Genesis 25-26
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 25
Other Children of Abraham.[a] 1 Abraham took another wife named Keturah. 2 She gave birth to Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. 3 Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan. Dedan was the father of the Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim. 4 The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. All of these were the sons of Keturah.
5 Abraham gave all his possessions to Isaac. 6 As for the sons of the concubines whom Abraham had, he gave them gifts and, while he was still alive, sent them far away from his son Isaac eastward, to live in the east country.
Death of Abraham.[b] 7 Abraham lived for one hundred and seventy-five years. 8 Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age after a full life; and he was reunited with his ancestors. 9 His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, near Mamre. 10 This was the field that he had bought from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried near his wife Sarah. 11 After the death of Abraham, God blessed his son Isaac, and Isaac lived near the Beer-lahai-roi.
12 Descendants and Death of Ishmael.[c] These are the descendants of Ishmael, the son of Abraham, whose mother was Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s slave.
13 These are the names of the sons of Ishmael in order of birth. The firstborn of Ishmael was Nebaioth. He then had Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, 14 Mishma, Dumah, Massa, 15 Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. 16 These are the Ishmaelites and these are their names by their towns and their camps. They were twelve princes, each a prince of his own tribe. 17 Ishmael lived for one hundred and seven years. He then died and was reunited with his ancestors. 18 They lived between Havilah and Shur (which lies on the side of the border of Egypt in the direction of Asshur), and each of them held his own[d] against all his kin.
Jacob, the Sinner Who Redeems Himself[e]
Isaac’s Two Sons.[f] These are the descendants of Isaac, the son of Abraham.Abraham was the father of Isaac. 20 Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram and the sister of Laban the Aramean.
21 Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, since she was barren. The Lord heard him, and thus his wife became pregnant. 22 The sons fought with each other in the womb, and she exclaimed, “If this is so, why go on living?” She went to consult the Lord. 23 The Lord answered her,
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples born of you shall be divided.
One shall be stronger than the other,
and the older shall serve the younger.”
24 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twins in her womb. 25 The firstborn was red and totally covered with hair. So he was named Esau. 26 Immediately afterward, his brother was born, holding on to the heel of Esau. So he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.
27 The children grew up, and Esau became an expert hunter, a man who lived in the open country. Jacob, on the other hand, was a quiet man, who stayed among the tents. 28 Isaac loved Esau, for he enjoyed the taste of wild game, while Rebekah loved Jacob.
29 One day Jacob cooked a lentil stew. Esau came in from the countryside and he was exhausted. 30 He said to Jacob, “Let me eat a little of that red soup, for I am famished.” (This is why he was also called Edom.[g])
31 Jacob said, “First sell me your rights as firstborn.”
32 Esau answered, “I am about to die; what good will my rights as firstborn be?” 33 Jacob told him, “Swear it right now.” He swore an oath and sold his rights as firstborn to Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil soup. He ate and drank. Then he got up and left. This is how Esau despised his birthright.
Chapter 26
Isaac Inherits the Blessing.[h] 1 A second famine came upon the land (after the first famine in the days of Abraham). Isaac traveled to Gerar to Abimelech, the king of the Philistines. 2 The Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down into Egypt; live in the land to which I will direct you. 3 Remain in that land for a while and I will be with you and bless you. I will give all these lands to you and your descendants and fulfill the promise I made to Abraham your father. 4 I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars of the heavens and I will give them all these lands. All the nations on the earth will be blessed through your descendants, 5 for Abraham listened to my voice and observed that which I ordered: my commandments, my ordinances and my laws.” 6 Isaac thus dwelt in Gerar.
7 The men of that place asked him about his wife, and he said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say, “She is my wife,” thinking that the men of that place would kill him because Rebekah was very beautiful.
8 He had been there for quite some time when Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, came to the window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah. 9 Abimelech called to Isaac and said, “Surely, she is your wife. Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?”
Isaac answered him, “Because I thought I might be killed on her account!”
10 Abimelech continued, “What have you done to us? It would have been easy for one of the people to lie with your wife and that would have brought sin upon us.”
11 Hence, Abimelech gave this order to all the people, “Whoever touches this man or his wife will be put to death!”
12 Isaac planted a crop in a land and that year he reaped a hundredfold. The Lord had thus blessed him. 13 He became important and continued to prosper until he was very rich. 14 He possessed great flocks and herds and slaves, and the Philistines began to become jealous of him.
