Heir of the Promise

When we left off last Sunday, we were contemplating what mattered most to Abraham, his heart's desire: to be a dad, to become a patriarch, to receive from God the child he couldn't have. Moving halfway across his known world, gaining wealth, fighting battles – what did it all mean if there were no son to be an heir? But when God assured him he'd have a son of his own, he believed (Genesis 15:1-6). As the years ticked by, he agreed to have a child by his wife's Egyptian maidservant Hagar, a boy he named Ishmael (Genesis 16). And for thirteen years, he was content. Until God came for an unexpected chat, that is.

He was ninety-nine, it says, when God changed their names and their lives. And what else did God tell him that day? That he'd bless Abraham's wife Sarah, “and moreover, I have given you a son by her” (Genesis 17:16). It had to be a mistake, right, or a reference back to Ishmael somehow? Because after years of infertility, Sarah is an eighty-nine-year-old woman who stopped ovulating long already, and they've put their reproductive systems on the shelf as souvenirs (Genesis 18:11).. So by any measure, “what Abraham hears from God sounds utterly absurd.”¹ Given a promise like that, how is Abraham supposed to react? “Abraham fell on his face and he laughed, and he said in his heart, 'To a son of a hundred years shall one be born? Shall Sarah, the daughter of ninety years, bear?'” (Genesis 17:17). Abraham can't help it – this thought is comedy gold. Oh God, what a kidder! So “a disbelieving Abraham... laughs in disbelief and perhaps even in bitterness and derision.”²

In answer to Abraham's incredulity and his attempt to plead that Ishmael is good enough for him, God's reply “begins with a firm 'No.'”³ As in, “No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac” (Genesis 17:19). Seldom does God impose a name on someone, and rarer still before birth, but here he does. Isaac means 'he laughs.'⁴ God may not outright rebuke Abraham for his defensiveness and doubt,⁵ but the name of the child is an implicit scolding, an enduring “pun with the laughter of disbelief” Abraham let slip.⁶ In his treatment of God as a jester, Abraham had accidentally named a son who didn't yet exist but was promised.⁷ Laugh all you want, Abraham, but “I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his seed after him... I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year” (Genesis 17:19, 21). This son, and not any other, was the one God had “promised... from the very outset, and in him the fulfillment of the promise will be achieved.”⁸

A short time passes; Abraham is healing from his circumcision. In the day's dry heat, a trio of travelers pass his way, and Abraham leaps and bounds his way into action; he and Sarah both fully commit themselves to the mission of hospitality (Genesis 18:1-8), though Sarah does her labor unseen in the kitchen. The strange visitors ask after his wife Sarah, and he informs them that she's in the tent (Genesis 18:9). In fact, she's there at the tent flap, eavesdropping on everything. Which is just as the guests want it, it turns out. The chief of the visitors pronounces what sounds to mortal ears like a politely well-meant but ignorant blessing: “I will surely return to you according to the time of life, and behold, a son to Sarah your wife!” (Genesis 18:10).

What he announces is physically, biologically, naturally impossible, and Sarah knows it well. Understandably, “Sarah laughed in her innards, saying, 'After I am worn out, shall I have pleasure, and my lord is old?'” (Genesis 18:12). She thinks it's ridiculous for a time-withered woman to resume a dry intimacy with an elderly husband, and expect any fruitfulness, to expect Eden. So “she laughed internally,” not out loud, “and then to herself she thought about their advanced age” and how it barred any consideration of the fantasy being spun in her hearing.⁹ What she doesn't quite recognize yet is that the one who spoke it is, in fact, the LORD in disguise.

She's surprised, then, when she hears “the LORD [say] to Abraham, 'For what did this one, Sarah, laugh?'” (Genesis 18:13). Oops, caught! And caught for an internal reaction while out of sight, no less. Naturally, she'll take this question as a rebuke, that the stranger is zeroing in on her unbelief and holding her accountable for laughing him off. But notice that “the question is addressed to Abraham,” not to Sarah.¹⁰ God doesn't ask her to explain herself; God prods Abraham to explain. Why? Because Sarah's reaction is the surprise of hearing this idea for the first time. But it's been days or weeks since Abraham found out. Apparently, Abraham is still a bit resistant to God's plan, so he “continues to conceal the news from Sarah,” and maybe this entire sneaky business with God showing up in disguise was a trap to use Abraham's compassion for strangers to gently bypass him and get the good news to Sarah – like a radio broadcast into a censored country.¹¹ God is chiding “Abraham for not informing Sarah that she will have a son,” because he should have embraced it as good news.¹²

When God tells Abraham what Sarah was inwardly thinking, he summarizes it but “tactfully alters it to omit any reference to Abraham's advanced age.”¹³ God puts her focus back on her: “Shall I indeed bear a child now that I am old?” (Genesis 18:13). To that, the LORD poses to Abraham the million-dollar question: “Is anything too wonderful for the LORD,” or “too difficult for the LORD?” (Genesis 18:14). If God's hand is at work, then “neither age nor sterility will prove a difficulty,” because the Lord's “word will be inescapable, and the birth will teach her,” and Abraham too, “the power of [God's] words.”¹⁴ Both of them should rest assured: “At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and to Sarah shall be a son” (Genesis 18:14).

Now that she's been caught, and thinking she's the one being rebuked, “Sarah acted falsely, saying, 'I did not laugh!', for she was afraid.” She was sure she was in trouble, backed into a corner, so she denied it – after all, it was all in her head! But “he said, 'No, but you did laugh'” (Genesis 18:15). It's usually assumed that this is God replying to her claim. Probably. It could also be Abraham contradicting her on God's say-so, admitting the charges as true because he's submitting to his responsibility and embracing God's promise for them.¹⁵

The next days and months are plenty eventful. We've heard before how Abraham escorts his guests down the road, where he – and not Sarah, who needs to dwell on good news only – finds out the impending doom of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:20-21). Abraham haggles over their fate, and when he sees the aftermath of annihilation come morning, he's sure he's failed (Genesis 18:22–19:28). “Will the LORD... never again be favorable?... Are his promises at an end?” (Psalm 77:7-8). So, while Lot and his daughters cozy up in a cave to the east (Genesis 19:30-38), Abraham yanks his household south and west to the land of future Philistines, where his doubts and discouragements spin out, putting a whole kingdom in peril when its king unknowingly takes Sarah into his harem – separated from Abraham in just the time she ought to be conceiving new life in her womb (Genesis 20:1-2). The danger for Gerar is that “the LORD had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, the wife of Abraham” (Genesis 20:18), with God informing the king that “if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours” (Genesis 20:7). And the danger for Abraham himself is, “the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him” when Abraham “keeps the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice” (Genesis 18:19), which this sure isn't.

Thankfully, Abimelech returns Sarah to Abraham, “and Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children” (Genesis 20:17). Abraham's prophetic prayer unstopped the sealed wombs, breaking the curse and allowing life to burst forth. It's no coincidence that, only two verses later, we hear that the God who healed the wife of Abimelech has also come through for the wife of Abraham in the same way – because of his promise, because of his word, and because the fulfillment of these can now embrace Abraham's prayer for the healing of others. Now that Abraham has prayed for those outside his house to be blessed with fertility, that very blessing aimed outward can redound inward as well.¹⁶

So now we get the honor of reading that “the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had spoken” (Genesis 21:1). There have been so many enthralling stories in between that we might've nearly forgotten the whole thing – but God sure hasn't.¹⁷ What God now does is exactly what God had said and spoken beforehand. God is absolutely, incontrovertibly faithful to his word – and to Sarah, which is an example Abraham rather needs. God said he'd act for her, so now he acts accordingly. This is the first time in the Bible we get the verb 'visit' or 'oversee,' though it sure won't be the last (e.g., Exodus 3:16). It's often to do with “God intervening in human affairs either to bless or to punish.”¹⁸ And this one is for blessing (Genesis 17:16).

So how does God make good on his word? Like this: “Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him” (Genesis 21:2). Sarah made much of Abraham's old age in her prior scoffing, but that very elderhood is part and parcel of the wonder. What's more, it happens at the exact time God chiseled onto the calendar, the appointed time set apart like a holiday, the crucial time that changes lives, divides the before from the after – the time of their visitation. A miracle transpires perfectly on schedule.

Why? In answer to Abraham's faith, for a start: “In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations.... He didn't weaken in hope when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the deadness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised,” says St. Paul (Romans 4:18-21). Our man Abraham didn't deny the natural impossibility of the birth – it was as radical as expecting a corpse to yawn and wake up alive. But after his misadventures, after he'd been renewed in faith, he didn't waver; he believed, because he'd seen, that “God gives life where only death seems to reign.”¹⁹ Glorifying a God of Life made his faith strong. He didn't dally any longer with doubt, but invested himself totally in the God of the promise.

