Genesis 20 & 21 continues the narrative of Abraham’s journey in the land of Canaan. The way that Abraham treats the Philistines and the Ishmaelites badly in these passages sets the scene for future clashes between Abraham’s descendants and these nations; just think of King David’s battles with the Philistines (Goliath was a Philistine), and remember the group of Ishmaelites whom Joseph’s brothers arranged to take Joseph as a slave to Egypt.

All these stories seem to connect to tell us that because of some bad / unwise choices by Abraham, he is going around the land that God has promised to his descendants, creating enemies and giving the inhabitants serious cause for grievance against him.

Let’s just reflect back quickly to connect what we have already read, then we can add what we are told in these chapters. We previously heard in Genesis 12 that Abraham upsets the Egyptians when he lies and cheats them by saying Sarai was his sister, causing the Egyptians to be inflicted with serious illnesses. Then in the previous chapter, we read that Abraham’s unwise interaction with God, causes Lot and his daughters to be saved, but Sodom & Gomorrah destroyed; we then find out that the Moabites and Ammonites (great future enemies of Israel) are born from Lot’s daughters raping him whilst he is drunk.

So who else can Abraham upset? In chapter 20, we read that Abraham is settling as a visitor / guest in the land of Gerar, a Philistine land. Abraham repeats his foolish lie, telling Abimelek the ruler of the Philistines, that Sarah is his sister… and here we go again! All the women in Abimelek’s household are prevented from conceiving until God appears to Abimelek in a dream commanding that he returns Sarah. Abimelek does what he is told by God and in addition, he gives Abraham a very wealthy gift, in return Abraham prays and Abimelek’s family are healed… it’s basically a repeat of the error Abraham made in Egypt.

In Genesis 21 we get the account of Abraham and Sarah sending away Ishmael with his Egyptian mother Hagar. One might think… to be fair, at least they were given some food and water… but it clearly wasn’t enough, because soon they sit down under a bush to die. It’s here that the angel of God appears to them and miraculously provides a well of water that saves their lives.

So how can we summarise what we are finding here, and what are our reflections?

Well, it would appear that God has chosen Abraham as a new starting point to bring about His promise to restore a broken humanity, but all we really get from Abraham is a mess of broken relationships caused by lying and cheating etc. Restoration is certainly not going to come through good works alone because this is not the message or the example we are given from Abraham. It is at this point that the Biblical narrative takes a bit of a turn, and in the next chapter (22) we are told of Abraham’s great faith in an event which is so full of Jesus imagery and symbolism it’s amazing, and all of a sudden it becomes clear how God is going to restore humanity… not through good works alone, but through faith in His Son. Come back next week for that amazing chapter!

As we said in the last post, God has given Abraham and his household circumcision as the outward sign that they are now partnering with God to bring about justice in the earth. So the account of Sodom & Gomorrah is a bit like Abraham’s first day at the office in his new job.

God Himself, actually meets Abraham face to face along with two angels, which in itself is remarkable! We can be sure that it is actually God talking to Abraham as one of the three visitors, because your bible will probably capitalise the word ‘LORD’. Any time it does this, you should know that the original word in the Hebrew Scriptures is God’s sacred covenant name ‘YHWH’ which we commonly call Yahweh.

So God says, now that He is partnering with Abraham to bring about justice, He should probably reveal to Abraham what He is doing (Gen 18:17-19). So God tells Abraham that He is on His way to Sodom & Gomorrah to see what is going on there because He has heard a great outcry against the city, and God wants to restore justice.

So there is something really great here that I hope you catch from this… God hears our prayers!! The reason God is responding and taking action here is that he has heard the prayers / outcry from those suffering at the hands of injustice in these cities. God is telling Abraham that He is going to personally check it out with some of His angelic messengers, and if it’s as bad as He has heard, then He is going to bring these cities to justice.

What is the great problem or sin that they eventually find when they get to Sodom & Gomorrah? It’s important to be clear on this point, because most people wrongly assume that it is homosexuality, but, although that may have been going on, the text does not tell us that this is the real issue or the root cause of the outcry of injustice. No, the text is quite clear that the root problem is actually rape, and it was so epidemic that verses 4-5 tell us that ALL the men from every part of the city wanted to rape the two visitors staying with Lot.

“Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.””
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭19:4-5‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Lot’s response is just as shocking… in fact, more shocking to me as a father myself:

“Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.””
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭19:8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

What!! Lot offers his daughters to the rape mob because the visitors have come under the protection of his roof… why are his daughters not under his protection?? It’s really shocking, and you can see why there was a great outcry to God and why God decided to destroy the city in order to prevent further injustice.

