2. Abraham and Sarah: Joys and Tribulations of Old Age

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ABRAHAM AND SARAH

Joys and Tribulations of Old Age

The literary leap from Noah and Nimrod to Abraham is far greater than two mere chapters in Genesis. Noah’s personal story is thin, Nimrod’s thinner yet. Noah’s wife and daughters-in-law are nameless; Nimrod’s are not mentioned at all. Neither one is fleshed out as a personality, apart from Noah’s obedience to God and his rage at his son Ham and grandson Canaan following his drunken stupor.

Abraham, on the other hand, merits one of the most complete biographies in the entire Bible. His story begins at the end of Genesis 11 and extends to his death in chapter 25. Second only to Moses, he is the most frequently mentioned Old Testament character in the New Testament—no less than seventy-four times. His wife is named and is a personality in her own right; so also his concubine. His travel, his wealth, his network of relatives and acquaintances, his shortcomings and virtues are dished up for the biographer’s buffet, though admittedly in meager portions in some instances.

As the father of three faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—Abraham has received considerable attention in recent years. How can the followers of these three religions live in peace? How can they work together for a better world? Is the kinship they have in Abraham a starting point? It would seem that Abraham ought to be a key that would unlock the door to harmonious coexistence and leave behind the millennia of rivalry and outright religious warfare. Abraham, after all, is a man who strives for peace with his neighbors. He likewise longs for peace in the family—between Sarah and Hagar, between Ishmael and Isaac.

The great patriarch of the Hebrew Bible is also the spiritual forefather of the New Testament and the grand holy architect of the Koran. Abraham is the shared ancestor of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He is the linchpin of the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is the centerpiece of the battle between the West and Islamic extremists. He is the father—in many cases, the purported biological father—of 12 million Jews, 2 billion Christians, and 1 billion Muslims around the world. He is history’s first monotheist.

But Abraham may be perceived as more than a peacemaker. In recent decades he has also been cited as the starting point for world evangelism—the missionary task of making disciples of all nations. “It is essential,” writes John R. W. Stott, “for Christians to understand the grounds on which the Christian mission rests. Only then shall we be able to persevere in the missionary task, with courage and humility.” He then points to Genesis and the call of Abraham in Genesis 12 and the accompanying promises of making him a great nation through whom all families on earth would be blessed. Stott sees Abraham as, in essence, the first missionary sent out by God: “God chose one man and his family in order, through them, to bless all the families on the earth.”[1]

That the reader should find support for religious harmony and world evangelism in the life of Abraham may seem less obvious to some. Indeed, Abraham’s settling in Canaan sets the stage for biblical warfare. Land and water will be the source of conflict for generations to follow and up to the present time. Warring over West Bank settlements has its origins with Abraham.

Abraham surely does not stand alone on the threshold of this early biblical narrative. His nephew Lot also plays a significant role, as does his wife Sarah and his concubine Hagar. His children and grandchildren will rise in prominence and claim the Land of Promise in the centuries that follow.

He’s childless. He’s aging. He’s stuck in Harran. Abraham has lived nearly half of his life . . . seventy-five years old before anything happens to him. The only thing we’re told is that he comes from a long family line (the text traces his father back to Noah) and can’t father children of his own. For Genesis, a narrative consumed with men, lineage, and power, the diminishing effect of this debility on Abraham is staggering. Our chief reaction upon meeting him is not admiration; it’s indifference or pity. He’s the ultimate blank slate: childless and childhood-less.

Abram aka Abraham: A Call to the Promised Land

In less than a dozen generations after the flood, the descendants of Noah have dispersed throughout the eastern Mediterranean world. One of those descendants is Terah, who traces his lineage back to Noah’s son Shem. Like Noah, he has three sons, Abram (whose name is later changed to Abraham), Nahor, and Haran. Haran dies, leaving behind a son and daughter, Lot and Milcah.

Everyday Life

High Culture in Ancient Times

Abraham was a man on the go. He is the first traveling man of the Bible. Called out of Ur of the Chaldeans, he moves to Haran, then on to the Promised Land, down to Egypt, and back again.

On leaving Ur, Terah, Abraham, and company were leaving anything but a backwater encampment. Indeed, Ur was a bustling commercial center of some one hundred thousand inhabitants—and much more: “a place of beauty, graced with towers, palaces, temples, law courts, market squares, statues, shrines, gardens, mosaics, friezes, reliefs and monuments. It was divided into rectangular blocks by paved streets lined with two-story houses. It had its own seaport and man-made canal.”

It would seem to be a wonderful place to raise a family—but for its infatuation with false gods. “And so, one fine day, when the winter rains were almost over, they [Terah’s household] packed all their goods and chattels onto a few dozen four-wheeled carts drawn by oxen” (Martin, “Footsteps of Abraham”). Far from being a danger-filled trek through the wild west, the route they followed was a well-patrolled, busy trade thoroughfare.

Apart from dust storms, the journey might have seemed like a summer vacation. They were on the “royal highway”—along the way encountering people “who enjoyed music and painting and sculpture and a written literature of plays, poems, epics, songs and novels” (Martin, “Footsteps of Abraham”). Upon leaving what is present-day Iraq, however, the travel would become more arduous and the culture less colorful—until later when they would encounter the glories of Egypt.

Today, Ur is a desert scrubland with miserable ruins jutting from terrain of sand and mud . . . in the country we now call Iraq. Unlikely or not, however, very nearly 40 centuries ago, here began a journey that transcended history, and whose arc etched a crescent of hope and faith so indelibly that it determined the motive and course of events for centuries down to this day and far beyond the borders of the nations that were in its path—places we know as Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Jordan. . . . From Ur, Abraham traveled 700 miles to the borders of present-day Iraq, another 700 miles into Syria, another 800 down to Egypt by the inland road, and then back into Canaan—what is now Israel.

