GENESIS 16-17

ABRAHAM & SARAH

Where have you come from, and where are you going?

—the angel of the Lord

“The man’s in his eighties and she offers him a nice young servant to fertilize? He’s probably thinking, You don’t have to tell me twice!”

The man wrestled with a smirk as he said, “I’m not sure you’d get away with saying something like that in today’s world.”

“We’re not in today’s world,” said the boy. “We’re in a time when morals are still being ironed out. Keep going.”

So the man read on:

Then Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.³⁶

“Wait a minute. Back in Cain’s line you were saying polygamy was evil. But now God’s chosen one is allowed to have two wives?”

“Here’s a lesson about what trouble it brings to the household,” said the man.

“Yeah, but God still allowe—”

“God didn’t propose this,” said the man, “Sarai did. And Abram, as you astutely noticed, jumped on the opportunity.”

“Literally. But Sarai just said, ‘The Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Perhaps I shall obtain children by her.’ And I thought Abram was supposed to get an heir soon?”

“Again, this is coming from Sarai,” said the man. “And although God promised Abram descendants, He never said they should come from someone other than his wife.”

“But she’s barren…”

“At least she has been,” said the man.

“I’m not sure I follow,” said the boy, “but go ahead.”

“So he goes in to Hagar and she conceives. And when she sees that she had conceived, her mistress becomes despised in her eyes.”

“Jeez, Hagar, rub it in.”

The man agreed and read on:

Then Sarai said to Abram, “This is all your fault! I put my servant into your arms, but now that she’s pregnant she treats me with contempt. The Lord will show who’s wrong, you or me!”³⁷

“Women!” said the boy. “Sheesh. Poor guy merely listens to his wife and it turns into the first domestic squabble. I don’t know how you married people do it.”

“Let’s not throw all married people into the same box here,” said the man. “Abram fell into temptation and now he’s dealing with the consequences.”

“Not to derail your point or anything,” said the boy, “but it seems irrational that Sarai didn’t take at least some responsibility, seeing as how it was her idea and all.”

With a chuckle the man said, “Sounds like you’re not getting married anytime soon, so that’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“Well,” said the boy, “tell me what he said anyway.”

“Abram says to Sarai, ‘Indeed your maid is in your hand. Do to her as you please.’ And when Sarai deals harshly with Hagar, she flees from her presence.”

“I don’t blame her for running away,” said the boy. “I mean, I get she shouldn’t have rubbed it in Sarai’s face, but cut your pregnant slave a little slack here, won’cha? And Abram, man, what a sellout. He didn’t exactly stand up for his new wife. Just chopped his balls off for the sake of peace with the first one. Are you sure this is the father of the chosen people or whatever?”

“Well, let’s not gloss over that point you made about Sarai’s responsibility. Although she allowed her husband to conceive with another woman, the relationship with Hagar was originally hers. Abram’s response of ‘your maid is in your hand’ seems to honor the respect he’s had for Sarai all along. And considering the harsh accusations Sarai was throwing around, I’d say this was a pretty good way of handling things.”

The boy nodded quietly. “You really were married, weren’t you?”

“And perhaps there is another lesson in following God’s will,” said the man. “There’s a parallel here with the garden, if you recall. After Sarai says, ‘Please, go in to my maid,’ the Bible says, ‘And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.’ And when being expelled from Eden, God said to Adam, ‘Because you have heeded the voice of your wife,’ followed by his punishment.”

“So the moral is never listen to your wife,” said the boy with a smile.

“Not exactly,” said the man. “These were times when the roles in marriage were a bit more fixed and imbalanced, sure, and Abram seems to have a more intimate relationship with the Lord than Sarai, but in today’s world you can still apply the lesson of consulting God before heeding the advice of a spouse if you think they may be wrong.”

“That makes sense,” said the boy. “See? I had a feeling this book still had some wisdom for us.”

“Oh yes,” said the man. “Much of the wisdom in the Bible is timeless. How do you think it’s outlasted kingdoms and empires?”

“Good point,” said the boy. “Alright, let’s see what else you’ve got.”

So the man read on:

Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. And He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?”

She said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.”

The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand.”³⁸

“But when Hagar says nothing,” said the man, “the angel tells her, ‘I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude.’”

“Yeah, the angel had to speak up twice because Hagar was so flabbergasted. First time an angel appears in the Bible and it’s to tell a slave to get back to being a slave. Thanks, God.”

“I would imagine it’s more surprise,” said the man. “Something akin to, ‘Me? A humble servant should be so honored by the presence of God’s first angel?’ But if we can look past Hagar’s unfortunate circumstance for a moment, we can see it was out of her control. But what was in her control was her reaction, mainly the gloating after being promoted from slave to wife by her own mistress. She thought she was a better woman than Sarai simply because she could conceive, and so she assumed Abram would favor her over his long-time wife. She let pride get the best of her, and when Sarai was left to deal with her, she couldn’t bear it and ran away.”

