is the only son of God, but by dying for us on the cross and fulfilling the law on our behalf, we that call his name are adopted into the family of God, thus making him our older brother. Because he lost for us, he left heaven, he put on flesh, endured the cross. We also received the blessing that should have been his, which is the righteousness that he earned.

So going back to Isaac, when he was weaned, which would have been around his second or third birthday, Abraham threw a feast for him.

Ishmael, his older brother, laughed at Isaac at some point and Sarah got really upset. Sarah pushed Abraham hard to cast Ishmael out

Remember, this is all her fault. This child exists because she told Abram at the time to have children through her servant Hagar. Like this child is literally a result of your plan. Well, God came to Abraham and told him to do as she said, and that he would make Ishmael to a great nation and bless him.

So there's actually some legal codes that we have unearthed here in our day from Abraham's day, from way back then. And those legal codes, different peoples, right?

They made it unlawful to put out the son of a handmaiden if there was a rightful heir that was born. So in other words, this exact scenario would not be lawful for Abraham. And again, this is not God's law. This is the law of man. But just to show you that even the other cultures that weren't believing cultures knew that this was not a thing you should do. You should not put out the son of a handmaiden because a rightful heir was born.

Sarah's request would have really upset Abraham. He would have known that socially this was not acceptable. It upset him because she is asking him to put out his actual son. And then he loves Ishmael, right? He doesn't want this to happen.

But God comes and gives Abraham assurances that, listen, do as she says. I'm going to take care of him.

And that makes Abraham able to go ahead and turn Ishmael loose and put him out of the camp, if you will.

The other thing to consider is that Ishmael was around 17 years old, which would have been a customary time for a young man to start establishing his own family.

So Abraham does as Sarah requested, and he puts Ishmael of the camp. We see that Hagar and Ishmael are in the desert and they're dehydrating which is obviously not a good situation to be in. And God hears Ishmael.

Remember the meaning of his name that we learned in episode 2, that God hears. He hears the boy and shows Hagar a well of water and thus saves them. We see that Ishmael goes on to be an expert with the bow in the wilderness and he does begin to build a life for himself.

And then we see later in chapter 21 that Abraham and Abimelech make a treaty with one another to ensure peace. And then just keep that in mind for later on in this episode, we'll talk about that with Isaac as well. And then we see Abraham sojourns many days in the lands of the Philistines.

Now we come to chapter 22, which is the primary gospel glimpse for this week's episode, which is Abraham's almost sacrifice of Isaac. Depending on how long you've been in church or interested in the Bible, you may have heard a this section about the faith of Abraham, to be sure. That is even mentioned in Hebrews, where we see Abraham believe God's promise to point where he believed that he would have to actually kill his son.

but he also believed God would raise him from the dead. Abraham believed that God would keep his promise no matter what. And it's true and commendable as that is. Remember, this is the same guy who has now twice pawned his wife off to save his own skin, right?

And that's why the focal point of our reading should always be Christ. And we let these other truths, as great as they are, rest at the feet of King Jesus. That's the one rock we have to stand on. So let's look at the story see how it connects to Jesus and the gospel. So Abraham is told by God to travel to Mount Moriah and sacrifice his only son. Remember, Jesus is the only begotten son of God that is sacrificed for us.

Abraham and the company arrived at the mountain on the third day since it was about three days journey from where they were sojourning. This is a wink to Exodus 19 where God is preparing Moses for meeting with him on the third day. Later in scripture, when we get to the gospel of Matthew in chapter 16, Jesus is telling the disciples what will happen regarding the crucifixion that he will be raised on the third

We see in verse 6 that the wood for the altar is laid on Isaac's back to carry. This points directly to how Jesus would carry the cross, which would be the wood of his own altar, if you will, that he would be sacrificed on.

In verse 9, Abraham builds the altar and binds his son and places him on the altar.

Keep in mind, Isaac is almost certainly a mature teenager, if not a young 20-something.

This is super important because he's likely allowing his father Abraham to do all of this despite him being younger and stronger. I mean, Abraham is old, so Isaac could have easily gotten out of this scenario, but seems to willingly lay on the altar.

Just to your point Ash, the Bible records nothing of a struggle between Abraham and Isaac. In a similar but greater fashion, Jesus would allow the Romans to do all the things they did to him, which was to torture him, to nail him to a cross. And he ultimately drank the cup of God's wrath as payment for our sin. In the Gospel of John chapter 10 and verse 18, Jesus says, no one takes it, talking about his me.

but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my father." So this connects back to Isaac that Jesus allowed his death, his crucifixion to happen in the same way that Isaac allowed his father to bind him and lay him on that.

