Abraham

I. Name. Born *Abram* — Hebrew av-ram, exalted father — he was renamed by God in the ninety-ninth year of his life: Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee (Genesis 17:5). The new name folds in the Hebrew hamon, multitude, anticipating descendants as the stars of the heaven for number. The renaming is the formal seal of God's covenant. He is called Abraham in scripture from Genesis 17 onward; Abram before. The New Testament uses only the second name.

**II. Chronology.** The traditional dating — which the apostle Paul affirms in his framework of four hundred and thirty years from the promise to the law (Galatians 3:17) — places Abraham's life c. 2166–1991 BC, though scholars dispute the absolute dates by a century or more in either direction. He was born in Ur of the Chaldees, migrated north with his father Terah to Haran, and was called by God to Canaan at age seventy-five. Isaac was born when Abraham was one hundred (Genesis 21:5). He died at one hundred and seventy-five and was buried in the cave of Machpelah beside Sarah (Genesis 25:7-10).

III. Life. The narrative of Abraham occupies thirteen chapters of Genesis (12–25), the most sustained biography in the book. Called out of Ur, he travels first to Haran, then south into Canaan; famine drives him to Egypt where he passes Sarah off as his sister to Pharaoh (Genesis 12). He separates from his nephew Lot and settles at Mamre by Hebron. When Lot is taken captive by a coalition of four kings, Abraham rallies three hundred and eighteen trained men of his household, defeats the coalition at Dan, and rescues Lot — returning to be blessed by the mysterious priest-king *Melchizedek of Salem*, to whom he gives a tithe (Genesis 14). God cuts a covenant with him in a vision of smoke and fire (Genesis 15) — the moment Paul will later cite as the foundation of justification by faith. At Sarah's urging he takes the Egyptian Hagar and fathers Ishmael (Genesis 16). The covenant is renewed and circumcision instituted in chapter 17; the three visitors come to Mamre in chapter 18 and announce Isaac's birth within the year, after which Abraham intercedes for Sodom in the most famous bargaining prayer in scripture. Sodom and Gomorrah fall (Genesis 19). At Gerar he repeats the she is my sister deception, this time with King Abimelech (Genesis 20). Isaac is born in chapter 21; Hagar and Ishmael are sent away with bread and water and a divine promise of their own nation. Then chapter 22: the binding of Isaac on Mount Moriah, the hardest scene in Genesis and the central typological pre-figuring of the cross. Sarah dies; Abraham purchases the cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite as a burying place (Genesis 23). He sends his servant back to Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac, and Rebekah is brought home (Genesis 24). He marries Keturah, fathers six more sons by her — including Midian, ancestor of the Midianites — and dies, an old man and full of years (Genesis 25). His sons Isaac and Ishmael bury him together at Machpelah.

IV. Religious Significance. Abraham is the foundation figure of the entire biblical revelation. The covenant God cut with him in Genesis 15 — land, offspring, blessing through him to all the families of the earth — runs through the rest of scripture as a single thread. Paul makes Abraham the father of all them that believe (Romans 4:11), arguing that justification by faith was given to Abraham four hundred and thirty years before the law of Moses existed; what saved Abraham saves the believer in Christ on identical terms. James draws Abraham as the model of faith made visible in works (James 2:21-24). Jesus identifies himself as the one Abraham rejoiced to see my day (John 8:56) — and adds, devastatingly, Before Abraham was, I am. The binding of Isaac becomes one of scripture's central typological scenes: a father climbing a mountain with his only son, an ordered set of wood, and a substitute provided. Hebrews 11 names Abraham first among the heroes of faith — of whom the world was not worthy.

The Bible also calls Abraham the friend of God — a title used three times: Isaiah 41:8, 2 Chronicles 20:7, and James 2:23. He stands at the head of the three monotheistic religions descended from him through Isaac (Judaism, Christianity) and Ishmael (Islam), though scripture itself frames the line of promise as running through Isaac and Jacob to Israel and through Christ to the church.