As a child, my mother told each of her children all of the stories of the Bible, individually, usually while she was washing dishes and we were drying them. These stories planted within each one of us a great respect and love for the Bible. Told in her own words, with great emotion, I received Mom's Bible stories as one of the greatest gifts ever given to me. Recently, I asked her to write down some of these stories in much the same way she told them to us when we were children. The stories on this page are from the book of Genesis. If you want to read or tell these stories to your own children or grandchildren, it will be a blessing to them throughout their days. (Note: I love the way the Bible tells the whole story, not just the nice parts, but younger children may not yet be ready for all the parts of these stories. Use wisdom and just skip over any sections for which you feel they're not ready.)
Dave Ness
Mom’s Bible Stories
by Shirley Ness
GENESIS
CREATION
In the beginning, God.
God was always there. Before anything else, there was God.
In the beginning, God created-the heavens and the earth.
We didn’t create Him. He created our world, our universe, all the animals-- us.
We don’’t know when it all began, but one day, God looked out and decided to make something-Everywhere he looked, there was deep, dark space, darkness, water everywhere.
God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light. Everywhere God is, there is light, so when God gave it his attention, there was light.
God was just getting started. He made a firmament, the sky with all its stars and galaxies, dividing the waters, creating the earth, dividing the water on the earth, and calling up the dry land.
God knew that the things He would be creating would need food, so He made grass to grow, trees to produce fruit, each with its seed in itself, so it could reproduce more trees, and grass.
On the third day, God created the sun, moon and stars; the seasons; day and night. And God said it was good. Now everything was in place to create animals, so he started in the ocean, creating fish, whales, etc. then he moved to dry land and created cattle, birds, and creeping things, and every beast of the earth. Not all the varieties that we have today, but original ones of each kind. God looked at it and said that it was good.
God had one main idea: to make a man who would talk with Him, walk with Him, depend on Him, be His friend, and love and serve Him. So on the sixth day, God formed a man in His own image, a spirit, and mind, in a body made of dirt. Now, we know that God is Spirit. He doesn’t have a body, but He gave man a body to live in while he is on earth. He formed man out of the dust of the earth. Then He breathed into man’s nostrils the ‘‘Breath of Life’’ and man became a living soul! God looked at all He had created and said that it was “Very Good!”
God was satisfied with His creation. It had taken him six days to do it all. But we know that the Bible says that a thousand years is like a day to God, so we really have no idea how many years it took. But God rested on the seventh day from His labor, and told man to rest on the seventh day, too.
God’s universe is mathematically correct in every way, and everything works together in harmony. Every body has it’s own special system and reproductive way so the entire universe will continue as God planned it, unless something messes it up.
God’s creative genius shows in everything--birds fly, trees produce fruit, fish have gills and swim, people walk on the earth and take care of everything in it, just like God told them to. We have a job.
ADAM AND EVE
God planted a garden eastward in Eden. There he put the man that he had created. He named him Adam. God told Adam that he could eat of every tree in the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he was not to eat, because if he did, he would die.
God brought all the animals to Adam and told him to name them, so Adam named all the animals. We don’t know how long Adam and God walked together, but we know that in the cool of the evening, God came down and visited Adam.
Adam noticed that each one of the animals had a mate. There was a male and a female of every kind, but there was no one for Adam.
God said , "It is not good for the man to be alone,” so he put Adam into a deep sleep, and took out one of his ribs. Around that rib, he formed a woman, and when he woke Adam up, he presented him with his helper, this beautiful woman. Adam called her “woman” because she was taken out of man, and he named her Eve.
Adam was so excited to have Eve. He adored her! With Eve there, it didn’t seem so long from evening to evening when God came down to talk to them. But one day as they were walking in the garden, a serpent came up to them and began to talk to Eve. He said,"Did God say that you can’t eat everything in the garden?”
Eve answered, “We can eat of every tree in the garden, but not of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. God said, "Don’t even touch it, or you will die!” Adam had probably added that part about not even touching it, to keep her away from it.
The serpent answered, "Oh, you won’t die. God knows that you will become more like him. You will know good and evil.”
Eve was very naive and listened to the serpent. She touched the fruit, took a bite and saw that it tasted good. As she was eating it, she gave some to Adam, who was standing there with her, and he ate it too.
Now, Adam knew what God had said. He wasn’’t tempted by the serpent, but he didn’’t want to make Eve mad at him, so he just let her do what she was tempted to do, and went along with it. He put Eve’s wishes before God's commands and fell into disobedience right along with her.
As soon as they had disobeyed, they looked at each other and realized that they were both naked. They scurried around and made themselves some slapped together clothes out of leaves.
That night, when God came down to talk with them, they hid. God knew what they had done, and where they were, but He called to them, anyway. “Adam, where are you?”
