The God who sees me (Genesis 16, 21:8-20)

Interwoven with the story of Sarah and Abraham is the story of Hagar. Though Sarah is the one remembered and honored in the hall of fame of holy women in many places in the Bible (1 Pet 3:6, Hebrews 11:11, Rom 4:19, 9:9, Gal 4:22-23), Hagar's character shows us another a heart-warming picture of God's support for those less honored, less remembered, and in need of help and grace.

The first exile
When we are introduced to Hagar, she is little more than a pawn in Sarai's plan to move God's plan forward. She is from Egypt, but that is all we know about her backstory before she is given to Abram as a wife. We know Abram agreed to this plan, Hagar's feelings about it are not considered in the text. But Hagar's first recorded contribution to the action is the contempt from her that Sarai perceives when Hagar becomes pregnant.

Abram takes Sarai's side in the dispute, and tells Sarai to deal with her as she sees fit. What Sarai sees fit is treatment so harsh that Hagar feels the need to run away. When Hagar is alone, we get a glimpse into her story at what is likely one of it's most profound points over the course of her life.

Hagar receives a visit from an angel, who is very interested in her circumstances, and gives her direction about them, saying "Return to your mistress and submit to her authority." He follows this up with promises to her, that she will have more descendants than she can count, and that her son will be wild, and live in hostility with others. The angel also gives her Ishmael's name (meaning Hagar is the one who names him when they return, probably after sharing this story with her household). It means "God hears" and is a sign to Hagar that the Lord is involved in her stressful life. She, in response, uses a new name for the Lord "the one who sees me."

What a beautiful interaction this is! Hagar's recorded intimacy with God here is in stark contrast with her holy mistress's relationship with God, played out in overheard conversations, attempts to influence him from afar, and doubt about his power. I think we have to observe here that God is involved with different people in different ways, even when each is one of his own people, one of his own women.

Hagar does return, in obedience and in faith in the promise she has received from the Lord, but we hear nothing of her relationship with Sarai until there is more trouble 14 years later. The reconciliation at the end of chapter 16 is recorded that she "gave Abram a son." No information is given about how she or Sarai felt about being back together at that point.

The second exile
After Sarai's relationship with the Lord is resolved in gratitude and laughter, at Isaac's birth, Hagar comes back into the action. She is having a similar problem to what happened in the earlier episode. But instead of Hagar being contemptuous to Sarah, now it is Ishmael making fun of Isaac. Again, Sarah's anger flares, and Abraham allows her to send them away.

The first time God came to Hagar and Ishmael in their difficulty, they were on a road, near a spring of water. This time they are wandering aimlessly in the desert, and their water has just run out. Hagar is desperate now, crying alone, unable to bear watching her son die. She has earlier been promised that God will make a great nation out of Ishmael, which would be precluded by his death. So her faith has to be shaking at this point. Also she is faced with the immediate dire problem of their physical needs. But God "hears" again and comes to her, repeating the promise about Ishmael. He also shows her a well that saves them, and the crisis is apparently solved at that point. Ishmael grows up in the wilderness as a skillful archer an ultimately marries someone from Egypt, where his mother is from.

Perhaps this is a very happy ending for Hagar, to return to her homeland with a son she is proud of who is blessed by God, and to settle there and integrate him back into her people. Though Hagar and Ishmael's story is a bit of a sideline from the story of God's people in the Bible, God does indeed see and hear them, and my heart is warmed at his compassion for them in the midst of his greater plan.

Takeaways:

• In contrast with God's distant relationship with Sarah, he interacts intimately with Hagar in her time of need.
• God is extremely compassionate with Hagar in the context of her motherhood, rescuing her in the midst of a troubled pregnancy, and then later, when she is unable to provide for her son. This, despite the fact that their own provocation seems to have brought the trouble upon them.

Questions:

• Why did God seek out Hagar to help and bless her? Could it have been because of her relationship with God's chosen man, Abraham, and his son?
• What was the relationship between Abraham, Sarai and Hagar like in between her two departures?

Sarah and her God (Gen 16-23)

So much of Sarah's story comes to us through Abraham, who is definitely the lead character in their chapters in Genesis. What we learn about Sarah comes from several places in the text where she speaks up, and we may guess at her experience for the rest. This applies to what we know about her relationship with God as much as the other facets of her life we have looked at.

We don't really hear much from Sarah about the things that happen to her-- Abraham's call and departure, her stay in Pharaoh's house, Abraham's negotiations with Lot and his wars with the local kings, and his covenant with God--until after Abraham has received this covenant. At this point, we are reminded that of course she has been in on these events, and also seems to have been listening in on Abraham's relationship with God, all along. Her first initiated actions and words are a response to the covenant Abraham receives.

