Category Archives: Old Testament

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Jacob’s breeding techniques—Genesis 30:38-42

Magic versus blessing

(Continuing the regular Tuesday Bible study series on Genesis … The home page sidebar allows you to explore any of the past studies on Genesis or other topics or biblical books.)

Jacob’s breeding techniques (30:38-42) seem strange to modern readers. Is it really true that if you mate animals in front of striped rods, they will bear striped offspring? People in antiquity sometimes thought that females conceive according to what they see when they mate. But whereas Jacob’s expectations for stronger animals producing stronger offspring fits genetics, breeding in front of striped rods does not really produce striped offspring.

Whether or not Jacob wrongly thinks that the technique could have worked otherwise, however, he recognizes that God is the one who made it work in this case (31:9-12). Jacob claims that God has given Laban’s flocks to him (31:9), and his wives agree (31:16).

In his book Bruchko, Bruce Olson recounts Motilone Indians praying and using antibiotics to cure snakebites. Antiobiotics don’t cure snakebites, but the Indians got better. If it wasn’t the antibiotics, we might consider (as Olson undoubtedly implies) that it was the prayer! Sometimes people look to secondary sources that might not be curative, e.g., a fake faith healer’s handkerchief (which might even make you sick, depending on what the healer has done with it), and yet God acts on their behalf because they also look to him. In Jacob’s case, God was blessing the line of Abraham and Isaac. Jacob had promised to serve God if God would just feed him, clothe him, and return him safely to his father’s house (28:20-21). God generously blessed him with far more than Jacob himself had envisioned.

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Isaac and the Philistines—Genesis 26

Living at peace with our neighbors

As a minority in a larger society, how should we as committed believers relate to those around us? Much of the Bible addresses such situations, whether the lives of the patriarchs, Israel in exile, or the New Testament. (The remnant of God-fearing believers in times that Israel as a whole was straying from God is probably somewhat less relevant for this question today because Israel had a distinctive covenant with God.) Isaac had to live at peace with his neighbors, sometimes even when his neighbors were ambivalent about living at peace with him.

God did work with the patriarchs in different ways at different times; we can learn much from our role models, but we must listen to God afresh in our own time. One may compare and contrast how he worked through Joseph and through Moses (see http://www.craigkeener.org/the-unexpected-deliverer-exodus-2/). The differences also extend to how different patriarchs were received in Egypt in different generations. Abram went to Egypt during a famine (Gen 12:10); Isaac is told not to go during a famine (26:1-2); later God sends Joseph ahead and during a famine tells Jacob not to be afraid to go to Egypt (46:3). Jacob knew the stories of Abram and Isaac (who else would have passed on these stories?), perhaps all the more reason that he needed a divine encouragement that it was currently safe for his household to travel there.

Although some places and times are better than others, nowhere in this world is perfect or completely “safe” apart from God’s protection. Indeed, when Abraham goes to Egypt, Sarah faces severe threats to her sexual security there (12:14-15). In Egypt, Joseph faces threats to his sexual security (Potiphar’s wife held less direct physical power to enforce her harassment, but because Joseph was a slave she exercised plenty of coercive power in other respects). Yet when Isaac stays in Canaan, Rebekah also faces potential threats to her sexual security there (26:7, 10).

Isaac had clear reason for concern because local residents had asked about his wife (26:7). The complaint of the local ruler Abimelech, that one of the people might have lain with Isaac’s wife (26:10), implies that they would not have slept with a married woman. Yet it also takes for granted a low level of morality otherwise. (Given usual ancient custom, one would not expect Isaac to appreciate them sleeping unmarried even with a sister in his care.) One might compare, later in Genesis, Prince Shechem, who is the most honored member of his royal family (34:19)—yet raped Jacob’s daughter (34:2).

God directly intervenes in this case, again protecting a matriarch and the promised line. At other times, however, God allows Isaac and his people to experience conflict and difficulty—and then blesses them in spite of it.

When others want Isaac’s wells, Isaac does not fight them; he learned this good model of peace from Abraham his father, who would not contend with Lot when Lot’s shepherds (like these from Gerar in 26:20) fought with Abram’s (Gen 13:7-9). This model seems prudent particularly when dealing with those stronger than oneself (cf. 34:30)! (By contrast, the title “well of contention” in 26:20 may challenge the later Israelites, who contended with the Lord himself at Massah and Meribah—Exod 17:7.) Isaac offers a biblical model of avoiding unnecessary conflicts with our neighbors. Local residents outnumbered Isaac’s tribe, but, even among peers, wise people choose their battles.

God does not stop Isaac’s enemies from causing trouble for him, but God keeps prospering Isaac with success in the land until (26:26-31) even his enemies take note. And in 26:32-33 God blesses Isaac’s tribe even further with another well of water. Isaac was blessable, both for his own sake and for the sake of God’s promise to his father. God continues to bless Abraham beyond Abraham’s time (26:5-6, 24), and this was something Isaac may have counted on. A blessing, from a man of God who is blessed, makes something happen (27:37).

