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III. Our Father Abraham

A. Hebrews and Semites

From the good seed of humanity, the line of God’s righteous, Shem’s line, comes the first of the great patriarchs, "Abraham the Hebrew" (see Genesis 14:13).

This is the first time the word "Hebrew" appears in the Bible and it’s linked to the name of Eber, another son of Shem (see Genesis 10:21). This is why we refer to the chosen people the Hebrews. The descendants of Abraham are also known as "Shemites" or "Semites." Which is where we get our expression for hatred of Jews - "anti-Semitic," which means, hatred of the descendants of the righteous line of Shem.

With the story of Abraham we turn a page in salvation history. The remainder of Genesis (chapters 12-50) tells the story of the "patriarchs," the founding fathers of the chosen people. In Genesis 12-25:18, we’ll read about Abraham and his two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. In Genesis 25:19-36:43, we hear the story of Isaac and his two sons, Esau and Jacob. And the book concludes, in Chapters 37-50, with the story of Jacob’s 12 children, founders of the tribes of Israel, and especially Jacob’s son, Joseph.

For simplicity’s sake, we’re going to refer to him as "Abraham" throughout this lesson, even though he’s called " Abram" until God changes his name in Genesis 17:5.

God is going to make a covenant with Abraham, and by that covenant He is going to re-orient human history, give it a new possibility, a new goal.

The covenant with Abraham has three parts, and it begins with three promises: to make Abraham a great nation (see Genesis 12:1-2); to give him a great name (12:2); and to make him the source of blessing for all the world (12:3).

God later "upgrades" these three promises - turning them into divine covenants. God swears not only make Abraham a great nation, He makes a covenant in which He promises to deliver Abraham’s descendants from oppression in an alien land and give them a specific territory of land (see Genesis 15:7-21). Not only will his name be great, but God by a covenant oath swears to make Abraham "father of a host of nations," a royal dynasty - "kings shall stem from you" (see Genesis 17:1-21).

God elevates His third promise by swearing to make Abraham’s descendants "as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore." In Abraham’s descendants "All the nations of the earth shall find blessing" (see Genesis 22:16-18).

By these three covenant oaths, God points our eyes to the future of salvation history.

Abraham is made a great nation in the Exodus, when by the covenant He makes with Moses, God makes Abraham’s descendants into a nation possessing the land promised to Abraham (see Genesis 46:3-4). We will read about this in our next lesson, when we look at the books of Exodus through Deuteronomy.

God’s second oath is fulfilled when David is made King and promised with a great name (see 2 Samuel 7:9) and an everlasting throne (see Psalm 89:3-5; 132:11-12).

And finally, these covenants point us to Jesus. His New Covenant fulfills God’s promise to make the children of Abraham the source of blessing for all the nations. That’s why in the very first line of the New Testament we find the words "Jesus Christ…the son of Abraham" (see Matthew 1:1).

B. Priest of the Most High God

There are three more scenes from the dramatic life of Abraham that we need to look at because they point us forward to the New Testament.

The first is Melchizedek, the mysterious king of Salem, who makes his appearance after Abraham defeats the warrior kings to free his nephew Lot (Genesis 14).

Notice that he appears out of nowhere. He has no genealogy and his capital, "Salem" isn’t mentioned before in the book. Salem, as we see later in the Bible, is a short form of the name Jerusalem (see Psalm 76:2-3).

Melchizedek brings out bread and wine and declares a blessing on Abraham. The Church Fathers, saw this is as foreshadowing the Eucharist. And the Church’s Liturgy reflects this tradition in its First Eucharist Prayer, which refers to "the bread and wine offered by your priest Melchizedek (see Catechism, no. 1333).

The Bible sees Melchizedek as a figure of the son of David, who is declared "a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek" (see Psalm 110:4). He is also, in the New Testament, seen as a figure of Jesus, the eternal royal high-priest (see Hebrews 7).

C. ‘Covenant in Your Flesh’

Circumcision is the sign God gives of His covenant oath to make Abraham’s descendants a royal dynasty. "Thus my covenant shall be in your flesh as an everlasting pact" (see Genesis 17:1-14). Jesus is circumcised to show that He is in the flesh a member of the people of the covenant (see Luke 2:21).

But circumcision is also a physical sign that points us to Baptism, the spiritual and sacramental sign by which we enter into the New Covenant, the royal family of God.

Already in the prophets, "circumcision of the heart" had become a sign of dedication of one’s whole being to God (see Deuteronomy 10:16; Jeremiah 4:4; compare Romans 2:25-29; 1 Corinthians 7:18-19). The prophet Jeremiah said that the law of the New Covenant would be written on the heart (see Jeremiah 31:31-34). This happens in Baptism which is the "circumcision of Christ" (see Colossians 2:11) and the true circumcision (Philippians 3:3).

D. Binding Isaac

St. Paul said that the story of Abraham’s two sons - the illegitimate Ishmael born to the slave girl Hagar, and his heir Isaac born by God’s promise to his wife Sarah - was meant to symbolize the difference between the New Covenant and the Old Covenant (see Galatians 4:21-31).

But there is an even more profound symbolism in the awful test that God gives to Abraham - to offer his only beloved son, Isaac, as a sacrifice.

Beginning in the Bible and coming to full flower in the writings of Church Fathers like St. Augustine, this story was seen as foreshadowing God’s offering of his only beloved Son on the Cross at Calvary (see John 3:16).

God twice here praises Abraham’s faithfulness - "You did not withhold from me your own beloved son" (see Genesis 22:12,15-16). St. Paul cites the Greek translation of these exact words when He talks about the Crucifixion - "He who did not spare His own Son but handed Him over for us all…" (see Romans 8:32).

There are other interesting parallels that Church Fathers saw:

For instance, the mountain where God tells Abraham to perform the sacrifice: Mount Moriah is in same place that Melchizedek came from - Salem. It’s the site where one day Solomon will build the Lord’s Temple (see 2 Chronicles 3:1). In fact, Jewish tradition says that the name Jerusalem comes from attaching Abraham’s word of faith - God "will provide" (see Genesis 22:8; Hebrew = yir’eh or jira) to the word Salem.

Calvary, where Jesus was crucified, is one of the hills of Moriah. And as Isaac carried the wood for his own sacrifice, and submitted to being bound to the wood, so too will Jesus, "the son of Abraham" (see Matthew 1:1), carry His cross and let men bind Him to it. St. Augustine even saw in the ram caught in the thicket, an image of Christ crowned with thorns.

Even Abraham’s words to his servants: "We will worship and then come back to you" (seeGenesis 22:5) can be heard as a promise of resurrection. That’s how these words are interpreted in The Letter to the Hebrews: "He reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead, and he received Isaac back as a symbol" (see Hebrews 11:17-19). In fact, Isaac is spared "on the third day" (see Genesis 22:4).

As Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son was counted as a sign of his faithfulness, the sacrifice of Christ brings us "the blessing of Abraham" (see Galatians 3:14).

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