A contemplation by Asaph.
1God, why have you rejected us forever?
Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?
2Remember your congregation, which you purchased of old,
which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your inheritance:
Mount Zion, in which you have lived.
3Lift up your feet to the perpetual ruins,
all the evil that the enemy has done in the sanctuary.
4Your adversaries have roared in the middle of your assembly.
They have set up their standards as signs.
5They behaved like men wielding axes,
cutting through a thicket of trees.
6Now they break all its carved work down with hatchet and hammers.
7They have burned your sanctuary to the ground.
They have profaned the dwelling place of your Name.
8They said in their heart, “We will crush them completely.”
They have burned up all the places in the land where God was worshiped.
9We see no miraculous signs.
There is no longer any prophet,
neither is there among us anyone who knows how long.
10How long, God, shall the adversary reproach?
Shall the enemy blaspheme your name forever?
11Why do you draw back your hand, even your right hand?
Take it from your chest and consume them!
12Yet God is my King of old,
working salvation throughout the earth.
13You divided the sea by your strength.
You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters.
14You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces.
You gave him as food to people and desert creatures.
15You opened up spring and stream.
You dried up mighty rivers.
16The day is yours, the night is also yours.
You have prepared the light and the sun.
17You have set all the boundaries of the earth.
You have made summer and winter.
18Remember this, that the enemy has mocked you, Yahweh.
Foolish people have blasphemed your name.
19Don’t deliver the soul of your dove to wild beasts.
Don’t forget the life of your poor forever.
20Honor your covenant,
for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the earth.
21Don’t let the oppressed return ashamed.
Let the poor and needy praise your name.
22Arise, God! Plead your own cause.
Remember how the foolish man mocks you all day.
23Don’t forget the voice of your adversaries.
The tumult of those who rise up against you ascends continually.
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 he also 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 a 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).