In our last episode we watched God promise Abraham that God would not only bless Abraham but that through Abraham the entire world would be blessed. This promise was the foundation upon which God would build a restored creation in which human beings would live in right relationship with God, one another and all of creation.
We might assume that since God made the promise then God would powerfully pave the way to assure that the promise would not only fulfilled but never threatened. After all what kind of a promise would this be if it might not be kept?
We might be surprised then to discover that this promise almost comes to an end in the stories that follow. Two of these promise risking occasions center on the birth and continuing life of an heir for Abraham and Sarah.
If the promise is going to be fulfilled then Abraham needs an heir by his wife Sarah. For many years Sarah is not able to conceive. This couple of the promise is frustrated by this lack of offspring and so Sarah convinces her husband to sleep with her Egyptian maid Hagar in order to conceive a child (Genesis 16). Hagar conceives and gives birth to Ishmael. What we quickly discover in our story is that this end run around God's promise will not work. The promise is still under threat because the child needs to come from the first couple of promise. Finally after a divine visit (Genesis 17) Abraham (who is a very old man) and Sarah (who is already in menopause) manage to conceive and produce their own child, Isaac. The promise is thus saved…and it is saved in a way that insures we all know this is God's work because of the age of Abraham and Sarah.
The promise continues but once again comes under fire. This time the enemy of the promise is not infertility but God. That's right, the one who threatens the promise is the one who made it. In Genesis 22 we read about God commanding Abraham to go and sacrifice Isaac. What we have to remember is that in the time of Abraham child sacrifice was a fairly wide-spread practice. So when Abraham receives this command he does not hesitate and even make Isaac carry the wood for the fire. Just as Abraham raises the knife to kill Isaac an angel of God intervenes, shows Abraham a ram whose horns are stuck in a bush, and orders Abraham to sacrifice the ram and not Isaac. Abraham complies and the promise is safe once again.
This story along with the flood story (the death of most of humanity) and the conquest of Canaan (the death of people already in the land the Hebrews were to occupy) is one of the most difficult in the Bible. Scripture never lets us in on why God does this, though there has been much speculation. Even so I would offer a possible way of reading the story. God as the promise maker is the only one who could insure that the promise was ultimately kept. What better way for God to make the point that God would keep the promise than to create a situation in which God is willing to change the normal way of human/god interchange (human/child sacrifice) in order to assure Abraham that the promise was secure even with God. Once again then we are given assurance that God's promise of the restoration of the good creation will continue.
Next week: The Promise Takes a Detour
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