Buried in a Genealogy

The twelfth chapter of Genesis will introduce us to one of the most significant characters in the story of God's narrative.  A man by the name of Abram is approached by God and called to leave his father's household.  Such a call is much deeper in nature than simply changing locations and moving away from family.  In ancient eastern patriarchal cultures, your father's household is where you have your entire sense of identity.  Your father's household is your security and your inheritance.  It is your provision for the future, as well as your communal and relational infrastructure.  Your father's household is what helps you define your vocation, your religious identity, and your socio-economic reality.

Abram is being asked to leave it all behind.  Leave his identity behind.  Leave his understanding of the gods and of security and of ethics behind and start a new journey with this new and mysterious Creator who calls with His voice.

And most of us have a basic understanding of where this story is headed.  Abram will set out to follow the call of God and his faith will lead him to father the great nation that will become God's chosen priesthood.

But the Jews asked a question that, for them, demanded an answer.
WHY did God choose Abram?

For the western Christian, this question is futile.  The Text doesn't tell us and besides (our Sovereignty friends tell us), God gets to do what God wants.  If God wants to choose Abram and have no reason, He gets to.

But for the Jewish reader, you are not allowed to lay arbitrary statements like that on the Text in order to answer a good question.

If there is a good question, than the answer must lie in the Text.

"Well," the westerner responds, "too bad.  We meet Abram in Genesis 12 and we're not told.  Case closed."

But the easterner responds, "Ah, but we don't meet Abram in Genesis 12.  We meet Abram in the genealogy of Genesis 11."

You see, for the Jewish reader, the answer to the question lies in four verses — Genesis 11:27-30.

"This is the account of Terah.

Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.  And Haran became the father of Lot.  While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth.  Abram and Nahor both married.  The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah.  Now Sarai was barren; she had no children."

As usual, the early readers noted that there were a number of things amiss in this passage.  For one, why is verse 30 at the end of the passage?  That makes no sense, it should be located up where the passage speaks of Sarai in the first place.  Secondly, this passage breaks a cardinal rule of genealogical record: You don't mention women unless absolutely necessary and relevant to the genealogy.  In light of this, why is Iscah mentioned?  She has absolutely no relevance to the story.

And so the rabbis argued and argued and wrestled and wrestled.  Eventually, they told a story — a midrash — in which Abram takes a wife; but it is not Sarai that Abram marries, but Iscah.

Now why would the midrash say such a thing when the Text clearly teaches it differently?  Well, as the teachers dug into the story, they realized something.  Sarai in the Hebrew means "my princess".  If Iscah were a Chaldean (Mesopotamian) name, it would also translate "my princess".  Could it be possible that Sarai and Iscah were actually, in fact, the same person?

If this was true, then the passage all of a sudden begins to make sense.  The odd placement of verse 30 is because the entire story is actually trying to get you to realize that it's actually about Sarai/Iscah.  It also explains why the genealogy includes the name of a woman who appeared to be irrelevant to the record.

But we still haven't explained why God chose Abram.

Well, as the rabbis continued to study the passage, they also noticed how their translation had recorded the Hebrew.  The phrase, "Abram and Nahor took wives" was grammatically incorrect.  The phrase had plural subjects ("Abram and Nahor"), but a singular verb.  In other words, the Hebrew phrase read: "Abram and Nahor he took wives."

Now this wouldn't always be a call for alarm, except that we had seen this once already.  Back in the story of Noah and the vineyard, when Japheth and Shem go to cover their naked father, the same grammatical issue is seen.  "Shem and Japheth he took a garment and they laid it over their shoulders…"  So the teachers taught that when you see this grammatical "mishap", it is the author letting you know that the subjects are performing a benevolent, altruistic act and they are of one mind together as they do it.  They also noted that the first name listed gets credit for the idea.  So, in the case of Shem and Japheth, it was Shem's idea to cover Noah and the two brothers were of one mind and agreement to do this together.

If this principle applies to Genesis 11, what it would mean is that the act of taking wives for Abram and Nahor was a benevolent, altruistic act.  This immediately made sense.  Haran, the father, has died.  It is his job to provide for and marry off his daughters.  If someone does not take care of their (Abram and Nahor's) nieces, they will struggle and eventually die without legacy, community and dignity.

It is Abram's idea to marry the nieces (in their culture, this is not as weird as it sounds to us) and Nahor agrees.  They are of one mind when they do this.  What is also stunning about this teaching is that if it is Abram's idea, that means that he chooses the barren niece.

(I always have people argue with me that Abram doesn't know she is barren.  Not only do I believe that the Text implies otherwise, but the assumption would be at best an argument from silence.  Not only this, but the details in the story let us know that Sarah is as old as 60 and no younger than 40 when they marry.  In the ancient eastern world, a woman marries as soon as she menstruates.  If Sarah has not married at her age, what is the problem?  Has she not menstruated?  No matter the answer, Sarah would have been given in marriage the moment that she was believed to be fertile.  If she has not been married, she would be considered "barren".  In short, they know.)

Now, let this sink in.  We just wrapped up what I called the "preface" of the story where we began to wonder if humanity was hopeless.  We continued to demonstrate an inability to trust God's story and believe that we are OK.  It appeared that there was no hope for our depraved state.

But Abram is the first person in God's narrative to trust the story.  Because Abram believes that he has everything that he needs, he is willing to give up his own life — to lay his life down — on behalf of another.  Because Abram trusts that God is for him, he is able to leave his father's household and let God redefine his identity.  Because Abram trusts that he has inherent value, he is able to consistently walk in faith and teach his children to do the same.

God chooses Abram because he trusts the story and looks to the needs of others, not his own. 

And if people will do that, God can use them to put the world back together.  So immediately upon Abram's act of faith (or trust in a Jewish mind), God extends the call to partner with Him in putting all of creation back together.  God will use this trust time and time again to pursue wholeness in the world.

If we will trust that we have what we need and that God is for us and has given us inherent value…
If we will hear God's words to Cain in the midst of our mistakes and failures, "Why are you angry?  If you do what's right, won't you be accepted…?"
If we will trust that God has created the world good and believes that truth so much that He stopped creating and decided to rest and then invited YOU to join Him in this eternal resting and trusting...

God is still looking for partners.


*  As stated before, most of my Genesis material (this post included) is guided by the teaching of Rabbi David Fohrman; I have also tried to link some additional information in this post to show the validity of the midrashic conversation.

**  As a side note, it should be mentioned that I am not the expert for this discussion.  My information is the result of an immense amount of personal study.  I'm sure that many people would like me to link more sources, however, I do not have enough letters after my name to pose as an authority on the subject.  My purpose with this blog series is not to try to claim to be the source, but instead to simply turn people onto to the things that they can look for from the people who ARE the experts.  This is a place to learn where to start, not the source with which to finish.  I feel as though that disclaimer is important.  I believe that this wonderful "Information Age" we live in provides you with plenty of tools to check into the validity of my work and I encourage you to do so.