And it wasn't just him. “By faith barren Sarah herself received power for the founding of seed, even beyond the seasonable phase of life, since she considered him faithful who had promised” (Hebrews 11:11). She shared her husband's strengthening faith, her husband's unweakening hope. She, too, looked past the natural impossibility, which once had made her laugh in disbelief, and instead clung to the faithfulness of the God who had pledged to act for her, to give her a son. And because she believed as her husband believed, the faithful God intervened for her, acted in her, revitalized her body to transcend the limits imposed by the laws of decay.²⁰ “What was beyond hope by natural processes, they saw come to be, not by human processes, but by divine grace.”²¹ She heard from God “a voice that raises from death,”²² which empowered her womb to conceive. Like Abraham, Sarah's “heart had been chosen for the faith that was rewarded with [the promised son's] birth.”²³

And therefore “Sarah conceived and bore to Abraham a son” (Genesis 21:2), even though “Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him” (Genesis 21:5), “the son born of grace and of the very gift of God,”²⁴ “the triumph of the power of God over the limitations of nature,”²⁵ “conceived [and born] through faith in what seemed a hopeless situation.”²⁶ And it happened, we're told, at just the designated time, a year after – and maybe precisely a year to the day after – the promise and covenant had been given. Some later Jewish readers got quite specific, maintaining that “Isaac was born on the feast of the firstfruits of the harvest” which the seed of Abraham would later come to celebrate – in other words, on Pentecost.²⁷

At last, by grace through faith, “Sarah became the covenantal mother.”²⁸ In the wake of the miracle birth of this son whose existence was faith's reception of the promise, whose entire being is life proving God true, what is the covenant mother to say? We've already heard that the son's name is Isaac, and we know why. Both man and woman had initially reacted “to the divine promise of Isaac with incredulous laughter,”²⁹ as if to “laugh it off as nonsense.”³⁰ So this name could easily have been “a permanently embarrassing reminder” of their earlier “lack of trust, and also of the fact that God has had the last laugh” at their expense.³¹

But now that Isaac's here, Sarah is filled with amazement, “doubt turned to prophecy,”³² and she speaks “words of spiritual and physical joy,”³³ with which “Sarah chooses to repair his name.”³⁴ She virtually sings: “Who would have uttered to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?” (Genesis 21:7). The oracle seems too incredible, that she should “release a flow of milk” as biological proof to all that the child was her own – a wonder no less profound than Moses tapping water from a desert rock (Exodus 17:6).³⁵ Sarah sees something else, beyond the rebuke: “God has made laughter for me!” (Genesis 21:6). She's laughing again, laughing as she holds her newborn boy, but this time “her laughter expressed no mocking derision but rather exulting joy,”³⁶ “rejoicing and celebration at the birth of Isaac.”³⁷ If God got the last laugh, he's invited the seeming butts of the joke to join in. So, with her God, Sarah “laughs happily,”³⁸ she “laughs with joy at the supernatural work of grace.”³⁹ Because “Isaac means laughter and joy.”⁴⁰ His life is created to be “a miraculous seed of renewal..., a divinely inspired eruption of joy into the sad human world.”⁴¹

And for that reason, Sarah has a prediction: “Everyone who hears will laugh with me” (Genesis 21:6), “will rejoice with me.”⁴² This was never meant to be just an inside joke for the very few, for one man and his one wife and their little household. This miracle is a riot of astonishment for the masses! The birth of Isaac is the birth of the promised child, the one through whom the everlasting covenant is to continue, the covenant that will mean life for the world. This miracle should matter to everyone because of what God plans to do through him.⁴³ So this birth is a message worth spreading around to every ear, for it should bring an awesome merriment to every heart and a gape and grin to every face. God has visited, the son is here – that's good news, that's gospel!

That's Sarah's reaction. How about Abraham's? No sooner had the child been born than “Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac” (Genesis 21:3). Why pick that name? Because, as we've heard, God had picked it out in advance for his own reasons. Abram has to become Abraham and Jacob will have to become Israel, but Isaac only has to be Isaac; he was born into the name God chooses.⁴⁴ One ancient reader remarked that he was named this “just as his name was ordained and written in the heavenly tablets.”⁴⁵ And Abraham made sure of it. Abraham complied with the prior word of God, accepting fully that, just as God had given the son, so God had rightfully named the son – even if the name at first stung him.

At the same time, “Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was a son of eight days, as God commanded him” (Genesis 21:4). Commanded when? In the very same covenant wherein Isaac's birth was foretold. “This is my covenant which you shall keep, between me and your seed after you: … He who is a son of eight days among you shall be circumcised” (Genesis 17:10-12). Up to now, all Abraham had were adults. This is the first time a son of eight days has been circumcised, fitting perfectly the terms of the covenant – he was, as some Jews said, “the first one circumcised according to the covenant which was ordained forever.”⁴⁶ Abraham was faithful to that covenant, because his faith in the God of promise became the beautiful sight of a beloved son.

As Sarah had mentioned, she received power not just to conceive a child and bring a son to birth, but also to nurse him at her own breast, not needing to hand him off to a wet nurse as she likely expected. But in time, “the child grew and was weaned” (Genesis 21:8). Now, moms of the congregation, I'm not sure when you moved your babies off milk. A fairly typical practice in modern America is non-exclusive breastfeeding up to about one year of age. The World Health Organization and American Academy of Pediatrics both recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and, ideally, continuing breastfeeding until two years of age or more.⁴⁷ In the ancient world, it was most common at three years, but could be as early as two or late as seven.⁴⁸

In modern America, infant mortality is fairly low, about 5.4 deaths for every thousand live births. But even just a century ago, we had over thirteen times the rate of infant mortality. And in the ancient world, maybe over a quarter of infants didn't make it to the weaning age. So you can imagine that, given that geriatric pregnancies also come with added genetic risks and lower birth weights, Isaac's first years were – humanly speaking – a gamble. So no wonder that Abraham, giving thanks to God for preserving this boy alive, makes a big deal out of Isaac's weaning at age three (or two or four or five). As Sarah celebrated while nursing began, Abraham has joy as it ends, so “Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned” (Genesis 21:8), an “implicit celebration” of survival, of hope and a future.⁴⁹ It was a festive holiday occasion, with plenty of food (as a weaned Isaac can now enjoy it) and also enough to drink.

All ought to be well. But “even in laughter, the heart may ache” (Proverbs 14:13). Earlier, I quoted Sarah as saying that “everyone who hears it will laugh with me.” But her words could just as well be translated so that “everyone who hears it will laugh at me” (Genesis 21:6), at what she acknowledges could be, in some eyes, “the absurdity of her aged maternity.”⁵⁰ Even as her faith becomes sight, there will be those whose bitterness begrudges God's work in Sarah's life, who seek to dismiss it and mock it as absurd and clownish, and who may perceive it as a threat and strive to steal what it represents – what Isaac is and has.

In the midst of or wake of the great feast, “Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing” (Genesis 21:9). We remember that, when Hagar was pregnant years before Sarah, Sarah “was lessened in [Hagar's] eyes” (Genesis 16:4). For the next thirteen years, as Hagar raised her son Ishmael while Sarah stewed, Hagar could fairly assume that, despite their enslavement, Ishmael would one day be heir to everything and set her free as a queen. But then came the birth of Isaac, born to Abraham's true wife Sarah as a result of the promises of God apprehended by faith. This birth is a miracle, meant to draw people together in celebration of the delightsome goodness of a faithful God. But will everyone really receive it as good news?

Sarah saw Ishmael “laughing” – that's all the Hebrew text we have says, though the ancient Greek version clarifies that she saw him laughing or “playing with Isaac her own son.”⁵¹ Guesses as to what exactly Ishmael was doing have varied from the innocuous, just “Ishmael playing and dancing” and having a good time at the party,⁵² to engaging in sexual misconduct (since all the other stories since chapter 17 have been about that, and since that's what this verb means on many other occasions),⁵³ to being physically aggressive toward little Isaac and putting him in danger.⁵⁴ Many commentators quip that Ishmael was 'Isaac-ing,' mimicking his little brother and asserting himself in Isaac's role as the valuable son,⁵⁵ so that Ishmael “was laying claim to the rights of the firstborn for himself.”⁵⁶ And as he did so, likely he was joking around and mocking Isaac. Perhaps “Sarah noticed Ishmael snickering [and] saw how much Ishmael shared the characteristics of his mother, for just as Sarah was despised in the eyes of Hagar, so too did Ishmael snicker at her son.”⁵⁷ Ishmael's “disdain for Isaac imitates his mother's for Sarah,”⁵⁸ and “he despised Isaac in comparison with himself,”⁵⁹ begrudging him as another son did to his prodigal little brother (Luke 15:25-27).⁶⁰ But ultimately, in mocking the fruit of God's visitation to Sarah, “he is mocking God,” almost blaspheming the work of the Holy Spirit.⁶¹

Now, Sarah has a legitimate fear in this situation. She and Abraham came from south of Babylon, as did some of their house. Around this time, the law there was that, if a man had children born to him from his primary wife and also from a slave woman, then if the father had ever acknowledged the slave woman's son as his own, then on the father's death, the sons of both women must “equally divide the property of the paternal estate,” even though the wife's son, as “preferred heir,” could “select and take a share first.”⁶² This is a textbook example of where that law applies, meaning that legally, when Abraham dies, Ishmael gets half of everything!

