Sodom's Death and the Birth of Sons

Alice C. Linsley

Sodom was a large city of the Plain well south of Mamre where Abraham pitched his tent between Ai (on the west) and Bethel (on the east).  Here in the heat of the day, Abraham was visited by the Three Person God (Baal Shalisha) who spoke to Abraham of the impending judgment of Sodom. The Septuagint adds Gomorrah to the narrative, but in the Masoretic Text, the focus is on Sodom because this is where Lot resided. Lot was Abraham's nephew, the son of Abraham's brother Haran.

The destruction of the city is described to Abraham in Genesis 18 and the city's is remembered by this description, which in Arabic is sdm, meaning "One who causes a collision with bad results".  Very likely the true name of the city has been lost. However, there is no reason to doubt that a major city existed in the area described. Canaan had many ancient shrine cities in the time of the Partiarchs. Some of these, such a Hazor, were overthrow in the time of Joshua.

The overthrow of the city and the angelic rescue of Lot and his family is described in chapter 19.  Chapters 18 and 19 have a chiastic structure (ABB'A').  The Jewish Study Bible gives this structure: 18:1-15, the annunciation of Issac's birth - A; 18:16-33, the annunication of Sodom's destruction - B; 19:1-29 the destruction of Sodom - B; and 19:30-38, the report of the birth of 2 sons to Lot.

This structure suggests that the narrative may originally have been from Lot's point of view rather than from Abraham's. Here Lot's two sons become the fathers of nations just as Abraham's son Isaac will become  the father of a nation. The theme of two sons for Lot and one son for Abraham seems to point to a tradition associated with Lot.

The suggestion that Lot's sons were the product of incest is likely a later addition to the text, intended to disgrace the Ammonite and Moabites. Or it may be that this carefully worded narrative is intended to deflect the drunken patriarch's sexual misbehavior upon his daughters. Genesis 19:8 says that Lot offered his daughters who "have never slept with a man" to the Sodomites. These were chaste young women. Sexually inexperienced.  It seems unlikely that they would have initiated sex with their father. This is not the first time that the drunken behavior of the father leads to a bad name for his children. We remember how Noah awoke from a drunken stupor and cursed Canaan (who wasn't born yet).  He did not curse his son Ham because Ham would become a ruler after Noah and the lines of Ham and Shem would intermarry.

Noah was angry because his son Ham had looked upon his nakedness. Jacob was angry because his son Reuben slept with his concubine. This "exposed" the father's nakedness.  Noah’s curse falls on Canaan, Ham’s son, which is a deflection of guilt. Jacob’s blessing of Joseph's sons places the youngest above the first-born. The excuse given for Jacob’s behavior is that he was blind. The excuse given for Noah’s behavior is that he was drunk. 

The curse of Canaan parallels the curse of Cain (Gen. 4:11). Cain’s curse involves his being expelled from his homeland. The curse of Canaan is intended to justify Israel’s driving out of the inhabitants of principal cities of the Canaanites. Many of these cities were shrine centers with Horite ruler-priests, also known as Ha-biru (Hebrew). Some of the Hebrew rulers married Canaanite woman who were also of the Horite ruler caste. This appears to be the case with Salmon, of the tribe of Judah, who married Rahab.

The chiastic structure place the destruction of the Sodomites between the promise of a son for Abraham and the birth of two sons to Lot.  Three sons represent a tribal confederation in Genesis, so the destruction of the cities of the Dead Sea Plain made way for these Horites to populate the area, which they did. Mount Harun was sacred to the Horites. (Har and Hur are related to the words Horim and Horite.)

The Cities of the Plain

The kingdoms of Moab and Ammon were in what is now central Jordan. Although not confirmed, the site of Sodom may be what remains of the ancient walled town of Numeira which was consumed by fire around 2350 BC. The town of Zoar, to which Lot fled, is south of Numeira.

