Genesis 21–26

The Birth of Isaac

21The Lord blessed Sarah, as he had promised, ^2*and she became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham when he was old. The boy was born at the time God had said he would be born. ³Abraham named him Isaac, ^4*and when Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded. ⁵Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac was born. ⁶Sarah said, “God has brought me joy and laughter.^w Everyone who hears about it will laugh with me.” ⁷Then she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

⁸The child grew, and on the day that he was weaned, Abraham gave a great feast.

Hagar and Ishmael Are Sent Away

⁹One day Ishmael, whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham, was playing with^x Sarah’s son Isaac.^{y 10*}Sarah saw them and said to Abraham, “Send this slave and her son away. The son of this woman must not get any part of your wealth, which my son Isaac should inherit.” ¹¹This troubled Abraham very much, because Ishmael was also his son. ^12*But God said to Abraham, “Don’t be worried about the boy and your slave Hagar. Do whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that you will have the descendants I have promised. ¹³I will also give many children to the son of the slave woman, so that they will become a nation. He too is your son.”

¹⁴Early the next morning Abraham gave Hagar some food and a leather bag full of water. He put the child on her back and sent her away. She left and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba. ¹⁵When the water was all gone, she left the child under a bush ¹⁶and sat down about a hundred metres away. She said to herself, “I can’t bear to see my child die.” While she was sitting there, she^z began to cry.

¹⁷God heard the boy crying, and from heaven the angel of God spoke to Hagar, “What are you troubled about, Hagar? Don’t be afraid. God has heard the boy crying. ¹⁸Get up, go and pick him up, and comfort him. I will make a great nation out of his descendants.” ¹⁹Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well. She went and filled the leather bag with water and gave some to the boy. ²⁰God was with the boy as he grew up; he lived in the wilderness of Paran and became a skilful hunter. ²¹His mother found an Egyptian wife for him.

The Agreement between Abraham and Abimelech

^22*At that time Abimelech went with Phicol, the commander of his army, and said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything you do. ²³So make a vow here in the presence of God that you will not deceive me, my children, or my descendants. I have been loyal to you, so promise that you will also be loyal to me and to this country in which you are living.”

²⁴Abraham said, “I promise.”

²⁵Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well which the servants of Abimelech had seized. ²⁶Abimelech said, “I don’t know who did this. You didn’t tell me about it, and this is the first I have heard of it.” ²⁷Then Abraham gave some sheep and cattle to Abimelech, and the two of them made an agreement. ²⁸Abraham separated seven lambs from his flock, ²⁹and Abimelech asked him, “Why did you do that?”

³⁰Abraham answered, “Accept these seven lambs. By doing this, you admit that I am the one who dug this well.” ³¹And so the place was called Beersheba,^a because it was there that the two of them made a vow.

³²After they had made this agreement at Beersheba, Abimelech and Phicol went back to Philistia. ³³Then Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and worshipped the Lord, the Everlasting God. ³⁴Abraham lived in Philistia for a long time.

God Commands Abraham to Offer Isaac

22^*Some time later God tested Abraham; he called to him, “Abraham!” And Abraham answered, “Yes, here I am!”

^2*“Take your son,” God said, “your only son, Isaac, whom you love so much, and go to the land of Moriah. There on a mountain that I will show you, offer him as a sacrifice to me.”

^3*Early the next morning Abraham cut some wood for the sacrifice, loaded his donkey, and took Isaac and two servants with him. They started out for the place that God had told him about. ^4*On the third day Abraham saw the place in the distance. ^5*Then he said to the servants, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there and worship, and then we will come back to you.”

^6*Abraham made Isaac carry the wood for the sacrifice, and he himself carried a knife and live coals for starting the fire. As they walked along together, ^7*Isaac said, “Father!”

He answered, “Yes, my son?”

Isaac asked, “I see that you have the coals and the wood, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?”

^8*Abraham answered, “God himself will provide one.” And the two of them walked on together.

^9*When they came to the place which God had told him about, Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. He tied up his son and placed him on the altar, on top of the wood. ^10*Then he picked up the knife to kill him. ^11*But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!”

He answered, “Yes, here I am.”

^12*“Don’t hurt the boy or do anything to him,” he said. “Now I know that you honour and obey God, because you have not kept back your only son from him.”