Despite that law, Sarah now “fiercely fights for [Isaac's] preeminence.”⁶³ In her view, even though begotten by Abraham, Ishmael “was not born to an inheritance,” no matter what the laws of man may say, since the promises of God are otherwise.⁶⁴ And so “she said to Abraham, 'Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac!'” (Genesis 21:10). Sarah's turning to an even older Sumerian law, where if a man's wife bears him a son and a slave woman has also borne him a son, then once the wife's son has survived infancy, the dad has the option to “free the slave woman and her children,” sending them away from the household, in which case “the children of the slave woman will not divide the estate with the children of the master.”⁶⁵ That's what Sarah's asking Abraham to invoke, so that the inheritance to which Ishmael might otherwise seem entitled would be replaced by early manumission for himself and Hagar, and thus Abraham's goods and covenant will remain in waiting for Isaac when Abraham passes on.⁶⁶

In the end, despite Abraham's grave misgivings (Genesis 21:11), God directs him that, although earlier he was being fleshly like Adam when he hearkened to the voice of his wife Sarai, now “whatever Sarah says to you, hearken to her voice” in this, “for through Isaac shall seed be named for you” (Genesis 21:12). Isaac, and not Ishmael, really is the one who must inherit it all, because it's through Isaac (and not Ishmael) that the everlasting covenant will continue, and it's through Isaac (not Ishmael) that future sons will be named as Abraham's seed. We know that among the descendants of Isaac was the nation of Israel, born and named as the seed of Abraham – as some said, “a holy seed..., the portion of the Most High..., a kingdom of priests and a holy people.”⁶⁷ They lived, not only as a seed existing out of a promise, but as people for whom there remained many promises, “for the LORD has promised good to Israel” (Numbers 10:29), and “not one word of all the good... had failed” (Joshua 21:45). It's a beautiful pattern leading up to Mary, who, like Sarah, miraculously gives birth after divine intervention for the sake of God's saving plan.⁶⁸ Through this New Sarah arrives the ultimate Seed of Promise, “who is Christ” (Galatians 3:16), the One this was about all along.⁶⁹

It was this True Seed of Abraham, “appointed the heir of all things” (Hebrews 1:2), whom his apostles praised and preached, as St. Paul did in places like Galatia (Acts 16:6; 18:23). But then entered other teachers with practically “a different gospel” than his (Galatians 1:6), who, making much of Isaac's birth being perfected by the covenant of circumcision, insisted to the Galatians that, if they wanted to be genuine children of Abraham and 'holy seed,' they needed to live the Law of Moses after the flesh in order to perfect their faith and be fully justified.

St. Paul had... some other thoughts. “Tell me, you who desire to be under the Law: don't you listen to the Law? For it's written that Abraham had two sons: one by a slave woman, and one by a free woman” (Galatians 4:21-22). There's more than one way to be a son of Abraham. The first difference is this: the status of their mother. Hagar had a lowly status when Ishmael was born, as a slave under oppression; Sarah had a higher status, as the freeborn wife of a chieftain.⁷⁰ Paul goes on to highlight a second difference: “The son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise” (Galatians 4:23), “born according to the Spirit” (Galatians 4:29). Any assurance of an angel about Ishmael was spoken after Ishmael existed in Hagar's womb, whereas Isaac didn't yet exist when God first called him by name in a promise.⁷¹ The son of Hagar was thereafter conceived through the customary workings of providence as a result of a human scheme to achieve it, “begotten in the ordinary way..., the regular course of nature,” but Isaac was conceived in a miracle, “was given by the promise, signifying divine grace.”⁷² From Isaac's very origins, he's the work of the Holy Spirit – which is especially fitting, if he was born on Pentecost as some Jews believed!

Paul wants to apply this story as a framework for the situation he sees. “These things are allegorized: these women are two covenants” (Galatians 4:24). Hagar and Sarah stand in for covenants God made with humanity, but Paul soon slides from two covenants to two mountains and two cities, which point to the two conditions. “One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children” (Galatians 4:24-25). Hagar stands for a mountain, Sinai, which in Roman times was deemed part of the province of Arabia; she stands for a covenant made there, embodied in the Law of Moses; and she stands for a city, the Jerusalem which in Paul's day was under Roman domination which made its residents effectively slaves of the empire.

So what about the other woman? What does Sarah stand for? Paul doesn't tell us outright which mountain she'd be, though the answer is surely Zion. He doesn't specifically outline what covenant she represents, but it's the original covenant with Abraham as seen in the New Covenant established in Christ. But Paul does weigh in on what city Sarah stands for: “The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother” (Galatians 4:26).

Paul backs all this up by quoting from the prophecies of Isaiah (Galatians 4:27).⁷³ In chapter 51, the prophet urged Israel to “look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you” as a basis for believing that “the LORD comforts Zion... and makes her wilderness like Eden” so that “joy and gladness will be found in her” one day (Isaiah 51:2-3) – as was foreshadowed in the life of Sarah. But to bring that about, “the arm of the LORD” would need to awaken and put on strength to achieve salvation (Isaiah 51:9). The prophet then laments how Jerusalem is a captive in the dust (Isaiah 52:2) and longs to hear a messenger bringing good news on the mountain (Isaiah 52:7). That good news arrives: “the LORD has bared his holy arm” so that “all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (Isaiah 52:10)!

But where we expect to see a military uprising, we instead hear of a faithful Servant disfigured beyond belief (Isaiah 52:14). Here's how “the arm of the LORD” is “revealed”: in a Promised One “despised and rejected by men” (Isaiah 53:1-3). Yet “upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,” since “the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all,” so that “he was cut off from the land of the living... and they made his grave with the wicked” (Isaiah 53:5-9). But somehow, “when you make his soul an offering for guilt, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand” (Isaiah 53:10). Obviously, we understand that the Promised Servant here is Jesus Christ, that the prophet's singing in advance of his crucifixion and resurrection. And immediately after that is when we hear a call for a new song: “Sing, O barren one who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who haven't been in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married, says the LORD” (Isaiah 54:1). That's the very line St. Paul quotes (Galatians 4:27). The direct outcome of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ is that the desolate Zion of old is transformed, as Sarah, into a fertile mother of the promised ones; and all who accept her, and not Hagar, as their mother have entered into the promised comfort of God, the journey back to Eden!

Now Paul drives the lesson home to Galatia. The false teachers came to them in Ishmael's sandals. They claim they just want to make the Galatians true sons of Abraham. 'Yeah,' Paul says, 'but by Hagar – which will only make new Ishmaels estranged from the covenant of Abraham.' The Galatians in question already shared the faith of Abraham and Sarah that bodily deadness, even Christ's on the cross, is no obstacle to the life-bringing power of God (say, in Christ's resurrection!). “So if you are Christ's,” he says, “then you are Abraham's seed.” What kind? “Heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29). Already they were covenanted sons of Sarah, of Jerusalem Above. “Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise” (Galatians 4:28), “sons of God through faith, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:26-27). Those who claim membership by fleshly criteria like blood or body modification don't count as seed and sons, but those who lay claim by a trusting embrace of the God of Resurrection Promise belong already (Romans 9:8).⁷⁴

So then what are the false teachers really up to? Paul says that “just as at that time, he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so is it now! But what does the Scripture says? 'Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.' So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman. For freedom Christ has set us free! Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, testify to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you” (Galatians 4:29–5:2). The Galatian churches, even if they don't know it, are under attack. Their mother's sufficiency is mocked by the Judaizers. Their status of freedom is imperiled by the depredations of these new Ishmaels among them, trying to make them 'born again' as Hagar's children “so that they might bring us into slavery” (Galatians 2:4). To submit to this is to become Ishmael and be estranged from the covenant, and so from Christ. The only biblical solution is to “cast out the slave woman and her son” – to expel the false teachers from the churches.⁷⁵ The inheritance is at stake!

