The big question that guides today’s reading is this: “Will the LORD favor Abraham’s descendants in the same way He was to Abraham?” It’s hard for us who know the next 1,800 years of the story, but try to imagine the questions that must have filled Isaac. After all, the last time we saw him he was lying on an altar with his father’s knife over him.

This question gets answered, in two ways. First, in chapter 24, when Abraham’s servant is sent back to Aram to find a wife for Isaac. And second, in chapter 26, when there is a famine in Canaan and Isaac considers throwing in the towel on the family property.

Now at the end of last week we recounted the names for God that had been used thus far: Melchizedek’s “God Most High,” Hagar’s “The God Who Sees,” and Abraham’s “Everlasting God.” Add to this Abraham’s claim at the beginning of today’s reading: “God of Heaven and God of Earth.” These are terms of wonder as well as worship.

They are also terms referring to a very specific God – Yahweh, or the LORD. Be careful not to read the future into the past: these people believed in the existence of many, many deities. This Yahweh was unique for the very personal way in which He revealed himself to Abraham, called Him, and showed him favor. But to everyone else Yahweh, or the LORD, was just one of the gods.

In today’s first story, pay close attention to how people are experiencing the LORD. When Abraham calls Him “the God of Heaven and God of Earth,” he’s making a bold, universal claim that would have startled the original characters. Abraham’s servant experiences the LORD through Abraham, constantly referring to the LORD as “The God of My Master, Abraham.”

And finally, after hearing the servant’s story, Laban and Bethuel offer a humbled confession: the LORD has spoken, and there is nothing more to say. These characters all come to recognize that they are a part of something bigger, and that the LORD is behind it, even if they aren’t moved to believe themselves.

This week’s verse is Galatians 4:28: Now you brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.

Genesis chapters 24 to 26. Now let’s read it!

Day 7 Guided Podcast