I can’t quite peg Abraham’s laughter. Disbelief or wonder? In either case, the fact that he “recovered” (the message) to check to make sure Ishmael would live tips to Abraham’s general state of piety.

This is the third time God’s spelled out that Abraham would father a nation. Each time the proclamation has come at greater cost though—I imagine Hagar was mortified that Ishmael was Abraham’s promised descendant. I imagine Abraham and Sarah felt a sting of shame that they tried forcing God’s hand earlier. I think recognizes Abraham’s steady struggle with doubt when he tells Abraham when Isaac will be born. My guess is that without that, a few weeks without sign of pregnancy and Abraham wouldn’t been scouring the countryside for other women named Sarah that God must’ve really been talking about.

Thoughts of your own on chapter 17? Comment away.

Abram is promised his children will number as the stars—a big family. No children in the making, so his wife, Sarai, pushed her maid Hagar on Abram and sure enough she gets pregnant. Sarai gets jealous and abuses her until she flees - she returns when an angel comes to her and tells her to a)name her child Ishmael and b)she’ll have a big family.

The chapter ends with Abram naming Hagar’s son Ishmael, so I’m left wondering if Hagar related the whole story of the angel to Abram. If she did, and she told him that she was told the same thing he was—that she would have a “big family”—were Abram and Hagar both thinking the promise God made each of them realized together? Abram’s promises didn’t mention Sarai, and here they already had one child together.
It’s also fascinating that Hagar is told she’d have a big family, but that Ishmael would be at odds with his family. And what was her plea that God heard and responded to? Salvation in the desert? The hope for a child?

Thoughts of your own on chapter 16? Comment away.

When my wife and I talked about this chapter, Jenn was amazed that Abram followed up the verse “and he believed!” with immediate doubt. I have the same feeling about Abram, but at the same time he’s literally facing something as fact defying as a virgin birth. He and his barren wife are supposed to populate a nation and he just can’t see how it’ll happen.
I keep waiting to see a gracious Abram, but maybe I’m demanding too much. I do confess a bit of frustration that he seems spared the punishment that I’m associating with his sometimes-failed faith God promised to Abram’s descendants. Perhaps thought it’s not a punishment; perhaps it’s just the reality of the situation and God’s letting him know in advance.

Thoughts of your own on chapter 15? Comment away.

Kingdoms in Abram’s time and kingdoms now seem very different. I have a friend whose company recently adding a king to their executive board. I did some googling and found that the man in question was king of a small province within a small African nation. I really don’t know how large Kedorlaomer’s kingdom was, but I can’t imagine Abram’s army defeating the army of Wales, much less the army of Wales and other nations. Even more baffling is why Abram exacted such punishment—I understand his nephew was captured, but it seems a more reasonable request to just ask for his release. Especially given the tawdy reputation of the sodomites & co.
Melchizedek is one of the more interesting characters so far. We know from chapter 4 that people started praying and worshiping to God after Adam and Eve’s son, Seth, was born. But I tend to assume the people we read about are the only believers. In fact, I head a sermon at noted church once where the pastor inferred that anyone mentioned in the Bible by name without the attribution of faith must have been against God. But here is a priest of God (and a king to boot). My inference is that to be a priest, you need a people. So were there other believers around, apart from Abram and Lot? If so, what did they think about their neighbors?
It’s hard to miss the reference to Abram’s gift to the priest—he hands over a tenth of his plunder. We’ve previously seen offerings, but this is the first time we’ve had a gift in the shape of a tithe - traditionally one tenth of your earnings given to the church.
Between the tithe and Melchizedek, I’m reminded that the Bible is not the entire history of God’s interaction with man. Adam spent a long time in the garden (there were a lot of animals to name) and we only know a little of that story. It’s possible that there were a line of faithful after the flood beyond Abram, or that God interjected and called Melchizedek. Or perhaps there’s an in-between. But I’m reminded we’re only seeing a part, though the part I trust is sufficient.