Excavations over two seasons at Numeira uncovered the foundations of homes and the remains of a winery. Deuteronomy 32:32 refers to the vineyards of Sodom, "For their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter."

The cities of the plain had relatively large populations, as evidenced by the cemeteries found there.  The cemeteries of Numeria and Khanazir have not been located. The Early Bronze Age burial grounds at Safi and Feifa are as large as those found at Bab edh-Dhra which contains 500,000 bodies, some in shaft tombs dating to 3200 B.C. The number of burials in this area of the Dead Sea is greater than 1,500,000 bodies, indicating that this was a heavily populated area in the time of the Patriarchs.

Related reading:  Lot's Story; Lot's Daughters; Searching for Sodom; Genesis on Homosex: Beyond Sodom; Who Were the Canaanites?; Hazor's Destruction: Another Theory; Finding Sodom

Three-Clan Confederations to Twelve Tribes

Alice C. Linsley

Some groups in Genesis are three-clan confederations (such as Isaac's 3 sons) and others are described as twelve-tribe confederations. Nahor, Abraham's older brother, was the progenitor of twelve Aramean tribes through his twelve sons, of whom eight were born to him by Milcah and four by Reumah (Gen. 22.20-24).

Three clan confederations are fairly common. The Jebusite confederation is Yoruba, Egba and Ketu.  In Canaan, the 3-clan Jebusite confederation consisted of Sheba, Jebu and Joktan.

Among the Sara of Chad, Sudan and Somalia the confederation is comprised of the qir ka, the qin ka, and the qel ka. The Sara are descendants of the Sao, an earlier three-tribe confederation of warriors and kingdom builders. According to legend, there were giants among them.

Three clan alignments lend themselves to a larger twelve clan alignment. There is an attempt to organize Esau into a 12-tribe confederation in Genesis 36:40 but only eleven chiefs are listed.  The attempt fails because there are two named Esau. Esau the Elder was the father of Eliphaz.  Esau the Younger married Basemath who bore Reuel, and Oholibamah who bore Jeush, Jaalam, and Korah (Genesis 36:1-9). These were the people of Seir, the Horite. They were Horite Hebrew (Habiru) clans. Their socio-political organization appears to be that of 3 clans.

Ishmael, Abraham's son by an Egyptian concubine, was the progenitor of twleve Nabatean tribes:  "Nebajoth; Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadar, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah: These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, by their towns, and by their castles; twelve princes according to their nations." (Genesis 25:13-16).

Jacob, a son of Isaac, is cast as the progenitor of twelve tribes: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebuln, Dan, Naphati, Gad, Asshur, Joseph and Benjamin. There is discrepancy on the number of Israelite tribes. Some count Dinah's line and some count Joseph's two sons Ephraim and Manassah.

The twelve-tribe organization appears to be the handiwork of a writer influenced by Babylonian thought. It represents an attempt to neatly classify the ruler descendants of Noah according to a celestial pattern. However, the Bible tells us that these rulers intermarried. The lines of Kain and Seth intermarried, as did the lines of Ham and Shem. The lines of Abraham and Nahor also intermarried. This means that socio-political affiliations were less formal than suggested by the twelve tribe organization. 

Further, there is evidence that the older organization comprised three sons of the same father. Where three sons appear in Genesis we have a code indicating a tribal unit of three clans.  Perhaps this is why Leah named her third son Levi, meaning "joining" (Gen. 29:34).  Likely, Leah hoped that she would be credited (and loved?) by providing Jacob with the three sons necessary to establish a tribe.

The 12-tribe organization is likely imposed upon an older order by a late source, such as the Deuteronomist Historian (c.700 BC - 250 BC). Abraham's ancestors never associated the Moon with the Creator. For them the Creator's emblem (boat or chariot) was the Sun. Veneration or worship of the Moon was characteristic of those who lived, not in Canaan, but "beyond the Euphrates." Joshua 24:2 says: “In olden times, your forefathers – Terah, father of Abraham and father of Nahor – lived beyond the Euphrates and worshiped other gods.” The implication is that Terah, whose ancestors came from Africa and Canaan, fell into worshiping contrary to his fathers’ tradition while living “beyond the Euphrates.” This is historically accurate since Abraham's Horite Hebrew ancestors never worshiped the Moon, as was done in Ur and Haran.

