I hadn’t posted on this in a while because what I read was boring, but it ends up I stopped right before the mother lode that is Chapter 17. I could write a ton on that chapter alone.
Anyway, let’s go quick through 14 to 16. Lot gets captured, and Abram comes to save his ass (he’s the first action hero). Then God keeps going on and on about how many descendants Abram will have (who is probably like thinking to himself, “Okay, I’ll have as many descendants has dust on the earth and stars in the sky… I get it. Could You stop bugging me!”). Then Sarai, who I remind you is barren, lets Abram get it on with her maid Hagar (does not sound like the name of a beautiful woman), and, surprisingly, this causes animosity. But then Hagar gives birth the Ishmael when Abram is 86, making him the second oldest new father after Larry King (who I think is the son of Japheth).
Now, at this point, I’m like, “Okay. This is all fair and good, but why do we care about Abram and this Sarai?” I’m not well versed in the Bible, but I thought the big people in the Bible after Noah were Abraham and Sarah. Then I read Chapter 17…
Abram and Sarai are Abraham and Sarah!
Am I only one who didn’t know that?
Anyhoo, God goes renaming crazy, and grants Abram a ham to make him Abraham (or I guess it’s more of a “ha” that goes between his ‘a’ and ‘m’). He then downgrades Sarai’s ‘i’ one letter to an ‘h’ to make her Sarah. Abram and Sarai just seemed to accept this, ’cause, if the almighty Lord says your name is now “Polly Prissy Pants,” then you better go introducing yourself as “Triple-P” if you don’t want a smiting.
Now comes the weird thing. God order circumcision has a symbol of his covenant. Why that? My guess is that God decide the human wang was just too weird looking, but it was too late for Him to change it. Thus, he had people fix it themselves. Whatever the reason, this shows how harsh the Old Testament is compared to the New Testament. Jesus just wanted you to splash some water on yourself, but God wanted you to put a knife to your wee-wee. I just hope Abraham didn’t have much feeling down there when he did the deed at age 99.
Now here are a few points I’d like discussed by everyone who takes this seriously (sorry, no atheist allowed for this part):
First, look at God’s statement to Abram (Gen. 15:5):
Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
If you take that literally, then the apocalypse can’t be for a long long time if Abram is going to have that many descendants.
Second, and of the most curiosity to me, why Abram/Abraham? What makes him so special that God picked him to be the great father of all? Or did he try it with others who just got too tired of God droning on about how many descendants they would have?
Anyway, I know Abraham is big in the Muslim religion too, so I’m going to keep a close eye on him as I read further and make sure he doesn’t blow anyone up. Later, thumpers.
Yeay Bryan look i’m first! Finally.
Told ya there were pictures. I can find you lots of pictures of that particular bio-mod.
“Father Abraham had many hams….many hams had father Abraham…”
Kinda explains that no pork rule. That would be like caniballism.
“as many as the stars” is just another way of saying innumerable, not a literal count, as im sure is apparant
besides, in ancient time before cities and artificial lighting, obviously the night sky had a lot more stars visible, making the statement more dramatic
johnny,
Yeah, in NY that would mean like having four descendants.
of course, it abra(ha)m did stay up all night and got an exact count of the visible stars, and God decided to be a smarty and make it literal, maybe we are all screwed
Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
If you take that literally, then the apocalypse can’t be for a long long time if Abram is going to have that many descendants.
I think it is simply supposed to convey “innumerable.” Although what is the number of stars visible to the naked eye? That might be an interesting little side-fact.
Second, and of the most curiosity to me, why Abram/Abraham? What makes him so special that God picked him to be the great father of all?
Nothing at all. I think that’s one of the central themes of how God operates – He picks out people seemingly at random, who have nothing really going for them, and He raises up these people from humble circumstances, presumably to better demonstrate His own glory? probably something interesting to look into.
Oops, sorry about the bold. Got a little tag-happy there 🙂
AHA! So That’s how Bill Gates did it. God was taking a stroll and picked out the nerdiest he could find to confound future ages. Thousands of years from now Frank J the 537th will be doing his bible blogging about the book of Gates. That’s the secret to God’s plan. Go with the underdog and if it works out it makes it even more awesome.
