We know the destination, the covenant, the near-sacrifice of Isaac... but what about the very beginning?
According to Legends of the Jews, a vast compilation of Jewish folklore by Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, Abraham's birth was anything but ordinary. It was a birth shrouded in fear, prophesied in the stars, and targeted by a ruthless king.
See, Nimrod, the king, wasn't just some ruler. He was a cunning astrologer, and the stars told him a troubling tale: a man would be born who would challenge his authority and expose the falsehoods of his religion. Imagine the paranoia! What would you do?
Nimrod's response, according to this legend, was drastic, to say the least. Driven by terror, he consulted his advisors. Their advice? Infanticide. Build a massive house, gather all pregnant women, and kill every newborn boy. Girls were to be spared and celebrated.
The text describes the construction of this monstrous house – sixty ells high (that’s about 90 feet!) and eighty ells wide (roughly 120 feet!). A chilling symbol of tyranny and fear. Seventy thousand children, the legend says, were slaughtered. Seventy thousand! Can you even fathom such a tragedy?
As Midrash Rabbah poignantly asks, "Is there injustice with God?" (Genesis Rabbah 38:7). The angels themselves were horrified. They cried out to God, "Seest Thou not what he doth, yon sinner and blasphemer...who slays so many innocent babes?"
God, of course, saw. "I neither slumber nor sleep," He responded, "I behold and I know the secret things and the things that are revealed." Justice, it seems, was on its way.
This is where Terah, Abraham's father, enters the story. He was married to Emtelai, and she was pregnant. Three months into the pregnancy, Emtelai began to show, and Terah grew suspicious. He feared breaking Nimrod's decree.
"What ails thee, my wife?" he asked, noticing her pale face and swollen body. She tried to dismiss it, but Terah wouldn't be fooled. He insisted on examining her. But here's where the miraculous intervenes. When he touched her abdomen, the child shifted, hiding beneath her breasts. Terah felt nothing. "Thou didst speak truly," he said, relieved. A miracle, plain and simple.
But Emtelai knew she couldn't hide the pregnancy forever. As her time approached, she fled the city in terror. She found refuge in a cave in the desert. It was there, in that hidden sanctuary, that she gave birth to a son – our father, Abraham.
The cave, it's said, was filled with light from the child's face, a light as brilliant as the sun. Yet, joy was mixed with fear. Emtelai lamented, knowing the danger her son faced under Nimrod's reign. "Better thou shouldst perish here in this cave," she cried, "than my eye should behold thee dead at my breast."
In a heart-wrenching act of both love and desperation, she wrapped the baby in her garment and left him in the cave. "May the Lord be with thee," she whispered, "may He not fail thee nor forsake thee." And so, the future father of a nation, the man who would challenge empires and redefine faith, began his life alone in a cave, his fate hanging precariously in the balance.
What does this origin story tell us? Perhaps it's a reminder that even the most extraordinary lives often begin in the most humble – and perilous – of circumstances. And that even in the face of seemingly insurmountable evil, hope, like a newborn child, can find a way to survive.
Terah married Emtelai, the daughter of Karnabo, and the offspring of their union was Abraham. His birth had been read in the stars by Nimrod, for this impious king was a cunning astrologer, and it was manifest to him that a man would be born in his day who would rise up against him and triumphantly give the lie to his religion. In his terror at the fate foretold him in the stars, he sent for his princes and governors, and asked them to advise him in the matter. They answered, and said: "Our unanimous advice is that thou shouldst build a great house, station a guard at the entrance thereof, and make known in the whole of thy realm that all pregnant women shall repair thither together with their midwives, who are to remain with them when they are delivered. When the days of a woman to be delivered are fulfilled, and the child is born, it shall be the duty of the midwife to kill it, if it be a boy. But if the child be a girl, it shall be kept alive, and the mother shall receive gifts and costly garments, and a herald shall proclaim, 'Thus is done unto the woman who bears a daughter!'" The king was pleased with this counsel, and he had a proclamation published throughout his whole kingdom, summoning all the architects to build a great house for him, sixty ells high and eighty wide. After it was completed, he issued a second proclamation, summoning all pregnant women thither, and there they were to remain until their confinement. Officers were appointed to take the women to the house, and guards were stationed in it and about it, to prevent the women from escaping thence. He furthermore sent midwives to the house, and commanded them to slay the men children at their mothers' breasts. But if a woman bore a girl, she was to be arrayed in byssus, silk, and embroidered garments, and led forth from the house of detention amid great honors. No less than seventy thousand children were slaughtered thus. Then the angels appeared before God, and spoke, "Seest Thou not what he doth, yon sinner and blasphemer, Nimrod son of Canaarl, who slays so many innocent babes that have done no harm?" God answered, and said: "Ye holy angels, I know it and I see it, for I neither slumber nor sleep. I behold and I know the secret things and the things that are revealed, and ye shall witness what I will do unto this sinner and blasphemer, for I will turn My hand against him to chastise him." It was about this time that Terah espoused the mother of Abraham, and she was with child. When her body grew large at the end of three months of pregnancy, and her countenance became pale, Terah said unto her, "What ails thee, my wife, that thy countenance is so pale and thy body so swollen?" She answered, and said, "Every year I suffer with this malady." But Terah would not be put off thus. He insisted: "Show me thy body. It seems to me thou art big with child. If that be so, it behooves us not to violate the command of our god Nimrod." When he passed his hand over her body, there happened a miracle. The child rose until it lay beneath her breasts, and Terah could feel nothing with his hands. He said to his wife, "Thou didst speak truly," and naught became visible until the day of her delivery. When her time approached, she left the city in great terror and wandered toward the desert, walking along the edge of a valley, until she happened across a cave. She entered this refuge, and on the next day she was seized with throes, and she gave birth to a son. The whole cave was filled with the light of the child's countenance as with the splendor of the sun, and the mother rejoiced exceedingly. The babe she bore was our father Abraham. His mother lamented, and said to her son: "Alas that I bore thee at a time when Nimrod is king. For thy sake seventy thousand men children were slaughtered, and I am seized with terror on account of thee, that he hear of thy existence, and slay thee. Better thou shouldst perish here in this cave than my eye should behold thee dead at my breast." She took the garment in which she was clothed, and wrapped it about the boy. Then she abandoned him in the cave, saying, "May the Lord be with thee, may He not fail thee nor forsake thee."
