Bible Study Lessons 05
Lesson Objectives
1. To learn the key points of the creation story in the Bible's first book, Genesis.
Lesson Outline
I. Our Father Abraham
a. Hebrews and Semites
b. Priest of the Most High God
c. 'Covenant in Your Flesh'
d. Binding Isaac
II. Age of the Patriarchs
a. Jacob the Younger
b. Joseph and Judah
III. Study Questions for Lesson 05
I. Our Father Abraham
a. Hebrews and Semites
From the good seed of humanity, the line of God's righteous, Shem's line, comes the first of the great patriarchs, "Abraham the Hebrew" (see Genesis 14:13).
This is the first time the word "Hebrew" appears in the Bible and it's linked to the name of Eber, another son of Shem (see Genesis 10:21). This is why we refer to the chosen people the Hebrews. The descendants of Abraham are also known as "Shemites" or "Semites." Which is where we get our expression for hatred of Jews - "anti-Semitic," which means, hatred of the descendants of the righteous line of Shem.
With the story of Abraham we turn a page in salvation history. The remainder of Genesis (chapters 12-50) tells the story of the "patriarchs," the founding fathers of the chosen people. In Genesis 12-25:18, we'll read about Abraham and his two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. In Genesis 25:19-36:43, we hear the story of Isaac and his two sons, Esau and Jacob. And the book concludes, in Chapters 37-50, with the story of Jacob's 12 children, founders of the tribes of Israel
For simplicity's sake, we're going to refer to him as "Abraham" throughout this lesson, even though he's called "Abram" until God changes his name in Genesis 17:5.
God is going to make a covenant with Abraham, and by that covenant He is going to re-orient human history, give it a new possibility, a new goal.
The covenant with Abraham has three parts, and it begins with three promises: to make Abraham a great nation (see Genesis 12:1); to give him a great name (12:2); and to make him the source of blessing for all the world (12:3).
God later "upgrades" these three promises - turning them into divine covenants. God swears not only make Abraham a great nation, He makes a covenant in which He promises to deliver Abraham's descendants from oppression in an alien land and give them a specific territory of land (see Genesis 15:7-21).
Not only will his name be great, but God by a covenant oath swears to make Abraham "father of a host of nations," a royal dynasty - "kings shall stem from you" (see Genesis 17:1-21). God elevates His third promise by swearing to make Abraham's descendants "as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore." In Abraham's descendants "All the nations of the earth shall find blessing" (see Genesis 22:16-18).
By these three covenant oaths, God points our eyes to the future of salvation history.
Abraham is made a great nation in the Exodus, when by the covenant He makes with Moses, God makes Abraham's descendants into a nation possessing the land promised to Abraham (see Genesis 46:3-4). We will read about this in our next lesson, when we look at the books of Exodus through Deuteronomy.
God's second oath is fulfilled when David is made King and promised with a great name (see 2 Samuel 7:9) and an everlasting throne (see Psalm 89:3-4; 132:11-12).
And finally, these covenants point us to Jesus. His New Covenant fulfills God's promise to make the children of Abraham the source of blessing for all the nations. That's why in the very first line of the New Testament we find the words "Jesus Christ...the son of Abraham" (see Matthew 1:1).
b. Priest of the Most High God
There are three more scenes from the dramatic life of Abraham that we need to look at because they point us forward to the New Testament.
The first is Melchizedek, the mysterious king of Salem , who makes his appearance after Abraham defeats the warrior kings to free his nephew Lot (Genesis 14).
Notice that he appears out of nowhere. He has no genealogy and his capital, "Salem Salem , as we see later in the Bible, is a short form of the name Jerusalem
Melchizedek brings out bread and wine and declares a blessing on Abraham. The Church Fathers, saw this is as foreshadowing the Eucharist. And the Church's Liturgy reflects this tradition in its First Eucharist Prayer, which refers to "the bread and wine offered by your priest Melchizedek (see Catechism, no. 1333).
