Genesis 12.1-16.16

Abram on the Move / Deception in Egypt / Lot of Bad Luck / God's Covenant with Abram / Call Him Ishmael

The story of Abram/Abraham has a lot of narration from God. God makes a lot of promises about the future, but deliverance is withheld. This creates tensions within the story that resound with the tensions of faithful everywhere: When will God deliver us? Where is God now?

When last we left our heroes, Terah had taken his family to Haran. Originally he meant to go to Canaan, but settled in Haran instead. The family included, in order of biblical importance, Terah, his son Abram (not yet Abraham), his grandson Lot (Abraham's nephew), and his daughter-in-law Sarai (Abram's wife, who happens to be barren).

Abram on the Move: Genesis 12.1-9

The Lord says to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

Those people at Babel who wanted to "make a name for ourselves" (Gen. 11.4) were going about it the wrong way. It turns out you have to be chosen by God in order to have a great name. Which begs the question, what did Abram do to deserve this honor? Adam was the first man and Noah walked with God. Both were told to populate the earth. Abraham does not have any noble characteristics that the author feels merit attention. And yet, his name was made great. Three of the world's faiths trace their origins back to Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Yet faith has already had a bottleneck before with Noah - and a covenant. So let's find out what makes Abram/Abraham so special.

Abram leaves his father Terah in Haran and heads to the land of Canaan, which was the family's original destination in the first place. Abram makes it into Canaan. He finds himself at the "oak [or terebinths] of Moreh" at Schechem. Here the Lord says to him, "To your offspring I will give this land." Two problems: The Canaanites live here and Sarai is barren.

Abram builds an altar and moves to the hill country and pitches his tent between Bethel (to the west) and Ai (to the east). He builds an altar here as well. He journeys on by stages toward the Negeb.

Deception in Egypt: Genesis 12.10-20

A famine forces Abram to go down to Egypt. This is a common biblical device. Men will frequently go down to Egypt, do something, then go up from it. Important things happen there. Egypt has a tortured role. No one really wants to live there, but it is where important things happen to a number of important men in the biblical narrative.

Abram tells his beautiful wife Sarai to pretend she is his sister so that Abram will not be killed in Egypt by the jealous Pharaoh (for more on kings killing husbands of beautiful women, see the story of David and Bathsheba, 2 Samuel 11). Pharaoh finds Sarai beautiful, takes her into his house, and gives her "brother" cattle and slaves. The Lord is not happy, and afflicts Pharaoh with plagues. Pharaoh comes to Abram, knowing the truth, and commands Abram and Sarai to leave. Rich in livestock and slaves, Abram does so.

More Movement. Abram and Lot Separate: Genesis 13.1-18 

Abram goes up from Egypt into the Negeb with his wife, his livestock and precious metals, and Lot. Then he travels back toward the location of his second altar between Bethel and Ai, where the Canaanites and Perizzites now live. The land cannot support the vast amount of cattle Lot and Abram own, so Abram suggests they separate. Though he is the elder, Abram offers Lot his choice of land. Though he is the younger, Lot acts disrespectfully by not only choosing instead of deferring to Abram, but also by choosing the better land, the "plain of Jordan" that is "well watered everywhere like the garden on the Lord, like the land on Egypt." (Gen. 13.10). Unfortunately for Lot, it is also the land of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot in fact moves his tent to Sodom, where live "great sinners against the Lord (Gen. 13.13).

Abram settles in Canaan, which is the land the Lord promised promised him anyway. God comes to him and reiterates as much:

Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.

Abram does so, settling by the oaks (or terebinths) of Mamre at Hebron. Here he builds his third altar.

Lot of Bad Luck: Genesis 14.1-24

The Harper Collins Study Bible notes that Genesis 14.1-11 resembles a royal annal, used at the time to list rulers, their wars, and their accomplishments. The creator of this section was apparently familiar with the style, and uses it to weave fact and fiction. None of the kings are identifiable, but some of the names sound like those of a certain people. In addition, some actual places are named, though most are unidentifiable. What we have here is a sort of historical fiction, which will become more common and specific as biblical time continues.

Four kings of the east declare war on five kings of the plain, fighting in the Valley of Sodim, also known as the Dead Sea. After much fighting, the armies of Sodom and Gomorrah fall into bitumen pits as they flee to the hill country. The victors take the spoils, which includes Lot.

One who escapes comes to Abram to tell him that his nephew has been captured. Abram leads his 318 trained men (yes, he has an army) as far as Dan (which at this point does not exist). He defeats them at night, pursues them to Hobah, north of Damascus, and brings back all the goods, his nephew, the women and the people. What the five kings failed at, Abraham and his small band of 318 succeed. The four are defeated.

This is the first battle scene in the bible. Get used to it.

The king of Sodom (who fought in the war) went out to meet Abram at the Valley of Shaveh (the King's Valley).  King Melchizedek of Salem (Jerusalem), who did not fight in the war and is "priest of God the Most High," brings out bread and wine and blesses Abram (Gen. 14.18-19):

Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth;

and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!

(Gen. 14.19-20)

Abram gives King Melchizedek one-tenth of everything. All this serves to establish a relationship between Jerusalem and the house of Abram.

The king of Sodom asks for Abram to return the people he rescued, but allows Abram to keep the goods of Sodom. Abram gives everything back, having promised the Lord that he would not take action such that the king of Sodom might say he has made Abram rich.

God's Covenant with Abram: Genesis 15.1-21

The Lord comes to Abram and tells him, "Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great" (Gen. 15.1). Abram needs some convincing. He is still childless so that a slave, Eliezer of Damascus, is the heir presumptive. God makes another promise, bringing Abram outside and promising him an heir of his own issue: "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them...So shall your descendants be" (Gen. 15.5).

Again the Lord promises the land to Abram, but Abram is wavering, asking how he should know. God commands him to make a sacrifice of a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. Abram does so, keeping the birds away form the carcasses until sundown. A deep sleep falls upon Abram, and The Lord delivers an outline for the rest of the Torah:

Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgment on the nations that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; the the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.

When the sun has set, a smoking fire pot and flaming torch pass through the sacrificed animals. The Lord them makes a covenant with Abram:

To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.

The sign of the covenant, circumcision, is not explicated until chapter 17, which will be covered tomorrow.

Call Him Ishmael: Genesis 16.1-16.16

After ten years in Canaan Sarai and Abram still have no children. Sarai suggests Abram "go in to" Sarai's slave, Hagar, that they may have a child. After she conceives, Hagar no longer looks at Sarai the same way, and Sarai rages against her husband and Hagar. Abram responds that Hagar is in Sarai's power, and Sarai may do with her as she pleases. Sarai does so, and Hagar flees into the wilderness.

An angel of the Lord comes to Hagar and convinces her to return, promising to "so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude" (Gen. 16.10). The child is to be named Ishmael (Hebrew for God hears), for the Lord has heard Hagar's lament. Ishmael will be "a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him; and he shall live at odds with all his kin" (Gen. 16.12). This description is not surprising. In antiquity Ishmael represented the progenitor of the Arabs. In that respect, this story is an etiology, a story that describes how something came to be.

Hagar confuses the angel of the Lord for God himself and dubs him El-roi, meaning roughly God who sees. She also names the well where she stood Beer-lahai-roi, roughly the Well of the Living One who sees me. This too is an etiological story.

Hagar returns and gives birth to Ishmael. At this time, Abram is eighty-six.

Tomorrow: Abram becomes Abraham.