Hagar and Ishmael · Sodom and Gomorrah

In context

Ten years after coming to Canaan, Sarai still has no child, so she gives her Egyptian servant Hagar to Abram as a wife (Genesis 16:1–3). When Hagar runs away, the angel of the Lord finds her by a spring, and she calls the Lord “a God who sees.” The WEB’s note says the well’s name, Beer Lahai Roi, means “well of the one who lives and sees me” (Genesis 16:13–14).

When Abram is 99, God renames him Abraham, “for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations,” renames Sarai as Sarah, and gives circumcision as the sign of his covenant (Genesis 17:1, 5, 10–15). Abraham laughs at the thought of a son at 100, and the boy is to be named Isaac, which the WEB’s note says means “he laughs” (Genesis 17:17–19). By the oaks of Mamre, Abraham welcomes three visitors with bread from three seahs of flour, about six gallons, and hears, “Is anything too hard for Yahweh?” (Genesis 18:6, 14).

Genesis 19 is hard to read: the men of Sodom want to force themselves on Lot’s guests, the Lord destroys Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt, and Lot’s daughters have sons by their father, the ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites (Genesis 19:36–38).