A Sinful Blessing

The story gets more and more complicated. God tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. But, when he goes up on a mountain and is about to kill his own son with a knife, one of the angels of God comes to stop him and tells him this:

"Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me." Genesis 22:12

It's like as if God was only testing Abraham to see whether he would do anything for him no matter what. It's interesting. Supposedly, it's not right to kill anyone whatever the cause (especially your own son). It's actually a sin. But, God was grateful that Abraham was about to kill his own son just for him. I'd say it's a bit selfish. They even bless Abraham and all his future descendants just because of that:

"That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies." Genesis 22:17

Anyway, later on, Abraham sends his servant to go get a wife for Isaac. And, so he does. After Isaac marries the woman (Rebekah), Abraham dies and everything is left for him. Now, here comes the interesting part where a new story begins. Rebekah and Isaac give birth to two sons, Jacob and Esau. Isaac likes Esau more since he hunts, and Rebekah prefers Jacob just because. And, of course there has to be some kind of problem in this kind of situation. Isaac asks Rebekah to bring Esau so that he can bless him. But, Rebekah brings Jacob instead and since Isaac was turned blind, he accidentally blesses Jacob.

I've noticed that all the problems in Genesis always occurred because of the flaws of humans (mostly because of their curiosity or their selfishness). It's like as if each little story of the Genesis is showing us our bad side so that we learn what is right and what is wrong to do. In other words, it's like teaching us many little morals.

Besides being written in long unnecessary riddles, the book is quite easy to understand. But, as I read it more detailed, I found out many different things that I haven't noticed before. My point is that The Bible is a great book to take time reading carefully, not only because of your religion.