Abraham's Story Part 2

Today's reading is from Genesis (Beresheet) 18-20.

 Beresheet 18:1-5 "Then Yahuah appeared to him by the terbinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day. So he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing by him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the ground, and said, 'My Lord, if I have now found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant. Please let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. And I will bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh your hearts. After that you may pass by, inasmuch as you have come to your servant.' They said, 'Do as you have said.'"

I know that's a pretty long section, but it's all on one subject and it's kinda hard to find a good breaking point when the verses run together like that. Anyways, it looks like Abraham is just kinda chilling out in the tent door because outside is hot and inside is probably stuffy, so the spot in between is better, when he sees three men near him. What happens next is a little bit puzzling, I mean, it doesn't look like he knows who they are, but yet he's going to great lengths to make sure that three apparently perfect strangers are comfortable. I guess it just goes to show you how much culture has changed since then. Nowadays, if three strange men came up to a door, the owner of the house is probably more likely to lock it and call the police rather than open it. Throughout verses 6-8, Abraham gets Sarah to make the men some cakes, and one of his men to cook a calf, and then serves it to the men.

Beresheet 18:9 "Then they said to him, 'Where is Sarah your wife?' So he said, 'Here, in the tent.'"

This implies that the men know Abraham, but whether he knows them or not is another matter entirely.

Beresheet 18:10-12 "And He said, 'I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son.' (Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.) Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, 'After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?'"

There she goes laughing. Apparently Abraham hasn't told Sarah about Isaac yet. Anybody remember what Isaac's name means? Come on, you were supposed to research it yesterday.

Beresheet 18:13-15 "And Yahuah said to Abraham, 'Why did Sarah laugh, saying, "Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?" Is anything too hard for Yahuah? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.' But Sarah denied it, saying, 'I did not laugh,' for she was afraid. And He said, 'No, but you did laugh!'"

I'm pretty sure we know who the travelers are now. One of them, anyway. And it looks like Sarah got caught eavesdropping! She may not have actually laughed, as it says she laughed within herself, but you have to remember that Yahuah sees not only your actions, but also what's in your heart. If she laughed within her heart, He would know, so it doesn't really matter if she laughed out loud or stifled a giggle.

Beresheet 18:16-18 "Then the men rose from there and looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to send them on the way. And Yahuah said, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?'"

Do you remember that little set of parentheses a couple chapters back? The one that is not foreshadowing? They put that in there to show what would happen to Sodom and Gommorah in the near future, but it hasn't happened yet. Lot lives in Sodom, if I recall correctly. The men are looking towards Sodom and Yahuah isn't sure if he wants to tell Abraham what he's planning on doing. What do you suppose is going to happen?

Beresheet 18:20-21 "And Yahuah said, 'Because their sin is very grave, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me, and if not, I will know.'"

This is a confusing part. The way it's phrased doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I think what He's saying here is that He's going to go check on Sodom and see if they tried to make the conditions there better; because from my understanding, not only do you not want to hang out in a dark alley in Sodom, you just don't want to go there at all.

Beresheet 18:22 "Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before Yahuah. And Abraham came near and said, 'Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?'"

I'm sure Abraham really did care about the possibility of there being a few good people in the terrible city, but most likely the thing at the front of his mind was Lot's safety. Think about it, if your family or friends were living in a city that was condemned, you'd do everything in your power to keep them safe, wouldn't you? The next several verses involve Abraham talking Yahuah into lowering the number of righteous people living in Sodom necessary for it to not be obliterated. Yahuah agrees not to destroy it for the sake of forty-five, fourty, thirty, twenty, and finally ten. Which begs the question, how many people are in Lot's family, and of them, how many are righteous?

Beresheet 19:1 "Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. And he said, 'Here now, my lords, please turn in to your servant's house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise early and go on your way.' And they said, 'No, but we will spend the night in the open square.'"

It would appear that extending such great courtesy to strangers was good manners, since now we've seen instances of two different men doing that, and perhaps neither knew who they were talking to until later. Also, remember how I said Sodom was one of those places where you just don't go? Not only did the angels go there, but they wanted to sleep outside in the open square. That's not the safest thing in the world to do, I don't think. Anyway, Lot insisted upon the angels staying at his house, and they had dinner when all the men of the entire city of Sodom came up to Lot's house and said they wanted the angels outside right now. Lot didn't let them in. Instead...

Beresheet 19:9-11 "And they said, 'Stand back!' Then they said, 'This one came in to stay here, and he keeps acting as a judge; now we will deal worse with you than with them.' So they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near to break down the door. But the men reached out their hands and pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. And they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they became weary trying to find the door."

I'm guessing there aren't ten righteous people in that city. The angels pulled Lot back inside the house, shut the door, and blinded everyone outside, but the men still tried to find that door.

Beresheet 19:12-13 "Then the men said to Lot, 'Have you anyone else here? Son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whomever you have in the city - take them out of this place! For we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of Yahuah and Yahuah has sent us to destroy it.'"

