(Written
by Sheila Gail Landgraf)
So, the story hiding within the story is that Abraham married Keturah shortly after Isaac married Rebekah.
There is
much fascination around the thoughts as to who Keturah really was. It seems that Abraham was 140 when he married
her; that would mean that they were husband and wife for thirty-five years,
since Abraham died at a ripe old age of 175.
We
see Keturah mentioned in the scriptures of the Torah as the one Abraham married
after Isaac’s wedding, as if she were a whole new person in the story, but many believe she had a past history with
Abraham. Some think she was actually Hagar with a
new name. It seems that the Midrash also leans toward the theory that Hagar was
Keturah, and her name was changed due to the fine qualities that she had
developed over a lifetime of living on her own.
One has to
stop here to remember that God changed the names of Abraham and Sarah, and it
seems highly possible that this would also have been the case with Hagar. Yet, none of this is explained exactly, so all we can
do based on the solid scriptures is speculate. It is almost as if things were deliberately vague regarding Keturah.
In the questions around Keturah there is also that nagging question of whether or not Abraham actually married and/or divorced Hagar in the first
place, or if she was simply a concubine and he just sent her away.
The Midrash
teaches that Abraham DID divorce Hagar when he sent her away (which would indicate that he was actually legally married to her also.) It states that as
she sat by the well and cried out to God that she
demanded for God to look down on her shame and bring her justice. This same story teaches that God heard her
prayer and much later granted her this justice by speaking to Abraham after
Sarah’s death and commanding him to take back his divorced wife, Hagar.
It is also
hinted in the Torah scriptures and repeated in the Midrash that Isaac too actually initiated
this action of his father’s remarriage. The
story notes that Isaac, having just married Rebekah, said to himself “I have taken a
wife, while my father is without a spouse.
What did he decide to do about this? He went and
brought Keturah to Abraham. The one who had inadvertently caused them to be separated in the first place, now brought them together again.
This
traditional teaching is based on Genesis 24:62 that reads “Isaac had just come
back from the vicinity of Be’er-la-hai-ro’i”.
So; many think that it is highly possible that was when Isaac brought
Hagar back to live with Abraham again, probably hoping she would keep him company and he would not be so lonely since Sarah had died. We know
that same area is where she had established a life when she left Abraham’s camp, and it was where she had been living for most of her days since her time with Abraham. It was also where several of her experiences with God
had taken place, and where her eyes had been opened, hence how the place had
been given its name. (Genesis 16:14) A lot had happened to Hagar at this well. Perhaps Hagar had learned even more by living beside this well than the scriptures tell us. There
seems to be a drastic change between the first woman we knew as Hagar and the woman
we meet later named Keturah. God had done a
work in Hagar and this had changed her name.
Let’s
ponder this and go a bit deeper with it.
When Abraham sent Hagar
and Ishmael away on the day of Isaac’s weaning, it
is certainly very possible that he did give her a certificate of divorce. Sarah had been very angry and wanted Abraham
to be rid of this servant and her son forever.
She wanted it to be legal so there could be no question that Isaac was
the only heir of Abraham.
Hagar
was left alone in the wilderness to care for her son without anyone helping her
for years and years. Some think Abraham
had mercy on her and sent her in the direction of the well, knowing that if she
found water, she would be saved. Still,
she was lost and on her own without the identity of Abraham's name for years and
years. It is said that he sent help to
her, but had promised Sarah that his foot would never step down from his camel
on Ishmael’s property. So when he
visited with Ishmael, it was not inside Ishmael’s home. It was by indirect contact or infrequent
face to face encounters for many years.
Let’s
even take these thoughts about Abraham and Hagar’s divorce a step further and
ask another question: Was this not a
very similar situation to the time when God sent Israel away with a divorce and
dispersed them into the world and they became lost without any sign of their
true identity?
God had
married Israel at Mt. Sinai on Pentecost when the cloud had settled over the
mountain like a wedding canopy. God gave the people His covenant in writing on
stone called The Ten Commandments. Moses,
acting in the place of the priest, had written out the marriage certificate,
the Ketubah, containing all of the words, and all the people who had cleansed
their clothes and consecrated themselves for two days, stood before God on the
third day and agreed to this marriage covenant.
The
very first commandment was “thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” No sooner were the words written down and
read aloud than the people were building and worshiping a golden calf. They were committing spiritual adultery
almost as soon as they took their wedding vows.
How did God chose to handle this?
