These days, apart from souvenir key chains and schmaltzy plaques/posters, people (North Americans, at any rate) don't really ascribe too much significance to names, but names – of people or places – tend to be incredibly important in the Bible, so much so that God Himself, now and then, lays down the law and throws a name out there, as a promise or a signifier of some larger plan.
Ishmael, for example. "God will hear." What a promise to a pregnant woman who has run away into the desert after being used in perhaps the most profound way, only to be reviled and, in all likelihood, severely beaten for her trouble.
So she runs. Into the wilderness. And she's visited by an angel of the Lord, who first – a little unsettlingly – to go back to Sarai and deal with what comes, but then issues her essentially the same promise that has already been issued to Abram. Granted, the covenantal language is toned down, but the promise of descendants is there almost verbatim.
Then he (He? Hard to know whether to capitalize this, based on the way the angel is speaking. In fact, there seems to be a much blurrier line between God and His messengers than we're normally used to, I think - more on this later) names her child "God will hear you," after which she names God "the Living One who sees me."
And that's how the place got it's name - Beer-lahai-roi - "Well of the Living One seeing me."
Kind of makes the story of how Ottawa was once called Bytown after ColonelSNOREzzzzzz *ahem*. Sorry.
Makes that story fall a little flat, no? Yes.
And God wasn't done naming yet - not by a long shot.
It took 13 more years (although it's just a couple of verses), but God got around to Abram himself. The change from Abram to Abraham is neat in a couple of ways. First, there's the literal implication of God adding an extra layer of promise to his covenant to make Abram a father of multitude – by actually naming him "Father of a Multitude." Not a bad start.
But there seems to be more to it than that. There's a subtle change in the meaning of the name, not just in the pronunciation. Going from Abram to Abraham is changing something else about the man. Abram means "exalted father".
At first blush it may seem a little superfluous to make the shift from "Exalted Father" to "Father of a Multitude." It may even seem like something of a demotion. Maybe it was. Maybe the name change that goes along with the covenant is as two-way a street as the covenant itself.
The change is echoed when it comes to Sarai as well, going from "princess" to "noblewoman" – again, not a monumental shift, but one that is subtly important. Looking at it from the perspective of a "commoner," the difference between a princess and a noblewoman may be almost one of semantics, but from a "higher" perspective, I'm not sure that Lady Diana and Fergie switching roles/ranks/titles would have been exactly a boon for Diana, if you catch my meaning.
Noblewoman and Father of a Multitude still have high places in the world and God's plan, no doubt, but there's something missing – authority and entitlement among them. Seems that the two-way street of "I'll give you lands and offspring, and I will be their God" really does go both ways...
Back for a moment to the weirdness about God/God's messengers.
Chapter 18 opens up with the Lord appearing to Abraham, but in the form of three strangers that just sort of appear in front of him. That's pretty much the only description we get - that there were three of them - but there definitely must have been something about them, because there mere presence sends Abraham tripping all over himself to get an entire sumptuous banquet prepared in their honour. (In my head it plays out as old Dick Van Dyke doing his best young Dick Van Dyke impersonation and pulling it off by sheer force of will.)
Then comes a definite nudge-nudge-wink-wink moment that sort of makes my comparison between the father figure of Judaism, Christianity and Islam with a 1960s sitcom star a little less far-fetched, although it likely wouldn't have flown on 1960s American prime time TV.
The story's a pretty famous one (as they've all been so far, pretty much): three dudes that are God show up, change Abram and Sarai's names, promise Abraham and Sarah a kid of their own, Sarah laughs, the men/God correct(s) her and then they go on their way.
This is why I'm going to like this project, because I've already found something, even in a story that I've heard hundreds of times before, that I've never noticed/been taught.
Why'd Sarah laugh, and what did she laughingly say? Before reading this today I would have said that she was laughing because she was old and couldn't possible have children, and said something to that effect.
In fact, here's what the text actually says (NASB):
11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age ; Sarah was past childbearing . 12 Sarah laughed to herself,saying, "After I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?" 13 And the LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, 'Shall I indeed bear a child, when I am so old ?'
Anybody notice it? The text says that her laughing is because she's old and can't have kids, and when the men/God ask Abraham why she laughed, they/He said that she said she was old and can't have kids...
She, on the other hand, asks how she's supposed to have pleasure when her husband's so old.
...
Yeah.
Talk about God sparing His trusted servants' feelings.
It's not just the NASB translators being saucy either. Check any translation you can and you'll see there's a distinct difference between what Sarah says and what the men/God ask Abraham she said (or, more specifically, why she said it).
That's awesome. And hilarious. So hilarious. Sarah=1, Abraham=zing.
This chunk of scripture isn't even done yet, either.
What follows is one of my favourite exchanges in the whole of the Bible. You know a culture is steeped in haggling when somebody does it with God.
I went to Israel on a trip when I was 6, and even though I was really young, I remember just about everything about the trip. Being so young, a lot of my memories about it are more atmospheric than anything else, but there was an atmosphere of bartering. Everything was a spirited debate - a lively game, and while the subject matter of this particular exchange is far from a game, it's an incredible display of the relationship that God and Abraham have, and (I think) an incredible insight into God's character.
God tells Abraham he's going to whomp Sodom and Gomorrah, because they're full of terrible, terrible people. Abraham says "whoa! They can't all be bad, and you wouldn't wipe out 50 good guys with the bad guys, would you?" God says, "alright, if there are 50 awesome dudes there, I'll spare the entire city - just for them."
Think on that. God made a plan, Abraham made a suggestion and God changed His mind. I've gotten into some pretty... lively... discussions with people about this take on the talk, but I absolutely LOVE that God changes his mind in light of what Abraham brings to the table, even though it does tend to raise some theological questions if you're a generally Thomistic type of person, which I tend to be.
Like the covenant, the name change and all the rest, what God wants, and what we ought to revel in, is relationship, and this bartering session, with Abraham talking God's "I won't destroy S&G" price down to just 10 decent people, demonstrates just that. It's incredible.
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