Action heros of the Bible does not have an Abraham (he does have a video though in the Hero’s of the Bible series https://www.booksofthebible.com/p5281.html)
According to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory star catalog, there are 39 ‘bright’ stars between visual magnitudes from -2 to +2. There are 413 ‘less bright’ stars between magnitudes of +2.01 and +4.00. There are 4291 ‘faint stars’ between magnitudes of +4.01 and +6.00.
–http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q2110.html
If Abram’s offspring doubled every 100 years it would take only 1200 years to reach the promised number. Good thing God knew more astronomy than the Hebrews.
If God has a specific number in mind then there are precisely as many stars in the sky as there are grains of sand at the beach…
I agree with those who said the point is Abraham’s going to have more descendants than we can count.
If you take that literally, then the apocalypse can’t be for a long long time if Abram is going to have that many descendants.
Actually, there are about 6-7,000 stars visible to the naked eye, so the Apocalyps should have happend already =)
Yeah, I remember A-bra -(ha)m! He’s a fraternity brother of mine. He was the king of porkers, dude! Had that tent out back of the frat house and ran sororities through there like a swine-herder (you’ll get to them later in The Bible, Frank). Abraham was his frat-name: females lined his tent with their pinned-up bras, or, if not wearing a bra, their “ham-holders”; Bra or Ham, Baby? Anyway, I digress. “A”, as he is known to friends, went on to fame and fortune. I don’t know about the Star-Offspring math, but as far as “A”‘s seeds filling the night sky goes, well….?
John Allan, which beach? Pismo? Venice? Acapulco?
Now they better get to the begatting.
Frank — Abraham’s important to Muslims because his bastard kid Ishmael (you know, from his concubine, Hagar) actually has something to do with like, Mohammed, and launching the whole Muslim religion. Or so I was told. You might want to look that up.
About that name change…
Abraham [Heb.,=father of many nations] or Abram [Heb.,=exalted father]
The name change went along with the promise “father of a multitude”
http://opera.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0802195.html
Yep, just a literal name that reflected the change because of the covenant.. “father of many”.
You got to wonder though, what Abraham’s response to God was about the circumcision.
Abraham: “tell me again why I need to do this”?
the LORD: “So people will know you belong to me”.
Abraham: “couldn’t I just wear a lapel pin”?
Redman, i believe you are correct. That Hagar story has bothered me from day one – shes a slave so in theory she might have wanted NO PART in the conception process, then she gets kicked to the curb when its done anyway! Has anyone else felt anger at this part of the story, or is it just me?
The name change explanation that I heard (from my father who is a minister) is that the “ah” at the end of the name was from the beginning of Yahweh (or Jehovah) and so their names were being identified with God.
We say “What is your Christian name?” meaning what name were you given at baptism. This was kinda like that.
That’s what I was told anyway.
Heidi, didn’t she and her son mock Sarah or Sarah’s child later? Its seems she did something before getting kicked out, it wasn’t just “oh, I don’t need you now, see ya”.
Oh, and the Ishmael thing…
Yeah, that is all correct. The Muslims believe that the promised one was Ishmael, and not Isaac. They also believe that it was Ishmael that was almost sacrificed by Abraham, and not Isaac. And, yes, the Arabs are descendants of the Ishmaelites.
Also of note, when you get toward the end of Genesis, is that Isaac’s son, Jacob, has a brother who becomes the father of the Edomites, who many believe are today the Palestinians. (This is debated … but a pretty popular view.)
Okay, you keep me going here…
Yes, Hagar and Ishmael were mocking Sarah. Sarah threw her out because Abraham said she should do what seemed right to her. The interesting part of the story is that God kept His promise to bless Abraham’s descendents regardless of who they were.
While, as a Christian, I don’t believe that God promised to bless the world through the line if Ishmael (i.e. – bring the Messiah) that He DID promise Hagar that He would not forget them. In God’s view, they are still descendents of Abraham. (Keep reading, you’ll get to the promise to Hagar.)
“The name change explanation that I heard (from my father who is a minister) is that the “ah” at the end of the name was from the beginning of Yahweh (or Jehovah) and so their names were being identified with God.”
“Yah” would be the ending you are thinking. “Ah” is the feminine singular ending for the feminine case in Hebrew. The confusion is the migration of the OT names from Hebrew to Latin to German to English. Thus, names like Jeremiah have been which have the ending “Yah” in Hebrew have been changed to “ah” through the transliteration of so many languages.
