M3 Hard to Be The King

            So now we know what kind of sacrifices Abraham was going to make, how monumental this would be to his life in every single way, and yet he still went through with it. But, of course, Isaac’s life is spared at the last moment thanks to an angel telling Abraham to stop. It’s a good thing that said angel did not get stuck in traffic.

            Of course we come to the crucial question regarding this entire story: why? What’s the point of it. We’re told by the angel that it was to “know that [Abraham] fears God,” but that doesn’t really make sense, does it? This, if anything, raises a more pressing question, which we’ve touched on before, but is still very poignant: Is God omniscient?

            Right, both this story and Adam & Eve’s fall point to an answer that says, no, he’s not omniscient. He had to ask where Adam and Eve were, and he had to test Abraham’s faith. So, if we take this literally, it implies that God does not know all and see all.

            But we must also take other things into consideration. First, God created the cosmos as evidenced by Genesis Chapter 1. Moreover, this took considerable planning and know-how, mostly because He knew what order the creation had to happen in. (This isn’t Brahma fumbling through creation haphazardly.) So we know God is intelligent and ordered, but we need to be able to prove that God is not omniscient to proceed.

            With regards to Adam and Eve, we can either take this literally or we can look at this as God as a parent (as we did when we looked at this chapter). Since God is about the spoken word, he has given them a chance to tell the truth, an idea he repeated with Cain. We also have to look at this in terms of simple deduction. When you’re a parent and you have one kid, and the cookie jar is broken, you know who did it. Adam and Eve don’t exactly have a lot of options for who to blame, but they do immediately spread it to the serpent as well.

            With Abraham we’re a little more confused. If God knows what Abraham would do because of omniscience (or even simple deduction) why go through with it? What’s the point if God already knows what Abraham is going to do? Moreover, isn’t this out of order? Shouldn’t God be testing Abraham’s faith prior to making a covenant with him?

            We already know that there was an instance where God tested Abraham, though not quite to this extent, and God found him worthy to receive the covenant, so this should be completely redundant.

            So what gives?

            I think we can be reasonably assured that God can figure out what Abraham’s faith was. This is not exactly rocket science. God has been able to watch Abraham for, well, all of his life, so he’s got a good grasp on what Abraham is going to do at any given time. So, again, what gives? Why go through this?

            If the test is not for God’s assurance, it must be for someone else’s. Isaac is a possibility. He needs to see the level of devotion that his father has for God and the covenant, that this truly means everything, not just to Abraham, but Isaac, too. After all, Isaac will have to carry the covenant forward.

            But he is just a kid, and chances are that his attention was elsewhere instead of pondering the life lessons God wanted to teach him. This just leaves Abraham.

            So why is important that Abraham go through this? First is the obvious, that he needed to know his own level of faith. Many interpretations of the story point out this as a definite part of the story, and I agree with it. Abraham needed to know how much he trusted God, but this probably isn’t the main reason. Abraham and God have enough history that this was always in the background. Abraham had proven that he trusted God in numerous instances, this would just be a matter of degrees, but it’s still largely redundant.

            However, there is something else that Abraham needed to learn, and that was what it was like to be a king. God has promised him that he will father nations, that the chosen people will come through his descendants. And while I dearly love Mel Brooks as Louis, it really is not “Good to be the king.” The king must make the hard call, choosing for the benefit of the entire population instead of just what the king would like. The sacrifice of Isaac is about learning to make the touch choice, that kings will make choices that make them unhappy, that some choices have no happy ending. Abraham was fortunate this time around as God stepped in to give Abraham the best possible outcome. Had he not, Abraham would have had to live with the choice he had made, accepting all of the consequences with it.

            This is a lesson of kings and command, to choose who lives and who dies. Abraham experienced this on a small-scale when he negotiated the lives of Sodom and Gomorrah, but now it’s been made personal, and it’s not a lesson he’ll forget soon. He’ll also pass it down to his descendants so that they know how to govern, as well.

