The Death of Abraham (Gen 25:1-18)

The Death of Abraham and Undying Hope

Genesis 25:1 – 18

Connection/Tension

I’m still a young man, yet less so with each passing year. As my life goes by year by year, it brings me to think about death more and more often. More people I know die and I must think about things like what happens to my family if I die. We’ve have trained ourselves in our culture to not think about the inevitable, yet, it’s unhealthy since it’s just avoiding reality.

In our story, we are going to see the end of Abraham’s life and story. We are going to see that he died well, and it was the same qualities that helped him die well that helped him live well.

Do you like me want to be such a strong person in God that you die well and that you live well all the way there? How do you get to a place where you do not fear death, but rather have a confident expectation in God that goes beyond death?

That’s what I hope we receive from this final story in Abraham’s life this morning.

Revelation

Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. 2 She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. 3 Jokshan fathered Sheba and Dedan. The sons of Dedan were Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim. 4 The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. All these were the children of Keturah. 5 Abraham gave all he had to Isaac. 6 But to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, and while he was still living he sent them away from his son Isaac, eastward to the east country.

Abraham’s story is by and large one of hope and victory. Against all odds, he remains faithful to God and receives the fulfillment of amazing promises. Yet, when Moses writes about Abraham, he gives us the real man, including his sins and failures. These verses seem to highlight one of them here.

Abraham married a woman named Katurah. At first glance, it sounds like he married her after Sarah’s death, which, if that’s the case, there would be no problem at all. However, the story mentions that he had other children with her. Yet before, in chapter 17, he was 100 years old and past the years of childbearing, making the birth of Isaac improbable (Gen 17:17). However, Sarah doesn’t die until about forty years after Isaac was born, so it’s unlikely Abraham was then having children at 140 years old.[1]

In addition, verse six mentions “the sons of [Abraham’s] concubines” in the plural, and seems to be talking about Keturah’s sons, and later in the Bible, in 1 Chronicles makes clear that Keturah was not Abraham’s wife, but a “concubine” (1 Chron 1:32).

All these things make it more likely that Keturah was another concubine, like Hagar, whom Abraham took while Sarah was living and had children through her (hence, “concubines”). For all of Abraham’s victories, his greatest defeat is when he tried to engineer God’s promise by the flesh and tired to have children by taking concubines in addition to his wife Sarah.

And his failure to believe God leads to further failures. He cruelly drives his children further East into exile away from Canaan, perhaps fearing they would try to supplant Isaac. In these things, he is not acting like a man of God, but a king of the earth.

So, what’s this story and genealogy of Keturah’s children doing here?  

Moses seems to insert this story out of chronological order here for a reason. This mention of Keturah and her children at the end of Abraham’s life is reminds us that even in cases where Abraham failed to love and cure for the image of God, our God never does.

Notice how this genealogy does not move quickly from generation to generation as many others do in Genesis but slows down and lingers on multiple offspring of Keturah.[2] The pausing down to slowly move over their names shows that even if Abraham has forgotten these people (who will become nations in their own right) God has not. This story is mostly about Abraham and Isaac, yet the blessing that passes down from Abraham to Isaac is not just for the sake of Isaac, but for the sake of the nations, including these nations (Gen 12:3). Even when God’s people fail to keep their eyes and hearts on the nations and peoples of the world, our God does not and he’s always calling us to repent and be concerned for his images wherever and in whatever manner they live.

And we have mentioned this before, but it is good to say again, perhaps you have received deep wounds from your parents (someone who should have loved you) or God’s people (someone who equally should have loved you), and you have interpreted that to mean God doesn’t love you or he’s cold and distant. I’m here to remind you that his heart for his image bearers is constant. People may fail to represent him rightly (like Abraham), but that doesn’t change who he is. He has the warm heart of a father and he is inviting you to come to him through Jesus. Abraham failed to father these children well, but our heavenly father never fails in his role as father.

