THE ANCESTRAL HISTORY

Historical and Socio-political Backgrounds Of The Hebrew Patriarchs

The period of the patriarchs in Hebrew history approximately covers the 18 th to 16th centuries
B.C. or the Middle Bronze Age. Genesis 12-50 give us an inclusive account on the lives and times of the
four Hebrew patriarchs, namely, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. There are internal biblical evidences
as well as external archaeological ones to prove that the period of the patriarchs coincides with the Middle
Bronze Age.

The first evidence is the profusion of names in the patriarchal stories which fit with what is
known to be nomenclature used in Mesopotamia and Palestine during the Second Millenium B.C.
Secondly, numerous incidents in the book of Genesis find explanation in the light of the social customs of
the Bronze Age period. For instance, an adopted child of a childless couple would have to give up right
of inheritance should the couple later have natural children [Gen. 14-15], protection of the right of
concubine and her children in case the real wife has a child later [Gen. 21:8-14], the sale of birthright by
one brother to another, just as Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of soup [Gen. 25:29-34], and
the possession of family idols which signified right of inheritance and insured family leadership.

One characteristic of life in the Fertile Crescent during the Middle Bronze Age was the massive
movement or migration of peoples. The main motive behind this migration was the search for greener
pasture or better economic opportunities.

While the idea of economic motive behind migration makes a lot of sense, the biblical writers
looked at Abraham’s movement from Ur to Haran to Canaan from a different perspective. A careful
reading of Gen. 12;1-4 suggests that Abraham’s motive was not economic opportunities but basically his
religious faith. It was the call and command of God that made him decide to migrate.

Of particular interest to students of the Bible are numerous references in various documents
during the Middle Bronze Age to a class of people known as the Habiru. This term does not denote a
social or ethnic group but refers to a social class of outcastes, wanderers or “outsiders”. They moved
from place to place with their flocks and families, operating in some areas as organized raiders or
sometimes hiring themselves to slavery. It is believed that Habiru is the equivalent of the biblical
“Hebrew”, although the Hebrews comprised only a small portion of a much larger class of Habirus.

Another interesting group of people were the Hyksos. As part of the massive migration of people
during the Middle Bronze Age, they swept down from the North into Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Bent of
military conquest, they swept through Egypt with the aid of a new weapon, the horse-drawn chariot, and
subjugated the Egyptians. Thus, the Egyptians called them “rulers of foreign countries”.

For about 150 years, the Hyksos ruled Egypt. It is held by biblical scholars that the entry of the
Hebrews to Egypt coincided with the reign of the Hyksos. This also explains the fact that when the
Hyksos were overthrown by the Egyptians, the Hebrews were subjected to slavery.

The patriarchal period was therefore a time of massive migration, cultural intermingling, and
political unrest, all of which helped to promote ethnic cosmopolitanism and an atmosphere of
internationalism. The invasion and migration of new races however, neither destroyed nor displaced the
old population. But living side by side, the various people intermarried and exchanged cultural and
physical features. It was out of this social and cultural interaction that a nation called “Israel” later
emerged.

The basic units of society during the patriarchal period were the family and the tribe. Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob may have been tribal chieftains who led their people in search of better lands to live in.
Being primarily semi-nomads, they only very rarely adopted settled life. Their government was very
simple. As the tribal chief, the patriarch was the military leader, religious leader, priest and judge, all
rolled into one.
 Polygamy was common during the period due to “personal inclination, wealth and power”. Even
the women themselves seemed to have accepted it. A head-wife even selected other women for her
husband’s concubines. For instance, Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham, Leah and Rachel gave their maids to
Jacob. This practice seemed to have been activated by the powerful desire for children in order to carry
the name of the family and to increase military strength of the tribe.

Aside from polygamy, levirate marriage was encouraged. In this practice, when a husband dies
without a son, his brother takes over the widowed woman so that they can have a child continue and
preserve the dead brother’s name [Deut. 25:5-10].

Also, there was a widespread practice of endogamy. This is the practice of marrying someone
from within the tribe. This was the reason Abraham sent his slave Eliezer, back to Haran to find a wife
for Isaac. Likewise, Isaac sent Jacob to the same place to find for himself his wives.