15 The Dispute over Wells. The Philistines stopped up and filled in with dirt all the wells that the servants of his father had dug in the days of his father Abraham.
16 Abimelech said to Isaac, “Leave us, for you are much mightier than we are.”
17 Isaac went away from there, and camped in the Valley of Gerar and dwelt there. 18 Isaac returned to dig wells that the servants of his father Abraham had dug and that the Philistines had stopped up after the death of Abraham. He gave them the same names as his father had given them.
19 The servants of Isaac dug in the valley and found a well of living waters. 20 But the shepherds of Gerar quarreled with the shepherds of Isaac saying, “The water is ours!” He therefore called the well Esek[i] because they had quarreled with him. 21 They dug another well, but they quarreled over this one as well, and he called it Sitnah.[j] 22 He thus moved away from there and dug another well over which they did not quarrel. He called it Rehoboth[k] and said, “Now the Lord has given us room so that we might prosper in the land.”
23 From there he went to Beer-sheba. 24 That night the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the God of Abraham, your father. Do not fear for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants on account of Abraham, my servant.”
25 He built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord. He pitched his tent there, and his servants dug a well.
26 The Covenant with Abimelech. Abimelech traveled from Gerar with Ahuzzath his friend and Phicol, the commander of his army, to see Isaac. 27 Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, for you hate me and have sent me away from your midst?”
28 They answered him, “We have seen that the Lord is with you and we have said, ‘Let there be an oath between us, between you and us. Let us make a covenant with you 29 that you will not do anything against us, as we have not molested you but were always good to you and let you go away in peace.’ You are now a man blessed by the Lord.”
30 He prepared a meal for them and they ate and drank. 31 Rising early in the morning, they swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac bade them farewell, and they went away in peace.
32 That very day the servants of Isaac arrived and informed him about the well that they had dug saying, “We have found water.” 33 He called the well Shibah.[l] This is the city called Beer-sheba today.
34 Esau’s Hittite Wives.[m] When Esau was forty years old he married Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite. 35 They were a source of bitterness to Isaac and Rebekah.
Footnotes
- Genesis 25:1 The description shows that the other peoples are not without ties to the patriarch Abraham. In the future, the Midianites and the Sabeans will be named as representatives of pagans who convert (Ps 72:10; Isa 60:6).
- Genesis 25:7 This short account is from the Priestly tradition.
- Genesis 25:12 This summary in the Priestly style is an appendix that completes the story of Abraham; from this moment on, the line of Ishmael disappears from the biblical history. According to God’s promises, the descendants of Hagar are numerous and scattered. The names of the sons of Ishmael are the names of twelve nomadic tribes of northern Arabia; they show a demographic strength equal to that of the twelve tribes of Israel, for in this area they are heirs of the same blessing.
- Genesis 25:18 Held his own: this may also be translated “in opposition to,” thus showing the fulfillment of the prediction found in Gen 16:12.
- Genesis 25:19 In the structure of Genesis the story of Isaac is absorbed into the more distinctive stories of his father Abraham and his son Jacob. The only free-standing section is chapter 26, which has for its subject the handing on to Isaac of the divine promises and blessings. We hear in the chapter an echo of the religious spirit of Abraham (25:21; 26:25; 28:1-4), and we observe also Isaac’s weakness in preferring one son to the other (25:28). On the whole, the information given in Genesis is too sparse to give us a knowledge of Isaac’s personality.
19
Jacob, the immediate founder of the twelve tribes of Israel, will be the outward sign of their unity. In his story, there are, first, two distinct cycles concerning his years as a young man: a Palestinian cycle involving Jacob and Esau (25:19-34; then chs. 27–28; later, 30–31) and a Mesopotamian cycle involving Jacob and Laban, which is inserted into the former. These are followed by the story of Jacob and his sons (from ch. 34 to the end of the Book), with an insert on the posterity of Esau (ch. 36). But within this third cycle the figure of Joseph occupies a predominant place; the events involving him form a story apart (chs. 37, 39–47), although at the end his story and that of the family merge. - Genesis 25:19 The Lord, faithful to his word, grants Rebekah, who like Sarah is barren, the gift of motherhood. Twins are born and God prefers the younger and makes him the heir of the promise (see Mal 1:2-3; Rom 9:10-16). The point here is not personal salvation but a mission to be carried out in this life for the formation of God’s people. The free choices of the Lord do not mean any injustice toward those who are not called.
- Genesis 25:30 Edom means “red” in Hebrew.
