1“Keep silent before me, islands,
and let the peoples renew their strength.
Let them come near,
then let them speak.
Let’s meet together for judgment.
2Who has raised up one from the east?
Who called him to his feet in righteousness?
He hands over nations to him
and makes him rule over kings.
He gives them like the dust to his sword,
like the driven stubble to his bow.
3He pursues them
and passes by safely,
even by a way that he had not gone with his feet.
4Who has worked and done it,
calling the generations from the beginning?
I, Yahweh, the first, and with the last, I am he.”
5The islands have seen, and fear.
The ends of the earth tremble.
They approach, and come.
6Everyone helps his neighbor.
They say to their brothers, “Be strong!”
7So the carpenter encourages the goldsmith.
He who smooths with the hammer encourages him who strikes the anvil,
saying of the soldering, “It is good;”
and he fastens it with nails, that it might not totter.
8“But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob whom I have chosen,
the offspring of Abraham my friend,
9you whom I have taken hold of from the ends of the earth,
and called from its corners,
and said to you, ‘You are my servant. I have chosen you and have not cast you away.’
10Don’t you be afraid, for I am with you.
Don’t be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you.
Yes, I will help you.
Yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.
11Behold, all those who are incensed against you will be disappointed and confounded.
Those who strive with you will be like nothing, and shall perish.
12You will seek them, and won’t find them,
even those who contend with you.
Those who war against you will be as nothing,
as a nonexistent thing.
13For I, Yahweh your God, will hold your right hand,
saying to you, ‘Don’t be afraid.
I will help you.’
14Don’t be afraid, you worm Jacob,
and you men of Israel.
I will help you,” says Yahweh.
“Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
15Behold, I have made you into a new sharp threshing instrument with teeth.
You will thresh the mountains,
and beat them small,
and will make the hills like chaff.
16You will winnow them,
and the wind will carry them away,
and the whirlwind will scatter them.
You will rejoice in Yahweh.
You will glory in the Holy One of Israel.
17The poor and needy seek water, and there is none.
Their tongue fails for thirst.
I, Yahweh, will answer them.
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
18I will open rivers on the bare heights,
and springs in the middle of the valleys.
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.
19I will put cedar, acacia, myrtle, and oil trees in the wilderness.
I will set cypress trees, pine, and box trees together in the desert;
20that they may see, know, consider, and understand together,
that Yahweh’s hand has done this,
and the Holy One of Israel has created it.
21Produce your cause,” says Yahweh.
“Bring out your strong reasons!” says the King of Jacob.
22“Let them announce and declare to us what will happen!
Declare the former things, what they are,
that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them;
or show us things to come.
23Declare the things that are to come hereafter,
that we may know that you are gods.
Yes, do good, or do evil,
that we may be dismayed,
and see it together.
24Behold, you are nothing,
and your work is nothing.
He who chooses you is an abomination.
25“I have raised up one from the north, and he has come,
from the rising of the sun, one who calls on my name,
and he shall come on rulers as on mortar,
and as the potter treads clay.
26Who has declared it from the beginning, that we may know?
and before, that we may say, ‘He is right?’
Surely, there is no one who declares.
Surely, there is no one who shows.
Surely, there is no one who hears your words.
27I am the first to say to Zion, ‘Behold, look at them;’
and I will give one who brings good news to Jerusalem.
28When I look, there is no man,
even among them there is no counselor who, when I ask, can answer a word.
29Behold, all of their deeds are vanity and nothing.
Their molten images are wind and confusion.
We first encounter Abraham (father of many nations) as Abram (great father) in Genesis 11:26-31). He was the son of Terah, brother of Nahor and Haran, and uncle of Lot. Abram's brother Haran died while Abram was still in Ur of the Chaldees (Gen 11:28), where also he married Sarai, his half-sister. We discover toward the end of Genesis 11 that his father Terah left Ur, and went to the land of Canaan, via a city named Harana, where Terah died.
The story of Abraham becomes important in chapter 12, in which we are introduced to important biblical characters, locations, and events that set the stage for the remainder of the Bible. Yahweh came to Abram was commanded him to go to a land that He would show him. In this passage, Yahweh sets forth and unilateral and unconditional covenant, in which He promised to make from him a great nation, make his name great, and through him bless all of the families of the earth.[1]
"Abraham (Abram) was first of the patriarchs, father of Isaac and Ishmael, grandfather of Jacob and the traditional ancestor of the Jewish people. Abraham (originally Abram, which means "exalted father") came from Ur in Mesopotamia. His father, Terah, took him (with his wife, Sarah, and his nephew, Lot) to Haran. God called Abraham to leave this new home and to find another home elsewhere in Canaan. After a brief stay in Egypt, Abraham settled near Hebron where he became involved in a local political quarrel when Lot was taken prisoner by an alliance of four eastern chieftains. Abraham launched a successful attack against this confederacy and on his victorious return encountered the mysterious Melchizedek, king of Salem, to whom he gave a tenth of all the spoil he had taken in the battle.
For many years of their marriage, he and Sarah were childless, but God assured Abraham that he would eventually become the father of a great nation. Sarah disbelieved and persuaded Abraham to beget a child by her maid, Hagar, who bore him his first son, Ishmael. When Abraham was ninety-nine years old, God appeared to him, and instituted with him a covenant of circumcision, giving him the new name of Abraham (meaning "father of a multitude") and told him that a son, to be named Isaac was shortly to be born to Sarah. When the boy was in his childhood, God ordered Abraham to take him up to a mountain in the land of Moriah and offer him up as a sacrificial victim. Abraham prepared to do so, but was prevented at the last moment from carrying out the sacrifice, and told that he would be blessed for his faithfulness in being ready to offer up his son.
When Sarah died Abraham bought the plot of ground (the field of Ephron in Machpelah) that became the burial place for many generations of his descendants. He subsequently made arrangements for the marriage of Isaac, and took another wife, Keturah, who bore him Zimran, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. At the age of one hundred and seventy five, Abraham died and was buried in Machpelah.
The principal narrative of the part of Genesis dealing with Abraham's history is interrupted in various places by other stories involving the patriarch. These include the parallel stories of his sojourns in Egypt and in Gerar. On both occasions Abraham lied about his relations with Sarah, jeopardising the fulfilment of God's promise (as both Pharaoh and Abimelech intended to take Sarah for themselves), while protecting himself. Both times God intervened to save him from the consequences of his deception. In another story we read of Abraham's intercession on behalf of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were destroyed for their wickedness."[2]
[1] See Genesis 12:1, for an explanation of God's covenant with Abraham.
[2] Based on the website Mini-Biografias de Personajes Biblicos Web de Recursos Cristianos) (trans. Mini-Biographies of Biblical Characters, Christian Resources Web).