Moral and Religious Beliefs of The Patriarchs

From the perspective of Christian morality, many of the practices of the patriarchs are morally
ambiguous and questionable. However, it must be pointed out that our moral norms should not be used as
standards to judge the customs and practices of people more than three thousand years ago. Nevertheless,
sexual purity as an ideal was accorded highest regard as indicated by the story of how Joseph resisted the
seductive advances of Potiphar’s wife.

As for the religious beliefs of the patriarchs, we can characterize them in three ways. First,
fundamental to the religion of the patriarchs was the covenant idea. A covenant is an agreement or
contract between the two parties. Religiously speaking, it is a personal relationship and mutual agreement
between God and the people. So we are told that Abraham entered into relationship with God who was
known as the “Shield of Abraham” [Gen. 15]. Isaac with “the Fear of Isaac” [Gen. 49:24]. In each case,
family God manifested himself personally to the patriarch and gave demands and promises. Therefore,
the deity was known by the name of patriarch who revealed the revelation: the God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, or the God of Jacob.

Secondly, patriarchal religion was a clan religion wherein the clan was regarded as God’s family.
God was the unseen head of the house; its members, the members of the family. Each patriarch performed
the religious ceremonies and led worship for his family at certain shrines where sacrifices might be
offered. Closely related with this was the common practices of the patriarchs to pronounce blessings or
curses. It was held that when blessings or curses were pronounced by a godly man, they would take
effect. Blessing [or curses] were ways to express concern for one another within the covenant
community.

Finally, they possessed a firm faith in a personal God who is the sovereign ruler of the universe, a
God who makes promises and guides into the future like a Shepherd who leads his flock. For “the God of
the fathers” is not bound to a place. The guiding God uproots Abraham from his homeland and leads him
into new places and along new paths, ever holding before him and his descendants the promises of land
and posterity. And the same is true of Isaac and Jacob. In the traditions of Genesis, the patriarchs are
described as wanderers and adventurers who, in response to a divine summon, make a pilgrimage into the
unknown and the uncertain- toward a land that their God would give them in due time. They venture
forth in faith, trusting that their family life is in the hand of their God who leads them into the future,
toward the realization of his promises.

The Promise to Abraham

The key to the interpretation of the ancestral history is given in a divine address that is found at
the outset. Out of the descendants of those who were dispersed from the abortive enterprise at Babel,
Yahweh singled out one man and opened a new horizon before him. To possess a land, to become a great
nation, to be a blessing to the peoples of the earth [Gen. 12:1-3]- this threefold divine promises runs like a
golden thread through the woven tapestry of the ancestral epic. These three elements of land, posterity
and blessing apparently belonged to ancient patriarchal religion, but they are now highlighted and
formalized, as evident in the divine addresses that punctuate the narrative.
Seen in this perspective, the migration of Abraham initiated a new kind of history; the history of
Yahweh’s promises which will bring benefits to Israel and to other peoples too. Thus from the beginning
of the primeval history the narrative scope constantly narrows down until it concentrates upon the solitary
figure of Abraham, the ancestor of the people chosen for a special task in Yahweh’s historical purpose.
Coming almost immediately after the story of the Tower of Babel, which presents a dark picture of
human pride and ambition, the story of the call of Abraham is like a burst of light that illumines the whole
landscape. In contrast to the ambitious builders at Babel who aspired to make a name for themselves, it
was promised that Yahweh would make Abraham’s name great [Gen. 12:2: cf. 11:4]. Israel’s greatness
would lie, not in its ambitions or achievements, but in the God who is active in its history to overcome the
confusion, disharmony, and violence sketched in lurid colors in the universal history.

The Trials of Faith

In the narrator’s perspective, then, the ancestors of Israel were wanderers toward a goal that
Yahweh had set before them. Their history was a pilgrim movement from promise toward fulfillment,
not an aimless wandering on the fringes of Canaan. Yet according to the story teller, it was not easy for
them to live by the promise, for again and again they found themselves in situations in which the divine
promise seemed incredible. At such times their trust in Yahweh was put to a severe text, and they
reached the edge of despair. As we shall see, each element of the promise-land, posterity, blessing- was
almost taken away. In episode after episode, the narrator builds up a dramatic suspense. Only to resolve
the tension by showing how Yahweh intervened at the critical moment, just when everything seemed lost
and renewed the promise.

