After Sarah's death, Abraham remarried and had several children with Keturah Keturah was a concubine, a wife of lower status than Sarah, and Abraham gave gifts to her children but left the bulk of his estate to Isaac (Gen 25:1-6).
Abraham was to be a father of many nations, and the nations that sprang from these children were among them. Specifically, these were peoples in Arabia who were prominent in the spice trade, for example. Isaiah 60:1-7 pictures these nations joining with Israel in the messianic era.
King David, after he began to reign from Jerusalem, added more wives and children to his family, including four sons with Bathsheba (2 Sam 5:13-16). 2 Samuel 5:13-6:1 is a haftarah reading connected with Genesis 25:1-19 in an ancient Jewish lectionary.
While Abraham and David could add to their families, there were lots of things that were beyond their control. In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on April 20, 2024, Kyle Kettering observed that the very reason we should not worry about the future is that the future is uncertain. We can't control it. We should plan for the future, but not count on those plans, as James 4:13-15 counsels. We should place our lives in God's hands, as the psalmist did in Psalm 71:1-3. God will take care of us, as Jesus taught in Luke 12:22-34.
No comments:
Post a Comment