Adam and Eve came out and God asked them why they were hiding. They answered that they were naked, so they hid. God said, “Did you eat of the tree that I told you not to eat of?”
Adam said, “That woman YOU gave me, gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
Eve said, “The serpent tempted me, and I ate.” Each was blaming someone else. “Not me! Not me!!”
God told the serpent, “Since you let Satan use you, you will have to crawl on the ground on your stomach all your life from now on. You and the woman and her children will be enemies. You will try to bite them. But One of them will step on you, and crush you.”
To Eve, He said, “childbirth will be more difficult for you. You were equal, here, but now your husband will rule over you.”
To Adam, He said, "Because you listened to your wife instead of me, the ground is cursed to you. It will no longer give up its fruit, easily. Thorns and thistles will grow. You will work hard to feed yourself and your family, all your life, until you die, and your body returns to the dust of the ground, from which you were taken."
Then God made coats of skin and clothed them. Then He sent them out of the garden to fend for themselves, with work to do; because, if they stayed, they would eat of the other tree in the garden, the “Tree of Life,” and live forever in their sins.
CAIN and ABEL
I think both Adam and Eve were a little hard to get along with for awhile after they were kicked out of the garden. Each of them blamed the other, the house was probably full of quarreling. but they were all they had, so they had to get along the best they could. When they had a baby, they were thrilled, and thought maybe this baby was the promise that God had given them of a savior to crush the serpent's head. I think they spoiled Cain dreadfully. He thought the world revolved around him, so when a little brother was born, he wasn’’t happy. He really never got to love that little brother. He stayed jealous of him even when they were grown up.
Cain was a farmer, but Abel was a keeper of sheep. After a while, each of them decided to bring an offering to God. Cain slapped together some of the produce he had raised. Abel loved God, and brought the very best of his flock. God accepted Abel’s offering, but he didn’t accept Cain’s offering. This made Cain very angry with God, but he blamed Abel. He thought Abel had bested him again, and displaced him, even with God.
God told Cain, “If you do right, you will be accepted, but if you have the wrong attitude, sin is there in you, be careful that it doesn’t get the best of you!”
Cain was so angry with his brother that he made a plan. He asked Abel to come with him into the field, and while they were there, Cain killed his brother, Abel. He didn’t think anyone knew it, because nobody saw him do it, but God did.
God came to Cain and asked him, "Where is your brother, Abel?”
Cain snarled back, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
God didn’t let him get away with his lie. God said, “What have you done! your brother’s blood calls to me from the ground. And now, that ground, which you love, is cursed to you. Nothing will grow for you, anymore. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth from now on.”
Cain thought his punishment was more than he could stand, and everyone who saw him would try to kill him.
So God set a mark upon Cain to protect him and let people know that they were not to kill him.
Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and lived in the land of Nod, on the east side of Eden.
Cain found a wife and they had a son, Enoch. Cain built a city and named it after his son. He had other sons and they had sons and daughters. They did all kinds of things; some were musicians, some were ranchers, some worked with brass and iron. They were mighty men but they didn’t seem to have anything to do with God.
But God was not through with Adam and Eve. He gave them another son, along with their many daughters. This son they named Seth. Eve believed that God was giving them another son to take the place of Abel, whom Cain had killed.
Seth knew God and raised his sons to know God and serve him. Then people began to call on the name of the Lord, again.
After Seth was born, Adam and Eve had many, many children. When Adam was nine hundred thirty years old, he died, just as God had said that he would.
Seth lived nine hundred and twelve years. He had many children also. His son,Enos, served God all his nine hundred and five years. He had many children and he also died. Each one lived almost 1000 years, but they died, just as God had warned that they would, if they disobeyed. God keeps his word!
Adam and Eve lived: 930 years Seth-lived 912 years; Enos- lived 905 years;
Cainan lived 910 years; Mahalaleel lived 895 years; Jared lived 962 years.;
Enoch had a son named Methuselah when he was 65 and lived another 365 years having sons and daughters. But Enoch lived so close to God that God just took him him home to heaven. He’s the only one who didn’t die.
NOAH
Methuselah, Enoch’s son was the oldest living person, ever. He lived to be 969 years old. After that, God said that he was going to limit the ages of men. They would no longer live almost 1000 years. About that time,God said that people had too much time to get into wickedness;from now on God was going to begin to limit life to 120 years.
Methuselah had a son, Lamech, who had a son called Noah.
Noah had three sons, named Shem, Ham, and Japheth. They may have been triplets, but probably they are all mentioned because all of them stayed close to God and helped Noah build the ark.