Abraham

We read that Abraham, after migrating from Mesopotamia, came to Shechem in the heart of the
Canaanite country. There at a sacred oak, Yahweh appeared to Abraham and reaffirmed the promise to
give the land to his descendant [Gen. 12:7]. But after a while Abraham was driven by famine to Egypt,
where to save his life, he ingratiated himself to Pharaoh by an act of deceit involving his wife Sarah.
True, his hunger was severe, and it seemed expedient to take things into his own hands rather than to trust
Yahweh’s providence. But Abraham’s act tantamount to surrendering the promise even though it brought
him great advantage for with Sarah [the ancestress of Israel in Pharaoh’s harem the Israel of the future
could not come into being. Then, just in the nick of time, Yahweh saved the day, and Abraham, despite
his rash deed, was sent away from Egypt to a rich man [12:10-13:2]. He returned to Bethel and “called
upon the name of Yahweh” as he had done before his Egyptian adventure.

The next moment of suspense came when strife between the herdsmen of Abraham and those of
Lot made it necessary for the two relatives to part and go their respective ways. Lot the ancestor of
Moab and Ammon [see Gen. 19:30-38], was given the freedom to choose where to go, and the future of
Israel hung in the balance of his decision. Providentially, Lot choose, not the land of Promise, but the
area of the Jordan valley, whose wicked cities – Sodom and Gomorrah—Yahweh later destroyed by
volcanic fire and brimstone [13:3-13].

But there was still a major obstacle barring the door the future: Abraham had no son. It was
incredible that the promise could be fulfilled when Abraham’s sole heir was Elieser, his household slave.
Again Yahweh renewed the promise that Abraham would have a great progeny [Gen. 15:4-5] and that he
[through his family] would inherit the land. This time the promise was sealed with a covenant [Gen.
15:7-21].

Isaac

Yet it was still incredible that the promise could be fulfilled, for Sarah was barren. Faith needed
more evidence. So Sarah took things in her hands, urging Abraham to have a child by her Egyptian
maid, Hagar, only to regret her nagging and later to force the maid out of the house. Suspense is
heightened when Hagar, at a well in the wilderness, received from Yahweh that she would bear a son to
Abraham and that Ishmael, [regarded by Muslims as the ancestor of Arabs] would grow to be a
formidable Bedouin-“a wild ass of man “. But Ishmael, who was conceived in a moment of failure of
faith in Yahweh, could not be the child of promise, even though Yahweh was deeply concerned for Hagar
and her no-Israelite child [Gen. 16]. Later, Yahweh appeared to Abraham at the sanctuary near Hebron
[by the sacred oak of Mamre; see 13:18] and announced that a son would be born to him. Sarah, who
was eavesdropping on the conversation, laughed heartily to herself, knowing that she had reached the age
when this was physically impossible. She failed to believe that with Yahweh all things are possible
[ 18:1-16]. The incident of Sarah’s laughter is one example of the many puns in the epic narrative, for in
Hebrew “she laughs “ is titzhaq, and Isaac is yitzhaq. The laughter arose because of the ludicrous
disproportion between the divine promise and the zero possibility of the human situation.

The birth of Isaac the son of Abraham’s and Sarah’s old age, is reported briefly in Gen. 21:1-2,
after the story about the destruction of the cities of the Jordan valley, Sodom and Gamorrah [18:17-
19:38]. In the story of the holocaust [see19:24-25], we hear again the theme that “ Abraham shall become
a great and might nation, and all the nations of the earth shall bliss themselves by him “ [18:17-19].

The story of the testing of Abraham [Gen. 22:1-14], whatever its original meaning, however, it
now functions in the history of the promise. According to the moving story Abraham was commanded by
God to sacrifice his only son whom he loved dearly—the child of the promise who was the one link with
the future. But once again God intervened, just when the knife was upraised, and his eyes was directed to
a ram caught in the thicket which he offered as a sacrifice instead.

In the story in the selection of a wife for Isaac [Gen. 24], the author again has created a dramatic
suspense. Isaac could not marry a local Canaanite woman, for that would contaminate the line of
Abraham and bring the promise to naught. So Abraham’s servant was sent to the ancestral homeland and
in Mesopotamia [Haran] with express instructions to have the prospective wife brought to the promise
land. Would Abraham’s servant find the right maiden? Would Rebekah decide to Isaac’s country?, the
story leaves no doubt that Yahweh was guiding the servant’s journey, despite the certainty in the servant’s
mind. Nothing happened by chance: Yahweh meant it to turn out just as it did.