That's how St. Paul applied the story of Isaac to the needs of his day, but what does the Scripture say to us? You and I have been baptized with the very same baptism, and “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ..., and if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:27-29), “saved not by the right of [our] own free status but by the election of grace, not by the effort of [our] own labor but by the Lord visiting [our] heart and fulfilling the gift of grace which he promised.”⁷⁶ No less than those who got the gospel from Paul's lips, you and are today, “like Isaac, are children of promise” (Galatians 4:28). Isaac “is rightly taken to signify the children of grace..., gathered together in Christ at grace's call..., who are citizens of the free city and who share in eternal peace.”⁷⁷ So we, as little Isaacs, claim the Jerusalem above, the Church Triumphant in glory, as the mother in whose baptismal womb we were conceived anew by the word of God (1 Peter 1:3, 23; Galatians 4:26), “born of water and the Spirit” unto God in Christ (John 3:5).

Having already been born out of God's fulfilled promise by believing his promise to raise life out of death, how can we not believe in the promise that remains? For “when he manifests his will, everything yields place and gives way, difficult things become easy, and what is impossible proves possible, provided we only give evidence of deep faith in him and prove superior to all human considerations by keeping our gaze fixed on his greatness,” as Father Abraham and Mother Sarah finally did.⁷⁸ Like the newborn Isaac, we “long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Peter 2:2-3). But then, as we do grow up into our salvation, we embrace “by progressive increases of faith” the many meaty dishes of the gospel feast.⁷⁹ For “solid food is for the mature” (Hebrews 5:14). We trust that, since our Mother lives in the freedom of God above all earthly powers, we have been born for spiritual freedom, to attain “mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).

In the story, Sarah might well have wondered whether the fleshly would scoff at her bearing and nursing Isaac, or if he, born to impossibly elderly parents, was destined to be “a living example of the absurd.”⁸⁰ It sure seems his half-brother Ishmael laughed at, mocked, even threatened absurd little Isaac. So, at least, St. Paul reads it, and draws the principle that “he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit” (Galatians 4:29). To the earthly eyes of the flesh, those who strive to step with the Spirit of God are living examples of absurdity, suitably scoffed at and mocked and persecuted. “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12), for “the word of the cross is foolishness to those who were perishing” (1 Corinthians 1:18). We know it to be true! In this, what is there to do but to cry out, “Visit me with your salvation” (Psalm 106:4)? So “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise..., chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing those that are, so that no flesh might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). God will have the last laugh.

Isaac represents the transformation of the scoffing laughter of disbelief and disdain into the delighted laughter of awe and jubilation, of festive joy. Sarah's latter laugh, Abraham's great feast, “appropriately signifies the joy of the New Covenant, in which the children of promise will rejoice forever with the Lord dwelling in them.”⁸¹ For didn't Jesus assure us, “I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:22)? God “will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy” (Job 8:21), and through you, everyone who hears and hardens not his or her heart will rejoice with the Church in God. You are a sign in the world for joy, to spread the laughter of the Lord far and wide as a window into the good news of the faithfulness of the God of Life! That joy is for you, and for those who see God's hand in Christ in you.

And, finally, St. Paul would remind us that the whole issue of the story was whether Isaac, the son born from a promise, would indeed inherit all that was to be Abraham's; and Sarah's prayer to expel the fleshly and slavish from their house was for the sake of preserving Isaac's inheritance fully intact and undiminished. Well, if in this allegory Isaac stands for the believer, and Abraham stands for God, and Sarah stands for the Church (especially the Church Triumphant), then what is this? The Church prays to her Lord on behalf of her Isaacs still here in this world; she prays that the Lord would quash persecutions, would stifle fleshly sins, would shame skepticism and trash temptations. Why? So that Isaac might be unrivaled, so that Isaac has full security in the promise, that Isaac might await his inheritance untroubled, so that Isaac shall be sure to receive in full.

We, as Isaacs, are “heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29), “heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:7). In Christ's name, “we have obtained an inheritance” (Ephesians 1:11), “the promised eternal inheritance” (Hebrews 9:15), “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:4), “the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18). “From the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward” (Colossians 3:24), “giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:12). And no scoffer in Ishmael's sandals can mock and accuse and steal and destroy you whom Sarah's prayer is upon, if you abide by faith in the promise. Remain fully in Christ, and the inheritance is richer than you can dream. There, in the light, is the last laugh – of God and of his saints in celestial freedom. Thanks be to God, and may he bring us safe into our inheritance!

The Desires of Your Heart

Let's take a step back and try to catch the whole picture. In the beginning, God speaks, and the world exists in answer. God patiently shepherds the emerging world, his Spirit on the face of what's formless and void. As it's told to us, by careful divisions and decrees he shapes for himself a universal temple for his own indwelling; and in that world, he plants a garden sanctuary in which to install his images. That'd be us. We see the world as represented in the Garden of Delight, a good place full of all things healthful and beautiful and wonderful. We discover there that God is the provider, ensuring in his sanctuary we have everything we need to thrive and to flourish as the kind of creature we are: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden” (Genesis 2:16). “The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made” (Psalm 145:9). “When you open your hand,” the creatures “are filled with good things” (Psalm 104:28), the good and needful things whereby we flourish.

But it takes more for a place to be the Garden of Delight. The psalmist also sang, “You open your hand; you satisfy the pleasure of every living thing” (Psalm 145:16). More than just what's objectively good for creatures, for humans, for persons, there's also what pleases us, what we desire to enjoy, what we crave. Some things we desire lightly – maybe I could go for Italian for lunch. Some things we desire more strongly, more centrally – I desire being the husband of my wife. The strongest and most central desires are the desires of our hearts. And just as God is the provider who ensures in Eden that his creatures flourish according to their natures, so he's the lover who ensures in Eden that the deepest desires of our hearts not fail us. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but it's a tree of life when a thing craved comes” (Proverbs 13:12).

Ah, but the voice of temptation hisses softly in, suggesting God is neither; in that darkness, we crave what won't just satisfy nutritionally and please the senses, but also confer divine wisdom on our own terms. The result is excommunication from the sanctuary, exile from the garden. We enter the world we know, thorns and thistles and thwarted thoughts. Here, we suffer evil. One philosopher suggests that you suffer evil either (1) when you lose out on things that are objectively good for your flourishing as a human person, or (2) when you lose out on the desires of your heart, or (3) when, hardest of all, we lose both. And neither is transparent to us: we can misjudge what's good for human flourishing, as many do today, and we can also misjudge what we most deeply desire, since our hearts are hard to know. But even when we do judge rightly in theory, we might think we have it when we don't or think we lack it when we do have it.¹ And, of course, we can enthrone as core in our hearts things that are less worthy, like completing a stamp collection, or more worthy, like personal relationships.²

When we first meet Abram, we know little but that he's the son of a father, the husband of a wife, and the father of nobody: “Sarai was barren; she had no child” (Genesis 11:30). That's a suffering, an unhealthy condition of the reproductive system; but how Abram feels about it isn't yet clear. When he hears a divine appeal to change his life and venture forth in faith, he receives many offers: reputation, significance, even the foundation of a new nation conceived in blessing and dedicated to the proposition that this God is faithful (Genesis 12:1-3). We soon find, though, that his heart craves personal safety; yet Egyptian misadventure teaches him that God is faithful to watch over him even when situations become humanly hopeless (Genesis 12:10-20). All this time, he's implicitly taken his late brother's son Lot for a successor, his chance to invest in a future for his family's flesh and blood. But Lot bucks for independence, to be a brother and not a son; they part ways to stave off a feud, though Abram positions himself to watch over him, as God had for Abram (Genesis 13:1-18). It pays off when Abram can ride to the rescue, a warrior mighty to save; his primary desire is no longer personal safety but a loved one, and even witness ahead of wealth (Genesis 14:1-24). Yet his lost brother returns to Sodom.

Only as the LORD pokes and prods Abram, offering him the fulfillment of now-secondary desires, does he open up what his heart really wants: a son of his own flesh. He's heartbroken over the lack of fatherhood to one who can inherit, yet “for years he had already given up hope of a son.”³ Awakening this desire brings Abram's heart's wounds to the surface of his life. But “the craving of the afflicted you have heard, O LORD! You will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear” (Psalm 10:17). Now the LORD can hang on his heart a promise: Abram, I'll give you exactly what you want: not only your own son to inherit, but your seed will become as plentiful as the lights that dance by midnight. Abram believes; Abram grasps the God who says so (Genesis 15:1-6).

Years go by, and as Sarai judges herself impeded, she hatches a slave-surrogate scheme. Abram stretches forth his hand to forbidden fruit, and nine months later he sees the face of his flesh-and-blood, his son (Genesis 16). All in his house might then have quoted: “You have given him his heart's craving, and have not withheld the request of his lips!” (Psalm 21:2). For thirteen years, he's happy as the father of a son. He's obtained the desire of his heart, or so he thinks. That's when God interrupts his domestic bliss with a recruitment speech, to seal the promises and covenant in pain and blood, yet by that fateful cut he'll receive the fruitfulness promised, beyond this false start. With a change in name comes a summon to search deeper in his heart for his desires – not just any son, but one by his lawful wife, to inherit also the covenant, to become ancestor of nations and kings – and so to make Abraham not just any father but a founding patriarch (Genesis 17).⁴ Oh, Abraham scoffs, protests, conceals – he's convinced he's had the desire of his heart, so this deepening and postponement feel like theft.

