Tag Archive | Lot’s wife

Journaling through the Bible Chronologically in 2025, Day 18

Jan18

Day 18. Reading in Genesis 19 – 21. 

I invite you to read the scripture for the day and meditate on it. Then, share your thoughts in the comments.

 

Genesis 19.

I wonder if Abraham kept praying for his nephew Lot after plea-bargaining with God for Sodom and then going home.

When the two angels with the Lord at Abraham’s tent went down to Sodom, they found Lot sitting at the gate.  He’d gone from camping “near” Sodom to living “in” the city to now being an important man sitting as a judge “of” the city. 

Lot immediately knew the problem these two handsome angels would face in his wicked, immoral city. He begged them to stay at his house instead of in the town square. (He had to press them hard before they finally agreed.)

After dinner, a loud banging was heard at Lot’s door. The homosexual men of the town “wanted” the two men (angels) who were inside.  They were about to break the door down when Lot went out and offered them his two virgin daughters instead.  In their wicked lust, they refused and began forcing the door. One of the angels blinded the men and pulled Lot inside. BUT STILL, these blind homosexual men struggled to break the door down.

The angels urged Lot, his wife, and two daughters to evacuate the city, saying, “We are about to destroy this place because the outcry against its people has become great before the LORD, and He’s sent us to destroy it.”

At dawn, the family still refused to go, so the angels grabbed the four of them and brought them outside the city. “Escape for your life! Do not look back or stop anywhere in this valley. Escape to the hills unless you are swept away!!”

Lot dared to argue with them, saying he couldn’t reach the hills (too citified or too out of shape?) and begged to go to the next little town. The angels agreed to spare that city, but Lot had to get there quickly.  They ran (waddled?) toward Zoar, but Lot’s wife turned longingly for one last look at her beloved city.  

At that moment, the LORD rained down sulfur and fire from heaven and overthrew the inhabitants of the cities, all the valley, and all that grew on the ground.  And Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt.

.

Abraham awoke to a towering plume of black smoke (as from a furnace) billowing up from the valley. 

Whether Abraham ever saw Lot again, we don’t know. His nephew’s life spiraled down him from there. He and his two daughters lived in a cave. He became a drunkard. His daughters became pregnant through incest with him. Their descendants became the Moabites and Ammonites.  All because of his choice to go to the rich, green, luscious Sodom.

  • Oh, Father, keep me attuned to Your will. Keep me from horrible choices in my life. Thank you for the ones in my past that you’ve forgiven. Help me to remember this story.

Genesis 20.

And lest we think Abraham is immune to temptation, we see him and Sarah journeying southward again. He stops in Gerar, the territory of King Abimelech, a Philistine.

“She’s my sister,” Abraham casually says, even though Sarah might already be carrying the embryo of Isaac in her womb!! 

Abimelech took Sarah as Abraham expected. BUT GOD came to him in a dream. “YOU ARE A DEAD MAN if you touch her. She is another man’s wife!”  God kept him from sinning and the king immediately gave Sarah back to Abraham.

“What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you that you did this to us?” the king demanded of Abraham.

“I-I did it because I thought you would kill me because of my wife since there is no fear of God here,” Abraham weaseled. “BESIDES, she IS my sister, well, my half-sister.”

Abimelech gives Abraham a lot of stuff, then says to Sarah, “I’ve given your brother a thousand pieces of silver as a sign of YOUR innocence in the eyes of all with you. Before everyone, YOU are vindicated.”

A good thing!  Some might have thought later that Abimelech was the father of Sarah’s baby.  OH, ABRAHAM, HOW YOU MIGHT HAVE MESSED THINGS UP!!!  Praise God for looking out for His stupid children!

  • Yes, yes. I have done some pretty foolish, thoughtless things, too. Thank You, thank You, Father, for protecting me!  You are so good! And I am so undeserving.

Genesis 21.

At last! At last! “Laughter” is born!! 

On the baby’s eighth day, Abraham officially named him Isaac and circumcised him.  And Sarah said (perhaps even sang), “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have born him a son in his old age.”  Abraham was 100 years old. 

Several years later, at Isaac’s “official” weaning (3 years), Sarah catches Hagar’s son Ishmael LAUGHING at her son. (Ridiculing him)

“Get rid of this slave woman and her son. He will NOT be heir with my son, Isaac,” she demanded of her husband.