Now, there’s one other phrase here that sticks out. Verse 5 says, “Abraham gave all he had to Isaac.” After sending his children by Keturah and Hagar away with “gifts”, Abraham leaves all that remains to him to Isaac.[3]  Now, this detail is highlighting something important for us that will help us understand the rest of the passage: Abraham has hope for the future, and he is putting all his hope in Isaac, since God promises to fulfill his purposes through Isaac’s line alone (Gen 21:12).  

The rest of this sermon will focus on the virtue of “hope” and the power it had for both Abraham’s life and ours. The imagery in our passage is going to consistently point us in this direction. Just by way of a quick definition, “hope” is a dimension of faith, particularly the part of faith that orients towards the future and looks forward to what God has in store (Heb 11:1). With that in mind, let’s jump into the next section,

7 These are the days of the years of Abraham’s life, 175 years. 8 Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. 9 Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, east of Mamre, 10 the field that Abraham purchased from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried, with Sarah his wife. 11 After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac his son. And Isaac settled at Beer-lahai-roi.

I want to make five observations that indicate that death was not the end for Abraham and that he and his family had a hope that was stronger than death:

1.      Abraham lives an amazingly long time- 175 years and dies “full of years.” This happy and abundant state in which he dies fulfills a promise from before from Gen 15 that “you shall go to you fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age (v. 15).” As Robert Jamieson points out, even in Abraham’s death, God is keeping his promise to him[4]- there’s no limit to God’s faithfulness and not even the grave takes us beyond his care and love.

2.      We see this very same truth in the phrase, “and [he] was gathered to his people.” The phrase suggests life after death and suggests reunion with others who have died.[5]  

3.      Isaac and Ishmael- two brothers with much baggage, come together with unity to bury their father. His death seems to produce a better situation in the world he left behind. There is an effect his life is having beyond the grave.

4.      The imagery of burial points to the hope of life after death.

Calvin observes that cultures in every place and time practice the ritual of the burial of the dead and view burial places as sacred, because God wrote eternity onto our hearts and we are prone to hope for or assume that there is some kind of life after death.[6] Since the beginning of the world, humans have placed the bodies in the ground and treated those places as sacred.

And from here on out in the story, God continues to refer to himself as “the God of Abraham,” in the present tense, which he does in the very next chapter when he speaks to Isaac (Gen 26:24). The imagery and story assume that there is some future for Abraham beyond death. And his continued existence spiritually anticipates his resurrection physically because God’s plan in the beginning included bodies for human souls to inhabit and so does his plan when he brings all things to completion.

5.      Isaac and Ishmael buried Abraham in Canaan in the very field he bought for Sarah- the one portion of land he owns in Canaan.

Moses apparently sees burial place at the cave of Machpelah as a big deal, as he goes into detail to describe it as the exact same field from just two chapters ago. Moreover, this cave doesn’t stop being a big deal throughout the narrative of Genesis. Isaac’s sons will bury Isaac there (Gen 35:27). And Isaac’s son Jacob, who leaves Canaan for Egypt in the time of Joseph, in his old age, insists that his sons bury in in the cave of Machpelah in the land of Canaan (Gen 49:30). Just listen to his language and tell me if it sounds familiar,

29 Then [Jacob] commanded [his sons] and said to them, “I am to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, 30 in the cave that is in the field at, to the east of Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place.

What’s the big deal with this field? The possession of this tiny field in Canaan anticipates the future when Abraham’s abundant offspring will possess and rule this good land.[7] When that happens, things will be in the process of becoming like they were in the beginning, “God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule” as Graham Goldsworthy puts it. The kingdom of heaven comes to earth and changes it to be like heaven. The pattern of burying each generation in this cave points to their hope beyond death for this to become a reality- they were all expecting to wake up to something better after death than what they left behind.

In your imagination, you could think of this little field as an outpost of heaven on earth. When God fulfills his promises, the kingdom will grow, and God’s people will possess all of Canaan and God’s kingdom will have spread through the whole land.

And for those of us who know the story of the Bible, it doesn’t stop there. After the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, his kingdom starts spreading through all the world through his church. Then finally, when Jesus comes back, will fill the entire world when he returns and makes all his people come to life to reign with him. The field at Machpelah, where Abraham’s family is buried in faith, represents the coming new creation we are all longing for.

