This is meant to be a fun reading (with some commentary) for all ages through Scripture. Please do not take this as a substitute for reading through the Bible on your own.
Previously, we began traveling with Noah’s descendant Abram. His name means “father”, for God has told him that he will be the father of a great nation. Just as God made a formal pact, or Covenant, with Noah, God decided to do the same with Abram. Because out of Abram a great nation will be formed, God treats Abram like a nation and makes the same kind of covenant different countries would have used to make peace with each other. Part of this covenant means that there are consequences if one nation or the other does something wrong. As we’ve seen throughout the story, people have difficulty following arrangements with God. Thankfully, God again is merciful.
Now in Abram’s day, one didn’t just sign a peace treaty. First, you would make an offering and take 2 halves, placing one on opposite sides, so that there would be a path to walk in the middle. Both groups would stand at opposite sides of the path and walk all the way through, each to the other side. Now when God and Abram perform this task, the Lord puts Abram to sleep, so that instead of Abram going through the ceremony, God does so alone. This is a sign that if either side breaks the deal only God will take the punishment. God is, in fact, prepared to take the fall for Abram should he do wrong.
And wrong Abram does. He and Sarai are still waiting for the descendants God has promised them and decide to take matters into their own hands. Sarai has a servant Haggar, and thinks that maybe she and Abram can have children through her. Though this is a very bad idea, as we will shortly see, Abram agrees, and Haggar gets ready to give birth to a son who will be known as Ishmael, for reasons that will soon be revealed. Haggar starts to flaunt this fact over Sarai and begins to look down on her. Sarai is understandably upset and starts to become jealous. She complains to Abram, who wants no part in this quarrel and leaves the final decision up to Sarai.
As a result, Haggar flees until she finds herself at a spring in the desert. Even though the result of Haggar’s plight goes against God’s initial plan, and it is really the result of both Abram’s and Sarai’s wrongdoing, God again shows mercy. A messenger of the Lord, known more commonly as an Angel, meets Haggar and asks her about her troubles. When Haggar confesses that she fled because of Sarai’s treatment of her, the Angel tells her to return, though not before giving some hope. Her son’s name is to be Ishmael which means “God hears”, for God has heard her cry. It turns out Ishmael will also lead a great nation. In fact, the followers of Islam trace their origins back to him.
A curious thing occurs here. The Angel tells Haggar how others will view her son. This is often translated in the sense that all will be against him, yet the words used here generally mean that all will be for the person. Thus, it would make most sense for us to instead take the Angel as saying that all will be for, not against, Ishmael, though still we may not fully understand what this means.
With everything that has happened, God wisely discusses the Covenant with Abram again. This time, the Lord makes clear that Ishmael will not be Abram’s heir. Instead, Abram and Sarai will have their own son. God marks this occasion by giving Abram and Sarai new names, the ones we most often know them by: Abraham and Sarah.
If this were not enough, God appears to Abraham again in the form of 3 strangers. Abraham immediately plays the host to these strangers, recognizing their authority. The strangers reveal, once again, that Sarah will have a child. Sarah overhears these words and immediately laughs. As a result, the strangers tell her the child will be named Isaac, the Hebrew word for “laughter”.
The strangers, before leaving, reveal another piece of news to Abraham. The land where Lot has settled is a wicked place, and God intends to destroy it. Abraham begs that the Lord reconsider, asking that the Lord spare the place if 50, 45, 30, 20, or even 10 righteous people can be found that God spare that place. The Lord agrees, though in truth not even 10 righteous ones can be found there.
We fast forward now to Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot and his family are living. Though God still intends to destroy the place, for Abraham’s sake, he will do what Abraham wouldn’t even dare to ask and save Lot. Two Messengers from God, also known as Angels, arrive in town and ask Lot if they can stay with his family.
Now the chief sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is inhospitality and xenophobia, that is not being good hosts and showing cruelty to strangers in their midst. These and nothing else are the chief sins seen here and they are the sins the vast majority of Scripture points to when referring to this place. When the people of Sodom and Gomorrah see these Angels, strangers to their parts, entering the house of Lot, another foreigner, they immediately think something is up. They knock on Lot’s door, demanding to know who these people are. Lot tries to calm them down, though to no avail. The Angels, thankfully, step in, and keep the people of Sodom and Gomorrah from harming Lot or his family.
The Angels then deliver their message. Sodom and Gomorrah will soon be destroyed. They tell Lot that he, his wife, and his daughters must flee and, very importantly, not look back or else they will be destroyed too. So Lot and his daughters go and make it safely away from Sodom and Gomorrah, yet his wife does not for she ignored the Angels’ warning and looked back.
Abraham and Sarah, meanwhile have their own travels, similar to their journey earlier in Egypt. Their journey ends exactly the way it had in Egypt, as we saw last time, showing that Abraham has learned little, yet God still watches over him.
Shortly thereafter, following Abraham's 100th birthday, Sarah finally gives birth to the child God had promised and names him Isaac. Where before she laughed at the ridiculousness of what God was promising, she now laughs with joy for being able to give birth to a child at such an old age.
However, not all is well in Abraham's household. Now that the foretold Isaac has been born, there seems no need for Ishmael, at least not to Sarah. She does not want Ishmael inheriting what should rightly be Isaac's, and she asks Abraham to cast out Ishmael and his mother Hagar. Though Abraham is understandably distressed by this situation, God tells him not to worry, for God will always be with him. For Abraham's sake, God says the offspring of Ishmael will also become a great nation, and it is so. Though Hagar and Ishmael are cast off, God looks over them, and Ishmael grows up to be a strong man with his own family in the wilderness.
As seen time and time again, Abraham, while loyal and faithful, has still struggled to fully trust in God's plan. As he has, in some ways, put God to the test, so now God will put him to the test. One day, God tells Abraham to wake up, go to a place that God will show him, and offer his son Isaac, who Abraham, as God notes, loves, as a sacrifice. So Abraham and Isaac make the journey to the place God shows him. As they climb the hill alone, Isaac asks his father where the sacrifice is. His father's only reply is that God will provide. This seems to be a sign of hope in Abraham of what will happen. That hope is that God's promise will remain true, no matter what happens.
And Abraham's hope is rewarded. As Abraham gets ready to sacrifice his son, an Angel comes telling him to stop and do nothing to harm poor Isaac. God now knows that Abraham will hold back nothing with God, not even his only son. God instead provides a ram in place of Isaac. Abraham calls this place "The Lord will provide" as a result. We will also see this type of substitution again in the future.
Time goes by and Sarah dies. Abraham isn't getting any younger either. He wants to make sure his son Isaac is taken care of, so he sends his servant back to his homeland to find Isaac a wife, as God has told him to do. His servant, like his master, looks to God for answers and asks that the 1st woman to offer him water at the well, for both him and his camels, be the one God wishes to be Isaac's wife.
And it is so. Rebekah comes out and offers water to Abraham's servant and his camels. Then the necessary arrangements are made and Rebekah goes with Abraham's servant to be Isaac's wife.
Abraham then dies, and his death provides the opportunity for Isaac and Ishmael to see one another again before they continue down their own paths.