Back to the partnership between Abraham and God… what was Abraham’s contribution? Well Abraham pleads with God to spare these cities in the well-known passage where he is bartering with God to save the city if He can find 50 good men, then 45, and so on, down to 10. This is not Abraham’s finest hour in my opinion, it turns out God is right to destroy the city to bring justice, in fact, things probably would have turned out better later on if Lot wasn’t spared on Abraham’s behalf too.

What do I mean by that? Well the old rape problem rears its ugly head again, because we are told that Lot’s daughters get their father intoxicated and rape him to get pregnant. This is significant to the bigger picture of the Bible story, because the two children who come from this end up being great enemies of Israel over many generations – the Moabites and the Ammonites.

So what can we learn from all this?

I would say that God is a righteous judge and He has all wisdom to bring justice on the earth. And yet He still wants to partner with us, which is amazing! In our partnering with Him, we need to be wise by listening to God’s direction for how we are to bring justice to the world around us.

I had been reading, studying and meditating on Genesis 17 for over a week, and I honestly could not understand why God commanded circumcision to Abraham.

Then I realised that circumcision, in the unified story of the Bible, is a broader subject than merely circumcision of the flesh. This circumcision that God instructs Abraham here in Genesis 17 is merely a sign, symbol or fore-taste of something greater which is to come later; something that the Bible frequently refers to as ‘circumcision of the heart’; let’s explore this, it is very important!

A covenant is essentially an agreement or partnership between two parties; in this case, it is between God and Abraham (and his descendants). The reason for this covenant is that God wants to partner with humans to bring justice on the earth… just like God’s partnership in the beginning with Adam!

God promises to bless Abraham, saying that he will be fruitful and that nations and kings will come from Abraham’s line. God also promises to give the land of Canaan to Abraham’s descendants. In return, Abraham, and everyone who also receives this covenant agreement through Abraham, should bear a mark, or carry an outward sign to others, that witnesses of this covenant partnership with God.

God’s eventual hope/plan, is that His chosen people will be changed from the inside out (circumcision of the heart), and that they will partner with Him to bring justice and peace to the earth. Let’s just look quickly at a couple of passages from Deuteronomy and Romans, that confirm that this is the case.

So, one question would be, why did God command Abraham to physically circumcise in the flesh, and not just talk to him about metaphorically being changed on the inside and partnering with God to bring peace and justice?

Well, aside from the obvious point that circumcision (both of flesh and heart) can be costly and painful… just ask Jesus and the persecuted early church… it could be that God gave Abraham the physical sign, because he and his descendants were not yet spiritually mature enough to be circumcised in the heart. The Genesis 18 account of Sodom & Gomorrah follows directly on from God’s instructions to Abraham about circumcision; they are probably linked. How so? well the account of Sodom & Gomorrah is about both ‘judgement’ and ‘justice’. And remarkably, God chooses to reveal to Abraham what He is about to do, and He even involves him in the decision-making process… it almost reads a bit like a training exercise!

We will look in more detail at the account of Sodom & Gomorrah next time. For now, goodbye & have a great week pondering these things.

God has promised Abram children even though he & Sarai are pretty old at this point. We have already been told that Abram believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. So what is going on with Abram & Sarai taking matters into their own hands in this chapter?!?!

All we can probably say, is that they got impatient, and although they trusted God’s provision (that they would have children), they didn’t trust his timing, and so when things took too long in their own eyes, and they thought it was getting too late, they decided to take action. We can learn a lot from this mistake/lesson and apply it to so many areas of our lives lives… we should trust God’s provision for the things He has promised, but we should also trust His timing.

There is another really fascinating thing in this chapter that stands out to me every time I read it. Hagar, on her wandering, is met by a character that is referred to as ‘the angel of the Lord’ in verses 7, 9, & 11. Then in verse 13, we are told that Hagar gives a name to Yahweh who spoke to her! Here is how NIV translates this verse: “

“She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.””
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭16:13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

And here on the image below is how it appears in the original Hebrew text.

So there is clearly a connection between the character referred to as ‘The angel of the Lord’ and God himself! Want to find out what that connection is and how it works? Click the blue ‘Bible Project’ image below to be taken via a link to an animated video on YouTube that explains all.

