Today I read Genesis 25 where Abraham dies at the age of 175 and then Ishmael dies at the age of 137. Abraham marries again at the end of his life and is able to have several more sons but Isaac is his heir and it is with him that God renews His covenant that He made with Abraham. This chapter also gives the generations of Isaac. I have wondered that so many Biblical women seem to have trouble bearing children. I mean in that generation alone you had Abraham's wife Sarah, then Rebekah Isaac's wife and then Jacob's wife Rachel. I wonder what caused so many women to be unable to bear children, or at the very least have such a hard time bearing children. We don't know if they had difficulty getting pregnant at all or maybe they couldn't carry a child to term, we just don't know. But it seems to be a common malady of the times.
This chapter also contains the story of Jacob and his brother Esau who sells his birthright to Jacob for a meal of pottage. I have always felt there must be more to this story than what we know about it. Because the way the story reads on paper is that Jacob is a total jerk. I mean his brother comes in from hunting, exhausted and asks his brother for some food and Jacob basically asks him for everything he has and will inherit. I mean that's one steep price for a bowl of pottage! I just have to believe that there is more to the story than this. I don't know if it's something Rebekah helped Jacob come up with because she loved him more than she did Esau, again we don't know. But Jacob most definitely comes across as an uncaring and unloving brother if nothing else. Some day we will know the full story and I think it will be quite interesting. I've always felt that reading the scriptures, especially the Old Testament is like reading the cliff notes version anyway. I think we get the very basic barebones of the story. I love history and stories and hope that when I finally learn the truth of it all and all the little bits and pieces that have been lost over the millenia, it will have been worth the wait. Until tomorrow.
May I suggest that the reason the stories of Sarah's, Rebecca's and Rachel's infertility are so poignant is not that it was a common malady, but rather the opposite. EVERYONE else got pregnant so easily, why couldn't they. Perhaps because the Lord wanted to teach lessons. One of which is that "all flesh is in mine hand." (D&C 61:6) and that he has power or life/birth and death. Another lesson might be that instead of the birthright going to the firstborn as was expected in the patriarchal society, the covenant child was the one the Lord chose. Infertility was not a common malady then, any more than it is today. I know the longing for marriage and children; once when I was particularly discouraged I felt the Spirit say to me "Sometimes you have to want something for a long time to be ready to fully appreciate it."
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