To me chapter 16 gives more away about Sarah's relationship with God than any other part of her story. We've already discussed this episode in relationship to her marriage and her infertility. But let's look back at in this context as well, because I think it does tell us about Sarah's posture towards the Lord, or at least her respect for her husband's relationship with him.

When Sarah comes to Abraham saying, "The Lord has prevented me from having children. Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her," I hear a deep conflict and pain, mixed with resignation and determination in her statement. She knows Abraham has received this promise from God, and that she herself is unable to deliver it. (This is a position many a believer has found herself in over the years: I am promised blessing, but am unable to bring it about myself . . . and am tired of waiting for  it!) She ascribes her inability to conceive to the Lord, the one who has promised a baby to Abraham. But she does not hope that it will be fulfilled in her, even as she wants it to be fulfilled for Abraham. In order to help Abraham receive his promise, and really to try to fulfill God's will, she offers this alternative. To me this shows that she respects her husband, and respects his relationship with God. She wants his promise to be fulfilled, and feels pain that she is in the way of it. She does blame the Lord, but also wants to help his plan proceed. It is such a mix of faith and doubt, but full involvement.

When Sarah's bitterness at Hagar's pregnancy finally explodes, again Sarah speaks of the Lord, calling on him to be the judge between herself and Abraham. She expects that the Lord will show that she has been righteous in this plan, which implies she was trying to be righteous in carrying it out.

I love how the Lord cares for poor ill-treated Hagar in this story, while simultaneously caring for embittered Sarah.

Also, it is fascinating to me that Ishmael does not satisfy God's promise in God's eyes. The Lord has only actually promised that Abraham would have children, but as the story develops, we see that Abraham having children is not enough for the Lord, Sarah must have children too. After the birth of Ishmael, Abraham receives a covenant from the Lord that he will have "countless descendants." In this same covenant, the Lord changes Abram's name to Abraham, and gives Abraham's descendants the promised land. To fulfill the covenant, Abraham must circumcise all his descendants. Abraham does not question this, since he now has one child. But before the Lord is done speaking, he brings Sarah into the promise.

It is so interesting to me that he does bring Sarah in, specifically, in this way, but he doesn't come to her! He gives Sarah's promises to Abraham! We have seen earlier on that Sarah hears what God tells Abraham, so she surely received it. But how interesting that the text records this promise being delivered to Abraham. I wonder how God may have ministered to Sarah herself offstage. We see later that he is listening in on her laughter from inside the tent, but speaks there again through Abraham.

As part of the covenant, Sarai's name is changed, and she is promised a blessing and a son herself, and that she will be the mother of many nations with kings among her descendants.

Abraham, in disbelief, asks how he and Sarah will have a baby in their old age, and suggests that Ishmael be the one to receive the blessing, going right along with Sarai's backup plan. But God reiterates that the promise is for Sarah as well as Abraham, and that their coming son Isaac will be the true heir to the covenant, though Ishmael will be blessed as well.

Abraham, still with Ishmael in mind as his descendant, has him and the rest of his household circumcised after this message.

But then Abraham receives 3 visitors from the Lord. He quickly instructs Sarah to help him prepare food for them, and when everything is ready, he goes out to talk with them while Sarah stays in the tent. Their first question to him is, "Where is Sarah, your wife?"

On hearing that she is in the tent, they deliver the message that Sarah will have a son by this time next year. She can hear them, and they seem to be able to her her as well, though her response of laughter and doubt is recorded as "silent." A dialogue begins between them and Sarah about whether she did or didn't laugh, and the promise is reaffirmed.

There is a lot of action in the text before Sarah receives the fulfillment of her promise from God. Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed, and Abraham travels south again and gives Sarah to Abimelech. We've already discussed this a bit. But let's remember, after the specific promise has been delivered to both Abraham and Sarah that she will bear Abraham a son within a year, the two of them conspire to deceive Abimelech in a way that puts her in his harem! But the Lord mitigates this terrible plan by coming to Abimelech, not either of his chosen people, and warning him. What a confusing episode!

The very next thing that happens after the women of Abimelech's household are healed of the infertility brought upon them by Sarah's presence, is that "The Lord kept his word and did for Sarah exactly what he promised." Sarah bears Abraham a son, Isaac, and declares "God has brought me laughter." This statement shows her thankful attribution of this blessing to God and her understanding of his plan and his promise being fulfilled. It tells me she did learn to trust God and know his goodness in the end.