           

M3 Abraham's Sacrifice

            It’s been a long haul to get to the story that Abraham is probably most famous for, the sacrifice of Isaac. It’s been a long time coming (sorry about that), and it pretty much culminates in this.

            Most are familiar with this story. An angel tells Abraham to take his son up into the mountains and sacrifice him to God.

            Time out.

            This is our first (of probably many) interruption. Abraham knows what he is told to do, but no one else is subject to this conversation. In particular, Sarah does not know. That would not be a pleasant conversation. “Honey, I’m going to take our only son, the one you wanted more than anything else, and take him up and offer him as a human sacrifice to God.” That would not fly. Ever. Remember the ages involved, too. Abraham is over 100, and Sarah is close to it if she hasn’t already hit it. Keep in mind, too, how much Sarah wanted a child (y’know, the whole thing with Hagar?). So she absolutely has no idea what Abraham is planning. It’s the equivalent of “I’m taking the boy with me to do manly things.”

            This in itself has huge implications for Abraham. Not only has he been commanded to sacrifice Isaac, he will have to face the repercussions of such an event with his wife and his servants. Yes, he and Isaac are not alone. On day three of the excursion Abraham told the others “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you” (Gen 22:5). So not only is Abraham hiding it from his wife, he’s deceiving his men, likely because they won’t understand it, either.

            I mean, we have to face this, the request borders on lunacy. Okay, maybe it left the border behind, even. But it serves as a good measuring stick for Abraham’s faith, which is how most people interpret the story. He was so faithful that he would sacrifice his only son. Not only that, he’ll break the heart of his wife. Isaac was everything to her. After having Abraham bear a child through Hagar, she sent Hagar and Ishmael away to make room for Isaac. She wanted him to have everything, especially after she worked so hard to have him. There is no way she would forgive Abraham for Isaac’s sacrifice.

            Likewise, Abraham didn’t tell his men for a similar reason. They wouldn’t understand the idea of sacrificing Isaac to God. In fact, they would have likely tried to stop it. Abraham would have sacrificed his son and had to face down these men about Isaac’s absence, and Abraham would have been completely ostracized, if not killed.

            It’s also worth noting that this is still a tribal existence. Abraham is the head of his tribe, but that would quickly change with Isaac’s sacrifice. Abraham at best would have lost everything. On top of his son, he would have lost his wife and society. He would have had a fate similar to Cain’s (though Cain got to keep his wife). At worst, he would have been executed.

This was a heavy burden for Abraham no matter what. We don’t have any kind of internal dialogue. There’s no internal debate or journal recording Abraham’s thoughts on the entire matter as this is Genesis. Genesis specializes in short, to the point stories. It’s not until Exodus that we get significant character development. The command to sacrifice Isaac is the original Catch-22 situation. If he fails to do it, he will break his Covenant with God and be lost. If he does, he will lose everything.

M3 Sodom's Legacy

            Okay, I know, this is a bit long in the tooth. This is the last time we’ll talk about Sodom . . . for now. I make no promises about the distant future.

            So, Sodom had a lot of sins. While breaking hospitality and rape are very, very big no-nos, and incest is up there, too. We have to consider the long game. And yes, we have to do this. This is essential because we know it’s God’s view. In establishing a covenant with Abraham, we’re not doing this for a couple of days or a week or even a few years or decades. God is looking at the generations. Abraham himself will not become a nation, but his descendants will. So we know that God is taking the long view of everything. We need to consider this in light of what happened to Sodom.

            Sodom not only was violating hospitality, raping, fostering incest, and just generally being overall jerks, they were perpetuating this throughout generations. If left to themselves, they would newer generations would succeed them and continue their traditions, none of which are very good (as we’ve seen). This adds another layer to the crimes of Sodom that they would teach and spread their way of life, which is incompatible with God’s ideas. This is not supposition, either as Lot’s life was threatened for doing the right thing. Sodom’s teachings represent a future threat to the generations promised to Abraham.