- Genesis 26:1 The promises and blessings given to Abraham are continued for his son Isaac. The same Yahwist that had transmitted the episode of Abraham in Egypt (Gen 12:10-20) narrates a similar one for his son, but with greater reticence and moral sensitivity. In the idiom of the time, cousins, such as Isaac and Rebekah were, called each other brothers and sisters. The inhabitants of the area were not, properly speaking, Philistines, since the latter immigrated only later on (13th century B.C.); these inhabitants were the Canaanites, who preceded the Philistines.
- Genesis 26:20 Esek: i.e., “Challenge.”
- Genesis 26:21 Sitnah: i.e., “Opposition.”
- Genesis 26:22 Rehoboth: i.e., “Room Enough.”
- Genesis 26:33 Shibah: i.e., “Oath of Seven.” Beer-sheba: i.e., “Well of the Oath” or “Well of Seven.”
- Genesis 26:34 These verses are from the Priestly source.
Matthew 8:1-17
New Catholic Bible
The Signs of the Kingdom of God[a]
Ten Miracles[b]
Chapter 8
Jesus Heals a Man with Leprosy.[c] 1 When he had come down from the mountain, large crowds followed him. 2 Suddenly, a man with leprosy approached, knelt before him, and said, “Lord, if you choose to do so, you can make me clean.” 3 He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I do choose. Be made clean.” Immediately, his leprosy was cured. 4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one, but go and show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses prescribed. That will be proof for them.”
Jesus Heals the Centurion’s Servant.[d] 5 When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him and pleaded for his help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant is lying at home paralyzed and enduring agonizing sufferings.” 7 Jesus said to him, “I will come and cure him.” 8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. But simply say the word and my servant will be healed.[e] 9 For I myself am a man subject to authority, with soldiers who are subject to me. I say to one ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed, and he said to those who were following him, “Amen, I say to you, in no one throughout Israel have I found faith as great as this. 11 Many, I tell you, will come from the east and the west to sit with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob at the banquet in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
13 Jesus then said to the centurion, “Return home. Your petition has been granted because of your faith.” And at that very hour the servant was healed.
14 Jesus Heals Peter’s Mother-in-Law. Jesus then entered the house of Peter and found Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. 15 He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him.
16 Jesus Drives Out the Evil Spirits.[f] That evening they brought to him many who were possessed by demons. He cast out the spirits with a command and cured all who were sick. 17 This was to fulfill the words of the prophet Isaiah:
“He took away our infirmities and bore our diseases.”
Footnotes
- Matthew 8:1 This section gathers together ten accounts of miracles of Jesus. Interspersed among them are sayings of Jesus about discipleship. This has led some authors to speak of a portrayal of Jesus as “Messiah of the Word” in chs. 5–7 and “Messiah of the Deed” in 8–9. By his sayings and actions Jesus bears witness that evil and sickness are no longer the last word for people, for human beings are not slaves of fate since the goodness of God is manifested in the goodness of Jesus.
- Matthew 8:1 The ten miracle stories found herein are a third of the miracle stories that are told in detail in all the Gospels together. But the New Testament contains repeated references to a thaumaturgic activity that was continual (see Mt 4:23; Lk 4:41; Acts 2:22).
- Matthew 8:1 Leprosy made a person ceremonially unclean as well as physically afflicted. The man with leprosy in this passage technically breaks the Law as he comes to prostrate himself at the feet of Jesus. The Master also breaks the Law when he touches the man and sovereignly decides to heal him. The sick man welcomes Christ’s word, and the kingdom is opened to him. He becomes a model and sign of the Christian made clean by Christ.
- Matthew 8:5 Jesus commends a Roman centurion (leader of a hundred soldiers) for having greater faith than any Israelite and prophesies the ingathering of the Gentiles before healing his servant from afar. This passage shows that the great pilgrimage of peoples toward the kingdom has begun and evokes the beautiful image of the feast wherein all believers are definitively gathered together. Outside of this communion and joy there is only darkness; the “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (a phrase found outside Matthew only in Lk 13:28) describes the anguish of those who have remained insensitive to the call that has been welcomed by the very people they have denigrated.
- Matthew 8:8 Lord, I am not worthy . . . will be healed: these words of the centurion have become those of believers who go to encounter the Lord in Holy Communion.
- Matthew 8:16 Jesus is the Servant announced by Isa 53:4 who will expiate the sins of humankind. By the power of his Word he triumphs over the evil that keeps human beings in bondage symbolized by sickness.