That's pretty straightforward. If you don't leave, you'll be killed. That's all there really is to it. But there are his sons-in-law...

Beresheet 19:14 "So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, 'Get up, get out of this place; for Yahuah will destroy this city!' But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking."

...Joking? Really? Who jokes about that?

Beresheet 19:15 "When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, 'Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.' And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife's hand, and the hands of his two daughters, Yahuah being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, 'Escape for your life! Do not look behind you  nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.'"

Again, the angel's directions are pretty straight forward. Get out. Take your family. Leave now. Run for your life. Don't look back. Escape to the mountains. Instead of running directly to the mountains, instead he requests that he be allowed to live in a small city called Zoar that is close enough to run to but not so close as to be destroyed along with Sodom. He's given permission and away he goes. As you'll soon learn, when you're given a direct order, like, don't look back, you had better not look back!

Beresheet 19:23-26 "The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. Then Yahuah rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from Yahuah out of the heavens. So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his wife looked back behind him and she became a pillar of salt."

A pillar of salt. That's why you don't look back when you're told not to look back lest ye be destroyed. Because you'll be destroyed! She looked back! It was probably hard not to! But she did! And now Lot doesn't have a wife anymore! A little rule that should be pretty obvious: when angels give you a direct order, you follow it. Period.

Beresheet 19:27-28 "And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Yahuah. Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace."

The smoke of a furnace. Visible from who knows how far away. You can probably imagine that travelers and people living in the neighboring cities from all around put two and two together and figured that Sodom and Gomorrah got what was coming to them. I mean, it's not every day you go to sleep and there are two awful cities, and you wake up and there's a huge cloud of smoke. Later on, Lot got scared and moved his daughters and himself up into the mountains where they were told to go in the first place. His daughters wanted to continue the family name and there weren't any other guys around so... Yeah. Um, what they did, that's not cool. Why they didn't just leave the cave, get remarried, and bring their new husbands back, I don't know.

Beresheet 20:1-2 "And Abraham journeyed from there to the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and Shur and stayed in Gerar. Now Abraham said of Sarah his wife, 'She is my sister.' And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah."

...I have a feeling this moment has happened before. Anybody else have that feeling? I seem to recall that something a lot like this happened just a few chapters ago with Pharaoh. How did that go over, again? Hmm...

Beresheet 20:3-7 "But Elohim came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, 'Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife.' But Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, 'Lord, will you slay a righteous nation also? Did he not say to me, "She is my sister"? And she, even she herself said, "He is my brother." In the integrity of my heart and innocence of my hands I have done this.' And Elohim said to him in a dream, 'Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. For I also withheld you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her. Now therefore, restore the man's wife; for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you shall live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.'"

Talk about scary dreams! I'm beginning to think that maybe Abraham and Sarah should avoid going places, since it looks like every time they go anywhere, the local king decides she's gorgeous. She must've aged really, really well.

Beresheet 20:8-10 "So Abimelech rose early in the morning, called all his servants, and told all these things in their hearing; and the men were very much afraid. And Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, 'What have you done to use? How have I offended you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin? You have done deeds to me that ought not to be done.' Then Abimelech said to Abraham, 'What did you have in view, that you have done this thing?'" 

To paraphrase, Abimelech is saying "What on earth were you thinking?!" Which is an excellent question, you'd think Abraham would've learned from his experience with Egypt that kings don't like it when married men say their wives are their sisters.

Beresheet 20:11-13 "And Abraham said, 'Because I thought, surely the fear of Elohim is not in this place; and they will kill me on account of my wife. But indeed she is truly my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. And it came to pass, when Elohim caused me to wander from my father's house, that I said to her, "This is your kindness that you should do for me: in every place, wherever we go, say of me, 'He is my brother.'"'"

I still think Abraham needs to rethink his strategy. If having Yahuah on his side isn't enough to assure him that Sarah will be safe with him no matter where they go, then maybe he should have some of his trained bodyguard/soldier/servants follow him and Sarah around so if trouble comes up, they can take care of it. Implying that you're not married to the person that you're married to isn't right, no matter how beautiful they may be.

Beresheet 20:14-18 "Then Abimelech took sheep, oxen, and male and female servants, and gave them to Abraham; and he restored Sarah his wife to him. And Abimelech said, 'See, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you.' Then to Sarah he said, 'Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver; indeed this vindicates you before all who are with you and before everybody.' Thus she was rebuked. So Abraham prayed to Elohim, and Elohim healed Abimelech, his wife, and his female servants. Then they bore children; for Yahuah had closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife."

A difference between Abimelech and the Pharaoh:
Pharaoh pretty much kicked Abraham and Sarah out. Abimelech let them move in wherever they wanted.
Some things they had in common:
They were both kings, they both gave Sarah and Abraham servants and animals, they both took Sarah, neither married her, and they were both plagued until they gave her up. Abimelech's plague was that none of his household could have kids and they were all going to die. Pharaoh's plague was vague (foreshadowing?).

Tomorrow we'll be reading Genesis (Beresheet) 21-23.