The last recorded story about Sarah before her death is her banishment of Hagar and Ishmael, which is permanent the second time around. Again, the Lord provides for Hagar and Ishmael in the midst of their ill treatment, working around Sarah's meanness toward them. How the Lord deals with Sarah regarding her actions is not shown to us.

We also do not see her perspective on the test Abraham is given, when he must be willing to sacrifice their precious promised son. I wonder if Sarah knew what was happening, and my suspicion is that she didn't, since Abraham departed for his journey early without even telling the servants where he was going. This story of Abraham's test is maybe the most terrible story in the Bible for me. If in reality Sarah did not know about the test, I think it was kind of the Lord to keep it from her. I wonder if she or I, as mothers, would have been able to pass it. Sarah had gone along with the rest of God's commands carried out by Abraham and suffered under several of them. Where she was tested, she did seem to pass. But Abraham takes this one representatively for her, as well as the rest of the future people of God established through their lineage.

The next, and final, thing we hear about Sarah is her departure to meet God personally at last in death.

Sarah has become such a fascinating character to me through these posts! I'm thankful to have such a colorful, complicated female figure described in Genesis in the main supporting role of the story of God's first call to establish an official relationship again with humans outside the Garden.

Takeaways:

• In the narrative, Abraham mediates Sarah's relationship with God for the most part.
• Sarah does want God's plan to go forward, but doesn't seem able to trust that it will without her help.
• When God promises that Abraham will have a son, he means that Sarah will have a son too.
• Sarah ultimately receives her promise from God with incredulous joy and thankfulness.

Questions:

• Do you think that Sarah had her own unrecorded interactions with God, or was the mostly dealing with Him through her husband?
• What does it mean for marriage and for God's choosing of Sarah herself that the child of her servant did not count as the promised son in God's eyes?
• Do you think God's choosing of Sarah was based on Abraham's faith, or did she have faith of her own before Isaac was born?

Sarah's marriage (Gen 11:27-23:20)

The marriage of Abraham and Sarah is an interesting one to consider, since we are lucky to have record of their relationship pretty much from beginning to end, over many chapters, with both of them active in action and dialogue. In this post, we'll focus on several places in her family's chapters in the Bible that provide information about her marriage: the two stories of Abraham passing Sarah off as his sister and giving her to kings, and the stories of the struggles between Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. But we'll also keep in mind what we looked at last time, the important factor of Sarah's infertility in her marriage and in God's plan. There's quite a bit to chew on here!

Sarah's marriage to Abraham begins in the family of Terah, Abram's father. In this family, marriage partners were chosen from close kin. Abram had two brothers, and one of them married a daughter of the other. Abram married another daughter of his father. But we should keep in mind that at this point we are not that far out of the garden of Eden, and only 10 generations down from Noah. There just weren't that many people around yet. What strikes us as weird in marriage choice may not have been weird to these early people.

Weird or not, marriage to close kin is inadvisable for many reasons, one of which could have been the cause of Sarah's big problem in life-- her infertility. These two factors, Abram and Sarai's half-sibling relationship and Sarai's infertility, combine with a third, Sarai's great beauty, to pave the way for what are some of the most jarringly unholy acts of Abram, the man God chose to establish a relationship with to create a people for himself. Because Sarah was so beautiful, and not obviously a mother to any children, and *technically* his sister, Abram is able to get away with using her to his advantage so that instead of being killed by kings who want to steal her away, on two separate occasions he is able to sell her to the kings and receive great riches instead. Yuck.

Let's give a bit of background for these two stories. Abram is a travelling man, under orders from God. He moves to Canaan at God's command, and then down to Egypt because of a famine, then back up to the Negev, then to Canaan again, then down to the Negev again, and also spends time in several cities along the way. He occasionally participates in battles, has interactions with various rulers and lords, and negotiates in land, livestock . . . and women, as we shall see.

The two stories about the Pharaoh and Abimelech form a kind of bookend to Sarah's period of infertility in these chapters. After Abram's call, the story about Sarai being given to Pharaoh is the first real episode that takes place. Then after many more promises from God, military skirmishes, relational dramas, etc.,  the last thing that happens to Sarah before she gives birth to Isaac is that she is given to Abimelech. Of course, once she has a son, it is much more difficult for everyone to pretend she is just a virgin sister, so there is a logical end to this strategy when Isaac is born.

It is on his first trip to Egypt to avoid the famine that we first hear of Abram giving Sarai to Pharaoh, in exchange for good treatment and gifts of livestock and servants. Let's stop and take that in. In our modern moral language, we would say that Abram has just evidenced himself to be a human trafficker of not only his own wife for sex, but also of unnumbered male and female servants, listed right along with donkeys and camels. How does the father of the Jewish people get away with doing this?