Following Abram’s model of peace was a good idea. Elsewhere also Isaac follows Abraham’s model; like Abram, he builds an altar and calls on the Lord’s name after the Lord appears to him and promises the land (12:8; 26:25). Models can of course be positive, negative, or sometimes ambiguous—as signs of God’s blessings on their forebears, the patriarchal stories are important for Israel whether or not the patriarchs always did the right thing. It was undoubtedly a bad idea for Isaac to follow Abraham’s example (from before Isaac’s birth) in calling his wife his “sister” (12:13, 19; 20:2; 26:7, 9). Genesis provides mixed signals for Jacob’s deceit in Gen 27, which was an important ancestral story about Israel’s origins.

But the accounts tend to be more positive than negative, especially with regard to Abraham (and later Joseph). There are circumstances where the righteous should not give way before the wicked (Prov 25:26), but we should choose our battles. Keeping peace with our neighbors, insofar as we can do so, is a good practice (Matt 5:9; Rom 12:18; James 3:17-18).

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Carrying on the promised line—Genesis 24

I used to relish reading Genesis 24 in my Hebrew devotions, because it encouraged my faith that as God provided the right wife for Isaac, God would also provide the right wife for me. How God brought my wife and me together makes for an interesting story itself (a subject of our book Impossible Love), and I do indeed believe that God cares about providing us life partners. Although some people think otherwise, it seems clear from this chapter that, at least in many cases, God does care whom we marry (Gen 24:4). Getting a wife for Abraham’s son was an important expression of God’s kindness and promise just as getting a son was; the line must continue beyond Isaac. One who finds a wife finds something good (Prov 18:22).

But we might underestimate what was at stake in Isaac getting the right wife. This story is narrated at such length in the Bible not merely because it is a nice love story (though it is), but because this would make a big difference for the future history of God’s people. (The Book of Ruth is also a wonderful love story, but the reason the Bible gives us that love story infused with divine grace rather than a thousand other love stories also infused with divine grace is that this Gentile turned out to be King David’s great-grandmother.)

The narrator offers clues to what is coming in advance. Genesis 22 might seem to end in an anticlimactic way. After recounting Abraham’s offering of Isaac but before narrating Sarah’s burial arrangements, Abraham receives news concerning relatives in Mesopotamia, including about a young nephew of Abraham who would become father of Rebekah (22:23). One reason for mentioning this here is presumably simply chronological: that is, travelers brought Abraham family news between the offering of Isaac and before Sarah’s passing. Nevertheless, the mention also serves a literary function, foreshadowing what is to come. Because Abraham has passed the test, God is working to prepare the right bride for Isaac, so ensuring the plan for Abraham’s seed.

The right bride does indeed choose to be key. Eventually Rebekah is born, and it will be through her trust in his word to her (25:23) that God would ensure that Jacob rather than Esau will inherit the line of blessing.

In Genesis 24, Abraham’s confidence that God will supply the right wife for Isaac rests on God’s promise of multiplied descendants and on God’s proven trustworthiness (24:7). Yet Abraham was not afraid to at least entertain the contrary possibility (24:8), like Caleb in Josh 14:12 or Daniel’s three friends in Dan 3:18. (Abraham was not afraid of making what some today call a “negative confession.”)

Like many people in antiquity, Abraham practices clan endogamy—marrying within the clan. In Abraham’s case, this would help guarantee finding a wife for his son who would share the right values, rather than local Canaanites with their different moral and religious beliefs (even though Abraham remained on favorable terms with them). For us, the principle would be spiritual endogamy—marrying those with our shared faith and relationship with God (cf. e.g., 1 Cor 7:39; 9:5), if such are at all available.

God arranges matters so providentially that the servant could not have heard from God any more clearly that Rebekah was the one for Isaac. The narrator could have simply summarized what follows, but he chooses to repeat the servant’s retelling of how he encountered Rebekah, rehearsing for us again those providential circumstances (24:37-48), lest we miss the point. (I do not renarrate them here only because I have nothing to add except further illustrations how God often provides such dramatic arrangements, showing us his care for us on keys matters—indeed, sometimes, though not always, even just in fairly small ones that lavish his love on us.)

A further matter raises my interest, however. In Gen 24:54-56, the servant was in a hurry to leave. It would be unusual to want to leave so quickly after such a long journey, but perhaps the servant wants to fulfill his commission while things were going well. Perhaps the servant does not want to risk any change of mind. When God has opened the door, we should take advantage of it while the door is open.

Yet the servant might also be eager to leave (24:56) because of concerns of extended delays. Given kind, traditional Middle Eastern hospitality, the proposed ten days (24:55) might be stretched out longer and longer (as happened in Judg 19:4-9). Indeed, we need only read one more generation in Genesis to discover that Rebekah’s brother Laban tries to keep his daughters and his new son-in-law as permanently as possible (Gen 29—31).

