Day 006 - Genesis 15-17

God makes his covenant with Abram and promises an heir for his estate and then Abram has another lapse in trust which leads to a breakdown in relationships. God promises again to give Abram many descendants, but because he and Sarai can't see beyond their own physical circumstances (i.e. Sarai's infertility) they come up with their own way of trying to fulfil the promise. This involves Sarai giving Abram one of her slave girls to sleep with who then becomes pregnant. This pretty much causes all three of them to despise each other and Hagar the slave girl to run away.

God shows his care for all of them by making a promise to Hagar that her son too will be the father of a great nation and clarifying to Abram that is heir will come through Sarah. One of the things that I've sometimes struggled with in the Old Testament is the lack of condemnation of the polygamy that goes on with some of the Godly men that we read about. I've come to realise that by paying closer attention to the text we can let the situations speak for themselves and draw our own conclusions on the matter. Added to this we have the monogamous example of Adam and Eve at the start of the story and here God's desire to use Abram and Sarai's marriage as the the vehicle for saving the world.

At this point we also get the renaming of both Sarai and Abram to their more familiar names of Abraham and Sarah (it's interesting to note that my spell checker thinks that the former two names are errors, but it has the new names as being spelled correctly). The 'Exalted Father' becomes the 'Father of Many Nations' and the 'Princess' becomes a 'Princess' (from what I've read the name changes may indicate a change from a local emphasis to a global one in line with Abraham's name change).

God also initiates the practice of circumcision at this point and all I can say is that it must have been a painful day in Abraham's household. The significance though is a physical sign of God's covenant with Abraham and a sacrifice on his part to show his commitment to it. I want to be willing to make sacrifices that God demands of me, but I'm sure I'm always willing to pay the price.