Two possible mitigating factors occur to me. The first is to put a filter of "times were different" over this. Servants were a part of life back then, since the 40 hour work week and minimum wage had not yet been instituted. Abram was "very rich" the text tells us, and we can hope the members of his household were well treated and valued as part of the village or part of the family. (Sarai's servant Hagar eventually officially bridges that gap.) The second partial explanation is that it does seem like these two stories are recorded to point out that it was outrageous for Abram to do this to his wife, and he shouldn't have. (Though it's true that the main voices of complaint in both stories come from the decieved kings, not Sarai.) Servanthood and brideprices were just the accepted societal arrangements of the day. Deceptively offering your own wife to someone else was not.

Both Pharaoh and Abimelech are furious about Abraham's deception. In the course of the second story, Abimelech gives a speech I want to high five him for, "No one should ever do what you have done! Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?" Whatever indeed, Abram? Abram was audacious and wrong to do this. What was Sarai's experience in these stories? In the first story where Pharaoh is the "victim," we don't have as much information about her part, but the second story tells us a little more. Whereas in the first story, Abram asks Sarai to say she is his sister, in the second story, Abimelech says that she has said she was his sister. Based on his claim, Sarai seems to have been in on it too.

I find it interesting that in 1 Peter, Sarah is held up as a "holy woman from the past." As in, "This is how the holy women of old made themselves beautiful. They trusted God and accepted the authority of their husbands. For instance, Sarah obeyed her husband, Abraham, and called him her master. You are her daughters when you do what is right without fear of what your husbands may do." Sarah did obey her husband. But was she doing what was right? This is generally the caveat given to the marital submission command of wives to husbands. Submit, unless he tells you to sin. But Sarah appears so submissive in these stories that she just sins right off the cliff along with Abram. We'll talk more about Sarah's relationship with God next post, but I don't see evidence of a closeness between them in these stories, (of course you could also question how close Abraham was to God at the moment he was hatching these plans).

To me what is most puzzling here, is that with these two chosen sinners pulling shenanigans, God comes to the kings to warn them, without so much as a remark to Abraham or Sarah. Abram is simply given more gifts and sent along with a royal reprimand, and all signs of a heavenly blessing. He actually prays for Abimelech's household to be healed from the infertility inflicted on them as punishment for having Sarai in his house. I don't know exactly how to understand this and am going to leave it in the list of questions. Please help, dear readers, if you can.

But, back to what we can learn about their marriage from these stories. Whether Sarai went right along willingly, or unhappily obeyed Abram out of a sense of duty, we can be pretty sure that Abram was not too jealous for his wife's affection, as he had no qualms about putting her at risk of having sex with other men. Perhaps he feels she is really only a sister to him, since she has borne him no children. We can guess that she was either similarly cold toward him, or else blazing hot with fury at her treatment. Theirs was not a fairytale romance.

We have another clue about their marriage dynamics when we come to the stories of Sarai and Hagar. We have seen that Abram was willing to allow Sarai to sleep with other men in theory, though it didn't occur in the end. In the stories of Sarai and Hagar we see that Sarai was also initially willing to allow Abram to take Hagar and have a child with her. But when that did occur, she was not ok with the situation.

Her motivation, as we discussed last time, was to help Abraham receive the promise God had given him. Maybe she hoped that orchestrating the fulfillment of the promise Abram had received would heal something in their relationship, since she would no longer be the roadblock for God's promise. But even though by doing this, Sarai was able to relieve the pressure she felt on herself to have a child, she found that it was not ultimately worth it to have to share the status and compromise the position she had as Abram's wife. Her relationship with her husband and with her servant suffered even more.

It's interesting that Sarai places the blame for her emotional pain on Abram, when it was her idea for him to have Hagar. This is probably because it is his hope for a son from God that causes Sarah to suggest that he take Hagar as a wife. She even calls on the Lord to judge between her and her husband in the situation, one of the only times we hear her having any involvement with God. She may be speaking to God this first time because she feels it is his influence in Abram's life that has led her to this problem. When confronted by Sarai, Abram again exhibits coldness, practicality and passivity toward his marriage relationships, telling Sarai, "Look, she is your servant, do with her as you see fit." Get off my back, will you? Abram has a deep relationship with God; his family relationships pale in comparison.