Being nice and polite counts for something, but when we are sent on a divine mission we must never forget that first things come first. For us, that may mean gently sharing the good news even if we fear that others may be displeased with us, or following a call to ministry even if that ruins some others’ plans for us, or the like. God’s plan is the best, and when we have good evidence that he has confirmed it, we need to follow it.

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Faith no matter what the cost—Genesis 22

Abraham offers a great model of faith. He followed God’s promise when he left behind his homeland (Gen 12; see Gen 12:1; Gen 12:1-3); when he believed God’s promise about a child, God counted this trust as righteousness (15:6). But what happens when acting in faith seems to cost us the very promise that God once offered? Do we still trust God? What happens when God’s call does not seem to be, from our perspective, in our personal best interests? Do we still trust God’s promise?

This is the sort of faith that Abraham models in Genesis 22. It is a deeper level of faith than the faith in 15:6, but it is not unrelated to it. When we walk with God through years of testing, we can develop a deeper faith that trusts God no matter what. This is much more faith than is needed to be “justified,” as Abram was already in 15:6. This faith is the expression of a long-term, faithful relationship with God.

The narration emphasizes the pathos, intensifying the emotion by lingering on the point: Abraham and Isaac love each other. In 22:2, God commands Abraham concerning “your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac” (cf. 22:12). Repetition of “the two together” heightens the pathos in 22:6, 8, as does the narrator’s slowing down to emphasize the details in 22:7. Many details add pathos, underlining Abraham’s love for his son and how the events leading up to the offering must have torn at Abraham’s heart. When Isaac calls Abraham, “My father,” Abraham responds, “Here I am” (22:7), just as he does in this narrative when God or the angel of the Lord addresses him (22:1, 11). Other details emphasize Isaac’s innocent trust, such as when he asks where the lamb is (22:7)—trust that must have further torn at Abraham’s fatherly heart.

Once Abraham is sure that God has spoken, he does not procrastinate. People back then usually rose early (19:2, 27; 20:8; 26:31; 28:18; 31:55), but the rising early in 22:3 probably especially evokes 21:14—when Abraham obeyed God by rising early to send away his son Ishmael. Abraham did not delay or stall in obeying God; God was always first.

The summons to faith builds on earlier calls to faith in Abraham’s life. When God directs him to “one of the mountains that I will tell you” (22:2), God recalls his earlier commission in 12:1: “Go … to the land that I will show you.” Abraham again had to go in faith, as he did before; the first time he left behind his past family of origin, and this time he must sacrifice his future familial legacy.

Nevertheless, he believed that God would fulfill his promise. As the note for Heb 11:19 in the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Zondervan, 2016) puts it, “Abraham said that he would return with his son (Ge 22:5) and told Isaac that God would provide the offering (Ge 22:8). By now his faith was so strong that he understood that even if he carried out God’s instructions, God would restore his son and fulfill the promise. God had, after all, promised that his descendants would be reckoned through Isaac (Ge 21:12).”

This faith is a deeper faith than the justifying faith of Gen 15:6. Before that encounter, God had already promised Abram descendants and land (12:1-2). In Gen 15, Abram nevertheless asks about the descendants (15:2-3), God reiterates the promise more specifically (15:4-5), and Abram puts his trust in the one who is truly trustworthy (15:6). Then Abram asks how he can know that God will give him the land (15:8), right after God has reiterated that promise (15:7). God graciously confirms that promise (15:9-21). So what happens next? Abram and Sarai use Hagar to bear him a son (16:1-2); after all, God had not yet specified that Abram’s son would come through Sarah directly. Despite Abram’s requests for confirmation and uncertainties how the promise would be fulfilled, he exhibits commendable faith in Gen 15; he trusts God’s promise.

The level of faith in Gen 22, however, is at a higher level. Abraham must act on his faith, sacrificing even the very promise for which he had waited so many years. Justifying faith that God counts to us as righteousness, as in Gen 15:6, is very basic. But seeing God’s faithfulness through years of testing takes us to a deeper level of faith—a level of faith that trusts God no matter what, because we know that, whatever else might be the case, God is trustworthy. We know him; we know his character; and so we trust him. This is not a faith for which we can take credit as if we have worked it up by our efforts; it is a faith that flows from experiencing God’s trustworthiness, even in the face of hardship and waiting.

Ultimately, God thoroughly rewards Abraham’s obedient faith. God provides something better than a lamb for sacrifice (22:7-8)—an entire ram (22:13). Abraham did not go randomly to any location, but to the one that God commanded, and God had a ram ready for him. There is thus another lesson here in addition to the model of Abraham’s obedient faith: God’s faithfulness in providing what will satisfy him. That Isaac and Abraham speak of the coming sacrifice as a lamb (22:7-8) suggests that this narrative foreshadowed for Israel the deliverance of their own firstborn through the sacrifice of the Passover lamb (Exod 12:3-5, 12-13, 21). Those who see here a foreshadowing of Jesus as God’s lamb recognize the same principle of redemption realized in the Passover.

