The Living Bible (9 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
Later on, God tested Abraham’s faith and obedience.
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“Abraham!” God called.
“Yes, Lord?” he replied.
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“Take with you your only son—yes, Isaac whom you love so much—and go to the land of Moriah and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I’ll point out to you!”
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The next morning Abraham got up early, chopped wood for a fire upon the altar, saddled his donkey, and took with him his son Isaac and two young men who were his servants, and started off to the place where God had told him to go.
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On the third day of the journey Abraham saw the place in the distance.
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“Stay here with the donkey,” Abraham told the young men, “and the lad and I will travel yonder and worship, and then come right back.”
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Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering upon Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the knife and the flint for striking a fire. So the two of them went on together.
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“Father,” Isaac asked, “we have the wood and the flint to make the fire, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?”
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“God will see to it, my son,” Abraham replied. And they went on.
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When they arrived at the place where God had told Abraham to go, he built an altar and placed the wood in order, ready for the fire, and then tied Isaac and laid him on the altar over the wood.
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And Abraham took the knife and lifted it up to plunge it into his son, to slay him.
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At that moment the Angel of God shouted to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Yes, Lord!” he answered.
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“Lay down the knife; don’t hurt the lad in any way,” the Angel said, “for I know that God is first in your life—you have not withheld even your beloved son from me.”
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Then Abraham noticed a ram caught by its horns in a bush. So he took the ram and sacrificed it, instead of his son, as a burnt offering on the altar.
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Abraham named the place “Jehovah provides”—and it still goes by that name to this day.
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Then the Angel of God called again to Abraham from heaven.
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“I, the Lord, have sworn by myself that because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your beloved son from me,
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I will bless you with incredible blessings and multiply your descendants into countless thousands and millions, like the stars above you in the sky, and like the sands along the seashore. They will conquer their enemies,
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and your offspring
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will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth—all because you have obeyed me.”
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So they returned to his young men and traveled home again to Beer-sheba.
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After this, a message arrived that Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor, had borne him eight sons. Their names were: Uz, the oldest, Buz, the next oldest, Kemuel (father of Aram), Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, Bethuel (father of Rebekah).
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He also had four other children from his concubine, Reumah: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, Maacah.
When Sarah was 127 years old, she died in Hebron in the land of Canaan; there Abraham mourned and wept for her.
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Then, standing beside her body, he said to the men of Heth:
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“Here I am, a visitor in a foreign land, with no place to bury my wife. Please sell me a piece of ground for this purpose.”
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“Certainly,” the men replied, “for you are an honored prince of God among us; it will be a privilege to have you choose the finest of our sepulchres, so that you can bury her there.”
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Then Abraham bowed low before them and said,
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“Since this is your feeling in the matter, be so kind as to ask Ephron, Zohar’s son,
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to sell me the cave of Mach-pelah, down at the end of his field. I will of course pay the full price for it, whatever is publicly agreed upon, and it will become a permanent cemetery for my family.”
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Ephron was sitting there among the others, and now he spoke up, answering Abraham as the others listened, speaking publicly before all the citizens of the town:
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“Sir,” he said to Abraham, “please listen to me. I will give you the cave and the field without any charge. Here in the presence of my people, I give it to you free. Go and bury your dead.”
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Abraham bowed again to the men of Heth,
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and replied to Ephron, as all listened: “No, let me buy it from you. Let me pay the full price of the field, and then I will bury my dead.”
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“Well, the land is worth 400 pieces of silver,” Ephron said, “but what is that between friends? Go ahead and bury your dead.”
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So Abraham paid Ephron the price he had suggested—400 pieces of silver, as publicly agreed.
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This is the land he bought: Ephron’s field at Mach-pelah, near Mamre, and the cave at the end of the field, and all the trees in the field. They became his permanent possession, by agreement in the presence of the men of Heth at the city gate.
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So Abraham buried Sarah there, in the field and cave deeded to him by the men of Heth as a burial plot.
Abraham was now a very old man, and God blessed him in every way.
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One day Abraham said to his household administrator, who was his oldest servant,
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“Swear by Jehovah, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not let my son marry one of these local girls, these Canaanites.
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Go instead to my homeland, to my relatives, and find a wife for him there.”
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“But suppose I can’t find a girl who will come so far from home?” the servant asked. “Then shall I take Isaac there, to live among your relatives?”
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“No!” Abraham warned. “Be careful that you don’t do that under any circumstance.
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For the Lord God of heaven told me to leave that land and my people, and promised to give me and my children this land. He will send his angel on ahead of you, and he will see to it that you find a girl from there to be my son’s wife.
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But if you don’t succeed, then you are free from this oath; but under no circumstances are you to take my son there.”
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So the servant vowed
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to follow Abraham’s instructions.
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He took with him ten of Abraham’s camels loaded with samples of the best of everything his master owned and journeyed to Iraq, to Nahor’s village.
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There he made the camels kneel down outside the town, beside a spring. It was evening, and the women of the village were coming to draw water.
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“O Jehovah, the God of my master,” he prayed, “show kindness to my master Abraham and help me to accomplish the purpose of my journey.
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See, here I am, standing beside this spring, and the girls of the village are coming out to draw water.
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This is my request: When I ask one of them for a drink and she says, ‘Yes, certainly, and I will water your camels too!’—let her be the one you have appointed as Isaac’s wife. That is how I will know.”