Born when his father is seventy, Abraham grows up with his brothers in the bustling metropolis of Ur of the Chaldeans. The Bible gives no hint of Abraham’s childhood or youth, not even a glimpse of his mother. He marries his half sister Sarah, who will hold the dubious distinction of being the first barren woman of the Bible. They are among those in Terah’s large extended and intermarried family who pull up stakes and set out on an arduous journey to Canaan.

The most likely route they traversed from southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) is along the western bank of the Euphrates River. They would have passed through population centers, though the caravan no doubt skirted such regions in favor of the open desert. If they had kept a steady pace they could have made the nearly seven-hundred-mile trek to Haran in a matter of months.

Scholars disagree whether the Ur of the Chaldeans mentioned in Genesis is identical with the Sumerian city of Ur that flourished in southern Mesopotamia in the third millennium BCE. Some scholars have attempted to locate Ur in northern Mesopotamia, near the city of Haran. . . . The majority of scholars today, however, still accept the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, located on the southern bank of the Euphrates, as the place referred to in the patriarchal narratives. They also accept the biblical tradition which affirms that the ancestors of Abraham came from southern Mesopotamia.

Canaan is the final destination, but by the time they reach Haran, the northernmost point of their journey, they decide to settle down. Exhausted by the daily grind of travel, they need a rest, as do their herds and flocks. The trip may have taken a particularly hard toll on Terah, who had now passed his two hundredth birthday. During their prolonged stay, he dies at age 205.

If Abraham, now the head of the household, had intended to remain in Haran, his plans suddenly change. From seemingly out of nowhere, he hears God’s voice telling him to leave his country, his kinfolk, and, more specifically, his father’s household. That he would hear the voice of Yahweh in the midst of a culture of idol worship is astonishing—not entirely different from Paul hearing the voice of Jesus some two millennia later while traveling on the road to Damascus. Unlike Jesus’ voice on that occasion, however, the voice Abraham hears pronounces no censure. Not a critical word about his idol-worshiping heritage. Rather, a promise:

I will make you into a great nation,

and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth

will be blessed through you.[2]

Abraham does not question God. In fact, he does not even reveal a normal sense of curiosity. He does not ask how he and his barren wife could possibly become a nation, much less a great one. Nor does he question God about how he could gain such a great name whereby all the inhabitants of the world would be blessed. Most notably, he does not ask, as does Paul, whose voice he is hearing. Is he already acquainted with Yahweh? Has he perhaps heard the voice of God before? Indeed, elsewhere in Scripture Abraham is said to have been called out of Ur of the Chaldeans—perhaps at the very time his father decided to leave that city.

With no further instructions or directions, Abraham begins packing for this momentous move. Everything must go—or be disposed of in a giant yard sale. He has already endured a lengthy road trip, but this time he, not his father, is calling the shots. At seventy-five he sets out for Canaan with Sarah, his nephew Lot, and a caravan that includes perhaps hundreds of kin and servants, plus a train of donkey carts, cattle, and flocks. They pass through remote terrain as well as populated regions, where the locals must surely have gaped at the gypsy tribe passing by.

As they travel they see mountains in the distance and a pass that permits them to ascend and peer down at the valley below. Here is a fertile basin bordering the Mediterranean Sea—a land like none other: barley fields, olive and fruit trees, sheep and cattle. It truly is a land flowing with milk and honey. Abraham may have asked, Are we there yet? But he hears no word from God.

When he reaches Shechem, however, God appears to him, indicating that this indeed is the Promised Land. Like Noah, who acknowledged God after his safe landing centuries earlier, Abraham keeps his priorities straight. He collects stones and fashions an altar and settles down for a time. From there, the party moves on toward Bethel (near Jerusalem), and again Abraham pitches his tents and builds an altar of stones.

The Bible emphasizes Abraham’s faith. That he travels with a large party of people and animals while not knowing where he is going is surely an example of faith. That he should end up settling in Canaan makes his faith even more impressive. Canaan is not a land waiting to be inhabited. Besides well-cultivated farmland and orchards, there are prosperous towns with a thriving cultural climate. Archaeological sites show well-built homes and an impressive sense of design in jewelry, furniture, and pottery.

The Canaanites, unlike Abraham and most of his kin, are literate, many of them multilingual. They, too, build altars and worship gods on special occasions. They fear their enemies; thus the heavily walled towns. Does Abraham wonder how he and his wife—with no children—along with his small band of followers and servants could ever take over this well-fortified land and populate it with countless descendants?

If the superior civilization and apparent military capabilities of the Canaanites do not shake Abraham’s faith, famine does. He has hardly entered the region when the lush landscape begins to wilt. Crops and orchards dry up. How can this really be the Promised Land? So Abraham and his followers pack up and begin a long and difficult journey to Egypt through the Negev desert, the most desolate land they have yet traversed.

Egypt is an ancient civilization that towers over that of Canaan, even more so over Abraham’s homeland. Stories of the glories of the successive dynasties had circulated throughout the known world. Slaves propped up the economy. It was no secret that the famed Pharaohs and their royal entourages were not necessarily friendly to outsiders. Their rule was autocratic. Indeed, Pharaohs were considered gods.

Abraham needs respite for himself and his followers, but at what price? He has heard stories of misfortune in Egypt, and he fears for his life—particularly as it relates to his drop-dead gorgeous wife. Though in her seventies, she is still a smashing lady to behold. Word will quickly spread to the Pharaoh’s chambers, Abraham reasons, and she will be snatched as another concubine, though not before he is disposed of. Even the Pharaoh could not rightfully take another man’s wife—a widow, yes.

So Abraham comes up with a scheme and spells it out very clearly to Sarah. In fact, his connivance constitutes the first recorded words of Abraham in the Bible: “Look. We both know that you’re a beautiful woman. When the Egyptians see you they’re going to say, ‘Aha! That’s his wife!’ and kill me. But they’ll let you live. Do me a favor: tell them you’re my sister. Because of you, they’ll welcome me and let me live.”[3] Sarah is, in fact, Abraham’s half sister, so he may have rationalized that this was merely a white lie. But it was deceit that would have serious consequences, particularly for Sarah.