Up to this time, it had never rained; the earth was watered by a mist that came up from the ground. Except for the mist, Noah lived in a dry land. People knew nothing about rain, but God told Noah to build an ark out in the middle of the country. He told him exactly how to build it, and why. God said that the whole earth was so full of violence and wickedness that he was going to destroy it . He wanted Noah to build this boat so he and his family would be saved when the rains came.
Noah didn’t understand what rain was, but he knew who God was, and served him, even though all the people around him did not. Noah’s sons knew that if their father said that God talked to him and told him something, they should believe him. They all stayed and helped him build the ark, just as God had instructed.
It took them about 100 years to get the ark built. All the time, they were telling people about God and trying to get them interested in getting into the ark when the time was right, but nobody listened.
When the ark was finished, all the animals began to come, two by two, a male and a female of every kind-cattle, creeping things, birds. Noah got food for the animals,and seven of each kind of animal that would be used for food. Noah had built rooms in the ark so everything had a place to be safe from the flood that was coming.
God said for Noah and all his household, his wife, his three sons and their wives to enter into the ark. The day they entered the ark, it began to rain. When they were all inside with all the animals, God shut the door. Nobody else could get in. Even if the people outside suddenly decided that they had been wrong. It was too late.
It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. All the deep places of the earth broke open and water covered the whole earth, even the mountain tops. Everything not in the ark, unless it could swim, drowned. The water stayed on the earth for 150 days.
God had not forgotten Noah. It finally quit raining. Then God made a wind to pass over the earth to dry up the water. The water gradually went down. Noah could see the tops of the mountains. He rejoiced! God had had Noah put a window looking up, in the ark, so Noah opened the window and let a raven and a dove fly out.
The dove found no place to rest, so she came back to the ark, and Noah reached out and pulled her back in. He waited another week, then let the dove go again. She didn’t come back.
Finally, Noah took off the covering of the ark, and looked, and the ground was dry. God told him to leave the ark and let everything in it go. Noah built an altar and sacrificed a burnt offering of thanksgiving unto the Lord for sparing them all.
God said that he would not curse the ground or destroy the entire earth with a flood, again. He put a rainbow in the sky as a sign of his covenant to all, that while the earth remains, planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will always be.
God started over again with Noah and his sons to replenish the earth. He told Noah that all animals would be afraid of him, and he was in charge of them. He could eat meat as well as fruits.
Noah lived 950 years; and he died.
THE TOWER OF BABEL
Everybody on earth came from the same family, so they all spoke the same language. God had said, spread out over all the earth, but they really didn’t want to do that. They liked living right next to each other. It gave them a feeling of power! They found this nice valley. and decided to stay there, forever.Rather than obey God, they decided to try to bring God down to them. They would build a city and a tower that would reach clear up to Heaven. They would make a name for themselves!
They built their city. Then they started in on a tower. They made bricks and mortar and used stone and began to build their tower. They thought they could reach God’s heaven if they built it high enough, and bring God down to their level. They got up quite high.
God came down and looked over what they were doing. It wasn’t time for all that they might do. There were so sure of themselves. There would be no stopping them once they got going, so God confused their language, so they couldn’t understand one another. They sounded like they were just babbling at each other.
That put a stop to their building program, and they began to scatter over the earth like God had told them to, each one going with the group who spoke his language.
They still lived a long time, but their years began to get shorter and shorter. They had big families. They filled the earth like God had told them to do. But somehow in the process of living, they seemed to forget the God who had made them. They worshiped things their hands had made, and things they couldn’t understand,like the sun, moon and stars. There were so many things that they didn’t understand. They had many gods.
Noah’s son, Japheth, had many sons. They seemed to go to the isles of the Gentiles.
Ham also had many sons and grandsons and great grandsons. One of his sons, Nimrod, became a mighty one in the earth, a mighty hunter before the Lord. He was of the group who built Babel. Later, they also built Nineveh and Calah. The Amorites, the Girgasites, Jebusites and the Hivites etc. came from this group.
The children of Shem also were many. They are the ones we will follow through the Bible. They later became the Jewish nation.
After the flood, Shem and his wife had Arphaxad,
Arphaxad had Selah,
Selah had Eber,
Eber had Peleg,
Peleg had Reu,
Reu had Serug,
Serug had Nahor,
Nahor had Terah,
Terah had Abram, Nahor and Haran.
Haran had Lot.
They all lived in Ur of the Chaldees. Haran died in Ur.
Abram married his half sister, Sarai.
Nahor married Haran’s daughter, his niece, Milcah.
Their father, Terah, took Abram, Lot and Sarai from Ur to go into the land of Canaan. They got as far as Haran, and there they stayed. Terah was 205 years old. He died in Haran.
