God's Friend, Abraham

The Bible starts in Genesis 12. 

Obviously it doesn’t, but here’s what I mean. Prior to Genesis 12, we are hurtling through time at break-neck speeds! Genesis 1 sends us through millions of years. Genesis 2 to 6 sends us through more than a thousand years. 6 to 11 sends us through hundreds of years. Imagine: you’re in a rocket ship advancing at a pace that keeps up with the narrative. Moving through Genesis 1, you’re a blur through space. Approaching Genesis 2 you begin to slow but you’re still zipping ahead at notable velocity. Incredible stories go by in the blink of an eye. You barely have time to make out the characters of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. In a moment you’re a thousand years ahead of them. You’re braking hard now. Your ship shakes violently as it pierces the dark clouds above the flood. It’s decelerating fast. You catch a quick glance of Noah and his family before your rocket sails past. You narrowly miss hitting the top floor of the tower of Babel as you descend and decelerate toward the surface. Then it happens: the opening of Genesis 12. 

Your ship touches down and slows to a stop at the end of a runway. There before you––no more than 20 feet away––stands a 75-year old shepherd clutching his staff. You see him through your windshield, but he doesn’t seem to notice your presence. God now invites you to exit the rocket and join him for a long walk through a barren countryside. You’re going to shadow him for the next 13 chapters or so, advancing at the pace of a man on foot. Compared to the outrageous speeds you’ve been traveling, Genesis 12 is the beginning of a whole new experience. It’s as if the Torah has been hurrying you along just to get you to this one man and his family. It’s like God’s been so excited for you to meet him and He just couldn’t wait. He couldn’t wait to introduce you to His friend, His companion, this shepherd named Abraham. 

When we first meet him, his name is Abram. Already 75 years old, Abram is very special in God’s eyes, so much so that he is called God’s friend (James 2:23). Unbelievably, he is the man whom God treated as an equal. 

Say what?! How can the Creator of the universe treat a man as His equal? 

It’s because God is a lot more humble than we might think! 

Do not hear me lifting Abraham up to God’s level. By no means! Abraham is but dust and ashes. Abraham himself wouldn’t dare do such a thing. What I am saying is, God, in a stunning act of grace and humility, bent down and treated Abraham as an equal. He humbled Himself enough to do the unthinkable: to initiate a blood covenant with a mere mortal! A blood covenant is done on level ground between equals, between committed friends. And as we follow this man Abram (soon to be Abraham) over the coming years, we find that he really is God’s friend. Allow me to make the case.

In Genesis 18, God and Abraham are walking together. They come to a mountaintop, or a cliff’s edge, and they look down at the city of Sodom. It is soon to be destroyed. And we read this: “Then the Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?’” (Genesis 18:17). 

Read it again because what a special piece of Scripture! It’s a rare glimpse into God’s private thinking. God knows that He is about to destroy Sodom, and here it’s like He says to Himself, “Shall I hide this from my friend? Friends don’t keep secrets from one another. Abraham is trustworthy. I will confide in him.” 

What ensues is a conversation for the history books. God and Abraham go back and forth in a dialogue about the city’s judgement. The discussion reveals the quality of their friendship. These are a few friends talking to each other: the Judge of all the earth alongside a bag of dust and ashes; they are walking and talking about current events as life-and-death realities hang in the balance.

This by itself is a marvel to behold: Abraham’s friendship with God is so unique. But there is more. 

In Genesis 22 we have another demonstration of friendship between them, wherein God actually says please to Abraham! Why would the Lord say please to a man? Well, perhaps because they’re friends, and friends say please to one another. 

After all, God realizes that He is asking a lot of a friend when He says to Abraham: “Please take your son, your only son whom you love––Isaac––and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there on one of the mountains that I will point out to you” (Genesis 22:2 ISV). Now note that most English translations forgo the please. This is in part because the Hebrew word na can be translated in different ways. But it is also because, at some level, it is uncomfortable to hear God say please to a man. The International Standard Version and Young’s Literal Translation translate the verse to say please, but the other translations translate the verse to say now. Their translations will read, “Take now your son, your only son...” But understand that, in Hebrew, it’s the same word. The word is na.

Na can and does mean please elsewhere in Genesis. Na is the word in Genesis 18:4 translated please when Abraham says, “Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree” (NASV). Na is the word in Genesis 12:13 again translated please when Abraham says, “Please say that you are my sister so that it may go well with me because of you...” (NASV).