It’s hard to be sympathetic to a biblical character with the name of Pharaoh, but there are certain few pharaohs who have done okay by the Jews. . . . In any case, our Pharaoh is the victim of circumstances, and a circumstance of Abraham’s making. Pharaoh protests, “What have you done to me?! Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?”. . . He is clearly upset, affronted. He cannot imagine the type of person who might put another man at risk of committing adultery, to say the least of someone pimping his own wife. Pharaoh is outraged, upset, he doesn’t know what to do first, he’s so befuddled. He certainly pays Abraham off, loads of silver and gold as hush money. But unlike the triumphal march I imagined as a child, Pharaoh sets armed guards on Abraham, declares him persona non grata, and boots him out of the country: “‘Now, here’s your wife. Take her and go!’ Pharaoh set a guard upon him and exiled him and his wife and all that was his.”

The account leaves little to the imagination: “When Abram arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians took one look and saw that his wife was stunningly beautiful. Pharaoh’s princes raved over her to Pharaoh. She was taken to live with Pharaoh.”[4]

Abraham milks the relationship between the Pharaoh and Sarah for all it is worth. He is pampered as a privileged guest among the royals, and in the process amasses a fortune in flocks and herds as well as servants. But God is anything but amused. He strikes down the royal household with a most dreadful plague.

The Pharaoh immediately perceives the cause. He is furious. He rises from his sickbed, summons Abraham, and takes him to the woodshed, demanding to know what he has done. Already having no doubt heard by the grapevine that he has been duped, the Pharaoh rails at the fraudulent foreigner: “Why did you say, ‘She’s my sister’ so that I’d take her as my wife? Here’s your wife back—take her and get out!”[5]

Abraham and Lot separate

England’s Queen Victoria declared on her deathbed that she did not expect to see Abraham in heaven after his betrayal of Sarah.

Charlotte Gordon, The Woman Who Named God: Abraham’s Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths

So Abraham and his household make their way out of Egypt. Indeed, quite safely. No mighty armies in their wake. How different it will be generations later when Moses and his followers depart Egypt.

Back in Canaan, the famine is over. Abraham arrives this time as a very rich man, bringing with him the luxuries of Egypt. In fact, he and his nephew Lot have accumulated so much wealth in livestock that the land cannot support them both. Tempers flare among the hired hands on both sides. Uncle Abraham wants no part of it. In a moment of magnanimity, he gives Lot first choice. He can go west or east, the former appearing to be little more than an arid wasteland. For Lot it’s a no-brainer. He chooses the land to the east—“the whole plain of the Jordan spread out, well watered . . . like GOD’s garden.”[6] But God’s garden it is not. Lot locates near Sodom, a cesspool of immorality and evil, while Abraham settles in Hebron near the great oak forest of Mamre.

Lot’s trouble is just beginning. He has hardly settled in when tribal warfare explodes. Chieftains (or kings) join ranks to fight other chieftains and their allies. In the midst of the combat, the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fall into tar pits, while their allies flee to the mountains as the two infamous cities are being raided and their citizens ravaged. King Kedorlaomer and his allies prevail. Lot is hauled away as a hostage, his possessions plundered.

Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of the Highest God. He met Abraham, who was returning from “the royal massacre,” and gave him his blessing. Abraham in turn gave him a tenth of the spoils. . . . Melchizedek towers out of the past—without record of family ties, no account of beginning or end. In this way he is like the Son of God, one huge priestly presence dominating the landscape always.

You realize just how great Melchizedek is when you see that Father Abraham gave him a tenth of the captured treasure. . . . This man, a complete outsider, collected tithes from Abraham and blessed him, the one to whom the promises had been given. In acts of blessing, the lesser is blessed by the greater.

Or look at it this way: We pay our tithes to priests who die, but Abraham paid tithes to a priest who, the Scripture says, “lives.” . . . The Melchizedek story provides a perfect analogy: Jesus, a priest like Melchizedek, not by genealogical descent but by the sheer force of resurrection life—he lives!—“priest forever in the royal order of Melchizedek.”

When word reaches Uncle Abraham, he wastes no time taking action. He has no standing army, but he has 318 rough-and-ready male servants. With these ragtag farmhands, trained to do battle, Abraham sets forth a simple strategy: split the men into small militias and attack during the dark of night. He and his men chase the enemy nearly to Damascus, where they defeat Kedorlaomer and his allies. Lot and all his people and possessions are rescued.

Abraham returns to Sodom in triumph—all but a ticker-tape parade. The king of Sodom (apparently having been rescued from the tar pit) comes out to greet him, as does the king of Salem, none other than Melchizedek, priest of the High God. He blesses Abraham and his “High God,” who has given him victory.

Abraham bows before Melchizedek and gives him a tenth of the possessions he brought back home—presumably belonging to Lot and other captives. Moreover, he recovers for the king of Sodom everything that had belonged to him. He also gives his hired hands a bonus, but will not accept so much as a piece of thread or a shoelace for himself.

No sooner has Abraham returned from battle than he receives another visionary message from God, telling him not to be afraid. More than that, God tells him he will be richly rewarded. Abraham, however, is not buying it. He has all the riches he could ever want. His concern is his failure to have a child. With no son, his chief servant, Eliezer, will inherit everything, and Abraham’s own lineage will die.

