GENESIS: Snoopy's Short & Snappy Review

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Good Morning. Here is Genesis 21

Snoopy's Snappy Review: "Look for what you are missing in what you have already" (Zen koan) :cool:

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Bible Gateway passage: Genesis 21 - New English Translation

The Birth of Isaac - The LORD visited Sarah just as he had said he would and did for Sarah what he had promised. So Sarah became pregnant and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the appointed time that God had told him. Abraham named his son—whom Sarah bore to him—Isaac. When his son Isaac was...
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Happy day! Isaac is born to Sarah.

Abraham circumcises him on the eighth day. The child grows and is weaned. Abraham prepares a feast on that day.

Ishmael mocks Isaac so Sarah demands that Ishmael and Hagar be banished. Abraham is unhappy but God tells him to do as Sarah requested. God reminds Abraham that his descendants will be counted through Isaac.

So off they go into the desert! Hagar leaves the boy under a shrub so she won't witness his death and she sits off a little way weeping.

An angel calls from heaven and reassures Hagar that Ishmael will be a great nation. The angel enables Sarah to see a well and she tends to Ishmael.

God is with the boy as he grows. He lives in the wilderness and becomes an archer. Eventually Sarah finds him a wife from Egypt.

Abraham and Abimelech experience conflict but negotiate a truce. Abraham continues to live in the land of the Philistines.
 
Wow! One brother mocks the other and is banished along with his mother! Didn't the writers know anything about normal sibling rivalry? Wouldn't they expect an older brother to be jealous when a feast is being prepared for his younger sibling?

But it seems the writers needed a way to set Isaac and Ishmael on separate trajectories.

I wonder how old Isaac was when he was weaned. How long did women nurse their children in those ancient days? Probably longer than present day norms.
 
Hagar is once again talking with God, who in chap. 16:13, she refers to Him as El ROI, "the God Who Sees Me"
She must have felt so abandoned, but God acknowledged her importance again.
 
Is Hagar important in Islam, does anyone know? Ishmael and Abraham are both significant figures in that tradition.
 
paradox3 said:
Is Hagar important in Islam, does anyone know? Ishmael and Abraham are both significant figures in that tradition.
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I think more importantly God shows she is valued by Him.
She was a foreigner, a slave, an outsider and used by Abraham and Sarah to bear a Child for them. She is forced to be Abraham's wife and taunted and excluded by Sarah and then sent away.
No matter how she was devalued by others, God met her where she was and called her by name.
 
It's not hard to imagine Hagar's despair in the desert when she is expecting her son to die.

The story turns around when her eyes are able to see the well in her midst. Do we think God made the well suddenly appear or was it there all along?
 
A number of years back I first noticed that according to the timeline Ishmael is 13(ish) when Isaac is born. 13 is the age of BarMitzvah in contemporary Judaism (I do not know when 13 became the age for this rite of passage), so Ishmael is, by Jewish custom, a man in his own right (though the rest of the story about the time in the wilderness does not seem to jive with the child being 13 rather than a toddler). I suspect underlying the story is a resurgence of Sarah's jealousy from whe Ishamel is born and a fear that this full grown man-child could claim the inheritance Sarah believe should be Isaac's.
 
paradox3 said:
Do we think God made the well suddenly appear or was it there all along?
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Genesis 21:19

Good News Translation​

19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well. She went and filled the leather bag with water and gave some to the boy.

If you look up this word open in the Scripture --it means----- to observe -----

So where Hagar was crying she was probably not observant of what was around her as she was worrying about her son dying -etc ---so I think the well was already there and God opened her eyes to observe what was around her and she saw the well because of God's prompting -----
 
unsafe said:

Genesis 21:19​

​

Good News Translation​

19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well. She went and filled the leather bag with water and gave some to the boy.