To heal that, there comes a surprise visit, a mysterious tutorial in patriarchal justice, and an apparent failure to save the city or his lost brother (Genesis 18-19). But if he can't save a brother, how can he be a father? If he can't plead for a city, how can he found a nation? And how can he entrust his desires to such a Judge? So he flees cross country, acts again the man whose deepest desires are security and prosperity, and fights the desire he wants not to want. Then, as we heard last week, a confrontation by an unexpectedly God-fearing king and a confirmation of his prophetic mission shake Abraham from his self-absorption and self-doubt (Genesis 20). He then finds, as we'll explore further next Sunday, that God proves himself as faithful as Abraham ever believed, at last fulfilling the promise – as Abraham knows as he cradles the son born for covenant and country (Genesis 21:1-4). If we had Abraham's comments here, we'd hear him admit that God gave him the desire of his heart.

Had you asked Abram at age 74 what he most wanted, he might've given you an answer. But I doubt very much he would've said he wanted to be a patriarch whose offspring, especially through Sarah's son, his heir, will grow into nations and will become many kings, inheriting through trials the land promised them by the LORD God, so as to become the saving blessing of all the nations of the earth. Now, at age 100, Abraham knows that's what he wanted most. But he could only know that through a process of discerning his deepest desire, by discovering the incompleteness of those things he'd thought he wanted, gaining a more profound understanding of himself.

That was part of the problem. The other part was that Abraham, as he experienced more of life, actually shifted his desires themselves. Certainly, the dreams I most cherished as a boy – I wanted to be an architect – aren't the same as my highest aspirations now. Experience of life changed my desires, even my deeper desires. So it was with Abraham. Over time, it isn't just that his heart's desire has been more fully exposed; it's that his desires have been stretched and enlarged and redirected. The process over these many years “gives Abraham exactly what he wanted, but in a form better than he would have known how to want it.”⁵

And that, I believe, is the point of it all. Abraham's now got the desire of his heart, or at least a true beginning to it, on the other side of a quarter-century of heartbreak. God, of course, had the power to make Sarai conceive Abram's son on their honeymoon and sidestep all this; but, for God's reasons, he deferred their hope, allowed their hearts to feel sick, precisely in order to grow a tree of life for them – gradually, patiently, by building this relationship of trust and yearning. It isn't easy or simple, it isn't smooth or gentle, this constant game of promise and delay. It's certainly no fun for Abraham, and it demands a great deal of patience from God, too.⁶ So why?

God has, in fact, harnessed Abraham's desires for a greater end. God is using Abraham's journey of discovering what's on his own heart in order to remake Abraham's heart, to expand Abraham's heart. As chapter 22 will give us to know, the deepest desire of Abraham's heart won't be just to be the father of his own son, nor just to be the patriarch of nations and the forebear of kings, but to have such things as gifts from the God he trusts and reveres and loves. “The desires of Abraham's heart widen to include God as well as children and patriarchal status,” and God progressively moves himself to the center of Abraham's heart step by step through this journey.⁷

And that's just as it should be, because by nature we are designed to hunger and thirst for God, to have him as what we want above all, as the “deepest, inbuilt hunger” of our heart.⁸ It's like St. Augustine confessed: “You arouse us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you.”⁹ That's where God is leading Abraham, but not to the exclusion of what Abraham as an individual has as the desire of his heart: to still have and love this son, to still be a patriarch. It's like Jesus said: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33), now reshaped and woven into a fundamental desire for God which turns everything else into a gift of grace, thus fulfilling our desires even more splendidly when we get them.¹⁰

The psalmist has warned us that “the craving of the wicked will perish” (Psalm 112:10) – that, for those who live badly, who set their hearts on unworthy things, and who demand their satisfaction on their own terms and by their own will, their cravings will ultimately be unsatisfied. That's what we saw in Genesis 3's goodbye to the garden. But the psalmist also assures us: “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). In the end, through discovering delight in the LORD over a lifetime, Abraham was positioned to receive the desires of his heart – desires he'd always had but never quite recognized, desires that have now been transformed to become something greater than they had been, desires being fulfilled in ways he hadn't predicted until he had them, and then he knew the goodness of God.

And it's precisely in this – in providing Abraham not only with the things that make him flourish as a human being, but also in granting him the fulfillment of what his heart really desires and comes to desire – that God is able to redeem all the suffering which Abraham has endured along the way, and to make it no longer an evil but a pathway to true joy. Once Abraham believes with delight that the LORD will be faithful to add all these things unto him in God's way and in God's time, then he can look back and see his heart's pains as the labors of childbirth, which only made possible the good and desirable life that lay on the other side, whatever unexpected shape it should take; it will be recognizable once faith becomes sight, once imagination becomes taste.¹¹

I don't know all the details of your story. I barely know the broad strokes of my own! So I don't know how you have suffered, where you've been kept from flourishing or what the deferred desires of your heart have been. You yourself may not know. But I do know this: Delight yourself in the Lord, learn to hunger and thirst for God, and he will give you such things also, in his own time, in his own way, in his own surprise shape. Things you want most in life, what you care most about, are precisely what God has in store for you, as he refines them to be compatible with your flourishing as a person. In such gifts, God will redeem what it took to get you there.

God promises it, because God wants to bless us. “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11). But he wants that because he is Supreme Goodness, more good than all the other things that please us, and we were made for him. He is training us to discern and refine our deepest desires to center on him, so that, when he gives us what we care about most, he's giving us not just his blessings but himself.

Today, God comes to meet us at the altar. For Christ has given his flesh as true food and his blood as true drink, that we might taste and see that the Lord is the Pure Goodness whereby any and all things are good and lovely and worth wanting. Perhaps only in tasting God do we realize how hungry we've been all along, how heartsick we were without recognizing it or understanding why, and that such appetites were not sent into our hearts to return void, but to be satisfied indeed. Here, is a restoration of communion in the sanctuary of God. Here is grown a garden of delight. Here is the God of Abraham – he wants to feed us, wants to be tasted, wants to incite and train our desires. May we lay here before the Lord our hearts, with all our desires, that he might uncover them, refine them, use them to lead us, deepen our cravings, and be for us a Tree of Life indeed. Amen.

Seven Sheep A-Swearing

Ever since chapter 13, Abraham has been based at one place: “by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the LORD” (Genesis 13:18). Now, a couple decades later, “from there Abraham set out” (Genesis 20:1). It comes as a complete shock. Why would he leave such a stable place behind? Well, we don't have to puzzle too hard. The last time we stood with Abraham the other week, he was past Mamre at the ridge where the Canaanite hill country rises over the Jordan River Valley, watching the smoke billow up from the ash heaps that used to be Sodom, Gomorrah, and their environment (Genesis 19:27-28). The afternoon that preceded that, Abraham had faced off with the LORD's human face, begging for Sodom to be spared, wheeling and dealing over criteria for giving it a new day. Abraham had been invited into the LORD's secret counsels, so he boldly pressed and pressed as hard as he felt he dared (at the time). But he went home that night in anxiety, wondering if his campaign worked, wondering if he'd done enough, been enough (Genesis 18:23-33).

He'd tossed and turned all through the night, only to walk back after daybreak and find everything in ruins. A complete and total loss. It taunted him, haunted him. That was where Abraham's nephew Lot had lived. Now, even though the city was a goner, the author assured us that, for the sake of Abraham and his prayer, God had made a way of safety for Lot and his family, and Lot and his daughters had gotten out to the east (Genesis 19:29-30). Last week we heard what'll happen with his story, uncomfortable as it was (Genesis 19:30-38). But the bottom line is, Lot lives. We know that, because the author told us. But... does anybody tell Abraham?

The whole reason why Abraham had settled east of Hebron was that to keep a respectfully distant watch over Lot's life down in the basin. Now, the basin must have seemed a scale model of hell itself, and Abraham assumed that Lot was swept away with everything else. To see it, then, to smell it, must've been traumatic. “In his own eyes, he is a failure,” a failure for Lot and a failure for Sodom.¹ He failed his late brother Haran's only son, letting him (so he thinks) go up in smoke. He failed the city, wondering if he'd pled its case hard enough. So the Abraham who enters chapter 20 is an Abraham “filled with dread and doubt after Sodom.”² Having witnessed the destructive powers of God as Judge there, can Abraham look at God the same again?

