Abraham

So I went. I was seventy-five.

Moses@moses · HaranThen this. The LORD tells Abram to leave his country, his relatives and his father’s house, and go to a land he’ll show him. He’ll make him into a great nation, and every family on earth will be blessed through him.

In Canaan the LORD appeared to me and said he’d give this land to my children. I didn’t have any children. I built an altar there anyway.

Back in Canaan, Lot and I had so many animals the land couldn’t hold us both, and our herders started fighting.

Replying to @abraham

Told Lot: let’s not fight, you and me, or our herders. We’re family. The whole land is in front of you. You choose. You go left, I’ll go right. You go right, I’ll go left.

After Lot left, the LORD told me to look north, south, east and west. All of it, for my offspring, forever. As many as the dust of the earth. If anyone can count the dust, they can count them.

Someone who escaped came and told me my nephew had been taken. I took the 318 trained men born in my household and went after them. Night attack. Got Lot back, and everything else too.

Replying to @king.of.sodom

Told him I wouldn’t take so much as a thread or a sandal strap of his. Nobody is going to say they made Abram rich.

The LORD spoke to me in a vision. Told me not to be afraid. He’s my shield, and my reward, a huge one. And I said what was on my mind. What can you give me? I’ve got no children. A servant in my house, Eliezer, is going to get everything I own.

Replying to @abraham

He said Eliezer won’t be my heir. My own son will. Then he took me outside and told me to look up and count the stars, if I could. That’s how many my descendants will be.

Then the strangest night. God told me to bring animals, and I cut them in two and laid the halves out in rows, the old way of sealing an agreement. I fell into a deep sleep, and a thick, terrifying darkness came over me.

Replying to @abraham

He told me my descendants would be slaves in a land that isn’t theirs for 400 years, and then come out. After dark, a smoking firepot and a blazing torch passed between the pieces. Only the fire went through.

Thirteen years later. He told me he’s God Almighty, and I’m to live my whole life in his sight and be blameless. And a new name. Not Abram, exalted father. Abraham, father of many.

Replying to @abraham

Father of many. I was ninety-nine, with one son.

The sign of the agreement: every male circumcised at eight days old, every generation. I did it that same day. Me, and every male in my household.

God said Sarai is Sarah now, and she’ll have a son. I fell face down. And laughed. A hundred years old? Sarah, ninety? I said: if only Ishmael could live under your blessing.

Replying to @abraham

God said no. Sarah will have a son, and I’m to call him Isaac. It means he laughs.

The LORD told me the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is huge, and he’s going to see for himself. The two men headed for Sodom. I stayed where I was, standing in front of the LORD.

I asked him. What if there are fifty good people in Sodom? Isn’t the judge of the whole earth going to do what’s right? He said for fifty he’d spare it. I’m nothing but dust and ashes, I know, but I kept going. Forty-five. Forty. Thirty. Twenty. Ten.

Went back early next morning to where I’d stood with the LORD, and looked down towards Sodom. Smoke rising off the whole land, like smoke from a furnace.

Replying to @abimelech.gerar

I thought nobody here feared God, and they’d kill me for my wife. And she is actually my sister. Same father, different mother.

Replying to @sarah

A hundred years old, and I’ve got a son.

Replying to @moses

Early next morning I saddled the donkey. Three days’ walk. Told the servants: stay here. The boy and I will go over there and worship, and then we’ll come back to you. I put the wood on Isaac’s back and carried the fire and the knife myself.

I named the place The LORD Will Provide.

Sarah died today, at Hebron. She was 127. I mourned her, and I cried for her.

I didn’t know where I was going. I went. Lived in tents in the land I’d been promised, like a foreigner, and so did Isaac and Jacob. I was looking forward to the city with foundations, the one God designs and builds.

Abraham@abrahamSo I went. I was seventy-five.

I’d been told my family line would come through Isaac. So I reckoned God could raise him from the dead. And in a way, I did get him back from death.

Abraham@abrahamEarly next morning I saddled the donkey. Three days’ walk. Told the servants: stay here. The boy and I will go over there and worship, and then we’ll come back to you. I put the wood on Isaac’s back and carried the fire and the knife myself.