Genesis
25:1 ¶ Then again Abraham took a wife,
and her name was Keturah. 2 And she bare
him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah. 3 And Jokshan begat Sheba, and Dedan. And the
sons of Dedan were Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim. 4 And the sons of Midian; Ephah, and Epher, and
Hanoch, and Abida, and Eldaah. All these were the children of Keturah. 5 And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac.
6 But unto the sons of the concubines,
which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son,
while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country. 7 And these are the days of the years of
Abraham’s life which he lived, an hundred threescore and fifteen years. 8 Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a
good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people.
9 And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried
him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the
Hittite, which is before Mamre; 10 The
field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried,
and Sarah his wife.
Abraham’s second
wife, or third, if you count Hagar, (concubines are a type of lesser wife, a
cultural phenomenon not ordered by God) is named Keturah and she gives him
Midian, the father of a tribe who will later be a problem for the Israelites
trying to get into Canaan and once they are in the Promised Land. But, a priest
of this tribe will provide a wife for Moses and be his sanctuary in the
wilderness after he flees from Egypt.
But keep in mind
that, like we do, people give names to their children that are often known and
already existing, in use by others. For instance, Cush had grandsons named
Sheba and Dedan in Genesis 10:7. There is a man named Sheba who rebelled
against King David in 2Samuel 20. In modern times we have examples where a
former Rock and Roll performer and wannabe politician named himself Jello
Biafra after a secessionist Nigerian state, Biafra. On a soberer note there are
many children named after famous places like London, Brooklyn, Paris, and even
India. So, while naming customs were more based on religious reasons in the
ancient world and for reasons of already having an ancestor with that name we
must be careful about making genealogical links as a matter of fact between two
people or a person and a tribe bearing the same name in the Bible.
Still, Keturah
most likely was a Canaanite who had Sheba and Dedan as part of her own heritage
and passed these respected names down through her son, with Abraham’s supposed
blessing and involvement, of course.
It must be
remembered, as stated in verse 5, that all of Abraham’s inheritance goes to
Isaac so that it is the Jews, not the Arabs, who were given the land of Canaan.
As stated before all of these promises are in Christ so that the fulfillment of
that promise of land will not be complete until Christ physically returns. The
political Israel of today is a puny representative of this enormous grant of
land from the border of Egypt to the Euphrates. See previous comments on this
subject.
Abraham’s wives
other than Sarah are called concubines. Abraham lived 175 years and gave up the ghost which is his spirit
(see Luke 23:46) and was gathered to his
people. Gave up the ghost is a reference to dying that is used later for
Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, Ananias, and Herod. Gathered
to his people is referenced again for Ishmael and Jacob at their deaths.
Abraham is said to
be eminent in Paradise, the garden of God, when it was in the heart of the
earth, separated from Hell, and called Abraham’s
bosom (see Luke 16.) Paradise
comes from a Persian word meaning a walled garden or a hunting preserve. The
garden of God, called Eden, was once on the earth but, after Adam’s fall, was
hidden by cherubim (see Genesis chapters 2&3, Ezekiel 28:13, 14; 31:8,9).
Jesus went to the heart of the earth, to Paradise, Abraham’s bosom, the garden
of God, to preach after the Cross. (see Luke 23:43; Matthew 12:40; 1Peter 3:19;
4:6). Paradise was separated from Hell and is now taken up into Heaven because
of Christ (Revelation 2:7) which we can see because Paul went “up” there as
stated in 2Corinthians 12:4.
Why is Paradise
called Abraham’s bosom? Because Abraham represents all of those who believe
God. Salvation is predicated upon believing what God said. It is as clear as a
bell.
The Greeks,
flowering as an intellectual culture much later around the 5th
century BC, had great contact with the Ancient Near East as mercenaries,
traders, and settlers before that and derived their concept of Hades from the
Hebrews. Greek philosophers stated that they did not know the origin of their
mythology but the first mention of Hades is in Homer, writing perhaps in the 9th
century BC, nearly a thousand years after Abraham’s life and three hundred to
four hundred after Moses’ put the account in writing. The 9th
century BC is also the time when most scholars believe that the Greeks derived
their alphabet from the Phoenicians who we will see derived it from the Hebrews
who got it from God at Mount Sinai. Before then, picture writing was used by
the cultures of the world, from the Sumerians on the plain of Shinar, called
Cuneiform, to the Egyptians, called Hieroglyphics, to China, and even down to
the civilizations of South and Central America over two thousand years later.
As an example of
Greek involvement in the Near East, when Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh Necho’s
armies fought at Carchemish (Jeremiah 46) both sides used Greek mercenaries
extensively. In addition, a prophet lamented how Hebrew
children had been taken as slaves to Greece. (Joel 3:6). There were Greek
cultural influences in the Near East and Greek language influences as well.
However, the Greeks who wrote about Hades wrote after this period of time and
were influenced by what they learned from the Hebrews as they were by what they
learned about other cultures’ practices and beliefs. The Greeks themselves even
admitted they learned a great deal in Egypt and the Near East. In the later
Greek myth, Hades was a place for not only the wicked but the good persons’ souls
to abide after death while Tartarus was where their supreme god, Zeus, cast the
Titans, giants, and there were different places for enjoyment and punishment
based on a person’s behavior in life as well as their relationship to the gods.
In the Ancient world, then, it was understood that the abode of the dead, good
or bad, was in one location.
Isaac and Ishmael
bury Abraham with Sarah. It is probably the last time the Jew and the Arab will
cooperate in much of anything.
God’s ministry of
reconciliation, of reconciling mankind to Himself, was carried on in a dramatic
way through Abraham. Abraham remains an important figure in human history.
Abraham believed what God said. Do we?
James
2:23 And the scripture was fulfilled
which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for
righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