However, God is deeply involved in Abram's marriage, continuing to reiterate that Abram will have many descendants through his wife Sarai. Though Abram is the one to receive the promise, it is really about Sarai. When he has a son of his own seed through Hagar, it does not count as fulfillment of God's plan. God want's this son to be born of Sarai herself. Their marriage is lived in this context, including the wounds it contains. I do hope Sarai knew some love and tenderness from some one, since it doesn't sound like she received much from Abram. Did God comfort her? We will look at that more in a coming post, but it's not obvious to me.

Returning briefly to the discussion of Sarah and the kings, after God's most explicit promise to Abraham that Sarah herself will bear him a son within a year, we find the story of Sarah being given to Abimelech. It is extra jarring at this place in the narrative, because now Sarah is expected to bear a son within a year. If, within that time, she is in another man's harem, who will have been the father of the baby?! The Lord delivers Sarah and Abimelech from their situation by sending him Abimelech a warning in a dream. The king and Abraham then have it out, but seem to end up being friends, since in the next chapter they make a covenant with one another. Again, I ask where is God's discipline of Abraham for coming so close to blowing the fulfillment of his promise that Sarah would bear him a son?

From Abimelech, Abraham receives his choice of land and 1000 pieces of silver. And Abraham prays that the infertility of the women in Abimelech's house, inflicted upon them by the Lord because of Sarah's presence there, will be healed. (Sarah must have been in his house for quite some time for infertility to have been noticed among the other women.) In the next breath after Abimelech's household is healed by Abraham's prayer, Sarah receives what she has been promised, and she bears Abraham a son.

Sarah's reaction to the birth of her son is so touching. "God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will laugh with me." I hope this high point brings redemption to her for her trouble in life and marriage.

A further aftershock of Sarah's plan for Abraham to have Hagar as a wife occurs next in the text when their two sons are in conflict. Even after her own son is born, Sarah is insecure in her place in the family, and also her son's place. She convinces Abraham (though he is "very much upset") to send Hagar and Ishmael away for a final time. God promises Abraham that he is involved, and will again care for Hagar and Ishmael, and He does.

I wonder how Abraham and Sarah's marriage changed with the competing family members gone. Did Sarah feel more peace, or did her wounds fester without the possibility of a healed relationship between her servant, her stepson and herself? Did the romantically cool Abraham miss them?

The next thing we are told about Sarah is that she dies at 127 years old. Abraham's extended negotiation to buy a burial place for her gives the impression that he is putting energy into honoring her memory. I love that she is buried near Mamre, where the angels visited their family to promise their son's birth.

Sarah's marriage to Abraham is not easy by any means. But it is used by God to form the root for his people. Though it seems almost too easy of an application, we can definitely see here how God's plan goes forth in the lives of constantly sinning sinners, through his guidance and faithfulness. We can also see that the purpose of this marriage was not at all the romantic fulfillment of the spouses involved. Their steadiness in family-membership despite their unsteadiness in happy companionship was the context for God's great establishment of official contact with humanity. They hung in there through heartbreak, redemption, sin, good times and bad times, and this was the stuff God used to move forward his plan to save the world.

Takeaways

• Sarah's marriage was difficult, nothing like modern versions of romance. 
• When God made promises to Abraham about his descendents, their fulfilment hinged on them being given to his first wife as well as himself.
• Though it seems A and S had a tense marriage, their main point of unity was in their shared parentage of Isaac.
• Though this does not seem to be a model marriage, we can say that a less than model marriage was still a context for a great work of God in building his kingdom through the birth of a child.

Questions

• Why do we only hear God warning to the kings about the deception of Abraham and Sarah regarding the wife-sister tricks, with no consequences for either of them?
• Do you see evidence of a loving relationship between Abraham and Sarah that I have missed?

Sarah's infertility (Gen 11:27-18:15)

When we first meet Sarai in Genesis, she is introduced in this way. "The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah. (Milcah and her sister Iscah were daughters of Nahor's brother Haran.) But Sarai was unable to become pregnant and had no children." This first detail we learn about Sarah is central to her life. As we know from our earlier reading, the story of humanity is the story of children being born, growing, and having more children. Half of God's mandate (the first half!) to the human race is that we fill the earth. Women are honored to bear the main burden in this human work, and Sarai along with her family would have looked for this as a measure of success and value in her life. Being unable to bear children was a big problem for her and would have been worth mentioning in her life summary even if not for the rest of this story.

But as we read on in the story of Abram's life, we find so much of it wrapped up in how God's plan will go forward when Sarah cannot bear a child. The weight of the world was on her womb. She must have felt this acutely. During the brief season when I was trying to become pregnant without success, my every thought was wrapped up in my body and timing, and whether any symptom was significant, and every month of waiting was a new small devastation, even though in my world childbearing is optional for women and my worth can be measured elsewhere. I can only imagine the pain and feelings of worthlessness Sarah must have endured over the 85 or so years of her life where she was unable to do the one thing God's plan of salvation for the world hinged upon--this thing she had no control over that everyone expected from her and that she was unable to produce.

