The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: A Novel

Chapter 1

In the beginning,
when God made
the heavens
and the earth,
the earth was formless,
the earth was empty.
Darkness covered
the face of the deep!
But there was there
the Spirit of God!
It hovered over
the water surface!
Then God spoke:
"Let there be light!"
And there was light!
And God saw the light,
that it was good.
God divided the light
from the darkness.
Light he called "day",
Dark he called "night".

There was evening,
there was morning.
That was Day 1.

+

The creation story. On Day 2, God made the atmosphere. On Day 3, God made the dry land and plants and fruits and trees and all that. On Day 4, God made the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens. They are supposed to mark holy days, days, and years.

"God saw that it was good," Moses kept writing after God made something. All God did was speak the command, and that was all. Command obeyed! And what God has thus created, it was very good. "There was evening. There was morning. That was Day 4."

On Day 5, God made marine animals and winged birds. Then God makes a blessing to them:

"Be fruitful! Multiply!
Fill the waters in the seas!
Birds, multiply on Earth!"

On Day 6, God made the rest of the animals. All spoken. But then God spoke, he spoke to another Person:

"Now, now, let's get to the purpose of this world.
Let us make human beings in our image.
They will look like us, just like us!
They will reign over the fish in the sea,
birds in the sky, the livestock, wild animals,
even the small ones that scurry on the ground."

So that's what they did. God did not speak humans into existence. No, he personally created man, out of dust! Behold, when he was done, he breathed into the first man's nose, and the Spirit of God came upon him. Man became a living being!

God made a Woman out of one rib of Man. He gave them a garden, a paradise! The Paradise of Eden. God gave them superiority over all the earth—for its good, of course. That was all they knew: Good.

God married them.

This is why a man leaves his father and mother,
in order to unite with his wife,
and they became one flesh.

Both Man and Woman were shameless. They had innocence!

But God decided to test them, to see how faithful they would be to him. God gave them free will. They can decide. They have the right to decide. So, God had two trees in the midst of this Paradise. One was the Tree of Life. The other was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad.

The command of God:

"Of every tree of the garden,
you may freely eat.
But of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad,
you shall not eat.
You shall surely die on the day
from that tree, you eat."

God is withholding from them knowledge of Good and Bad.

Then Moses writes that Day 6 ends, and God refreshes on the delight of his creation on Day 7. Seven—the number of completeness! Then God blessed Day 7, and made this day, this day out of the seven of the week; he made Day 7 a holy day.

That is the Sabbath—the day of rest, not just for Man and Woman, but for their descendants.

Until the fatal flaw they chose, all was well. They had the animals at their disposal—not for food, no. They had plants for food. God blessed them and said to them that they are at liberty to eat the plants. All other animals had that also. It was so.

But Man and Woman disobeyed God. They were misled by a serpent, a talking serpent at that! The serpent's promises are vain promises to them both:

"No, you will not die.
God knows that when you eat of it,
your eyes will be obeyed,
you will be like gods,
you will know good and bad."

And they ate the forbidden fruit! This choice! It caused sadness in Heaven. God went to confront them for this sin. But they hid from him. They lost their innocence. They finally showed out, and God asked, "Why were you hiding?"

The man said, "I heard your voice, and was afraid."

God asked, "Did you eat the forbidden fruit from the tree?"

The man blamed his wife, and Woman blamed the serpent. But all three are guilty of sin, nonetheless. All three received the natural punishment for sin. But God promised that sin will end when a Descendant of Woman would crush the true serpent's head, but the serpent bites the heel of this Descendant. But it will all work out in the end for God.

God planned for their redemption from sin and its result. God promised them a Savior he would appoint—a Messiah.

Sadly, Man and Woman had to leave Paradise. No more Tree of Life for them. There must never be an immortal sinner. Now, they had to live off their sweat. They had to work for their food. And their children would be divided as to whether they would serve God or self—this is ultimately against God. Cain, for example, served himself. Abel served God. Cain hated Abel and killed him for his virtue.

But there were people who loved God, and to some, God spoke. Enoch, for example, walked with God. After pleasing God to a high degree for 300 years, God took him alive into Heaven!

The people were so disobedient that God actually was sorry for making humanity. So... after some hundreds of years after sin existed—and with that, death—, people went so degraded because of the true serpent. Man and Woman were dead, but their descendants were so corrupt! Oh, the horrors! Oh, the idolatries!

God decided to sweep clean the Earth and start over. But, God divinely saved one family for their righteousness. He had them make a large wooden ship. They entered it with all God-made species of animals, just enough for them to reproduce after the great flood ended. And the flood came with the rain.

But even after the global flood has ended and the family and the animals are back on the new Earth, sin was not swept out. Eventually, it came back to humanity. God himself admitted, "The thoughts of people are tended to evil from childhood."

About a hundred years later from the flood, some people decided to go to this plain. They, led by Nimrod, decided to make a great city and tower to make a name for themselves. God was left out of the question.

To make an example of them, God made them speak in different languages. He did it with his Archangel. Hence they scattered. One group spoke one language, another spoke another. They scattered around Earth.

Well, some remained in the area, especially Nimrod. They named the city Babylon. People of other groups follow their godless example. As if no one cared about God!

God finally decided to make a remnant of this wicked humanity; this Earth for the most part is controlled by the true serpent. The true serpent is trying to keep a pure Descendant from coming so that he would not be defeated, and hence the prophesy God made to Woman would never come true. He is a cruel figure, you understand. God made him pure with the other angels. But this angel rebelled and took with him some of the other angels. God had to expel them from Heaven. They plan to wreck humanity. They plan to wreck the plan of redemption God has for humanity.

God found a good man. He lived in Ur of the Chaldeans. His name was Abram. From him, the Messiah would come. God himself said so to him.

Abram lived in an idolatrous generation. His own family was idolatrous. Idols abounded. Idols still abound. But God said this to him, like 430 years after Moses pens the book:

"Get out of your country.
Get out from your family.
Get out from your father's family.
Get out towards a land I will show you.
I will make of you a great nation.
I will make of you a blessing.
I will make of you a great name.
I will make of you a living blessing.
I will bless the one who blesses you.
I will curse the one who curses you.
In you and in your future descendants,
all the families of Earth will find a blessing."