If I were Lot I would have serious doubts about trusting Abram when he suggested he split things fairly. After all, Abram did just prostitute his wife in the interest of pragmatism and the greater good.
This chapter ends with Abram giving an offering to God. Whatever Abram isn’t (I still can’t get past what he did to Sarai in the last chapter), he is a believer. In the end, regardless of what part of the Bible you read, it’s impossible to forget than this is the story of a holy God and a fallen man separated by an impossible divide. The bridge cannot be goodness and we’re reminded by the intense flaws in the few people we’ve seen profiled God’s favor alone grants us salvation. (Even Noah was spared from grace…)

In chapter 11 the Bible said Sarai was barren. In chapter 12, God tells a 75-year-old Abram that he’ll be made a great nation. I wonder if Abram thought kids were still part of his future, or if he interpreted God’s words differently. I wonder how old Sarai was - normally I’d assume she was Abram’s age, but I’m not sure that makes sense. For one, the Abram’s brother married his other brother’s daughter. So there was already an age gap. There’s also the matter of just how attractive everyone thought Sarai was. That inclines me to think she’s at least a bit younger, though whether she was of child-bearing age I don’t know.
As crazy as, “Do me a favor: tell them you’re my sister” reads, what’s even nuttier is the implication Noah was fine to profit from Pharaoh living with Sarai. This seems an awful lot like Abram was pimping out his wife… for at least a little while… for the sake of security and increased material wealth.
I have no idea what to make of that, but I completely understand Pharaoh’s apparent righteous indignation. What kind of a man does that? I just cannot imagine what Abram was thinking, or Sarai for that matter. Perhaps they both anguished over this, and perhaps there’s an unwritten power Pharaoh was wielding that made it impossible to correct this in a more normal sense. But from the text alone I have little choice but to this Abram is a pretty lousy husband and man.

In the span of a chapter we cover nearly 2500 years of history and go from Babel to Abram. I am reminded of the Narnia books—the children would leave and return and generations had passed in Narnia, while very little time had passed for them. Just as it took them a little work to understand so much had changed, I have to struggle to recognize the lessons learned by the post-flood generations were probably long lost by the time Abram was born. Those handful of verses surely covered enormous cultural shifts and the context Abram was born into was surely different than Arphaxad’s.

Family trees are hard to follow for me. Some of the names were familiar (Egypt, Canaan), some of the places come up again later (Sodom, Nineveh) and some of the names I was unaware were in the Bible (Seba, Rehoboth, Gaza).

I didn’t realize that separate languages preceded Babel, though it’s possible Javan’s sons were born after Babel. I would imagine that story is coming up, so I’ll keep a watchful eye on the timeline to see how it all works together.

It’s fascinating that here God endorses eating animals, where before it was just the plants. It’s also interesting that in nearly the same breath we see that “every creature will be afraid of you”. Why such profound shift in the human / animal dynamic? I’m reminded of the painting Peaceable Kingdom where an infant is hanging out with a herd of mixed animals, all at peace (hence the title). Perhaps that was once the dynamic.

Here also we see Ham’s punishment brought down on Canaan. I’m not sure how this fits into our modern views of justice and individualism, but it’s certainly an effective deterrent to think your progeny will suffer explicitly for your sins.

The big question in this chapter relates to killing the human (or animal) that spills another man’s blood. I’ve heard this verse used to support the death penalty before. I’m not sure what I think of that. Through the excellent work of organizations like the innocence project, many death row inmates—some posthumously—have been exonerated. So then would their deaths also need retribution? If this verse is the religious support for the death penalty, I would think so. I’m also curious how this ties in with war – were the wars Israel engaged in only righteous when the other party first killed a Jew? Questions, questions…

No flood story is complete without the rainbow footnote. I’ve always found it comforting to see a rainbow—not because I’ve overly concerned with a global flood, but because it’s comforting to know we have God who cares enough not just to swear off flooding out humanity again, but a God who cares enough to give us such a splendid reminder. It’s a mighty footnote.

I don’t know how I got it so wrong, but I thought it was 40 days of rain, 40 days of dry and then to repopulating the Earth. I had somehow missed 150 adrift, then many more waiting for the water to fully recede. As they left the boat it had been nearly a full year since Earth’s populate died.

I cannot image the range of emotions the Arks (Noah+wife+sons+sons’ wives) must have felt. The profound sadness as the loss of everyone they knew. Profound relief at escaping the ark. Profound curiosity about what they would find. Would the landscape be littered with corpses? (I’d guess the sea life took care of that.) Would the land look the same? (I’d guess not.)

It must have been a profound sense of faith and thanks that led them to sacrifice so many animals as a first act on the dry land. I am tempted to wrestle with whether it was a waste or not, but then I’m reminded that in the context of offerings that’s a noble purpose. All I need is to look back to Cain and Able and remember that returning to God what he’s given to you is a serious business.