Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Journey to Canaan | Part 3: Settlement | Part 4: Establishment | Part 5: Covenant | Part 6: Ishmael. Not. | Part 7: Implemented
Analysts of narrative tell us that when the narrator slows down the passage of time and relates the story in more detail, he’s at an important part of the story. And so Abraham’s story moves very slowly here. Gordon Wenham notes, “No other twenty-four-hour period in Abraham’s life is described more fully than this one.”
Abraham is living at Mamre (Ge 18.1), which is about 20 miles south of Jerusalem–although later place names aren’t really in place in these days.
We begin with a scene of hospitality, for which the Middle Eastern peoples are famous even today. Abraham is sitting in his tent door “in the heat of the day” (Ge 18.1); most cultures, including his, and ours before the days of air conditioning, didn’t do their labor at that time of day; they sat around and tried to keep as cool as they could, taking advantage of any available breeze and expending as few calories as possible. Abraham is sitting on the equivalent of his front porch when three men appear (Ge 18.2); do they appear suddenly, miraculously, or do they just amble down the road to him? The passage doesn’t say, but it’s clear that by the end of the conversation Abraham is aware that he’s talking to God himself (Ge 18.23ff).
Some church fathers thought that these three men were the Trinity, but in more recent times the predominant opinion has changed to divine Being and two angels. Since the Son is the only member of the Godhead who has ever been said to incarnate, I’m inclined to think that this is he. Three times here he is called YHWH, the LORD (Ge 18.1, 13, 17).
The hospitality begins. Abraham suggests washing the travel dust off their sandaled feet (Ge 18.4) and then offers them a meal, as one does to people who show up unexpectedly in places without any McDonald’s (Ge 18.3-5), and they accept. It takes a while, obviously; Sarah has to bake pita bread (Ge 18.6)–from “fine flour,” the “good stuff”–and a calf has to be slaughtered, dressed, and cooked (Ge 18.7-8)–and served with “butter,” probably something like our yogurt, mixed with fresh milk.
That’s pretty much an all-day affair. The drink probably came first, followed relatively shortly by the bread while they waited for the major course–which took a while.
It appears that Abraham doesn’t eat with them–probably because by midday he had already eaten. He stands respectfully and attentively nearby, ready to serve.
Scene 2.
After the meal, the men ask about his wife (Ge 18.9), notably using Sarah’s new name, not her given one. This is odd; in that culture a man doesn’t inquire about another man’s wife. One of the men, clearly the leader, changes Abraham’s whole world with a single sentence: within a year, Sarah will have a child (Ge 18.10). The child.
The Covenant is taking a major step forward.
The husband and wife react as you might expect under the circumstances (Ge 18.11). Sarah, who has apparently not heard this promise earlier, laughs in utter disbelief–and I’m not sure we can be too hard on her for that at this point. This laugh anticipates another one, of joy, later in the story (Ge 21.6-7) and will be the reason for this child’s name, Isaac, “laughter” (Ge 21.3-6).
The Man challenges her unbelief and repeats his statement (Ge 18.13-14). Sarah, now afraid, apparently because this Stranger has heard what she thought was her private amusement, denies that she laughed (Ge 18.15). But she did, and the Man knows.
It’s hard not to think of Mary, the mother of Jesus, at this point. She has as much reason to disbelieve her prophecy as Sarah does here. But despite her wonder (Lk 1.34), she believes, apparently immediately (Lk 1.38). And notably, her cousin Elisabeth, like Sarah, has conceived “in her old age” as well (Lk 1.36).
God works his plan here, as he will two millennia later, and as he does today.
Is anything to hard for YHWH? (Ge 18.14).
Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
Leave a reply. Keep it clean.