^13*Abraham looked round and saw a ram caught in a bush by its horns. He went and got it and offered it as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴Abraham named that place “The Lord Provides”.^b And even today people say, “On the Lord’s mountain he provides.”^c

¹⁵The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time, ^16*“I make a vow by my own name—the Lord is speaking—that I will richly bless you. Because you did this and did not keep back your only son from me, ^17*I promise that I will give you as many descendants as there are stars in the sky or grains of sand along the seashore. Your descendants will conquer their enemies. ^18*All the nations will ask me to bless them as I have blessed your descendants—all because you obeyed my command.” ¹⁹Abraham went back to his servants, and they went together to Beersheba, where Abraham settled.

The Descendants of Nahor

²⁰Some time later Abraham learnt that Milcah had borne eight children to his brother Nahor: ²¹Uz the firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel the father of Aram, ²²Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel, ²³Rebecca’s father. Milcah bore these eight sons to Nahor, Abraham’s brother. ²⁴Reumah, Nahor’s concubine, bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.

Sarah Dies and Abraham Buys a Burial-Ground

23Sarah lived to be 127 years old. ²She died in Hebron in the land of Canaan, and Abraham mourned her death.

³He left the place where his wife’s body was lying, went to the Hittites, and said, ^4*“I am a foreigner living here among you; sell me some land, so that I can bury my wife.”

⁵They answered, ⁶“Listen to us, sir. We look upon you as a mighty leader; bury your wife in the best grave that we have. Any of us would be glad to give you a grave, so that you can bury her.”

⁷Then Abraham bowed before them ⁸and said, “If you are willing to let me bury my wife here, please ask Ephron son of Zohar ⁹to sell me Machpelah Cave, which is near the edge of his field. Ask him to sell it to me for its full price, here in your presence, so that I can own it as a burial ground.”

¹⁰Ephron himself was sitting with the other Hittites at the meeting place at the city gate; he answered in the hearing of everyone there, ¹¹“Listen, sir; I will give you the whole field and the cave that is in it. Here in the presence of my own people, I will give it to you, so that you can bury your wife.”

¹²But Abraham bowed before the Hittites ¹³and said to Ephron, so that everyone could hear, “May I ask you, please, to listen. I will buy the whole field. Accept my payment, and I will bury my wife there.”

¹⁴Ephron answered, ¹⁵“Sir, land worth only four hundred pieces of silver—what is that between us? Bury your wife in it.” ¹⁶Abraham agreed and weighed out the amount that Ephron had mentioned in the hearing of the people—400 pieces of silver, according to the standard weights used by the merchants.

¹⁷That is how the property which had belonged to Ephron at Machpelah, east of Mamre, became Abraham’s. It included the field, the cave which was in it, and all the trees in the field up to the edge of the property. ¹⁸It was recognized as Abraham’s property by all the Hittites who were there at the meeting.

¹⁹Then Abraham buried his wife Sarah in that cave in the land of Canaan. ²⁰So the field which had belonged to the Hittites, and the cave in it, became the property of Abraham for a burial ground.

A Wife for Isaac

24Abraham was now very old, and the Lord had blessed him in everything he did. ²He said to his oldest servant, who was in charge of all that he had, “Place your hand between my thighs^d and make a vow. ³I want you to make a vow in the name of the Lord, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not choose a wife for my son from the people here in Canaan. ⁴You must go back to the country where I was born and get a wife for my son Isaac from among my relatives.”

⁵But the servant asked, “What if the young woman will not leave home to come with me to this land? Shall I send your son back to the land you came from?”

⁶Abraham answered, “Make sure that you don’t send my son back there! ⁷The Lord, the God of heaven, brought me from the home of my father and from the land of my relatives, and he solemnly promised me that he would give this land to my descendants. He will send his angel before you, so that you can get a wife there for my son. ⁸If the young woman is not willing to come with you, you will be free from this promise. But you must not under any circumstances take my son back there.” ⁹So the servant put his hand between the thighs of Abraham, his master, and made a vow to do what Abraham had asked.

¹⁰The servant, who was in charge of Abraham’s property, took ten of his master’s camels and went to the city where Nahor had lived in northern Mesopotamia. ¹¹When he arrived, he made the camels kneel down at the well…