We return to the journey of Abraham and Sarah. He revives his old gag of passing off his wife as his sister. This time King Abimelech of Gerar takes a turn at the wheel. God again gets pissed at the wrong guy. He appears to Abimelech in a dream: "thou are but a dead man." Abimelech points out he didn't know Sarah is Abraham's wife and God eases up on the dead man talk but demands Sarah be returned to her husband. Because she is not property, right? Why no. Because Abraham is a prophet. He's so special that if he lies to you, it's your fault.
Abimelech confronts Abraham, who blames the people of Gerar. Obviously they would have killed him to get to his luscious 100 year old wife, who apparently has no say in who is banging her. So he had to say she is his sister. He then reveals this little nugget: Abraham and Sarah have the same dad. That's right. His wife IS his sister. WTF.
Abimelech makes it up to Abraham (he owed him, wouldn't you say?) with the return of Sarah and a gift of silver, sheep, oxen and plenty of slaves. He tells Abraham to live wherever he wants in Gerar. Abraham finds this satisfactory, and God heals Abimelech, his wife and slaves. Turns out when he heard about Abimelech screwing Sarah, he "closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech." That's right. Sterilized them all.
Sarah gives birth to Isaac, the son long promised by God, and Abraham circumcises him. How can Isaac be part of the covenant if his penis doesn't look just like God likes it? Sarah is very merry now that she can "give children suck." The day Isaac stops sucking, Abraham prepares a great feast. Yahoo! No more nursing bras!
Sarah has had enough of Hagar and tells Abraham to throw her and Ishmael out. Abraham is sad, but if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. So he gives Hagar a loaf of bread and a bit of water, and tells her to get the hell out. Recall Ishmael was 13 when he was circumcised. Now he is small enough for Hagar to carry. How does that work? It doesn't take long for the two to find themselves totally screwed, alone in the desert. God intervenes and provides water, saving them from certain death. Ishmael grows up, and his mom finds him a nice Egyptian wife.
Abimelech and Abraham form a covenant where Abraham promises not to be a lying douche again. Abraham gives the gift of some animals but puts seven ewes off to the side, which apparently is supposed to mean something to me. "And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines' land many days." Uh... ok. The end of this chapter (verses 25-34) was lost on me. Hope this isn't the key to the whole book. I'm just going to plow ahead, or I'll never get through this thing.
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