At this time, they are two cities, but in hundreds of years, they could be an unstoppable empire of corruption that would destroy Abraham’s descendants without pause. This would be a violation of God’s covenant with Abraham. In many ways, the destruction of Sodom is God fulfilling his promise to Abraham about future generations. Again, God is taking the long view. He knows what will happen if Sodom goes unchecked through history.

With this final piece of the puzzle, we understand why this story is part of the larger story of Abraham. We understand both sides of the puzzle where Abraham respects hospitality and God’s law. Sodom’s people were in direct opposition to this and a threat not only to people of their time, but for the future. Unfortunately the teachings of Sodom weren’t completely eradicated as Lot’s daughters had their children, both of whom went on to found their own tribes which became a plague of Israel in the future.

M3 Lot's Daughters

            So, here we are. Yep, this is it. Most people tend to focus on what we’ve already covered when it comes to Sodom and Gomorrah. Bad city, attacking the angels, the angels level things, Lot escapes, the wife becomes a salty statue. The end, right?

            Wrong. So very, very wrong. Monumentally wrong. Not the assumption, the acts that are to follow. See, this is where the story goes completely off the rails. Yes, that’s right, the story up to now is okay. I’d be happy if it ended here, but it didn’t.

            Lot, sans wife and sans future sons-in-law, escapes with his daughters. They don’t make it to the next city, and just kind of hole up in a cave in the hills. As housing went, it was a good deal: low rent, good insulation, no construction costs. The guy had just lost everything but what they could bring with them, so he took what he could get. And that would have been fine, except that his daughters had a notion.

            They realized that Lot was an old man and that there was no one to carry on his name and bloodline after he died. They also thought that they might end up as spinsters because there were no men readily available to father their children. So they hatched a plan to kill two birds with one stone.

            Lot could father their children.

            Okay, we pause to let that sink in and allow time for prolonged “ewwwwwwwwwwww” and involuntary shudders of revulsion.

            Go ahead, take your time. I need to pause, too.

            Right, so we got that out of the way.

            So, now we have the alluded to incest. Lot’s daughters will sleep with him, get pregnant by him, and have his children. And it raises a very important question:

            Is incest allowed?

            Seriously, we have to ask this. We know that the attempted rape of the angels was bad, especially since it violated hospitality, but what’s the message here? Is it okay for daughters to sleep with their fathers?

            They had a noble intention. They wanted to “preserve offspring through [their] father” (Gen 19:34). Lineage was a big deal in the ancient world. There was a lot riding on people’s names in those days, and the only way a name continue don is through the male siring of children. If Lot’s wife had survived, it may be that the daughters wouldn’t have felt the pressure to do this. It’s a small maybe.

They are still as keen because “there is not a man on earth to come in to [them] after the manner of all the world” (Gen 19:31). They are not only looking to preserve Lot’s bloodline, but feel the need to have children themselves, and with the destruction of the cities, they are short on suitors.

            So does this mitigate the situation? Do noble intentions count?

            The answer is a short, unequivocal no.

            We know this because of how they pulled it off. Lot, we know, is a fine, upstanding guy. He stood with Abraham and was the only good person found in Sodom. We know his credentials. And this is what prompts us to ask the question in the first place. If he is okay with incest, then it must be allowed since he’s the example of a good, upstanding person.

            But he wasn’t okay with it. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and his daughters knew this because their plan was to “make [their] father drink wine, and [they] will lie with him” (Gen 19:32).

            So they applied a social lubricant to make it all happen because they knew he wouldn’t be okay with this. This escalates the crime even further, especially since the daughters took turns on subsequent nights: “Look, I [the oldest] lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you [the youngest] go in and lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father” (Gen 19:34).

            Reading between the lines, this is, simply, rape.

Lot’s daughters raped their father.

Twice.

On successive nights.

I need to take a moment.

Okay, I’m all right.