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As he was still speaking to the Lord about this, a beautiful young girl
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named Rebekah arrived with a water jug on her shoulder and filled it at the spring. (Her father was Bethuel the son of Nahor
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and his wife Milcah.)
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Running over to her, the servant asked her for a drink.
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“Certainly, sir,” she said, and quickly lowered the jug for him to drink.
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Then she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels, too, until they have enough!”
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So she emptied the jug into the watering trough and ran down to the spring again and kept carrying water to the camels until they had enough.
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The servant said no more, but watched her carefully to see if she would finish the job,
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so that he would know whether she was the one.
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Then at last, when the camels had finished drinking, he produced a quarter-ounce gold earring
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and two five-ounce gold bracelets for her wrists.
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“Whose daughter are you, miss?” he asked. “Would your father have any room to put us up for the night?”
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“My father is Bethuel,” she replied. “My grandparents are Milcah and Nahor.
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Yes, we have plenty of straw and food for the camels, and a guest room.”
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The man stood there a moment with head bowed, worshiping Jehovah.
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“Thank you, Lord God of my master Abraham,” he prayed; “thank you for being so kind and true to him, and for leading me straight to the family of my master’s relatives.”
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The girl ran home to tell her folks,
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and when her brother Laban saw the ring, and the bracelets on his sister’s wrists, and heard her story, he rushed out to the spring where the man was still standing beside his camels, and said to him,
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“Come and stay with us, friend;
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why stand here outside the city when we have a room all ready for you, and a place prepared for the camels!”
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So the man went home with Laban, and Laban gave him straw to bed down the camels, and feed for them, and water for the camel drivers to wash their feet.
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Then supper was served. But the old man said, “I don’t want to eat until I have told you why I am here.”
“All right,” Laban said, “tell us your errand.”
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“I am Abraham’s servant,” he explained.
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“And Jehovah has overwhelmed my master with blessings so that he is a great man among the people of his land. God has given him flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, and a fortune in silver and gold, and many slaves and camels and donkeys.
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“Now when Sarah, my master’s wife, was very old, she gave birth to my master’s son, and my master has given him everything he owns.
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And my master made me promise not to let Isaac marry one of the local girls,
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but to come to his relatives here in this far-off land, to his brother’s family,
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and to bring back a girl from here to marry his son.
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‘But suppose I can’t find a girl who will come?’ I asked him.
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‘She will,’ he told me—‘for my Lord, in whose presence I have walked, will send his angel with you and make your mission successful. Yes, find a girl from among my relatives, from my brother’s family.
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You are under oath to go and ask. If they won’t send anyone, then you are freed from your promise.’
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“Well, this afternoon when I came to the spring I prayed this prayer: ‘O Jehovah, the God of my master Abraham, if you are planning to make my mission a success, please guide me in this way:
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Here I am, standing beside this spring. I will say to some girl who comes out to draw water, “Please give me a drink of water!”
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And she will reply, “Certainly! And I’ll water your camels too!” Let that girl be the one you have selected to be the wife of my master’s son.’
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“Well, while I was still speaking these words, Rebekah was coming along with her water jug upon her shoulder; and she went down to the spring and drew water and filled the jug. I said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’
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She quickly lifted the jug down from her shoulder so that I could drink, and told me, ‘Certainly, sir, and I will water your camels too!’ So she did!
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Then I asked her, ‘Whose family are you from?’ And she told me, ‘Nahor’s. My father is Bethuel, the son of Nahor and his wife Milcah.’ So I gave her the ring and the bracelets.
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Then I bowed my head and worshiped and blessed Jehovah, the God of my master Abraham, because he had led me along just the right path to find a girl from the family of my master’s brother.
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So tell me, yes or no. Will you or won’t you be kind to my master and do what is right? When you tell me, then I’ll know what my next step should be, whether to move this way or that.”
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Then Laban and Bethuel replied, “The Lord has obviously brought you here, so what can we say?
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Take her and go! Yes, let her be the wife of your master’s son, as Jehovah has directed.”
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At this reply, Abraham’s servant fell to his knees before Jehovah.
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Then he brought out jewels set in solid gold and silver for Rebekah, and lovely clothing; and he gave many valuable presents to her mother and brother.
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Then they had supper, and the servant and the men with him stayed there overnight. But early the next morning he said, “Send me back to my master!”
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“But we want Rebekah here at least another ten days or so!” her mother and brother exclaimed. “Then she can go.”
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But he pleaded, “Don’t hinder my return; the Lord has made my mission successful, and I want to report back to my master.”
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“Well,” they said, “we’ll call the girl and ask her what she thinks.”
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So they called Rebekah. “Are you willing to go with this man?” they asked her.
And she replied, “Yes, I will go.”
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So they told her good-bye, sending along the woman who had been her childhood nurse,
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and blessed her with this blessing as they parted:
“Our sister,
May you become
The mother of many millions!
May your descendants
Overcome all your enemies.”
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So Rebekah and her servant girls mounted the camels and went with him.
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Meanwhile, Isaac, whose home was in the Negeb, had returned to Beer-lahai-roi.
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One evening as he was taking a walk out in the fields, meditating, he looked up and saw the camels coming.
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Rebekah noticed him and quickly dismounted.
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“Who is that man walking through the fields to meet us?” she asked the servant.
And he replied, “It is my master’s son!”
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So she covered her face with her veil.
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Then the servant told Isaac the whole story.
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And Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother’s tent, and she became his wife. He loved her very much, and she was a special comfort to him after the loss of his mother.