Na is the word used in Genesis 22:2 when God says to his friend Abraham, “Take please your son, your only son . . . and offer him there on one of the mountains that I will show to you.” In your translation it may say now there, but understand the word can be read as please just the same. And given the circumstances, I think it’s more fitting to read it as such. 

We know how the story goes: Abraham leads his son up the mountain to offer him there. But then, God stops Abraham from doing it. Many years later Jesus provides this insight: “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). I believe that, there on Mount Moriah after the ram became a substitute for Isaac, Abraham saw what God’s Son would one day have to go through. And just like God revealed to Abraham what would happen to Sodom before it actually happened, so too God revealed to Abraham what would happen to His Son before it actually happened. 

I mean, the two of them were friends, right? And friends don’t keep secrets from one another.

Why Does Noah Curse Canaan?

Why does Noah curse his grandson Canaan? 

Canaan did not violate Noah in any way. It was Ham––Canaan’s father––who violated Noah. Therefore, wouldn’t it make more sense to curse Ham directly?

Well let’s understand what happened. The story in Genesis 9 is quite embarrassing. Imagine your family’s dirtiest laundry being aired out for all of history to see. Yikes. 

I will paraphrase what happened: The flood is over. Noah plants a vineyard and drinks its wine; he becomes drunk and lays uncovered inside his tent. His youngest son Ham sees his father naked and tells his two brothers outside . . . When Noah awakes from his drunken stupor, he discovers what Ham has done to him. Noah says Cursed be Canaan!

What did Ham do to his father?

One writer has this to say: In Leviticus 18 & 20 the use of this uncover nakedness language is used to denote sexual relations. Since Ham saw his father’s nakedness, this means he sodomized his father and then bragged about it. Or, since uncovering a man’s nakedness can refer to having sex with a man’s wife, then this means that Ham slept with his own mother while his father was passed out. 

Okay, well, maybe. But I believe we can render a better interpretation. At least, one that makes more sense to me. I heard it first from Rabbi David Fohrman. I will put it in my own words.

We have to get in Ham’s head. What is he thinking? 

Context is helpful. Let’s understand their age difference. When this thing happens in Noah’s tent, Noah is over 600 years old. We know that Ham is at least 500 years younger than Noah. (Gen. 5:32, 7:6, 11:10 establish these facts.)

Next, let’s understand how much time has passed since the flood. When this thing happens in Noah’s tent, enough time has passed that a vineyard planted by Noah has reached enough maturity to produce wine. Furthermore, Ham has by now had his fourth son, a child named Canaan. (Reference Genesis 10:6.) 

Ham naturally expects to live as long as his father has. In his mind, Ham has at least another 500 years ahead of him. And already, he sees himself as a power-player on the world’s stage, a forefather above all subsequent generations. His two brothers, Shem and Japheth, are his equals so to speak, all three being Noah’s direct descendants. Ham is 1 in 3, and by golly a third of the earth sounds good to him. 

But wait. Coming off the ark, God told Noah to be fruitful and multiply! And Ham knows that his father will be faithful to God, especially given his track record. No doubt: Noah will multiply. Having received such a clear directive, Noah will have more sons! But where will that leave Ham? 

With less and less share! 

In the end, Ham may not be 1 of 3. He may end up being 1 of 10, 15, perhaps 20! That sounds like war to him. Just the thought of it makes him feel cheated. He went through the flood with his father, after all. He helped his father build the ark, feed the animals, give up everything and trust in his father’s insistence. If Noah has more sons now, these young ones will never understand what he and his brothers had to go through. And yet, they will become equal for all intents and purposes. 

Ham makes his decision: he will act swiftly. He will strike at an opportune time. He will prevent his dad from having any more children. 

The passage in Genesis is interesting, isn’t it? It says Ham saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside . . . When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him...

What did Ham do to Noah?! This is what I think happened: Ham damaged his father’s male organ, an act so severe as to prevent Noah from having any more sons. 

This interpretation resolves a few questions. Like, for one, why does Noah stop at three sons when God clearly tells him to be fruitful and multiply? 

Secondly, we learn that Ham tells his brothers afterward. Ham doesn’t tell them beforehand because they might express hesitation; but he is not so ashamed to keep it a secret because his brothers are also benefactors! His deed has cemented their place at the top of all subsequent generations. Notice, Ham doesn’t run away from his crime like Cain did; Ham openly tells his brothers what happened. This action requires a reasoning. 

But neither brother reacts as Ham had expected. Shem and Japheth are mortified. They cover their father’s nakedness. They wonder what Noah will do when he wakes up. 