God has a quick retort: “Don’t worry, he won’t be your heir. . . . Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants! You’re going to have a big family, Abram!”[7] With those words the relationship between Abraham and God is sealed. But there are hard times ahead. In a dream Abraham receives the ominous prophecy that his descendants will suffer maltreatment and indignities for four hundred years before they live peacefully in the land. Only then does God clearly map out the land deal. Without signatures or survey or title or quitclaim deed, his descendants will become the world’s largest landowners: “from the Nile River in Egypt to the River Euphrates in Assyria—the country of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”[8]

But how can this possibly come true? At this late date it seems inconceivable that Sarah will conceive. Her biological clock has been running down for decades. So she concocts a scheme. At her bidding Abraham takes her maidservant to bed, and nine months later he hears the midwife proclaim It’s a boy. But not Sarah’s boy, as she had schemed. As she grows older and baby Ishmael grows up, domestic turmoil permeates the household.

Thirteen years elapsed between the events of chapter 16 and those of chapter 17, and we can well suspect they were years of unhappiness and unrest in Abram’s household. The presence of Ishmael in the home created endless contempt, bitterness, envy, jealousy, weariness of spirit, and rebellion. These thirteen years were designed by God to teach Abram the folly of acting on his own. . . . After thirteen years of silence, God appears to Abram in a new revelation and with a new name—God Almighty. In the Hebrew it is El Shaddai, which essentially means “the God who is sufficient,” “the all-competent God,” “the adequate God, who knows what he is doing and how to do it.” . . . In this new light from God came a new demand from God: “Walk before me and be blameless.”

Thirteen years later, when Abram is ninety-nine, God again renews his covenant with him, this time with a name change (from Abram to Abraham), plus an utterly shocking stipulation: “Circumcise every male. Circumcise by cutting off the foreskin of the penis; it will be the sign of the covenant between us.”[9]O my God! Abraham must have gasped. But now with his new name that comes with the renewed covenant, God tells him to change his wife’s name (Sarai to Sarah) and promises that she in her old age will indeed give birth to a son. Abraham laughs at this absurdity. He’s one hundred; Sarah’s ninety. But he immediately gathers all the men and boys in his household, both slave and free, and performs the painful surgery.

The next incident in Abraham’s life is equally momentous. He is sitting out in the heat of the day in the shade of the Oaks of Mamre. From a distance he sees three visitors approaching. He hurries to greet them and invites them to rest—to take water and wash their feet while Sarah prepares bread and a servant roasts the best calf in the herd. After they have eaten, God, who is disguised as one of the men, tells Abraham that God will return in a year to see the baby boy that will be born to Sarah.

Abraham accompanies the men as they leave, and God, still speaking through one of the men, again confirms his covenant. He also tells Abraham he has heard of the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah and is headed there to check things out. Abraham panics. Lot and family live in Sodom. Is God going to punish the city and in the process rain down vengeance on his kin as well? Thus begins Abraham’s legendary bargaining with God. He begs God to spare the city if there are even fifty righteous ones there. God makes the concession. What about forty-five? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten? God concedes all the way down to ten. Abraham, relieved, heads home.

But there are not even ten righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah. So God rains down fire and brimstone, allowing Lot to escape in the nick of time. Perhaps fearing what might happen next, Abraham decides to pull up stakes and head south.

What Abraham does next is inexplicable apart from his colossal character flaws. He sets up his tents in Gerar and spreads the word, as he had done previously, that Sarah is his sister. King Abimelech promptly takes her into his harem, but before he can defile her God comes to him in a dream and tells him she is married. God also strikes Abimelech with a deadly disease and brings barrenness on his wife and female servants. In dread fear of God, Abimelech returns Sarah and for good measure throws in flocks and herds and servants and silver. If that is not enough, he permits Abraham and his household to live wherever they please in his realm. Only then does Abraham pray to God to heal the king and lift the baby ban, but Abimelech is wary of the devious Abraham, convinced that God is on his side.

And that’s the story: When God destroyed the Cities of the Plain, he was mindful of Abraham and first got Lot out of there before he blasted those cities off the face of the Earth.

Genesis 19:29

In the meantime Abraham, at the age of one hundred, receives from God his promised son Isaac by the once-barren Sarah. But the family tension does not diminish. Sarah demands that Abraham send Hagar and Ishmael away. Despite his anguish, he does so.

Abraham has not had an easy life. He is a man of wealth, much of it gained through cowardly conniving. But despite his riches, he lives in smelly, sun-baked tents, travels through parched deserts, and endures famine, family drama, warfare, circumcision, and the destruction of the cities of the plain. Now more than a centenarian, he longs for tranquility. Instead, he faces the ultimate test.

It was such a shock for Abraham to hear God’s familiar voice telling him to set Isaac on fire. . . . There was no word from the Lord as Abraham rose the next morning to chop firewood in the dark, burying his ax in the grain again and again. God was silent as Abraham saddled his donkey and went to wake his servants and his child. God was silent as the small party set out, and silent for the three days. . . . Never in the history of the world, I think, had there been such a silence. No one said a word. Not Abraham. Not Isaac. Not God. It was the knife’s turn to speak, until an angel cleared its throat: “Abraham,” it said. . . . And Abraham said, “Here I am.” It was the word he had been waiting for. His son was spared. He had passed the test, but Abraham never talked to God again.

The defining event in the way of Abraham takes place on Mount Moriah: the Binding of Isaac, the Akedah (the term the rabbis use for this story, after the Hebrew word for “binding”), Abraham binding Isaac and offering him as a sacrifice on the altar that he has just built expressly for this purpose. This story has absorbed the imagination of the people of God and plunged generation after generation of us into facing and dealing with the fundamental mystery that is God: There is so much here that we cannot comprehend, so much that violates our pious sensibilities, so much that refuses to conform to our expectations. How can God command a murder? And not just murder in general but the murder of a beloved son? How can God go back on the miracle-promise fulfilled in the birth of Isaac? How can God, who our parents and pastors have taught us loves us from eternity, command this cold-blooded cruelty? How can God, who Jesus tells us has such a tender heart that he is moved even by the death of sparrows, command a father to kill his son, without so much as a hint of explanation?

We can’t handle this. When we try to imagine ourselves as either Isaac submitting to the binding or Abraham lifting the knife to slit his throat, we cannot do it. It is too terrible to admit into our consciousness, especially a consciousness that includes a good and sovereign God.