Martin Noth, in his seminal work "The Scheme of the Twelve Tribes of Israel" (1930), demonstrated that the Twelve Tribes of Israel did not exist prior to the covenant assembly at Shechem described in the book of Joshua.

The Joshua passage shares with the Deuteronomistic History a common concern about idolatry, and places the covenant at Shechem at precisely the location where God appeared to Abraham in 3
Three Persons (Gen. 18). Here in reference to the Godhead, the number three speaks of one-ness or unity; the God of Three: "Baal Shalisha."
  
There is more evidence in the Bible for the 3-clan organization than for the 12-tribe organization. Consider the Horite Hebrew confederations of Uz, Huz and Buz and Magog Og and Gog. Here are some of the three-clan confederations listed in Scripture:

Cain Abel Seth (Gen. 4-5)
Ham Japheth Shem (Gen. 5-9)
Og Gog Magog (Gen. 10 and Nu. 21:33)
Haran Nahor Abraham (Gen. 11-12)
Ishmael Jokshan Isaac (Gen. 16, 21, and 25)
Jeush Jalam Korah (Gen. 36: 4-18)
Korah Moses Aaron (Ex. and Nu.)
Dedan Tema Buz (Jeremiah 25)


Related reading: Three Clan Confederations of the Bible

The Serpent of Eden

Alice C. Linsley


Genesis tells us that Eden was a vast well-watered region extending from the Upper Nile Valley to the Tigris/Euphrates Valley.  This was the center of the Afro-Asiatic Dominion and here the oldest known divine promise was made to Mankind (Gen. 3:15).  Actually, that promise was made to "the Woman" (not Eve) concerning her Offspring who would crush the head of the serpent.[1]  To crush the head is an image of utter defeat.  So this is a promise about the victory of the Son over all that the serpent of Eden represents.

Nubian jar 300 BC

To better understand the Son's victory, we will explore what the Serpent of Eden represents in the context of the binary framework of Afro-Asiatic worldview in which the foremost distinction is always between the Creator God and the creation. This stands in contrast to religions in which this distinction is erased.

The serpent motif is found in Africa, Arabia, Pakistan, India, Central Asia and the Americas.  It is a significant symbol among traditional Africans and Native Americans, and in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. It is often found with symbols of the Sun and the Tree of Life. The great antiquity of these symbols is attested by their wide diffusion [2], yet their meaning has remained fairly stable in each religion.

Among archaic peoples the serpent was regarded as having powers to communicate [3], to deceive, to heal, to hide, to reveal and to protect. The oldest serpent veneration is associated with the 70,000 year old python stone carved in a mountainside in Botswana.

In Hindu mythology, the serpent-dragon RahuKetu tried to drink the nectar of immortality churned by the devas. The Solar and Lunar deities saw RahuKetu trying to do this and told Vishnu. Vishnu then threw his discus, cutting the dragon into Rahu (head) and Ketu (below the head) [4], but the dragon had already consumed the nectar and was thus immortal. Essentially, the serpent takes on divinity.

In the Gilgamesh Epic (Babylonian tale) Gilgamesh retrieves the Plant of Rejuvenation from the bottom of the sea. One evening as he was bathing in a pool, a serpent appeared and ate the Plant that Gilgamesh had left on the shore. The serpent then sloughed its skin and disappeared.  Here too is the implication that the serpent becomes immortal.

In Buddhist mythology, Buddha is often shown meditating under the hood of a seven-headed serpent (naga in Sanskrit; nahash in Hebrew). The serpent protects him from the rain. In another story, the celestial nagas shower the earth with rain as a blessing. They are deities in Buddhism, no longer simple creatures.