Here’s what Noah does: he curses Ham’s son Canaan. Why? 

Because Canaan is Ham’s fourth son (Genesis 10:6). Since Ham has prevented Noah from having a fourth son, Noah prevents Ham’s fourth son from flourishing. Since it was status and power that Ham was seeking after, Noah’s curse is one that diminishes the status and power of Ham’s family and lineage. It counteracts Ham’s motivation and humiliates him without end. Every time Ham thinks of his fourth son, he remembers the fourth son he kept from Noah. 

Now why doesn’t Genesis just come out and say all of this plainly? Because the Torah is handling the matter with sensitivity. The Torah is avoiding details on purpose, in a manner that is respectful to Noah. The Torah is itself covering the wound right alongside Shem and Japheth. And because the details have been covered so respectfully, what exactly happened that day will remain a mystery. 

The Old Man Noah

I’ve heard it said that the flood is, at its core, a story of identity crisis. Typically when people get to know you, they get to know you by your interests, your friends, the places you go and the things you do. But imagine Noah aboard the ark. Those demarcations of identity cease to exist. His entire world has been swept away. He has to make sense of himself without so much as a hobby or a hometown.

To relate this to modern times, it would be like suddenly finding yourself in a world without sports, restaurants, pop culture. Apple computers? No such thing. Nike shoes? No such thing. Hollywood? No such thing. Starbucks?––what is coffee? The Superbowl?––none of your grandkids have heard of it. 

Alive without context, who are you? 

Noah is battling sea sickness and asking himself this very question. He is forced to understand himself as God sees him. The surrounding culture has been stripped away. What remains––his character, his family, his faithfulness––constitutes his identity before the Lord.

Identity remains an issue even after the flood. Coming off the ark and starting again, Noah is an old man in a new world. The next-to-oldest male is 500 years younger. Outside his immediate family, every other person in the world is at least 600 years younger than he is. 

Without male contemporaries of similar age and experience, he certainly feels lonely! He misses the company of an older person. No matter how much he appreciates God’s deliverance and watching his sons have children of their own, in certain respects his heart remains on the other side of the flood. He spent the majority of his life there, after all.

I have to relate this to Job. Job also lost his whole world in a storm. (Job 38:1 literally refers to Job’s experience as a storm.) Job had an identity crisis of his own. (Job lost his kids, whereas Noah did not. But Noah lost his friends, whereas Job did not. They both weathered the storm with their wives.) What we see in the story of Job is that, even after all things are restored to Job (Job 42:10), God never takes away the pain of his loss. Job still has to grieve his previous life. We read that “the Lord blesses the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part” (Job 42:12) and that Job goes on to have “seven sons and three daughters” (Job 42:13). Nevertheless, Job never forgets the children he had at first, those who died when a storm killed them (Job 1:18-19). Job remembers them and longs for their presence even after God blesses him in the latter part of his life. And so, too, Noah’s heart breaks when remembers his former life. I can’t help but think a large portion of him died right along with the others.

The Torah does an interesting thing with Noah. It groups him with his fathers, as if to suggest Noah belongs to the old world more than the new one. To see this, we have to set two lineages side by side. First look at Shem’s lineage in Genesis 10. These people represent “the new humanity,” those living after the flood.

Now that you have a sense for how it reads, compare the language to Seth’s lineage back in Genesis 5. You’ll notice the rhythm is totally different. Genesis 5 tells of those living before the flood:

Now look at Noah. Specifically, look at the two verses that bookend his life (Genesis 5:32 & 9:28-29). Bringing those bookends together, we read:

After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth . . . After the flood Noah lived 350 years. Noah lived a total of 950 years, and then he died. 

Do you recognize the language? This is the language of Seth’s lineage! It follows right along with the repetitious nature of Genesis 5. Pulling out the middle plot points, we find that Noah’s life is encapsulated by language resembling those who came before. 

Why? 

Because Noah is of the old world. Unlike his sons, he belongs to the past. All the future will come through him, yes, but most of his life experience remains on the other side of the flood. Unlike his sons, he will, in large part, remain a foreigner in this new world. 

From an early age, his sons grew up expecting a new beginning. Their short time in the old world was spent preparing for the new one. Their minds were always looking forward. But Noah? He spent 600 years in the old world! And for much of his life, he knew nothing of a flood! For at least five centuries, the old world was the only world as far as Noah was concerned. So naturally, Noah is attached to the older generations more than the newer. The old man Noah belongs with his fathers on the other side of the flood, and so the Torah, poetically, uses language that attaches him to the lineage of Adam and Seth. But his kids, living most their life after the flood, go on to populate a new world, knowing a rhythm different than that of Noah and his fathers.