The Bible sees Melchizedek as a figure of David, who is declared "a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek" (see Psalm 110:4). He is also, in the New Testament, seen as a figure of Jesus, the eternal royal high-priest (see Hebrews 7).
c. 'Covenant in Your Flesh'
Circumcision is the sign God gives of His covenant oath to make Abraham's descendants a royal dynasty. "Thus my covenant shall be in your flesh as an everlasting pact" (see Genesis 17:1-14). Jesus is circumcised to show that He is in the flesh a member of the people of the covenant (see Luke 2:21).
But circumcision is also a physical sign that points us to Baptism, the spiritual and sacramental sign by which we enter into the New Covenant, the royal family of God.
Already in the prophets, "circumcision of the heart" had become a sign of dedication of one's whole being to God (see Deuteronomy 10:16; Jeremiah 4:4; compare Romans 2:25-29; 1 Corinthians 7:18-19). The prophet Jeremiah said that the law of the New Covenant would be written on the heart (see Jeremiah 31:31-34). This happens in Baptism which is the "circumcision of Christ" (see Colossians 2:11) and the true circumcision (Philippians 3:3).
d. Binding Isaac
St. Paul said that the story of Abraham's two sons - the illegitimate Ishmael born to the slave girl Hagar, and his heir Isaac born by God's promise to his wife Sarah - was meant to symbolize the difference between the New Covenant and the Old Covenant (see Galatians 4:21-31).
But there is an even more profound symbolism in the awful test that God gives to Abraham - to offer his only beloved son, Isaac, as a sacrifice.
Beginning in the Bible and coming to full flower in the writings of Church Fathers like St. Augustine, this story was seen as foreshadowing God's offering of his only beloved Son on the Cross at Calvary (see John 3:16).
God twice here praises Abraham's faithfulness - "You did not withhold from me your own beloved son" (see Genesis 22:12,15). St. Paul
There are other interesting parallels that Church Fathers saw:
1. For instance, the mountain where God tells Abraham to perform the sacrifice: Mount Moriah is in same place that Melchizedek came from - Salem Temple Jerusalem comes from attaching Abraham's word of faith - God "will provide" (see Genesis 22:8; Hebrew = yir'eh or jira) to the word Salem
2. Calvary , where Jesus was crucified, is one of the hills of Moriah. And as Isaac carried the wood for his own sacrifice, and submitted to being bound to the wood, so too will Jesus, "the son of Abraham" (see Matthew 1:1), carry His cross and let men bind Him to it. St. Augustine
3. Even Abraham's words to his servants: "We will worship and then come back to you" (see Genesis 22:5) can be heard as a promise of resurrection. That's how these words are interpreted in The Letter to the Hebrews: "He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead, and he received Isaac back as a symbol" (see Hebrews 11:17-19). In fact, Isaac is spared "on the third day" (see Genesis 22:4).
As Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his only son was counted as a sign of his faithfulness, the sacrifice of Christ brings us "the blessing of Abraham" (see Galatians 3:14).
II. Age of the Patriarchs
a. Jacob the Younger
Isaac grows up to marry Rebekah. Like his mother Sarah, she's barren. But Isaac, as his father Abraham had before him, appeals to God to give them children (see Genesis 25:21; 15:3)
While her twins are fighting in her womb, God tells Rebekah that each will be a nation, but the younger of the two, Jacob, will rule the older, Esau (see Genesis 25:23).
This is another sub-plot in Genesis. Notice that God chooses always the younger son, even though the way of the world is to grant privileges and pride of place to the older. Abel's offering is preferred to Cain's. Isaac over Ishmael. And Jacob's youngest son, Joseph, becomes the hero of the later books of Genesis, while Reuben, Jacob's first-born, fails to defend him against his brothers (see Genesis 37).
Why does God do this? It's as if the betrayal by God's "first-born" son, Adam, upset the harmony between the ways of the world and the ways of God. But God's plan will not be frustrated. He saves us despite ourselves, choosing the young, the weak and the sinful to show that salvation history is governed by His free grace and His love. St. Paul, interpreting this Scripture, says God chose Isaac over Esau "in order that God's elective plan might continue, not by works but by His call...So it depends not upon a person's will or exertion, but upon God" (see Romans 9:11-13).
