Tag: Abraham

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6 January. Genesis chapters 19-21

At the end of the last chapter of yesterday’s reading, the story turned suddenly to that of the destruction of Sodom and its neighbouring towns. Here is Abraham the trader, using haggling skills that he has no doubt used many times in his life to buy or sell animals or other goods.  But this time he is haggling to save lives – not quite disinterestedly, for his nephew Lot lives in Sodom.  He stops the bargaining at ten – possibly the size of Lot’s family?  And God agrees not to destroy the town if only ten people are righteous. God’s mercy is great, but it has its limits – it turns out that not even that number are available to save their community.

 

Even allowing for the passage of time and different cultures, as I hinted yesterday, I still find the attitudes to women in these chapters astonishing.  Is Lot really saying that he will let his betrothed-but-still-virgin daughters be raped rather than his guests?  Or is this irony – “you know I couldn’t possibly give my daughters, still less would I give up my guests”?

In the next chapter (20) we see the “my sister not my wife” deception played out again, just as with a previous ruler. Has Abraham not learnt his lesson yet, that trust in God must overrule any earthly fears?   Fortunately this time the king does nothing to Sarah – perhaps not surprisingly as she is now an old woman!  Another storyline repeats itself with the second banishment of Hagar and her son.  One can hardly imagine the desperation of someone faced with starvation – surely she would have given her son any last bits of food and water that they had – yet so many people in the world today face just such a situation.  May the Lord meet their needs as he did Hagar’s.

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

5 January. Genesis chapters 16-18

In this part of the story, first of all we see an angel appearing to the badly treated slave Hagar – made pregnant by her master as he and Sarah despaired of God’s promise of a son coming true, then thrown out of the house, and collapsed (no doubt very hungry, thirsty and in tears) by a roadside spring. But does the angel comfort her and rescue her? No, she is sent back to her mistress (where presumably she would continue to be mistreated) and told that her son will live a difficult life. The only good news is that his tribe will be very numerous. It’s not what we expect, but as so often I need to remind myself that I’m reading about a very different culture from more than 3000 years ago, with a very different understanding of God as well as of human rights.

 

In the presence of God, a second covenant is then made with Abraham, that of circumcision as a sign of commitment to him by all Abraham’s household and their descendants, including the foreigners and slaves – we sometimes think of the Jews as a pure “race” but in fact they include others who have opted in to the faith.  Only now, 13 years after Ishamael was born does God make it clear to Abraham that the covenant will be realised through a son of Sarah’s, not Ishmael.  Finally, “three men” appear, to confirm the promise in the presence of Sarah herself – we don’t know whether Abraham had shared his earlier encounter with God with his wife, but I get the impression that he had not.  It has often been remarked that Abraham addresses these three in the singular – “my Lord”.  Some people see here a hint of the Christian belief in God as one being in three persons (creator, word and spirit) rather than the Jewish understanding of God as a single (undivided) person. But that’s a whole other debate…

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

4 January. Genesis chapters 12 to 15.

Abram/Abraham was very well travelled. Having come from Ur of the Chaldeans, he passed via Bethel all the way down through the Bible lands to Egypt, back to Bethel, pursued his nephew’ captors all the way from Sodom to Damascus, and finally settled at Hebron.  Thousands of miles travelled, most of it when he was already an old man.  http://www.bible.ca/ has some useful maps.

 

He was also a very generous man.  Some of the more allegorically minded commentaries make much of the fact that he insisted on giving Melchizedek the king/priest his full share of the spoils of battle. More importantly, he let his nephew take the first choice of his share of the promised land, surely knowing that Lot would choose the more fertile plains of the Jordan valley, leaving Abram to farm the harder hill country.  But like everyone he had his faults.  Look at how he told the ruler of Egypt that his wife was actually his sister (therefore “available” to the Pharaoh’s harem) in order to save himself.  Even by the standard of the day this was unacceptable.  But God can still work through people despite their failings.

 

Towards the end of this very eventful life, when surely he was ready to settle down at last, Abram is promised that he will become the ancestor of countless people, despite his wife being old and barren, and has the faith to believe that.