ABRAM
In Haran, The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, and your father’s house and all your relatives, and go to a land that I will show you. I will make a great nation out of your descendants. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing. I will use you so that all the families of the earth will be blessed because of you.”So, Abram did as God had told him. He took his wife and packed up all his belongings. His nephew, Lot wanted to go with him, so he also took Lot and his family and all their servants and went into the land of Canaan. God told him that all the land would be his. He built an altar to God and worshiped him.
But there was a famine in the land at that time, so Abram took all his stuff and people and went down to Egypt to stay until the famine was over.
Abram was awfully new at serving God. He knew that often men were killed so that others could take their wives, if they were beautiful. Sarai was very beautiful. So Abram told Sarai to tell everybody that she was Abram’s sister, instead of telling them that she was his wife. So that is what Sarai did.
When they got to Egypt, sure enough, people saw Sarai and told the Pharaoh about her. He had a habit of collecting every beautiful woman he found and adding them to his harem. He took Sarai into his house to add her, too.
Pharaoh treated Abram very well, giving him cattle and oxen, donkeys, and maidservants and menservants in exchange for her, thinking she was his sister.
When he found out that she was Abram’s wife, he was very displeased with Abram, and kicked him out of the country with all that he had.
Abram had become very rich. He went back to Canaan where he had built the altar.
Lot went with him. They were both so rich and had so many sheep and cattle and livestock that there was not enough grass for both of their herds. Their herdsmen began to fight over it.
Abram told Lot, "Let’s not fight over it. You choose where you want to live and I will go the other direction." He gave Lot his choice. Lot chose the best land, the plain of Jordan, and started toward the city of Sodom.
After Lot left, God came again to Abram and told him that everything he could see, all the land, was to be his, and promised he would give it to Abram’s children. Abram had no children. His wife, Sarai was barren, but Abram believed what God told him and waited for the children God was going to give him.
In the meantime, four kings in the area went to war against five kings; Sodom among them. Now Lot had settled in Sodom with his family and become a part of it. The other kings prevailed, and took prisoner Lot and his family and all the other people of Sodom along with all their cattle, food, and stuff.
Someone escaped and went to Abram and told him what had happened. Abram armed all his fighting men, 318, from his household and all his friends who would help, and set out to rescue Lot. He attacked in the night and beat the enemy, and rescued all the people and goods.
As they came back, Melchizedek, God worshiping King of Salem, met them and blessed Abram and thanked God for delivering the enemy into Abram’s hands. Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
Then, the king of Sodom came out to meet them. He told Abram, “Give me the people of Sodom. You take the goods for yourself.”
Abram told him,”No, I won’t take anything that is yours, not even a shoe string. I don’t want you to ever be able to say that you made me rich! Just give the young men who went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, their share."
After this, God came to Abram in a dream, telling him, “Don’t be afraid, I am your shield, and your exceeding great reward.”
Abram told God that he had no son to come after him, and God promised him that he would have a son of his own. And that his descendants would be as many as the stars in the sky.
Abram believed what the Lord said, and God counted his faith as righteousness.
God reminded Abram that he was the one who had brought Abram out of Ur to Canaan to give him the land there. God said that he was going to make a covenant with Abram. God told Abram to lay out the animals for a covenant: a heifer, a nanny goat, and a ram-all three-year-old's--and a young pigeon.
Abram divided each of the animals in half and laid each piece one against another. The thing to do was for each of the partners to walk through the blood to confirm the covenant.
Abram waited for a sign from God. He waited and waited. Vultures came down to eat the sacrifice, but Abram chased them off. All day, he chased them away. Finally when the sun went down, Abram fell into a deep sleep with a horror of darkness coming to him.
God spoke to Abram in the darkness and told him that his descendants would be captives in a strange land for 400 years, but would afterward come out and return to Canaan, because it was not yet time for Abram to have the land.
Then, in the dark, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces of sacrifice/covenant. It was God walking through the blood.
When Sarai was in Egypt, Pharaoh had given her a maid servant to take care of her. They had brought that maid along with them when they came back to Canaan. Her name was Hagar.
Sarai was not able to have children. She knew what God had promised Abram, and she decided to help him out. She convinced Abram to take Hagar as a second wife so any children Hagar had, Sarai could claim as hers. That was the custom of that day.
Abram listened to Sarai, but when Hagar became pregnant, she looked down on Sarai, and was snotty to her. Sarai was furious! She blamed Abram.
Abram told her to do whatever she wanted, so Sarai was mean to Hagar, so mean that Hagar ran away into the wilderness. She found a fountain of water and sat there.
God sent an angel to talk to her. He called to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid” and asked what she was doing there. He told her to return to Sarai, do what she says, and God would give her a son, who was to be called Ishmael, and he would make her son a great man. He would be a loner, but he would have many descendants.
