Stop Me If You've Heard This Before

The Bible is repetitious at times, replaying themes, scenes, and sometimes entire sentences. For example, chapter 17 of Genesis repeats themes found elsewhere in Genesis, both in previous chapters and in chapters yet to come:

• Promises of land and numerous descendants are also made in chapters 13 and 15.
• A covenant between God and Abraham is also established in Gen 15.
• Isaac’s birth is also announced in Gen 18.
• References to laughter also appear in Gen 18 and 20.
• The renaming of Abram and Sarai is similar to renaming Jacob to Israel (Gen 32:29 and 35:10).
• El Shaddai is another name for God to go along with El Elyon (14:18-20) and El Roi (16:13).

The only originality is the establishment of circumcision as a sign of the covenant.

P Source and Exilic Themes

Gen 17 is clearly from the P source and combines the annunciation of Isaac’s birth with the establishment of circumcision as a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham’s descendants.

Scholars date the compilation of the P source to the time of the Babylonian exile, after the fall of Jerusalem. This is a time when the former inhabitants of Judah have lost their land and their temple. They face the possibility that they will also lose their identity as a people. A reminder that the land was given to Abraham and his descendants as part of an everlasting covenant would be assurance they would once again return to their home. That God had also promised Abraham his descendants would be made into a great nation would comfort those who feared that God had abandoned them.

In Gen 15, the covenant was established in a ceremony similar to one known in the last days of Judah, before the fall of Jerusalem. In Gen 17, circumcision was established as the sign of the covenant between God and Abraham’s descendants. Circumcision wasn’t unique to Israel; it was a common practice in the ANE (for example, Egyptians were circumcised). Only during the Babylonian captivity when the exiles came in contact with those who did not practice circumcision did it separate Israel from the other nations. The goal of the Priestly author in this chapter is to ground circumcision in the covenant made with Abraham, turning it into a sign that one belonged to YHWH.

Not an actual photograph of Abraham laughing when he hears that he will father a son at age 100. 

Who’s Laughing Now?

In both Gen 17 and 18, Abraham is told that Sarah will give birth to a son within a year’s time. Sarah is surprised to hear that she will give birth in Gen 18. Since Abraham was told the exact same thing in Gen 17, the only way she could be surprised is if Abraham never shared with her the revelation he was given. This is a good clue that these annunciations come from separate sources. Gen 18 is usually attributed to the J source.

The announcement that an elderly Sarah will bear a child in a year’s time causes a humorous reaction in both sources. In Gen 17:17, it is Abraham who fell on his face and laughed. In Gen 18:12, it is Sarah who laughed to herself. After the birth of Isaac in Gen 21, Sarah says that everyone will now laugh with her.

The Hebrew Bible loves puns and wordplay. Unfortunately, that is mostly lost in translation. In English translations, the name of Abraham’s son appears as Isaac, but the Hebrew is Yitzchak. The name derives from the verb tzachak meaning “to laugh”. The name Yitzchak, therefore, means “he laughs”.

English readers could get a better sense of the wordplay if we translate it as “chuckles”:

Then Abraham fell on his face and chuckled, and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” … God said, “No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Chuckles. (Gen 17:17-19*) 

Abraham gave the name Chuckles to his son whom Sarah bore him … Now Sarah said, “God has brought chuckles for me; everyone who hears will chuckle with me.” (Gen 21:3-6*)

But we also see a pun on Isaac’s name. Yitzchak sounds very much like metzchak (= playing). It could be “playing” as in the activities of children or “playing” as in the sexual foreplay of adults. We see both examples of that.

In Gen 21:9 Sarah is angry when she sees the older Ishmael playing with her son Isaac. In Gen 26:8, King Abimelech of the Philistines knows that Isaac lied to him when he looks out his window and sees Isaac playing with Rebekah.

The Death of Innocents

There is also a parallelism between the visit of Abraham’s three guests in Gen 18:1-15 and Lot’s two guests in Gen 19:1-3, 12-13. After being served refreshments, Abraham’s three guests give him the good news that he and Sarah will have a child together while Lot’s two visitors bring him the bad news that his city of Sodom is about to be destroyed.