Jesus thought of the serpent as a creature with both positive and negative qualities, but never as an immortal being. He used serpent imagery to condemn the hypocrisy of the Jewish rulers: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of Gehenna?" (Matthew 23:33)  Yet earlier in Matthew's Gospel He sent forth his Apostles with this exhortation: "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves" (Matthew 10:16).

The ancient Greeks considered snakes sacred to Asclepius, the god of medicine. Asclepius carried a staff with one or two serpents wrapped around it. This has become the symbol of modern physicians. The ancient symbol of Ouroboros consists of a dragon or a snake curled into a hoop, consuming its own tail. In this image the serpent represents the eternal cycle of life.

As snakes shed their skins, revealing shiny new skins underneath, they symbolize rebirth, transformation, immortality, and healing.  In his novel The Voyage of the Dawn Treader C. S. Lewis uses this image to describe how sin can be sloughed only with Aslan's help. Eustace has turned into a dragon [5] and before he can step into the waters (Baptism) he must shed his scaley layers.  He sheds three layers but can't free himself to be the human he was originally created. Aslan must rip away the layers of sin before Eustace can step free.

In ancient Egyptian mythology, Apopis was a water serpent and a symbol of chaos. He is shown (right) being slain by Hathor, Ra's cat. Another story tells of how each night Apopis attacked Ra, the High God, but the serpent Mehen coiled himself around Ra's solar boat to protect Ra. This also illustrates the binary nature of ancient Egyptian thought, since the power of Mehen to protect is superior to the power of Apopis to destroy. This binary element is key to understanding the victory of Jesus Christ, whose victory is assured because He is one with the Father, not a creature.

In Exodus we read how Moses held up a rod which turned into a serpent and all who looked upon it were spared when they were bitten by vipers. The exalted Serpent was superior in every way to the serpents who attacked the Israelites in the wilderness. The Church Fathers interpreted this as a sign pointing to Jesus on the Cross. The Apostle John had this in mind when he wrote about how Jesus would be "lifted up from the earth" and thereby draw all Mankind to the Father (John 3: 14 and John 12:32).

The serpent of Eden is like those vipers in the wilderness. It is intent on spreading its poison and it achieves that end by means of confusion and deceit.  Here is how the serpent is described:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Gen. 3:1-5)

The serpent of Eden symbolizes deception, the promise of forbidden knowledge and self-elevation. It is not a deity, but it is "more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made."  Nevertheless, the serpent of Eden is very much a creature. The distinction between the Creator and the creature is clear.
 
The rabbis identify the serpent of Eden as Satan, the one who decieves and accuses 364 days of the year. Only on Yom Kippur is Satan not able to accuse.  That is the Day of Atonement. For those who believe that Jesus is the Son promised to the Woman in Eden, that is the day of Christ's atoning work on the Cross.  That day the Crucified One ripped away the great deception so that we who believe in Him might step free.
 
 
NOTES
1. The "Woman" of Gen. 3:15 is Mary, the Mother of Christ, our God. She is sometimes shown standing on a hemisphere with the serpent beneath Her foot.
 
2. Diffusion is the process by which a cultural trait, material object, idea, symbol or behavior pattern is spread from one society to another, often traceable to a central point or a point of origin. A principle of anthropology states that the wider the diffusion of a culture trait, the older the trait.  The point of origin for serpent veneration appears to be southern Africa.

3. Shinto shrines have snake pits where shamans go into trace states to communicate with the serpents and to communicate a message to humans from the serpent.

4. Ketu is the name of one of the 3 founders of the Jebusites. There are two Jebu territories and three founding brothers: Yoruba, Egba and Ketu. This 3-clan patriarchal confederation is typical of Abraham's African ancestors. Jebusite influence is reflected by the presence of the bronze serpent in the Israelite cult with many such serpent images having been found at Canaanite shrines in Gezer, Hazor, Meggido and Jerusalem.

