Abraham Is Gathered Up With His Fathers

Good evening and welcome to a cold, wet, and foggy Panhandle. The moister is great for the crops but no so good for once dirt, now mud roads. Well it is here in Genesis that we see Abraham's last days. It is here in these verses we learn about Abraham's new wife Keturah and the children she bore him. Yet even with new half brothers it is Isaac's line that God chooses to heal mankind of our sickness called sin.

I. Takes his leave of Abraham, with an account,

I. Of his children by another wife v. 1-4.

2. Of his last will and testament v. 5-6.

3. Of his age, death, and burial v. 7-10.

Abraham lived, after the marriage of Isaac, thirty-five years, and all that is recorded concerning him during the time lies here in a very few verses. We hear no more of God's extraordinary appearances to him or trials of him. Some slide on silently, and neither come nor go with observation; such were these last days of Abraham.

In this chapter is an account of his children by Keturah, another wife whom he married. Some suggest it was after the death of Sarah based on where it appears in the scriptures. However this may not be so, some commentaries believe because of the age of the boys Abraham may have married while Sarah was still alive.

Genesis 25:1-11

25:1 Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. 2 She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. 3 Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan; the descendants of Dedan were the Asshurites, the Letushites and the Leummites. 4 The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida and Eldaah. All these were descendants of Keturah.

5 Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac. 6 But while he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east.

7 Altogether, Abraham lived a hundred and seventy-five years. 8 Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people. 9 His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, 10 the field Abraham had bought from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried with his wife Sarah. 11 After Abraham's death, God blessed his son Isaac, who then lived near Beer Lahai Roi.

1. ABRAHAM AND KETURAH (vv. 1-4)

According to the laws of Hebrew composition, this event may have taken place before that recorded in the close of the previous chapter. Of this law we have several examples in this very chapter. And there is nothing contrary to the customs of that period in adding wife to wife. We cannot say that Abraham was hindered from taking Keturah in the lifetime of Sarah by any moral feeling, which would not also have hindered him from taking Hagar. It has also been noticed that Keturah is called a concubine, who is thought to imply that the proper wife was still living; and that Abraham was a very old man at the death of Sarah.

But, on the other hand, remembered that these sons were born after Isaac, and so after Abraham was renewed in vital powers. If this renewal of vigor remained after the birth of Isaac, it may have continued some time after the death of Sarah, whom he survived by thirty-eight years. His abstinence from any concubine until Sarah gave him Hagar is against his taking any other during Sarah's lifetime.

His loneliness on the death of Sarah may have prompted him to seek a companion of his old age. And if this step was delayed until Isaac was married, and Isaac and Rebekah moved off, Abraham would have an additional motive to find companionship. He was not obligated to give this wife the full rights of a proper wife, even though Sarah were dead. And six sons could be born to him twenty-five years before his death. And if Hagar and Ishmael were dismissed when he was about fifteen years old, so might Keturah when her youngest was twenty or twenty-five.

So basically historians are not sure where to place Abraham's second marriage. It could have taken place before the death of Sarah, or even the marriage of Isaac. Or it could have been after scholars just are not sure. And as some would say, “Does it matter?”

2. Abraham's New Family

Zimran - [Septuagint, Zombran, has been supposed by some identical with Zambram, the metropolis of the Kinaidokolpitai whose settlement was on the borders of the Red Sea, west of Mecca; and by others to be the Zamareni, now the Shammar tribe dwelling between the Red Sea and the Euphrates.]

Jokshan. [Knobel considers that this name was transmuted into qaashan whose posterity, the Kassanitai (Ptolemy, 6:7), were located on the Red Sea, on the south of the former.]

Medan, and Midian. Foster maintains (`Historical Geography of Arabia') that these continued separate tribes; but the prevailing opinion is, they merged into one, or were at least so closely allied that their names were used interchangeably (Gen 37:28,36). The city Maadan, or Medayen-according to Burckhardt, the Modiana of the classics-was situated on the eastern shore of the Elanitic Gulf. From the southern region the Midianites extended along the eastern frontier of Palestine, some branches of them stretching into the remote pasture grounds of Sinai.

Ishbak [Septuagint, hiesbook] - traced in the Arabic Shobek (which has the same radicals), a castle twelve miles north of Petra.

Shuah-the youngest of Keturah's sons. Foster tries to identify this name with the Chaldean [Showa` (OT:7771)] Shoa (Ezek 23:23). But the two words are totally different. It may, perhaps, be found in `Saiace' of Pliny (chapter 6:32), near the mouth of the Euphrates. Above Babylonia, on both sides of the Euphrates are the Tsukhi, perhaps the Shuhites. The Shuhites were probably descendants of Shuah (Job 2:11).

Jokshan begat Sheba. This grandson of Keturah settled in the great northern desert, and was an ancestor of the Sabean tribe which plundered Job's cattle (Job 1:15). The Sabe of Ptolemy lay east of Palestine, and was the locality in which the settlements of Jokshan and his son Sheba are to be sought. Accordingly, Bochart places the Sabeans in the northern part of Arabia, east of Palestine, and toward the Euphrates.

Dedan-his brother-had his dwelling in the forest of Arabia (Isa 21:13; Jer 25:23; 49:7-8; Ezek 25:13), which was adjoining to the territory of Sheba.

Asshurim-were located on the mountain north of Yemen, in the district El-Asir.

Letushim, and Leummim. Of these tribes nothing certain is known.

The sons of Midian. Midian was the most noted among the descendants of Keturah. His settlements are known; and to the east of these-in fact, extending across the whole country, from Anti-Lebanon to Hejjas-the names of his five sons are traceable. Many of thee identifications are, it must be admitted, conjectural. This much, however, is certain, that the Keturene-Midian was grafted into the great Midianite stock, which was of Cushite origin, and that the Sheba and Dedan of the Keturene family having migrated into southern Arabia became by matrimonial or friendly alliances, gradually meted into Cushite colonies of the same name (Gen 10:7) settled in that quarter.

(From Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)

ABRAHAM SETTLES HIS ESTATE (vv. 5 & 6)

Before his death, Abraham made a final disposition of his property. Isaac, the only son of his marriage with Sarah, received all his possessions. The sons of the concubines (Hagar and Keturah) were sent away with presents from their father's house into the east country, i.e., Arabia in the widest sense, to the east and south-east of Palestine.

(from Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament: New Updated Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)

ABRAHAM’S PASSING (vv. 7-11)

Abraham died at the good old age of 175, and was "gathered to his people." This expression, which is synonymous with "going to his fathers" (Genesis 15:15), or "being gathered to his fathers" (Judges 2:10), but is constantly distinguished from departing this life and being buried, denotes the reunion in Sheol with friends who have gone before, and therefore presupposes faith in the personal continuance of a man after death, as a presentiment which the promises of God had exalted in the case of the patriarchs into a firm assurance of faith (Hebrews 11:13).

(From Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament: New Updated Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)

Who buried him: His sons Isaac and Ishmael. It was the last office of respect they had to pay to their good father. What ever distance there had formerly been between Isaac and Ishmael; it seems either that Abraham had himself brought them together while he lived, or at least that his death reconciled them.

Where they buried him: in his own burying-place, which he had purchased, and in which he had buried Sarah.

(from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)