Can It Be Ishmael? – Genesis 17

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(Originally posted January 13, 2013)

“So Abraham said to God, ‘If only Ishmael were acceptable to You!'” (Genesis 17:18, HCSB).

In Genesis 17 God’s promise to Abraham for an heir and a multitude of descendants is reiterated, but this time in greater detail. Since Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was old and had not borne Abraham a child, she offered her Egyptian servant to Abraham to have a child by her. Abraham consented to the marital arrangement taking Hagar as his second wife when he was 85 years old.

Hagar bore Abraham a son and they named him Ishmael. Customs of the time dictated that any child conceived by Hagar would belong to Sarah and Abraham.

When Ishmael was thirteen years old, God reaffirmed His covenant with Abraham and decreed that male circumcision would be the sign or seal of this covenant. Then God informed Abraham that his wife Sarah would give birth to a son, who he was instructed to name Isaac. And, God told Abraham that He would establish his covenant through Isaac.

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Salvation in the Old Testament – Genesis 15:1-6

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Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.(Genesis 15:6, CSB).

In studying the Old Testament Christians may question how people were saved in Old Testament times. Early in my seminary studies this was a question I had as well and researched for a paper for one of my classes.

There is sometimes a misconception among Christians that people were “saved” in the Old Testament by keeping the Law (of Moses) while people are saved in the New Testament by grace through faith.

Genesis 15:6 gives us an unequivocal answer to the question: righteousness is imputed by God by faith, not law-keeping. And, that is both an Old Testament and New Testament proposition. In fact, in Romans 1-8 the Apostle Paul makes this proposition and this verse central to his whole argument.

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Confusion – Genesis 10-11

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Then the Lord came down to look over the city and the tower that the humans were building. The Lord said, “If they have begun to do this as one people all having the same language, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let’s go down there and confuse their language so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So from there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth, and they stopped building the city. Therefore it is called Babylon, for there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth (Genesis 11:5-9, CSB).

The tower of Babel was probably a ziggurat, which was a common archaeological structure in ancient Mesopotamian cities. Archaelogists have unearthed dozens of ziggurats in the region, the most famous being the Great Ziggurat of Ur in Iraq. It is a huge, 4,100 year old structure made up of more than 700,000 baked bricks.

Ziggurats, unlike the pyramids in Egypt that were tombs for pharaohs, were stairways for the gods. The defining structure of a ziggurat was a long stairway leading to the top where a room with a bed and table was prepared for the deity. The stairway was not for people to climb up, but for the god to come down.

In these verses God “came down” to look over the city and the tower the people were building up to heaven. But, God didn’t need to be invited or enticed to come down from heaven to the earth nor did He need to descend a stairway to facilitate His descent.

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Uncreation – Genesis 6:1 – 7:24

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When the Lord saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time, the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and he was deeply grieved. Then the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I created, off the face of the earth, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.” Noah, however, found favor with the Lord (Genesis 6:5-8, CSB).

Sixteen hundred years after Adam and Eve’s initial act of corruption the moral and spiritual condition of humanity had declined to the extent that God was ready to destroy His creation–or at least the part of it that breathed.

But, to gain the full impact of the story of Noah’s ark, it is helpful to understand some of the wordplay between the creation story and the flood story.

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Acceptable Worship – Genesis 4:1-15

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In the course of time Cain presented some of the land’s produce as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also presented an offering—some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was furious, and he looked despondent (Genesis 4:3-5, CSB).

The story of the first murder is recorded only four chapters into the Bible. I am always intrigued by the incidents leading up to the murder. God’s regard for Abel’s offering of the firstborn of his flock and His disregard for Cain’s offering of some of the land’s produce creates a theological dilemma for me and seems to be the circumstance that sets in motion the tragic chain of events ending in murder.

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Corrupted – Genesis 2:8 – 3:22

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The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed. The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…. The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:8-17, CSB).

