Genesis 14-15

Genesis 14

14:10 some of the fleeing kings fell into asphalt pits.  Yikes.

14:11 The pursuing kings took all the goods and all the food from Sodom and Gomorrah.

14:12 What they took included Lot and family.

14:14 Abram had 318 trained men in his household - I wonder how many people overall he had?

14:16 Abram and his 318 men defeated the army.  I'm guessing the army was significantly larger than that, since it was against four kings (who had fought five kings, two of which were of Sodom and Gomorrah, and won).

14:17 The king of Sodom comes out to meet Abram, and Melchizedek also meets him.  Was it at the same time and in the same place?  Was the meeting of three people?  It sure seems like it.  

14:18 Melchizedek is king of Salem, which is introduced like it's a city, but we don't know where it was, right?  And he was a priest of the Most High God.  

14:20 Abram pays him a tithe.  Hebrews, I think, talks about this, and how through this act, even the priests paid a tithe to Melchizedek, the mysterious priest.

14:22 We hear about a promise that Abram made to God.

14:23 The motivation - Abram doesn't want any person to be able to say he made Abram rich.  Abram was already rich, and it seems to me that the king of Egypt had a lot to do with Abram becoming rich, because of Sarai, right?  I wonder why he doesn't want others to add to his riches?  Maybe it's a change in perspective?

Genesis 15

15:2 Abram is understandably concerned about kids, because God had already promised him that his descendants would have all the land he could see.  But he has no descendants.

15:6 A super-key verse.  Abram believed.  God accounted this belief for righteousness.  I like that this theme - believing is what makes God count you as righteous - is so pervasive in the Bible.  

15:9 Abram had to gather up all these animals - I'm guessing this wasn't a 5 minute job to gather them, kill them halve them, etc.  It had to be pretty bloody.

15:11 - they already smelled bad enough to attract birds of prey, right?

15:13 So, Abram asks how he can know that his offspring will possess this land, God has him prep a sacrifice (only the second mentioned in the Bible, the first being Noah's), and puts him to sleep.  In the sleep he tells that his offspring will be enslaved for 400 years, come out with riches and in the fourth generation return to this area.

15:17 There's lots of research on this passage.  I think the significant part is that God and Abram didn't both walk between the halves of the dead animals, just God did (a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch represent God, right?)  That means that it was only up to God, not Abram, to keep the covenant they were making.

15:18 The covenant was for the land.  So in essence, God was swearing that Abram's offspring would get that land, no matter what.  Interesting to me because even now, even though not much of that land belongs to Israel, the rest of it belongs to Arabs, who are also Abram's descendants....