ASV notes on Genesis 22:20-24 and questions to consider

October 29, 2018 By in Abraham Tags: , , Leave a comment

שלום חברי

רוח הקודש

Milcah

Abraham had a brother, Nahor, he lived in Haran with his wife Milcah, and Milcah was the daughter of Haran the firstborn of Terah, Abraham’s father. Haran died in Ur in Chaldea before they left for Canaan. Terah died in Haran and Abraham and Lot the son of Haran left the rest of the family and traveled to Canaan the land God promised Abraham.

Bethuel

Haran was a center that all the trading caravans came through heading west and now some of the people coming from Haran brought news to Abraham who knew the area well where the trading was going on. They told him about his family in Haran and that Milcah had born eight male children to Nahor and among them Bethuel who became the father of Rebekah.

Wife

Abraham now had all the information he needed, where to travel to find a wife for his son Isaac. The people living in Canaan at that time didn’t know the only God, and they were of low morale and Abraham didn’t want Isaac to look for a wife there. Now he knew that there were many daughters in the Nahor family back in Haran in the east.  

Questions to consider

  1. What are your thoughts about who people marry?
  2. Are you as parents responsible for who your children connect with?

ASV notes on Genesis 22: 15-19

October 13, 2018 By in Strong faith Tags: , , Leave a comment

שלום חברי

Faith

Our life with God is conditional. Because we accept Jesus as Lord and listen to His words the faith of Jesus makes us children of God. God through an angel said to Abraham; “since you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son ” Abraham fulfilled the condition that God had set, that Abraham believed God and did as he was told.

Sand and stars

Abraham didn’t have the Bible, we are lucky; we have all the conditions written down in a book, we can find out what is expected of us by reading, praying and studying. Abraham gave God the best he had and his God, YaHaWaH responded by promising Abraham to greatly bless him and multiply his descendants like the sand of seashores and like the stars on the sky and to defeat their enemies.

Descend

And the angel ended his speech by saying; “Through your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” God said that Jesus Christ would descend from Abraham and through Him God would bless the whole world.

ASV notes on Genesis 22:11-14

October 13, 2018 By in Strong faith Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

שלום חברי

The obedience of Abraham testified that he feared his God. Abraham loved his God, but in this love is also fear, not trembling fear, but a kind of great respect that God always wants the best for his children, Abraham, and his descendants. Abraham’s faith was important to God.

Abraham had given God the most precious he had on this earth, God wants to be loved with the best we have. Then God loved Abraham back, because Abraham gave his son Isaac, God is responding by giving His son for the descendants of Abraham, the Hebrews and then the whole world.

To kill Isaac wouldn’t have helped anybody, but sacrificing the Son of God would give the entire world a way to “life” on earth and a life forever with God in heaven. Jesus died for the sin in us to give us a new spirit to overcome the sin in our life.

ASV notes on Genesis 22: 1-10 and questions to consider

October 10, 2018 By in Strong faith Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

שלום חברי

Abraham’s life with his God had been a travel of faith all the way from when he left Haran to the land promised to him, the land of Canaan. Through the Promised Land, back and forth and to Egypt and back. Abraham knew that his God was reliable, his faith was anchored in the past experiences, his God YAHAWAH always looked after him, saved him and blessed him. This building up of Abraham’s faith was not the work of Abraham; it was the work of God and now the time had come to prove it.

God told Abraham to go to Moriah and sacrifice his son there when reading the words of Moses it seems to me that Abraham was calm and collected, did what he had to do in a proper way, and took with him the servants, the fire and his son Isaac.

When they came close to the place for sacrifice; “Abraham said to his servants, “Settle down and stay here with the donkey; the [c]young man and I will go over there and worship [God], and we will come back to you.”  Abraham didn’t waver in his faith, he said: “and we will come back to you.” Abraham was 100% confident that his descendants would come through Isaac. Even if he had to kill Isaac Abraham believed that his God was able to resurrect him.  

Questions to consider

  1. How did the faith of Abraham come by
  2. How did Abraham in these verses put words to his faith 

ASV notes on Genesis 21:22-34

September 19, 2018 By in Abraham and Abimelech Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The king Abimelech and his general Phicol knew Abraham and his private army that eradicated the four kings from the east, Abraham was in their mind a threat to their kingdom. But the interest of Abraham was water for his animals.

The king and his general came and wanted Abraham to swear to keep his word and treat Abimelech and his descendants fairly. They stood by a well that Abraham had dug. There they both swore, Abraham not to be hostile to the king’s people and Abimelech swore that the well was dug by Abraham and they called the well Beersheba, the well of the oath. This was in the same area where an angel spoke to Hagar.

Abraham was powerful in the eyes of Abimelech, but the main reason, I think, that the king feared Abraham was that he saw God blessing him in everything, Abimelech feared Abraham’s God. Abraham planted a tamarisk in the area as a witness of his awesome God, and there he called on His name; YAHAWAH.

ASV notes on Genesis 21:14-21

September 18, 2018 By in Abraham and Hagar Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away into the wilderness of Beersheba with a skin bag of water, Ishmael was about 20 years of age, he was grown up and he and his mother could have been for days in the wilderness before the bag was empty.

They were exhausted and they both wept. Hagar wept, but God heard the voice of Ishmael. Hagar was not of Abraham, and should never have been his wife, but Ishmael was a descendant of Abraham, he was of Abraham and because of Abraham God cared for Ishmael.