“There are so many more layers to these stories than I would’ve imagined,” said the boy.

“These are only the ones I know of,” said the man. “Who knows what other insights there are? But listen to the way the angel humbles her. He greets her by saying, ‘Hagar, Sarai’s maid,’ to put her pride in check. Then He asks, ‘Where have you come from, and where are you going?’ which is a mighty good question for a pregnant woman then. What was her plan? Return to Egypt as a slave? Live in the wilderness on her own? Wander around until she’s taken captive by strangers and raped or killed? Or should she swallow her pride and return to her home where there is wealth and food and community?”

“I guess those are pretty good questions,” said the boy.

“We can entertain these simple-minded ideas such as, ‘Why does the Holy Bible have slaves in the first place?’ or we can examine the stories for what they are, given the context of the times, and try to gather any wisdom there might be.”

“Alright,” said the boy, “I hear what you’re saying. Let’s keep going.”

So the man read the angel’s next line:

“Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction. He shall be a wild man. His hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.”³⁹

“Sounds like a handful,” said the boy.

“Yes,” said the man, “well, she’s told she must return to Abram, perhaps a sacrifice of her own freedom, but in doing so she secures the freedom of her son, who will go on to live as an independent and untamable man. In that case, she’ll become the mother of countless future generations of free people.”

“Well when you say it like that,” said the boy, “sounds like a pretty important role.”

“I agree,” said the man, reading on again:

Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees, for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?”⁴⁰

“And so here we see an expression of awe that God not only watches over her, but also appears before her after she’s run away, gracing her with His very presence. Humbled as she was, she returns to bear Abram his first son.”

“Probably for the best,” said the boy. “But this stirs the question, if God’s ideal is monogamy, why did He restore polygamy to the chosen one’s household?”

“What was He supposed to do,” said the man, “leave her to the wolves?”

“I don’t know, you tell me. He had no problem drowning everyone a few years ago. What’s one more slave from a pagan culture? All I’m saying is this was a chance to show Abram that having two wives brings so much trouble that one of them will run away pregnant and leave you feeling guilty. Now that’s a lesson. Instead, when Sarai restores the balance to a one-woman home, God says, ‘Nah, I prefer it when Abram has two.’ He even blesses this one as the future mother of free nations.”

“I think He’s merely doing what’s best given the situation Abram has created for himself,” said the man. “There’s also the argument Hagar was just a surrogate, never really a wife. When the Scripture says Sarai gave her to be Abram’s wife, it was probably a euphemism for the act of procreation. Here we see the angel of the Lord address Hagar as ‘Sarai’s maid,’ not Abram’s wife. Then He tells her to go back and submit to Sarai, not Abram. Sarai gave Hagar to Abram solely because she wanted children. Not something condoned by the Lord in this case, but not an uncommon practice in those times either. The point is, this was done without the counsel of God, and Sarai was the first to reap the bitter fruits of her decision.”

“Mhm. Anyway,” said the boy, “what’s next?”

So the man looked down and read:

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God, walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly. Then Abram fell on his face.”⁴¹

“Fell on his face?”

“It means he bowed down in the presence of the Lord.”

“Oh, I see. They kinda gloss over how it’s been a decade since God ‘appeared’ again. Wouldn’t have surprised me if he just keeled over at that age, simply out of relief his first encounters weren’t hallucinations or something. That’s a long time to hold on to the faith you didn’t lead your people into a desert and pimp your wife out for nothing.”

“Yes,” said the man, “the timeline is a good observation. In such a concise story we may feel Abram’s life is crowded with revelations, but these three divine occurrences span over twenty-five years. And perhaps the long delay on the part of the Lord was by design, chastising Abram’s second marriage as undue haste.”

“Haste?” said the boy. “The guy’s almost a century old and God hadn’t produced an heir! How long are you supposed to wait before taking matters into your own hands?”

“As long as the Lord expects you to wait is the answer to that question,” said the man.

“I don’t know if I’d have that kind of patience.”

“Well, you’re only human, but there may come a consequence for not following God tells Abraham this,” said the man:

“Behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.”⁴²

“Why the name change?” said the boy.

“In many countries, a change of name shows a new circumstance in the rank of the individual. Here the meaning of his name is changed from ‘a high father’ to ‘a father of many,’ for God is reassuring him that He will honor His covenant.”

“Gotcha,” said the boy.