Again he hears God’s voice—that unmistakable resonance. The words leave no room for misunderstanding. God is plainly telling him to take his son Isaac, now a youth, to the land of Moriah and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. Abraham neither argues nor talks back. Indeed, he is so certain that this astonishing command is from God—not a figment of his imagination—that he saddles his donkey and sets out with his son and two servants for Moriah.

As they approach the mountain on the third day, Abraham tells the servants to remain back with the donkey while he and Isaac take the wood for the burnt offering. But there is no ewe or ram to be sacrificed. Bewildered, Isaac questions his father. His father brushes him off, saying the Lord will provide. When they get to the designated spot, Abraham builds the altar while Isaac presumably stands by watching, still utterly confused. After Abraham lays the wood out, he binds up Isaac and places him on the wood. Here is one of the most stunning scenes in the whole Bible. But there are no details. Does Isaac struggle? Does he scream for help? Does he weep? Does he faint? And what is Abraham’s state of mind? All we know is that he raises the knife to kill Isaac. Then an angel stops him.

That a father could take his son of promise on a three-day journey for the purpose of killing him as a sacrifice to God is mind-boggling. But it speaks to Abraham’s growing understanding of God—his faith, his love, and his fear. God had clearly spoken before and had fulfilled his promises as well as carried out threats, as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah. Heart-wrenching as it is, Abraham has no other choice but to obey God.

Come, all ye tender hearted parents, who know what it is to look over a dying child: fancy that you saw the altar erected before you, and the wood laid in order, and the beloved Isaac bound upon it: fancy that you saw the aged parent standing by weeping. . . . I see the tears trickle down the Patriarch Abraham’s cheeks. . . . I see Isaac at the same time meekly resigning himself into his heavenly Father’s hands, and praying to the most High to strengthen his earthly parent to strike the stroke. But why do I attempt to describe what either son or father felt? It is impossible: we may indeed form some faint idea of, but shall never fully comprehend it, till we come and sit down with them in the kingdom of heaven, and hear them tell the pleasing story over again.

What was God thinking? How could he have ordered Abraham to commit murder? The Bible states elsewhere that the Almighty is a jealous God. Did God suspect that Abraham worshiped his son of promise more than God himself? Abraham is alone when he comes down from the mountain. There is no record that he ever spoke to Isaac again—or Ishmael or Sarah or Hagar. He might have had misgivings about his treatment of them. His unqualified devotion is to God alone.

Abraham and Sarah are not together when she dies in Hebron at age 127. He comes to bury her alone; neither Isaac nor Ishmael is present. And there is no eulogy, no account of deep sadness—only that he mourns and weeps. He conducts protracted negotiations with his Hittite neighbors to purchase, with a valid deed, a cave that Ephron, the owner, prefers to give him at no charge. This is no mere cemetery plot. It is land, the first land that Abraham rightfully owns in Canaan.

After his period of mourning, he directs a servant to go back to his homeland and fetch a wife for Isaac, who is now approaching forty. After that plan is set in motion, Abraham acquires a wife for himself. Keturah bears him six sons. Isaac’s place, however, is not threatened by his younger half brothers. He is the son of promise. Abraham gives gifts to his other children, but Isaac inherits everything. That is how Sarah would have wanted it.

Terrifying in content, it has become a source of consolation to those who, in retelling it, make it part of their own experience. Here is a story that contains Jewish destiny in its totality. . . . In passing, we should mention the role played by this scene in Christianity: the threat hanging over Isaac is seen as a prefiguration of the crucifixion. Except that on Mount Moriah the act was not consummated: the father did not abandon his son. Such is the distance between Moriah and Golgotha. In Jewish tradition man cannot use death as a means of glorifying God. Every man is an end unto himself, a living eternity; no man has the right to sacrifice another, not even to God. Had he killed his son, Abraham would have become the forefather of a people—but not the Jewish people.

Not only does Isaac not come down the mountain with Abraham, but we’re never shown another conversation between them. The next time you see them together, Isaac is burying his father—which, in some way, speaks of the horror the son has undergone at the hands of his father.

Burton L. Visotzky, quoted in Bill Moyers, Genesis: A Living Conversation

One full century after God had called him to leave his country and kin and journey to the Promised Land, Abraham dies at 175 in that very land. What a journey it had been. His two sons Ishmael and Isaac reunite to bury his body in the Cave of Machpelah, next to his wife Sarah.

Lot: A Controversial—and Righteous—Man

Lot first appears in Genesis as an adult. His father Haran is Abraham’s brother. After Haran dies, Lot looks to Abraham as a father figure and moves with him from Ur of the Chaldeans and resettles in Haran. Later he follows Abraham and his household to Canaan and on to Egypt and then back into the land of Canaan. Here Lot’s less-than-appealing traits are first noted. By this time he is a very wealthy man whose cattle and herds have vastly increased. His herders are fussing and fighting with Abraham’s herders over the best grazing land, so nephew and uncle split.

Lot moves his herds east into the well-watered “garden” on the plain of the Jordan, leaving the poor grazing land to the west for his uncle. True, Abraham, his uncle and father-figure, has graciously offered him first choice, but he seems all too eager to put wealth above family honor. In choosing the good grazing land, however, Lot is not without neighbors. There are cities, including Sodom and Gomorrah. Among the inhabitants are warring tribes. Lot gets caught in the middle and is taken captive.

Abraham and Lot stood together on the heights of Bethel. The Land of Promise spread out before them as a map. On three sides at least there was not much to attract a shepherd’s gaze. The eye wandered over the outlines of the hills which hid from view the fertile valleys nestling within their embrace. There was, however, an exception in this monotony of hill, toward the southeast, where the waters of the Jordan spread out in a broad valley, before they entered the Sea of the Plain.

