Eileen Cass, Finn Mauritzen, Bill McCarthy and Herb and Rene Lape were present and we read through Genesis 17 through 20. The following is pretty much the bare bones of what we read and we were amazed at the "R" rated content.
Gen. 17 -When Abram is ninety-nine, the Lord appears to him again and restates his promises to him a third time: 17:2 – You will be the father of many nations, the covenant will be perpetual and is sealed by the act of circumcision. The first two are in 12:2 “I will make you a great nation, your name a blessing” and 15:18: “your descendants shall be countless, you will receive the land from Egypt to the Euphrates.” Perhaps what we have here is simply another version of the original covenant God makes with Abram, but the repetition of it highlights the fact that God’s promises and God’s intervention is on its own timetable, not ours. Nothing Abram or Sarai do will hurry the process. God changes Abram’s name here to Abraham and institutes the practice of circumcision. Thus, God says, the covenant “shall be in your flesh as an everlasting pact” (17:13). Sarai’s name is modified to Sarah and the birth of their son is foretold. The pact with Ishmael is confirmed as well. He shall be the father of twelve chieftains and will become a great nation. The chapter ends with Abraham and Ishmael being circumcised even while it is clarified that Ishmael is not to be the heir God has been promising all along.
Gen. 18 - This chapter shows us Abraham sitting at the entrance to his tent near a small tree called a Terebinth at Mamre. It is just getting to the hot part of the day, when three strangers appear. Abraham runs over to them and begs them to accept hospitality from him. He enlists Sarah’s help and arranges for meat and cheese to be offered. While they are eating, they ask where his wife is and one of them says “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son” (18:10). Sarah, inside the tent laughs to herself for she is well beyond child-bearing age and knows it. But the speaker, now identified as “the Lord” repeats to Abraham what she has only said to herself. Sarah tries to deny she laughed, but of course we all know that Sarah is having trouble really believing that this promise will ever be brought to pass—that is why she resorted to the scheme with Hagar.
The three men then set out from there and Abraham goes with them a ways toward Sodom. The voice changes back and forth from that of the men (or one of the men) to that of YHWH himself (18:9 and 13) and later again at verses 16 and 17. It is clear that they are to be seen as His voice. He does tell him he plans to destroy Sodom. This is an interesting passage both for its content and the point of view it pretends to speak from. Here the writer presents to us the inner workings of the Lord’s mind concerning not only Abraham, but the whole plan of the future he has initiated through Abraham. The conferring of the redemption promises on Abraham bring him into relationship with God in such a way that God feels he has a right or need to know how God will deal with men, to understand God’s justice and even to mediate mankind’s needs to God. That this spurs Abraham to intercede for Sodom flows naturally from God’s including him in the divine reflection, which ultimately effects the action God takes. There is an inter-action between the divine intention and man’s response to that intention which ultimately shapes what happens, what God puts into effect. Also interesting is the point that God is going to punish Sodom because he is responding to an outcry against their wickedness. In all this, the inter-involvement and interplay between God and man, not simply God’s omniscience and omnipotence, seem to be that which shapes events.
Abraham pleads with God not to destroy the innocent with the guilty. Noah didn’t do this (presuming that there were other innocent destroyed in the flood), but Abraham, like Moses and Jesus after him will take the part of man at least to a point and intercede for us. In a sense this makes Abraham God’s first “prophet.” The Lord finally does agree to spare Sodom if ten righteous men can be found there, and perhaps would have gone further, but Abraham does not presume to push Him beyond ten.
Gen. 19 - Two angel messengers are entertained by Lot whose hospitality is implicitly praised. The men of the town beat at his door demanding that he turn them over to them so they can “abuse” them –“be intimate with them” [Tanakh, 5]. There is virtually no discussion or follow up on the particular evil implied. The whole focus is on the fact that destruction will come, but the virtuous Lot and those he loves are given a path to follow to avoid the destruction.
Lot’s daughters seem to be affected by the sexual decadence of the times in their own plot to sleep with their father. The older daughter gives birth to Moah, the younger one to Ben-ammi (the Ammonites). The note suggests it is a gibe at Israel’s enemies to link them in this way with such conduct.
Gen. 20 - A doublet of 12:10, but involving not the king of Egypt but the King of Gerar, a kingdom south of Gaza, Abimelech. Abimelech has a dream from God revealing the truth of what Abraham is doing and he confronts Abraham. The idea of God’s prophets being favored and being people who can intercede with God for us is reinforced here (20:7). Abraham learns that there is fear and respect for God outside his own people, so at Abraham’s intercession, God does lift the sanction he had imposed on them for their inadvertent violation of his will.
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