God acts overtly on behalf of his servant who has waited so long and trusted so much. An angel speaks from heaven to preserve Isaac (22:11)—just as an angel had spoken from heaven to preserve Ishmael (21:17). (The next reference in the Pentateuch to God speaking from heaven is at the giving of the Ten Commandments in Exod 20:22.) In these narratives, the angel of the Lord is first mentioned as appearing to Hagar (16:7-11; 21:17), then Abraham (22:11, 15), and then Moses (Exod 3:2).

The promise that God confirms in 22:16-17 because of Abraham’s obedience is something that God had already promised Abraham beforehand. God is the one who makes us the people he can bless; over the years Abraham obeyed God and saw God’s trustworthiness. We believe (15:6), but walking with God himself in the light of his word grows our faith. As we persevere in trusting and obeying God, he makes us ready for things we could not have handled earlier.

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Sexual depravity and a servant of God—Genesis 19:31-38

One ancient purpose of this passage is to depict the terrible origins of Moabites and Ammonites. Since Ammonites and Moabites are not a big issue today, however, I will focus my thoughts here instead on the tale of horror attached to their origins.

Drunk like Noah (9:21-22), Lot did not choose the sexual encounter the passage describes (19:32-33). He did, however, allow himself to be made drunk. The narrative might partly excuse Lot for anguish and panic in the wake of his wife’s death (19:26), as Judah’s sexual behavior seems partly explained, though not excused, in this way (38:12). The consequences, however, are horrifying. The son of a godly woman I know passed out from being drunk; when he awoke, he stood accused of a rape of which he had no memory. Eventually the accuser retracted the story and he was acquitted, but losing control of one’s senses makes one more vulnerable to unwanted activities from oneself or others.

By ancient standards, a man being manipulated sexually by women would be judged pathetic and humiliating for the man, though the narrative’s chief horror for both ancient and modern culture is the act of incest. (Most acts of incest are also acts of rape, most often from older to younger and from male to female. Yet such actions are terrible in any form.) The daughters name the babies; naming might be ultimately a male prerogative (cf. 5:3; 35:18; 41:51-52; Exod 2:22; 18:3-4; 1 Chron 7:23), but the mother also often named the child (Gen 4:25; 29:32-35; 30:6-13, 18, 20-21, 24; 1 Sam 1:20; 1 Chron 4:9; 7:16). More significantly, the names explicitly refer to their horrible action, meaning that Lot cannot but have learned of it (19:37-38).

Lot’s hospitality may show him righteous (2 Pet 2:7); God seems to have counted him that way (Gen 18:23, 25). How could such a horrible thing happen in his family? Questions of free will aside, his daughters were not the only members of the family who violated God’s standards (19:17, 26). Lot’s daughters grew up in the immoral environment of Sodom where many men of the town could demand guests to gang-rape (19:4-5).

They also grew up in a household where their father had offered to let them be raped instead of the guests (19:8). Aside from questions of whether he considered homosexual rape worse than heterosexual rape (perhaps he did so view it; cf. Judg 19:23-25, a passage also contrasting hospitality with its opposite), he wanted to preserve the sacred honor of hospitality. But despite the terrible circumstances it is difficult to think that offering his soon-to-be-married daughters to gang rapists was an acceptable lesser of two evils. He also risked his own life (cf. Gen 19:9), but his daughters cannot but have been horrified by what nearly happened to them. (The narrative may include his offer partly to emphasize the specifically same-sex predilection of Sodom’s men; perhaps it might also bespeak the physical perfection of the angels, cf. Judg 13:6.)

Lot’s commendable hospitality to the angels continues the same pattern found in Abraham’s hospitality to them in the previous chapter (18:3-8). The key differences in setting, however, underline the differences between the very different environments chosen by Abraham and Lot: Lot had chosen a prosperous (13:10-11) but ungodly (13:13; 19:4-5) place to raise his family. While such an environment may be necessary for mission (cf. Matt 10:14-15; 11:23), it is hardly ideal for raising children if not necessary. The imaginary electronic world that surrounds most of our children (through music, videogames and movies) poses a potent challenge throughout much of the West today, but the influence of the values of real flesh-and-blood people around us continues to matter.

That the daughters wanted to preserve their father’s seed (19:32) reflects an element of good intention, but it served an act that all this account’s hearers would recognize as inexcusably evil (cf. Lev 18:6-18; 20:11-12, 14, 17-21, which leaves some relations even too horribly obvious to require specifying). Their concern that no men remained in the land (Gen 19:31; the Hebrew can mean either “earth” or “land”) may also reflect their grief over the deaths of their fiancés (19:14) and their desire for the male security and motherly role expected in their culture. It also may reflect a paranoia shared with their father (19:30).

We can hardly fault any of them for experiencing what we today would call posttraumatic stress syndrome. But father-child incest (as opposed, in some ancient cultures, to marrying a half-sibling; 20:12) was condemned in all cultures in the ancient Near East, as in virtually all cultures in history. The ancient hearers of Genesis could attribute the lack of moral understanding reflected in their incestuous action only to the influence of the Sodom narrative that precedes—and possibly in Lot’s own willingness to sacrifice their virginity to protect the guests.

