Abraham

s we entered into Canaan, it was good to see that the land had recovered from the drought and turned green again. But I wondered if it would be able to support us with our huge increase in souls and livestock.

I hadn't seen or heard God since he showed up at Shechem and promised all of Canaan to my seed. Maybe he had a hand in protecting Sarah from Pharaoh by sending that plague upon his private parts. Or it could just as easily have been something Pharaoh caught from a member of his harem that put him out of commission. God had promised to bless me, and I'd certainly been blessed. I was staggering under the wealth I had brought out of Egypt.

"But it could have been by our own doing," Sarah said. "The bottom line is you don't have any solid proof of God's guidance or protection or even approval. He certainly hasn't been there when you wanted him, not so anybody could tell. He might have just popped up in Shechem, said his piece, and popped off again to wherever it is he goes when he goes."

But Sarah hadn't heard him or seen him. I had, and it made a difference. "I want to go back to Shechem," I said, "back to the place where he showed up before. I believe in my heart he will show up again."

"And if he don't?"

"Then we won't have lost anything. Shechem is a nice place. We could just settle down there."

But we never made it to Shechem. Our people was too many and our herds too large. We couldn't find enough grazing land for them or buy enough food for ourselves. Meat we had in plenty, but no vegetables. Rich as we was, we was on short rations. Bickering broke out between Lot's herders and mine. We barely made it to the place of my second altar, the one near Bethel. There I prepared a burnt offering and called on God for guidance. But as before I was left to my own devises.

"The answer is perfectly clear," Sarah said. "You just don't want to see it."

"But Lot is like a son to us."

"Even if he was our son, it would still have to be done."

So I sent for Lot and told him we was going to have to split up. The news didn't upset him as much as I expected. His main concern was where I was going to send him.

"Your choice," I said. "I want you to be happy. You take the right and I'll take the left, or the other way around."

Lot made a show of studying, but I knew he had already made up his mind. From our vantage point we could see to the east the whole plain of the Jordan, flat and rich and green with plenty of water, from this distance looking like Eden must have looked in the days of old Father Adam and Mother Eve. And in the far distance stood the city of Sodom and farther still Gomorrah. Early the next morning Sarah and me hugged and kissed him, and Lot set out with his possessions and people and pitched his tent toward Sodom.

When he had gone, I walked a little way from the encampment, looking to be alone with my thoughts. And there God was, looking like the man next door.

"Now, Abe, I want you to look north and south and east and west, for all that you see I give to you and your seed forever. And your seed shall be as countless as the dust of the earth."

I noticed that this time he had included me in the gift, before it was only my seed. And now he was calling me Abe. Maybe I was moving up in his favor.

"Is he still wooly-haired and brass-footed?" Sarah asked, when I told her.

"Hush!" I said. "What if he can hear you?"

"What if he can? If that's the way he looks then that's the way he looks."

I still didn't think she was ready for the truth, so I didn't say anything.

"And I don't really care for all this talk about seed," Sarah went on. "Where does that leave me?"

Lord, I had been as thick as a stump! We had known from the beginning there would be no children, known and accepted it and put it behind us. Now God comes along with his promise of seed, which could not come from Sarah, and I go spouting off to her about it, as if it was something I wanted, longed for. I ought to have had the stuffing kicked out of me. And I'm surprised she didn't do it. I wished she had. Maybe then I wouldn't have felt like such a horse's ass.

"If I thought he would actually deliver on his promise," Sarah said, "I'd be worried. But here he is, giving you Canaan when it already belongs to the Canaanites. What are they going to do? Say, 'Sorry, we didn't know it was yours. We'll get our stuff and get off right away.' What kind of a gift is that? If he don't do any better with his seed, then I've got nothing to be concerned about."

But she was worried. I had blathered on so much about seed, there was no way she would ever again believe that her barrenness really didn't matter to me. And so she come up with her Hagar plan.

Hagar was Sarah's Egyptian slave girl. She had served as Sarah's handmaiden in Pharaoh's harem, and Sarah had brought her along when we left. She was dark, doe-eyed, with flashing white teeth when she smiled, a pretty little thing, barely at the age of child-bearing.

"Barren am I?" Sarah said. "Well we'll see! I have a second womb, the one in Hagar. I want you to take her to bed and get me a son."

"Now, Sarah, I can't do that."

"You can and will! One way or another I intend to give you a son."

"But he won't be yours."

"Hagar is mine, and he will be mine. He'll be the closest to a son I'll ever come."

"How does Hagar feel about this?"

"What does it matter how Hagar feels? She belongs to me and she'll do what I tell her to do. Besides, if you must know, she's crazy about the idea. Can hardly wait, damn her."

It was a mistake, one of the biggest we ever made. From that day bitterness took root in Sarah's soul and we began to grow apart. Never again would there be the oneness we once had.

I won't lie and say I didn't enjoy it. Hagar had been brought up in a harem and knew how to please. And her youth made me feel young again. And through it all I developed a deep fondness for her. But all of us, Sarah and Hagar and me, paid a price.

We moved south into Hebron, there was no city there then, and settled near a lovely grove of oaks in Mamre. There I built my third altar to the Lord.

