The History of Abraham to Moses | Western Civilization I – Lesson 5

(Although I personally don’t believe in some of the stories mentioned, I did collect them from biblical texts and was instructed by Tom Woods to reference them in this overview as a part of Hebrew history.)

Abraham prized his son Isaac greatly but he became convinced that it was God’s will that he was to kill and offer up his son to God as a sacrifice. In the ancient world it was thought that giving your most prized possessions to God would please him; Isaac was Abraham’s most prized possession so he considered him to be the most acceptable sacrifice.
God had spoken to Abraham saying;
“Abraham! Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”

So, early the next morning Abraham and Isaac, along with two servants and their donkeys traveled to Moriah and together Abraham and Isaac built an offering. Isaac questioned his father saying;
“Father, the fire and wood are here but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
Abraham answered saying;
“God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”

He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. (That must have been traumatizing for Isaac, bless him).

An angel appeared in time to stop Abraham by the will of God, saying,
“Do not lay a hand on the boy, do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.

So, God had tested Abraham and was pleased with Abraham’s obedience.
*Many people believe this story is a foreshadowing of the story of Jesus on the cross. For many people believe he was our sacrifice just like the lamb in Abraham’s story.*

Some years later, after the death of Abraham’s wife, Sarah; Abraham sent out his man servant to Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac. God provided the servant with a sign by sending Rebekah to give him and his ten camels water to drink. Rebekah is brought from her family to Isaac, who finds comfort in her after the death of his mother Sarah.

Though Rebekah is barren, Rebekah and Isaac marry, and through prayer, Rebekah’s womb is healed and she became pregnant. When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau. After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them.

Esau was a hunter and Jacob was known to dwell around the tents and help his mother do the cooking and lighter work and Rebekah favored him. Isaac, on the other hand, favored Esau.

In a deal for some food Jacob had prepared, Esau (Probably not taking it as serious as Jacob did,) sold Jacob his birthright.

Birthright is the concept of things being due to a person upon or by fact of their birth, or due to the order of their birth. These may include rights of citizenship based on the place where the person was born or the citizenship of their parents, and inheritance rights to property owned by parents or others.

Wikipedia

And with help form his mother, Jacob tricked Isaac, his father (who was ill and had poor eyesight) into giving him “Esau’s” birthright. When Esau learnt of this deception he was very angry and threatened to kill Jacob. Again, with the help of his mother, Jacob fled.

Jacob traveled to his Uncle Laban’s home and upon his arrival he meet Rachel, his cousin, who was fair, where she was watering her father’s flock. Jacob wished to marry Rachel and asked his Uncle for permission. Laban proposed a deal that Jacob was to marry Rachel if he worked seven year as payment for his fair daughter, Rachel. Jacob agreed and worked seven years.

Jacob marries ”Rachel”, or so he believes. Upon his wedding Jacob learns, after pulling off Rachel’s face covering that he had married Leah, Laban’s eldest daughter. (You can only imagine how angry you would be, after seven years of work only to be tricked.) Jacob, fueling with anger approached Laban who said;
“It is customary for the firstborn daughter to be wed before any other daughter.”
Laban proposed another deal saying;
“Work another seven years and I will give you Rachel as well as Leah, as payment for your labor. Jacob agreed and worked seven more year for Laban in order to marry Rachel. After seven years of work, Jacob married Rachel. (As disturbing as it is, it wasn’t uncommon for men to have more than one wife in those ancient times.)

Jacob and his wives along with his children borne by Leah, traveled to Canaan.
Settling down, Rachel, who was barren; bore two sons by the will of God. First she bore Joseph and then Benjamin. Jacob favored these sons because they were borne by Rachel, his favorite wife who passed away after the birth of Benjamin. Jacob had twelve sons (also know as the twelve tribes of Israel) and one daughter, Dinah.

Jacob especially favored Joseph, giving him fine clothes and very light work unlike his sons of Leah, who worked very hard. Joseph’s brothers became very jealous of Joseph because of their Father’s obvious favor. To make things worse, Joseph would have dreams where he has reigning over his brothers and they were serving him, this only angered the brothers more, so one day they decided enough was enough and they sold him. (I know siblings can be really annoying but selling them is just going a little bit too far.)

They sold him to traveling merchants and soaked his cloak with a dead animal’s blood to show (and trick) their Father into believing he has been killed by a dangerous animal. His father was greatly depressed and spent seven days mourning the “death” of his son, Joseph.

Joseph was taken to Egypt and sold into slavery where he was eventually bought by Potiphar who was one of Pharaoh’s officials. Potiphar was pleased by how hard Joseph worked but locked him in prison after his wife made false accusations about him assaulting her.
While in prison, Joseph met a butler and a baker who had dreams they wished to be interpreted, and so Joseph interpreted their dreams perfectly and what he professed to come true, really did come true.

The Pharaoh of Egypt was having odd dreams that he wanted interpreted so after hearing about Joseph and his great ability to interpret dreams, he sent for him. Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream saying;
“According to your dreams, a famine of seven years is approaching Egypt.”
With that information, Pharaoh along with the help of Joseph got to work in preparing for the long famine that was steadily approaching them, and so in time a famine struck Egypt but they were prepared thanks to Pharaoh’s dreams and Joseph’s gift to interpret them. Joseph won the favor of Pharaoh and he made Joseph the next most important man in Egypt, aside from himself, of course.

Joseph met his family in Egypt as they traveled there to collect water and grain to bring back to their drought stricken homeland, Canaan. The brothers didn’t recognize Joseph but eventually Joseph revealed himself to his brother telling them that he had forgiven them for selling him into slavery years earlier. Jacob and his sons moved to Egypt where Jacob died at age 147, he was buried in the Cave of Machpelah.

Joseph and Pharaoh ruled over Egypt until their deaths.

After their deaths, a new Pharaoh was given the throne in Egypt and insisted that they were to reduce the amount of Israelites in Egypt so he ordered that all baby boys belonging to Israelites, were to be thrown into the Nile, because he feared that they might become too powerful of a nation. When Moses, a woman named Jochebed’s youngest child, was born, Jochebed hid him for three months until she could hide him no longer.
To save her son’s life, she waterproofed a basket and put the child in it and set it in the Nile. The Pharaoh’s daughter found him in the Nile and named him Moses.
Mariam, Jochebed’s daughter, was watching the basket and saw the Pharaoh’s daughter collect the basket. Mariam asked the Pharaoh’s daughter if she would like a maid (meaning her mother) to nurse her the child for her and thus Jochebed nursed her son until he was old enough to be brought to the Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her son.

Moses later went on to be one of the greatest men in Hebrew history; the man who delivered two million people from the slavery of Pharaoh in Egypt into the beautiful Promised Land of God as documented in the book of Exodus.