Today’s Scripture Reading (July 16, 2018): Genesis 25
Are you your parent's
favorite child? I know, it is a weird question to ask. And yet it seems to be a
common theme of life. I don’t think that there is a parent that I have ever
spoken to who would admit to having a favorite child, we love our children
equally. However, the subject seems to come up frequently when I am speaking
with the children. According to what I hear the children say, I would have to
guess that a lot of us feel like we are the Black Sheep of the family and that one of our siblings was the favorite.
Part of this is likely just the “grass is
always greener on the other side of the fence” phenomenon, but it shapes us in
unexpected ways. People who seem to feel that they are the experts on every
subject, usually seem to have felt that they needed to know things as children to get any recognition from their parents.
Rebellion is often the result of feeling like they can’t measure up, so why
try. But then there are the stories of
the Bible. Here there is no misunderstanding available. Men of the Bible had
favorite wives, and parents had favorite children.
This verse has caused a bit of confusion. The
only women that we know of who could have been
considered Abraham’s concubine was Hager, the mother of Ishmael. The
other two women in Abraham’s life were his wives, Sarah, and then after Sarah’s
death, Keturah. If there were other concubines, we do not have any record of
who they might have been. We also have no
indication that Abraham’s relationship with Hagar lasted longer than the
attempt to provide a male heir for Abraham. Sarah’s jealousy of Hagar over the
birth of Ishmael would seem to have made that impossible. And yet there were a
total of seven sons born to the concubines of Abraham
and one son who was born to his wife, Sarah.
The easiest solution to the problem is to
assume that the six boys mentioned in this passage were born to Keturah. If
that is true then, while Abraham married Keturah, she was never placed in the mind of Abraham equal to Sarah. And the
story of Abraham may also reveal what could be considered to be the first
prenuptial agreement. While Keturah would be Abraham’s wife, neither she nor
her children would stand to inherit anything from the Patriarch. Abraham would
be generous with them throughout his life, but when he died, everything would
go to Isaac. Isaac was the son of the promise, and nothing could be allowed to
change that.
Abraham also began a family tradition of
choosing favorite sons. He chose Isaac. Isaac would choose Esau. Ironically,
Isaac’s choice was away from God who had chosen Jacob to be the next son of the
promise. And Jacob would choose Joseph and Benjamin as his favorites, the only
sons of his favorite wife, Rachel. And
along with the tradition of favorite children came a tradition of dysfunction
that was revealed in both the families of
Isaac and Jacob, because the choosing of
favorites is often damaging to both the favorite and the ones overlooked.
But that is another story.
Tomorrow’s Scripture
Reading: Genesis 26
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