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Abram and Isaac and parts of Jacob's life interest me a lot. Abram was too old to be reproductive, his wife was diagnosed unfruitful. Isaac's wife was unreproductive. Jacob was a very smart guy; but he loved a lady and worked so hard to pay off the lobola (dowry). But this lady joined the line of biblical people who were unfruitful. No doubt she was among the most beautiful of her time. But beauty does not avert unfruitfulness.
The Bible says Sarai, Abram's wife was barren (Gen 11: 30), this type of barrenness was qualified: she had no child. This implies that the condition had some history. It was reported again in the Bible that Isaac's wife was barren (Gen 25: 21). The interesting thing with unions is that it takes both the man and woman both to be fruitful, for this state to show. Jacob's wife was barren: Rachel was barren ( Gen 29: 31). But you know what? Rachel shook herself out of her condition. She would weep: "give me children or I die!" She cried to her husband as if he was God. Jacob did well though to correct her in this error. The lady, though being wrong, was right in her disposition. Have you noticed that when God is about to change the course of history, He squeezes it out of what seems humanly impossible? Do you remember the time before Samuel was born? You see the way God chose to remove the cry of His people? In those days, the word of the Lord was rare. The word was not placed on the platform as it is meant to be, so the Bible records there were no visions. (1 Sam 3: 1). The people were set up to fail. " For lack of knowledge the people perish", they are sent into exile, they are rejected from high offices, their children are forgotten (Isa 5: 13, Hosea 4: 6). God had to do something to remove this; He squeezed possibility out of the impossibility. A barren woman was coopted to the rescue!! The Bible was quick about this; "Hannah had no children" period (1 Sam 1: 2). What an introduction!! The simple lesson in this piece of writing is to let us meditate on this - that God is able to make a way through the wilderness, for His petitioning, praying people. God is able to change a line of impossible conditions into a segment of possibilities. |
