Genesis 20-22
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 20
God Corrects His Faithful Ones.[a] 1 Abraham broke camp and traveled into the Negeb, settling between Kedesh and Shur. He was dwelling in Gerar. 2 Abraham had said that Sarah, his wife, was his sister. Therefore, Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent to take Sarah for himself.
3 But God visited Abimelech during the night in a dream and said to him, “Behold, you are about to die because the woman you have taken belongs to her husband.”
4 Abimelech, who had not yet approached her, said, “My Lord, would you destroy an innocent nation? 5 Did he not tell me, ‘She is my sister’? And did she not also say, ‘He is my brother’? I did this with a pure conscience and in all innocence.”
6 God answered him in the dream, “I know that you acted with a good conscience when you did this. I prevented you from sinning against me. That is why I kept you from touching her. 7 Now give the woman back to this man. He is a prophet. He will intercede for you, and you will live. But if you do not restore her, know that you and everyone with you will die.”
8 Abimelech got up early in the morning and summoned all his servants to whom he recounted all these things. The men were terrified. 9 Then Abimelech summoned Abraham and told him, “What have you done to us? What did I do to you that you have subjected me and my kingdom to such a great sin? You have done things to me that you really should not have done.” 10 Then Abimelech asked Abraham, “What were you afraid of that you acted this way?”
11 Abraham answered, “I said to myself, ‘Certainly there will be no fear of God[b] in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ 12 Besides, she is really my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. 13 When God made me wander from my father’s homeland, I said to her, ‘Please do me this favor. Wherever we go, say that I am your brother.’ ”
14 Abimelech took flocks and herds, male and female slaves, and he gave them to Abraham, and he also gave back his wife Sarah. 15 Furthermore, Abimelech said, “Look around at my land; go and live wherever you please!”
16 To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given two thousand shekels of silver to your brother. May that repay you for what has happened to you. Thus, your honor will be totally preserved.”
17 Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech, his wife, and his maidservants so that they could once more have children. 18 For the Lord had rendered all the women in the household of Abimelech sterile because of Sarah, the wife of Abraham.
Chapter 21
The Promised Son.[c] 1 The Lord visited Sarah, as he had said he would. The Lord fulfilled what he had promised to Sarah. 2 Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the very time that the Lord had established. 3 Abraham named the son whom Sarah bore Isaac. 4 Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him to do. 5 Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born.
6 Sarah said, “God has given me a reason to laugh out loud. All will smile because of me.” 7 She then said, “Who would have ever said to Abraham, ‘Sarah will nurse sons’? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
Ishmael Is Sent Away.[d] 8 Isaac grew and was weaned. On the day that he was weaned, Abraham threw a great banquet. 9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, the one whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with[e] her son Isaac. 10 She said to Abraham, “Send this slave and her son away, for the son of this slave must not be an heir together with my son Isaac.”
11 This greatly distressed Abraham for he was concerned for his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not let this matter with your son and the slave woman distress you. Listen to what Sarah tells you. Listen to her voice, for it is through Isaac that descendants will bear your name. 13 But I will also make the son of the slave woman become a great nation, for he is your son.”
14 Abraham arose early in the morning and gave Hagar bread and a skin of water, placing them on her back. He entrusted the child to her and sent her away. They left and wandered in the desert of Beer-sheba.
15 When they used up all the water in the skin, she placed the child under a bush 16 and went and sat down opposite him, about the distance of a bowshot. She said, “I do not want to see the child die.” She sat opposite him and began to sob.
17 But God heard the voice of the child, and the angel of God called upon Hagar from the heavens and said, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not fear because God has heard the voice of the child from where he lies. 18 Get up, take the child, and hold him by the hand because I will make a great nation of him.”
19 God opened her eyes, and she was able to see a spring of water. She went over to it and filled the skin and gave the child some water to drink.
20 God was with the child, and he grew and lived in the desert and became an archer. 21 He lived in the desert of Paran, and his mother found him a wife in the land of Egypt.
22 First Link with the Promised Land.[f] At that time, Abimelech along with Phicol, the commander of his army, came and said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything that you do. 23 Therefore, swear by God that you will not act deceitfully with me or with my sons or my descendants. As I have been friendly to you, so too, you will be friendly with me and with the land in which you have dwelt as a guest.”
24 Abraham answered, “I swear it.”
25 But Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well that the servants of Abimelech had seized. 26 Abimelech said, “I do not know who did this thing. You never told me about this and I did not hear about it until today.”
27 So Abraham took some sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant. 28 Abraham set apart seven fat lambs. 29 Abimelech said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of the seven lambs that you have set aside?”
30 He answered, “Please take these seven lambs from me, and let them be a sign to you that I dug this well.” 31 Because of this the place is called Beer-sheba (the well of the seven), for they both swore an oath there. 32 After the covenant had been concluded at Beer-sheba, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, left and returned to the land of the Philistines. 33 Abraham planted a tamarisk at Beer-sheba, and there he called upon the name of the Lord, the Eternal God. 34 Abraham dwelt in the land of the Philistines for many years.
Chapter 22
Sacrifice of the Son.[g] 1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham, Abraham!” He replied, “Here I am!”
2 God said, “Take your son, your only son, the one you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah[h] and offer him as a burnt offering on the mountain that I will show you.”