Same thing with “Jehovah,” its the German equivalent of “Yahweh.”
I think those translation issues are kinda intriguing. Like how “Jesus Christ” and “Yeshua Messiah” are the Greek & Hebrew equivalents of each other. (I may have spelled those completely wrong, tho.)
God chose Abraham because he had a gene that needed to be passed around. That’s why they made him a breeder, right?
Abraham’s not done begatting, btw. After Sarah dies (did I ruin that part of the story?) he remarries and has six more sons, whose descendants all become various tribes (Amalekites and, um, others).
As for why God chose Abraham….because He wanted to. There’s a verse in Romans about how Abraham would train his children to know God, so God chose him and gave him kids. But there’s another verse in Romans — “Jacob have I love and Esau have I hated” — from one of the Prophets, when God basically said He does what He does for His own reasons.
The name “Sarai” was the name of one of the moon gods of Ur. The name “Sarah” means “Princess”. Isn’t that sweet?
Ditto to name change because God was revealing his plans for Abraham (and the world) little by little. Because Abraham believed God (Gen 15:6), therefore God accepted Abraham at another level, and changed his name to reflect his plan. Multitude of grains of sand = children according to the flesh (Israelites) and multitude of stars = children according to the spirit (believers in the Savior, see Romans 4, whoever believes in Him is a child of Abraham by faith). God is a people God, and always works his plan through people. Now you can become a child of Abraham by believeing in the Messiah, or in the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 10:8-10.
Frank calls me Princess.
SarahK is it because he wants you to dress up like princess leia and but muffins on your ears and tell him hows “he’s your only hope”?
LOL keep up the bible reading it brings back fun memories from an otherwise painful childhood. I thought i was the only one it didn’t make sense too
aelfheld,
You’re reinforcing my statement. Who knows which beach, what’s it matter? We can’t count every last grain of sand.
The point is Abraham is going to have more descendants than can be counted.
“(I may have spelled those completely wrong, tho.)”
Posted by Andy
Well, yeah. The hebrew version should look squiggly and have no vowels, and the greek version should look like a really hard calculus problem.
Frank:
You mentioned why God chose Abraham. One question even deeper, is why did God choose anyone in the first place?
If you remember back in early Gen, right after the fall, when God curses the serpent, He tells Adam & Eve that “the seed of the woman shall crush the head of the seed of the serpent.” Well, Cain, Abel, Seth, and further descendents didn’t accomplish that. The reason God keeps establishing these covanents with people is to show that His promise will still be fulfilled that Satan will be crushed. The line from Jesus to Adam is traced through all of the individuals God makes his covanent with (Abram was a decendent of Shem [Noah’s son], the last folks God made a specifc covanent with). And the promise wasn’t even partially fulfilled until Jesus’s first Advent, and it’s not necessarily totally complete yet (depending on how you look at it). All the people familiar with the Torah way back when, knew to be expecting the fullfillment of this promise, and it’s not as evident to us when we read it.
Sorry, there wasn’t anything humorous about this post. But you did say it was a real question, so there’s a real answer. Peace.
WOW is right,…
Beo,… you rock. Thanks for posting.
In Gen 15:5, God answers Abram’s doubts about progeny by taking him outside and telling him “count the stars-if indeed you can count them. . . . So shall your offspring be”, and Abram believes Him. The discussion continues and in verse 12 the sun sets. God had asked Abram to count the stars in the middle of the day. The point is not how many decendants Abram will have, but that he understand that he can trust that they will be there even when he can’t see them.
I find interesting the suggestion that 3000 years BP people understood that the stars were obscured by the Sun, rather than that the day sky and the night sky were parts of a big bowl passing over head.
Man, you think this is boring, wait till you get to Leviticus and Numbers!
Hang in there, though – the part where Lot screws his daughters is coming up…
undercoverhippie wrote:(Keep reading, you’ll get to the promise to Hagar.)
God’s conversation with Hagar, Jacob’s reconsiliation with Esau, and Joseph’s reconsiliation with his brothers are a few of the most moving accounts in the Bible.
Frank, it seems to me that concerning circumcision you’re not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. Not that you pretend to be.
Keep reading.