Abraham

The holy Righteous Abraham is the patriarch with whom God made His covenant and whom Scripture calls the father of all who believe. The Church honours him for his perfect faith and obedience and places him at the head of the Holy Forefathers of Christ. He lived around 2000 BC, and his story is told in the Book of Genesis, chapters 12 to 25. Scripture also calls him the friend of God.

The call

His first name was Abram. He was born in Ur of the Chaldeans, the son of Terah, in a world that worshipped idols. Terah set out with his family toward Canaan but stopped at Haran, where he died. There God told Abram to leave his country, his kin and his father's house and to go to the land that He would show him, promising that a great nation would come from him and that in him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. At seventy-⁠five, Abram obeyed and set out with his wife Sarah and his nephew Lot, passing through Canaan as far as the oak of Moreh and Bethel, where he built altars to the Lord.

The Apostle Paul shows, in the epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians, that Abraham believed God and that this faith was counted to him as righteousness. For this reason he is called the father of those who believe.

The covenant and Melchizedek

A famine forced him to go down into Egypt for a time, where the Lord protected him and Sarah. Returning to Canaan, Abram parted from Lot, who chose the plain of the Jordan, while he stayed in Canaan. When the kings from the north took Lot captive, Abram set out with his servants, freed him, and on his return was met by Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High. Melchizedek brought bread and wine and blessed him, and Abram gave him a tenth. The Fathers see in Melchizedek a foreshadowing of the priesthood of Christ.

When Abram still had no son, God showed him the sky and told him that his descendants would be as the stars. He made with him the covenant of circumcision and changed his name to Abraham, "father of many nations", and Sarai's name to Sarah. Abraham had Ishmael by the handmaid Hagar, but the son of the promise was to be born of Sarah.

Hospitality at Mamre

At the oak of Mamre Abraham received three strangers with joy, running to meet them, giving them water and bread and a calf prepared for them. They told him that Sarah would bear a son within a year. The holy Fathers saw here a hidden revelation of the Holy Trinity. On this basis the icon of the Hospitality of Abraham was painted, also called the icon of the Holy Trinity.

At that time Abraham also interceded earnestly for the city of Sodom, asking that it not be destroyed if a few righteous men were found in it. Isaac, the child of the promise, was born when Abraham was a hundred years old and Sarah ninety.

The offering of Isaac

The greatest trial came when God asked him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah. Abraham obeyed without doubting, telling his servants and his son that God Himself would provide the offering. On the altar, as he raised the knife, the angel of the Lord stopped him, and in place of the child a ram caught by its horns in a thicket was offered. The holy Fathers saw in this a foreshadowing of the voluntary sacrifice of Christ, and in the wood carried by Isaac a foreshadowing of the Cross. God then renewed the promise to bless all the nations.

Repose

Sarah died at Hebron at a hundred and twenty-⁠seven, and Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah from the Hittites to bury her. He then sought a wife for Isaac and found Rebecca among his own kin. He had further sons by Keturah, but all that he owned he left to Isaac. He died at a hundred and seventy-⁠five, "in a good old age", and was buried in the cave of Machpelah beside Sarah by Isaac and Ishmael. The cave of Machpelah at Hebron, where the patriarchs are buried, is still honoured today.

Veneration

In the Gospel, "Abraham's bosom" is the name given to the resting place of the righteous, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The Orthodox Church commemorates Saint Abraham on 9 October, together with the righteous Lot, his nephew. He is also recalled on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (between 11 and 17 December), together with Lot and the other ancestors of Christ according to the flesh.