Tuesday's Timeline: Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob's sons

This past week we finished reading about the life of Abraham. The narrative of his life was quite  dramatic and the drama continued with his son, Isaac, and Isaac's sons. When we finished chapter 30 last week we were reading the portion of Genesis where Jacob and his wives and concubines were birthing sons that would constitute the heads of the 12 tribes of the Children of Israel. We read many instances of Godly individuals who felt that for some reason God needed their help to bring about His desires.  There's even a bit of open defiance when Isaac determined to make Esau the chosen son in the place of God's choice, Jacob.  Can you imagine the bitter tone of Isaac's voice when he told Esau after being tricked into blessing Jacob, "yea, and he shall be blessed,"?[1] Jacob was wrong to trick his father but his father was wrong to think that he could trick God.  There are still people who think they can thwart God's plans.  (Good luck with that.)

In review, the timeline last week stopped at Abraham.  He was born about the year 1949 post-creation, which even secular authors postulate to have been about 2100 BC. 

Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born [2] so we can say that Isaac was born in year 2049 post-creation, 393 years post-flood, or approximately 2000 BC.

Isaac was 60 years old when his sons were born [3] which means that Jacob and Esau were born in year 2109 post-creation, 453 years post-flood (remember from last week that Shem, the son of Noah was still alive), which would be approximately 1940 BC.

We know that Jacob was more than 40 years old when he went to Haran to take a wife from the descendants of Bethuel, Rebekah's brother.[4]  This would bring us to about 1900 BC. It would be at about this same time that Shem, the son of Noah, died.

We're even told about news reaching Abraham and Sarah concerning family members back in Haran.[4]  If nothing else this proves that the family found some way of keeping track of each other while living far apart.

Moses was a very careful record keeper, giving us the account of nations for many of the descendants of Noah.  He listed them even though they weren't of his own direct line.  He listed the children of Shem, Ham, and Japheth as well as several of the lesser-known lines through their lines as well some of the more well-known descendants that would later become adversaries of the Children of Israel.  These include the descendants of Lot, and the other sons of Abraham, and even Esau.  Moses filled out all the family sheets.  He was a genealogist after my own heart!


Sources:
[1] Genesis 27:33
[2] Genesis 21:5
[3] Genesis 25:26
[4] Genesis 26:34; 27:46; 28:1-7
[5] Genesis 22:20

Note:  All calculations for dates post-creation or post-flood and any resulting mathematical errors are purely my own.