Reading the Bible: Genesis, Chapter 4
Avraham hosts the guests (angels)
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three guests arrive in a hot day to the tent of avraham. he bows down and offers them to stay. he asks Sarah, his wife to prepare cakes, while asking another boy to cut a baby cow. and they serve “butter, milk and the cow” (Genesis 18:8), and the guests eat. for those of you who doesn't know, Jewish people do not eat milk produce and meat produce at the same meal. but at that point of time, avraham was not yet jewish! and the rule did not exist yet.
Sarah will have a boy
anyway, the guests tell avraham that sarah is going to give birth to a boy. but it was important for the bible to mention that sarah was already old and the period time is over, as well as avraham himself was also too old. this I can understand why to mention, since it will be like a miracle of birth and will prove the existence of a super being like God. actually it is really similar to the Christian story of the birth of Jesus (Yeshua).
it was also mentioned that sarah laughed inside. and God told avraham that she did so. it was then mentioned that sarah rejected the claim that she laughed inside and could not believe that she will give birth. the sentence ends here, and I did not figure out why we are being told this detail.
the destruction of Evil Sdom
God then commands the guests to go to Sdom and bring news for its destruction, since they were all sinners.
avraham tries to speak to God and get him out of it. he tries to negotiate with god about the fact that you should not destroy a city if you can find a few righteous people there. they try to negotiate the number of righteous people that is enough for not destroying a place. eventually god says, that even if there would be 10 righteous people in the whole area, he would not destroy it. but it was not the situation.
The future destruction of sdom meant that Lot, his brother’s son, the one that he rescued just a few years back, will be killed as well. avraham cant agree to that, and he goes to rescue lot once again.
Lot hosts the guests in Sdom
Lot receives two of the messengers. where did the third one go??
after Lot asks them to come inside for a meal, they agree. it is the first time that MAZOT are reminded in the bible. it is said that Lot prepared for them the MAZOT and they ate. MAZOT are fast made bread.
at night time a group of sdom men arrived at his house, demanding the guests to come out. they wanted to “get to know them” (genesis, 19:5). this expression often means to have sex.
Lot, protecting his guests, offers them his 2 daughters instead. out of respect to guests, he prefers that they would sleep with his daughters, rather than with people he just met. this is again showing the importance of hospitality, and in this episode we see this several times.
Sdom men refuse and claim they want the guests, and they start to attack Lot. the guests pull Lot back inside the house and then Blind all people outside, which caused them not to be able to even find the door. this tells probably about the situation. they were not really near the door, an I imagine something like a big battlefield where Lot was not speaking to them face to face, but with messengers. but anyway, it is unclear.
leaving Sdom empty handed
Then the guests say to Lot that God is going to destroy Sdom, and ask him to take all his close people, his daughters and their husbands, and get out of Sdom. but the husbands reject the offer.
on early dawn, the guests hasted Lot to leave the city. Lot hesitates. it says that the guests held the hands of Lot, his wife and his daughters and pulled them out of the city. the hand holding is noted perhaps because normally this type of touch is forbidden.
the guests tell Lot to escape to the mountains and never look back. Lot says that in the mountain there is a plague and asks to escape to a different city. they confirm, but said that they want to destroy it as well, but will stop its destruction until he leaves.
Lot goes to that city, while a rain of fire destroys Sdom completely. the fire was so big that also avraham saw it from his place (on the mountain above the dead sea). While walking away, Sdom’s wife looks back to the fire, and becomes a salted statue.
Sleeping with his girls
Lot and his daughters go to stay in a cave, fearing that god will destroy the other city they were at. The daughters understood that they shall not find husbands any more, made their father drunk and slept with him for two nights in a row. he didn't know about this from his drunkness.
but these two boys, Moav and Amon, are two of the biggest enemies Israel had in biblical times. they settled where Jordan is today.
Avraham goes to Grar
avraham moves to a new country. he makes the same mistake as he did in egypt, and tells that sarah is his sister. the king acts similarly and takes sarah to be his wife. so avraham did not learn a lesson from the previous time…
but interestingly, this time the bible describes this story in a very short way, which is almost impossible to understand, while focusing on a different aspect which in the egypt story was not explained. it says then that God revealed himself to the king in his dream, saying that he will be punished if he does return the wife to her right husband. the punishment is to not have children). this time, the bible describes in more detail the conversation between the king and god (in the dream).
the next day the king offers avraham and sarah more property, and just asks them to heal him and leave. after avraham blesses the king, his wives and daughters became pregnant again.
I do not understand its purpose of this story that much. it is stuck in the middle.
sarah give birth to Issac (Izhak)
when avraham was 100 years old, Isaac was born.
sarah demanded to banish Hagar and Ishmael. and although avraham did not like this, God approved him to do so, while promising he will grow to be a big nation (the arab nations originates from ishmael, and this is also the Muslim belief).
so avraham banishes hagar and ishmael, giving them some food and water, but not enough to really survive. God actually then helps hagar to find water source. ishmael finds a wife from egypt, and becomes a bow man.
avraham names beer sheva
short story about signing a treaty with king avimelech (the same king from the previous story, and perhaps that was the purpose of the story before).
the king recognizes the miracles that god make to avraham and decides to be in peace with him. they sign it in beer sheva (beer = one water well; sheva = seven). called this way since avraham dug a new water well in that place, while 7 sheep watch him (actually probably many others as well, since the sheep has no words.
avraham sets to slaughter issac
god puts avraham in one last test and asks him to kill his son for him. the verse of the request is structured in an interesting way, where for the entire verse avraham might think he can take ishmael instead, but eventually god names issac specificaly.
the rest of the story is known. they go for three days, where Isaac also carries some load. issac also asks his father “where is the animal that we are going to slaughter?” and his father responds “god shall show us it later”.
eventually they arrive to the spot, and avraham builds the alter, and then put his son there. i guess since avraham was already pretty old (over 100), it was quite difficult task to do if issac rejected it. perhaps this is why some writers think that issac knew about this and cooperated.
anyway, as well know, the angel stops abraham, provides him another animal, and blesses both of them for this. the story also is believed to occur only since the devil made god think avraham might not be truthful soul. and that is why it is said that “now i know you are truthful” (genesis, 22:12).
the birth of Rivka, future wife of issac
then in a few sentences, it is described how rivka is a grandchild of Nahor, brother of avraham. preparing us to the next chapter of marriage with izhak.
The name of Adonai (“my Lords” in Hebrew)
in Hebrew instead of reading God’s name, we say Adonai, which technically means “My Lords”. in this episode both avraham and Lot use this way to call the three guests. but I don't understand how or why, culturally, we continued to use the plural way to reference God as well. instead of saying his name as it appears in many ways in the Bible, we read Adonai.
read the episode in hebrew
