life (span) of Sarah...

This (last) week covered Genesis 23:1 to 25:18,
which is half way into chapter 25.


The summary:

Chapter 23: Sarah dies at the age of 127. With some negotiations, Abraham buys a burial place, cave of Machpelah, from Ephron son of Zohar among the sons of Heth, for 400 shekels of silver, and buries Sarah.

Chapter 24: Abraham sends out his servant to the city of Nahor in Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac. The servant prays to Yahweh about the girl, Rebekah arrives; the servant is welcomed, especially by her brother Laban and mother, the father consents it's of Yahweh after hearing the servant; next day, the servant readies to leave, but Laban and mother insists on Rebekah staying; Rebekah says she will go, the family blesses Rebekah at her departure. Isaac sees Rebkah while meditating in the field, Isaac takes Rebekah to Sarah's tent and loved her as his new bride.

Chapter 25:Abraham takes Keturah as his wife, and has children, among them is Midian and Sheba. Abraham gives everything to Isaac; Abraham dies at 175, and is buried by Isaac and Ishmael in the cave of Machpelah, where Sarah is buried. Genealogy of Ishmael's descendants is listed.


This reading finishes up the section on Abraham, friend of God.

Jesus, in John 15:14 says that if we follow His commands, we are His friends.

The statement is conditional, which is double edged; that is, there could be people that may say that being His friend is "work based," which is probably a symptom of the lack of willingness to express any kind of friendship, as stated in Proverbs 18:24.

Of course, being a good friend takes effort, and if one thinks otherwise, that relationship needs to be called by another name, such as parasitic leeching.

The beautiful (and the dangerous) thing about this conditional is that we, as mortal human beings, have the ability to make a choice to befriend God or not. If we do not want to befriend God, we have the freedom to do so.

This One who is willing to befriend us has put His life on the line, rather, has died for us so that we may benefit not only in this life, but especially after we breathe our last breath on this cursed sphere we call earth.



I'm completely digressing from the beautiful narrative of the miraculous answer God grants to the servant of Abraham. This is a wonderful example of what I like to call how God "has been on it."

To explain, the concerns that we have, and the prayers that we pray with regards to the details of our lives, God "has been on it." That is, these concerns aren't catching God by surprise, and God is not scrambling to get things together for the emergencies that we face; He's been on it.

I keep going back to it, but again, Romans 8:28, rather, in this case, the whole paragraph from v.26-31 fits wonderfully with respect to what went on in Chapter 24.

All of the above passages confirm that
God is good.


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