He Laughs

 In the Bible, names are very important. They have meanings and are not just random sounds. Our modern names are the same. Look up the meanings of your personal name and/or surname. For example, The male personal name Robert is derived from the name Hrodebert which comes from two Germanic words, hrod (glory, fame) and berht (shining, bright). The female personal name Melissa is a direct transliteration of the Greek word μέλισσα (honeybee).

In the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac their names are extremely important.  They show that God is directly and personally involved in history. I believe that, in this biblical account, God shows himself to have a sense of humor and he shows that what he announces and promises will happen. He uses Isaac’s name as a reminder.

God promised to the elderly Abram and his 90+ years-old wife, Sarai, that he would give them a son. They both quietly chuckled to themselves at the seemingly absurd promise, not realizing that God would know that they thought it was funny.

Commenters have pointed out that God directly inserted himself into human history when he changed the names of Abram (Strong’s H87, אַבְרָם) and Sarai (Strong’s H8297, שָׂרַי) to AbraHam (Strong’s H85, אַבְרָהָם) and SaraH (Strong’s H8283, שָׂרָה). Many believe that the H (ה)  reflects the tetragrammaton JHWH (Yahweh, Strong’s H3068, יְהוָֹה), one of God’s names.

God told the couple to name their child Isaac (Strong’s H3327 and H3446, יִצְחָק). The name means he laughs. Some might see this as a sarcastic response to the couple but most commenters say instead that this is a reminder that God can do what he says he will do. Whenever they said their beloved son’s name, they would be reminded that they laughed and doubted but that God fulfilled his promise.

“For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?” Isaiah 14:27. The obviously expected answer here is no one.

Genesis 17:5, 17:15-19, 18:10-14; Isaiah 14:27.

Two Fathers

Today is Father’s Day.  The holiday is observed in at least fifty countries on the third Sunday of the month of June. The day celebrates fathers and their influences on the lives of their children.

A wonderful song for Father’s Day is Beautiful Boy by John Lennon. Every father should hear it.

One of the most important biblical stories about a father is that of Abraham and Isaac.  Abraham had already had to send away his first-born son, Ishmael, the son of his wife’s servant/slave girl. Surely he had loved this son.  Now, God was asking Abraham to sacrifice his adored young son, born to Abraham’s long-barren wife.

I believe that this story tells us about two fathers: Abraham and God.

Genesis 22:1-19

22 And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.

2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

3 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.

4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.

5 And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.

6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.

7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

11 And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.

15 And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time,

16 And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:

17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

19 So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba.

The traditional understanding of this passage is that God was testing the faith of Abraham. Obviously, the omniscient omnipotent Creator knew the answer before He gave the test. I believe that there is much more there: God was also teaching Abraham at least three things:

1.          This is what I expect. You should put nothing ahead of Me.

2.          This is how much you love Me, that you would have done this thing if I had not stopped you.

3.     I will provide/have provided the only sacrifice necessary for you to be acceptable in My sight; the Blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God.

He Laughed

     "The Holy One, blessed be He, united His name with Abraham; with Isaac too He united His name."  Rabbi Nehemiah in Bereshit Rabba, 68, 11f.

     In Genesis, God changed Abram's name to Abraham and the name of his wife from Sarai to Sarah.  In the posts for October 6th and 7th I had some thoughts about this.  Rabbi Nehemiah's writings are certainly not scripture, especially for a Protestant Christian, but the quote above raises an interesting question.  What could it mean that God united his name with Isaac?

     God told Abraham and Sarah that the heir would not be Ishmael, Abraham's beloved son by his wife's Egyptian slave woman, but a new son by the very old Sarah.  They both laughed out loud.  Some commentators try to make this a laugh of joy or an exclamation of surprise, but the Bible says Abraham fell down laughing. (Genesis 17: 17-19)

      God told them the son would be named Isaac (Yitzhak = Hebrew = "he laughs.")  This could have been a reference to Abraham's laughter.  Maybe God laughed at them for their silliness in not believing that He could fulfill His promise even with old folk like them. 

Abram to Abraham; Sarai to Sarah, Part Two

     The renaming of Abram and Sarai occurred during the time when God told Abram/Abraham that his beloved late life (very late life) son, Ishmael, the son of Sarai's Egyptian slave, Hagar (Genesis 16), would not be the promised heir.  The heir would be another, yet unborn, son with the infertile and aged Sarai as the mother.

     Light on the meaning of this may come post-biblical Jewish tradition.  In the midrash, Bereshit Rabbah (68, 11f), Rabbi Nehemiah said, "The Holy One, blessed be He, united His name with Abraham; with Isaac too he united His name."  

     One of the names of God is "Yahweh" (in biblical Hebrew this is represented as HWHY, read from right to left).  Remember that the ancients believed that names and even the letters of which the names were composed carried meaning and power.

     When God confirmed His covenant to Abram by declaring that Sarai's son would be the long-promised heir, He inserted himself (the "H") into their names, giving them new and suddenly different lives.

     Through their son, Isaac, Abraham and Sarah were made the ancestors of multitudes and the human ancestors of the Messiah, the Redeemer of the world.  God's name, inserted into their own, was the divine confirmation of this honor.