The Patriarch’s Song

R.G.A. Anderson

I am the very model of a Patriarch of Israel

God sent me off to pitch my tents in Canaan twixt Ai and Bethel

’Mid famine wife and I and all our jolly staff to Egypt fled

She said she was my sister and so ended up in Pharaoh’s bed

My nephew Lot, a clever chap, can even tell tomorrah’s date

But only just was he released from Sodom and Gomorrah’s fate

We failed to have a kid – tried hypno, IVF, Viagra too –

Then God gave us a son – so I could roast him on a barbeque!

Then God gave us a son – so I could roast him on a barbeque!

Although I am a sinner and my past behaviour’s really pants,

God richly blessed and made with me the first of His great Covenants

His grace to me – imputed righteousness from faith– means all is well

I am the very model of a Patriarch of Israel

His grace to me – imputed righteousness from faith– means all is well

A servant chose my wife for me when supping at a water well

When famine struck I didn’t flee to Egypt but – ironically

Still acted like my father and was truthful – economically!

And when Rebekah’s sweet caress revealed this low deceit of mine

Enraged became our host (a king) Abimelech the Philistine

Although at first this noble lord, this paragon, protected us

God blessed us with great wealth and soon the grubby wretch ejected us.

God blessed us with great wealth and soon the grubby wretch ejected us.

Although I was a prat about my gorgeous wife to fib – and worse

I was incompetent to tell which of my kids was which (next verse)

God promised me my offspring to a wondrous multitude would swell

I am the very model of a Patriarch of Israel

God promised me my offspring to a wondrous multitude would swell

My hungry bro’ his birthright for some soup I did induce to sell

Deceit with soup and hairy chest, my mother was complicit in

So I my father’s blessing was successful in elicitin’

I dreamed at Bethel of a lift, a stairway reaching heavenwards

I fathered many sons the number soon reaching eleven wards

But that would be to miss the one about whom I’m inclined to gloat

That Joseph with his fabulous Armani technicoloured coat

That Joseph with his fabulous Armani technicoloured coat

For although my grandpa Abe, my father Ise, and I were sinners, we

Were blessed by God in what (B.C.) was the seventeenth century

And so in matters exegetical, instructive, ancestral

I am the very model of a Patriarch of Israel

And so in matters exegetical, instructive, ancestral

I am the very model of a Patriarch of Israel