Africans in Scripture –  Readings for Black History Month

Tirhaka:

      I am Tirhaka.  In Isaiah 37:9 and Second Kings 19:9 I am called the King of the Ethiopians.  Actually, I am a Black Pharaoh, the fourth member of the 25^th Egyptian dynasty that ruled all of Egypt and beyond.  Israel desperately hoped that I would send my army to intervene in their struggle against Assyria.

                                                                                                Ref: Isaiah 37:9 and Kings 19:9

Hagar:

      I am Hagar, the Egyptian slave-girl of Sarah, wife of Abraham.  My story runs through Genesis in chapters 16, 17, 21, and 25.  Since Sarah was barren, she gave me to Abraham as a concubine.  She had legal jurisdiction over me and had the power to order me to have intercourse with her husband.  She also had the right to claim my offspring as her own. 

      However, when I did become pregnant, Sarah was angry that I had been able to do that which she could not.  She treated me so badly that I ran away.  But an angel of God came to me and told me that I was to name my son Ishmael and that I would have countless descendants through him.  My experience was so powerful that, ever after, I called God El-roi, One Who Sees Me. 

      I returned and Ishmael became Abraham’s much beloved son.  Later, Sarah herself bore a son, Isaac.  Both of our sons were children of God’s promise.  But the covenant was to be transmitted through Isaac.  So Abraham went along with Sarah’s insistence that Ishmael and I be gotten rid of. 

      We were sent out into the desert alone.  When our water ran out, I laid Ishmael under a solitary bush and walked a distance away.  I couldn’t bear to watch my son die.  But once again, the angel of God appeared to me.  I was reminded that God had promised that Ishmael would found a great nation.  I was told to go back to Ishmael and hold him.  I did, weeping.  And when I opened my eyes I saw a well.  We drank from it and decided to stay there in the wilderness. 

      Ishmael has grown strong and true.  I got a wife for him from my homeland of Egypt.  He now has twelve sons–12 princes.  True to the promise of One Who Sees Me, countless are the descendants of Hagar, the Egyptian slave-girl.

                                                                                                                        Ref: Genesis 16, 17, 21, and 25

Mark 1: 21-28

And they went into Capernaum; and immediately on the Sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.  And they were astonished at Jesus’ teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.  And immediately there was in their synagogue someone with an unclean spirit who cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”  But Jesus rebuked the spirit, saying, “Be silent, and come out!”  And the unclean spirit, convulsing the person and crying with a loud voice, came out.  And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching!  With authority Jesus commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey.”  And at once Jesus’ fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.