Genesis 12–50: Abraham and Sarah and their descendants
The real thesis of Genesis is found in how these two sections are related. The first section presents the problem, and section two begins the resolution. If you want to review, take a few minutes and again watch The Bible Project video about Genesis 1–11.
We will be reading stories about Abraham and his brood in what will be an ever-expanding tribe. Located within those stories is the Vision Quest given to Abram and Sarai: to create a culture that will bless all the nations of the earth, and in that blessing repair the brokenness described in the origin stories.
Sometimes this quest will be messy. It is often a two-steps-forward-three-steps-back kind of existence. You saw this immediately in chapter 12 right after their initial call, as Abram and Sarai set off for Egypt and Abram lies about Sarai. You will read it again when Sarai gives up trying to conceive a baby and starts to think the way this culture will come into being is through one of her female slaves. This was not an uncommon practice at the time. Abram conceives a child with one of Sarai’s slaves, an Egyptian woman named Hagar. In that culture, the child would legally be Abram’s and Sarai’s baby. It causes all kinds of jealousy, and Sarai ends up trying to cast out the slave and her baby Ishmael. God intervenes and sends them back home.
A couple of notes of importance: Abram and his nephew must part ways because there isn’t enough grazing land for all of their sheep. Lot chooses to go west of the Jordan River and settles south of the Dead Sea in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Not too long after this Abram must go rescue Lot from some warring tribes.
The king that Abram meets in Genesis 13 is a significant archetype. He was a king and priest from Salem (later what would become Jeru-Salem) named Melchizedek. He gives Abram a gift of bread and wine, and Abram gives him a gift, a tithe of his goods (or 10 percent of his profit). Though this occurs some two thousand years before the appearance of Jesus, Christians view Melchizedek as a prefiguring or allusion to the future Jesus. The hint is the bringing of bread and wine and that Abram gives him the same gift one would give God. Jump ahead and take a look at Hebrews 7 in the New Testament.
Questions for Reflection or Discussion
1. Do you ever find yourself making the same mistakes over and over again? What are they? Who gets the most frustrated with you regarding these mistakes?
2. How do you think God feels about Abram and Sarai’s up-and-down trust in this adventure God has sent them on?
3. Do you think Melchizedek is a “pre-appearance” of Jesus or a mysterious king that has some symbols in common with Jesus? How so?
Circumcision and Three Visitors
Read Genesis chapters 17, 18, and 19:1–29.
God tells Abram that as a sign of the covenant between them, he needs to make a permanent physical mark on every male child. On the eighth day after a baby boy is born, Abram is to take a sharp flint knife and cut off the extra piece of skin that covers the tip of the infant’s penis, then stitch it up, and let it heal. From that day forward, the boy’s penis will look different than other men in the region. This will be a physical sign that he is part of Abram’s tribe. It is called circumcision, and Abram seals the covenant by circumcising himself and all the boys and men in his camp, including his son, Ishmael.
Notice God makes a slight change to their names. Abram becomes Abraham. Sarai becomes Sarah. The slight change is the addition of their status in the tribe. Abram is now “Father Abraham” and Sarah is now the royalty, or princess.
Jewish and Muslim men continue the practice of circumcision for boys at birth; many Christians also practice this with their infants. Numerous medical sources have determined that circumcision is hygienic and lowers the chance for infection and cancer in the private area. Most hospitals ask the parents if they would like their infant son circumcised as an option. Some see the practice as barbaric and want to pass laws making it illegal. In the modern age, if you are not Jewish or Muslim, it has become a controversial procedure. But many nonreligious parents still have this done to their infant sons.
What happens next? Sarah laughs at God.
The exact tenor of her laughter is undetermined, but when three divine messengers arrive at her tent and tell her she will have a baby in the next year, she has apparently had enough of God’s promises, and she laughs it off. And who can blame her? She is in her nineties at this point. If your family was all gathered around the Thanksgiving table and Grandpa tapped his wineglass to make a special announcement that Granny was going to have a baby, you might start laughing too.
When the three visitors confront her about it, she denies it. They tell her that when the baby comes they are to name him “laughter.” Isaac is “laughter” in Hebrew.
Immediately after this encounter, God tells Abraham that he is going to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness. The problem here is that Abraham has family in Sodom. If you recall from your earlier reading in Genesis 13, Lot took his family and settled in Sodom. What ensues is a peculiar exchange between Abraham and God—an argument really. Abraham starts bartering with God, asking him to not destroy those cities. He sounds like a child trying to manipulate his parents for more video game time, starting with a wide target and then bargaining with God toward something narrower. He is trying to save Lot and his family.
Is this a presumptuous move on the part of Abraham? Is it faithlessness? Does Abraham not trust God’s judgment? If God is all-knowing, then Abraham ought to trust him with the decision. It shows how their relationship is somewhat tenuous. If he really wants God to just spare Lot, then why not just ask God to do that? Why the manipulation?
On the other hand, the very fact that Abraham is having an argument with God shows that he trusts their relationship. You could argue that this challenge is an act of great faith. Which do you think it is?
Now it’s about to get a little weird. Notice at the outset of chapter 19 that it says: “The two angels came to Sodom.” Where did the third one go? Some Christians believe that the three visitors to Abraham and Sarah were actually a pre-appearance of the Triune God of Christianity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). This is similar to the theory of a “pre-appearance” of Christ in Melchizedek in Genesis 14. Perhaps since only two of the three visitors went to Sodom, the third must have remained for the argument between God and Abraham. If that is the case, then as God argues with Abraham, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit go to Sodom to judge the city. This fits accordingly with the future understanding of Jesus as one who will “judge the living and the dead” in the early Christian creed. A stretch? Perhaps, but it is not an uncommon interpretation.
Keep in mind this view is superimposed upon the story that occurred some two thousand years before the appearance of Christ and any explicit notion of the Trinity. As we will stress later in this journey through the Bible, a distinction for Judaism among all the Mesopotamian religions was its insistence on monotheism (one god) as opposed to polytheism (many gods). In that sense, a safer reading of this story is that the three visitors were angels. I’ll let you decide.