This is a review of 11 examples of Abraham’s faith in God in Genesis 17-23. It culminates in his trusting God to resurrect the son of the promise, Yitskhak (Isaac), and in buying property in the Land to bury those also trusting in God to resurrect them.
This is the first part of a recap of Abraham’s life, looking at about two dozen key events that show why God picked him to be the start of a special group of people on Earth and to be a key example of trust in God being considered righteousness.
This chapter sounds like a drawn-out real estate transaction, but it shows two things: Abraham was so important that Hittites, people of a major international power at the time, had great respect for him. Abraham’s first title to land in Canaan was to bury Sarah, who was very significant as the mother of the promised son by way of God, Yitskhak.
Most of this account is God’s ordered sacrifice of Yitskhak (Isaac). This is a disturbing command until we see that the point was to show Abraham’s deep trust in God’s promises and power to resurrect as well as to show how heart-wrenching a future act against God’s “one and only son” would be.
How do we relate to Israel’s flight out of Egypt to the Red Sea, as recorded in Exodus? We weren’t there. We know that this was a long, arduous journey. It was a seven-day walk — day and night — without sleep or respite. A likely reason God wants us of the Commonwealth of Israel to remember the Israel’s deliverance from both the lure of Egypt and the might of Egypt on the first and seventh days of the Festival of Unleavened Bread they are picture of the full release God gives us through the Great Deliverer, Yeshua the Messiah.
The binding of Yitskhak was more of a test of our belief than it was for Abraham or Yitskhak (Isaac). It’s also a “shadow” of the suffering in Gethsemane of the ultimate “one and only son,” Yeshua the Mashiakh (Jesus the Christ).
Abraham seals a contract with King Abimelech for a well and seals it with a seven-fold oath in the form of seven ewes.