5. In Christian iconography the serpent of Eden is often shown as a dragon.  Many famous paintings depict the serpent's defeat by either St. George or St. Michael, the Archangel.


Related reading:  Serpent Symbolism; The Cosmic Serpent Exposed; The Serpent from Africa to India

The Horite Confederation of Uz, Buz and Huz

Alice C. Linsley

Dedan: Horite Territory at the heart of Eden

According to Genesis 10:7 and Genesis 25:3, Dedan was descended from Kush and from Abraham by his cousin wife, Keturah. Dedan's father was Abraham's first-born son Joktan.  Dedan's brother was Sheba the Younger. Diagrammed, Dedan's immediate family looks like this:


                                                              Abraham ∆ = O Keturah
                                                                             Joktan
                                                                         O = ∆ = O
                                                                 Dedan ∆     ∆ Sheba the Younger


Isaiah 21:13 alludes to the "caravans of Dedanites" in Arabia, and Ezekiel 27:20 speaks of Dedan as supplying Tyre with precious things. Dedan is associated with Uz in the hill country of Edom. Uz was the homeland of Job. One of Job's inquisitors, Elihu, was a descendent of Nahor by Buz.  Buz and Uz were Nahor's sons by Milcah (Gen. 22:20). This is Uz the Elder whose grandson (by his daughter) was Uz the son of Dishan (I Chron. 1:42). Dishan was a son of Seir the Horite and the brother-in-law of Esau the Younger. Uz the Younger was Seir's grandson. Here is Seir's Horite family:

When there are two names that are very close, there is usually a third,  That third is Huz, so that Uz, Buz and Huz represent another 3-part confederation based on kinship.  I Chronicles 5:14 mentions that the son of Buz was Jahdo and Jahdo's son was Yeshishai, the Aramaic form of Yeshua/Jesus.  This connects the name of Jesus with the devotees of Horus, who was called "Son of God".

Buz is related to Uz and is grouped with the peoples of Dedan and Tema in Jeremiah 25. This is probably why this Horite confederation is not identified as Uz, Huz and Buz, but rather as Dedan, Tema and Buz. The oldest Arabic script emanated from the Afro-Arabian oases of Tema and Dedan in the Hijaz. Tema is known by Arabs as Taima and lies about 70 miles north-east of Dedan. Tema, Dedan and Dumah were caravan stops along the trade route from Babylon to Sheba.

These peoples shared appearance and life style. They dwelt in hills and built shrines in caves (such as seen at Petra) and the men shaved their heads (Jeremiah 25:23), as did Horite priests. This suggests that this was a confederation of Horite priestly families.  Genesis 36 confirms this, listing Uz's grandson Dedan as a Horite ruler.  Here we also find reference to Huz or Husham of the land of Tema (Gen. 36:34).

Other 3-part familial confederations are suggested by the names Sab-tah (Gen. 10:6) and Sab-teca (Gen. 10:7), and Le-hab (Gen. 10:13), Le-sha (Gen. 10:19) and Le-tu (Gen. 25:3). Letu was an eighth generation descendent of Noah through his sons Shem and Ham whose lines intermarried.

The prominence of the Horites is attested by the detail of the geneological information provided in Genesis 36 and I Chronicles 1. Here we discover that a people that have been regarded as tangentially related to Abraham were in fact Abraham's people. Isaac married Horite brides. Rebekah (his cousin bride) was a descedent of Na'Hor and Terah, and his half-sister bride (living in Beersheba) was a descendant of Sheba. Jacob also married Horite brides in Rachel and Leah, both descendants of Na'Hor and Terah. Genesis 36 tells us that Esau the Younger married a Oholibamah.


Related reading:  Abraham and Job: Horite Rulers; Abraham's Nephews and Niece; Who Were the Horites?

Cain's Killing of Abel

An 11th-century ivory relief from Salerno, Italy (now in the Louvre).

