God's Princess, an overview (Gen 11:27-23:20)

Today, we come to the story of a woman who's life is described, alongside her husband Abraham's, for eleven chapters! This is the first woman we come to know in any real sense after Eve. Since it is such a long story, my first step here will be to outline the information points we have about Sarah in a rough timeline of her life:

• She is the wife of Abram (we later learn she is Abram's half sister) and she is unable to become pregnant.
• With Abram, she moves from Haran to Canaan, and then to Egypt when there is a famine in Canaan.
• She is given by her husband to Pharaoh, so he could avoid being killed, and then given by Pharaoh back to Abraham after plagues fell on his house.
• She travels by Abram's side as he travels with Lot, and settles in Canaan, and participates in a local war.
• Abram receives the promise that he will have many descendents, which depends on her.
• She offers her servant Hagar to Abram, to help God fulfill his promise.
• She is treated with contempt by Hagar, and sends Hagar away. God cares for Hagar and sends her back.
• Abraham receives another covenant from God establishing circumcision, changing his name, and her name.
• God promises Abraham that Sarah specifically will have a son.
• Three holy messengers visit Abraham at Mamre and announce birth of a son through Sarah within a year. Sarah overhears this from inside the tent and laughs.
• After Lot is rescued from Sodom, Sarah accompanies Abraham south. 
• Again Abraham says she is his sister and gives him to Abimelech. The Lord warns Abimelech she is married and he gives her back, saying she was in on the deception.
• She gives birth to Isaac in her old age, and declares God has brought her laughter.
• She sends Ishmael away because he is mistreating Isaac.
• Abraham offers Isaac.
• She dies at 127, and was buried at Machpelah, near Mamre, where Isaac's birth was promised by the holy messengers and she got caught laughing at the promise.

Based on this outline, Here are several themes I want to look at.

The central one is Sarah's infertility. Though Abraham is the lead in this story, the first thing we learn about his family pertains to Sarah--that she cannot bear children. We have previously seen how important childbearing is in the story of humanity. It is certainly given first priority in these chapters. Even God's promise to Abraham to establish a people through him to be God's own special people hinges on this important womanly detail of Sarah's life.

The next interesting feature of this story is what we are told about her marriage relationship to Abram. It begins within their nuclear family (!?).  We are told she has great beauty and, with no children, a lack of obvious matronhood. This allows Abram to claim her as only a sister, and twice effectively pimp her to menacing kings. We also have God's attention to these situations without obvious reprimand to Abram.

I'd also like to look at her relationship with God. Throughout the story, Sarah is in the action, and even speaking, but not to God. God only speaks with Abraham, with one possible exception. How did Sarah herself relate to God in the often difficult circumstances of her life?

Finally, I want to think through the time in her life when God's promise is fulfilled and she finally gives birth to Isaac. We have a few pieces of information that speak about this, and the touching final record that she is buried at Mamre, where the holy messengers promised his birth within a year and she laughed.

Stay tuned! There is a lot of really valuable stuff here I suspect.

Since this is an overview, I will save the takeaways and questions for the next posts, where we will dive deeper into Sarah's life.

Generations (Gen 4:17-5:32)

A few more generations of children being born are listed before we get to Lamech, who is remembered as having two wives who gave birth to talented craftsman, and the first daughter recorded by name. The question of his polygamy goes undiscussed, as does his killing of another man, which he boasts of in speech to his wives and claims God's protection for, referencing God's protection of Cain. However, there is no dialogue or direct action between him and God. Lamech's family presides over some of the first great progress of the human race: raising livestock, playing harp and flute, forging tools of bronze and iron. However, this progress seems to be taking them further from the time of mankind's friendship with the Lord, since we never hear God speak to Lamech.

He addresses his speech to his two wives, "Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; listen to me you wives of Lamech." Why he so emphatically want them to hear this? Were they concerned for his safety? Anxious to avenge the murder themselves? Who, exactly, was the young man and why did Lamech kill him? All missing pieces, but surely more unsavory business was unfolding, and in the midst of it, Lamech felt he needed to assert himself to his two wives. We hear nothing from them, nor from any wife or woman, except Eve (who speaks again in the next paragraph), until Sarai speaks to Abram in Genesis 16 about her alternate plan for him to bear children through her servant Hagar.

In all this time, women do appear to have been ruled over. Though wives are mentioned, they do not drive the action in any way, and are not even named until Sarai. Lamech's story ends with his speech, and his two silent wives taking it in.

Of course, even in the garden before the fall, Adam's place as the first human, the one for whom Eve was made, was established. So had humanity not fallen, we may have still heard more about the adventures of men in the wide world, than those of women with their children. But given the importance placed on childbearing and the awe with which the first few births are treated, combined with the redemptive importance for humanity of Eve bearing children, maybe we can say the story is a little silent here on the mothers of all the generations recorded. Either way, the Bible gives us a reason for the patriarchy it records. Some of it was designed in Eden, some influenced by the wound between men and women that happened in the fall.

Then we jump back to the first family. Eve bears another son. She exclaims, "God has granted me another son in place of Abel, whom Cain killed." Compared with her exclamations about her first children, this exclamation is tainted with the sadness gained from time spent living in the fallen world. But it also shows that she is still looking to God as the one who provides good things for her. Having walked with God in the garden, it must have been  hard to forget his goodness and provision, even in such a changed place.

The last line of chapter 4 gives us the interesting note that when Adam and Eve's second son, Seth, had a son, people began to worship the Lord by name. If the chapter has all been chronological, there would have been generations of Cain's descendents living who did not worship the Lord before Seth's son's birth. Or maybe this is just a flashback to the first family after the mini-story of Cain's departure and what followed it. In that case, there would have been worshippers and non-worshippers living side by side. I wonder what this early worship looked like, handed down from the first people in Eden to their grandchildren. I also wonder what name it was by which they worshipped. But these question don't have too much to do with our central theme here, so like so many others, I'll just leave them by the side.

Chapter 5 opens with a reiteration that God created people in his image, both male and female. Then ten generations of Adam's descendents are named through their firstborn sons, though all also have "other sons and daughters." There is not much detail here except for the famous Enoch, who walked with God until one day "God took him away." The other detail is the meaning for Noah's name, given to him by his father Lamech. Noah sounds like the word for relief or comfort. Lamech hoped that Noah would somehow bring them relief from the difficulty they were having working the land after the curse, which Lamech specifically mentions. Perhaps an unrecorded daughter somewhere may have been named similarly by her mother ("Epidurala" perhaps?).

When we return to the story, we will zoom on on Noah's lifetime. By then, things on earth have really deteriorated. Stay tuned. . .

Takeaways:

• Women are on the sidelines in the biblical narrative from Eve until Sarai.

• Patriarchy is established in Eden, but corrupted along with everything else in the fall.

• God is the source of our good gifts, and should be praised, even outside the Garden.

Questions:

• What is the backstory to Lamech's speech to his wives?

• What do you imagine to be the experience of these first women, offstage?