In the biblical imagination, hope for life after death doesn’t just look like your body coming back to life, it looks like God reordering the entire world to make everything as it should be and removing death from the realm of live forever.

These five images point to hope, and they are meant to produce hope in us. Yet, for them to do so, we would want to see if Abraham is rewarded for his hope. Was he? Is there any clue in the text that God’s purposes continued after his death, or is he just a dead man in the ground? Do you see it there in verse 10? What does it say?

“After the death of Abraham, God blessed Isaac his son.”

I’m going to read that again… There are phrases in the Bible that are easy to skip over yet are full of meaning for our lives when we meditate on them and see what they are saying- this is one of them. The story of God’s plan to bless the nations through the offspring of Abraham continues after Abraham dies. Death does not halt or thwart God’s plan- God’s plan continues in the face of death and does not yield to it.

God “blessed” Isaac means that the same abundant garden of Eden blessing that God placed on Abraham,[8] and the same role of brining heaven to Earth, and the same purpose of defeating the serpent in his time and brining forth the ultimate serpent crusher in the fullness of time all pass on to Isaac. And from Isaac, the line of promise continues all the way until Jesus when all of God’s promises come to pass.

God’s story unfolds after Abraham dies and that’s the reason Abraham still lives today and will live on this earth when Jesus comes back- and those of us who follow Jesus will all experience the same thing. Abraham was right to be hopeful because of the God he was hoping in, and the blessing that passes onto Isaac is just the next step of God’s faithfulness in fulfilling his loving plan.

Application

So, how can we apply these things to our lives? What difference do they make?

I think that this imagery suggests to us that Abraham died as he lived, with hope and faith in his God. He had moments of failure, and I suggest to you that those were moments where that faith and hope that normally described him gave way to despair.

And for those of us here today, we find ourselves in a struggle between hope and despair, like Abraham throughout his own life. And we need confident expectation from God if we are going to live well and die well. Let’s talk first about living well and then we will speak of dying well.

Living Well

The life of following Jesus depends on hope and there can be no obedience without it. Abraham would have stayed in the ruins of Babel and never ventured to Canaan if he didn’t have hope God had good things in store for him there.

Despair leaves you where you are and keeps you from walking in the purposes of God because you stop believing it’s worth it. In fact, it’s impossible to sin without first giving in to despair. You first must believe that the future God has in store for you is not worth sacrificing for in the present (or impossible to obtain) for you to instead choose sin in the present.

The verses above mention Abraham’s “concubines.” The word “concubines” is plural and refers to the multiple times Abraham failed. And something that’s so clear in the Hagar story is that Abraham and Sarah lost hope in God’s promise to produce an offspring through Sarah and they gave into despair and tried to do it through Hagar instead.  

Rather, in the moments Abraham trusted God’s promises, and had confident expectation for the future, he accomplished great feats of obedience and sacrificial love. He showed great kindness to his Canaanite neighbors (Gen 21) and even went so far to obey God’s command to be willing to sacrifice Isaac, believing he would receive him back from the dead (Heb 11:19).

Make no mistake, as I have heard it said, “What you believe about the future determines how you live in the present.”[9] When we fail to believe that God has planned good things for us in the future, we will stop living according to his plan now. Is that not what we are doing when we lie, or indulge in entertainment, or lust? In those moments we’ve given up on God’s plan, so we try to create our own Eden in the present.

Yet, if we want purity and holiness in the present to pervade out lives, we must have hope in God for the future. There is a purifying power of hope to rid us of our sinful allegiances and give us an unyielding love for Christ whom we trust to completely provide for us now and forever.

I want to invite you to search your heart for a moment. Do you carry around with you and battle a sense of anxiety or depression like I do? Do you sometimes cope with those feelings with sinful behaviors?

I want to suggest to you that anxiety and depression are often (not always) symptoms of a deeper root problem- of despair in the soul- of a lack of trust that God is who he has said he is and will keep all his promises. Sadness and worry infect our hearts when our circumstances in life become bigger than the reality and promises of our God.