One of Abraham’s visitors – revealed to be YHWH – also informs Abraham of the fate of Sodom. The passage that follows (Gen 18:17-33) is usually summarized as “Abraham intervenes on behalf of Sodom” or “Abraham bargains for Sodom”. But that’s not quite right. Abraham doesn’t try to talk YHWH out of destroying Sodom, nor does he try to haggle down the number of people to be exterminated.

Instead, what Abraham does is clarify what YHWY’s justice means. YHWH confirms that if there are only ten just people in Sodom he will not destroy the city for the sake of those ten. YHWH’s justice demands that he not wipe out the good with the wicked.

YHWH’s justice here seems out of place with the rest of the OT. Certainly there were some innocent Egyptians who didn’t deserve to have their firstborn killed. And it is hard to believe that all Canaanites were wicked and thus deserving of extermination by Joshua’s armies. For much of the OT, YHWH seems unconcerned about collateral damage.

Many biblical commentators think this passage shows theological development more suited to the exilic period. Ezek 14:12-20 (dating to the Babylonian captivity) is very similar to this passage. If YHWH decides to destroy a land due to its wickedness and Noah, Daniel, and Job lived there, the destruction would still be carried out, but the three righteous men would be saved. Perhaps the experience of living through a catastrophe brought about some reflection on the question of whether it is truly just for the good to suffer alongside the bad.

In closing, I’m reminded of a Facebook conversation one of my friends had with his right-wing brother-in-law this past week. In the brother-in-law’s opinion, the United States would be entirely justified in leveling Tehran to end terrorism. My friend pointed out Tehran’s population is close to nine million and there must surely be innocents among them. The brother-in-law’s response was, “The first rule of war is innocents die.”

When my friend showed me this, my comment was that while it is an unfortunate fact that in war innocents do die, it should not be a goal. The same applies to God. “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen 18:25)

The Original Handmaid's Tale

In the dystopian world of The Handmaid’s Tale (book and TV series), a totalitarian state addresses its infertility crisis by turning the few remaining fertile into broodmares for the men running the country. These women are called “handmaids” and the idea of using a slave to bear children for a barren wife comes from Genesis. The first such passage is chapter 16 of Genesis.

The Runaway Handmaid

Abram’s quest for an heir is the narrative thread that runs through the cycle of stories related to him. First, he thinks that his nephew Lot will be his heir, only to have Lot leave the promised land of Canaan, thereby effectively removing himself as Abram’s successor. In Gen 15, Abram complains to God that his lifelong slave Eliezer will be his heir only to have God promise that Abram’s biological son will be his successor.

That still leaves Abram with the problem that his wife Sarai is barren and Sarai decides to address that problem on her own. She proposes to Abram that he have sexual relations with her Egyptian slave, Hagar, and Sarai will claim the child that Hagar bears as her own. Abram quietly acquiesces to this plan and soon Hagar is pregnant.

This is where the plan goes awry. Now that Hagar is pregnant, there is a change in the power balance between the women. Her pregnancy gives Hagar a higher status than she previously had. Sarai complains to Abram as if this were all his fault and he gives Sarai some of the worst advice possible: “Do to her as you please.”

Sarai proceeds to abuse poor Hagar and, quite understandably, she runs away. An “angel of YHWH” finds Hagar besides a spring of water in the desert and, instead of being the voice of liberation, he tells her: “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” In exchange, he promises that she will bear a son, name him Ishmael, and he will have many offspring. And the spring became known as Beer-lahai-roi (= “the well of the living one who sees me”).

Lots of Unanswered Questions

The story leaves modern readers with both unanswered questions and a bad taste in our mouth.

Judging by ancient records, Sarai’s plan to become a mother through her slave-girl Hagar was a well-known practice of barren women. Her subsequent jealousy at losing status in the eyes of her slave and taking out her frustration on Abram is all too psychologically believable. Abram does not come off well here in allowing Sarai to regain her authority by mistreating Hagar. Where is the man who allowed Lot first pick of the land or will demand YHWH act justly towards Sodom?