So as Abraham is about to sacrifice his only son in verse 10, the angel of the Lord speaks from heaven and told him to stop, that God himself would offer a sacrifice or would provide a sacrifice. Abraham looked up and saw a ram whose horns had been stuck in a thicket. And he took that ram and sacrificed it in place of his son. Abraham then goes on to call that place.

What we have all heard is the Jehovah Jireh which means the Lord will provide. Later in the Old Testament, David would offer a sacrifice on the same mountain in 2 Samuel 24 to save the people from a plague. And this is also the same mountain that Solomon would build the temple on. Throughout generations, the Lord saw to it that sacrifices were provided on behalf of his people.

When Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem in the gospel of Luke chapter 9 verse 51, he was in sync with God providing a sacrifice. In the book, Unveiling Mercy, the author (Chad Bird) writes of the story. He says, “by divine necessity, his talking about Jesus, death had to take place near Mariah. He is the promised seed of Abraham, the one who stops the plague of sin, who is the true temple and sacrifice appointed in Jesus, God sees to it that all our salvation is provided.”

Again, just going back to what we've been talking about in the last couple of episodes, I love once you learn to put this lens on the clarity of which God speaks. He prophesies things are going to happen, things that we couldn't have possibly imagined if you were there in that day.

As we exit out of chapter 22 and into chapter 23, we see that Sarah, the matriarch of Israel, passes away at the age of 127 years old. Abraham had not inherited the land yet. It's been promised to him and to his family, but it doesn't belong to his people yet. And so he didn't have a place to bury her. Abraham goes to the Hittites and he asked them to buy a place to bury his dead from Ephron. Ephron, the Hittite, offered

to give a place to him. And though Abraham was thankful, Abraham insisted on paying him for it. Abraham purchased the field of Machpelah from Ephron, and it would be a burial place for their family for several generations. It's important to note that this is the first piece of land that Abraham would own in Canaan. Of course, his family would eventually go on to take possession of the whole land, just as God had promised. First and only piece, right?

Yeah, that's right. He would never own another piece of land other than that one piece.

So moving into chapter 24, Abraham is getting pretty old and he's beginning to plan for his son Isaac's future.

decides to send his most trusted servant on a really important mission. That mission being finding a wife for his son, Isaac, from his homeland in Paddan Aram

Abraham made his servant declare an oath that he must bring back a wife unless she wasn't willing to come. But he was by no means to take his son Isaac back to Paddan Aram

If you've not yet read that account of the servant going to find a wife for Isaac in chapter 24,

it is so interesting. Please go do that. You'll that before the servant was even done speaking, God had already set things into motion to fulfill his prayer.

And so you'll see that Abraham's servant is successful

There is no shortage of God's sovereign timing and foreshadowing for some upcoming chapters on full display.

There is so much that we could say about this chapter as it is one of the longest in Genesis.

But I would close with this. The servant was to bring a bride to the bridegroom. He brings her through a very long journey, over 550 miles, using ancient pathways from Padanarum to Canaan.

And at the end of the chapter, there's a joyous scene when the bridegroom, Isaac, looks upon his bride, Rebekah. Revelation chapter 19 describes the wedding feast of the Lamb when our bridegroom, Jesus, looks upon his bride, the church. What a joyous scene that will be when we as the family of God are all together at last with our Savior.

So as we move into chapter 25, we see the patriarch of the people of Israel, Abraham, passes away.

we get an accounting of the other children Abraham had after Isaac and also an accounting of the children of Ishmael. True to his word, Ishmael greatly. Ishmael has become a whole nation unto himself. Abraham passed away at 175 years old, like I said, and both Isaac and Ishmael buried their father in the burial plot that he had originally purchased for Sarah.

Some ways into the chapter we see that Isaac's wife, Rebecca, has conceived. And the Lord tells her two nations are in your womb and two peoples from within you shall be divided. The one shall be stronger than the other. The older shall serve the younger.

In this prophecy, God is speaking of the twins that Rebecca had in her womb, Esau and Jacob. God is letting her know that Jacob and Esau will both become a people or a nation.

