Treasury of Bible Stories Page 3
Forty days of rain, 150 days of bobbing under a clear sky, two months of land slowly drying—Noah’s family and all those animals waited and wondered. Then they emerged to a clean earth under a rainbow of promise.
It was time, again, to be fruitful and multiply.
But first Noah had a task; now he understood why the Lord had made him bring extra pairs of the ritually pure animals. Noah built an altar and sacrificed those pure beasts and fowl to the Lord. The Lord smelled that delectable aroma and vowed never again to bring such destruction. From thence forward, days and nights would follow one another as the orderly God had planned on Day One. The Lord promised that the sun and moon would always mark the passing of weeks, months, seasons, years—a reliable pattern—just as the orderly God had planned on Night Four, Day Four.
The earth would feed the people, just as God had planned.
But other food was needed, too. Flesh. Death was an omnipresent reality now. Humans had brought it upon themselves. They would kill animals and eat them. A gruesome reality. The Lord side accepted this reality because humans were weak—the Lord had always known that.
But what about the God side? God looked anew at everything and finally understood the human condition. The Lord was right. God told Noah that he and his kind could eat the flesh of clean beasts and fowl, so long as their blood was first spilled on the earth; the life force in blood should return to the earth, from whence it had come.
God made the same covenant with humans that the Lord had made. Never again would God wreak such destruction. As a sign of this promise, God pulled back the string of the divine bow and shot into the heavens.
Colors dazzled everyone.
There would be cloudy days ahead, for humans would transgress and God would be disappointed. But the sun would shine through and God would curb divine righteous anger. That rainbow would forever be a reminder to God to keep the promise not to destroy humanity.
The two sides of the divine found a common peace.
RAINBOWS
Rainbows consist of raindrops and sunlight. As light enters a droplet, it is bent. Inside, the curved, mirrorlike sides of the droplet reflect the light. As the light emerges, it is bent again. This makes the curve of a rainbow, which would be a full circle if the surface of the earth didn’t get in the way. Sunlight is made up of all colors. But different colors bend different amounts of light, so the colors split, making the rainbow a range of all colors. You will always view rainbows with sunlight behind you and rain ahead.
The descendants of Noah grew to be so many that they had to leave the mountains and settle in the new country of Shinar. They got to work building a city from bricks they baked hard as stone.
THE TOWER OF BABEL
Noah’s line begot generation after generation. Soon the mountain range was ajumble with people cooking and singing and working together as storytellers regaled them with tales of the past. And what a past it was! They shivered at the thought. After each rainfall they ran outside to scan the sky, and sighed in relief when the rainbow arched there. The Lord was keeping the covenant. They trusted in that. No more floods would come—no more purges of humanity. Still, they would do nothing to alarm the Lord. They were ever aware that cooperation was their strength. Never again would they fall into evil ways that might tempt the Lord to act against them.
After 10 generations had passed, the descendants of Noah had grown so populous that the mountains did not offer a place where all of them could gather easily. That was cause for concern; a scattered people could never be as strong as a united people. So they traveled from the east, from the old country, to a valley in the land of Shinar. Rich, black land stretched out in a flat plain between two rivers. What a fine place to settle.
“Come on!” they said to one another. “Let’s bake bricks! Let’s burn them hard.” And so they baked bricks white and hard as stone.
“Come on!” they said again. “Let’s build a city with a tower whose head is in the heavens.” Ha! That would be a way to make a name for themselves, a united identity as a settled people, so they should never scatter in the future, so they should grow stronger and stronger.
HUMAN LANGUAGES
At least 100,000 years ago, Homo sapiens, the species that modern humans belong to, developed speech. However, they were gesturing to each other probably another 100,000 years earlier. Perhaps the gestures of early Homo sapiens were organized enough to be considered language. When these humans broke into communities and moved far away from one another, their language changed. (Languages always change through contact with other languages, through social differences, and through natural processes in usage.) Today there are around 7,000 spoken languages and more (perhaps many more) than 200 sign languages.
Because the people shared a language, they could cooperate on making a tower tall enough to reach the heavens. The Lord worried: What might these humans try next?
That’s exactly what they set about doing.
The Lord came down and walked through the area, looking at the homes and meeting halls already built and at those in mid-construction. The Lord circled the looming tower. And the Lord realized that this ability of humankind to work together made them a formidable force. Indeed, if they set their minds to it, they could accomplish anything now.
That thought was unsettling. Humans were unpredictable. Undisciplined. Unwise. Their power needed to be checked.
How had humans come to this point?
When the people woke and found they all had different languages, they couldn’t work together anymore. Dumbfounded, they gathered their belongings and left, scattering across the lands.
Language! Just look at them. Look at their hands, at their faces, at their lips. They talked to one another easily. Why, they chattered, sharing their hopes and fears, making elaborate plans. Language allowed them to understand each other—to empathize. Language allowed them to organize and act as one. Language was the dangerous power.
“Come on!” said the Lord. “Let’s go down and baffle them. Let’s give them each a different way of expressing themselves, so they can’t understand each other.”
