Abraham's
wealth
When Abraham
was very old he sent his senior servant on a journey to obtain a wife for
his son Isaac. When the servant arrived at the home of Abraham's relatives,
he introduced himself by saying:
I am Abraham's
servant. God has blessed my master abundantly ( מְאֹד
), and he has become
rich ( וַיִּגְדַּל
). God has given him sheep and cattle, silver and
gold, male and female servants, and camels and donkeys. My master's wife
Sarah bore my master a son in her old age, and he has given him everything
he owns. (Gen.
24:34-36)
Wealth and
inheritance are two keynotes of Abraham's story. He was not born into this
wealth--he was not independently wealthy--but accumulated his wealth through a combination of
hard toil, business acumen, and good luck. Upon leaving Haran as a younger
man, a mere 75 years old, he took with him the servants and other possessions
he had already worked to acquire as part of his father's household (or, micro-economy), as well
as what he had simply inherited. In other words, he arrived in Canaan with
considerable wealth. He did not, however, squander that wealth but continued
to grow his household resources.
Abraham
used all the means at his disposal to advance his wealth, including, it would
seem, his wife. A short time after first entering Canaan and moving his nomadic
household to the Negev, a severe famine drew him further south to sojourn
in Egypt. While there he passed off Sarah as his sister in order to ensure
his own safety and good fortune. (Gen. 12:13, 16) As a result, he came to own more
sheep and cattle, camels and donkeys, and servants. When Pharaoh deported
the rascal:
Abram went
up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he owned.... Abram
became very wealthy ( כָּבֵד מְאֹד
) in possessions and in silver and gold. (Gen. 13:1-2)1
How wealthy?
According to just one measure, he possessed a private army of 318 trained
soldiers born into his household. (Gen. 14:14) In addition to the servants
born into his household, we are told he had also purchased servants from foreigners
with his money. (Gen. 17:23, 27) A reasonable estimate, then, might put
the total number of servants implied by this account at over 1000. Hence,
very wealthy,
easily a 'billionaire' by today's standards.
Abraham's
wealth was portable; he moved his tents from place to place as circumstances
or opportunities demanded.2 He eventually
settled at Hebron. While living at Hebron he was drawn into a military conflict;
he and his trained soldiers successfully recovered all the property (
רְכֻשׁ ) and
people that had been seized from the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. At this
point the king of Sodom wanted to make a deal with Abraham: give me the people,
you take the property. To which Abraham replied:
I will not
take anything belonging to you, not even a thread or the thong of a sandal,
lest you say, I made Abram rich ( הֶעֱשַׁרְתִּי
). (Gen. 14:23)
Abraham
refused the patronage of the king, and in doing so made clear his own claim
of responsibility for the wealth he had accumulated. Abraham, maybe the first
self-made man!
Abraham's
wealth included a large number of male and female servants. These servants
(or slaves) were both the property of their master and persons
( הַנֶּפֶשׁ
)3 with a
place of security and entitlement within the household economy. Whether born
into the household or purchased from outside, they were citizens of the household.
Their roles and relative positions varied from the tender of the herd, to
the food preparer, to the nurse, to the trained soldier, to the household
steward, to the wife of the master.
They might
even inherit the household of their master: Eliezer of Damascus, the senior
servant, was the presumptive heir to Abraham's wealth until the birth of his
biological son. Abraham called him the "son of possession of my household"
(i.e., heir to my household) and the "son of my household who is my heir."4 He was also a trusted servant, steward of all the household
property, and entrusted with the important task of journeying to find a wife
for Abraham's son.5
The male
servants might participate in the political life of the household: in Abraham's
case, they were party to the covenant made by their master and thus were circumcised
as the sign of their membership in the covenant people (Gen. 17:27). It is
not clear whether their descendants automatically inherited this covenant
membership (Gen. 17:21 suggests a limitation), but as long as they remained
with the household their status was secure.
The female
servants might play an even more significant role: they were sometimes taken
as wives (or concubines) by the master and their sons could inherit. I say could because in some
cases their sons were dispossessed (Hagar; cf. Gen. 25:6) while in other cases
their sons were full heirs of the household (Bilhah and Zilpah, Jacob’s
servant-wives).
The availability
of water has always been an essential resource. For Abraham’s semi-nomadic6 household in the hill country, wells provided the water
necessary to sustain life and livelihood. Both ownership of the wells and
knowledge of their locations added to his wealth. While the wells themselves
were not portable, they supported a livelihood that required the movement
of other forms of wealth from place to place.