Hagar was so impressed that Abram’s God would talk to her, a woman and a foreigner, that she called the name of the place, Beer-lahai-roi (You are the God who sees me). She went back and behaved until she gave birth to Ishmael, Abram’s first son. Abram was 86 years old when Ishmael was born.
Abram loved Ishmael and Sarai treated him as her son.
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, God came to him again and promised him that he would be a father of many nations. God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, and told him that he was establishing his covenant with him and his descendants. He would give him the land of Canaan.
He told him that every male child was to be circumcised, when he was 8 days old, as a token between him and God. God also told Abraham that his wife, Sarai’s name was to be changed, too. She was to be called Sarah. God said that Sarah would have a son and she would be a mother of nations.
Abraham fell down laughing, thinking: I am 100 years old, and Sarah is 90 years old, will we have a child now? Then Abraham asked God to bless Ishmael and keep him faithful to God.
God replied, yes, he would bless Ishmael, he would make him a great nation; but Sarah’s child, who was to be born next year, and named Isaac, was the one God was making the covenant with.
Abraham circumcised all the males in his household. Abraham was 99 years old, and Ishmael was 13 when Abraham did as God had commanded him. One day, as Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent, he saw 3 men coming toward him. He invited them in for refreshments, sent Sarah to make cakes for them, and he got a calf and had it butchered. After he’d fed them, one of them asked, "Where is Sarah, your wife?”
Abraham replied, “In the tent.”
The man told him. “I will come back in a year, and Sarah will have a son.”
Sarah was behind the door and when she heard that, she burst out laughing. I am far too old to have a baby now! and Abraham is old too.”
The man knew that Sarah had laughed, and when Sarah denied laughing, he said, “Yes you did!” and said, “You WILL have a son. Is anything too hard for the Lord?”
SODOM AND GOMORRAH
Then the men got up and started in the direction of the city of Sodom. Abraham went along with them for a ways, as was the custom of treating guests well.As they walked along, God said, “I don’t think I should hide what I am about to do, from Abraham.” So he began to tell Abraham about how sinful Sodom and Gomorrah were. As they talked, the other two angels kept going on toward Sodom.
When Abraham realized what God was planning to do, he began to bargain with him. He knew that Lot lived in Sodom, so Lot’s life was about to be destroyed. He asked God, “Will you destroy the righteous along with the wicked? What if there are 50 good men in Sodom. Will you still destroy it?”
God said, “If I find 50 righteous in the city I will not destroy it.”
Abraham said, “I am nothing, but since I’ve already begged for 50, what about 45?” God relented for 45.
Abraham kept going down to 10 in his bargaining. God said he would not destroy Sodom if 10 righteous men could be found. Then God went on his way, and Abraham went back to his tent.
When the two angels got to Sodom, they found Lot sitting in the gate, the place where city business was done. Lot invited them to his house. They said they would spend the night in the streets. Lot begged them to come home with him. He knew they would not be safe in the streets of Sodom. They came home with Lot. Lot gave them supper.
They had hardly eaten before the men of Sodom surrounded Lot’s house and demanded that Lot send the men out so they could have sex with them. Lot went out and tried to reason with the men. He even offered to give them his two daughters instead, Lot’s thinking was so warped, and the law of hospitality was so strong.
The men were so angry with Lot that they tried to break down the door of his house.
The Angels had had enough. They reached out and pulled Lot into the house and shut the door. Then they made all the men outside blind, yet they still kept banging on the door trying to open it.
The angels told Lot to get all his family that he could and take them out of Sodom, because they were going to destroy it.
His sons-in-law didn’t believe him, and refused to go with him.
In the morning, the angels forced Lot to take his wife and his two daughters, and practically dragged them out of the city. They told them not to look back, to run to the mountains.
Lot begged them to let him go to a little town nearby, named Zoar. They said "All right, but, get out, quick!"
As soon as Lot was safe, God rained brimstone and fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah and utterly destroyed them.
But Lot’s wife was behind Lot, and she looked back toward all the wicked city that she had loved, and she became a pillar of salt.
Abraham got up the next morning and looked toward Sodom, and all he could see was smoke. The whole country was burning, so he knew that God had done as he said he would, and hadn’t found even ten righteous men there.
After everything was destroyed, Lot was afraid, and left Zoar, and went with his daughters and lived in a cave in the mountains.
Lot’s girls thought the whole world had been destroyed, and it was up to them to save the human family. They got their father drunk, and had sex with him, became pregnant, and each had a son. One became the Moabites, the other became the Ammonites.
Abraham left the place where he was and went south, into the territory of King Abimelech. He knew Abimelech’s reputation for taking beautiful women, so he used the same tactics he had used with Pharaoh.
You would think he would have learned his lesson, but maybe he had gotten so wealthy from that experience that he didn’t think of it as being as bad as it was. At any rate, he told Sarah to say that she was his sister, instead of his wife.