It so shook Abraham that when he reviews these past few decades of his life, the decades of his purposeful walk with God to a land of promise, he says that “God caused me to wander from the house of my father” (Genesis 20:13). The verb he uses, 'wander,' basically means to get lost – to go astray, to be in error, to be deceived and misled. Abraham is so shaken that, in his bitterness and sorrow, he speaks as if heaven's misled him this whole time, as if God gave him bad directions, as if he'd been hoodwinked into quitting Terah's house, as if he regrets having come this way at all. After all, he believes his father Terah's grandson Lot is now dead at God's hand; so he's got to be thinking, “If I'd never left home, if I'd never set foot here, my brother's boy would still be alive.”

He can't handle the guilt, the shame, the horror – so he runs. He flees nearly to the other side of Canaan. “Abraham set out to the land of the Negeb” (Genesis 20:1). Last we heard of this semi-desert south end of Canaan, it was Abraham's last stop before running away to Egypt to escape a heavy famine (Genesis 12:9-10). Now he passes through again, and then there “he dwelt between Kadesh and Shur” (Genesis 20:1). This is where Hagar ran when she fled from Sarah (Genesis 16:7-14). Abraham has technically poked his way out of Canaan yet again, into the Sinai Peninsula.³

But then he pulled back a bit,⁴ “and he sojourned in Gerar” (Genesis 20:1), a town whose name starts with the word 'sojourner,' so that's perfect. It puts him in Lot's crispy shoes, since Lot also sojourned in a city just past the edge of Canaan (Genesis 10:9; 19:9).⁵ Gerar was one of the biggest cities in the area during the Middle Bronze Age, a forty-acre metropolis on the north bank of a modest river, about a 55-mile hike from Hebron.⁶ Maybe he's gone back up to do business there, to buy supplies and sell milk and wool and other products a man with flocks and herds might bring to market.⁷ It was a city-state, somewhat independent, with its own town king Abimelech – a common enough name in such parts.

It seems like a normal setting, but only at the end of a later story do we learn that the region around Gerar is “the land of the Philistines” (Genesis 21:32, 34). Gerar is, in fact, just a little bit inland from Gaza, which has a way of recurring in the news these days. But the trouble in this line is, the Philistines were invaders from the Greek world, “the remnant of the coastland of Caphtor” in Crete (Jeremiah 47:4), and God led them out to seize part of the Canaanite coast after Israel's exodus from Egypt (Amos 9:7). This is centuries too early. So either Genesis is just reminding us of the future inhabitants,⁸ or there are Cretan merchants or mercenaries who set up shop in Gerar, precursors of their Philistine cousins who'll follow them.⁹ Gerar's military chief Phicol's very un-Canaanite name, plus the Cretan artifacts we've found there from the tail end of patriarch times, say there must be something to that after all.¹⁰ Either way, as we read these stories, Genesis wants to surprise us by reminding us of Philistines, those uncircumcised pagans whose reputation elsewhere in the Bible ain't great.

So that's where Abraham's going, and the condition he's going in. “He sojourned in Gerar, and Abraham said of Sarah his wife, 'She is my sister'” (Genesis 20:2). Say, did anybody else just feel “an overwhelming sense of deja vu”?¹¹ This ought to feel like a familiar set-up, because just after our introduction to Abraham and his call, he fled to Egypt, and right as he approached the border, he begged his wife, “Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you” (Genesis 12:13). Hopefully you recall the heartbreak, the chaos, the danger that came of that choice. Earlier, we said Lot was written as a parody of Abraham, wanting to do right but handicapped by a poverty of moral wisdom. But now Abraham seems to be imitating Lot.

Why is Abraham backsliding? Why is he pulling out his old tricks? The excuse he offers later is, “Because I said to myself, 'Surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me over the matter of my wife'” (Genesis 20:11). Remember, this is an Abraham who's seen the smoke of Sodom, a city so corrupt not even ten people could be found there who feared God. He might be thinking that they didn't deserve his wasted efforts. Now, as he hops to the other side of the territory, he's cynical enough to see Sodom wherever he goes. For why should Gerar be so different from Sodom or Gomorrah, just because it's here and not there? So Abraham has resigned himself to expecting the worst of every place now, that they'll laugh off moral accountability as flippantly as the Sodomites had. If God 'caused him to wander' in these regions (Genesis 20:13), it implies he's been left to fend for himself, to survive by his own wits – so he'd better be shrewd and tricky to help himself.¹²

And so, predictably, “Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah” (Genesis 20:2). In the first story where he pulled this, “the Egyptians saw that the woman was beautiful; and, when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh,” and that's when she was taken (Genesis 12:14-15). A couple decades later, the text is almost “pointedly silent about Sarah's beauty.”¹³ She's nearing ninety now, which may mean Abimelech has different motives. Maybe opening his harem to Abraham's sister is meant as the start of a new bond between them.¹⁴ Though if that's the motive, Abraham's crazy to expect danger if he'd just acknowledged her as his wife.

But, come on, we've read this story before, haven't we? We know how this goes, so why do we need to hear the same plot play out twice, even with adjustments? Note the timing. Abraham was ninety-nine when the LORD appeared to him to update their covenant, imposing on him the command of circumcision (Genesis 17:9-14). But with that command came a promise that he'd be fruitful: God pledged him his own son by Sarah, “whom Sarah shall bear to you at this appointed time next year” (Genesis 17:21). The next chapter opens in the weeks to follow, twice reaffirming said appointed time (Genesis 18:10, 14). One year after the covenant, Sarah has to give birth to the promised son – Abraham's own flesh and blood. There's a countdown on it. Now, giving birth tends to follow nine months of gestating the baby in the womb, meaning that in Genesis 17, God was actually promising to let Sarah conceive three months later. Sodom and Gomorrah burn anywhere from a week to a couple months into that time, and so by the time Abraham then makes for the Negeb, settles between Kadesh and Shur, and then comes up to Gerar, we're down to the wire. Either Sarah is already pregnant by Abraham and doesn't yet know it,¹⁵ or she needs to get that way pronto.

But now, all of a sudden, Abraham has let her be taken away from him into the harem of King Abimelech. And if Sarah isn't pregnant, then she's about to miss her window with Abraham within the week. If she's already pregnant, then now we have a scandal: nobody will be sure the son Sarah bears nine months later is Abraham's and not Abimelech's. So at least the paternity of the promised son, if not his very existence, is now on the line. Which means, since the timetable is part of God's promises, that the truthfulness of God himself is at stake in this story. It doesn't get much more dramatic than that!

When Pharaoh took Sarah into his house, “the LORD plagued Pharaoh with great plagues, and his house, over the matter of Sarai, the wife of Abram” (Genesis 12:17). Here, we've got to read to the end to hear that “the LORD had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech over the matter of Sarah, the wife of Abraham” (Genesis 20:18). It was a fertility shutdown. And since we find out that Abimelech himself needs healing then, later retellers of the story sensibly inserted here “a grievous disease inflicted upon him by God,” such that “the physicians had already despaired of his life.”¹⁶ God is acting to protect his promises.

In Pharaoh's case, we were left in the dark as to how he figured out that Sarah was the occasion for the plagues; but here we needn't wonder how Abimelech learns it, since “God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and spoke to him” (Genesis 20:3).¹⁷ Abimelech is a rare recipient of divine revelation. What does God tell him by this dream? “He said to him, 'Behold, you are dead because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is married to a husband'” (Genesis 20:3). At this point, the author interjects to assure us: “Now, Abimelech had not approached her” (Genesis 20:4). He makes sure “to forestall any doubt of Abraham's paternity of the child” whom Sarah is supposed to bear in nine months.¹⁸ That son can't be from Abimelech, because Abimelech – whether due to timing, to sleep, or due to an illness – never got a chance to interfere.

Confronted with what seems like a sentence already sure, Abimelech dares to object. “He said, 'Lord, will you slay a righteous nation?'” (Genesis 20:4). It's almost eerie how much Abimelech sounds like the Abraham we knew two chapters ago, who also challenged a threat of judgment on a city with his outburst at God, “Far be it from you to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked!” (Genesis 18:25).¹⁹ Abimelech is insisting that Gerar is no Sodom; but will God treat Gerar like Sodom anyway? If Sodom couldn't be spared for a few righteous, will God go even further and condemn a wholly righteous nation for one man's wrong?

And not only a wrong, Abimelech protests, but an accidental wrong. “Did not he himself say to me, 'She is my sister'? And she also herself said, 'He is my brother!'” (Genesis 20:5). Abimelech pleads invincible ignorance as an excuse for taking a married woman. He didn't know that that's what he was doing. More than that, he just couldn't know; it was deliberately hidden from him. So, Abimelech reasons, “in the blamelessness of my heart and the cleanness of my hands I have done this” (Genesis 20:5). Abimelech presents himself like the psalmist who sang: “Who can discern his errors? Cleanse me from hidden faults! Keep back your servant from presumptuous sins.... Then I shall be blameless, and clean of great transgression” (Psalm 19:12-13).