Lot and his daughters may have raised their new children with the sort of compromised morals with which they had conceived them. In any case, this horrifying background of Ammonites and Moabites offers a stark contrast with a different childbirth narrated soon afterward. Lot’s daughters become pregnant by an “old” father (19:31); contrast aged Sarah’s pregnancy by Abraham in his “old” age (21:1, 7). Abraham and Sarah remained in God’s plan, and God provided them with a miracle. (The miracle was not only of birth in old age, but that it happened at the time that God had spoken—21:2.)

Of course, things do not always work out this way. Godly parents can have ungodly children, and ungodly parents can have godly children (1 Sam 8:3; 2 Chron 21:1-6; 24:2, 17-22; 25:2; 27:2; 28:1; 29:2; 33:1-2; 34:1-2; 36:5). Genesis’s story of Joseph shows that a godly person can often succeed despite a dysfunctional family background. But by and large, some backgrounds are better for children than others (cf. Prov 22:6). The influence of Sodom’s sexually loose morals haunted Lot’s family thereafter.

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Good News and Bad News—Genesis 18

New life and imminent death

Genesis 18 offers many lessons. These include lessons about hospitality, about faith, about God’s patience, about God’s justice, about persevering prayer and about God’s sovereignty in answering prayer. These lessons appear in God’s dialogue with Sarah and Abraham.

When three visitors suddenly appear near his camp, Abraham offers hospitality eagerly, running from his shade (18:2) and offering shade for them (18:4). As today in many cultures, including in Africa, hospitality also includes seeing people off, which Abraham does when they are ready to leave (Gen 18:16). Of course, by that time Abraham has a much better idea who his visitors are.

One of the three visitors is explicitly the LORD himself (18:1, 13, 17, 22; cf. 19:1)! He has a shocking message for Sarah: the Lord announces that Sarah will bear a son at that time the next year! In response, Sarah laughs (18:12), just as Abraham had when he first heard it (17:17). Passages we explored earlier have shown Abraham as a man of faith, but after so many years of waiting, at a time of life that was naturally impossible, and after already having settled that Ishmael would be the heir, mustering courage for this further phase of the promise must have appeared difficult.

God’s current promise—his current invitation to faith—was fortunately not dependent on the level of their confidence. God had seen their obedience in years past and was bringing about his purposes. Sarah denies laughing (18:15), but cannot fool God any more than did the earlier evasive response of Cain (4:9).

God has another issue to raise with Abraham before he is finished. God had been seeking to turn humanity back to himself since the garden and since the flood, but most people had remained alienated from him. God chose Abraham partly for how he would raise his children (18:19), to start a new line that would call humanity back toward the one true God. God called Abraham to this task even though God would give him just one son to directly fulfill this purpose, and it would only be later that this son’s descendants would make this God known to other peoples. That is because God knows the future. God did not need for Abraham to have a lot of extra sons “just in case.”

Yet in Abraham’s time most of humanity remained alienated from God, some as wickedly as the generation of the flood. Their wickedness was contagious, and God would destroy them rather than allow the moral cancer to corrupt others. We will look further at Sodom in the next chapter (when addressing Gen 19), but here it’s important to note Abraham’s response to the announcement of judgment on Sodom, and why he responds this way.

Abraham’s nephew Lot and his family lived in Sodom. On their behalf, and on behalf of the (wrongly) presumed other righteous persons in the city, Abraham pleads with God to spare the city. We too should join in prayer on behalf of God’s children in difficult places. In 18:22-32, we see a model of persistence in prayer. God shares the matter with Abraham to begin with because he wants Abraham to intercede. God wants us to care about others, and God himself looks for an occasion to show mercy; even if Sodom did not merit it, perhaps Abraham would merit it.

Abraham knows enough about Sodom to recognize that God’s justice means that Sodom is doomed unless God shows mercy (18:21-23). Thus he offers arguments based on God’s character, seeking to reason with God in prayer yet all the while recognizing that God’s reason is greater than Abraham’s own. Abraham recognizes that before God he is just dust (18:27)—like Adam (2:7; 3:19). Ultimately, there are fewer righteous people in Sodom than Abraham presumes; even Lot’s own family has been corrupted. Yet while Sodom did not merit sparing, Abraham did, and Lot is spared for Abraham’s sake (19:16, 21-22, 29). God destroys Sodom and yet fulfills the spirit of Abraham’s prayer. Abraham sees the smoke of Sodom the next day (19:27-28), not yet knowing that God spared Lot for Abraham’s sake (19:29).

How often does God meet our need, yet in ways different from what we supposed necessary? How often does God say, “I will see you through this,” and yet he sees us through in a different way than we expected? And how many places are spared because of the righteous, though they might be despised in those places, as Lot was?

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Father of nations and kings—Genesis 17:5-6

Sometimes people go around “confessing” things in “faith” that aren’t true, and such words have no effect. There is, however, someone who speaks and it is as good as done. As Lamentations declares, “Who speaks and it happens, unless the Lord has commanded it? Isn’t it from the Highest One’s decree that both harm and good issue forth?” (Lam 3:37-38).