Abimelech took her to be his wife. But God gave the king a terrible dream, that if he didn’t return Abraham’s WIFE to him, he would die and everything he had would die, too.
Abimelech was really upset with Abraham, but God had told him that Abraham was a prophet and he would pray for him and they would all be able to have children again.
When he asked Abraham why he had done such a terrible thing, Abraham told him, that it was only a half truth. Sarah was his half sister, as well as his wife. He had asked her to lie to protect him. Abimelech gave rich gifts to Abraham and gave Sarah back to him. God had protected them again, even when they didn’t trust him like they should have.
ISAAC
At just the time God had said, Sarah had a son. She and Abraham were thrilled beyond measure! They named their son Isaac, as God had told them to.When he was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him. Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born and Sarah was 90. Isaac’s name meant Laughter. Sarah said that now everybody would laugh along with her. God had made her laugh.
When Isaac was old enough to be weaned, Abraham gave a great feast for him. As all were celebrating, Ishmael felt jealous of this little boy who seemed to take his place. He stood off and made fun of him. Sarah saw it, and was furious. She told Abraham to get rid of this bond woman and her son; that Ishmael would never be an heir with her son, Isaac.
Abraham loved Ishmael, and it made him very sad. But God said, “Do what Sarah said. I will look after Ishmael, but my covenant is with Isaac."
So, early in the morning, Abraham gave Hagar bread and water to take with them and sent them away, probably to meet a camel train to go back to Egypt.
But they got lost in the desert of Beer-sheba. The food was all gone. The water was all gone. It was hot and dry and they didn’t know where they were or where the camel train was supposed to be.
They both thought they would die. Ishmael was crying, and Hagar sat down a long ways away from him, because she didn’t want to see him die. And Hagar cried bitterly.
God heard their cries and sent an angel to show Hagar the well of water nearby. So Hagar got water for both of them, and they found the camel train and safety.
Ishmael grew to be a strong man who became an archer, and lived in the wilderness. His mother got an Egyptian wife for him.
When his father, Abraham died, years later, Ishmael came back and helped his brother, Isaac, bury him.
THE TEST
A long time later (We don’t know how long, but we know that Isaac was old enough to be the one to carry the wood, so he was a young man, and probably stronger than his father), God spoke to Abraham and told him to take his son, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him up to God for a burnt offering.It was customary in that time for men to offer to their idol god one of their sons. It was supposed to give them good luck, and put them in favor with their god.
Abraham loved God supremely, so when God told him to sacrifice Isaac, he just set out to do it. Abraham knew God’s voice so well. He knew that Isaac was the son God had promised him and said he would bless the world through him, so Abraham must have thought that God either would bring Isaac back from the dead or something, he just didn’t know what. He just knew to obey God. So he did.
Three days later, when they got to the mountain that God pointed out to Abraham, Abraham took Isaac, his son, put the wood on his back, took the fire and the knife in his own hand, and told the two servants he had brought with them that they would be back after he and Isaac had worshiped.
Isaac questioned his dad and asked where the sacrifice lamb was. Abraham answered that God would provide the sacrifice.
When they got there, Abraham built an altar, put the wood on it, and tied up his son and laid him on the altar.
As he stretched out his hand to kill Isaac, an angel of the Lord stopped him. He told Abraham not to touch his son, because God knew now that Abraham loved God, even more than he loved Isaac. (Of course, God always knew that, but I don’t think Abraham did. He loved Isaac so very much!)
When Abraham looked around, there behind him caught in a thicket was a ram. Abraham took the ram and offered it in place of his son, Isaac.
Isaac was big enough to have kept Abraham from putting him on the altar, but he so trusted his father, that he did whatever Abraham wanted him to do.
God blessed them both for being obedient. God gave them more promises of inheriting the land and being a blessing to the world.
REBEKAH
Abraham’s wife, Sarah, was 127 years old when she died. Though God had promised the whole land to Abraham, Abraham didn’t own even an acre of it. He had to beg for someone to sell him a place to bury Sarah. One of the neighbors was kind to him and sold him the cave in the field of Machpelah before Mamre. So Sarah was buried in Canaan.
Abraham was old. Isaac still didn’t have a wife. Abraham swore his chief servant to go to his brother’s country and from his brother’s household to find a wife for Isaac. He was not to marry him to a Canaanite woman! or to take Isaac back to the land from which they had come. Abraham promised the servant that God would go with him and prosper his journey and show him the right wife for Isaac. The servant swore an oath to Abraham, and set out for Mesopotamia, where Abraham’s brother, Nahor, lived, taking rich gifts and ten camels.