The story of Abram's call and the blessings he is promised make clear the honored and intergral part women play in God's plan through childbearing. In these chapters, God meets with Abraham several times. The first one is in chapter 12, and God promises Abram, "I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous and you will be a blessing to others.  I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you." Already implicit in this promise is that Abraham will have descendants. Whether Abram questioned this the first time God met him, we aren't told. But the next time God comes to him and promises to give him a great reward (not even specifically descendants in 15:1), Abram responds, "O Sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don't even have a son? Since you've given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household will inherit all my wealth. You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir."

This speech of Abram sounds so sad and emotional. He trusts God, but has this huge impediment to really grasping the promise he has made: Sarah is barren. We don't hear much from Sarah about the promises that Abram receives, but I imagine they deeply increased her sense of failure to conceive. She was unable to enjoy the family pleasures of raising children, and she knew that all the wealth of her family would be passed to another after her husband's death, but also, and worse, the relationship with God that shaped her husband's life was made difficult by the fact that she could not bear children. There must have been significant tension between them over this. I hope that Abraham would have been understanding and shared the sorrow with her, but the details we have about their marriage don't really point to a mutually encouraging tender partnership. Sarah may have been drowning in sorrow, bitterness, and self-contempt for many years of her life.

God responds to Abraham's question about this detail in the promised blessing with a reiterated and more specific promise, that Abraham himself will have a son of his own who will not only inherit his wealth, but will increase into a nation with descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. This promise is what "Abram believed and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith." Think of it, this central point in Christian theology, that faith in God is righteousness, was in reference to a child being promised to a barren woman. This role of women is right in the middle of what God makes happen when he is at work.

I get irritated at the idea that it's demeaning to women to imply that "a woman's purpose is childbearing." Women have amazing minds, capable bodies, strong and compassionate hearts, innumerable talents and capacity for greatness. They can do many things other than childbearing extremely well. But ask any accomplished mother (professionally or otherwise) what has been her most valuable work in life, and I can almost guarantee she will tell you it was using all her abilities as she witnessed and contributed to the growth and and development of her children. Most fathers will say this as well. Bearing children is not some sideline thing that is not what's really important in life. It is high, and hard, and holy, and right in the middle of what is going on with humanity. Sarai and Abram knew this, God knows it, we should know it as well.

This story also gives such hope in situations where women are desperate to bear children but unable for whatever reason. It shows that God cares about this situation, he is there and shaping his people through long years of suffering through it, and he will ultimately redeem it. Though Sarah receives a child at the end of her long life and some women will not, we can all trust in the fact that God has worked to bring blessing and redemption to us all in the end through these promised descendants who produced his own son after many long years.

Abram must have reported his specific promise about bearing a son to Sarai, because in the next chapter, she gets right to work trying to accomplish it's fulfillment for him herself. There is such heartbreak behind this action in my mind. Sarai knows this is of ultimate importance for Abram, and so she arranges a way for it to happen that is in her own power. She gives him her servant Hagar. When her plan works, she reaps even more misery because Hagar begins to treat her with contempt. What was once a shared sorrow for her and Abram, has been lifted from him and become hers alone. Furthermore Hagar's developing pregnancy is constantly visible evidence that a servant has been able to produce what a wife had not been. Where is her place in the family hierarchy now?, I'm sure Sarah wonders. This conflict between the women gets so bad that Sarah convinces Abram to let her send Hagar away. We'll talk about Hagar more in another post. But she does eventually bear her son, who is accepted as Abram's heir while Sarah continues to live with the new family situation.

Soon after Hagar's son Ishmael is born, God gives Abraham another more specific promise, changing his name to "father of many," and Sarai's name to Sarah, and revealing that Sarah herself will bear a son for Abraham. This is followed by a personal visit to Abraham by three holy messengers from God who promise even more specifically that Sarah will bear a child within a year. Sarah does hear this promise directly, from inside the tent. She laughs. She no longer believes in any possibility of this for herself, being past the age of childbearing. But it is still central to God's plan, and he intends to carry it out through her, despite the fact that she has no hope left.