Who was the Lord calling to? Perhaps the God side of the divine? Another question that may remain unanswered.
And so the Lord changed that most fundamental of human powers: language.
The humans woke and turned to one another for conversation, just as on past days. No. It was not to be. They understood one another partially or not at all. They couldn’t tell jokes, they couldn’t complain, they couldn’t find joy and solace in each other. They were unable to help one another.
Confounded and bewildered, they left off building that city and that tower. They scattered over the earth, though they knew in their hearts that scattering only weakened them. What choice did they have? The binding power of language was lost.
They called the city that they left behind Babylon, for it was a source of confusion—balal.
What had happened? Why why why?
Humans had so much wanted to fuse, to make a unity that felt desirable to them. But it wasn’t to be. Humans were meant to be fruitful and multiply and inhabit this whole wonderful world. Just as Adam and Eve had to leave Eden and find their own ways, create their own stories, so the descendants of Noah had to leave Babylon and give us the stories that follow.
Abram and his wife Sarai moved to the land of Canaan, with all their animals and workers, and with Abram’s nephew Lot and all his animals and workers. But the land couldn’t hold them all, so Lot continued on to the fertile land in the plain of the River Jordan.
ABRAM AND LOT, SARAI AND HAGAR
The next 10 generations of Noah made large families in order to fill the earth. In that 10th generation was Abram, who took Sarai as his wife, but she gave him no children. An ache lodged in Abram’s heart. But Abram loved his beautiful Sarai and contented himself with the idea that his orphaned nephew Lot might serve as heir.
When Abram was 75, the Lord told him to leave his land, his birthpl
ace, his father’s home. The Lord would bless him and show him a new home. Abram gathered Sarai and Lot, and left, along with sheep, cattle, donkeys, camels, tents, servants. Lot had amassed wealth, which meant the entourage was impressive, indeed. When they arrived in Canaan, the Lord told Abram this was his land.
That land served Abram for years, though at one point there was famine, and all had to sojourn in Egypt. But they soon returned to Canaan, along with Hagar, an Egyptian handmaid for Sarai.
After a while, Abram’s herdsmen argued with Lot’s herdsmen, saying the land could not support them all. Lot stayed silent; so Abram had to find a resolution.
Abram suggested they move to different lands. “If you go left, I’ll go right. If you go right, I’ll go left.”
Lot eyed the plain of the River Jordan. Well-watered, green, and lush. As fertile as Egypt. As Eden, even! Lot took his servants and animals and moved. He pitched his tent leaning toward the nearby city of Sodom, though he knew that city was corrupt. The fertile land was too good to pass up. Lot made a family there.
Abram stayed behind in Canaan. The Lord gave him all the land he could see to fill with family. “It will be as hard to count your offspring as to count the dust of the earth.”
Abram listened, baffled. He and Sarai were old. What offspring?
Soon a man arrived and called Abram a Hebrew—a word that marked him as an immigrant. The man told Abram that over in the River Jordan’s plain his nephew Lot had trouble. The neighboring cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were at war with other kingdoms. These city people lived lawless, robbing one another. They couldn’t unite, and now the armies of four kings had raided them—taking prisoners, among them Lot. Abram and his workers quickly rallied and rescued the hapless prisoners.
Life went back to how it had been—with Lot and his wife and now several daughters living near Sodom, and Abram and Sarai living in Canaan.
The Lord came again to Abram with talk about his future family, who would have a difficult time for hundreds of years, but then would prevail. The Lord told Abram, “It will be as hard to count your offspring as to count the stars.”
This talk made no sense to Abram.
Then, to top it off, Sarai came to Abram, longing for a child. She had a plan. If only Abram would have a child with Sarai’s handmaid Hagar, Sarai could act as mother to the child, with the status of a mother with a son.
How could such a plan work out? Yet Abram would try.
Hagar became pregnant. Instantly, the handmaid felt superior to her mistress. Sarai couldn’t bear being looked down on, so she harassed Hagar. Hagar fled. A task messenger of the Lord—an angel—found Hagar by a desert spring and told her to return, for Hagar would bear a son named Ishmael. The name meant that the divine would always hear the boy. Hagar returned, and gave birth to Ishmael.
LARGE FAMILIES
The need to multiply and inhabit the earth recurs in these ancient stories, where being barren resulted in personal sadness and more: true hardship. God’s first blessing to the first man and woman was “Be fruitful and multiply.” The generations to come were to take care of the earth, in reverence and respect for all that had been created. These were times of high death rates, due to injuries and disease. Large families were the foundation for having the workforce to do the essential farming for the community and to stand firm against enemies.
When Abram was 99, God renamed him Abraham. The addition of that letter h added the breath of God. Sarai was renamed Sarah, so God’s breath was within her, too. Then God commanded that Abraham circumcise himself and all his herdsmen as a sign of their covenant to trust God forever.
God told Abraham that he and Sarah would have a son of their own. Abraham fell down laughing. He was nearly 100. Sarah was 90. He said to God, “If only Ishmael could be the one you favor.”