He got to the city, and stopped at a well of water just at the time the girls from the city were coming out to draw water. The servant prayed, “Lord God of my master Abraham, I ask you, be kind to my master, Abraham, and let it be that the girl whom I ask for a drink, will give me a drink, and tell me that she will water my camels, too. Let that be the girl whom you have chosen for my master, Isaac.”
While he was still praying, Rebekah, Abraham’s brother’s granddaughter, came out and did exactly as the servant had asked God for. When he heard who she was, the servant went to her house as he thanked the Lord for guiding him. He told her family exactly what had happened and who he was, all about Abraham and how rich he was, and asked for them to let Rebekah come back to his country with him to marry Isaac.
After he gave all of them rich gifts, he persuaded them to let Rebekah go with him right away. So she and her servant girls went with the servant to go be wife to Isaac.
Isaac was out in the field meditating in the evening, when he looked up and saw a camel caravan coming. He went out to meet it. Rebekah had asked who the man was, and when she found out, she put on her veil.
Isaac took Rebekah for his wife. He loved her, and she was a comfort to him after losing his mother.
Abraham was lonely, after Isaac married. He had never wanted another wife as long as Sarah was alive, but now he found another wife, named Keturah. He and Keturah had six sons. Abraham gave each of his sons gifts and sent them away, as they got old enough, to the east country, away from Isaac.
Abraham lived to be 175 years old. When he died, his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, buried him in the cave where Sarah was buried. He still had not seen the promise of God to own the land, but he knew that God is faithful.
JACOB AND ESAU
Isaac was 40 years old when he married Rebekah, but they had no children. They waited for 20 years. Finally, Isaac prayed and asked God for a son. God answered him and Rebekah became pregnant. She was so uncomfortable, she asked God why. He told her that she was carrying twins, and the younger one would be stronger than the firstborn.
The firstborn was named Esau. When the second one came out, he was holding onto Esau’s foot. They named him Jacob.
Esau became a good hunter. His father favored him. Jacob stayed around home. He was his mother’s favorite. The parents played favorites, and the boys suffered from it. Jacob was a mama’s boy and sort of sneaky. Esau was Daddy’s hunter, and proud of it.
One day when Esau came from hunting, he was very hungry. Jacob was making some stew and it smelled so good. He asked Jacob to give him some stew because he said he was starving! Instead of giving it like a good brother should, Jacob bargained with his brother. He asked for his birthright of being born first. Jacob had always wanted it, but it didn’t mean a thing to Esau, so he sold it to Jacob for a bowl of stew and some bread. Then he got up and went away. He didn’t realize what he had done until much later, but by then it was too late.
There was a another famine in the land. God told Isaac not to go to Egypt, but to go where He told him, so Isaac went to King Abimelech’s country like his father, Abraham had. God promised that He would take care of Isaac and bless him; and He gave him the same promises He had given Abraham about the land and many descendants, but Isaac was afraid. He followed Abraham’s pattern and told everyone that Rebekah was his sister instead of his wife; because she was so beautiful, he feared for his own life. With Abraham, it was a half truth. Of course, with Isaac, it was a total lie.
King Abimelech wasn’t so easily taken in a second time. He asked Isaac why he had told a lie, and Isaac told him. Abimelech scolded Isaac but let him live in the land. The Lord blessed him greatly, until he became so rich that the Philistines feared him and began to bury the wells of water Isaac had dug. Finally, they made an agreement with each other and they let his wells alone, so Isaac could live in peace.
Isaac’s son, Esau married two women, two Hittite girls. His parents were not happy about it. Jacob was not married.
Isaac was old, and almost blind. He didn’t think he would live too much longer, so he called Esau to him one day and told him to go out and hunt, make some meat that he loved, and come in and he would give him his blessing.
Rebekah heard all this and she called her favorite, Jacob, and sent him out to kill two goats so she could make Isaac the food he liked, and have Jacob get Esau’s blessing. She had it all planned out, and Jacob followed her instructions. Since Esau was a hairy man, they put goatskins on Jacob to deceive Isaac.
When Jacob went in to his father, pretending to be Esau, Isaac said, "The voice is Jacob," so he wanted to feel him and smell him. Rebekah had put some of Esau’s clothes on Jacob so he would smell like his brother, and he did. He fooled his father, and Isaac gave him the blessing he had intended to give Esau.
Jacob had hardly gotten out when Esau came in with his food, for his blessing. Isaac was horrified when he realized that he had been tricked. Esau wept and asked for a blessing anyway, but Isaac had none left to give. He had given Jacob the fat of the land and said his brothers were to serve him. All he could say, was that later, Esau would shake off Jacob’s yoke.
Esau hated his brother for stealing his blessing, and cheating him out of his birthright. He vowed that as soon as their father died, he would kill Jacob. Rebekah was so concerned, that she told Jacob and sent him off to her brother, Laban, to stay until Esau got over his anger and the desire to kill him. She told Isaac that it was because she so hated the wives Esau had married, and she wanted Jacob to get a wife from her brother’s family.
