As Genesis marches on, we are introduced to new people, patriarchs and matriarchs, whose lives are in some ways very different from our own, but in other ways are similar.

In this episode of Abide, a Maxwell Institute podcast, we meet Isaac and Rebecca, who push us to think about what our responsibilities are in our families,

and how we can understand people and their faith in all their complexity.

My name is Joseph Stewart. I'm the public communication specialist at the Neil A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University.

Christian Heel is a research fellow at the Institute, and each week we will be discussing the week's block of reading from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Come Follow Me curriculum.

We aren't here to present a lesson, but rather to hit on a few key themes from the scripture

block so as to help fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission to inspire and fortify Latter-day

saints in their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage the world of religious ideas. Today we are joined by one of our

research assistants, Carolyn Lohman, an ancient Near Eastern history and Hebrew Bible major here

at VYU from Southern California. After Carolyn graduates, she plans to be a seminary teacher. Welcome,

Carolyn, to abide. Thanks for having me. It is our pleasure. Now, Christian, we're looking at Genesis 24 to 27 today.

What's going on in these chapters?

Abraham, who's been our companion for the last few episodes, recedes into the background in this

week's reading.

Yes, we learn that he remarries and has a large family with his

new wife, Coutura, presumably a daughter of the Canaanites, and we also hear briefly about

Ishmael's posterity, but this is now the story of Isaac, son of Abraham. Abraham is certainly

generous to the other sons sired by concubines, but he ultimately sends them away as they grow up

and willed all that he owned to Isaac. Perhaps he wanted to avoid the kind of infighting

over position and power that will shape the stories of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Abraham's last act is to ensure that his chosen bloodline stays within the clan. So he

commissions his faithful servant by covenant to get a wife for his son from the land of Abraham's birth.

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