We don't know how old Sarah is when she gives birth to Isaac. We do know she dies at 127, before Isaac is married, and that Abraham is 100 when Isaac is born. They both live about 85 years or more of life suffering through infertility. Most of their testing ground as they walk with God is in this state. His promise is given, but is a long time in coming. This particular female kind of suffering was a main issue in the first family God called to form his people in the fallen world. God cares deeply about it and works in it.

We will look at Sarah's experience when she finally does receive her son in another post.

Takeaways

• The "woman's work" of childbearing is integral to God's plan in establishing a people for himself. 
• God acknowledges that infertility is hard, and he works to redeem it in his plan.

Questions

• Why doesn't the Lord give Sarai any promises directly about the birth of Isaac?

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.

Noah and sons (Gen 9:18-11:26)

In the last post, God had finished speaking a beautiful covenant to humans, recommissioning them to fill the earth, and promising to hold back his judgment in the future.

Next, the sons of Noah come out of the boat. We are told that from these three sons will come all of the people of the earth. As in the last chapter, women are completely absent, now not even mentioned as existing as wives, in the context of a discussion of reproduction and filling the earth.

In this exclusively male narrative, we hear of the initial misbehavior of those on whom the hope of a renewed civilization is resting. Noah plants a vineyard and becomes drunk, and passes out naked. His son Ham sees him, and dishonors him by pointing the situation out to his brothers. We've noted a few first sins--though surely this had happened before in human history, here is the first recorded example of not honoring one's father or mother. Ham's brothers cover up Noah. When he awakes and realizes what has happened, Noah curses Ham and his descendants, and blesses Shem and Japheth and their descendants.

Here again, these men are heading their families' circumstances in a representative way. As in the last chapter when Noah's obedience saved his whole family from the flood, I think this blessing and cursing is meant to influence physical conditions in the lives of the children of the brothers, but does not influence their spiritual destinies, which are determined person by person. Now, another question here, what does a father's blessing or curse ultimately accomplish? Is Noah actually supernaturally changing things for his descendants? Is he prophesying based on behavior he sees in his sons that he senses will have consequences down through the ages?

Noah lives 350 years after the flood for a total of 950 years. This is interesting, since in the last episode before the flood, the Lord grew tired of human wickedness and cut our lifespans short going forward. Noah is apparently grandfathered in, and exempt from this. His sons through Shem are later recorded as living gradually shorter and shorter lives down through nine generations until Abraham.

The genealogy in Chapter 10 gives us some of the descendants of all three of Noah's sons. Not a single daughter is mentioned either by name or by gender in this genealogy. We are given a few details about the sons. Javan's descendants became seafaring people that spread out and spoke different languages. Cush's descendant Nimrod was a great conqueror of many early lands, legendary as a great hunter. During Peleg's lifetime people of the world were divided into different language groups.

This detail about Peleg prepares us for the next story of the tower of Babel. This linguistically fascinating story doesn't touch gender at all, and I can't really find much to say about it related to the focus of the blog. But after Babel, we have another record of Shem's descendants that will take us down to Abraham, and in this one, the men recorded are said to have had other sons . . . and daughters! Ladies we are back in the text. Woot! Keep reading and we will get to examine the most vividly described female in the Bible to date, Abram's wife Sarai. Can't wait to study her next time!

Takeaways:

• Noah's narrative is completely masculine.
• Noah's sons receive blessings and curses for all of their descendants.

Questions:

• How does a father's blessing or curse actually work? Does it? Or is this poetic?
• Still wondering why there are no women in this section at all, even in the background. Any more thoughts?

The Lord and Noah (Gen 6:8-9:17)

Last time, we talked about the strange history of the sons of God, the daughters of men and the Nephilites, which leads up to the story of Noah and the great flood. In that last story, the beautiful daughters of men played a notable role (indecipherable though it may have been). However, once we start into the main story of God's judgment of the world and salvation of Noah, women almost completely vanish from the action for several chapters. Though we are told that Noah and his sons have wives, they are not discussed any more than the animals' pairs that are to be taken onto the ark.

But if women are only "extras" in this story, even Noah has only a supporting role. The lead actor here is the Lord. The Lord decides to wipe out all living creatures, but he finds favor with Noah, so he tells him to build a boat, and Noah does it. Then the Lord tells him to bring his family and all the animals onto the boat, and he does it. When Noah and the animals are on the boat, the Lord sends the floodwaters, and the Lord himself closes the door to the boat. Then God wipes out all life, but he remembers Noah and the creatures on the boat. God is doing everything, Noah is just obeying. 

In this story, we see God saving people (and animals too) in families. We are not told anything about Noah's wife's obedience or lack thereof, nor even of his sons nor their wives. God saves all of them because of Noah. This is surely a strong example of male headship of a family, since the whole family's survival rides on Noah's obedience.