So when the boys are born, Esau is the first born and he gets his name Esau because there's a derivative there the Hebrew meaning hairy, right? So the kid comes out and he's just cut a ton of hair. And then Jacob gets his name because when Esau comes out, Jacob is actually holding on to Esau's heel. So Jacob in Hebrew is Ya'aqob, which means heel. And there's all kinds of connotation there in the Hebrew, which means like to trip somebody or to be a trickster.

We’re going to see that theme again of the younger gain the oldest blessing. At the end of the chapter, the boys are pretty grown up and Esau comes back in from hunting.

He is so starving that he foolishly sells his birthright to his brother, Jacob, for a bowl of soup. I will say though, that if he is foolish, then Jacob is selfish. Like you could just give your brother a bowl of soup, it would be fine.

The importance here is that Esau is giving away part of the blessing of being the firstborn, which in his case would be being part of the lineage of our Messiah. Remember that the promised seed, promised to Adam and Eve was now going to come through Isaac and it should be passed on to the firstborn, which would be Esau.

As we move out of chapter 25 and into chapter 26, There is a famine in the land, but this time God comes to the patriarch, Isaac, and tells him, do not go down to Egypt. God promises again to bring this promised child from Genesis 3, which would be our Messiah, through Isaac and greatly multiply his offspring. So Isaac settles in Gerar.

Unfortunately, we get another scene that we had earlier in this episode and in the last episode where we have a husband who is fearing for his life and using his wife as a shield. The story unfolds some of the same way it does with Abraham and Sarah, only this time, Rebecca into the King's home.

So if you've kept up with the reading plan, you'll see the name Abimelech crops up here again. It's important to know that this isn't the same Abimelech from Abraham and Sarah's day. This is either his son or grandson, and they bear the same name. That was common in some kingdoms in the Near East in the ancient times for the name of the king to be passed down from one son to another.

So this younger Abimelech sees that Isaac and Rebekah are definitely married. the way they're talking to one another. And he reads between the lines, having heard some of his stories from the past about a time that a prophet of God came into town and almost got his people killed. And he puts a stop to it really quick and lets everyone know not to touch Isaac or Rebekah. So Isaac in that year winds up being blessed by God and his herds and flocks grow to the point where he had to separate himself from the people of Gerar. Abimelech actually goes out to Isaac and makes a treaty with him, again, in the same way that happened before with Abraham for peace. And then toward the end of the chapter, see that Esau actually takes two different wives of the people of the land, Judith and Bezamath. Both were Hittite women, and Scripture actually says that they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebecca.

In Chapter 27, we're left with another tough ending for Isaac has become an old man and his health is starting to fail him. His eyesight has gotten so bad that he's effectively blind. He knows his time is coming to an end and he wants to pass the blessing off to Esau.

He tells Esau to go hunt some game and to cook it and bring it back to him. And he would give him the blessing of the firstborn. Rebecca, knowing this is going on and desiring that her favorite son, the second born Jacob comes up with a plan. Rebecca tells Jacob to dress in Esau's clothes and put on goat skins.

And she would prepare the meal to try to fool Isaac.

Now the goat skins guys is because when I said earlier that Esau's hairy, this is what we're talking about. Apparently like a goat.

Once all that was complete, Jacob was to go into Isaac's tent, dressed up with a meal and pretend to be Esau already returned back from the hunt,

So then we see that Jacob does exactly that. He goes into his father's tent while Esau is still in the field. It pertained to be his brother. And even though Isaac suspected something was amiss to the point where he called Jacob over and fell to the goat's hands and thought, well, that's pretty hairy. Well, like my son Esau, Jacob actually winds up pulling off this deception So again, the younger brother managed to acquire the older brother's blessing.

So Esau returns to his father, having hunted some game. Isaac's already out of the tent. Isaac's already gone. Esau gets back and he goes to talk to Isaac. In that moment, Isaac realizes what's happened and he breaks the news to his oldest son. it's kind of tragic. Esau pleads with his father to bless him in some way, but we see that unfortunately blessing of the firstborn can't be unblessed.

Isaac offers his son a blessing of sorts, but it's nothing like the one that he unknowingly bestowed on Jacob. Esau lets it be known really quick that the only reason his brother is still alive is because he won't kill him while Isaac is alive. Rebecca, knowing this, makes a plan for Jacob to go spend some time with her brother, Laban, until Esau can calm down. Little does Jacob know, sly as he is that he is about to spend some time with his uncle who is the professional con man of the Old Testament.

Well, that's gonna do it for this recap, guys. We appreciate you all so much for listening. May His grace abound to you and to me as we study to find Jesus in the Old Testament.