When God declared to Abram, “I have made you a father of nations” (17:5), he referred to a future promise. God is referring to what will happen through Sarah (17:15-16), thus to something that in Genesis 17 still remains future. What matters, however, is not whether something has already happened, but whether God has decreed that it will happen. Some promises in the Bible are conditional, of course, but God states the condition here and Abraham follows it.

First, God states the promise he makes as part of the covenant (“As for me,” 17:4); God also makes a promise concerning Sarai (“As for Sarai,” 17:15). The condition for Abraham is clear: he and his descendants must be circumcised (“As for you,” 17:9-14).

God’s promise was not only that Abraham would become a father of nations, but that kings would descend from him (17:6). Again, he refers to Abraham’s line by Sarah, through their son Isaac: “kings of peoples” (plural) would descend from Sarah (17:16). Other rulers might descend from Abraham’s lines through Hagar (Ishmaelites), Keturah (Midianites and others), and from Abraham’s and Sarah’s relatives (peoples from Lot’s daughters). From Sarah, however, the only two peoples would be the Edomites and the Israelites. Jacob’s line, like Esau’s (36:31), would include many kings (35:11), most importantly in the Davidic dynasty. But Jacob would beget not only a nation but a community of nations (35:11). The ultimate Davidic ruler, the Messiah, would rule all nations (see Isa 11:10, 12).

Abraham obeyed his part of the covenant immediately (17:23), despite the pain if circumcision at his age (nearly one hundred, 17:1, 17, 24), and the pain of his followers. They needed a new leader who would succeed him, and this leader was promised by God. Often when God makes a promise there is a condition, and the condition often entails a cost. Those who genuinely believe what God has promised, however, will readily undertake any conditions to serve and please the God who watches over us.

In this chapter, we see God’s covenant faithfulness and his power to bring to pass what he promises. We also see the importance of obeying what God commands.

(This is part of a series of studies on Genesis; see e.g., Sodom; flood; creation; fall; God’s favor.)

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God heard her cry: God and Hagar in Genesis 16

God uses weak and fallible people—the only kind of people there are. Both Sarah, from the Middle East, and Hagar, from Egypt, were attached in special ways to Abraham, who had obeyed God’s call in faith. Each of them also believed in the same God that Abraham did. (At the very least, Hagar knows about God and when she hears from him she fully obeys him, 16:13.) They were each very much a part of their culture and the respective roles in which they found themselves, but God had a plan for both of them, as he does for each of us who look to him.

Yet even though Sarah was going to be blessed as a mother of the promised line, she resented Hagar’s arrogance against her (16:4) and she “afflicted” her even while she was pregnant (16:6). The affliction is so serious that Hagar seems willing to risk birthing by herself in the wilderness, undoubtedly with less means of subsequent sustenance than she envisioned (cf. 21:14-15; though she found a spring, 16:7).

More to the point of my narration, however, God heard her affliction (as the angel of the Lord indicates to her in 16:11, using the same Hebrew term as in 16:6). This is the same language used centuries later for God’s enslaved people in Egypt (Hagar’s country), when God saw their affliction and heard their cries (Exod 3:7; 4:31; Deut 26:7; cf. Neh 9:9). God hears when slaves and other oppressed people cry to him (cf. Exod 22:22-23, 26-27; Jms 5:4).

The Lord would bless her in part “because” of her affliction (Gen 16:11). In contrast to Israel, however Hagar is addressed as “Sarai’s maidservant” (16:8) and is sent back (Gen 16:9). Later she and her son will be sent into the wilderness again (21:14), but first her son would grow up in Abraham’s household and consequently with more blessings from Abraham than he likely would have had otherwise (17:20; 21:13).

Interestingly, Hagar receives a revelation from the Lord just as Abraham does; no such revelation is reported of Sarah until the messengers come in Gen 18:9-13 (cf. 17:15, 19, 21), and even then she is addressed only through Abraham. God has a special plan for Sarah, but we should not forget his care for Hagar as well. Indeed, as one of my former students, Sandra Randall, taught me, Hagar is the first person for whom Scripture mentions an explicit revelation of the angel of the LORD (16:7). The next time the angel of the Lord is mentioned by this title (he is probably implied in Gen 18), he is again appearing to Hagar in the wilderness, this time thirteen years later (21:17). (Of course the angel of the Lord also works behind the scenes, as implied in 24:7 and 48:16, but it seems no coincidence that the narrator mentions him where he does.) Moreover, this angel calls to her from heaven (21:17), as he will call to Abraham from heaven in the next chapter (22:11, 15, the first explicit mention of the angel of the Lord speaking to Abraham).

God heard her affliction, and she acknowledges him as “the God who sees,” marveling also that she has remained alive after seeing him (16:13). She seems already aware that no one can fully see God and live (Exod 33:20), but she is the first to discover that she could see some of the glory of the angel of the Lord, in whom God was revealed, and live (Judg 6:22-23; 13:22-23; cf. Exod 24:10-11).