If you look up this word open in the Scripture --it means----- to observe -----

So where Hagar was crying she was probably not observant of what was around her as she was worrying about her son dying -etc ---so I think the well was already there and God opened her eyes to observe what was around her and she saw the well because of God's prompting -----
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And really , don't people do this all the time? We get so focused on part of a situation we don't see the whole picture until someone pushes/helps/forces us to see clearly. Particularly those of us with a pessimist (or catostrophist as I describe myself) point of view-- we see the tragedy and fail to see the possible solution.
 
Good morning. Here is Genesis 22

Snoopy's Snappy Review: Not for the faint hearted. :sick:

www.biblegateway.com

Bible Gateway passage: Genesis 22 - New English Translation

The Sacrifice of Isaac - Some time after these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am!” Abraham replied. God said, “Take your son—your only son, whom you love, Isaac—and go to the land of Moriah! Offer him up there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I...
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God calls to Abraham and requests the sacrifice of Isaac as a burnt offering.

Abraham loads a donkey with firewood and travels with Isaac for three days to the designated location. Isaac wonders about the lamb for slaughter but is told "God will provide."

Abraham pulls out his knife and is about to slaughter Isaac when the Angel of the Lord intervenes and stops him.

A ram caught in the bushes by its horns is sacrificed instead. The angel conveys a message of blessing for Abraham and his descendants.
 
Creepy story! I remember it from Sunday School and it was always disturbing. We were taught that God was testing Abraham's loyalty and obedience. Maybe so.
 
If someone sacrificed, or tried to, their kid claiming instructions from God today, a psych eval or criminal charges would be the probable result. Not to mention social services taking the kid into care. And I doubt anyone would be talking about the guilty parent's "great faith". And in a fictional story, Abraham would hands down be portrayed negatively for this. Yet, because this is a thousands of years old story in a religious text, the implied child abuse seems to totally get a pass. Of course, this is not the only ancient story that wouldn't pass muster if the events happened in the modern world. So does the fact that a story is a "myth" give it a pass on dubious actions by supposedly heroic figures?
 
Mendalla said:
If someone sacrificed, or tried to, their kid claiming instructions from God today, a psych eval or criminal charges would be the probable result. Not to mention social services taking the kid into care. And I doubt anyone would be talking about the guilty parent's "great faith". And in a fictional story, Abraham would hands down be portrayed negatively for this. Yet, because this is a thousands of years old story in a religious text, the implied child abuse seems to totally get a pass. Of course, this is not the only ancient story that wouldn't pass muster if the events happened in the modern world. So does the fact that a story is a "myth" give it a pass on dubious actions by supposedly heroic figures?
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No
 
I don't think God wants Abraham to sacrifice his son to test his faith, but to show the pagans that human sacrifice is wrong in God's eyes. God forbids it. God is offering a substitute instead to show us this through this story. Pagans believed sacrifice kept them safe through sacrifice.
But God tells us those who are redeemed are kept safe, not through sacrifice.
 
Waterfall said:
I don't think God wants Abraham to sacrifice his son to test his faith, but to show the pagans that human sacrifice is wrong in God's eyes. God forbids it. God is offering a substitute instead to show us this through this story. Pagans believed sacrifice kept them safe through sacrifice.
But God tells us those who are redeemed are kept safe, not through sacrifice.
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There is still sacrifice at this point though, just it is sheep instead of people. Animal sacrifice lasted until Christianity in that region.
 
If God intended this as a demonstration of "What Not To Do", it seems odd that the location was so isolated. There were no witnesses available with the exception of the servants.
 
Mendalla said:
There is still sacrifice at this point though, just it is sheep instead of people. Animal sacrifice lasted until Christianity in that region.
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Yes and when the Law is given later, there will be instructions about making those sacrifices in the Temple.

I am really struck by how easily this story could be interpreted as foreshadowing or prophecy of NT events. You know which ones. :whistle:
 
Mendalla said:
There is still sacrifice at this point though, just it is sheep instead of people. Animal sacrifice lasted until Christianity in that region.
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Yes it is now an animal, and animals blood was smeared on the doors to protect the children in another story.
But becoming spiritually evolved is a process perhaps?
 
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