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’” “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.(Genesis 3:1-5, CSB).

In these two chapters from Genesis we see the formulation of some fundamental components of the Judeo-Christian ethic–free will, human depravity, moral law and justice.

God planted a garden in Eden and gave the man the responsibility for working in the garden and watching over it. (Why it was necessary for the man to protect the garden is an interesting question for another time.) Two species of trees in the garden are mentioned–the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of the former, Adam and Eve could eat and subsequently experience eternal life. Of the latter, they were commanded not to eat or they would experience death.

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The Good, The Very Good and The Not So Good – Genesis 2:4-25

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And God saw that it was good….And God saw that it was good…. And God saw that it was good…. God saw all that He had made, and it was very good…. Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 1:18, 21, 25, 31, 2:18, CSB).

Seven times in Genesis 1, God observed His creation to be good. In Genesis 1:4 after He had spoken light into existence, God declared it to be good. In vs. 1:10 after separating the water from the land, God called that good. After creating plant life in vs. 1:12 God saw that it was good. In vs. 1:18 after setting the solar system in place and spinning the earth on its axis to create seasons and night and day, God calls that good. In vs. 1:21 after creating animals to populate the water and the air, God determined that to be good. In vs. 1:25 after populating the land with animals and insects, God calls that good as well.

Then, after creating humanity as the capstone of His creation (vs. 1:26–30), God observed all He had made and declared it to be not just good but very good.

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Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men – Luke 2:8-20

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And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” (Luke 2:13-14, NKJV)

We often sing or say or write this angelic announcement of the Incarnation in our Christmas songs and greetings as if the angels declared the birth of the Messiah brought new conditions to the earth–peace and good will.

We think of “peace” as meaning nations not at war with one another and “good will” as people being kind to one another. Yet we know that on earth nations are at war with one another and human beings showing kindness to other human beings is often lacking.

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The Popeye Principle – 2 Kings 17

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“The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria…. All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God” (2 Kings 17: 5-7, NIV).

When I was a little boy I used to watch a cartoon on television called Popeye the Sailor. Popeye was a one-eyed mariner outfitted in a sailor cap and pipe. Most observably, he had over-developed forearms and under-developed biceps. Popeye also had a skinny girlfriend named Olive Oil who was much taller than he and a nemesis named Brutus who was a big muscular brute as his name suggested.

The theme of each Popeye episode was essentially the same. Brutus would beat up Popeye and steal Olive away. When Popeye became fed up with Brutus’ brutality, he would exclaim, “That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more” and reach into his shirt and pull out a can of spinach!

Popeye would squeeze the contents of the can of spinach into his mouth, which would cause Popeye’s scrawny biceps to expand into powerful, muscular arms. Then, He would deliver a blow to Brutus that sent him soaring off into the distance. And, Popeye would reclaim Olive as his girl.

In 722 BCE, some ten to twenty years after the Assyrians had invaded Israel and begun deporting the Israelites, the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel, Samaria, was finally seized by Sargon II, ruler of Assyria, after a three-year siege started by Shalmaneser V, his predecessor. This is the event these verses from 2 Kings 17 are referencing.

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Emptying (The Humiliation of God) – Philippians 2:5-12

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“Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God,did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:5-12, CSV).

There’s some difficult yet beautiful theology embedded between the first and last verses of this passage that describe a fundamental element of the Christian lifestyle.

Because of the rhythmic character of the words in vs. 6-11, these verses are considered to be the lyrics from an early Christian hymn. That Jesus “emptied” Himself is a phrase much debated by theologians and prompting various theories of what aspects of deity Jesus gave up through His incarnation.

We may not know the extent of the divine attributes Jesus emptied Himself of by leaving heaven to come to earth, but the end result of this “emptying” was a sort of divine humiliation. And, in Jesus’ case, the scope of the humiliation–from God to human, from heaven to earth–is beyond our perception.

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