THE ABRAHAM CYCLE

THE ABRAHAM CYCLE

Genesis 12-25 contains stories within the Patriarch Cycle all about Abram, the “great father” who will become Abraham the “father of a great people.” In Genesis 12.1-7 God makes a promise to father Abraham, which will become the theme of Genesis all the way through Joshua: 

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from qHaran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to sthe oak of tMoreh. At that time uthe Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. 8 From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. 9 And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.

Yahweh appears to Abram and tells him the people which grow from his SEED will become numerous and bless the nations of the world. Yahweh asks Abram to leave everything he knows to go and grow into a new PEOPLE in a new LAND. 

SEED. PEOPLE. LAND. 

The entire Patrarch Cycle of Genesi 12-50 will hinge on these three promises of seed, people, and land. And so the Abraham Cycle in Genesis 12-25 are stories which are all about either fulfillment of threat of these three things. Seed. People. Land.

And so when we are introduced to Abram and his wife Sarai in Genesis 11:27-29, the problem is that Abram has no SEED: 

Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran fathered Lot. 28 Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his kindred, in Ur of the Chaldeans. 29 And Abram and Nahor took wives. The name of Abram’s wife was iSarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sarai was barren; she had no child.

The important bit is at the end. Sarai was barren. This is a common motif in biblical literature (think of Rebekah, Hannah, or Mary), where a wife is unable to have children and cries out to God. So we have the wife of the man who readers know will be the father of the people of Israel…except we have a big problem. No children to carry on the line. The entire Abraham Cycle will play with this threat to the seed who will grow into a people in a land as Yahweh fulfills his promise.

And so Sarai is taken into Pharaoh’s harem and Abram nearly loses her. And what hangs in the balance is the ability to have a child to build a people. The threat is that Pharaoh will sire a child, not Abram. But Yahweh intervenes and works towards fulfilling his promise.

And so in Genesis 13, Lot and Abram argue over who gets which pasture land. They have grown too numerous and have to many flocks and have to part ways. When they negotiate who will take which land, Lot picks the land in the trans-Jordan. If Lot picks the land on the other side of the river, God’s promise to Abraham for the land of Canaan would be null and void. The threat is that Abram’s people will not have a land. But Lot selects the land east of the Jordan and Yahweh’s promise is moved towards fulfillment.

And so the son who will be the beginning of Abraham’s inheritance is constantly under threat. Abraham loses faith as he grows old and so he has a child with Hagar, Sarai’s handmade to try to force a liniage. but Ishmael is not the child of the promise. He will do well for himself, sure enough. Yahweh will hear the cry of Hagar as well, sure enough. But we are waiting for Isaac.

And so when Sarai is ninety years old she conceives. Just go with it— it is supposed to be impossible. This is a miracle story. Her son is named laughter because that is Sarai’s reaction when the messengers form Yahweh tell her she will have a child at ninety. And so when the threat was old age, Yahweh fulfills the promise precisely when he means to. 

And so the Akedah (which means “binding”) is the famous story where Yahweh asks Abraham to take his son, his one son, the only one, and sacrifice him on an altar to show his faith for the God who has taken him this far. The threat is not just the death of the innocent boy, and not just the loss of an only son. The threat is that the SEED which was finally gained will perish and make Yahweh’s promise null and void. But Yahweh stops the hand of Abraham and saves Isaac from the blade. Fulfillment of seed, towards a people in a land.

WHAT HAS GOD PROMISED YOU?

What do you believe the living God has promised you? Is it family? Is it meaningful work? Is it generations— kids, grandkids, all laughing together and building a legacy? Is it freedom from past mistakes and new hope? Is it for addiction to finally subside, anxiety or depression to fade into the past?

If we follow the intent of the editor of the Abraham Cycle, two things are true: One is that the promises of God are under constant threat. God’s promises are assailed by circumstance, sickness and health, outside agression, internal conflict, even our own decisions in which we are trying to help said promises along. 

The second, is that Yahweh is faithful. He is not like other gods. He cares for his faithful, makes promises that are reliable, and writes stories that cannot be made null and void, even by our own inadaquacies. This is why following the God who hung the stars requires faith in the faithful One. In his time, as he sees fit, against true evil and chaos, God is bigger than we are to bring about new futures that looked impossible.

As it is written: 

“I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Exodus 3.6