Why Did Abraham Remarry and Father More Sons?
A good principle: everything is in the Bible for a reason. The problem is that it’s not always clear what the reason is!
After Sarah dies, Abraham remarries and fathers a bunch more sons. Why? And, why does the Bible tell us?
I thought this was a good a guess as any:
“Whether he intends it or not, Abraham’s marriage to Keturah and the sons he produces with her alters the constellation of nations in the region. In addition to the Mesopotamians from whom he came, the Egyptians from whom he escaped, and the Canaanites among whom he lives, Abraham now fathers a host of nations that are closer kin to the children of the covenant….The descendants of these sons become the nomadic peoples of the Arabian Peninsula and the region east of the Jordan. Many of them crop up in later stories, both for good and for ill. Perhaps most important are the Midianites, who figure prominently in the life of Israel. It will be Midianites who rescue Joseph from the pit where his murderous brothers had placed him and sell him into Egypt (37:28); it will be a priest of Midian, Reuel, who takes in the fugitives Moses, escaped from Egypt, and gives him his daughter as a wife (Exodus 2:16ff); it will be the same Midianite, now called Jethro, who tells Moses to establish a law for his emancipated nation of slaves (Exodus 18:1 ff.)… [I]t looks as if Abraham, in his last act, has made the world a little more hospitable for the future of the covenant, blurring somewhat the distinctions between kin and stranger, friend and foe.”
Abraham has secured a great wife for his son in Rebekah, and then his final acts are about making the world a bit less hostile to his descendants. Truly he is a great patriarch.