His daughters knew what they were doing was wrong. That is unequivocal because they knew they had to get him drunk. Now, if anything, this part of the story reinforces a couple of different things. First, Lot really was the only good person in this city. For his daughters to rationalize their behavior as good only goes so far since they knew they had to get him drunk. They knew that he would not approve of their idea, and so took steps to take what they wanted, anyway. This is the legacy of Sodom, and it shows that even his daughters were subjected to the city’s corruption. Now, they most likely did not learn this kind of behavior from him given his behavior in the story. This leaves two sources of influence, first, their mother, who turned back to the city and paid the penalty. Second is the city itself, which would convey its own lessons.

Here we have a final metaphor for the city, which I’ll go into next week.

M3 Feeling Salty

            Right, so the angels, having heard enough, tell Lot to take his family and get out of Dodge, cuz they’re gonna nuke the place. Yeah, fire, brimstone, the works. It’s God’s final retaliation for all of their sins. While Abraham was wrong and there weren’t ten good people in the city, the angels aren’t about to be inhospitable and allow Lot and his family to perish. However, they do issue the warning about “do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed” (Gen 19:17).

            And this is something that gets a lot of attention since “Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt” (Gen 19:26). This verse gets a lot of attention for two reasons. One, is looking back really that bad? Isn’t this a punishment that exceeds the crime? And B (yes, I did it on purpose) did she actually become salt? Why salt? What sense does that make?

            The angels warned not just about looking back, but stopping at all. It is actually very difficult to run forward while looking backward. Owls might be able to pull it off, but not people. And, no, it’s not that egregious of a sin, but then, it’s not a punishment. This is not a situation where God is tallying up people’s infractions and is doling out punishment. I said God was going to nuke it for a reason: He did.

“then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.” (Gen 19:24-25).

God was not kidding, and the angels were not joking about not stopping. This was a kill zone. He told Lot and his family specifically to run and keep running. But she didn’t. She slowed, looked back, and even stopped. Her heart was in that city, otherwise why look back? She didn’t want to leave it, and in the end, she paid the price for staying.

This was not a case of punishing her for disobedience. Genesis doesn’t operate like that. This was a consequence of her choice. She didn’t listen. She knew that the angels were going to destroy the city, and yet she still stopped and looked back. We don’t know if Lot’s wife was a sinner. We don’t have proof that she did some egregious harm to anyone, or felt like the people in the city, not with direct proof, anyway. What we do know is that she wanted to go back to the place that was her home.

And yet, that speaks volumes, anyway. Her husband and daughters were running on ahead, but she wanted to go back to the city. Whether it was to her specific house or for the friends and neighbors, or because she really felt like she belonged to that community, she valued Sodom more than her husband and daughters. In the choice of staying with them or returning to the city; she chose the city.

M3 Sin Rankings

            Okay, as I said, we need to get more into the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. The traditional interpretation of this story has focused on the wrong of homosexuality as the main cause of Sodom’s destruction. Heck, we’ve even go so far as to immortalize the city by calling sexual intercourse between two men (or any intercourse using that area of the body) as sodomy. It’s forever part of our lexicon. But, here’s the thing: The angels do not give any kind of response at hearing the proposition from the men outside Lot’s house. If this was the reason, they would have stepped up just after hearing it. Instead, they give no reaction until after Lot’s offer of his daughters and claim of protection for the travelers has been rejected by the mob.

            Moreover, the story of Abraham in chapter 18 gives us the model for how people should behave with regards to travelers and foreigners. This can’t be a coincidence that we have a story that shows us the exact model behavior, and the very next story violates that behavior. All of Lot’s actions show that he is trying to do the right thing, as Abraham does, and repeatedly references this tradition both to the angels (still in disguise) and the mob.

            Now, does that mean that homosexuality is okay to these people? I can’t say that. No one can say one way or the other. It could be part of the mix, and people will immediately jump to the (now) famous verse in Leviticus 20:13 “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.”