At first, I found it hard to make this fit with the idea that salvation depends on each person's individual repentance and faith. But then I remembered that the salvation of my soul that requires repentance and belief is not the same kind of salvation as being saved from a natural disaster. I may die in a natural disaster and still be saved spiritually. That is my only hope, actually, and was the only hope for Noah and his family too, since some kind of physical death, via disease, disaster, violence, etc, comes for everyone.

Surviving a flood would not automatically equal spiritual salvation (see the story of Noah's sons, next chapter), but it would dramatically influence who was around to rebuild civilization, particulary, to reproduce. Perhaps Noah was saved as a godly man who would obey the Lord and lead those under his care and authority to do the same. The earth needed to be cleansed en masse of evildoers who were ruining everything with their sinful ways, and the flood accomplished this, leaving only Noah and his family to restart human life on earth. From what we know from the rest of the Bible, God must have eternally judged each son and wife according to his or her own heart. But this family was chosen together for the family job of repopulation of the earth.

After all of the Lord's movement of the plot, Noah's first self-determined action is to release the raven and the dove. He also decides to lift the cover of the ark back, but they all wait to get out until God tells them to. When he does tell them them to come out, The Lord issues his first "be fruitful and multiply" command of three in the chapter, to the animals. 

Noah's next self-determined act is to offer a sacrifice to the Lord (according to God's instructions.) God is pleased with the sacrifice and now delivers his longest speech yet in the Bible, even longer and more substantial than the curses delivered when humans left the garden. This seems significant to me, since we saw humanity totally lose touch with God,with no dialogue between them recorded over several chapters and many years as people became more and more evil. There are several parallels here that recall the first days of humanity, and make this really seem like a restart of our human race.

God's first words are to himself. We've previously seen the Lord speaking to himself when he said the words of creation (ch 1), when he decided that the humans must be banished from the garden (3:22) and when he decided to destroy all life in the flood (6:3, 7). To himself, he purposes never to curse the ground again despite his expectation that humans will continue to be pretty much evil all the time. God also says he will never again destroy all things and will keep the seasons going as long as the earth remains. 

Remember that Noah's father Lamech gave him the name Noah, which sounds like their word for relief, with this hope "May he bring us relief from our work and the painful labor of farming this ground that the Lord has cursed." Is that what is happening when God says he will never curse the ground again? Is he lifting the curse of the ground in some way? Maybe it used to be even harder to farm before the flood, or maybe God had previously left open to himself the option of cursing the ground further? [If God is lifting the curse of the ground in some way, why doesn't he say he will lift it at all for childbearing? Hmm. I think all we can do for now is file this story and that question away for further illumination as we read through.]

Then to Noah, God repeats the initial commission he first gave to human beings in Eden--to be fruitful and multiply, and to rule over the creatures of the earth. But there are a couple of differences. In the first version, God tells us to rule over the animals and to eat plants, and that animals will also eat plants. Now he says that we may eat animals, but may not eat anything that is still alive. He also makes it clear that we are not to take the lives of other humans. In this section God says he will require blood from anyone who takes a human life life. This is a foreshadowing of the sacrificial system that will be so important to the Bible's message. 

God then repeats his command for humans to be fruitful and multiply to replenish the earth. Though women are not mentioned, you could argue that this single main job God now gives humanity falls mainly upon them. A second notable difference between this section and the first time God tells humans to be fruitful and multiply in Eden is this: in Gen 1:27-28 we are told that God created humans in his image, male and female, and then he blessed them and said "be fruitful and multiply," etc., but the second command is issued "to Noah and his sons." Women are really conspicuously absent from this story. Is this just stylistic, or does it mean something?

The last part of what God says, is the symbolic rainbow promise he makes to all creatures on earth, both humans and animals, that he will never again destroy the earth with a flood. 

To wrap up, in this story it is really striking how God drives the action, and the human beings are just spoken to and acted upon. Though women are so absent, perhaps this is because the story is so much about God and people-- people being represented by one man, the head of his whole family and the new line of humans. In the next story, the personalities and actions of Noah and his sons are emphasized much more, though women are still missing. But we'll save those observations for the next post!

Takeaways:

• Women are totally missing from this story.
• God saved people and animals in families in the flood.
• The Lord starts humanity 2.0 with the same command for people to be fruitful and multiply, which depends heavily on women.

Questions:

• Why are women so conspicuously absent from this story?
• Did God lift the curse of the ground in some way after the flood?
• If he did, why don't we hear anything about Eve's curse? Is it because there are no women in this story? And again, why?