Originally Posted by
pandora
if I may could I just address this point, even though I feel this has been discussed an answered sufficiently there still seems some confusion. This has nothing to do with which son is the son of promise as decided by men... God has made this decision, the Bible clearly records it. It is not a contradiction, the Bible States Ishmael was the first born son... However he was NOT the first born of Abraham and Sarah, the first born son of Abraham and Sarah was Isaac... And it is this son that God decrees His covenant will be carried by. Isaac is the child of promise. There is no contradiction and no corruption of any texts on this matter. Firstly...
Abraham
First know by the name Abram, at the age of 75, he received his calling from God. God later changes his name to Abraham as God also changed the name of Abrahams wife Sarai to Sarah.
"Now The Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves." (Genesis 12:1-3 RSV)
An important point about Abraham is that although all bloodline Jews of today are descended from him, Abraham himself was not a Jew. Abraham's son Isaac, had a son Jacob (who was renamed Israel), who had 12 sons (from whom came The Tribes Of Israel), one of which was Judah, from whom came the Jews. The first "Jew" was Judah, Abraham's great-grandson. Both Jews and Arabs are equally descended from Abraham, but Abraham himself was neither "Jew" nor "Arab".
Isaac
Isaac was the ONLY son of Abraham and Sarah, and the father of Esau and Jacob, who God renamed Israel. The patriarchs are often named together in both the Old Testament and New Testament.... when speaking to Moses, God said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." (Exodus 3:6 RSV).
Isaac's birth came about from a miracle - Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born, and Sarah, at age 90, had been unable to have children... God decreed..
"Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him and make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation." (Genesis 17:19-20 RSV).
Fourteen years before, when Abraham was 86, Sarah (then called Sarai) had arranged for a child to be born to Abraham through her own Egyptian maidservant, Hagar. Ishmael was born from the arrangement. The promise did not however go through Ishmael because the covenant had already been made with Abraham, with a yet-unborn Isaac the designated heir, before Ishmael was conceived or born. While God does not play favourites, He was also not bound to any other arrangements for children that Abraham and Sarah had taken upon themselves to bring about after the matter had been firmly decided by God.
Ishmael
Ishmael, meaning God hears, as we know was the son of Abraham and Hagar, the Egyptian maid of his wife Sarah. Through Sarah's lack of faith and her doubt of being able to bear a son in her advanced years she took it upon herself to ensure Abraham had a son by Hagar acting as a surrogate mother, even though God had specifically stated that a child (Isaac) would be born to Sarah in due time.
Ishmael was born when Abraham was 86, 11 years after Abraham's arrival in what would become the land of Israel. He grew up to be a man of the desert wilderness, with a wild and hostile attitude toward people, exactly as God described him to his mother before he was born....
"Behold, you are with child, and shall bear a son; you shall call his name Ishmael; because The Lord has given heed to your affliction. He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against every man and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen." (Genesis 16:11-12 RSV).
Sarah, who had come to dislike both Hagar and Ishmael, said to Abraham "Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac." (Genesis 21:10 RSV)
Abraham opposed Sarah's demand - despite Ishmael's difficult personality, Abraham loved him and did not want to see him go. God however settled the matter:
"But God said to Abraham, "Be not displeased because of the lad and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your descendants be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring." (Genesis 21:12-13 RSV)
God did bless Ishmael and promised he would be a father of great nations.. However, that does not mean that any prophets were to come from his line. You are reading that into the text on the basis that Isaac was not an only son, thus ignoring Gods decree.. And wishful thinking that the blessing upon Ishmael is more than it was. When even the Quran does not name the child as Ishmael.
Peace unto you.
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