Even from the distance the two men could discern the rich luxuriance. This specially struck the eye of Lot; he was eager to do the best for himself, and determined to make the fullest use of the opportunity which the unexpected magnanimity of his uncle had thrown in his way.

But the time would come when he would bitterly rue his choice, and owe everything to the man of whom he was now prepared to take advantage.

Abraham comes to the rescue, defeats the enemy, and returns with Lot, his servants, and all his property. But Lot stays on in the well-watered plain—amid the debauchery of Sodom and its sister city Gomorrah. One evening while he is sitting at the gate of the city, perhaps as one of the town elders or officials, he welcomes two men (angels in disguise) as he would any strangers and invites them to his house to spend the night.

They are reluctant, but at his insistence they agree to come with him, wash up, enjoy a hot meal, and stay until morning. Before they turn in for the night, however, there is a loud commotion outside. A mob has surrounded the house—utterly depraved men with the intent of gang-raping the guests. They demand that the visitors be sent outside for their own wicked designs.

Lot goes outside and pleads with the mob—indeed, to the point of offering to send out his own two virgin daughters to be gang-raped. The scoundrels will have none of it. Pushing past Lot, they go for the door, only to be held back by the angel-men, who pull Lot safely inside and bar the doors. The angels then inflict blindness on those attempting to batter their way inside.

The angels tell Lot to warn his family that the city will be destroyed. He does, but his soon-to-be sons-in-law scoff at the idea. In the morning the angels insist that Lot get out immediately with his wife and daughters. Lot fears going into the mountains and begs the angels to give him time to escape to the little town of Zoar. Hardly have they arrived when God rains down fire from above. Lot’s wife ignores the warning not to look back. For her disobedience she is refashioned into a pillar of salt.

Her story has been passed down through countless generations—this nameless woman, both wife and mother, struck down by God in barely a nanosecond. Her sin seems so undeserving of death. Capital crimes are serious—murder, treason, rape—but turning back for a final look at one’s hometown? The punishment, at least from a human perspective, is overkill. It simply does not fit the crime. Her daughters, in a premeditated act of seduction, would rape their own drunken father and live. Her penalty is death.

Lot and his daughters are apparently not welcome in Zoar and fear for their lives. So they depart to live in a cave in the mountains. Here they are exiles living on whatever they can forage from the land. Holed up in a cave, life apparently becomes unbearably grim. The daughters imagine they will never escape to find husbands in order to continue the family line. The older sister concocts a scheme to get their father drunk and have sex with him to carry on their progeny. They do just that on successive nights, and both become pregnant.

These pregnancies will have significant future consequences. The older daughter’s son, named Moab (meaning “from my father”), will give rise to the Moabites (a bloodline that will be carried through to Jesus by way of Ruth, a Moabite, and her husband Boaz). The younger daughter’s son, Ben-Ammi (meaning “son of my kinsman”), will become the father of the Ammonites.

Sarah: Beautiful and Barren Wife

Throughout her lengthy marriage to Abraham, until she is ninety years old, the beautiful Sarah is labeled barren. Indeed, that fact is the first piece of information the Bible records about her. Her barrenness defines her and her relationships. Year after year, decade upon decade, she lives with the anguish of having no children. Her association with Hagar is surely strained by that fact, but also, no doubt, her relationship with other women who live in the camp, be they relatives or servants. Baby showers and the scurrying of midwives can hardly bring her any pleasure.

Sarah and Abraham are siblings, growing up in the household of Terah in Ur of the Chaldeans. Abraham’s mother had presumably died, and Sarah, some ten years younger than Abraham, is the daughter of another wife. Why Terah would have arranged a marriage between half brother and sister is not divulged. Their marriage appears to be unique in the scriptural record.

There are no hints in the biblical text that Sarah and Abraham have a happy marriage. When Adam sees Eve for the first time, he exults: “Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!” The text goes on to say that they then become one flesh. Isaac takes Rebekah as his wife and loves her. Jacob is in love with Rachel and agrees to work seven years (and more) for her. Ruth and Boaz come together in love. Elkanah and Hannah have a loving relationship despite her barrenness.

To the contrary, the relationship between Sarah and Abraham seems to be fraught with tension. Sarah is beautiful—absolutely gorgeous even in her old age. One might think that such an asset would endear her to her husband and that he would defend her to the point of death. Rather, he uses her beauty to save his own skin. In fact, he explains to Abimelech that he had plotted the deception with her when they left Haran: “This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, ‘He is my brother.’”[10] How must Sarah have felt when she was given such instructions—in the name of love, no less?

Later, when Sarah suggests Abraham have a child by Hagar, he does not object. He simply acquiesces. When he does get Hagar pregnant, Sarah is furious with him. Even then there is no expression of his love for her. Still another time, however, he pawns her off as his sister.

When Sarah finally overhears from an angel (disguised as a man) that she will become pregnant, she is more than a little dubious. Eavesdropping from inside her own tent, she apparently imagines this to be no more than a cruel joke. She laughs (or sneers) under her breath. God picks up on it immediately and asks why she has laughed. She denies it. God insists she did. This is the only time God’s words are directed specifically to her, and they are words of reproof.

God wanted faith, the Bible says, and that is the lesson Abraham finally learned. He learned to believe when there was no reason left to believe. And although he did not live to see the Hebrews fill the land as stars fill the sky, Abraham did live to see Sarah bear one child—just one—a boy, who forever preserved the memory of absurd faith, for his name, Isaac, meant “laughter.”

And the pattern continued: Isaac married a barren woman, as did his son Jacob. The esteemed matriarchs of the covenant—Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel—all spent their best childbearing years slender and in despair. They too experienced the blaze of revelation, followed by dark and lonely times of waiting that nothing but faith would fill.

A gambler would say God stacked the odds against himself. A cynic would say God taunted the creatures he was supposed to love. The Bible simply uses the cryptic phrase “by faith” to describe what they went through. Somehow, that “faith” was what God valued, and it soon became clear that faith was the best way for humans to express a love for God.