When Hagar knew she had conceived, her attitude changed. She no longer considered herself a slave, but more as a second wife and superior to Sarah in that she could bear my child.

"You've put these notions in her head, you and your dilly dallying," Sarah said. "Now you better put her in her place and quick!"

That she would blame me rankled. But I was ultimately responsible because I had brought it all on with my insensitivity about seed. And compounded my sin by refusing to understand her feelings of inadequacy and trying to ease them. Instead of accepting the blame I shoved it all back on her. "Hey, this was all your idea, remember, so don't come crying to me. She's your slave girl. You handle her!"

It was not fair to Hagar either to throw her to the wolves like that. I don't know just what Sarah done to her, but Hagar run off. But she come back the next day with a story of having been visited by an angel who told her to return and submit herself to Sarah. She confided to me that the angel also told her she would bear a son and that she should name him Ishmael and that God would multiple her seed beyond all counting. That last sounded very much like something she had picked up from God's promise to me, but I let it go.

We all settled into an uneasy truce. In due time Hagar bore a son and named him Ishmael. Sarah refused to have anything to do with him.

Along in there somewhere, I was distracted by my first and, God willing, my last taste of battle. Some marauders from the east had set upon the cities of the plain, including Sodom where Lot had settled, and captured them and grabbed people and possessions, Lot and all that was his among them, and was hightailing back home.

Now, I'm a man of peace, but I couldn't stand by and let that happen. I rounded up my men, there was about three hundred of us, and we overtook the rascals north of Damascus and hit them in the night and sent them running for their lives, leaving all the loot behind. It was quick, but not clean, I'm sorry to say. We lost a few men, and they lost several.

The king of Sodom and the ones of the other cities asked for only their people back. I was to keep the loot for myself. But I couldn't do that. It wouldn't have been right. I hadn't done it for pay, I had done it for Lot, and they didn't owe me anything.

After I got home, back the Oaks of Mamre, God showed up again and took credit for the victory. "Fear not," I am your shield." And then he went on with his standard speech about my seed. I didn't tell Sarah. No need to upset her. Besides we not longer shared things as we once had.

A few more years went by. I managed to spend a little time with Hagar and Ishmael without Sarah knowing. Hagar and me had not slept together since her conception, but the fondness lingered. Ishmael was growing up to be strong and manly. The year I was ninety-nine, God showed up again. After his usual pitch he added a little something extra.

"This is the covenant between me and you and your seed after you which you must keep. You and every male in your household, even slaves, must be circumcised."

Now wait just a damn minute, I thought, it's going to take more that any vague promises of property and posterity to make me give up my foreskin and the foreskins of all in my household, too.

"Keep my covenant, and you will no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, Exalted Father. And Sarai your wife shall be called Sarah, Princess, and I will bless her and give you a son from her, and her issue shall be nations and kings of nations."

Ha! I thought. Not very likely at her age. "What about Ishmael?" I asked.

"Sarah will bear a son and you will name him Isaac and my covenant will pass to him and his seed after him. As for Ishmael, I will make him a great nation, but the covenant is to be with Isaac who Sarah will bear by this season next year."

"You're sure about this?"

"If you keep my covenant."

"You mean the foreskin?"

"You got it, Abe," God said, dropping the formality. And then he laughed and slapped me on the shoulder, "But not for long."

When I told Sarah, her mouth twisted into a sneer. She glared at me and walked away. I didn't know whether she didn't believe me or didn't believe God or both. But it was the first time God had extended the promise to her, and he had been very specific about things. If it meant losing my foreskin on the chance that he would carry through with it, having Sarah with me again was worth it.

I hated putting the rest of the household through the ordeal, but them was God's conditions. And there was nothing to be gained by putting it off. That very day I called the men in, explained what God wanted done and we done it. I circumcised Ishmael myself. He was only thirteen years old, but he took it like a man.

A few months later, as I was setting near the tent flap in the heat of the day, I saw three men approaching. I recognized the one in the middle and hurried out to meet them. "Welcome, welcome," I said, "Come on out of the sun, rest yourselves in the shade of the trees. Let me fetch a little water to refresh you and a little bite of something to eat."

"Mighty kind," they said, "don't mind if we do."

So I run back to the tent and told Sarah to put together the best we had to offer as a meal for them and to hurry as fast as she could because they looked hungry. I went back and played the host until one of Sarah's girls appeared and spread a cloth under the trees and nodded to me. I went in and brought out dishes that I hoped was worthy of our guests and served them and stood over them while they et.

When they was finished, God, because he was the one I had recognized, said. "Where's Sarah?"

"There in the tent."

"I'm going to get back to you later this year, and Sarah is going to bear a son." He paused and then said, "Why did Sarah laugh?"

I hadn't heard anything.

"She laughed and said to herself, 'Yeah, sure, nearly ninety years old and shriveled as I am, I'm going to have pleasure again with my old husband.'"

Sarah come to the tent flap so she could see him. Her eyes was wide with fear. "I didn't laugh," she said.

"Yes you did." God said. "But whether you believe it or not, you're going to have a son. Count on it!"

