Secret Number 28

Abraham’s Legal Wives

Audio read by Tom Parks - MP3

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After Sarah died, Abraham (being 137 years old) married Keturah. He had six children by her. But his body was supposed to have been "dead" (unable to beget children) when Abraham was 99 years old. Did his virility revive some 38 years later?: Abraham was so old at 99 years of age that Sarah knew he couldn’t engender children (Genesis 18:12). Paul said that Abraham’s body was then "dead" (Romans 4:19) – "as good as dead" (Hebrews 11:12). Isaac had to be born in a miraculous way because neither Abraham at 99 nor Sarah at 90 could produce children. But when Sarah died some 38 years later, Abraham took a wife by the name of Keturah and had six children by her (Genesis 25:1-4). How could children be produced by Abraham when he was 137 years and older? The answer is simple. The Bible says that those children, along with Ishmael, were "the sons of the concubines" (Genesis 25:6). Note that "concubines" is plural. Both Hagar (the mother of Ishmael) and Keturah (the mother of Abraham’s other six children) had both been concubines of Abraham many years before Isaac was born. In that early period (when Hagar and Keturah were concubines) is when these other children were born to Abraham. But after Sarah’s death, Abraham simply made Keturah his full wife at that time, her six children being full grown by this time (Genesis 25:1).