An angel called Hagar from heaven and told her not to be afraid and to take Ishmael by his hand and help him up, Hagar did exactly what the angel told her, and then she saw a well with fresh running water, God saved them because of the boy, not her. God blessed them and Ishmael became an archer and Hagar coming from Egypt went there and fetched a wife for his son.

ASV notes on Genesis 21:1-13

September 15, 2018 By in Abraham and Hagar Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

God in his grace came to Sarah, what He did we don’t know, but God kept his promise and the laughter Isaac was born. When Isaac was about 3 years old Sarah and Abraham could stop nursing him as a helpless child and start the teaching and demanding period. Today children are being nursed far too long; the children enter school not prepared for it.   

Isaac was now at least 3 years old, probably 5 or 6, that made Ishmael about 19, 20 years old. Ishmael was grown up; he was old enough to know not to mock the 5/6 year old Isaac. The normal scenario would have been that Ishmael bothered Isaac, and Sarah talked to him and Ismael stopped doing it, but when he thought nobody saw him, he did it again.

Then Sarah talked to her maid Hagar, and she also talked to Ishmael, but in a respectful way, Ishmael was about 20 and Hagar knew that God had promised to make him a people. Ishmael also knew he was to become the father of a nation and I think that his high thoughts of himself made him treat Isaac as an inferior.

When the mocking didn’t stop Sarah went to Abraham asking him to send Hagar and her son away from them. This bothered Abraham and he didn’t know what to do, he loved his son Ishmael also. This was just a family matter, quite normal for a family to have some trouble like that, especially if you have two wives.

But God found it important enough to intervene; He spoke to Abraham and told him to listen to Sarah and do as she said. God was to look after both Isaac and Ishmael not because of them, but because of Abraham, God blessed the descendants of His prophet. Abraham was in the center, all around was a blessing for him. It is the same with you today, if you follow Jesus all people around you are blessed too, and they are a blessing to you, it is not because of them, but it is God’s relation to you through Jesus.

ASV notes on Genesis 20:14-18

September 12, 2018 By in Abraham Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Abimelech the king didn’t touch Sarah Abraham’s wife, but in his heart he did and was guilty. Even if Sarah had been Abraham’s sister and not his wife, Abimelech had no right to take her into his harem against her will. God took Abimelech and his entire household to court, and they were judged to death if the king didn’t make it right and compensated for mistreating Sarah.

As a warning to the king, God closed the wombs of all in the kings household, no women there got pregnant anymore. This was serious and the king got the message and made Abraham even richer then he already was.

The king payed Abraham a thousand silver coins to honor that Sarah was Abraham’s wife and to be respected and not touch by anyone. The king also gave Abraham more cattle and male and female slaves and he gave Abraham the right to settle and let his animals feed anywhere in the king’s country.

Then Abraham prayed to God for the king and his household and then God healed him and his wife and his maids and they again could give birth to children. Abraham was the prophet of God and he had the prayer power that “moved God”. This is the way it works even today; through God’s word, Jesus, in our heart we got the power of prayer, even for people that don’t know God.

ASV notes on Genesis 20:8-13 and questions

September 10, 2018 By in Abraham and Abimelech Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

God is the solution

Nothing is too complicated for God

The dream where God talked to Abimelech scared him and he feared for his life, and got up in the morning and told all his servants about it, and they most certainly brought this further to the people. The respect and fear for the God of Abraham must have affected all in the area when Abraham or some of his met them in their moving around with all the animals looking for food and water. God prepared the way for His prophet.

The half sister

Abraham as nomad moved from place to place and he gave Sarah a standing order to tell people that she was his sister. Sarah was Abraham’s half-sister; they were both children of Terah and siblings of Nahor and Haran, they had different mothers, not named in the Bible.

Questions

  1. Is your life too complicated for you?
  2. Do you know what to do?
  3. Is God good and smart?

ASV mark on Genesis 20:1-7 and questions

September 2, 2018 By in Abraham and Abimelech Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Abraham at Gerar and Abimelech

Gerar and Abimelech

Now it was time for Abraham to move all his cattle and flocks to another area, finding food for them. Abraham was a nomad, moved from place to place, and stayed temporarily where his animals were grazing. This time he ended up in Gerar where he settled his huge camp, here Abimelech was king.

She lied

Again, Abraham did it, he told Sarah his beautiful wife to lie and say that Abraham was her brother, giving the impression that she was not his wife. Even thou Sarah was close to ninety and probably pregnant she was nice to look at and desirable. The king, Abimelech heard about her beauty and fetched her into his harem were she stayed waiting for the king to call her.

A prophet

Abimelech wanted to have sex with Sarah, but every time he tried to make it happen God hindered him, God looked after Sarah because she was the wife of the prophet Abraham. God gave Abraham the title prophet; it implies that Abraham spoke the words of God. God protected His prophet and stopped the king from touching his wife. 

Guilty

The same is true today, if you speak the words of God, God protects you because of the words you speak; speaking the “words of God when in Jesus” makes you a prophet. Abimelech in his intent to have sex with Sarah was innocent, it was Abraham that did wrong, sacrificing his wife making Abimelech sin against God’s prophet.

Death penalty

God sentenced Abimelech to death for trying to touch Sarah, the king was facing the death penalty, he was about to be executed by God, not just Abimelech but also his household was to be killed, God made Abimelech and his people respect Abraham.  

His awesome God

God told Abimelech to return the prophets wife to him and then God would pardon Abimelech by Abraham praying for him, saving his life. Abimelech did what God told him in a dream. After this, all in the area knew about Abraham and his awesome God.

Questions

  1. Why did all the people in the area know Abraham?
  2. Dis Abraham sin?
  3. Who was the guilty one?