“God also goes on to reassure Abraham that He will make him fruitful, that He will make nations of him, and that kings shall come from him. He reaffirms the everlasting covenant between Him and all his descendants, but in exchange God says, ‘This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you, every male child among you shall be circumcised.’”⁴³

“Whaaat?” said the boy. “This is where that comes from? I didn’t realize it was so early on. They’re still dwelling in tents at this point. Weren’t they worried about sanitation?”

“Keep in mind,” said the man, “the concept of germs wasn’t known back then.”

“And how are they going about this?” said the boy. “A rock? Do they even have knives?”

“The method isn’t detailed,” said the man, “but as it says in the next line, ‘It shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.’ And a couple lines later, ‘My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.’ Which means this is their way to honor God in a permanent way.”

“Who exactly has to get circumcised?” said the boy. “Only newborns?”

“Everyone,” said the man. “Men, children, slaves, babies after eight days. As it says, for he ‘who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people, he has broken My covenant.’”

“But Abram’s like a hundred,” said the boy, scrunching his face. “That can’t be good for you. And eight-day old babies?” The boy shivered.

“With this tradition the parent is helpless to watch,” said the man, “and the child a passive recipient. But this is the first lesson for both in godly education, one where the parents acknowledge their obligation to raise their children in the way of God, and this is the formal admission of the child into the privilege of the covenant. This admission cannot be reversed except by a deliberate rebellion of the child later on.”

“You know,” said the boy, “this really begs the question, is God circumcised?” The man blinked and stared blankly. “Well, obviously if we were created in His image, He at least had a foreskin, right? But He doesn’t have to make this covenant with Himself, does He? So why would He have to…” The boy trailed off as the man stared with a growing look of concern. “Never mind,” said the boy. “Keep going.”

The man hesitated a moment longer before reading:

Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations. Kings of peoples shall be from her.”⁴⁴

“You’re kidding me,” laughed the boy. “She’s gonna pop a kid out at a hundred?”

“You’re not the only one with that reaction,” said the man:

Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, Will a child be born to a man a hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, give birth to a child?⁴⁵

“I don’t blame him,” said the boy. “This keeps getting weirder.”

“In a moment we’ll see God names this future son Isaac, which means something akin to ‘laughter,’” said the man, “named so because Abraham laughed out of joy.”

“Or disbelief,” said the boy.

“That’s a fair assumption also,” said the man. “But perhaps the Lord’s power in this matter was magnified with Sarah’s old age. Either way, it builds tension as the first man to laugh in the face of God.”

“True,” said the boy. “And so?”

“And so Abraham, as a father whose heart has clung to his firstborn of thirteen years, worries that God will have no grace for Ishmael in lieu of this foretold heir of Sarah’s. And so Abraham says, ‘Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!’ And God responds with this,” said the man:

“No, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac, and I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I will bless him, and make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation.⁴⁶

“That was nice of God,” said the boy.

“Yes, here we learn that we can be humbly free and open with God in our prayer, and that God will hear our woes.” The boy nodded quietly. “Then, as parting words, God says, ‘But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year,’ and then He disappears.” The man continued reading:

So Abraham took his son Ishmael and those born in his household or purchased, every male among the members of Abraham’s household, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskin on that very day, just as God had said to him.⁴⁷

“Wow,” said the boy. “Well that certainly paints an image. A hundred-year-old man bursts out of his tent and shouts, ‘Gather’ round, boys! God says I’ve gotta chop your dicks off!’”

“Well, I doubt that’s how it wen—”

“Not gonna lie, at this point I’d start to wonder if he had dementia.”

“I think we have to conside—”

“Can you imagine?” said the boy. “Abraham corralling every one of his men and going down a line one by one with a knife? Now that gives me the heebee-jeebees.”

“I don’t thin—”

“And there’s no drugs or numbing agents or anything,” said the boy. “After the first one, he just wipes the blood on his robe and on to the next. Poor fella at the end of the line has to witness a hundred men before him drop to the ground writhing in pain, blood squirting from their groins.”

“That—”

“That would be enough to make me renounce my religion and run, I can tell you that much. No thanks, Abra-Scissorhands. I’m out!”

“Well—”

“And those poor mothers, man, breastfeeding their newborns when some geezer with a bloody crotch comes limping up and says, ‘I’m gonna need to borrow that baby!’”

“I really wish you’d stop describing it this way,” said the man.

“What a lunatic!” said the boy. “Are you sure Stephen King didn’t write this one? And what are they doing with the tips of all those penises? Just leaving them out for the wildlife to pick through?”

“Alright,” said the man with growing impatience, “that’s enough.”

“Did you know that in order to clean the wound, priests used to suck the baby’s d—”

“That’s not something I wanna hear any more about,” said the man. “Let’s just skip to the next chapter.”

“Hey, you brought it up, man. I don’t see why we couldn’t have just signed the covenant with a rainbow like last time.”