Genesis 15
God Reassured Abram
Abram has followed God’s call to go from Ur to the Promised Land. God promised Abram the Promised Land and to be the Father of many descendants. So far, Abram doesn’t own any property, nor does he have any children. Understandably Abram begins to doubt. God appears to Abram in a vision and has him step outside and look at the stars. As the stars are uncountable (obviously, Abram didn’t have our city lights problem), his descendants would be innumerable.
Abram's faith is restored when the Scripture proclaims, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6. NIV). In particular, Genesis 15 as a whole and especially verse 6 is significant to the Apostle Paul, Martin Luther, and most Protestants' theology today. Paul uses this verse to write that we are justified by faith and not by works” (Romans 1:17, 3:28, 4:9-17, Galatians 2:16, Ephesians 2:8-9). Walter Brueggemann, my favorite Old Testament Scholar, proclaims Genesis 15, the most crucial chapter of the Abraham narrative.
To seal the faith of Abram, God makes a covenant with him. God directs Abram to take a heifer, a ram, and a lamb divided in two and placed apart to be space enough for two people to walk between them. This kind of covenant is explained in Jeremiah 34:18, where two people would cut animals in half and make their agreements while walking between the dead carcasses. This symbolized that if one of them broke the contract, that person would be the dead carcass. After Abram prepared the animals, vultures came to eat the meat. Abram had to drive them off. I have no doubt this happened, but I have to confess that I wonder why the Torah author wrote about it? My hunch is that it is symbolic that anytime we covenant with God, there are forces of evil trying to dissuade us.
Abram falls into a deep sleep, and when he awakes, he sees a smoking firepot and a blazing torch going between the pieces. In other words, God makes a covenant with Himself concerning Abram. Abram was not part of it. Abram’s faith justified him already.
Genesis 16
Sarai Tries to Help God
In chapter 15, Abram has doubts, and now in chapter 16, Sarai has doubts. The problem with Sarai is that rather than waiting and letting God strengthen her faith, she decides to help God. She gives her servant Hagar to Abraham to sleep with, thinking she can have a child through her. Abraham should have refused that deal, but he didn’t. He sleeps with Hagar, and she gets pregnant.
After Hagar becomes pregnant, Sarai gets jealous and is regretting her decision. She complains to Abram about it, and he tells her to do with her servant Hagar as she wishes. Sarai mistreats her to the point Hagar runs off. She stops beside a spring in the desert, and an angel appears to her. He comforts her and persuades her to go back. Her child will be blessed as well. She is to name him Ishmael (this means God hears in the Hebrew). At that well, she gives God the name “El Roi,” which means “God sees me.”
I find two crucial truths in this passage. One, God does some incredible things with flawed people. Abram and Sarai didn’t keep the faith and messed up. Yet God still uses them. This is an excellent lesson for our cancel culture today. It seems like today that if someone does something wrong in their past, anything else they do doesn’t matter. This flies in the face of the biblical narrative. Everyone in the Bible, except Jesus Christ, sinned, doubted, and did some incredibly dumb things. Yet God used them. We need more grace and mercy toward those who mess up. The gospel is for us sinners.
In this passage, the other eternal precept is Hagar’s naming of God “El Roi,” “the God who sees.” When we go through difficult times, it is good to remember that God sees us and that He still cares.
El Shaddai
Abram, at the age of ninety-nine, receives a visit from God. God announces Himself as “El Shaddai.” Most English translations follow the translation of the Septuagint (Greek interpretation of the Hebrew Bible), “God Almighty.” It literally could be God of the mountains. Mountains would show the majesty and power of God, and so “God Almighty” is an excellent translation.
God commands Abraham to “walk before me faithfully and be blameless.” This is different than Adam and Eve, Enoch and Noah, who all “walked with God.” God wants Abram to “walk before” Him. This is different because God came and went with the others, but in God’s relationship with Abram, He is always watching.
God changes Abram’s name to Abraham. Abram means “exalted father.” Abraham means “exalted father,” but it is expanded to be an “exalted father of many.” Sarai’s name is changed to Sarah. Both mean “princess” in Hebrew.
In Genesis 17:10, God requires Abraham to be circumcised and every male under his watch, including Ishmael. At the end of Genesis 17, it is recorded Abraham obeyed this command.
In Genesis 17:16, God again tells Abraham that Sarah will bear him a son. At this, Abraham falls down laughing, asking himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” (Genesis 17:17). Abraham may have laughed because the thought of this was ludicrous, or maybe because it might be right. Abraham tries to give God an out and suggests Ishmael for the blessing. God assures Abraham that Ishmael will be blessed, but the child of the promise will be Sarah's son.
This passage gives me great comfort because of how God dealt with Abraham’s doubt. We tend to freak out at doubt, but God and in the New Testament, Jesus never does. God continually bolsters our faith.
Genesis 18 & 19
Sodom and Gomorrah
Genesis 18 begins with God appearing to Abraham near the trees of Mamre, where he was sitting in the entrance of his tent. Abraham looks up and sees three men. He immediately has Sarah bake them some bread. He picks a choice calf and has a servant butcher it and cook it for his guests.
The Three Men
This passage always refers to these three visitors as men. But it is easy to deduce that they were not just men. One of them was the Lord, and the other two were angels. God appears to Abraham in human form. God did this with Adam and Eve and Enoch.
Sarah’s laughter
God tells Abraham that next year he and Sarah will have a son. Sarah eavesdrops on the conversation and laughs. God confronts her about her laughter, which she denies at first, but then God corrects her. They will name their son Isaac. Some have translated Isaac “laughter.” Another translates it “he makes me smile.”
Abraham walks with the men as they leave. God tells Abraham about their plans to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of that city's great wickedness. Abraham intercedes for Sodom and Gomorrah and asks God if He will spare the city if 50 righteous men can be found. God responds that He won’t destroy the city if 50 righteous men can be found. Abraham then goes to 45, 40,30, 20, and finally 10. It doesn’t look like there was even one righteous man in that city, including Lot, that lives there.
Lot’s life is going to be spared. The two angels head to Sodom and Gomorrah, and Lot persuades them to stay at his house. Many of the men of the city came to Lot’s house and demanded the men be sent out to them so they can have sex with them. Lot offers his virgin daughters, but they refuse them and want to rape the men. Homosexuality was rampant in Sodom and Gomorrah. I do not believe that it is not the only sin in the city, but one of many. Also, desiring to rape men shouldn’t be put on par with every gay person today. The angels went outside and blinded the men.
The next day Lot is told to get his family out of the city. Lot tries to convince his future sons-in-law to come, but they thought he was joking. Lot is hesitant to leave, but finally, the angels grabbed Lot, his wife, and two daughters by the hand, took them out of the city, and gave them instructions to flee and not look back. Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. That evening Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by sulfur being rained down on it.
Lot and His Daughters
The end of Genesis 19 records the sad tale of Lot alone with his daughters. Lot received a wake-up call and decided to leave isolated in a cave with his daughters. Without any men around, Lot’s daughters got him drunk, and they both slept with him and became pregnant. One of the boys became the father of the Moabites and the other the Ammonites. Both these peoples will later make trouble for the people of Israel.