The meeting of Abraham & Melchizedek in Genesis 14 is a mysterious & fascinating encounter. There are some different ways of interpreting what was going on here. Some people believe that Melchizedek is actually Jesus. That would mean that Jesus either took on flesh in human form in Abraham’s day, or that he just appeared to Abraham like God’s spirit-being messengers (angels) sometimes do throughout Bible stories. Other people say that Melchizedek wasn’t actually literally a pre-existent Jesus, but instead he was a regular Canaanite king/priest, but the Bible story and Psalms (especially Psalm 110) use him as an example to say that the promised Messianic king (Jesus) will be like Melchizedek in the sense that he will be both a king and a high priest. Whichever view you take, you should probably first consider a couple of really key passages from the New Testament so I’ll present them here. Let’s look at what Hebrews says about it first (sorry it’s quite long but it’s a great read and the Bible says it better than I ever could!):

“This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him, and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, the name Melchizedek means “king of righteousness”; then also, “king of Salem” means “king of peace.” Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever. Just think how great he was: Even the patriarch Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder! Now the law requires the descendants of Levi who become priests to collect a tenth from the people—that is, from their fellow Israelites—even though they also are descended from Abraham. This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. And without doubt the lesser is blessed by the greater. In the one case, the tenth is collected by people who die; but in the other case, by him who is declared to be living. One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor. If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood—and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood—why was there still need for another priest to come, one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also. He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe, and no one from that tribe has ever served at the altar. For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, one who has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life. For it is declared: “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: ‘You are a priest forever.’ ” Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant. Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.”
‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭7:1-28‬ ‭NIV‬‬

What does Jesus himself say? Here’s the passage from John 8:

Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.” At this they exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that whoever obeys your word will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?” Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.”
‭‭John‬ ‭8:51-59‬ ‭NIV‬‬

By way of a conclusion, whether you believe it literally was Jesus who met with Abraham (as Melchizedek) or whether you believe it was a regular person, the story clearly points us to Jesus. Also, this new covenant which came through Jesus is greater than the old covenant because Abraham pays homage when he gives a tenth. Take note too, that the symbolic meal of the new covenant, the bread and wine symbolising Jesus’ body and blood, that we sometimes call communion or Eucharist, was shared here between Abraham and Melchizedek… very interesting!

From Chapter 12, the rest of the book of Genesis adopts a narrative style, telling the story of Abraham (Abram) and Sarah (Sarai) and their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, that eventually become the 12 tribes of Israel.

The thing that makes this man Abraham different from the rest of the people of his time, is his faith. To see this, we can contrast Abraham’s attitude of relying on God, with other people’s attitude of relying on themselves and their own strength and their own self-will. We have already looked in the previous chapter at the prideful, rebellious attitude of Nimrod and the builders of the Tower of Babel:

“Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis‬ ‭11:4‬ ‭NIV‬‬).

Consider also the prideful, rebellious attitude of Satan, who is probably influencing this human rebellion at Babel/Babylon. Pastor Brian Smithyman taught me about Satan’s attitude using the five ‘I will’ statements in Isaiah 14:

“For you (Satan) have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’” (Isaiah‬ ‭14:13-14‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

In contrast to these attitudes of self-will, it occurred to me whilst reading Genesis 12, that God calls Abram out of that land of rebellion (Babylon) with five ‘I will’ statements of his own:

“Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis‬ ‭12:1-3‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

God’s five ‘I will’ statements are to love and bless others, not benefit Himself, it is just so typically God! Here, He is inviting Abraham to trust in God as the source of provision, protection, blessing etc. And to Abraham’s credit, his response is summed up brilliantly in these few simple words:

“So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him…” (Genesis‬ ‭12:4‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

Abraham didn’t always get it right later on in his journey, in fact, he frequently messes things up and shows lack of faith and trust in God in numerous areas, but the important thing is that he had enough faith to respond to what God had said and he got up and went. This should be a great encouragement to us also in our own personal journey.

Next time, we will see how the story of Abram’s journey develops from here, and we’ll see a pattern/picture that the Bible is starting to show us, but while the going is good for Abram, and we only have (mostly) good things to say about him, let’s let him have a week at the top before we learn about some of his failings.

Have a great week,

Neil.

INTRO

There are some fascinating details in this section, but we are going to focus on the big picture, looking at two hugely significant subjects which have their foundations here, ‘atonement’ and ‘enmity’.

