Though Ishmael’s mother, Hagar, is a slave, Abraham treats him as a son. When God promises Abraham that he’ll be the father of many nations, he gives Abraham the rite of circumcision. Abraham circumcises Ishmael according to God’s command. When Ishmael is fourteen, Sarah—who is effectively his stepmother—gets pregnant. She gives Abraham his second son, […]
We don’t know how old Lot is when his father dies, but his grandfather, Terah, appears to take him in. We can assume this because when Terah heads out for Canaan, he takes grandson Lot with him, along with son Abram, and daughter-in-law Sarai. When Terah dies, Abram travels on to Canaan, taking Lot with […]
While living in Harran, God comes to Abram and tells him to go to the land he will show him. Abram obeys, setting out from Harran when he’s seventy-five years old. He takes his wife Sarai and nephew Lot, along with the possessions they acquired while living in Harran. They head for Canaan. The Bible […]
The Bible tells us that Terah is the eighth generation from Noah’s son Shem. So our story picks up a couple of centuries after Noah and the great flood. Terah has three sons, Abram, Nahor (2), and Haran. Haran dies at the start of our story, but not before he has a son, Lot, Terah’s […]
Aside from the three friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, we also encounter a fourth man on the scene, Elihu, son of Barakel. The Bible doesn’t say if he came with the three others or arrived later. But Scripture does say he defers to them because they’re older. He does this as a sign of respect. […]
Zophar the Naamathite is the third of Job’s friends to speak. But unlike them, he only talks twice. Might he have realized that their words were only causing their friend distress? Could he have concluded that, sometimes, saying nothing is better than saying something? In his first monologue, Zophar says that Job thinks his beliefs […]
The second man in Job’s trio of friends is Bildad the Shuhite. Like Eliphaz, Bildad also offers Job three speeches. In his first oration, Bildad looks at Job’s situation and assumes he received what he deserves. Bildad equates right living with God’s favor and hardship with sin and God’s displeasure. While this certainly can be […]
Job has three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, who hear of his plight and come to offer sympathy and comfort. The sight of his suffering appalls them, and they barely recognize their friend. They weep for his condition, tearing their clothes as a sign of mourning, and sprinkling dust on their heads to show their […]
We don’t know when Job lived, but many Bible scholars consider him a contemporary of Abraham. This places Job several generations after Noah in our biblical timeline. Job lives in the land of Uz. We know four key things about him: First, he is a righteous man, acting justly in all he does and conducting […]
Noah has three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Of the three boys, the Bible tells us the least about Japheth, though we know that Japheth, along with Shem, acts with integrity to cover his father’s drunken nakedness. And we know that Noah blesses Japheth for his action. That’s it. Though Scripture gives us Japheth’s family […]