But what really seems out of place to a modern reader like me is that when YHWH’s angel reassuring word finally comes to Hagar in the desert, it is to instruct her to return to Sarai and submit to her abuse. Talk about turning the other cheek! And Hagar’s response is to happily name the deity El-Roi (= “God who sees”) because he took notice of such a lowly slave? And who is this “angel of YHWH” anyway?

Finally, from a narrative perspective, Hagar’s abortive escape seems pointless. As we shall later find out in Gen 21:8-21, Hagar and Ishmael will be cast out after the birth of Isaac. Once again God’s angel will find Hagar in the desert beside a spring of water. What was the purpose in sending the pregnant Hagar back to her abuser only for her to return to the same spot years later?

YHWH's messenger finds the pregnant Hagar by the well (artist unknown)

Send Me an Angel

Let’s first address the question of the “angel of YHWH” (Hebrew: mal’akh YHWH) first mentioned in Gen 16:7.

The Hebrew word mal’akh means “messenger” and in Greek, this was translated as angelos. Angelos could mean a supernatural messenger (like Mercury in Roman mythology) or a human messenger. In the Latin Vulgate, angelus was used when the original biblical reference was to a supernatural messenger, but nuntius or legatus were used when a human messenger was involved.

Almost every English translation follows the Vulgate tradition by continuing to translate mal’akh YHWH as “angel of the Lord” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NABRE, ESV). The Common English Bible (CEB) was the only English translation I could find that used the translation “the Lord’s messenger”. It’s unfortunate because the word “angel” immediately makes people think of the winged spiritual beings frequently seen in medieval and renaissance Christian art.

There are no degrees of separation between YHWH’s messenger and YHWH. You could consider mal’akh YHWH as YHWH’s avatar. In v. 10, the messenger tells Hagar, “I will greatly multiply your descendants.” In v. 13, the narrator states Hagar gave the name El-roi to “YHWH who spoke to her” because she had seen God yet lived to tell the tale.

Similar passages have led scholars to conclude that the original reference in the text was simply to YHWH. As theological attitudes changed over time, the reference to YHWH was changed to mal’akh YHWH due to discomfort over presenting YHWH in visible form or taking an adversarial role. We can see an example of this in Exod 4:24 where the Hebrew MT describes YHWH trying to kill Moses but the Greek LXX says “an angel of the Lord” was the attacker.

More Secondary Additions

If mal’akh YHWH is a secondary addition to the original reference to YHWH, could there be other secondary additions in this passage?

I agree with biblical scholars who think the original Gen 16 narrative did not include vv. 9-10. These scholars note three repeated references to “YHWH’s messenger said to her” in vv. 9, 10, and 11. Only one of these is required to indicate a change in speaker from Hagar in v. 8. This strongly suggests that vv. 9-10 are secondary additions.

Without these additions, the story flows naturally from v. 8 to v. 11. After Hagar tells YHWH that she is fleeing from Sarai, YHWH pronounces that she will bear a son, will call him Ishmael (= “God hears”), and he “shall be a wild ass of a man”. Now this sounds to a modern reader as though Ishmael will be a stubborn jackass and that doesn’t sound very encouraging. But a “wild ass” back then would be the equivalent of a “wild mustang” to us. In other words, the son of the slave Hagar will be born a free man.

This would indeed be an encouraging word for the fleeing Hagar that would lead her to give YHWH the name “God who sees”. But there’s a problem because Gen 21:8-21 has the tradition that Hagar and Ishmael were expelled after the birth of Isaac and rescued by God in the desert.

When Gen 16 (J source) was combined with Gen 21 (E source), it had to be explained how Ishmael could have been born free yet also expelled from Abraham’s camp. The theory is that a redactor introduced v. 9 in which YHWH orders Hagar to return to Sarah’s abuse and, as something of a compensation in v. 10, promises Hagar she will be the mother of multitudes.

While it is encouraging to think that YHWH may have been more favorable to Hagar’s plight in the original narrative, it is only a theory. Someone commenting on the Bible has to interpret the passage as we currently have it and, sad to say, YHWH crushes Hagar’s hopes by directing her to return to her abuser. Spiritual directors today should not use this passage as guidance in providing advice to women seeking to escape domestic violence situations.