God accepts that, at least in part: “Also do I know that you have done this in the blamelessness of your heart” (Genesis 20:6). “Abimelech acts very differently from Pharaoh,” to whom God couldn't say this.²⁰ He didn't act from malice or from lust, but from an innocent ignorance. At the same time, God declines to confirm the part about Abimelech having clean hands.²¹ Just because you have a good excuse, just because you didn't know what you were doing, it doesn't make what you did not wrong, Abimelech. God will later lay down a whole chapter for Moses about what people should do who “sin by mistake” and don't know it until later on (Leviticus 4). Abimelech's in that boat. He might be inwardly blameless, but he's objectively sinned, even if by mistake.

Abimelech in his protest spoke two 'alsos,' so now God adds a second one to his reply: “And also I withheld you from sinning against me; I absolutely did not let you touch her” (Genesis 20:6). By discipline and dream, God made sure that Abimelech wouldn't be an unwitting adulterer; he kindly preserved Abimelech from that degree of escalation. But this means Abimelech can't necessarily take credit for not doing it; he might well have gone on to commit adultery, had God not stepped in to prevent it – it isn't Abimelech's virtue that's credited.²²

But now Abimelech knows Sarah's a married woman, stolen from her husband. There are only two things he can do with that knowledge. “And you return the wife of the man, for he is a prophet and he will pray for you and you will live; but if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours” (Genesis 20:7). Keeping Sarah means the death penalty – God uses the same words here he used in Eden about the consequences of forbidden fruit (Genesis 2:17). And just like Lot had the chance to rescue “all who are yours” in the city (Genesis 19:12), Abimelech has the chance to doom “all who are yours” in the kingdom,²³ to say nothing of Sarah then meriting the death penalty (Deuteronomy 22:22) – nullifying the redemptive plan. Or Abimelech can release Sarah, undoing the wrong he's done.²⁴ If Abimelech sets things right with Abraham, Abraham is positioned to set things right between Abimelech and God, yielding life in place of death.

So ends Abimelech's remarkable dream. Now, I don't know if any of you have ever had a dream like his – one where you hear the genuine voice of God breaking in, undisguised. I have. And while I don't care to share with the public what God told me, I can say that the voice was unmistakable and that the experience definitely has the feel of setting foot on holy ground. Suffice it to say, when Abimelech woke up, he remembered distinctly each and every word God had said; he couldn't not. But what will he do with this awesome message?

We're encouraged when “Abimelech rose early in the morning” (Genesis 20:8), the same way Abraham did to find out the fate of Sodom (Genesis 19:27), a hallmark of an eagerness to obey (Genesis 21:14; 22:3). So “Abimelech acts at once and without hesitation to do precisely as he was instructed” by God in his dream.²⁵ He “called all his servants and told them all these things in their hearing” (Genesis 20:8), unloading the fresh news onto the officials who aid him in administering his little kingdom. It's only fair, since they've been affected and are in the crosshairs too. “And the men feared exceedingly” (Genesis 20:8). Feared what? The God of Abimelech's dream. Now, remember what Abraham says he thought, that “surely there is no fear of God in this place” (Genesis 20:11). But this overturns Abraham's assumption: not just the king but his whole court is God-fearing!²⁶ If Abraham's a Jonah at the moment, Gerar's acting like his Nineveh.

With the royal court informed, “Abimelech called Abraham” (Genesis 20:9). Having lived this before in Egypt, Abe's no doubt got a guess where this is going. As Pharaoh asked Abram three questions, so Abimelech asks three as well. Pharaoh led off with, “What is this you have done to me?” (Genesis 12:18), but Abimelech opens, “What have you done to us?” (Genesis 20:9). Pharaoh was concerned for himself; Abimelech's heart is for his people.²⁷ Pharaoh's second question was, “Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?” (Genesis 12:18), but Abimelech follows with, “How have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin?” (Genesis 20:9). Abimelech is more reflective, more theological. He wants to know if there's some way he previously offended Abraham that makes sense of this deception as a retaliation. And he drives home that Abraham's trickery could've been the first domino in a chain knocking down a whole kingdom.

So, where Pharaoh leapt straight to his third question, Abimelech makes a declaration: “Deeds that ought not to be done, you have done to me!” (Genesis 20:9). Now it's personal. So harsh is Abimelech's language here that, on Abimelech's telling, Abraham comes out looking not just like Lot but like a man of Sodom!²⁸ Over the top? Maybe. But it's the cutting correction Abraham needs to shake and shock him from this habit. Now, Pharaoh never gave Abraham a chance to answer, but after a pause to calm himself, Abimelech reaches his third question. “Abimelech said to Abraham, 'What did you see, that you did this thing?'” (Genesis 20:10). Was there something Abraham observed when he reached Abimelech's kingdom that provoked such a response – something it might be Abimelech's job to fix? Or maybe did Abraham, as a prophet, have some vision that inspired his conduct? Is there something he knows that Abimelech doesn't but needs to? What a humble query!

The short answer to that one is no. We've already taken a sneak peak at Abraham's “montage of excuses.”²⁹ He first admits he told himself, convinced himself, that Gerar couldn't possibly be a God-fearing place – that it had to be a twin of Sodom, beyond a shadow of a doubt; he was totally wrong.³⁰ It's himself he needs to examine. Sensing his first excuse falls flat, he claims that, on a technicality, he didn't lie, as he and Sarah are siblings first. Of course, it doesn't make a difference, because Abraham still set Gerar up for a downfall. Besides, admitting his wife and sister are one and the same isn't exactly helping him escape the shadow of Sodom or of Lot!

So he adds a third excuse: that Gerar wasn't special, that this was a habit he built up “at every place to which we come,” a “kindness” he'd requested of Sarah to preserve his life in the land where they were. His phrase here echoes Lot's gratitude for the angels' kindness (Genesis 19:19).³¹ But Abraham points the finger at God here as “the ultimate cause of his mistake.”³² Abraham's excuses sound as lame as Adam's excuses in chapter 3.³³ To make things worse, Abraham abruptly uses a plural – he literally says, “gods caused me to wander” (Genesis 20:13) – thus severely compromising his witness before Abimelech and maybe his entire journey out of Ur.³⁴

Abraham's defense of himself is feeble. His heart is far from blameless. Abimelech could sit in judgment as the king – but Abimelech's hands aren't so clean. He's wronged Abraham unknowingly, even as Abraham wronged him and the whole kingdom unthinkingly. So Abimelech makes a choice. In Egypt, Pharaoh enriched Abraham in advance by giving a large dowry (Genesis 12:16). Here, the gifts enter now: “Abimelech took sheep and oxen and manservants and maidservants, and he gave them to Abraham, and he returned Sarah his wife to him” (Genesis 20:14). Recognizing that Gerar is no Sodom, Abraham accepts both Sarah and the gifts.³⁵ What's more, Abimelech tells Sarah that he's also given Abraham “a thousand pieces of silver,” and “behold, it is a covering of eyes for all who are with you” (Genesis 20:16). What exactly that means isn't sure, but presumably this somehow will protect Sarah's reputation and sweep this incident under the rug.

In between those gifts and gestures, Abimelech addresses Abraham's future. Pharaoh, after berating the couple, banished them from Egypt, expelling them as unwanted menaces. But that's not how things play out in this land of the Philistines. In fact, “Abimelech said, 'Behold, my land is before you; settle wherever is good in your eyes” (Genesis 20:15). Which he does, we'll later find, about fifteen miles southeast of Gerar. Instead of an eviction, Abraham has legal resident status. Abimelech is seeking good terms of coexistence.

Of course, he needs something. He doesn't need to show contrition, since his blameless heart incurred no subjective guilt. But in sharing the dream and admitting the truth, he confessed his sin. In returning Sarah to her rightful husband, he amended his sin. In these gifts to appease Abraham, he made reparation for his sin. All that stands between him and absolution is intercession. And that's where the prophet of God comes in.³⁶

So, as God had assured Abimelech in his dream (Genesis 20:7), “Abraham prayed to the God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and concubines so that they bore children” (Genesis 20:17). In spite of all his personal ethical problems here, Abraham's position as a prophet makes him a successful intercessor with God, just like Judas could baptize and exorcise – it's the office that's at work, not its holder. But the result has to change the way Abimelech and his court view Abraham, whose prayer so promptly yields a miracle.³⁷ More importantly, it has to change the way Abraham views Abraham. He entered this chapter bitter and defeated, for his ministry had been a failure. But now, before his very eyes, that's proven untrue: he finally sees the fruit.