Abraham was grieved because he loved Ishmael, too. But God backed Sarah.  And, giving Hagar and the 17-year-old Ishmael food and water, he sent them away.  (What a shock to the former prince, Ishmael.)

God met with Hagar again when they ran out of water. He showed her another well and promised to bless her son into a great nation. Ishmael grew up to be an expert with the bow and arrow. They lived in the wilderness of Paran (Arabia today), and his mom got a wife for him from Egypt. 

(Seventy years later, when Abraham died, Ishmael returned briefly, and the two half-brothers buried their father in a cave near Hebron.  Genesis 25:8-9)

  • And so, from Adam and Eve, through Noah and Shem, and now through Abraham and Isaac, God clears the way and establishes the “seed line” for the promised One who will defeat death and the devil forever.

 

 

#2024 GOAL – Reading Through The Bible Chronologically, day 18

Jan18

Won’t you read the Bible with me this year?   It only takes a few minutes.  (You can also listen to an audio recording.)

   Day 18  Genesis 19 – 21

We ended yesterday with Abraham’s interceeding with God to spare the cities of Sodom & Gomorrah for the sake of a bare minimum of 10 righteous people living there.  God agrees, but the cities are doomed by their sin and because there is only ONE righteous man in the whole area.

Chapter 19 is God’s grace at work. The two angels go into Sodom with the purpose of rescuing Abe’s nephew Lot and his family. They are lewdly accosted by the crazed men of the city, but they incapacitate them with blindness. Forceably grabbing Lot, his wife, and two daughters, the angels flee the city just minutes before the LORD rains down sulfer and fire out of heaven and burns up the cities, all the valley, all the inhabitants, and even what grew on the ground.

Talk about narrowly escaping “by the skin of your teeth!”

To show that only Lot is righteous in this family, his wife turns back and hesitates, looking longingly at all her “things.”  And the backflash of sulfer immediately coats her and turns her into a statue of salt. (A mini Hiroshima!)  Then the broken – but righteous man – flees to live in a cave (remember he had been a very important man – a judge – in the city), and is twice made drunk and seduced by his own daughters. They both have sons by him, who later turn out to be enemies of Israel – the Moabites and Ammonites on the east side of the Jordan.

Back to the man of the hour in chapter 20, when Abraham leaves the area (the sight & stench of the burned cities?) and roams into the Negev (south of Gaza).

And then —- can you believe it? —- he tells the local Philistine king that Sarah is his sister!!!  WHAT?  At this point Sarah as about to conceive – or maybe already has conceived – the promised son, Isaac! Abimelech takes her into his household, and God immediately closes the wombs of all the women in his house. (I’m thinking that God maybe causes great impotence among the men of the house, for that would be sooner evident.) If this hadn’t happened, perhaps Abimelech “might” have claimed Isaac as HIS offspring. YIKES!

God appears to the king in a dream with, “YOU ARE A DEAD MAN because the woman you took is a man’s wife.”

Abimelech cries out that he is innocent, a man of integrity of heart. God agrees and tells him that He, Himself, had KEPT HIM FROM SINNING.  Sarah (she must really be tired of this) is returned to Abraham, who prays for the king, and God “opens the wombs of the women.”  But the king DOES indignantly accuse Abe for bringing that trouble on him, although he sends him away with more loot. (and a thousand pieces of silver to prove Sarah’s innocence.)

And FINALLY, after 25 years of waiting, the promised son, “He laughs” is born. Abe is 100, Sarah is 90, and Ishmael is about 14.  A couple years later when Sarah weans Isaac, she notices Ishmael mocking (teasing, tormenting) the toddler.  She says (again) that Hagar and Ishmael MUST GO AWAY.  This time God agrees with her and tells Abe to do just that.

With regret and sorrow (but with God’s promise of blessing) Abraham sends the Egyptian maid and her son away. In the wilderness, the gracious God meets her again, refreshes and encourages her, reminds her of His blessing on her son and “points her to the south-east.”  Later, she takes an EGYPTIAN wife for her son.

At the end of chapter 21, there is a skirmish between Abraham and Abimelech (possibly another king in the line) about some wells that Abe dug.  It’s settled and the king and his men go back to Philistia. The place is named Be’er Sheva (Beersheba) meaning “seven wells.”

And ALL is at peace…..