Though His heart was broken, after many repeated episodes of the same thing, He gave these rebellious people a writ of
divorce. God cannot dwell with pagans.
We read
about this in Jeremiah, Chapter 3. The
prophet speaks in parable and allegory to describe all of this. He speaks of how Israel had been untrue to
God by worshiping other gods. The two
parties had created a covenant together of the most serious kind. It was an extension of the original covenant
God had given to Abraham.
A
marriage contract is always based on compete faithfulness of both the bride and
the groom. This was a blood
covenant. Moses had built an altar of
twelve stones to represent each of the twelve tribes. He had read the contract aloud and sprinkled
the people with half the blood of the sacrifices and poured the other half of
the blood on the altar.
In
those days when a blood covenant was made it meant that if one party broke the
covenant it was punishable by death (by the shedding of a party of the
covenant’s own blood.) Yet, serious as it was, in no time at all
the people had broken the covenant.
The
words “thou shalt have no other gods before me” were the same as a groom saying
to his bride, “You will have no other husband but Me.” When the people sinned by worshiping the
idol of the golden calf, they committed spiritual adultery. They were untrue to God. They lost their purity before Him. This broke the covenant with God and ended
the marriage. At that point, the people
were doomed to die for their sin of adultery and rebelliousness.
How odd
to think that the God of Heaven had married a harlot, but that was the case
with Israel!
We
could stay within the bounds of our present story and look at Abraham and Hagar
and say “How odd that Abraham would have married an Egyptian slave girl who
would eventually rebel against his household! He
divorced her and sent her away when she was rebellious against his house. Hagar and Ishmael had treated Sarah and Isaac grievously. Her own rebellion had caused her
divorce.
The
story of Hagar and Abraham continues to reflect the story of God and Israel. It is not the story of Isaac. Isaac represents the people who did not rebel
against God in spiritual adultery. It is
about another son, the son of Hagar who was very different from the son of
Sarah. Ishmael was wild and
rebellious. Ishmael paid no attention to
the laws and rules of Abraham’s household even though when he was but a young boy God had given him mercy and saved him beside a wellspring of water. Ishmael remained rebellious, but it seems that Hagar had begun to change.
Hagar
wandered in the circumstances that Abraham had decided for her until she came
to rest by a well where God spoke to her and satisfied her thirst as well as the thirst of her son. This nourishment from the water of the well
and the words from heaven to her here in this place made her realize her worth
as a child of God. Miracles can do that
for all of us. Sometimes things just
happen that we know were impossible without God’s total intervention, and those
things tend to strengthen our belief and help us to hold on until we are spiritually
stronger and able to overcome our circumstances.
There
at the well provided by God, Hagar found her purpose and destiny. She became the woman that God had intended
for her to be all along. Her
circumstances helped her to understand need and suffering. This developed a trait of compassion and love
for others that had not come naturally to her before. Now that she had known thirst, she shared the precious water from the well with all those passing by,
and they maintained life from it and were grateful. They paid her good wages for this water and
Hagar began to support herself and her son from the bounty of the one good thing
that God had given them of their own.
We all
have one thing in our lives that we know is our greatest blessing from
God. Usually when we become grateful for
that one thing and turn it completely over to God, He multiplies that one thing
into a way for us to become survivors and over-comers in a hard, cold and
uncaring world. For people of God living
in the modern world today, a way to over-come tribulation and survive is
critical. It is a trait we must learn
from Hagar. We must find out and
understand how she came to be Keturah.
Keturah was a woman who was prepared to become a bride.
God's love gives our hearts the capacity to grow and reach out to those who have even more
needs than we do. In this unselfish act,
we begin to find our blessings and we cultivate love.
That is exactly what had happened to Hagar as she waited by the well and
tended to her son. That is the very
thing that turned her into Keturah. She
developed compassion and love for all of mankind. She forgave Sarah and Abraham for putting her
into circumstances beyond her control. She did not question God's destiny for her life any longer, and she began to fulfill the true
destiny that God had designed especially for her to be.
A whole
new woman appeared; one much different than the one that had left the home of
Abraham so many years ago. The change
from Hagar to Keturah prepared her to become acceptable as Abraham’s wife
again.
