How did Abraham become God’s favorite?

We have already seen that getting man to create his offsprings was not an easy task. The Spirit of God had to actively assist each man to produce the first born. The years it took for the first person of a generation to become a father was methodically recorded. When it took one hundred and thirty years  for Adam to become a father, Seth took one hundred and five years and Me-thu’se-lah  took the longest time, one hundred and eighty seven years. Ma-ha’la-le-el took the shortest time of sixty five years.

Once the ability to procreate was acquired then he was able to give birth to more children. And during Noah’s time the necessary changes were made and man started becoming more and more independent in creating offspring. Noah’s son Shem became a father two years after the flood, at the age of one hundred years.

Gradually man started to bear children by around thirty years of age though they needed the assistance of the Spirit of God. Shem’s son Ar-phax’ad took only thirty five years and the lineage Sa’lah, E’ber, Pe’leg, Re’u, Se’rug and Nahor became fathers at around thirty years.

When the Spirit withdrew assistance Te’rah was not bearing children and assistance had to be provided to Te’rah also and he became father at seventy years of age.

In the case of Abram it was decided that man had to stand on his legs. He told Abram ‘I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shall be a blessing. I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered’.

Abram was asked to offer sacrifice to God and was made to sleep deeply and the Spirit came down as a smoking furnace and a burning lamp and some more changes were made in him so that he had the ability to bear children. (Genesis 15: 9-18)  Hagar, the maid bore him Ish’ma-el when he was eighty six years old. God‘s angel blessed  Hagar ‘I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.’ Later on God himself blessed Ish’ma-el saying to Abram ‘I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation’.

Abram was asked to walk before God to be made perfect again when he was ninety nine years old. Abram was renamed Abraham and God made a covenant with him for his descendants and blessed him to be exceedingly fruitful and promised to make nations out of him and bring kings out of him. Circumcision was the key to make man perfect and Abraham was asked to circumcise all males.

Abraham fathered Issac at the age of one hundred years without any assistance.

In Abraham God was pleased because he was the first man to become father on his own. God was confident that from Abraham onwards man could stand on his own legs.

The rest of people were again destroyed when brimstone and fire were showered upon Sodom and Go-mor’rah except Lot and his two daughters. Lot was also made perfect and he was made to sleep with his own daughters.  An act of incest was allowed to happen.

Now there were two kinds of people of Earth; the descendants of Ish-ma’el, Issac and Lot who were made perfect under the direct supervision of the God.

The rest were the descendants of Ham and Ja’pheth, the other children of Noah, descendants of the other sons and daughters of Shem (the first son of Noah), the descendants of the Sons and daughters of Ar-phax’ad other than Sa’lah, likewise the descendants of children other than the first borns till then.

In the case of Jacob God had to wrestle with him to make him perfect.

This is the first stage of mankind, Infancy. And now it  was sailing through that stage smoothly. What are the other stages of mankind?