Then the other two got up, and they got ready to leave. I walked a little way with them to see them off. We stopped, and God told the other two to go on.

"Abe," God said, "I hate to tell you this, but Sodom and Gomorrah is going to be destroyed."

"How?" I asked.

"Natural causes."

"But can't you stop it?"

"I could, but I'm not going to. Why should I? They are not my people. And they're evil. They worship graven images, idols. Let them save them."

"But surely they're not all evil. Are you going to wipe out the innocent with the guilty? You're supposed to be a just God. Where is the justice in that?"

"How many innocent are you talking about?"

"Say, fifty. If there was fifty, would you spare the cities?"

"Yes, but there ain't fifty."

"Say, forty, then."

"There ain't forty, either. What's your bottom line, Abe?"

"I'm worried about Lot."

"Thought so. Well, we'll get Lot out and all his family that want to come. That's what my angels have gone on to do. So you can rest easy on that score. But one of these days, Abe, you're going to have to let Lot be take the consequences for his decisions. You'll have your own to look after."

The next morning just at sunrise the eruption come. With what sounded like thunderclaps the earth opened up and spewed out great fountains of fire and brimstone and wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah and all them poor wretches who lived there. Except Lot. The angels got him out just in time, him and his two daughters.

After that, the encampment at the Oaks of Mamre was ruined for us. Whenever our eyes strayed to the east we would see the devastation of the cities of the plain and of part of the plain itself. It was too depressing. So we moved south to the valley of Gerar and settled there. And there, just as God had promised, Sarah conceived and bore Isaac.

I had thought the birth of Isaac would bring Sarah back to me, but if anything, it separated us even farther. Isaac become her obsession. She was overprotective and possessive. She wouldn't hardly let me hold him, or nobody else. He was going on four years old when she finally consented to weaning him. On the big day, we brought all the household together and had a great feast. Ishmael, who was only fourteen at the time, foolishly bragged to some of the herders that he was better than Isaac because not only was he firstborn, he had chosen of his own free will to be circumcised, while Isaac, circumcised at only eight days old, couldn't make a choice. Word got back to Sarah and she was furious.

"Drive them out!" she screamed at me in front of everybody. "Out! Both of them! Now!"

"Hush. Hush, now. Get control of yourself."

"I will not hush. And I will not have that slave girl's son associating with my son. I want them gone!"

I told Hagar to take Ishmael and lay low for a while. Finally I was able to coax Sarah back to her tent and calm her down.

"I mean it," she said, "I want them out."

"Give me until tomorrow," I told her.

"Let her have her way," God said that evening when I had gone into the fields to think, "because the covenant will pass through Isaac."

"But Ishmael is mine as well as Isaac. Must I give him up? And Hagar hasn't done any wrong. Must I give her up, too?"

"For the time being. But you needn't be concerned for their welfare. I'll look after them, and I'll make Ishmael a great nation."

I went to Hagar and told her what God had said. I didn't see any alternative to her leaving, but she held a place in my heart and Ishmael was our son. I would not abandon them. I told Hagar that when she left she was to take the trade route south toward Egypt, and I would send men and camels to overtake her and escort her on to Kadesh where some of her own people lived and where I would be able to visit them from time to time. She agreed to go. There was really no choice.

Early the next morning, I took bread and a skin of water and with Sarah watching from her tent flap gave them to Hagar and Ishmael and sent them away. Then, as soon as I could get clear, I went to the fields and chose three of my most trusted men and had them load up camels with provisions and silver and set out after them.

The men was back the next day with the news that Hagar and Ishmael was not to be found. I was in a panic. I had for the sake of show given them provisions for only a day, two at the most. If they had strayed from the trail and was lost, they would soon die. I took more men and we scoured the country on either side of the trail, but found nothing. I didn't give up until it was long past time for their water to have run out.

I didn't find out until much later that they had become confused and gone wrong at the start and never reached the trade route, but instead had followed a course down toward Negev. When they was at the point of perishing from lack of water, God had intervened and led them to a well, and then guided them on down to settlements on the edge of the desert where they found refuge. It would have been nice if he had taken the trouble to tell me. For years I thought they was dead. I grieved for them and blamed myself.

Ismael growed up hating me for sending him away, and I was never to see him again. Hagar I was to see, after Sarah died, but I would never be able to make up for the pain I had caused her.

Because of the size of my household, our sojourn in Gerar was beginning to become a burden on our neighbors, so we moved farther south to Beer-sheba and settled there

In the new place and with Hagar and Ishmael gone, Sarah gradually become a little more her old self. She relaxed her iron grip on Isaac and allow him to spend time with me, even allowed me to take him on overnight trips now and then to check on our more remote herds.

Our relationship, Sarah's and mine, become easy, even cordial, but to my sorrow never approached what it once had been. On the other hand, Isaac and me developed that close bond that only a father and son can experience. I was afraid Sarah would sense it and grow jealous, but she somehow never did.

Them years was a time of peace for me. Oh, I regretted all I had lost, Hagar and Ishmael, Lot, who had gone back to Haran and died there, and most of all the oneness I had once shared with Sarah. But the joy I found in Isaac helped lighten my sorrow.