Genesis 18-19

Genesis 18-19

18:1 I like this practice of sitting out the heat of the day.  It's naptime.  I want a nap too.

18:6 It never fails to amuse me the culture difference here.  Abraham says - take a little break, have a piece of bread - it'll be quick!  They agree, so they START THEN to make bread. It's gonna be an hour or two minimum before the bread is done, won't it?  That's not a little break in my sped-up American culture.

18:7 And they start the meal prep by killing the cow.  Man, I'm thankful for modern refrigeration and that I can buy my meat already dressed and ready for cooking.  How long do you think they had to wait for this meal?  I remember being shocked in Africa that we ordered chicken at a restaurant, then saw them go chase the chicken around the yard to kill it for our meal.  We waited more than an hour (I think maybe more than two - my memory is failing me).  Chickens are lots smaller than cows.

18:8 Do they just sit under the tree and wait while Abraham and Sarah do all this prep?

18:10 This has to be quite soon after God promised Abraham and changed his name, because both stories say "in about a year".  

18:11 Sarah had passed the age of childbearing, so this is obviously a miracle.

18:12 I'm pretty sure I'd laugh too.

18:14 One of my favorite lines in the whole Bible:  Is anything impossible for the Lord?

18:17-19 So God's visit actually had a different motive.  I love how God reasons to himself that Abraham is worthy of trust here.

18:20 Someone is crying out against Sodom and Gomorrah.  That means not everyone is agreeing in their practices, right?

18:23 It's not like God to punish the righteous with the wicked.  Abraham knows that.  (This is one of the hardest things I've found in parenting - not punishing all for the sins of one....)

18:25 Abraham is quite certain of God's character here.  Also, Abraham isn't especially in awe of walking along talking with God.  I think they've done this before.

18:27 Abraham isn't forgetting his place, or his inferiority to God, but is still bold enough to dare to speak.

18:33 Abraham whittles God down to ten.  He'll spare the whole city of wicked people if there's even ten righteous there.

Genesis 19

19:1 Lot sat in Sodom's gate.  Doesn't that imply some sort of authority?

19:2 The men want to experience what the city has to offer rather than be sheltered by a foreigner.  Seems reasonable.  I wonder if Lot had some idea that these men were special?  Was it Lot's cries that had reached God's ears?

18:3 I wonder if this is their second feast that day, or if there had been a day or more of travel between Abraham and Lot's houses

19:4-5 The whole city males - both young and old - turn out for the visitors.  It was quite an occasion I guess.  That the men came there to have sex with the men of the city is kind of a bold assumption, I think.

19:7 Lot calls their actions evil, but still calls them brothers.  He wants them to think of him as one of them.

19:8 Okay, so it's okay to "do whatever you want" to the girls, but not to the men.  Not really a big fan of Lot's philosophy here.  (Neither is God, as we see later).  Lot took them under his roof to protect them.  So Lot's not surprised by their behavior here.

19:9  They're mad.  They don't consider Lot a part of them, and are threatening him.

19:10-11 The angels (presumably the same three men who came in to town, who talked with Abraham now.  Interesting that they're now called angels), whom Lot took in to protect them, are now protecting Lot supernaturally.

19:13 I don't think God had to count the people.  

19:14 I wonder if these men just think of Lot as a lunatic.  (And I wonder how long it'll be before Christians are viewed as lunatics here and now).

19:15 God is still not willing to destroy the righteous with the wicked, but they have to push Lot and family out.

19:16 Because of the Lord's compassion for him....

19:18 Lot, like Abraham, dares argue with God, but this one is of a different, more whiny nature, not appealing to God's character.

18:20 Lot appeals to God to not destroy all the towns in the region, save him one to live in.  Lot doesn't like the idea of living out in the country.

19:24 God had hung up his bow of strife against Mankind with the rainbow after Noah.  Here He takes it up again - not against all of mankind, which would violate his vow, but on a local scale, he's still willing to battle mankind to protect the whole.

19:25 Interesting that God demolished the cities, but also everything growing on the ground.  I wonder if this is so that people who fled wouldn't survive in the wilderness?

19:26 This makes me wonder if Lot's wife liked Sodom, and that's why they stayed there.

19:29 God credits Abraham for his not destroying Lot with the cities.

19:30 The whole thing scared Lot pretty good.  I suppose it would me too.  Now he's living in the countryside.

19:31-35 Lot's daughters assume that there's no hope for them now that they're living on the mountain with their crazy old Dad.  They've grown up in this culture, so having sex with their dad is no real bother to them. And they birth two of Israel's greatest enemy nations.