1“Listen to me, you who follow after righteousness,
you who seek Yahweh.
Look to the rock you were cut from,
and to the quarry you were dug from.
2Look to Abraham your father,
and to Sarah who bore you;
for when he was but one I called him,
I blessed him,
and made him many.
3For Yahweh has comforted Zion.
He has comforted all her waste places,
and has made her wilderness like Eden,
and her desert like the garden of Yahweh.
Joy and gladness will be found in them,
thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
4“Listen to me, my people;
and hear me, my nation,
for a law will go out from me,
and I will establish my justice for a light to the peoples.
5My righteousness is near.
My salvation has gone out,
and my arms will judge the peoples.
The islands will wait for me,
and they will trust my arm.
6Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
and look at the earth beneath;
for the heavens will vanish away like smoke,
and the earth will wear out like a garment.
Its inhabitants will die in the same way,
but my salvation will be forever,
and my righteousness will not be abolished.
7“Listen to me, you who know righteousness,
the people in whose heart is my law.
Don’t fear the reproach of men,
and don’t be dismayed at their insults.
8For the moth will eat them up like a garment,
and the worm will eat them like wool;
but my righteousness will be forever,
and my salvation to all generations.”
9Awake, awake, put on strength, arm of Yahweh!
Awake, as in the days of old,
the generations of ancient times.
Isn’t it you who cut Rahab in pieces,
who pierced the monster?
10Isn’t it you who dried up the sea,
the waters of the great deep;
who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?
11Those ransomed by Yahweh will return,
and come with singing to Zion.
Everlasting joy shall be on their heads.
They will obtain gladness and joy.
Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
12“I, even I, am he who comforts you.
Who are you, that you are afraid of man who shall die,
and of the son of man who will be made as grass?
13Have you forgotten Yahweh your Maker,
who stretched out the heavens,
and laid the foundations of the earth?
Do you live in fear continually all day because of the fury of the oppressor,
when he prepares to destroy?
Where is the fury of the oppressor?
14The captive exile will speedily be freed.
He will not die and go down into the pit.
His bread won’t fail.
15For I am Yahweh your God, who stirs up the sea
so that its waves roar.
Yahweh of Armies is his name.
16I have put my words in your mouth
and have covered you in the shadow of my hand,
that I may plant the heavens,
and lay the foundations of the earth,
and tell Zion, ‘You are my people.’”
17Awake, awake!
Stand up, Jerusalem,
you who have drunk from Yahweh’s hand the cup of his wrath.
You have drunken the bowl of the cup of staggering,
and drained it.
18There is no one to guide her among all the sons to whom she has given birth;
and there is no one who takes her by the hand among all the sons whom she has brought up.
19These two things have happened to you—
who will grieve with you?—
desolation and destruction,
and famine and the sword.
How can I comfort you?
20Your sons have fainted.
They lie at the head of all the streets,
like an antelope in a net.
They are full of Yahweh’s wrath,
the rebuke of your God.
21Therefore now hear this, you afflicted,
and drunken, but not with wine:
22Your Lord Yahweh,
your God who pleads the cause of his people, says,
“Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of staggering,
even the bowl of the cup of my wrath.
You will not drink it any more.
23I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you,
who have said to your soul, ‘Bow down, that we may walk over you;’
and you have laid your back as the ground,
like a street to those who walk over.”
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).