Abraham- Hebrew/Jewish FigureMortal"Father of Nations"

The Idol-Smasher

The Midrash tells that Abraham's father Terah sold idols in Ur. One day, left alone in the shop, the boy took a stick and smashed every statue except the largest. He placed the stick in the big idol's hands. When Terah demanded to know what happened, Abraham said the largest idol had destroyed the others. "Impossible," Terah said. "They cannot move." Abraham answered: "Let your ears hear what your mouth speaks."

King Nimrod, in Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer, threw the boy into a furnace for his blasphemy. God brought him out alive. Years later, when Abraham was seventy-five and living in Haran, the voice came again. Genesis 12 records the command: go from your country, your kindred, your father's house, to a land I will show you. Abraham took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and everything he owned, and walked into Canaan on nothing but a promise.

The Covenant of Stars

Abraham had no children. God told him to look at the sky and count the stars, if he could, because that was how many descendants he would have. Genesis 15 says Abraham believed, and God counted it to him as righteousness.

To seal the promise, God instructed Abraham to prepare a sacrifice: a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, plus a turtledove and a pigeon. Abraham cut the animals in half and laid the pieces opposite each other. Vultures came down on the carcasses and he drove them off. When the sun set, a deep sleep took him, and with it a dread, thick darkness. God told him his descendants would be enslaved in a foreign land for four hundred years before returning. Then a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between the halves of the animals. Only God walked between the pieces. Abraham did not. The covenant was God's burden alone.

The Three Visitors

When Abraham was ninety-nine, God gave him a new covenant and a new name. Abram became Abraham, "father of multitudes." The sign was circumcision: Abraham cut his own flesh and the flesh of every male in his household, including thirteen-year-old Ishmael.

Three days later, still in pain, he sat at the entrance of his tent by the oaks of Mamre. Three men appeared on the road. Abraham ran to them, bowed, offered water for their feet and rest under the tree. He promised a morsel of bread, then had Sarah bake cakes from fine flour, slaughtered a tender calf, and set out curds and milk. The visitors were angels. They told him Sarah would bear a son within the year. Sarah, listening from inside the tent, laughed. She was ninety years old.

Sodom

The angels told Abraham that God meant to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham stepped forward. "Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous in the city. Will you destroy it then?"

God said no, not for fifty. Abraham pressed: what about forty-five? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Each time God conceded. Abraham stopped at ten. Not even ten could be found. Fire and brimstone fell on the cities. Only Lot and his daughters escaped.

Hagar in the Desert

Sarah could not conceive. She gave Abraham her Egyptian servant Hagar, and Hagar bore a son, Ishmael, when Abraham was eighty-six. After Isaac was finally born, Sarah could not stand the sight of the older boy. She told Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away.

Abraham grieved. Ishmael was his son too. But God confirmed Isaac as the child of the covenant and promised Ishmael would also father a nation. Abraham gave Hagar bread and a skin of water and sent her into the wilderness of Beersheba. When the water ran out, Hagar set the boy under a bush and sat down a bowshot away because she could not watch him die. God opened her eyes and she saw a well.

The Binding

Genesis 22 records the last and worst of the tests. God told Abraham to take his son, his only son Isaac, whom he loved, to the land of Moriah and offer him as a burnt offering. Abraham rose early the next morning. He saddled his donkey, split wood for the fire, and set out with Isaac and two servants.

The journey took three days. Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer says Satan met them on the road disguised as an old man, asking Abraham if he had lost his mind. Then Satan turned into a river blocking the path. Abraham walked in up to his neck.

Father and son climbed the mountain alone. Isaac carried the wood on his back. He asked: "Father, here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb?" Abraham answered: "God himself will provide the lamb, my son."

Abraham built the altar, arranged the wood, bound Isaac, and laid him on top. He reached for the knife. An angel called from heaven: "Abraham, Abraham. Do not lay your hand on the boy." A ram caught in a thicket by its horns became the offering instead.

He lived to one hundred and seventy-five. Isaac and Ishmael buried him together in the Cave of Machpelah at Hebron, beside Sarah.