“Then
Isaac dug again the wells of water they had dug in the days of his father
Abraham... and he called them by the same names as his father had called them.”
(Gen. 26:18) The wells were subject to disputed ownership, even sabotage,
and thus required protection and periodic repair. Ownership of wells meant
control over the nearby pasture lands. Wells were recorded by name to identify
their locations, and were part of the wealth passed from one generation to
another. “Abraham gave all that he owned to Isaac. But to the sons of
the concubines, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son,
while he was still living, eastward, to the east country.” (Gen. 25:5-6)
Isaac was the sole heir to his father’s wealth: his livestock, his silver,
his slaves, and his wells.
The matter
of inheritance points to a broader understanding of Abraham’s wealth. For
Isaac was heir to more than livestock, silver, slaves, and wells. Even though
Abraham did not own any land, apart from a burial plot, he passed on to Isaac
the promise of: (a) all the land of Canaan and more (Gen. 13:12-17, 15:18-20),
(b) a great name and a legacy of blessing (Gen. 12:2), (c) descendants beyond
number (Gen. 13:16, 15:4-5), (d) a great and singularly chosen nation (Gen.
12:2, 18:18-19), and (e) an everlasting covenant with the Possessor (
קֹנֵה ) of
heaven and earth (Gen. 17:9; cf. 14:19).
In addition,
Abraham passed on another legacy: a way of life consisting in the faithful
practice of righteous and just precepts. “For I chose him in order that
he will command his children and his household after him to keep the way of
the Lord to practice righteousness ( צְדָקָה
) and justice ( מִשְׁפָּט
) in order that the Lord will bring upon Abraham
what he spoke to him.” (Gen. 18:19; cf. 26:5, Neh. 9:8)7 Abraham’s legacy was a practice: doing what was right
and just, according to what God commanded him. When the Queen of Sheba praises
Solomon, she singles out this same practice: “Blessed be the Lord your God,
who delighted in you, to set you on the throne of Israel..., to practice justice
and righteousness.” (1 Kings 10:9) When the prophet Isaiah recalls Abraham’s legacy, he
recalls the pursuit of righteousness and the devotion to justice, not as vague
principles but as core values embodied in commandments, or law. “Listen
to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you
were cut and to the quarry from which you were dug; look to Abraham your father,
and to Sarah who gave you birth. When I called him he was one, but I blessed
him and made him many.... Pay attention to me, my people, and hear me, my
nation: Law ( תוֹרָה ) will go out from me, and my justice I will make a light to
the nations.” (Isaiah 51:1-2, 4) The land, the greatness, the blessing,
the descendants, the chosenness, and the covenant: all these reached their
culmination in Abraham’s true wealth, his faithfulness to God’s commandments
in the practice of righteousness and justice, which would be given for “a
light to the nations.”
1. Cf. Gen. 26:13, The man [Isaac] became
rich ( וַיִּגְדַּל
) and continued
to grow richer until he became very rich ( גָדַל מְאֹד
).
2. He located, within the first ten years after arriving in Caanan,
at Shechem, Bethel, the Negev, Egypt, the Negev, Bethel, and Hebron. In later
years he maintained base points at Hebron and Beersheba (Gen. 22:19), where he is said to have resided
( יֵּשֶׁב ) and owned property: at Hebron, a burial plot, at Beersheba,
a well. Contrast this to Gerar, where he sojourned ( יָּגָר ) as a guest
in “the land of the Philistines” (Gen. 21:34).
3. Gen.12:5; cf. Gen. 14:21, 46:26. On the dual nature of the slave,
see M.I. Finley, The Ancient Economy, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973, pp.
62-63.
4. Here "son" ( בֶן
) probably means one "born" to the household.
5. This is based on the reasonable assumption that the senior servant
of Gen. 24 is the same person as Eliezer of Gen. 15. Even if that is not
the case, each of these servants were placed in positions of trust and respect.
6. Semi-nomadic in the sense that, (a) they lived in tents, (b)
they herded livestock as the primary means of livelihood, (c) Abraham did
not own land other than a burial plot (according to the Priestly source) and some wells, but (d) the household
maintained base residences at Hebron and Beersheba, where presumably they
conducted business and/or planted crops.
7. The citation of Gen. 18:19 is particularly significant, for it
is from the earliest thread of the Abraham narrative, commonly known as the
J source.
