Genesis 18:1-10 Commentary

Divine Revelation

Genesis 18:1-10 is a duplicate telling of the same information—a technique quite familiar to the reader of Genesis.  Note, for example, the double telling of creation.  Biblical criticism accounts for this through the naming of various narrative voices in Hebrew Scripture.  Leaving that intensive evaluative technique aside for the moment, what we read in Genesis 18:1-10 offers a narrative account of what the author of Genesis places in God’s voice in 17:15-15-22, as in “God said to Abraham…” The details communication are the same, however, by this time next year Sarah will have a child, a son and heir to the covenant promises given to Abraham in chapter 12. In chapter 17, though, it is Abraham who laughs. As for this week’s text, I don’t know why the Lectionary stops the reading at verse 10. It seems to me a significant part of this text is not simply the announcement of Isaac’s birth but the reaction to that announcement, specifically Sarah’s laughter.

What do we do when God makes promises too big to be believed?  Laughter is, it seems, a common response.  This response—unlike other responses to God’s revelation—is not sanctioned or punished, even if it is pointed out.  Genesis 18:11-15 is one of the many cases in Scripture where I wish we had access to a video—or at least an audio—recording of the dialogue.  Is the Lord offended by Sarah’s laughter?  Sarah, we are told, is embarrassed by her laughter or at least afraid of what it means that God pointed it out.  But I also wonder what her laughter sounded like: was it sharp with bitterness or was the news so surprising that it bubbled out of her before she could catch it.

It seems as though God uses this moment to reiterate a theme in the Penteteuch.  The CEB Study Bible suggests, that this question—“is anything too difficult for the Lord?”— “expresses a key theme of Genesis. Many stories show that God’s promises reach fulfillment not as the result of human strength but because of divine power.”

When God hears Abraham and then Sarah’s laughter, is God offended? Or might God’s eyes twinkle too? Is God in on the joke? Is God delighted by the set-up Sarah offers so that God can really get a piece of that punchline and deliver it like the home run it intends to be?

A lot of our theological assumptions depend on how we hear the tone of God’s voice. “No, you laughed.”

Entertaining Angels Unaware

In addition to the theme of God doing impossible things in order to safe-guard and shepherd God’s covenant with humanity, another key theme in Scripture, in Genesis more specifically, and, most precisely, in the two narratives the Lectionary uses this week and next is hospitality.  Abraham rushes from his tent out into the midday heat, he greets them with warmth and respect.  He offers them water, bread and a little rest.  He even manages to offer in such a way as makes it seem like they would be doing him the favor. Robert Alter in his commentary addresses the kind of hospitality Abraham extends. “Extending hospitality, as the subsequent contrasting episode in Sodom indicates, is the primary act of civilized intercourse. The early Midrash aptly noted that Abraham promises modestly, a little water and a morsel of bread, while hastening to prepare a sumptuous feast. ‘Fetch’ appears four times in rapid succession, ‘hurry’ three times, as indices of the flurry of hospitable action.”

In addition to Abraham’s gallant action toward the guests, we are also meant to wonder at who these guests might be.  The text hints for a good long while before it comes out and names the one man in verse 13 “The Lord said to Abraham…” What we know by verse 13 is unclear to Abraham until at least that point in the narrative, which means he is not rolling out the red carpet because these men are angels or, even, the Lord Himself.  He is hosting them generously because it is his character to do so.  This is a significant contrast to the story of Lot in chapter 19. According to the CEB Study Bible, “Biblical society valued openness and generosity to strangers and outsiders. Throughout this story, the visitors’ identity is unclear.” The commentator goes on to observe the way that “blurring the line between human and divine” appears elsewhere in Genesis and serves as a strong motive for the generous hospitality, which has been shown to us by God, that we are to show one another.

Illustration:

C.S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory, posits that our fellow human being may be the most significant location where heavenly transcendence breaks through our dull immanence.  His quotation, “There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal” amplifies the example of Abraham in offering hospitality to his visitors.  There is ambiguity about their angelic—or even divine—nature. We don’t know that they were angels…and we don’t know that they weren’t.  Thus, the importance of a default posture that includes loving openness to whoever we find on our doorstep.

“It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.”