FOUNDATION OF ATONEMENT

The first theme, which is central to the Bible story, is the value that God places on all living things, but especially on humans, since we are made in the image of God. This value is talked about in the Bible in many accounting terms which we’ll try to explain as we go. As we are talking about accounting and the value in all life, note that the currency being used is described as its ‘lifeblood’. We see it’s foundation here, and the impact of this is seen throughout the rest of the Bible.

To understand what is going on, we need to remember that, part of God’s character is his demand for ‘justice’. When sin was brought into the world by Adam & Eve, that brought with it death and injustice. Without meaning to get into really heavy theology, there is an atonement theory called ‘Ransom theory’ that basically suggests that this ‘original sin’ (of Adam) is ‘imputed’ (charged to the account) of every subsequent generation until it is paid for. To restore justice, someone needs to pay the ransom… this, of course, is referring to the death of Jesus on the cross who paid with His blood.

In addition to the original sin of Adam & Eve, human blood was later shed by human hands, as we saw through their first sons Cain & Abel. So people have their own sin piled on top of Adam’s sin, that upsets the balance of justice further, so to restore it, God says here “whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed.”

Later in the Bible story, God gives a ‘Sacrificial system’ through Moses, whereby the blood of an animal can ‘atone’ (or replace/cover/pay) for human sin and uncleanness. Again, using accounting terms, this is to say that the animal’s blood is given as payment in place of the human’s blood who sinned. Another way of looking at this, is that the animal’s innocence is ‘imputed’ (charged to the sinner’s account) whilst the sinner’s sin is ‘imputed’ (charged to the animal’s account) and God’s wrath, or righteous anger, is poured out onto the sacrifice, instead of the sinner… this atonement theory is called ‘Penal Substitutionary Atonement’ (PSA).

These are two different ways of explaining the same thing – atonement… more on that later, but for now, note that this is symbolic, pointing to Jesus, whose blood covers all sin, both of Adam, and our own.

FOUNDATION OF ENMITY

The second really significant thing that happens in this section, is Noah’s actions straight after the flood. Remember God was upset with all the violence, conflict and hostility (enmity) in the pre-flood world, so he decides to start afresh through Noah’s family. After the flood, God speaks blessing on humanity “be fruitful, increase in number and fill the earth” (Gen 9:1). Noah uses his tongue however, to speak both blessings and curses over this new humanity, which reintroduces enmity (which means conflict & hostility) between his sons and grandsons that later become the nations. The consequences of this are huge in the Bible story, and we can still see it’s effects today.

This is what Noah says:

“he said, “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers.” He also said, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. May God extend Japheth’s territory; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be the slave of Japheth.””
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭9:25-27‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Chapter 10 is one of those chapters with lots of genealogy that it’s easy to glaze over! But if you skip it entirely you’ll miss some really crucial plot lines to the Bible story.

Consider this, Noah speaks this blessing “praise be to the Lord, the God of Shem.” Shem is the ancestor of the Shemites who we call the Semites… ever heard that phrase? How about the term ‘Semitic’ (as in Semitic language) or ‘antisemitism’? Yes, Shem is the ancestor of the Jewish people and the nation Israel. We will see in Chapter 11 that we are given a very clear genealogy to trace from Shem to Abraham.

Consider this also; Noah speaks this curse “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers.” Does the land of Canaan have any importance later? Yep! And the people groups that live there, the Canaanites? Yep! What about the cities established by descendants of Canaan? Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Nineveh, Sodom, Gomorrah… yep! The people groups, the Philistines, Amorites, Hittites, Girgashites etc etc… yep! All these things trace back to this curse of enmity pronounced by Noah right here.

REFLECTIONS

So before we leave it there for this blog post, let’s just reflect on that, and ask a question: All the subsequent conflicts and wars between the descendants of Shem (the Israelites & Jews) and the descendants of Canaan (the many groups and nations we highlighted above)… was that God’s design and doing, or was it the result of this curse of enmity spoken by human tongue through Noah? I would suggest it is human! People today often unfairly blame religion, and sometimes even God Himself, to explain the hatred, violence and war that we see in the world today, and throughout history; but if it is Noah that introduced this conflict, we should remember that humans are to blame, not God!

One final reflection; if Noah was the best person alive at the time, how good was he? Well, he might have been the best on offer, and to his credit, he did show faith by building the ark, even though there had been no rain (“…and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” Hebrews‬ ‭11:7‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). But cursing his descendants, and introducing enmity between them, that was not too smart! That’s a pretty humbling thought for us isn’t it? We, as humanity, surely need God and his grace! Remember back to Genesis 6 “but Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.”