"Cain [Kan] spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field [sadeh in Hebrew; gan in Akkadian], Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him." (Genesis 4:8)


Alice C. Linsley

Several mid-20th century commentaries on Genesis pose the murder of Abel as a sociological conflict between shepherds (represented by Abel) and farmers (represented by Cain). However, this approach ignores important point. In Genesis, Cain is described as a city builder and in the ancient world, city builders were rulers.

The descendants of Cain are described as metal workers. Cain’s association with metal work is indicated in Genesis 4:20-22 which speaks of Tubal-Cain the ancestor of metalworkers.

Today the metalworking clans of west central Africa perform all these tasks. For example, the tent-dwelling Inadan keep herds and are responsible for metal work, circumcision, and music at special events. Their chiefs maintain two wives in separate households on a north-south axis (as did Abraham and his forefathers). This suggests that the author’s identification of Jubal, Jabal and Tubal with trades is about the role of a group of clans within a larger society, not about the origin of technologies or a conflict between shepherds and farmers.

What does the murder of Abel have to do with these early clans? The story must be understood in the context of the relationship of the 3 clans. In Genesis 4:2, we are told that Cain is a tiller of the soil, but his name means metalworker. Seth’s trade is not mentioned but his name is that of the jealous son who kills his favored brother in ancient Egyptian mythology. Abel's name could mean El (God) is father, which aligns with the deeper significance of the Cain and Abel story and with the Egyptian myth of Seth and Osiris.

Cain's killing of Abel has parallels to Set's killing of Osiris, the preferred son who the Lord of Creation chose to be Pharaoh. Seth was condemned by the Lord for the murder of his brother. Osiris rose from the dead, married and had a son, Horus, who is called the "son" of God. The Horite Hebrew were his devotees. The Son's Akkadian name was Enki.

It is significant that in both stories there are three sons: Seth, Osiris, Horus, and Cain, Seth, Abel. Seth kills the chosen son who rises to life and Cain kills the chosen son, who is the son of the father (ab El) . Abel might also be rendered as ha Bel, meaning “the God”.

That there are three sons is important since in Genesis one of the three sons - usually the hidden or cut off son - represents the Son of God. Abel is a type or shadow of Jesus Christ, the one whose blood cries to the Father for justice. The context is secondarily Nilotic. The original context (minus the Talmuci elements of accepted and rejected sacrifices), is Akkadian. This is evident in the play on the Akkadian word kan which means both field and blood.

Note that God's punishment of Cain is mixed with mercy, just as Jesus prayed that the Father would show mercy to those who put Him on the Cross.

When people hear the names Cain and Abel, they rarely consider the other brother, Seth, yet Seth's descendants intermarried with Cain's descendants. Abel is the son who was cut off from the earth. Likewise, when people think of Abraham and Nahor, they rarely remember that there was a third brother, Haran, who was cut off from the earth. Typically where two sons are named, there is a hidden or cut-off third son. Cain's punishment of being cut off from his land reflects his crime of cutting off Abel from the earth.


Related reading: Cain as Ruler; The Killing of Abel; The Mark of Cain

Hidden Sons in the Bible

Alice C. Linsley

Having considered the biblical theme of 2 sons, we now turn to the equally important theme of 3 sons. The recurrence of 3 sons is less evident because this theme is under the surface and must be mined. The number 3 represents unity so seeing the bigger picture of Abraham's people requires looking at all 3 sons. In some case the 3 sons can be identified as a tribal unit by the similarities of their names. Consider these examples:

Three of Jacob's sons by Zilpah are Jimnah, Jishvah and Jishvi (Gen. 46:17). Here we see the alliterative naming so typical of the Horites clans.  Abraham's sons Yitzak (Isaac), Yishbak and Yishmael (Ishmael) are another example. Another example is Magog, Gog and Og, which also represents a tribal unity.

We find the 3-son configuration throughout Genesis, though not all involve alliterative names.