We'll see this, too, throughout the Bible, especially in the story of David, the youngest son of Jesse, who God commands to be anointed king (see 1 Samuel 16:1-13). The youngest or last born are the engines of salvation history until the coming of Jesus, God's only begotten Son, the first-born of the new family of God. Jesus fulfills the promise of Israel
Don't be distracted by the drama and trickery of how Jacob secures Isaac's blessing. Esau had proven himself unworthy of the blessing, selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew. As the Scripture says: "Esau cared little for his birthright" (see Genesis 25:29-34).
Jacob's deception is criticized by the prophets (see Hosea 12:4; Jeremiah 9:3), and he gets his "payback" in the text of Genesis. For instance, he will be tricked by his uncle Laban into marrying, not Rachel whom he loves, but Laban's firstborn daughter, Leah (Genesis 29:25). And later, when his son Joseph is sold into slavery, his other sons will deceive him by soaking Joseph's coat in goat's blood. The irony surely isn't lost on the narrator of Genesis - Jacob's deception of his father involved the use of goat skins (compare Genesis 27:15-16; 37:31-33).
But Jacob's s lie serves God's purposes. God chose Isaac over Esau (see Malachi 3:1; Romans 9:13). Through Jacob, God will extend the blessing he gave to Abraham (see Genesis 28:3-4). God Himself confirms this in showing Jacob a ladder into the heavens (Genesis 28:10-15). Later, Jesus will apply this dream to Himself, revealing that in Him heaven and earth touch, the human and the divine meet. He is what Jacob called "the gateway to heaven" (see John 1:51; Genesis 28:17).
God changes his name to Israel Israel
b. Joseph and Judah
Jacob's twelve children - born of his two wives, Leah and Rachel - form the twelve tribes of Israel
And in the story of Joseph and his brothers, we again see God choosing the youngest to carry out His plan of salvation.
Joseph foreshadows the sufferings and the salvation won for us by Jesus. He is the victim of jealousy and rejection by His brothers, the children of Israel , is sold for twenty pieces of silver into slavery in Egypt
Again, he shows us that what men plan as evil, God can use for the purposes of His saving plan (Genesis 50:19-21).
The Bible's first book ends with Israel Judah
Jesus will come as the royal son of David (see Matthew 1:1-16) and the Lion of Judah (see Revelation 5:5).
God's family has wandered from East of Eden to Egypt
III. Study Questions for Lesson 05
1. What are the three
parts of the covenant that God makes with Abraham?
2. How is the first part fulfilled?
3. How is the second part fulfilled?
4. How is the third part fulfilled?
5. Mention some important points in the story
of Melchizedek?
6. At what minimum age was a person initiated
into the Covenant? What was the sign?
7. How, according to the
Church's ancient tradition, is the sacrifice of Isaac similar to the sacrifice
of Christ on the Cross?
8. How many times did God appear to Abraham?
Quote scripture verses for each instance.
9. Why did God allow Jacob to steal his
brother’s birthright?
10. Narrate the incident Jacob had with the
angel of God. What does it tell us about the nature of Jacob?
11. Narrate Jacob’s vision and connect it
with the New Testament?
12. In what way did Jacob have to pay for
deceiving his father and cheating his brother?
13. How does the life of Joseph foretell
about the life of Jesus?
14. What is special about Judah and his
descendants?
15. Make a list of various words used to
address the descendants of Abraham or the chosen people.
16. Make a list of Abraham and his
descendants found in the book of Genesis in chronological order?
17. Make a list of all the important places
mentioned in the book of Genesis along with its meanings and significance.
For Prayer and Reflection:
The Church's Liturgy of the Hours has always included the Canticle of Zechariah (see Luke 1:68-79) in its Morning Prayers and the Magnificat (see Luke 1:46-55) in its Evening Prayers. Both prayers see the coming of Jesus as the fulfillment of God's covenant with Abraham. Pray these biblical prayers of the Church and ask God to help you understand more fully "his promise to our fathers, to Abraham and his descendants forever."
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