Why a Flood?

In Genesis 7 we read about humanity’s big reboot––the flood. But a question arises: of all the ways God could restart the world, why would God choose to use water?

The secret is revealed in Numbers 31. Not only does it explain the water of the flood, but it also explains why earth’s final cleansing will come by fire.

In Numbers 31:21-23, we read: Then Eleazar the priest said to the men in the army who had gone to battle: “This is the statute of the law that the LORD has commanded Moses: only the gold, the silver, the bronze, the iron, the tin, and the lead, everything that can stand the fire, you shall pass through the fire, and it shall be clean. Nevertheless, it shall also be purified with the water for impurity. And anything that cannot withstand the fire, you shall pass through the water.

The context of this passage is important. The Israelites have returned from battle, victorious. In their victory, they have come to possess vessels of precious metal, gold, silver, etc. But, as they start to bring these vessels back into the camp, the priest Eleazar basically stands his hand. “Stop! God told Moses these items must be purified before they enter the camp! If the item can withstand fire, purify the item with fire. If the item cannot withstand fire, then purify the item with water. Understand?”

Cool, right? But irrelevant to you and I today. 

Then wait: when you start thinking about the fire, the water, the purification... you begin to realize that what applies to a vessel taken from the battlefield must also apply to the planet. After all, the planet is a vessel taken from the battlefield.  

Let’s consider these verses:

• Matthew 3:11 (NIV)––“I baptize [your body] with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

• Hebrews 10:22 (NIV)––Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

• 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 (NIV)––[Your foundation] will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

• 2 Peter 3:7 (NIV)––But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

• 1 Peter 1:7 (NIV)––These trials have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

So then, if the vessel is something that can endure fire (i.e., it’s something spiritual), then it is to be cleansed with fire. If it is something that cannot endure fire (i.e., it’s something physical), then it is to be cleansed with water. 

We apply this principle to God’s first and second judgment, a judgement that comes by water first and fire second. The flood was meant to cleanse the world of sinful people. The final judgment is meant to cleanse God’s people of a sinful world.

So why a flood? 

Because the first was a physical purification, therefore the cleansing comes by water. 
The second will be a spiritual purification, so the cleansing will come by fire.

It is Numbers 31. God does not tell His people to do differently than He would do. 

Sarah Lived 127 Years

Genesis 23 probably starts this way in your English translation: “Sarah lived 127 years; these were the years of the life of Sarah.” But note, this is not how every Torah scroll in the world reads. What the translators have changed is how the Hebrew conveys Sarah’s age. The Hebrew in verse 1 more accurately reads, “And the life of Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years; these were the years of the life of Sarah.”

It’s as though the life of Sarah is being divided up into distinct periods of time. The rabbis offer a beautiful reason for this. They say it is because Sarah had the wisdom of a 100 year old woman, the heart of a seven year old girl, and the beauty of a 20 year old young lady. At least, in Abraham’s eyes. Having withdrawn from the public Abraham mourns her passing, and I can imagine sitting next to him and asking something like, “How old was Sarah? Wasn’t she 127?” And thinking of her, he’d say after a moment, “She was a hundred. She was seven. She was twenty.” 

I love this thought so much. I’d be content to leave it here, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how some have extracted from Sarah’s lifespan an intriguing mathematical connection that does not seem to be happenstance.

As they point out, Sarah is the great matriarch of the Jewish nation. She ties together the three patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now watch how her lifespan shows up when you rub together the lives of the patriarchs. 

Abraham lived to 175.     (175 = 5² x 7)
Isaac lived to 180.            (180 = 6² x 5)
Jacob lived to 147.           (147 = 7² x 3)

A pattern emerges when we dissect the age of the patriarchs. We have a perfect square in sequential order multiplied by odd numbers in a descending pattern. In each case, the sum of the factors is 17, as shown here:

Abraham:    175 = 5 x 5 x 7.    (5 + 5 + 7 = 17)
Isaac:           180 = 6 x 6 x 5.    (6 + 6 + 5 = 17)
Jacob:          147 = 7 x 7 x 3.    (7 + 7 + 3 = 17)

Sarah lived to 127 years. 127 is the sum of these square numbers plus 17.

In other words, 5² + 6² + 7² + 17 = 127!

Math nerds everywhere are freaking out at this point, especially if they just finished their coffee.