So it
seems that after the death of Sarah Abraham found Hagar again, after many years
of not knowing her, and he saw how beautiful she had become, both inside and out. It was said by the people in the land that her deeds were
as pleasant as incense, and that is part of the meaning of her new name. Where she once had been bitter and harsh Abraham now saw her kind ways. He saw that she had not neglected her only
son, but had raised him to be strong. He
was amazed at the business woman that she had grown to be, smartly buying and
trading with the merchants that came and went through the land, always selling
them the right to use the water in her well; but always keeping the well for
her livelihood. Some think that she also sold spices to the merchants that she had grown and cultivated in her garden, but the well was her main source of income. Even her garden was watered by it.
Let’s not forget – it was
Abraham’s well. He never took it from
her, but let her use it freely and this provided a living for her while she was away from him. (Does this
remind you of how God sent The Holy Spirit to His people when Jesus had to go back to Heaven?)
Hagar/Keturah had become quite wealthy and prosperous, and she had kept herself moral and pure. She had never even looked in the direction of another man after her relationship with
Abraham. She had very strong strong morals and very high standards. She had made it on her
own, with God’s help. She had relied on no other man to solve her problems and had risen above her harsh circumstances with dignity and grace. Abraham recognized this change of character and admired the very valuable woman that she had become.
He saw so many new qualities that had come to take root in her life since
the days of the Egyptian slave girl from so long ago. This totally different woman had a new
name. Hagar was gone. Now they called her Keturah. So Abraham remarried Keturah and they had six sons.
There
is another story about a prophet named Hosea that had an experience with a rebellious
wife. Like Abraham’s marriage to Keturah,
his marriage was also a picture of God’s marriage to Israel, only an even better
comparison.
Hosea and Gomer (his wayward
wife) had three children. Gomer went out
and committed adultery and eventually she found herself standing in the slave
market shamefully waiting to be sold as a slave.
God instructed Hosea to go find her and redeem her. Hosea did this and redeemed her for fifteen
shekels of silver and one-half an omer of barley.
In a
similar fashion, God instructed Yeshua to go find the lost sheep of Israel and to redeem them. He did this. He bought them back from the slave market of sin for thirty
shekels of silver and his own flesh and blood.
When we
read of the death of Abraham, who died at 175 years old, we see a picture of
Isaac and Ishmael burying their father together. How very strange to know that the two sons
who were kept apart during the life of Abraham came together in the death of
Abraham. We had a hint of this reconciliation when
Isaac brought Keturah back to Abraham after Sarah died. Maybe this reconciliation of the two sons
came even before Abraham died, perhaps some time after the Akadah? We do not know exactly when, but now we see two very different men coming together in peace in order to bury their father.
Some believe that in his old age Abraham had
worked very hard to reconcile the two grown men to one another as brothers. Perhaps as he grew older and older Abraham
did not want to die with the thought that the two that he loved most on earth were
enemies, and this situation had been partially of his own making; because he had divorced
Hagar and separated them.
When
Isaac and Ishmael come together in grief over losing their father, we are
reminded of the split between the tribes of Israel that happened much later in
history, where the ten tribes were separated from the two tribes and both
groups, once separated. wound up being exiled to different places, with ten tribes totally losing
their identity within the family of Israel and only two tribes eventually returning from exile to Jerusalem.
Many
today believe that one day these two parts of the nation of Israel will rediscover
their identity as one family and re-unite in the power of The Holy Spirit under a shared belief that Yeshua is Messiah and the true Son of God. A day may come where they will honor their Father and become One again.
We know that it is promised that Yeshua, like the shadow we see of Isaac in our story, will bring His family together once more; and Israel will again become
one with God. It is a day we all hope and pray for, a day when we will all find the peace of God that has been so elusive for so long.
Will that time be like the time at the end of Abraham's life? Will it too be a long slow process with many twists and turns? Will it
take that long for two brothers of one Father to become friends again and agree on
the truth of their family history?
But
wait….God had divorced Israel, at least the scriptures indicate that He
divorced all but the tribe of Judah. How
could these two divided pieces of one nation ever reunite again? It would break God’s own law.
Abraham
was able to remarry Keturah (Hagar who had changed), but she had remained
faithful and had not gone after other men.
We know that the reason the lost sheep were divorced from God in the
first place was that they were committing spiritual adultery, or they were
worshiping idols and using pagan practices in their lives. God could not endure this, hence the writ of
divorce.
It is said in God’s own law
(Deuteronomy 24: 1-4), in the Ketubah that was given at Sinai, the document that contained the
ten commandments for all to follow on the wedding day; that a man could not
remarry a woman he had divorced if she had been wed to another, even if that
person died.
