Hand under Abraham's thigh?

[Seadog92]

Genesis 24:1-9 has Abraham asking his servant to swear an oath by placing his hand under Abraham's thigh. Has anyone found any cultural or historical context for such an oath? I'm sure it must have been commonplace at the time, but are there other X-Biblical examples of this form of oath?

 

[MyCrows]

Another example of this is found in Genesis 47:29, where Jacob requests that his son Joseph not bury him in Egypt.

 

[Phil D.]

Not an area of any expertise for me, but out of curiosity I did some preliminary research, which brought up these unexpected results (some aspects may be lurid to a modern Western mind): The same oath is found in Gen. 47:29. Many commentators seem to agree "under the thigh" is a euphemism for loins or genitalia (cf. Gen. 35:11 KJV, Exodus 1:5 NASB). Whether the placement of the hand was actually under the thigh or somewhere proximate is debated. Jewish sources are also divided on the matter. There is an interesting summary of various concepts here. The literal (non-euphemistic) version is apparently first found in some of the oldest Egyptian pagan mythology (pre 20th Century BC), specifically in the account of Osiris.

 

[lynnie]

Lol. Down memory lane here.

We were in what seemed a wonderful church to our naive and trusting charismatic zeal about 42 years ago as I recall. The preaching was great and God was "moving". The church was growing rapidly from new converts, not just "sheep transplants", especially with teens, and the mid week prayer meeting was the highlight of our life. My husband became an elder along with another guy who is a national celebrity name in charismatic circles these days.

Fast forward a few years, and Mr. kind caring wonderful pastor turned out to be adopting spiritual children with this holy covenant. I looked it up in Keil and Delitzsch at the time, who said it was the most sacred of all the Jewish covenants. The hand was placed on the body where a man's life came from.

When the pieces of the puzzle got put together, this guy had had some kind of experience of being adopted by a "spiritual father" many years ago, and it had a huge positive impact on his life supposedly. The problem was, he was only adopting women now as his spiritual daughters, and "loved them like a father". His wife actually got mad at women later for accusing him of doing something wrong.

My husband and the other elder went after this hard, but I don't think the pastor ever admitted to doing anything wrong. These women all lacked a good Christian father and he was being like St Paul to be fatherly to them, and this was the sacred biblical covenant. He said it would be immoral to put the hand "on the shaft", but "the hand on the testicles was biblical." He did finally agree to stop ministering to women alone and ever doing this again, but six months later some gal blabbed about being in the office with him and what happened, and it all blew up and we left. Later the man was forced to leave. Eventually we found out that probably at least two women did commit adultery with him, maybe more.

I had wanted to leave for many months before we did, but my husband felt like he was supposed to protect the flock, and he didn't want to just leave and let more women be used and led into this perversion by a wolf in sheep's clothes. It was profoundly educational for me, in that those last months we saw some true healing "miracles" and powerful gifts of the holy spirit (or demons) operate, and I was so bewildered. I understand this subject better now, and how a man in great immoral sin can outwardly seem so "anointed".

My guess is- strictly a guess- that the covenant OP speaks of is still being used. We live in a time where deceiving spirits are endemic in the church, most especially with charismatics. It is right there in the bible, it was a holy covenant, and who knows how treacherous men could be using it.

I haven't thought about it or talked about it in a long time. But you asked : )

 

[John Nyberg]

Lol. Down memory lane here.

We were in what seemed a wonderful church to our naive and trusting charismatic zeal about 42 years ago as I recall. The preaching was great and God was "moving". The church was growing rapidly from new converts, not just "sheep transplants", especially with teens, and the mid week prayer meeting was the highlight of our life. My husband became an elder along with another guy who is a national celebrity name in charismatic circles these days.

Fast forward a few years, and Mr. kind caring wonderful pastor turned out to be adopting spiritual children with this holy covenant. I looked it up in Keil and Delitzsch at the time, who said it was the most sacred of all the Jewish covenants. The hand was placed on the body where a man's life came from.

When the pieces of the puzzle got put together, this guy had had some kind of experience of being adopted by a "spiritual father" many years ago, and it had a huge positive impact on his life supposedly. The problem was, he was only adopting women now as his spiritual daughters, and "loved them like a father". His wife actually got mad at women later for accusing him of doing something wrong.

My husband and the other elder went after this hard, but I don't think the pastor ever admitted to doing anything wrong. These women all lacked a good Christian father and he was being like St Paul to be fatherly to them, and this was the sacred biblical covenant. He said it would be immoral to put the hand "on the shaft", but "the hand on the testicles was biblical." He did finally agree to stop ministering to women alone and ever doing this again, but six months later some gal blabbed about being in the office with him and what happened, and it all blew up and we left. Later the man was forced to leave. Eventually we found out that probably at least two women did commit adultery with him, maybe more.

I had wanted to leave for many months before we did, but my husband felt like he was supposed to protect the flock, and he didn't want to just leave and let more women be used and led into this perversion by a wolf in sheep's clothes. It was profoundly educational for me, in that those last months we saw some true healing "miracles" and powerful gifts of the holy spirit (or demons) operate, and I was so bewildered. I understand this subject better now, and how a man in great immoral sin can outwardly seem so "anointed".

My guess is- strictly a guess- that the covenant OP speaks of is still being used. We live in a time where deceiving spirits are endemic in the church, most especially with charismatics. It is right there in the bible, it was a holy covenant, and who knows how treacherous men could be using it.

I haven't thought about it or talked about it in a long time. But you asked : )

It seems like charismatic movements take the descriptive parts of scripture as prescriptive at times.