Abraham, the Father of Israel
Notes on a Typological Life
Nothing in Genesis is there by accident. Moses finely tuned the narrative to tell the story he wanted to tell in exactly the way he wanted to tell it, which is also the way God wanted to tell it.
When people first read Genesis, they often take it as a random collection of significant stories from the lives of the patriarchs. Yet, there is nothing random about it. From my perspective, one of the most fascinating elements of Genesis is the typological nature of Abraham’s life. His life points back to Adam and points forward to the history of Israel and ultimately to the true Israel himself, Jesus Christ.
Genesis details Abraham’s life from chapters 12–25. In Genesis 16–25, the focus of the narrative becomes Isaac’s birth and the passing of the promise to him as the true heir of Abraham. However, Genesis 12–15 is a carefully compacted telling of Abraham’s adoption by Yahweh, leading from the initial promises in chapter 12 to the formalization of the covenant in chapter 15.
In this compact story of Abraham, Moses tells the story of Israel, which is the story of all of the world from creation to new creation.
A Command and Garden Fellowship (Gen 12:1–9)
In 12:1, Yahweh speaks to Abram by issuing him a command and a promise. Abram is only the third person we’ve read about in Genesis to receive this sort of revelation from God. God first issues commands and promises to Adam, and then he does the same to Noah, who is clearly a second Adam. The address of God to Abram identifies Abram as the Seed of the Woman, a new Adam through whom salvation will come (Gen 3:15).
God’s speech is followed by garden fellowship that echoes Eden. Abram travels to the very center of the promised land, and there in the midst of the sacred grove outside Shechem, Yahweh appears to Abram. In both his speech and his appearance, God is identifying Abram as the New Adam and Canaan as the New Eden where he will fellowship with his people. God is pointing back in order to point forward to the ultimate goal of redemption.
Famine, Egyptian Captivity, and Exodus (Gen 12:10–20)
Immediately, Moses shifts to a series of stories in which Abram lives out the entire history of Israel in advance. A famine forces Abram to seek refuge in Egypt. The same thing will happen at the end of Genesis in the life of Jacob and his sons.
After arriving in Egypt, Sarai is taken captive by Pharaoh just as the nation will be enslaved in the book of Exodus.
And how is Sarai delivered? Through “great plagues” (Gen 12:17). God miraculously delivers Sarai and Abram from Pharaoh, and the household sojourns back to the promised land.
Division of the Land (Gen 13)
After arriving in the promised land, Abram and his nephew Lot divide the land between themselves. This foreshadows the division of the land under Joshua. Also, like in the books of Joshua and Judges, the primary question of the narrative is whether or not God’s people will conform to the ways of the Canaanites. The story of Lot, which continues into chapters 18–19, show Lot’s gradual conformity to the Canaanite way of life while Abram remains devoted the Yahweh.
Exile by Mesopotamian Kings and Restoration (Gen 14)
The kings of Mesopotamia invade the valley of Sodom and Gomorrah and capture Lot and his family. They begin to transport Lot’s family to Mesopotamia (the land of Babylon), but Abram, acting like a king himself, fights and defeats the Mesopotamian kings. He then frees and restores his nephew.
Here is where the entire story of the Old Testament is heading: exile. The Babylonians will come and take the descendants of Abraham away to Babylon. This would not have been a foreign concept to Moses either since it is predicted precisely in Deuteronomy 30.
God will rescue and restore them through a kingly Servant (Isa 42-53), but the questions are when, how, and to what extent? Ultimately, the full return from exile will only come through Jesus Christ.
Cutting of the Covenant (Gen 15)
The covenant ceremony in Genesis 15 formalizes the relationship that Yahweh initiated with Abram in Genesis 12. Having surveyed the entire history of Israel (and the world) through the life of Abraham, Yahweh now confirms his promises to Abraham, which will result in the redemption of all of creation and the restoration of an Edenic universe.
Reading Genesis like the Apostles
Certainly, a lot more could and should be said about the typological nature of Abraham’s life, but perhaps this brief sketch is enough to make you alert to many of the things Moses (and God) were doing in the composition of Genesis. I’m convinced that the only way to read Genesis like the apostles is to read it as a unified whole that tells a typological history of the world and the patriarchs.
When Paul, for example, says that the promise to Abraham and his offspring was “that he would be heir of the world” (Rom 4:13), he is not adding to or expanding Genesis. He is interpreting Genesis as a unified whole. He is reading Abraham’s life as pointing back to Eden and pointing forward to the history of Israel and the redemption of creation, and this greater story is the authorial intent of the book of Genesis.