Family Values, Biblical Style pt. 4
So, we left off at Abram circumcising himself at age 99, G-d changes his name to Abraham and changes Sarai's name to Sarah. Also, during all this, Abraham finds out that he's going to be a father again, this time through Sarah. And he laughs, because Sarah is ninety, he's almost a hundred, and this is kinda ridiculous. So G-d tells Abraham that they're going to name this kid Isaac, which means laughter.
Abraham's recovering from his auto-circumcision. He's waiting outside his tent, and he's sees three figures in the distance. He jumps up (OW, I mean, I don't have that equipment, but OW.) and runs to them and greets them bowing (again, OW) low to the ground. He yells at Sarah to bring them food and water (actually he tells her to make them cakes). She does.
One of these folks wonders where Sarah is, he tells them she's in the tent. (I guess he didn't realize that was who was bringing him the food?) So he tells Abraham again that she's going to have a baby. She laughs this time, because she's no longer having her period. G-d says, "Isn't anything possible with me?" And she's all, "I wasn't laughing." But Abraham says, "Nope, you laughed." (And story switches, really, that's how it ends.)
The two remaining men get up to leave, Abraham walks with them. They say, "We're gonna go destroy Sodom. Because they're pretty awful there."
Abraham says, "Will you get rid of the righteous people with the wicked people? 50 righteous people there, will you spare it?"
G-d's all, "If there are 50, I'll spare it."
"45?"
"45, I'll spare it..."
Goes down to 10...
The two remaining guys (angels, the word is messenger in Hebrew, but we're going with angel, because) go to Sodom, and an angry mob is there to greet them.
Lot tries to practice hospitality that he learned from Abraham, but yeah, the mob is trying to kidnap and rape the guys. Lot offers his daughters up. Angry mob wants the newbies, hospitality isn't allowed in Sodom, they have to show who is boss.
Angels tell Lot and his wife and daughters to flee without looking back. Wife looks back, turns into a pillar of salt. Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed in fiery burnage.
The daughters decide that they are the last people on earth, and that their father is old, so they get Lot drunk and sleep with him so they can get pregnant. Lot's line becomes the Moabite's and the Ammonites.
/incest...
Back to Abraham...
I love how this section starts. "Abraham journeyed from there to the region of the south." FROM WHERE? Just from walking? Okay, he's talking Abimelech king of somewhere and passing Sarah off as his sister again. This time she also confirms, "He is my brother." Abraham specifically states, "She is the daughter of my father, but not my mother." Make of that what you will.
G-d remembers Sarah, and did for Sarah as he had promised, and she conceives and bears a child, Isaac. Abraham circumcises him at eight days because G-d told him to, and Abraham was 100 when this all happened.
When Isaac was weaned, Abraham had a big feast. (That'd be fun. We should reinstate that. You're done nursing! PARTY!) Sarah sees Ishmael at the party and throws a fit, telling Abraham to send the slavewoman and her son away. Abraham was upset by this, but G-d says not to worry. Listen to Sarah, but Ishmael will still become a nation, since he's your kid.
Abraham gives Hagar and Ishmael a loaf of bread and the equivalent of a canteen of water and leaves them in the desert. Hagar cries out after the water is gone, leaving Ishmael under a tree. G-d hears them crying, lifts Ishmael up, makes him a great archer, and he marries someone from Egypt.
Some point in time when Isaac is between the ages of 5 and 37. (Weaning age would have been around 5.) G-d tells Abraham to take his son, his only son, whom he loves -- Isaac -- and bring him up to mount Moriah as a sacrifice. There's a story that says that there was a dialogue with G-d there, take your son [which son?], your only son, [I have two sons], whom you love, [I love them both], Isaac! Either way, we end up with, "Go sacrifice you kid."
And Abraham says yes.
And this story actually has a hugely different meaning if you look at from the perspective of a five-year-old following his dad for a hike up a mountain, or a 37 y.o. knowing what is going on. Plus all the ages in between.
The end result is still, Abraham is knowingly going up there and tying his kid to an altar and getting ready to sacrifice him.
He's willing to argue for a bunch of strangers in a city... but his own kid? Not so much.
I don't know if this is him testing G-d or G-d testing him, honestly. And if it's G-d testing him, what's the test? Does G-d really want a follower who would willingly kill his own kid? Lots to say on the Akeida, I don't really feel like it, willing to debate it in comments.
Anyhow, an angel stops him, he renames the mountain... kind of, and we move on.
Sarah dies, possibly of a broken heart, since there's ANOTHER story that says that Isaac never would speak to his father after this incident. (Would you? Well, if you were an adult and this happened.) She's 127 years old. Actually, she's one hundred, twenty, and seven. It's very weird how her age is written.
Abraham goes on to marry again. As you do when you're 137 and your wife dies. He marries Keturah, and she is possibly Hagar. He has Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah through Keturah. (And there are a lot more begats from there.)