In the end, it looks like God allowed all this to happen again, for Abraham to revisit his old bad habits, so that it would cure him of them once and for all. God has meant this ordeal for Abraham's good – not just to enrich him (though it does), but to restore his self-confidence as an intercessor, as a man called to be a man of God. In this risky saga, God permitted all its twists and turns as the means to rebuild Abraham's faith after a trauma. In doing that, “God changed Abraham from an agent of curse to an agent of blessing,” never to turn back again.³⁸

Here's the point where we jump a few years into the future. In between Abraham gains a son, and he surrenders a son to the hands of providence. It's such an eventful few years that we'll spend nearly all next month poking around them. But through them, Abraham is being remolded, reforged. And at the end of those years, Abraham will come face-to-face with King Abimelech again. Only this time, Abraham is a new man, a virtuous man, a man confident and fulfilled in life despite the losses he's known; now he's a man who can look a king in the eye, as he did in the day long before when he chased down emperors and rebuffed the king of Sodom.³⁹

Now “at that time, Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his hosts spoke to Abraham” (Genesis 21:22), out where Abraham dwells. The fact that Abimelech brought his military chief to the conversation feels “ominous, perhaps threatening.”⁴⁰ Abraham has been prospering, and his prosperous presence registers as a potential threat back in Gerar, since Abraham's continued success might have him on track to rival Abimelech in Abimelech's own land or even take it.⁴¹ Abimelech and Phicol confess, “God is with you in all you do” (Genesis 21:22). These Gentiles acknowledge the God who is active in Abraham's life, who is revealing himself through the blessings given to Abraham.⁴² Abimelech both fears this and wants this. “Now therefore, swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but according to the kindness that I have done to you, you will do to me and to the land where you have sojourned” (Genesis 21:23).

Abimelech brings up the memory of their last encounter. It would be fair to say Abimelech found Abraham to deal falsely then, and he doesn't want a repeat. He knows Abraham's a prophet and a blessed man, but doesn't know if Abraham can be trusted. Abraham had asked Sarah for a kindness in helping him deceive to save his life, but Abimelech then did him an honest kindness by granting him legality, safety, freedom. Since Abimelech was kind and merciful, Abraham should return that with loyal kindness to Abimelech and his people. Abimelech wants him to swear an oath in the sight of God to deal faithfully, not just with Abimelech himself, but with his successors – sons, grandsons, you get it. Which means that “Abimelech believes that Abraham will have an enduring posterity” of his own, thriving in the land during the days of Abimelech Jr. and Abimelech III.⁴³

Abraham agrees without hesitation: “I swear” (Genesis 21:24). He has no problem swearing an oath, in the sight of God, to be honest and faithful in his dealings with Abimelech – because Abraham is recommitted to keeping the way of the LORD (Genesis 18:19). At the same time, Abraham has a bone to pick about that alleged kindness of Abimelech's. “Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that the servants of Abimelech had stolen” (Genesis 21:25). No wonder things got so tense Abimelech brought his muscle to the meeting!⁴⁴ A well was hard work to dig, usually at least seven feet across and maybe a hundred feet deep, sometimes through tough rock, to reach the water table; and even after all that work, you could never be sure you'd hit that water.⁴⁵ Especially in the Negeb, the general scarcity of water made well access a life-or-death issue for a man of flocks and herds.⁴⁶ Abraham had dug a life-saving well, and yet Abimelech's own servants had then taken it from him and blocked his access to it. This was the kind of thing wars could be started over.

Now it's Abimelech's turn to be on the defensive, with three excuses built around two 'alsos.'⁴⁷ First, “I do not know who has done this thing!” Abimelech once again grounds his defense in ignorance. “And also, you didn't tell me!” As before Abimelech's defense is that Abraham withheld information, this time by not reporting the theft. “And also, I haven't heard of it until today” (Genesis 21:26). If Abimelech's servants did this, they must have lost their fear of God and gone rogue. Abimelech implies he would've fixed things if he'd known.

As Abimelech once kindly accepted Abraham's lame excuses, so Abraham accepts Abimelech's defense. Both have striven for moral ground against the other, and both are now better for it: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17).⁴⁸ Now “Abraham took sheep and oxen,” probably children of those Abimelech gave him, “and he gave them to Abimelech,” so that “the both of them cut a covenant” by dividing the animals and walking through them to seal the deal (Genesis 21:27). But also, from the sheep, “Abraham set apart seven ewe lambs of the flock,” not slaying and splitting them (Genesis 21:28). Abimelech is as confused as we are: “Why these seven ewe lambs that you've set apart?” (Genesis 21:29). Abraham explains: “In order that these seven ewe lambs you will take from my hand, that you may be a witness for me that I dug this well” (Genesis 21:30). Abraham wants royal recognition of his ownership rights to the well and its land; Abimelech's acceptance of the lambs, in public, will commit him to guaranteeing that claim. Like the silver that vindicated Sarah's honor, these lambs vindicate Abraham's truth – and it's a generous move by Abraham, since usually it was the thief who was obliged to give seven ewe lambs to the victim.⁴⁹ These lambs will mean honesty, fair dealing, agreement, good communication, a renewed relationship.⁵⁰ And Abimelech accepts them.

With that, “both of them swore an oath, and they cut a covenant” (Genesis 21:31-32), “a pact of mutual respect and recognition.”⁵¹ Instead of Abraham's one-way oath, now they “swore a mutual oath.”⁵² This covenant will mean mutual kindness, mutual faithfulness, mutual friendship – the roads where blessings drive to and fro. And this is a template for how things were supposed to be: the nations, seeing God with his holy people in all they do, would seek covenants of peace and friendship, acknowledging the holy nation's destiny, and striving to be blessed by God through fellowship with them.

Peace, kindness, friendship between Abraham and the land of the Philistines – it points to a different way things could've been: a world where Samson and Delilah enjoy a long and happy marriage, where David and Goliath pal around and play board games, where these peoples embrace in the blessing of peace. We know that's not how history later played out, but it doesn't at all lessen the magnitude of what Abraham has here begun. I love the way one rabbi puts it: here, “Abraham converts a moment of confrontation into a moment of covenant.”⁵³ In light of everything we hear about in the news, if there's anything we need to learn how to do today, that just might be the thing.

As a result of their covenant, “he called that place Beersheba” (Genesis 21:31). It's got a double meaning. The words for 'seven' and 'oath' in Hebrew sound so much alike that 'Beersheba' could mean either 'Well of the Oath' or 'Well of Seven. It's the Well of Oath because Abraham and Abimelech swore oaths there to treat each other kindly, truly, faithfully; it's the Well of Seven because it was secured for Abraham through seven ewe lambs. It now becomes Abraham's “first piece of property in the land” he can call his own before God and man.⁵⁴ With a son, land, peace, and prosperity, “it appears the covenant promises are coming to reality.”⁵⁵

And so, while Abimelech and Phicol withdraw to Philistia, Abraham “planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba..., and Abraham sojourned in the land of the Philistines many days” (Genesis 21:33-34). The tamarisk is a great choice: it thrives in the northern Negeb due to its deep roots, its leaves make soft food for flocks, and they bring precious shade.⁵⁶ This tree, though, will take years to mature; it's a commitment for “many days” indeed.

And there, at this tree, as if it were an altar, Abraham “called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God” (Genesis 21:34). The last time Abraham faced kings and their armies, he came away with a blessing in the name of El Elyon, 'God Most High' (Genesis 14:15-20), a title emphasizing God's transcendence over space and supremacy over every obstacle Abraham could face. Now, though, he worships El Olam, 'God Eternal,' a title emphasizing God's transcendence over time and his “long-term faithfulness” through the twists and turns of life for Abraham.⁵⁷ This God will watch over and enforce the covenant through the generations. This God will see to it that Abraham and his seed are a permanent presence in the land of promise, rooted as deeply as a tamarisk tree, as refreshing as a well of water for the world, able to make clean the hands of Abimelech and more.

Where Abraham stands now is that, thanks to God Eternal, Abraham has found healing from his trauma, has forgiven himself for his self-diagnosed failures, has renewed his relationship with God, has learned how to live honestly and confidently and peacefully with human beings. And that's a good word. But the last word is seven – in the original Hebrew, this story uses Abimelech's and Abraham's names each seven times, which is no happy little accident, especially when Abraham then offers seven ewe lambs to secure for himself the Well of Seven!⁵⁸ Abraham may be sojourning here under a tree of his own planting and by a well of his own digging, but it might as well be a God-given tree of life and spring of living water, because this peace covenant, this fulfillment of promise, is saturated in sabbath. That's where this arc has been driving. Abraham is tasting sabbath enjoyment.

Abraham's security in Abimelech's kingdom was bought with a human oath sworn over seven lambs. But our security in God's kingdom was bought with a divine oath sworn over the Lamb of God, given for us and “made perfect forever” (Hebrews 7:28). “So then, there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9), a Beersheba where we can find our healing and our peace, our forgiveness and our self-forgiveness, our tree of life and our fountain of every blessing. He is God Eternal, who “will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10). Amen.