Gen. 4 - Cain, Abel, Seth
Gen. 4 - Jubal, Jabal, Tubal
Gen. 7 - Ham, Shem, Japheth
Gen. 11 - Haran, Nahor, Abraham
Gen. 22 - Huz, Uz, Buz

To this we must add the first-born sons of Abraham: Ishmael (by the concubine Hagar), Isaac (by his sister-wife Sarah) and Jokshan (by his cousin wife Keturah). The birth order is not clear, which is strange given the importance of primogeniture among Abraham’s people. We are told that Ishmael was born first, but rejected as the heir upon Sarah's insistence, though she had arranged the situation. It is not clear that Ishmael would have been heir to Abraham's office as chief, even with Sarah's scheme, especially if Keturah's son Joktan was born first.

We are told that Sarah couldn't conceive, but finally bore Isaac in her old age. Meanwhile, the order of the narrative implies that Abraham married Keturah after Sarah died, which can't be the case, since it was the pattern among Abraham's people for chiefs to maintain 2 wives in separate households at the northern and southern boundaries of their territories. Sarah was in Hebron and Keturah was in Beersheba to the south. That Abraham was recognized as a chief among the people is evident in Genesis 23:5 where the Hittites speak of Abraham as "a prince of God" among them.

So the question remains, who was Abraham's first-born son? My guess is Joktan, the first-born of Keturah, and that Abraham acquired Keturah as a wife when he went to the Negev (Gen. 12:9) after consulting the moreh (prophet) at the Oak in Mamre (Gen. 12:6).

The number 3 is a taunting symbol. It compels us to seek the hidden, just as Abraham sought guidance about his unknown future. At this very place in Mamre, he later looked up and saw 3 “men” coming to him and ordered 3 measures of flour to make cakes.  He brought to his visitors 3 gifts: curds, milk and a calf. And Abraham interceded for Sodom 3 times (Gen. 18).

Consider the mystery surrounding Isaac. On the surface there appears to be so little information about Isaac, compared to Abraham and Jacob. This led some biblical scholars to speculate that Isaac may be a fictional character, created to bridge the generations. We may dismiss this theory since Genesis provides more information about Isaac than is generally recognized and what we are given could not have been invented, nor could it be the product of an editor. The key to discovery is the seeking of the hidden third son.

The text presents us with this picture of Isaac: He had two wives, as did his father and his father’s father, Terah. Rebecca was his cousin wife and his first wife who was a half-sister (again following his father and grandfather) lived in the area of Beersheba (that is the "well of Sheba"). This is where Abraham settled after his experience at Mt. Moriah (Gen. 22:19). Isaac’s rule in Beersheba is evident in Gen. 26 where we are told that he reopened the wells dug by his father between Beersheba and Gerar. This explains why Abraham’s servant brought Rebecca to Beersheba rather than to Hebron, the home of Isaac’s mother.

There is a suggestion in the genealogical data that Isaac’s first wife was named Judith. This name is the feminine equivalent of Judah.

Just as Abraham needed 2 wives to establish himself in the land, so Isaac needed 2 wives to maintain the territory. The picture becomes clearer when we imagine Judith in Beersheba and Rebecca in the area of Hebron. We are now able to speculate that Isaac had 3 sons: Jacob and Esau by Rebecca, and by Judith a son who is not named in the text. However, since the kinship of Abraham’s people traces lineage through the father and the mother, this pushes the line of Judah back several generations. It also establishes a connection between the Aramaic house of Terah and the Hamitic house of Sheba.

Revisiting Gen. 10 and Gen. 11:10-26, we find confirmation of this connection. Terah and Sheba are descendents of Eber’s two sons Peleg and Joktan. Terah descends from Peleg and Sheba from Joktan. Now where have we heard that name “Joktan” before? This is the name of one of Abraham’s 3 sons, born of his cousin bride Keturah, who dwelt at the Well of Sheba. He is a hidden third son, and probably Abraham's first-born.

The motif of the hidden son is Christological.  The Son of God is the Holy One hidden and revealed.


Related reading:  The Holy One Hidden and Revealed

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