History and Story (2)

“May God decide which of us is right”  Genesis 16:5 Eugene Peterson The Message

Is right – Two intervening stories occur before we return to the saga of Sarai.  In the first interlude, Abram takes a very different posture with his nephew Lot.  He permits Lot’s choice over a dispute about grazing rights, in spite of the fact that custom favored Abram’s priority rights.  Lot heads in the direction of Sodom, a choice that eventually leads him to destruction and humiliation.  In the second interlude, Abram rescues Lot from captivity and returns a hero, only to acknowledge God’s sovereignty in an encounter with Melchizedek.  It appears that Abram has had a change of heart. Immediately following these two events, God visits Abram and establishes the covenant with Abram, a covenant that becomes the foundation of God’s interaction with His elect people (Genesis 15). Abram’s destiny is guaranteed by direct divine proclamation.

But Abram’s turmoil is not finished.  Sarai returns to the storyline.  And now we see a different kind of woman.  Sarai is no longer in the background, dutifully fulfilling the requests of her husband, even if those requests put her in the bed of another man. This time Sarai makes her will very clear.  Having lost faith in Abram’s commitment to her, she feels no constraint in front of him. She decides that if life is going to give her what she wants, she must take charge.  Sarai knows that God has promised a long line of descendants who will be powerful, influential and important.  She is more than anxious to see this promised fulfilled.  But she has no children.  One day she conceives a plan to produce the required offspring even if it means using another woman as the vehicle.

Sarai says to Abram, “Look, Yahweh has restrained me from bearing children.”  Sarai’s discontent is laid at the feet of God.  She considers it God’s fault that she is unhappy with this unfruitful marriage.  She implies that God is the true source of pregnancy.  We might notice the parallel with Genesis 4:1.  She reasons that He has prevented her from conceiving, so she plans another conception to circumvent this problem.  Sarai is following the footsteps of her husband.  He protected his self-interest by offering her as sexual exchange to Pharaoh.  Now she will achieve her self-interest by offering her maidservant as sexual barter for children.  She instructs Abram to have intercourse with Hagar.  The text says that Abram “listened to the voice of Sarai.”  This phrase is reminiscent of the same wording in the Garden when Eve listened to the voice of the serpent.  It is pure unadulterated temptation, coming from the mouth of one who was forced to commit adultery.  Perhaps Sarai reasoned that if her husband willingly sent her into sexual union with another man, he was not the sort of man who would stand up for fidelity when she pushed him into the bed of another woman.  No matter what the psychological reasoning, Abram follows in the footsteps of Adam.  He concurs that this fruit (Hagar) is pleasing to the eye and good for consumption.  He willingly impregnates Hagar.  The woman who was abused now becomes the abuser.  The man who perpetrated the abuse is now used to foster another abuse. A family pattern emerges.  Sex is used to accomplish selfish ends.  It actually doesn’t matter that this practice was acceptable in the culture of the time.  What matters here is the emotional interplay and the perpetration of further abuse.

We must notice that in spite of God’s sacred covenant with Abram, a covenant that Sarai surely knew, Abram does not protest this arrangement.  He does not insist that obedience outweighs desire and practical commonsense.  Sarai wants a child.  Abram wants a child.  The arrangement seems logical—and desirable.  The text indicates Abram did more than ploddingly acquiesce.  He engages himself (literally and figuratively) in this plan. Once again, human beings reason that sex will solve their problems.  But it never does.

Topical Index:  Sarah, Havvah, Genesis 16:5

TRAVEL NOTE:  By the time you read this, Rosanne and I should be in Milan.  A day setting up  things for the conference in Italy next year, then off to Parma on the train.  We will be back in the USA in a few weeks.  We are still looking for a place to live here in Italy, and in the meanwhile, flying back and forth across the Pond.  I’ll see some of you in New Orleans, then Virginia Beach, then Sarasota this year before we head back to this side of the Atlantic in 2019.