23.10.08
Life Again
Life follows destruction again in Genesis 19 as it did in Genesis 9.
Lot and his two daughters have escaped the destruction of the plain. How will Lot have descendants now? Lot's daughters get him drunk and have sex with him to become pregnant. From them come the people of Moab and the people of Ammon. Ridiculing these people's birth was a way to despise these enemies of Israel. This episode also shows that Abraham is the chosen one while Lot seeks to survive.
Abraham faces a problem he faced before: A king wants his wife. Once again Abraham claims the woman is his sister. Once again, God rescues Abraham's wife. The King has a dream and in the dream God is a judge that tells him who Sarah is. He is exonerated of blame but not of consequences... King Abimelech fears the God of Abraham and has a conversation with Abraham who intercedes with God for the King's forgiveness. Abimelech fears and trusts God and Abraham mistrusts his God but Abraham is the Prophet and his intercession is successful.
Then life is created: God gives a son to Abraham and Sarah...
Lot and his two daughters have escaped the destruction of the plain. How will Lot have descendants now? Lot's daughters get him drunk and have sex with him to become pregnant. From them come the people of Moab and the people of Ammon. Ridiculing these people's birth was a way to despise these enemies of Israel. This episode also shows that Abraham is the chosen one while Lot seeks to survive.
Abraham faces a problem he faced before: A king wants his wife. Once again Abraham claims the woman is his sister. Once again, God rescues Abraham's wife. The King has a dream and in the dream God is a judge that tells him who Sarah is. He is exonerated of blame but not of consequences... King Abimelech fears the God of Abraham and has a conversation with Abraham who intercedes with God for the King's forgiveness. Abimelech fears and trusts God and Abraham mistrusts his God but Abraham is the Prophet and his intercession is successful.
Then life is created: God gives a son to Abraham and Sarah...
22.10.08
Beautiful Child
Humans had been commanded to procreate and fill the world -and they did comply- but Abraham and Sarah are childless, unable to fulfill that sacred command of their God.
God had promised them a large posterity but the couple remains childless and growing old. Sarah had let Abraham have a second wife, to allow him to have a child. Ishmael was born of that union. We sometimes try another way to fulfill our destinies, even when God impresses on us the exact path we should follow. Here God had promised Abraham he would have a son with Sarah...
Then it happened... Sarah got pregnant and gave birth to a son! The text uses a style that shows traces of an oral tradition. It also stresses the fulfillment of the divine promise in every verse. This is not just a story, this is the turning point in the story!
The child is named Isaac -meaning: "May God laugh in delight, smile upon" [Like the couple had laughed when told they would have a son and told to name it Isaac at the birth was revealed to them].
Abraham circumcises his son when he's 8 days' old, as commanded by God previously as a covenant between him and Abraham's descendants.
Sarah feels rescued from the shame of being barren in that culture but Hagar, the second wife, needs to be rescued soon too...
When Isaac is three, the age when an infant was deemed to survive, Sarah gets worried. Isaac and Hagar's son, Ishmael, are together one day and Sarah sees Ishmael teasing his younger brother. She wonders about her own son's inheritance and worries about her inheritance too. She's determined: "That slave woman and her son" must go!
As harsh as Sarah appears to our modern minds, we have to recall she was a woman fighting for her life and her child's.
The ultimatum troubles and saddens Abraham. How can he send his firstborn child and the child's mother away? God reveals to him that he should do as Sarah said... Ishmael will be the father of a great posterity but Isaac is the one from which Abraham's line will continue.
Hagar and Ishmael are alone in the desert... Hagar cries and her son bears his soul to God. And God hears him.
An angel tells Hagar the boy will survive, whether that is an angel or whether "angel" means, as often in the Old Testament, a means by which God manifests himself. She knows the boy will survive and have a great posterity. He will thrive in the desert!
God had promised them a large posterity but the couple remains childless and growing old. Sarah had let Abraham have a second wife, to allow him to have a child. Ishmael was born of that union. We sometimes try another way to fulfill our destinies, even when God impresses on us the exact path we should follow. Here God had promised Abraham he would have a son with Sarah...
Then it happened... Sarah got pregnant and gave birth to a son! The text uses a style that shows traces of an oral tradition. It also stresses the fulfillment of the divine promise in every verse. This is not just a story, this is the turning point in the story!
The child is named Isaac -meaning: "May God laugh in delight, smile upon" [Like the couple had laughed when told they would have a son and told to name it Isaac at the birth was revealed to them].
Abraham circumcises his son when he's 8 days' old, as commanded by God previously as a covenant between him and Abraham's descendants.
Sarah feels rescued from the shame of being barren in that culture but Hagar, the second wife, needs to be rescued soon too...
When Isaac is three, the age when an infant was deemed to survive, Sarah gets worried. Isaac and Hagar's son, Ishmael, are together one day and Sarah sees Ishmael teasing his younger brother. She wonders about her own son's inheritance and worries about her inheritance too. She's determined: "That slave woman and her son" must go!As harsh as Sarah appears to our modern minds, we have to recall she was a woman fighting for her life and her child's.
The ultimatum troubles and saddens Abraham. How can he send his firstborn child and the child's mother away? God reveals to him that he should do as Sarah said... Ishmael will be the father of a great posterity but Isaac is the one from which Abraham's line will continue.
Hagar and Ishmael are alone in the desert... Hagar cries and her son bears his soul to God. And God hears him.
An angel tells Hagar the boy will survive, whether that is an angel or whether "angel" means, as often in the Old Testament, a means by which God manifests himself. She knows the boy will survive and have a great posterity. He will thrive in the desert!
21.10.08
Those Promises
Now that Abraham has a posterity through Sarah, like God had promised, the promise of a land is coming true as well.
King Abimelech makes an oath with the now powerful and wealthy man, Abraham. The writer probably wanted to show dealings with kings to stress that power. As for the oaths, they indicate that the parties concerned made an oral agreement, witnessed by their god or gods that such and such would happen to them if they didn't keep the oath. Both parties here have learned to trust each other already.
Abraham obtains the well of Beer-Sheba. There will be an incident involving the King's men but Abraham owns the well as his dealings with the King -offerings- in that episode demonstrates.
He plants a tree and there he will worship God in the land of the Philistines. He will later obtain the land...
King Abimelech makes an oath with the now powerful and wealthy man, Abraham. The writer probably wanted to show dealings with kings to stress that power. As for the oaths, they indicate that the parties concerned made an oral agreement, witnessed by their god or gods that such and such would happen to them if they didn't keep the oath. Both parties here have learned to trust each other already.
Abraham obtains the well of Beer-Sheba. There will be an incident involving the King's men but Abraham owns the well as his dealings with the King -offerings- in that episode demonstrates.
He plants a tree and there he will worship God in the land of the Philistines. He will later obtain the land...