Isaac called Jacob in and gave him his rightful blessing, the blessing of Abraham, and sent him off to find a wife from his mother’s relatives.
When Esau realized how distasteful his wives were to his parents, he went and found a granddaughter of Ishmael for a third wife.
Jacob set out all alone to go to a strange land where he knew nobody, even if they were related. He walked all day. That night, he set up some stones for a pillow and lay down, probably thinking about how badly he had managed his life, so far.
As he slept, he dreamed. He saw a ladder set up on the earth, with it’s top reaching to heaven. And all night the angels of God went up and down it. The Lord stood at the top and talked to him. He told him that He was the God of his father, Isaac, the God of his grandfather, Abraham, and He would be his God, too. He promised to give him all the land He had promised to Abraham, to be with him in the strange land, and to take care of him. He would bring him home again, safely.
Jacob woke in the morning and realized that God had spoken to him. He promised God that if God kept His promise, he would serve God. Jacob built an altar of the stones, and worshipped God there. He called the place Bethel. He continued in the strength of God’s promise and presence.
LABAN
The first person of the family to meet Jacob was Laban’s daughter, Rachel. She was out tending the sheep when Jacob got to Haran. Jacob moved the stone so she could water her father’s flocks, and when she heard who he was, he went home with her. Laban had two daughters, Leah, the elder, and Rachel, who was very beautiful. Jacob stayed and fell in love with Rachel. For pay he bargained with Laban to work for him for seven years so he could marry Rachel.Finally, at the end of seven years, Jacob asked for his wife. Laban made a great wedding feast for them and invited all the men of the place. In the dark, Laban exchanged Leah for Rachel , but Jacob didn’t know until morning. When he found out he had been tricked, he was furious. When he called Laban on it, Laban excused himself by saying that in their country it was a custom not to give the younger daughter in marriage until the older one was married. He said to give Leah her week of marriage, then Jacob could have Rachel too, but he would have to work for Laban another seven years.
With the daughters, Laban gave each of them their serving girls, Zilpah for Leah, and Bilhah for Rachel. Jacob loved Rachel, but he just put up with Leah.
God was merciful to Leah, and gave her four sons: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Rachel couldn’t seem to have children. She was jealous of her sister, so she gave Jacob her maidservant, Bilhah, for a wife so she could claim Bilhah’s children as her own. Bilhah had two sons, Dan and Naphtali.
Leah was not to be outdone, so she gave Jacob her maidservant, Zilpah for a wife. Zilpah had two sons, Gad and Asher. Then Leah had another two sons, Issachar and Zebulun. Then, she had a daughter, Dinah.
Finally, Rachel had a son of her own. She called him Joseph. After Joseph was born, Jacob went to Laban and told him that he needed to go back to his own country. Laban convinced him to stay and work for him because he said that God had prospered him while Jacob was there. Jacob agreed to stay and work. The agreement was for Jacob to go through all the flocks and take out all the speckled and spotted cattle, sheep, and goats for his wages. Laban agreed.
But then, Laban had his sons remove all the spotted, speckled, and dark ones and take them far into the hills so Jacob wouldn’t get them. Jacob knew he did this, so he took poplar rods and made stripes on them by peeling the bark, then placed them in all the watering troughs, at the places where the animals bred. The calves and lambs born were striped, speckled or dark! He put them in a separate place for himself. Jacob did all he could to get the strongest beasts to produce striped calves and lambs.
Jacob got very rich caring for Laban’s livestock. He also learned what it was like to be cheated, and treated like he had treated his brother. He worked for Laban 20 years.
Finally, when Jacob heard Laban’s sons complaining of how Jacob was getting rich off their father, and Laban didn’t seem to like him much, anymore, he decided it was really time to go home. God told him to go and he would be with him. Jacob took his wives out into the field and talked to them. He reminded them that their father had tricked and changed his wages 10 times, but God had continued to prosper him. They agreed that it was time to leave.
Laban was out shearing sheep when Jacob loaded up his household and set out for Canaan, without telling Laban he was leaving. Before they left, Rachel stole the household images that were her father’s and brought them along.
It was three days later when Laban finally found out that Jacob had left. He was very angry. He brought a lot of men and chased after Jacob for seven days. But the night before he caught up with Jacob, God gave him a dream. God said, “Be careful, don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.” So, when he caught up with him he simply asked why he had stolen away without letting him have a feast for them before they left, and telling his family goodbye, and why did they steal his gods? (the images were probably land titles)
Jacob didn’t know about the idols Rachel had taken, so he told Laban to search out the camp . Rachel sat on them, so they were never found, and Laban went home.
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