That’s pretty cut and dried. But, then again, all of the laws in Leviticus are pretty cut and dried, and they elaborate things that lots of people do anyway. The fact is, Leviticus goes kind of overboard on the rules, including things such as eating from pigs (I’m guilty, I love good BBQ), which might have made sense at the time given that pigs rolled in the muck and were prone to worms and other parasites.

However, there are plenty of odd ones governing things such as when you can eat fruit from trees (19:23-25) and my favorite “nor shall you put on a garment made of two different materials (19:19). Many of the rules of Leviticus are completely nonsensical to modern readers. At the time, there were reasons for them as these rules were written during the time of the Exodus, when over 400,000 slaves struggled to become a nation governed by laws instead of collapsing into a warring mob.

Is homosexuality part of this story, yes. What are the exact feelings and message about homosexuality in this? I have no freaking clue. The violation of hospitality is by far the most prominent message in this. Next up on the list would be rape. Rape is bad. This story is unequivocal to the point where “[Lot] beg[s] [the crowd], [his] brothers, do not act so wickedly.” Lot gives no condemnation to the idea of homosexuality itself,

In terms of ranking, violating hospitality is at the top of this story. Rape is in there, but distant and mostly included in the hospitality. Incest is the next big no-no.

Yes, I said incest. We’ll get there.

I said the Bible was sexy; I didn’t say it wouldn’t make you say, “ew.”

M3 Sin City

            We cut away from Abraham to the city of Sodom, where two unnamed angels are entering the city. Abraham’s cousin Lot lives here and spies them out. They were going to just sleep in the city square, but Lot intervenes, offering them his place. This is an important part of the story, probably the most important part, but we’ll get back to the importance in a moment.

            After Lot takes them in, he gets a group of people at the door asking for him to “Bring [the men] out to us, so that we may know them” (Gen 19:5). Two things about this. First, this is not a small group, not just a few people. It is, in fact, “the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house” (Gen 19:4). There was a reason why the previous outcry about this city reached God. Every man, except for Lot, is part of this. Now, there is no mention of the women. They’re not involved in this, but there are hints later on as to their predilections.

M3 Negotiation

            After the Covenant, Abraham really is a new man. Shortly after the deal, God, making small talk, says “What up, Imma destroy those places.” Okay, I took some liberties there, and it’s important that we not do that. So God said “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin!”

M3 Covenant

            After Abram gets out of Egypt, we’ve got our next big thing, the Covenant. This is where God lays it out. Now a covenant is like a contract. Each side gets something. Abram is going to get prosperity and become “a father of nations.” That’s literally what his new name, Abraham, means. Sarai becomes Sarah, which means princess, a fitting meaning for her new identity.

            The name changes are actually about a new identity. No longer are they Abram and Sarai. Now, they have new lives under God’s covenant, leaving their old behind. Like much in the Bible, there is a lot of symbolism at work in this. The change is such a slight one that most people wouldn’t blink at the difference.

M3 Yes, Dear

            So with the promise of countless descendants, Sarai and Abram should probably have a kid. They’ve been trying, but it’s not like it’s happened. They’re not exactly spring chickens, either, with Abram clocking in at around 85. Having problems conceiving, they do what any couple does, go to the fertility clinic!

            No, they didn’t have one, but they did something that has become a thing today, get a surrogate. Okay, well, there are differences since this surrogate doesn’t exactly have a say in things. She is a slave, probably one of the slaves that Abram got out of the deal with Pharaoh. The interesting thing, however, is that the surrogacy was not Abram’s idea.

M3 Try Before You Buy

            We’ve been going pretty heavy with Persephone and the Greeks. We need something sexy to take the weight off. Sounds like a job for the Bible!

            After wiping out the world with the flood and dashing the tower of Babel, we move into a new chapter with a guy named Abram. One day, God shows up with the declaration “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great” (Gen 12:2) out of the blue. No preamble, no, “Hey, how you doing?” And this is not something small, either. This is the promise of becoming kings and a nation, you know, world shattering stuff, since “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:3). No pressure, Abram. No pressure.