It encourages me to see that even when we are enduring hardship—and sometimes are called to keep enduring it for a time—God does hear us, and has something better for us. The present is not all there is. Indeed, even when our role in God’s purposes may seem small to us, we may not imagine how much God is really with us and has plans for us. Granted, Hagar probably had some special favor with God because of her relationship with Abraham. But God has given us who trust him special favor with himself because of our relationship with Jesus Christ, his own Son.

(This is part of a series of studies on Genesis; see e.g., Sodom; flood; creation; fall; God’s favor.)

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Abram’s Growing Faith—Genesis 15—16

We rightly think of Abraham as our ancestor in faith, but his faith began small, just like all of ours. The faith necessary for God to count him righteous (Gen 15:6) was much less than the extraordinary faith demonstrated when he offered up Isaac years later (22:3). Abraham’s faith, like ours grew over the years. It was not something that he worked up by the strength of his will or by fertile imagination; it grew in response to witnessing God’s faithfulness over the years. He learned increasingly more deeply that God can be trusted, and he learned this because he had a relationship with God, where God spoke clearly and Abraham obeyed fully.

God had already promised Abram a seed (indeed, a “great nation,” 12:2a) and a land (12:1e). In 15:2, however, when God promises Abram a reward, Abram balks. What reward can count, since Abram is childless? He cannot pass on any of his blessings to his children; they will go instead to his leading servant (15:2-3). (In Mesopotamian custom, however, a designated heir could be displaced if the testator subsequently had a son.) Abram is not expecting a “great nation” to come from him, at least not genetically.

Yet God renews the promise, and affirms innumerable descendants for Abram (15:5). Keep in mind that Abram is now between 75 and 85 years old (12:4; 16:3, 16), Sarai is just ten years younger (17:17), and that they have had no children yet. (In fact, even when Abraham sees the promise fulfilled, there will be just one son of promise, who will also have just two sons himself.) Yet Abram believes that God will give him innumerable descendants (15:6a). This is significant faith, not unlike the act of faith Abram undertook when he left everything familiar to him in obedience to God’s call (12:4). Still, this faith has yet to be tested over time.

God counts this faith of Abram’s as righteousness (15:6); we obey (as in 12:4) because we believe God’s promise, so our most fundamental response to God, which he accepts, is trusting his Word, depending on what he says. But what immediately follows this beautiful expression of intimacy between God and Abram? God has assured Abram about his seed, and now assures Abram about the land; God’s plan is to give him the land to possess it (15:7). “How will I know that I will possess it?” Abram asks (15:8). This may not be doubting God’s word per se; he may simply wish to know how he can be sure that he will meet the conditions if the prophecy is conditional. But it seems that he is asking for a confirmation.

God grants him a visionary dream that promises him the land, although also showing the difficulties that his descendants will experience before that vision is fulfilled (15:9-16), essentially summarizing the first part of Exodus. God confirms this promise by entering into a clear covenant with Abram (15:17-21), even accommodating contemporary expectations for covenant sacrifices and meals. God comes down to Abram’s level to assure him.

But Sarai does not have children (16:1), and by Genesis’s chronology, she is roughly 75 years old (cf. 16:16; 17:17). Thus, following Mesopotamian custom among wealthy households, Sarai urges Abram to use Hagar, Sarai’s servant, as a sort of “surrogate mother” (as Renita Weems has put it) to bear a child in Sarai’s name (16:2-3). (As an Egyptian, Hagar was probably a servant given to Sarai and her family during their stay in Egypt; cf. 12:16, 20.) Childbearing and heirs were essential priorities in their milieu, and while God had promised Abram descendants, he had not specified that they would come physically through Sarai.

Why does the narrative about Hagar immediately follow God’s reaffirmation of his promises to Abram? Perhaps in part to show us the difficulty of understanding God’s purposes more fully even when he has spoken a few of the details to us; and perhaps also to illustrate that Abram’s faith in Gen 15:6 was just rudimentary faith, compared to the sort of faith Abram would exhibit in Gen 22.

The faith that it takes to be justified is rudimentary: we simply need to take God at his word that he has promised, namely, that he has provided us salvation by Jesus’s death and resurrection (Rom 4:22-25). That is, it is not difficult to exercise faith for salvation.

But as we continue to walk with God and persevere through tests of our faith, we grow to see that God is reliable and that even in the hardest times there is hope. Abraham had seen God provide him a son miraculously and believed that this same God would fulfill his promise if Abraham obeyed him fully (Heb 11:17-19). We may not always hear the details as clearly as Abraham did, but we have surely heard the message of the cross. God is trustworthy, and tests of our faith are opportunities for us to learn faith in a deeper way, beyond saving faith. We may learn, ever more deeply, that God is trustworthy; if we persevere, the hardest challenges to faith are the ones that ultimately drive home his faithfulness most deeply, because no matter what God still has a plan and purpose for us that lasts forever.

(This is part of a series of studies on Genesis; see e.g., Sodom; flood; creation; fall; God’s favor.)

