Isaac Blessing Jacob - Govert Flinck, c. 1638 With his son Isaac married off, the old widower Abraham figured he might as well get around to getting himself married again.  This was easy to do, since Abraham had a lot of property and was very old, which is a combination that a certain kind of woman finds very appealing.  Keturah was one such woman.  She and Abraham had six kids together.  They lived to see their grandchildren and great-grandchildren be born.  Well, we know Abraham did.  After the mention of her bearing six children, Keturah disappears from the narrative, and there’s no telling what happened to her.  Abraham himself lived to be 175.  Odds are Abraham treated his second wife well, in light of the fact that he had been decent enough to set up the sons of his concubines with nice little nest eggs and sent them off to the east to get their lives going.  Anything Abraham had that didn’t go to his concubines’ sons (and, possib...

 "The Banishment of Hagar and Ishmael" by Adriaen van der Werff Yahweh made good on His promise and Sarah had her son right on time, despite her age and the lack of in vitro facilities in the Negev.   Abraham got to name him, obviously, since only a man would come up with a name like Isaac.   Abraham, something of a micromanager, also decided it should be up to him to circumcise the boy, and at eight days, he did it.   No parent in their right mind would trust a hundred-year-old man to serve as a mohel, but Abraham was enough of a control freak that he wasn’t bothered by this in the least.   Sarah, who was around her brother/husband Abraham’s age, was over the moon, and told as many people as she could. Sarah nursed Isaac, and on the day Isaac was to start solid food exclusively, Abraham threw a banquet, and everyone had fun.   This was a problem, because one of the people who had fun was Ishmael, the son Abraham had had with Hagar the sl...

Abram and his wife, Sarai, wanted kids but couldn’t have them.  Since there were no fertility clinics anywhere nearby, Sarai decided the only way to save the marriage was to do what would destroy a lesser marriage: Abram was to have sex with the maid.  The maid’s name was Hagar, a lovely name by ancient Egyptian standards, and proved to be much more fertile than Sarai.  Hagar got pregnant quickly and started to get uppity with Sarai.  Sarai blamed Abram, who was in a great position.  He told Sarai, “You told me to sleep with her.  This is all your fault.  I’m blameless.  Now go get me another beer.”  Thus the problem was resolved. Sarai’s problem was not resolved, though, so she dealt with it the best way she knew how: she started heaping abuse on Hagar, who eventually got so fed up with the situation, she ran off.  While running off, a messenger of God appeared before her and told her to go back to work and all the abuse that work ent...