Genesis 18
- starts with Abraham sitting in a tent (keep in mind that he was just circumcised)
- Middle-eastern cultural premium on hospitality is really lost on us - but even today this persists because no matter who you ask in the Arab world they are "children of Abraham"
- Right after being circumcised, Abraham "hurries" to meet the visitors
- premium on hospitality is really noted here
- Verse 6 - 3 seahs of flour is ~60 lbs of flour...
- Verse 7, not sure if "ran" is a good translation, but could be... Patriarchs don't run in this culture, but perhaps this demonstrates that Abraham is not the typical ANE patriarch
- Big point made here about Abraham is that he is marked as a guy who cares about others, who's hospitable, who does work himself to serve others, etc. He's the kind of guy who God wants to partner with.
Challenge
- How willing are we to take people, strangers, into our home and feed them until we run out of food?
Genesis 18:16-33
- Abraham bartering with God for righteous lives in Sodom
- Note that we have not really seen a wrathful God yet - basically been all about grace once we understand the flood with some context
Genesis 19
- Kind of skipped over - worth coming back to take some notes
- Only point made in podcast is that we are often disgusted by Lot's willing to offer his daughters to protect the strangers, and this is a disgusting thing however there's an extreme premium placed on hospitality and we have to keep that in mind when commentating on the story
- Lot is willing to offer his own family to protect and serve the outsider. Again, it is disgusting, but there's reasons to it and we just have to be careful about imposing our western ideologies onto an ancient text as we interpret.
Genesis 20
- Abraham repeats his mistake
- Who can't relate to knowing something is out of bounds but making that decision anyways?
Genesis 21
- Hagar and Ishmael go sit "a bowshot away" when they are exiled, and Ismael grows up to become an archer
- Pondering whether or not this is the author's way of saying that the things that happen to us have a real affect on who we become?
- God hears the cry of Ishmael, not Hagar
- God hears the cry of the oppressed - point that the podcast will return to later
Problems
- The genre of literature is changing - Genesis 1-11 is written differently than 12+
- Sarah kicks Hagar out even though it was her idea in the first place to use Hagar for fulfilling Yahweh's promise of a son
- Real problem is that Yahweh tells Abraham to just listen to her and actually kick Hagar out
- This is really an act of compassion as Yahweh knows that he will take care of Hagar but it's Yahweh saying "This isn't how the story was supposed to go - the promise was through Sarah but you took the story into your own hands so now we're in a mess... I will clean it up but the story needs to continue even though you've mucked it up"
- Real problem is that Yahweh tells Abraham to just listen to her and actually kick Hagar out
- Somehow Hagar has the gumption to just let her son die (Gen 21:15) - who can imagine this?
- Abraham didn't pass on Yahweh's promise about Ishmael becoming a nation himself to Hagar
- Ishmael is a 13 year old boy at this point... the story is either out of place or we're missing something
- This story and the story of Isaac being sacrificed have been moved in order to sit next to each other
Genesis 22
- Abraham's testing
- we are too familiar with this story
- Every religion that Abraham has ever seen (ANE stuff) demands child sacrifice so to Abraham it is not a surprise to hear that Yahweh demands it as well
- See presentation link above for some notes on the parallels between this story and the story of Ishmael
- So we should look for things that are similar in these stories to see how they build on top of one another
- "Here I am" is not a Hebrew word/phrase here - it's a passing conjugation, we only know what it is from context (maybe like when someone says 'hey Nic' and I say "yo" as a response?)
- Chiasm shows up here with center in verse 7 "Yes, my son"
- Imagine being a dad and walking to the spot where you are going to sacrifice your son... how are you going to talk to your son?
- Isaac "spoke up" (Hebrew implies that he interrupts Abraham who may just be making small talk to avoid the conflict about to happen)
- Issac says "Father" (It's like Issac is interrupting Abraham's rambling to say "daddy?")
- Abraham responds with "hin en-ni" (Here I am), which is a Hebrew conjugation that also bookends this chiasm
- It's an implication that Abraham is telling his son "I will not leave you", and it's the same response Abraham gives to God when he is called
- This is juxtaposed against Hagar's story as she does leave her son initially