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Saving a Lot: Abram fights slave traders—Genesis 14

While Christian theologians today debate whether God demands pacifism or allows just war, at least in the Old Testament we see one just war that is not explicitly noted to have been carried out at God’s command. This was a war to liberate slaves. (This differs from the battles against the Canaanites, treated elsewhere: Canaanites 1; Canaanites 2; Canaanites 3.)

Enslaving prisoners of war was common practice in antiquity, and typically Sodom’s captured citizens, such as Lot, would have remained slaves for life (Gen 14:10-12). Much of the rest of the narrative is typical. The sorts of confederations of local kings depicted in 14:1-2, 8-9 dominated the fertile crescent in this period.

Chedorlaomer and his allies also had typical reasons for sacking Sodom and its allies. Chedorlaomer had conquered them thirteen years earlier, but now they declared independence from him, withholding tribute. In exacting vengeance, Chedorlaomer strips Sodom and Gomorrah of their goods (14:11), not only compensating for lost tribute but also because warriors on expeditions expected to profit from victories (cf. 14:24). Sodom’s own surviving warriors have fled to the hills (14:10), so the captives from the town are noncombatants such as the town’s women and other residents (14:16), including Abram’s nephew Lot (14:12).

That would have been the end of the story, except for Abram. One person can sometimes make a big difference in history, at least for many people. God had already chosen Abram to make a difference, even in how he would raise his children (18:19). Abram knew that he would be a blessing to the nations (12:3), and one way that he began blessing some peoples was by liberating them from slave traders. (That is why not only the kings who had directly suffered oppression, but also another king from the region, blesses Abram and his God, 14:18-19.) We should consider what ways God might use us in many parts of the world today (not least by combatting modern slavery, including sex trafficking, debt slavery and the like; International Justice Mission is among groups providing resources in this direction).

Abram has allies (14:24), but his own army, consisting of servants or members of his tribe, has 318 men (14:14). Ancient rabbis ingeniously interpreted “318” as the numerical value of Eliezer’s name (15:2), hence claimed that Abram and his steward Eliezer single-handedly defeated the enemy. This interpretation is fanciful; 318 was in fact a good-sized army for this region in this period. Nevertheless, Abram’s army was not simply facing a rival tribe of herders or a single town; he was facing four kings who had already vanquished five other kings. Yet Abram uses a wise strategy, striking his unprepared enemy unexpectedly, at night, from different sides.

God gives Abram’s army the victory (14:14-16). Not only Abram, but also Melchizedek, king of Salem (what was later called Jerusalem), recognizes that God had given Abram the victory. He acknowledges that God “delivered” Abraham’s enemies into his hand (14:20); the cognate noun for this verb appears in the next scene, in 15:1, where God is a “shield” to Abram. The same God who kept him and gave him victory in the battle is the same God who continued to be with him to fulfill his calling and purpose.

Abram gives Melchizedek one-tenth of spoil as an offering to God Most High (14:20c), whose priest Melchizedek was (14:18). Paying a tenth, or a tithe, often to gods, was a common practice in antiquity. Melchizedek’s role in Genesis is similar to that of Jethro in Exodus—someone outside Abraham’s line who yet recognizes the true God. Note the following similarities (borrowed from my Acts commentary on Acts 7):
Melchizedek (Gen 14)// Jethro (Exod 18)
Priest of God Most High (Gen 14:18)// Priest of Midian (Exod 18:1)
Brought bread and wine (Gen 14:18)// Fellowship meal (Exod 18:12)
Blessed be God who helped you against your enemies (Gen 14:20)// Blessed be YHWH who saved you from your enemies (Exod 18:10)

Of course, Melchizedek also acts for God, and it is in that role that Abram pays the tithe to him. Canaanite kings sometimes doubled as priests, and this was certainly true of Melchizedek (Gen 14:18); Psalm 110 even depicts the enthroned heavenly Lord (110:1) as like Melchizedek, a permanent priest-king (110:4), a role ultimately fulfilled by the exalted Lord Messiah (Mark 12:36; Acts 2:34; Heb 5:6).

Abram went on this mission to rescue Lot, not to collect spoil for himself. His servants naturally used some of the food for themselves, but Abram refuses to claim any of the loot, merely recouping that food as a cost of the mission and allowing his allies to take their share (Gen 14:24). Ancient ethics demanded reciprocity, and Sodom’s king, Bera, is happy to get back even his subjects, while allowing Abram to keep the spoil. Bera doesn’t want to be in Abram’s debt (14:21), but Abram succeeds at remaining his benefactor (14:22-24), allowing only the concessions just mentioned (14:24). Such concessions allow Sodom’s king to retain his honor, but Bera should nevertheless remain grateful to Abram, and to Lot, for whose sake Abram rescued the people. This kindness makes Sodom’s later treatment of Abram’s nephew, Lot (19:9), appear all the more heinous.

(This is part of a series of studies on Genesis; see e.g., Sodom; flood; creation; fall; God’s favor.)