And so, I want to invite us (including myself) to repent. To repent of what? Our anxiety and depression? No, I’m trying to say that those are evidence of something that’s off in our hearts. Rather, let’s repent of the despair that comes when we lose sight of our God and fix our heart’s attention on the darkness and difficulty of this life. Let’s turn from the despair that Abraham had at the worst moments of his life and to the hope that fueled his greatest acts of obedience and virtue. He lived up to his name and became the “father of nations” through the purifying power of hope. You, likewise, will fulfill the great purpose of your life through the purifying power of hope. It’s our enemy who would hamstring you with despair and keep you from ever doing anything great with your life for God.

A small belief about God’s character and the future he will bring you will produce a dejected and ineffectual life in the present. A big believe in God’s character and the future he has planned will produce a heroic life for God that shapes the lives of others. We are still talking about Abraham today because he had this kind of life.

Dying Well

Now, let’s talk about hope and death. Let us not ever forget that we are temporary. Unless Jesus comes back, like Abraham, we will die. I believe our awareness, however conscious or not, that our lives will have an end, also fuels our despair, and leads us to retreat into our sins and vices for comfort. We were not made for death. It’s unnatural to die, and our awareness of death can make us fearful and despairing in life. I’ve noticed that as people get older, they can (now always) grow in reclusiveness and fear.

How do we keep that from happening to us? How do we keep living with boldness and faith and outwardness as we age? We believe and trust in a man who didn’t stay dead, but who conquered death and walked out of the grave.

The story of Abraham is anticipating the story of Jesus which teaches us so powerfully that God is stronger than death. The anxiety, depression, and fear that want to drive you into your strongholds of sin have already been defeated and you are free to live with obedience, love, and boldness. Because Jesus rose from the dead, we don’t have to live inward oriented lives of fear but can live outward oriented lives of faith.

The call of Abraham and the call of Jesus is to come out of ourselves to love God and love other people. Do you want to grow with me in living with sacrificial love that makes a life-altering difference for other people? That probably doesn’t describe me yet, but it could! It could if I increasingly repent of my despair and put my trust and hope in the promises of God. Just think how much more we could give to others if we gave nothing to our sin! That’s the kind of community I want us to grow into as we follow Jesus. I want to point out that the apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 7 the same things I think these pictures in this passage show us,

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

Friends, these words could describe us if we give ourselves to daily meditation on the promises of God and the goodness of his character as we spend time daily being with the father. By his grace, we could conquer our worst character flaws and make a mightier impact in the lives of others than we ever dreamed.

Just one way this could work for me: I often don’t feel like I have energy to give more of myself to other people. The lost and the poor can be especially draining to me, so I can despair and give up on my mission to reach them. That is, until I read about Abraham’s patience with his Canaanite neighbors or Jesus’s patience with me and remember that it’s his purpose to change me into that kind of person. I can then take courage, pray for strength, and take steps forward to love like he’s loved me.

Conclusion

This passage then concludes with another genealogy of the nations- this one lingering on Ishmael’s offspring and pausing on each of his sons as well as his death (vv. 12 – 18). Again, we see God’s heart for the peoples of the world and his image bearers- it’s for their sake that he’s blessing Isaac.

At the end of Abraham’s life, and the passing of his mantle to Isaac, the nations literally surround him in the form of these two genealogies (one before and one after). This continues to point us to the reality that the hope that Jesus offers is for anyone who repents and believe and comes to him. Abraham’s story ends where it began, with a plan to bless him to bless all the nations through him (Gen 12:3).

Let’s pray.  

[1] John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Ge 25:1.

[2] Jason DeRouchie pointed this out in his Genesis lectures at Bethlehem College and Seminary.

[3] John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries on Genesis, trans. Henry Beveridge (BakerBooks, 2009), 35.

[4]  Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 1 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 30.

[5] John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Ge 25:8

[6] John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries on Genesis, trans. Henry Beveridge (BakerBooks, 2009), 579.

[7] K. A. Mathews, “Genesis,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner, electronic ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 143.

[8] I first heard this language from Tim Mackey on his Bible Project podcast.

[9] Jason Derouchie quoted Scott Hafeman in a lecture at Bethlehem college and seminary.