God’s rebuke, however, is a small price to pay for promise of pregnancy. But even this joyful announcement does not appear to bring this elderly couple mutual joy. Sarah has endured more than a dozen years of resenting Hagar and her son Ishmael. Now at last she is vindicated, but there is no dancing in the desert with Abraham. True, she laughs. The thought of giving birth at her age is wholly absurd. But she is not laughing with Abraham. Even at this moment of sheer wonderment and bliss there is no indication that their pleasure is shared.

Sarah’s interaction with Abraham comes to the fore most clearly as she defends her turf in the threesome that involves Hagar. Here, unlike the situation with the Pharaoh, her pent-up rage and vulnerability emerge. Her frustration is unleashed on Hagar.

Hagar (and Sarah Continued . . .)

The Genesis account of Hagar and Sarah is a fascinating story of interpersonal struggles that are systemic in every culture and all generations. These two women present a timeless case study of familial relationships. Their story is irresistible. Even the apostle Paul draws on them for illustrative material, though not primarily on the theme of family struggles. For him, Hagar represents the slavery of being bound by the law—from Mount Sinai. Sarah represents freedom from the law.

Paul concludes with no hint of empathy for Hagar. He is making an argument, and the Genesis story illustrates his point: “But what does Scripture say? ‘Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.’”[11] It is probable that Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian house slave, was much younger than Sarah herself. She may have been a young girl when she came into the household, and perhaps not out of her teens when she suddenly becomes the center of attention for this elderly couple always on the move. As such, she had not likely clashed with her mistress before. But now she has become a baby maker for a barren woman. Hagar has no choice in the matter. But in no time she conceives and seemingly cannot conceal the glow of her pregnancy. Surrogacy in any era often goes awry; biological bonds of motherhood are not easily broken. Hagar is with child, and her relationship with Sarah seriously sours.

Sarah reports to Abraham that Hagar despises her, thus giving her cause to abuse her young charge. Sarah, whose idea it was for Hagar to conceive by Abraham, turns the tables and blames him: “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me.” Then she adds a final taunt to establish his guilt and her innocence: “May the LORD judge between you and me.”[12]

That Sarah imagines the Lord would take her side harks back to the blame game Adam and Eve played in the Garden. In this instance, Sarah may have devised the surrogacy scheme in order to shift the blame for barrenness away from herself. Wasn’t Abraham, at nearly one hundred years, too old to father a child?

What Sarah alleges to be hatred on Hagar’s part may be no more than maternal instinct for the mother-to-be. Hagar is fully aware of Sarah’s intentions—that this baby she is carrying will be Sarah’s child; she will be expected to give up the newborn infant to another woman, albeit her mistress. How can she possibly do this—relinquish her own offspring, her very own flesh? Thus, she despises, she disdains, she disparages, she resents, she fears this old woman who has power over her.

She knows Abraham all too well as a man of personal flaws and weaknesses. He is a mighty warrior who can chase after and defeat an enemy army, but he does not stand up like a man and protect his own wife in the face of Pharaoh. He’s out to save his own skin. But now, it must seem to Hagar that he is giving in to every one of Sarah’s whims. Will he take pity on her and recognize her need to be the mother of her own child? Will he stand up to Sarah on her behalf? Of course not. Hagar is a mere slave, with no more rights than a pregnant ewe among her master’s flocks.

For people who have encountered abuse, it is natural to take the side of Hagar in this battle of wills. She did not come up with the idea of having sex with the old man. Besides, she is a mere slave girl. But maybe not. She may have been part of the loot that Pharaoh gave Abraham for having taken Sarah into his harem—part of the loot just to get him and his entourage out of Egypt. Indeed, Pharaoh is very generous with Abraham, and if he wants to make nice to Sarah as well, the gift of a choice slave girl would have been culturally appropriate.

If that were the case, Hagar may have been serving in the royal household with all its luxuries. Being sent away to serve an old woman who lives in tents and is always on the move is a humiliating cultural demotion. In Egypt, even as a slave, she no doubt had friends and family. In Canaan there is no one to whom she can pour out her heart.

Unhappiness tinged with resentment festers and is not easily concealed. It is a hopeless situation for Hagar. She is essentially doomed for a lifetime—that is, until she becomes pregnant. Suddenly her status changes. Though surely not Sarah’s equal, she is comparable perhaps to a concubine or second wife. Her biological clock has not begun to wind down. She is on a roll. Why should she serve Sarah when she herself needs a nursemaid? Will she have more babies with Abraham, and will she soon be overseeing her own servants? It would be easy for her to imagine that her days as a lowly slave are now over.

With such a mind-set, why should she respect this old nomadic woman? What could Sarah do to harm her? Isn’t she—Hagar—carrying the son of promise? Without a son, Abraham would go to the grave with no progeny, a truly agonizing outlook. She is the solution to his predicament. She’s smug—and safe.

But not in Sarah’s eyes. Sarah has already suffered the indignity of being pawned off to the Pharaoh in Egypt and, besides that, has daily mourned her barrenness. Will she now be snubbed by a mere slave? Hardly. Indeed, Sarah’s ill treatment of Hagar becomes so intolerable that the pregnant Hagar runs away. Egypt only is on her mind. Goodriddance is likely Sarah’s unspoken response.

But heading to Egypt is a treacherous undertaking. She sets out on a trade route through the Wilderness of Shur, where, after a long, arduous journey, she finds respite by a spring of water. Here she might encounter other weary travelers. But surely not an angel of the Lord—or God himself? Strange. The conversation, however, begins routinely except for the familiarity: “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”[13]

Hagar does not act shocked and ask, Who are you? Rather, she responds as though talking with angels is a normal activity: “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the Lord instructs her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her. . . . I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”[14] She is to name the son she is carrying Ishmael (meaning “God hears”). And he will not be just an ordinary son:

He will be a wild donkey of a man;

his hand will be against everyone

and everyone’s hand against him,

and he will live in hostility

toward all his brothers.[15]

Hagar’s response is interesting. She interacts with God almost as an equal. God has named the son she will bear, and now she names God—an unusual act and the first such instance in Scripture. “You are the God who sees me,” and not only that, but “I have now seen the One who sees me.”[16] Then, without argument, she returns to Sarah’s household. Soon after, she gives birth to Ishmael. Then she disappears again for a lengthy time—at least from the pages of Scripture.