Jacob

Then the drama is acted all over again, this with the spotlight on Jacob. [Not much is said about
Isaac, who seems to be little more than a replica of his father, see Gen. 26]. Rebekah, like Sarah, was
barren, and would not have presented Isaac with a son had it not been for Yahweh’s intervention. But a
new complication arose that almost abolished the promise. Rebekah conceived two sons: Esau, the father
of Edomites and Jacob the ancestor of Israel. Already in the womb they were struggling together as did
nations did in the real life. Esau won the first round, because he was born first, and therefore had a right
to be his father’s heir [25:21-26]. But Jacob shrewdly tricked his twin together out of their father’s final
blessing [Gen. 27]. To appreciate the point of the latter story, it should be remembered that, according to
the ancient belief, words spoken in blessing [or curse] were efficacious. They had the power to produce
the intended result. And like an arrow in flight, they could not be retracted. So Jacob, having received his
father’s blessings, was destined to gain preeminence over Esau [Edom], as Israel later did, especially in
the time of David.

In spite of Jacob’s victory, however, everything seemed hopelessly lost. For what good was the
blessing to him if, because of Esau’s hostility, he had to flee to Haran, an exile from the land on which the
promise was to be fulfilled? Jacob’s flight to Haran gives the narrator the chance to introduce a cycle of
legends that had originally circulated independently—legends dealing with the entertaining adventures of
Jacob in the territory of Laban, the ancestor of Syria [Aram]. Assured that Yahweh was going with him
and would bring him back to the Promised Land, Jacob journeyed to his kin in Haran. There, through the
providence of Yahweh, no to mention his own shady dealings, Jacob came to the possession of great
wealth: two wives [Leah and Rachel], two concubines, eleven sons, numerous servants, and the best
portion of Laban’s flocks [Gen. 29:31]. With this wealth he managed to escape from the clutches of his
willy Aramean relative and prepared to win over Esau by a lavish display of gifts [31:1-21].

Joseph

From this point the narrator moves quickly to the Joseph cycle [Gen. 37-50]. We have already
noticed that the Joseph story reflects to some degree the historical conditions of the second millenium,
when it was not unheard of for a slave to rise to power in the Egyptian court. The theme of the Joseph’s
story is magnificently expressed in Gen. 50:20 [see also 45:5-7]. Human affairs are not governed by the
evil designs of human beings, or by the economic stresses that forced Jacob to migrate to Egypt, but by
the overruling providence of God, who works for the good in all things. Indeed, in its present dramatic
context the Joseph story seems to hint that the promise made to Abraham, the promise that through Israel
the nations would bless themselves, was moving toward fulfillment.

Sources/References:
Anderson, Bernhard W.., Understanding the Old Testament, 4th ed.., pp. 39-40; 170-177.
Niguidula, Lyndia N., The Heritage of the People of God. The holy Bible. The Holy
Bible, Genesis

Vocabulary:

Anthropomorphism – is a way of portraying God like a human being .

Aprocrypha meaning “ hidden or secret writing s”

Canon- a standard of measure that sets forth the parameter acceptable for faith and practice
Of the believer.

Covenant relationship- a special relationship between God and His people.

Exodus – means “departure or going out”. It marked the turning point of the Hebrew
People’s history.

Myth- in biblical studies refers to a special form or type of literature in which a story is
Constructed in order to convey a truth which is too profound to be
Expressed in ordinary language.

Oral tradition—refers to a body of beliefs and practices which are transmitted from
Generation to generation by the word of mouth.

Pentatech- refers to the first five books of the Old Testament. Also known as the Torah
Or the Law [ Teaching ].

Semite -- today they are often used loosely to refer to Jewish people, but this is an unwarranted
reduction. In the modern world the Semitic family also includes peoples who live in Turkey, Lebanon,
Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Arabia, and North Africa. Thus the term “Semite” is ethnic- certainly not
racial. Originally it was used to refer to Shem, one of the three sons of Noah [Gen. 9:18]. Noah’s
descendants are broadly classified according to language groups and geographical areas, Japhethites [s.
Europe, Asia Minor], Shemites [Fertile Crescent and its fringes], and the Hamites [northern Africa].