God assured Abraham that Ishmael would have a wonderful future. But Abraham’s son with Sarah was the one that God’s covenant was with. That son would be called Isaac—laughter. Abraham thought of how he’d laughed at God’s promise. Still, loyal Abraham did as God asked.
Sodom was a place where people lost their ability to tell what was right from what was not. The Lord set it afire. Lot and his wife and two daughters were told to flee and not look back. But Lot’s wife erred; she looked back and turned to salt.
Soon three men appeared to Abraham as he sat in the shade near his tent entrance on a hot day. Abraham knew these men were the Lord. He brought them water to bathe their feet. He called to Sarah to make bread. He chose a fat calf to roast. He feted the men on bread, roast, milk, and curds. They promised he’d have a son with Sarah. Old Sarah listened from the tent and laughed in disbelief.
Then the three men, who were, in fact, the Lord, told Abraham that Sodom and Gomorrah were said to be pits of violence. The Lord prepared to send task messengers ahead to make sure this outcry was true before destroying both cities.
Abraham’s chest went cold; his nephew Lot’s family lived there. “Shall not the judge of all deal justly? What if there are fifty innocent people there? Would you destroy the place?”
“If there are fifty innocent, I will not destroy the place.”
“What about forty-five?” When the Lord said no, Abraham asked, “What about forty?” They negotiated in this way down to 10. If the task messengers found even 10 innocent people, the cities would not be destroyed.
When the Lord sent two task messengers to Sodom, they came across Lot sitting at the city gate. Lot graciously fed these visitors, just as Abraham had done when the Lord visited him. Soon Sodomites surrounded the house—all thugs who demanded these visitors come out. Lot trembled. In panic, he offered his two unmarried daughters to the crowd if they’d leave the visitors in peace. An abomination of an offer. Perhaps Lot had lived too long near those violent people.
The task messengers shot out a brilliant flash that blinded the thugs, so they could not find their way into Lot’s home. They told Lot to leave immediately. Lot ran to his married daughters in town and begged them to flee. His sons-in-law thought this was a joke; they refused.
The task messengers urged Lot to flee and not look back. Lot and his wife and two unmarried daughters fled.
The area behind them filled with brimstone, fire, and smoke, as terrifying as the flood Noah’s family had endured. The noise was deafening; the heat, stifling. Lot’s wife, ah, the poor woman made the mistake of looking back. She’d been raised in Sodom—she had no practice obeying the Lord. One glance, and she transformed into a pillar of salt, a monument of dried tears.
Hagar, the handmaid of Sarah, was lost in the wilderness with her son Ishmael, Abraham’s first son. They were near death from lack of water. But when Ishmael cried out, God heard him. A well appeared, and Hagar and Ishmael drew water from the well in a skin bag and survived.
ABRAHAM, ISHMAEL, ISAAC
Sarah, agog at her own aged body, gave birth to Isaac. When the child was weaned, Abraham threw a feast.
At the feast, Sarah saw Ishmael laughing. Ishmael could have been laughing for many reasons. But Sarah still smarted at how Hagar had acted haughty toward her years before; she was primed to take offense at Hagar’s son Ishmael. She told Abraham to cast out Ishmael—just as Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden.
Ishmael was Abraham’s firstborn. How could he do this?
But God told Abraham to obey Sarah, for Ishmael, too, would have a grand future.
Abraham rose early to shoulder the burden of casting out Ishmael. He found bread. He filled a skin bag with water. He gave these to Hagar. He clumped slowly, like a man in the most horrible of dreams. He told the woman to leave with her son—his son.
Hagar and Ishmael wandered outside town into the wilderness of Beersheba. The sun scorched the earth. They drank the water, but it barely helped. Soon it was gone. They were doomed. Hagar left Ishmael under a bush and sat a bowshot distance away, so she would not see her son die. And though she was dry as a bone, she wept.
Ishmael, too, cried out.
That was the saving grace. His name assured that the divine would always hear him. God’s task messengers told Hagar not to fear. God opened Hagar’s eyes. There before her was a well. Hagar filled the skin bag and Ishmael drank. God watched over him as he grew into a man, a fine bowman, who lived in the wilderness with his mother and, eventually, with his wife, who, like his mother, was Egyptian.
But casting out Ishmael—being loyal to God even in such a harsh deed—wasn’t the end of Abraham’s suffering. God now called, “Abraham.”
“Here I am.”
“Go. Take your son…”
I have two sons, thought Abraham.
“…your only son…”
Each is the only son to his mother, thought Abraham.
“…the one you love…”
I love them both, thought Abraham.
“Isaac. Take him to a mountain peak. Sacrifice him as a burnt offering to me.”
Abraham had always done everything God asked. He would shoulder this burden, too, hideous though it was. He rose early. He saddled his donkey. He fetched two servant boys. He got Isaac. He split wood for the burnt offering. Clump, clump, clump, through this slow dreadful dream. They walked three days till God said they had arrived. Abraham told the servant boys to wait with the donkey. He put the wood on Isaac’s shoulder and he carried fire and the cleaver. The two of them walked as one, up the mountain.