The only way for God to be
able to legally remarry the lost sheep of Israel would be for Him to die, thus ending that part
of the covenant. (A covenant that was broken only ended with the death of one party of the covenant.) If God died and was
resurrected to new life it would then be possible for Him to remarry those of
Israel that He had previously divorced. That is
exactly what happened.
Wonder
of all wonders, there was a way and it was legal! Romans
7:2-3, written in the words of Paul explains it:
“For a
woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he lives,
but if her husband be dead she is loosed from the law of her husband.”
If the first husband dies, the woman would be
free to marry another man, even if she had been married to someone else in the
meantime (spiritual adultery.) We know
the first husband of Israel was God, and we know He gave most of Israel a writ
of divorce. We know a portion of Israel has been lost
and wandering around in the wilderness of the world for years and years (like Hagar) not even realizing their true
identity any more. We also know the only way that God could legally remarry these “lost sheep” was to die
first and then be resurrected to new life.
That is
just what happened! This was exactly what took place when God came as Jesus Christ and gave His life on a
cross for the redemption of sins. When that happened the lost ten
tribes were legally free to remarry if they chose to do so.
It was Jesus who died, but Yeshua and God are
One, are they not? God paid for His
Bride with His life. He separated a part
of himself to come to earth to live in the flesh so that He might live and die
for His Bride, Israel to be made whole again.
Once Israel is made whole, the Gentiles may also be saved by the
atonement of this same precious blood of Christ. In this act the Son reconciled the Father
back to his original wife, and it was completely legal and in keeping with
the Law. The first marriage, the one to Sarah was still in tact, but she had died making it legal for God to marry again. The second marriage to Hagar had received Sarah's blessing, but it had not been God's will. It was ended with the death of God and made new through the Resurrection. Jesus said "I make all things new." It is still the same Ketubah, or marriage contract with a new and deeper covenant and commitment and now, this time, the bride has a choice. She is free, no longer a slave. She can remarry if she chooses to do so.
Now the
decision is in the former wife’s court.
Will she come back to be reconciled with her husband? God allows for free will. Will she work with her first and true love to
bring ALL under the cloud of covering, the wedding canopy of God?
Will the Bride chose the Groom and start to prepare herself for the next wedding? Two thousand years have ticked off from the clock in order for us to come to the time of this decision. Is the bride becoming prepared? Is she ready? In the first wedding the bride spent two days getting ready, washing her clothes and consecrating herself to meet God. On the third day the wedding took place. We are approaching the third day of humanity on this earth after the death of Christ on the cross. Is the bride ready? Yeshua is going to return!
Yes, it
is true that Yeshua came to bring ALL men to God, but He came FIRST
to the lost
sheep of Israel. Until God’s household
was in order again the whole family could not be complete and legal. Because Israel had sinned and caused a divorce to happen Yeshua now had to die to make this remarriage possible. He has now been resurrected into new life, and
He is waiting on his Bride to be ready.
Do you
see how much of this story is like the story of Abraham and Hagar/Keturah? They had already been married once before and
were divorced. Hagar was sent away never
to return. Things looked pretty hopeless. Hagar had gone back to Egypt
and back to her old pagan ways for a while, but these things had died in her
heart because she had seen the truth right there beside the well and she knew
of God. She remembered how she had lived in God's ways with Abraham’s house under the covenant blessings, and she once again decided on her own accord to return to the
ways of God in her life; only this time she kept God’s laws from within her heart instead
of just because that was the proper thing for a servant to do in Abraham’s
house. She was free to make a choice and she made the RIGHT choice. This is what turned her into
Keturah! This is what made her ready to
be reunited with her husband.
It was
like God had been preparing her heart to be re-united with her former husband all along. His son initiated this and encouraged their
reconciliation. Once the father was again happily married the son could go on with his life and live out the purposes that God had planned for him.
This is
just a small portion of all the essence of what is contained in the few small paragraphs of scripture that we know of Abraham’s remarriage to Keturah.
Perhaps we will hear of them again later as we now go back and continue to study the
love story of Rebekah and Isaac. Whether
we do or not, just know that Abraham died a happy man having lived a fulfilling life
before God.
We hear that at the end of his life Abraham came with the fullness of his days and was gathered to his people. How many times do you hear of such a happy ending? And the best part of all is that Abraham's ending, just like any child of God, was only his new beginning in eternity.
