Search the encyclopedia

Search the Bible

165 articles found for “Abraham's servant”

• Genesis 28:20-22

  [Bible Verses]

  The vow Jacob made after his dream at Bethel, promising that if God would keep him, the LORD would be his God and he would give a tenth of all he received. The passage is often cited as an example of tithing before the Mosaic Law, and interpreters differ over the nature of a vow made with conditions attached.

• Genesis 22:12-14

  [Bible Verses]

  Genesis 22:12-14 is the passage in which God stops Abraham as he is about to offer Isaac and has him offer a ram in his son's place. It gives rise to the name "Jehovah-jireh" ("the LORD will provide"). The passage is frequently cited and preached as a text about the testing of faith and as a foreshadowing of substitutionary atonement.

• Genesis

  [Bible]

  Genesis is the first book of the Old Testament. It recounts the creation of the world, the fall of humanity, the Flood, and the stories of Israel's ancestors from Abraham to Joseph. It contains fifty chapters.

• Canaan

  [Bible]

  Canaan is the land lying between the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It is the "Promised Land" that God pledged to give to Abraham and his descendants, and it is the principal setting of Old Testament Israel's history.

• Hittites

  [Bible]

  The Hittites were one of the peoples of the land of Canaan mentioned in the Old Testament. Ephron, who sold Abraham the field containing the cave of Machpelah, and Uriah, one of David's mighty men, were Hittites.

• Zohar

  [People]

  Zohar was a Hittite mentioned in the Book of Genesis, the father of Ephron, who sold Abraham the field containing the cave of Machpelah. Scripture names him only as the patronymic attached to Ephron's name.

• Ephron

  [People]

  Ephron, the son of Zohar, was a Hittite who appears in Genesis 23. He owned the field and cave of Machpelah near Hebron and sold them to Abraham for four hundred shekels of silver, and the cave became Sarah's burial place.

• Gerar

  [Bible]

  Gerar was a town in southwestern Canaan, between Gaza and Beersheba. It is the setting of the accounts involving Abraham, Isaac, and Abimelech king of Gerar, and it is especially known for the story of Isaac's wells.

• Reu

  [People]

  Reu is a figure in the genealogy of Shem in Genesis 11. He was the son of Peleg, the father of Serug, and the great-great-grandfather of Abraham. In the New Testament, his name appears in Luke's genealogy of Jesus.

• Genesis 20

  [Bible]

  Genesis 20 recounts how Abraham, while sojourning in Gerar, presented his wife Sarah as his sister. Abimelech, king of Gerar, took her, but after God warned him in a dream, he returned her.

• Genesis 19

  [Bible]

  Genesis 19 recounts the arrival of two angels in Sodom, the escape of Lot's household from the city, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the birth to Lot's two daughters of the ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites.

• Genesis 9

  [Bible]

  Genesis 9 is the chapter in which, after the Flood, God blesses Noah and his sons and establishes a covenant with the rainbow as its sign. It also recounts Noah's drunkenness, the curse on Canaan, and Noah's death.

• Psalm 105:16–22

  [Bible Verses]

  This passage retells, as an act of God's providence, the story of Joseph, who was sold as a slave and imprisoned before becoming ruler in Egypt. It is frequently cited in discussions of suffering, refinement, and providence.

• Kadesh-barnea

  [Bible]

  Kadesh-barnea was a place where the Israelites stayed for an extended period in the wilderness after the Exodus. It is known as the site of the twelve spies' report, the people's unbelief, and the incident of the waters of Meribah.

• Primeval History

  [Bible]

  Primeval history is a scholarly term for Genesis 1–11, the part of Genesis that precedes Abraham and recounts the beginnings of the world and of humanity as a whole rather than of a particular people.

• Judaism

  [History]

  Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people. Rooted in the faith of ancient Israel, it worships the one God according to the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic tradition. Christianity arose on the foundation of Judaism's scriptures and religious tradition.

• Nebaioth

  [People]

  Nebaioth was the firstborn son of Ishmael, the son of Abraham. His sister became the wife of Esau, and in the Book of Isaiah his name designates the tribe descended from him.

• James 2

  [Bible]

  James 2 urges believers not to show partiality based on outward appearance and declares that faith without works is dead, citing Abraham and Rahab as examples.

• Tithing Controversy

  [Controversies]

  A debate over whether the tithe, the giving of one-tenth of one's income, remains an obligation for Christians today.

• Ai

  [Bible]

  Ai was a town in the central hill country of Canaan, east of Bethel. It is best known from Joshua 7–8 as the place where Israel was first defeated because of Achan's sin and then captured the city in a second battle.