The relationship between Hagar and Sarah for the next sixteen or so years is not recorded in the Bible, nor are there any hints about Ishmael’s early years. He is fourteen years older than his half brother Isaac, Sarah’s son. When little Isaac is weaned as a toddler, Abraham throws a big party. In the midst of the festivities, Sarah notices that Ishmael is mocking Isaac. She is quick on the draw. To Abraham she rails: Get rid of that slave woman and her son. Sarah wants them out—now. Never will she allow that boy to share in the inheritance.

Hagar hasn’t seen the end yet. After she and her son drank from God’s well in the wilderness four thousand years ago, they went on and prospered. The boy grew and became a strong warrior. Hagar got him a wife from Egypt, and he had sons and daughters. And some of these sons are mentioned in Isaiah 60 where we read about the peoples of the earth coming to the throne to give God homage at the end of time. We read about Nabaioth, Hagar’s first grandson, and Kedar, another grandson, coming in that great procession and bringing sacrifices that will be acceptable upon God’s altar.

This incident indicates that Hagar has not had an easy time over the past years rearing her son while trying to avoid Sarah’s wrath. Sarah surely realizes that Abraham loves Ishmael, but she has been biding her time. Her husband is now in a moment of weakness, doting over the baby of the family amid all the celebrants. She catches the adolescent scoffer in the act and demands that Abraham get him out of the house.

Abraham is caught between Sarah on the one side and Ishmael and Hagar on the other. How can he so cruelly throw them out? But God intervenes, telling him not to be distressed: “Listen to whatever Sarah tells you.”[17] God reminds him that his descendants will come through Isaac. Ishmael, however, will not be forgotten. His offspring will also become a nation.

Abraham goes to bed, gets up early, and sends Hagar and Ishmael away into the desert with “some food and a skin of water.”[18] After wandering in this arid, desolate no-man’s-land, they run out of water and any hope of survival. Hagar has Ishmael lie down in the shade of a bush, and she goes some distance away so that he will not hear her sobs and she will not have to watch him die.

When God hears the boy crying, an angel is dispatched to deal with Hagar, telling her not to fear. God has had pity on the boy. She is told to help Ishmael up and take him by the hand. As she does so, God opens her eyes and she sees a well of water. They drink; their thirst is quenched; that is all they need; life goes on. Hagar does not take her son to Egypt, that land of wealth and glamour. Rather, they live in the desert, a vast, treacherous wasteland where twice Hagar has encountered God. Ishmael spends long hours in target practice and becomes a recognized archer. Hagar, the dutiful mother, arranges for him to marry a young woman from Egypt. All the while, God is watching over him.

The biblical record of Hagar ends with her in the desert. Some rabbis and other scholars have speculated that Keturah, whom Abraham marries after Sarah dies, is actually Hagar. They argue that Keturah is not a Hebrew name and that its meaning (“spice”) is associated with Egypt. If true, it would be a happily ever after ending to the story: a man long separated from the one he sent away—the woman he loved—now reunited again and busily making babies.

For Sarah there is no scenario with a happy ending. She dies sometime after Abraham takes Isaac to be sacrificed on Mount Moriah. Some have speculated that she may have learned what he was up to and that she died of a broken heart—a fitting ending for a weary woman whose life was filled with decades of discontent.

Concluding Observations

Abraham is the leading character in the book of Genesis. Sarah, Hagar, and Lot are key people in his life, but primarily as they relate to him. His son Isaac, grandson Jacob, and great-grandson Joseph will all play important roles in succeeding generations, but none will rise to the stature of Father Abraham. He is an all-around decent man who intends no harm to anyone. He is generous with Lot in land division and pleads with God to spare the wicked cities on the plain. He recognizes Sarah’s struggle in dealing with Hagar but is anguished when Hagar and Ishmael are sent away. Though cowardly, he is not mean-spirited.

If Abraham at 174 had reminisced on his long life, he might have pondered his good fortune. Despite the hardships of crossing deserts and doing battle with enemies, he always comes out on top—wealthier than before. He might have been killed and his servants and cattle captured at any given time as his caravan trespassed through Canaan. The same is true later on as he wiggles out of a most unpleasant situation involving the Egyptian Pharaoh—still later with Abimelech. But he always prevails. More important than wealth, however, is progeny. He fathers sons in his old age and passes God’s tests with both of them.

He might have also reminisced about his friendship with God. Indeed, Abraham, perhaps more than anyone else in the history of humankind, has a personal relationship with the Lord. God and angels come in person to deliver the news of his fathering a son by Sarah, and God repeatedly intervenes with instructions or information. And Abraham talks back.

His relationship with God, more than anything else, illustrates what is meant by faith. In the hall of faith chapter (Heb. 11), Abraham is the prime example. By faith “from this one man,” the writer declares, “came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.”[19]

Amazingly, Lot fares well in the biblical record. Despite his disagreeable traits, he is described by Peter as a righteous man. Jesus also references Lot. Speaking of the last days, when “the Son of man is revealed,” he warns that life will seem normal, as “in the days of Lot.” People will be eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, and building. But suddenly fire and brimstone will rain down from heaven. Run. Do not look back. Jesus concludes with the memorable words: “Remember Lot’s wife!”[20]

Sarah has stood the test of time as the greatest of all the patriarchal wives, though in recent decades Hagar has come to the fore. Their combined story represents in many ways the struggles women—both rich and poor—have endured through the ages.