Before his face

In Genesis I was reading this morning about Abram leaving his home in Ur of Chaldeas. Really Abram's father,Terah,  was the one who gathered the fam and headed toward Canaan. Before they left his youngest son Haran died. The scriptures say that "Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees"(KJV Gen.11:28)  The Hebrew y™EnVÚp_lAo mean literally "before his face". A rather tender expression that seems to say something more than "before his father".  Really no father should see the death of his child, no parent should. It does something deep within you that is hard to reconcile. So Terah gets a notion (maybe a call from God) to go to Canaan.  SideBar: Why did Terah stop and why was the city named the same name as his son. Coincidence?  Is the city of Haran named after the dead son? Did Terah named the city after his son and died there of heart sickness. Once his father died did it fall to Abram to continue on in his father's journey?  We may never know the answers to these questions. We still are uncertain about where the city of Ur existed. But leave Abraham did, taking his young nephew and all his "goods". He continued on to Canaan and lived and multiplied according to the promise of  God. But interestingly enough God asked Abram to take his only son of promise and kill him. This seemed to be the very thing that kept Terah from continuing on in the promise. The scriptures say that God was "trying" Abraham. This Hebrew word can mean try or test, h™D;sˆn.   
      Maybe this was something Abraham watched his father go through, back in the Ur of Chaldees. Terah had his son die before his face, and along with Haran's death was the death of his dream of Canaan land. Was this a test to see if Abraham had the guts to do this. Did God not want to give the promise to Abraham and have him wimp out, too? Maybe Abraham was like his father and would die of grief some where along the way? Some rabbinic traditions have the cause of Sarah's death as being the sacrifice of Isaac.  Glickman lists his death as a possible cause of Sarah's death, in his book Living Torah. The binding of Isaac was the testing of Abraham. As I have noted before, the Vulgate uses the term "holocaust" for this event. God only wants our best. Our best many times is determined by what is in our hearts. Maybe Abraham still had deeper feeling for the events surrounding his brothers' death, somewhere along the flat lands of Mesopotamia. Was Isaac, his son, going to die before his face? We know that Abraham if he had not settled it before that day, he settled it then. He was not his father's son, he was God's. He was going to live before the face of God.


Questions:
1. Find Ur of Chaldees on a map. Now find Haran. If Terah was going to Canaan why did he take this seemingly circular route? 
2. Search the place where tradition has it that Abraham offered Isaac. Where is it?
3. Why do you think the story of Abraham call begins in Ur and not Haran?

Holocaust

In Genesis 22 we read of the sacrifice of Isaac. This story, for the Jews is one of the most reverend of the Old Testament. Here, Abraham is tested by God so the scriptures tell us. God asked Abraham to take his son, his only son of his love, and place him on the alter of sacrifice. The language of this story is very rich and deep. This story has implications that reach deep into the Christian heritage as well as the Jewish. There are many things that could be talked about and are in a number of other places. But one thing that I do not often see is the connection between the holocaust of WWII and Abraham's sacrifice.

As we read this story, both in the Greek (LXX) and in the Latin (Vulgate) we see the word "offering" being translated as Holocaust(Latin) ὁλόκαυστον(Greek). I have often wondered who labeled the terrible persecution of the Jews in WWII as being for the Jews the Holocaust. The name implies a burnt whole offering to the Lord. The definition in an English dictionary of holocaust is just that, a burnt offering. Maybe I am coming late to the table but that is very moving for me. That the Jews see their sacrifice of those horrible years as equal in some way to the Abraham sacrificing his son, the son of his love. God gave His son for humanity. God asked Abraham for his son, did God ask the Jews for their sacrifice? Is that what is meant by the Holocaust? The word in Hebrew for whole offering or burnt offering is olah. It is the only offering that is wholly burnt, no meat is eaten or left from the offering. Who knows what really turned the tables in WWII so that good would win over evil.

In our present condition as Christians what should our attitude be of suffering? Paul told Timothy "not to be ashamed to testify of our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering (pa◊scw) for the gospel, by the power of God."(NIV, 2Tim.1:8). The word that Paul uses here and elsewhere for suffering is indeed the same word as Paschal, the sacrificial lamb that Christ became. Our suffering as Christians is as a sacrifice to God, by His power and grace. We as Christians are participators in this suffering and sacrifice. It makes me appreciate even more our Jewish brothers and the call of God that is upon their lives.