3 Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled a donkey, and took two servants and his son Isaac with him. He also took the wood for the burnt offering and set out toward the place about which God had spoken. 4 On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw that place from a distance. 5 Abraham said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there. We will worship and then we will return to you.” 6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and loaded it upon his son Isaac. He himself carried the fire and the knife. They then set out together. 7 Isaac turned to his father Abraham and said, “My father!”
He answered, “Here I am, my son.”
He continued, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son!” And the two of them went on together.
9 They then arrived at the place of which God had spoken. There Abraham built an altar and piled up the wood. He tied up his son Isaac and placed him upon the altar so that he was lying upon the wood. 10 Then Abraham reached out and took the knife to kill his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called out from heaven and said, “Abraham! Abraham!”
He answered, “Here I am.”
12 The angel said, “Do not reach out your hand against the boy! Do not harm him in any way! Now I know that you fear God and you have not even withheld your son, your only son, from me.”
13 Abraham looked up and saw a ram that had its horns caught in a bush. Abraham took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering instead of his son.
14 Abraham called that place, “The Lord will provide,” for he said, “On the mountain the Lord provided.”
15 The angel of the Lord called Abraham from heaven again 16 and said, “I swear by my own self, thus says the Lord: because you have done this and did not withhold your son from me, your only son, 17 I will bless you with every blessing and I will make your descendants very numerous, like the stars of the heavens or the sand on the shore of the sea. Your descendants shall take possession of the cities of your enemies. 18 All the nations of the earth shall be blessed through your descendants, because you have obeyed my command.”
19 Abraham returned to his servants, and together they set out toward Beer-sheba, where Abraham made his dwelling.
20 Children of Abraham’s Brother.[i] Afterward, Abraham received this news: “Behold, Milcah has borne sons to your brother Nahor: 21 Uz the firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel (the father of Aram), 22 Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel.” 23 Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. Milcah gave birth to these eight sons for Nahor, the brother of Abraham. 24 His concubine, Reumah, also bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.
Footnotes
- Genesis 20:1 This episode, the first that is surely from the Elohist tradition, seems to be another version of the incident already recorded in 12:10-20; among other reasons for saying this, it is not in its proper place, since it must have happened at an earlier time when Sarah was not yet expecting a son. The depiction of Sarah as Abraham’s half-sister is a sign of the historical character of the story; the community of Israel would not have invented for the Patriarch a marriage that the Mosaic Law forbade as incestuous (Lev 18:9; 20:17).
- Genesis 20:11 Fear of God: a conventional phrase equivalent to “true religion.” “Fear” in this phrase has the sense of reverential trust in God that includes commitment to his revealed will (word).
- Genesis 21:1 Isaac, who is born by the divine will even though nature is not up to the task, symbolizes the fact that salvation, which is foretold in his person, is not the work of human beings but entirely a gift of the Lord. The passage represents a fusion of the three sources.
- Genesis 21:8 The two stories that follow are from the Elohist tradition. According to a number of critics, the first story is another version of the Yahwist-Priestly story in 16:4-16. It is to be noted, among other things, that Ishmael is here shown as a boy, while at the period here indicated he would have been an adolescent.
St. Paul uses the incident as an argument that the new Covenant replaces the old (Gal 4:21-31). - Genesis 21:9 Playing with: this can also be translated as mocking. According to the later Jewish tradition, the word here refers to immoral or idolatrous practices on the part of Ishmael (“mocking” in the sense of Gen 39:14, 17); St. Paul, however, interprets it as meaning persecution (Gal 4:29), perhaps resulting from envy.
- Genesis 21:22 Two popular traditions are fused to explain the name “Beer-sheba”: one explains it as meaning “well of the oath,” the other as “well of the seven,” that is, the seven lambs that the Patriarch gives the master of the territory as a guarantee of the agreement between them.
- Genesis 22:1 This story is likewise from the Elohist tradition. After successes there is an unexpected new test. Trusting in God’s word, Abraham has left everything, reached the land promised to his descendants, and waited patiently for the birth of a son. His sole treasure to this point has been his faith; it is only because of this that God has blessed him. Now he receives the order to sacrifice his very faith and hope, but he does not allow these to waver. The inexplicable thing is not that God should ask him to sacrifice a son, even though this is a harsh blow to his fatherly heart; for the religious outlook of that country allowed this deplorable form of worship (Jdg 11:30-39; 2 Ki 3:27; 16:3; 21:6). The apparent absurdity is that he must sacrifice the very thing for which he heretofore lived, the son for whose sake God had asked him to sacrifice every other good.
God himself has supplied the victim for the sacrifice. The ram given to Abraham was only a temporary victim. Another Father really sacrificed his own Son for the sake of humankind (Rom 8:32), perhaps on the very same mountain (2 Chr 3:1); then he won him back in the resurrection. It is only in virtue of this divine sacrifice, rather than of the faith of Abraham, that the Lord can give the Patriarch his great promises.
The conclusion of the incident prepares the way for a firm condemnation of the Canaanite practice of sacrificing children (see Deut 12:29-31; 18:10-12; Jer 7:31-33; 19:1-13). Above all, however, it exemplifies the result of every true sacrifice: God restores to his faithful, as the fruit of their faith, the freely given gift that they had surrendered in order to show that the Lord came first for them. - Genesis 22:2 Moriah is also the mountain on which the Temple of Jerusalem will be built (2 Chr 3:1).
- Genesis 22:20 The passage is Yahwist. This genealogy is in continuity with Gen 11:29 and introduces the events that follow.
