Abraham and Sarah

by Roberta Kells Dorr

  “He said that if I don’t give her back, I’m doomed to death along with all my household.”

  Immediately there was a great uproar. No one could hear himself, let alone anyone else. Each man had an opinion of what the king should do. Some were ready to see Abraham punished; others wanted Sarah humiliated and driven from the court. One man gained the floor and in a loud voice demanded silence. “It’s obvious,” he said, “that this Abraham and his wife are somehow favored and protected by the gods. Whatever is done, these two must not be harmed.”

  With this wise advice ringing in his ears, the king called Abraham to the palace to demand an explanation.

  “Why have you done this vile thing to me? What have I done to deserve this? How could you even have thought of such a thing?” the king demanded.

  Abraham was embarrassed and ashamed. “Well,” he stammered, “I assumed I was in a godless place. I thought you might be like those strong men who will kill a man if they want his wife. Sarah is my half sister, and we’ve agreed to call each other brother and sister lest we run into some trouble in foreign countries.”

  Abimelech for the first time saw his friend as a man without a country. He saw that he had great wealth and knowledge but no strong protection other than this God he worshiped. This God was different from most gods. He was evidently ready to go to a great deal of trouble to help Abraham. He determined to ask Abraham more about his God.

  He called his chief steward, “Bring my friend sheep and oxen and add servants, both men and women. When that is done, go to the court of the women and bring his wife and give her to him.”

  When Sarah was brought into the long hall, she was apprehensive. She had been told only that the king had called for her. When she saw Abraham before the king’s throne, she expected the worst. With a great effort she stifled the impulse to run to Abraham. To her surprise she heard the king say to Abraham, “Look over my kingdom and choose any place you want to live.”

  Then he motioned for her to come forward. “See, I’m giving your brother a thousand silver pieces to compensate for any damage or embarrassment. I want this matter settled between us.”

  Though Sarah didn’t understand what was happening, she knew enough to realize that her ordeal in the king’s harem was over, and she could go home with Abraham. She bowed down to the ground. The king came and raised her to her feet and handed her to Abraham. “Now,” he said, “justice has been done.”

  Abraham thanked him and offered to pray that the king’s household would be cured of the curse of barrenness that had come upon them. The king promptly ordered his family and the whole court present to kneel, and then he knelt before Abraham. In the custom of the country, Abraham loosened his girdle, lifted the short kirtle or ephod he wore over his robe, and placed it over the head of the king. Then with one hand on the king’s head and the other raised, he prayed a simple prayer asking that the king and his people be cured.

  News of Sarah’s miraculous release reached the house of Abraham long before he returned home. The wife and children of Eliazer led the servants and slaves with their children in a rousing welcome. Drums, reed pipes, and joyous yodels echoed up and down the street, spilled over the wall around the house and off the roof. When Sarah arrived, the women led her into the receiving room, all the time begging her to tell them everything about the king’s palace. Sarah was tired and exhausted. “Where are Ishmael and Hagar?” she asked, looking around the room.

  “They are back in their tent beside the brook of Besor,” one of them said.

  The thought flashed through Sarah’s mind that Abraham had put them there on purpose. He didn’t want the king to see Hagar, lest he take her too. Thinking of his concern for her handmaiden bothered her.

  Later when she was alone with Abraham she begged him to take her back to their tent in the desert. “I’ve had enough of city life and palaces,” she said.

  When they arrived back at their tent, a surprise was waiting for them. Hagar came out to meet them with news of Lot. “He’s come back with his daughters,” she said.

  “He’s alive?” Abraham was overjoyed and ready to welcome him immediately.

  “There’s something different about him,” she said.

  “How different? What do you mean?” Abraham searched her face, trying to catch some hint of meaning.

  Hagar shrugged and looked down as the toe of her doeskin sandal nervously dug in the sand. “Lot has grown old and his daughters are quarrelsome and jealous. They’re both pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?” Abraham was surprised. “They must have gotten married after all.”

  “No, my lord,” Hagar said as she hesitated and then turned away, giving the impression that she didn’t want to answer more questions. Abraham noticed. He decided that whatever was embarrassing about their situation he would hear later. For now he intended to rejoice in Sarah’s return.

  With the weight of fear for Sarah’s safety lifted, Abraham was jubilant. Sarah noticed the lilt in his voice and the sparkle in his eye, and she was satisfied that Hagar had not taken her place after all. Perhaps tonight, she thought, if I’m favored by the Elohim, Laughter will be conceived. She loved calling him Laughter. To already have a name made it seem much more likely that a child would be born.

  With her rescue from the court of Abimelech still fresh in her mind and the news that the Elohim had stricken the court with barrenness, her faith in the impossible had grown. Had there not been men who turned out to be angels and had she not been told, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

  She dismissed her maids and set a pot of incense burning. She pulled back the tent flaps, letting the full moon cast a soft radiance over the jars, chests, and cushions. She reached up and took down the brass mirror from the tent pole. “I don’t feel old,” she thought, “and I don’t really look old by moonlight.”

  Like a young bride, she held her robe over the spiraling smoke from the incense. When it was permeated, she bent over the pot, holding fistfuls of her hair to catch the heady fragrance.

  She could hear Abraham talking to his men on the other side of the tent. He spoke with such authority and dignity that men, important men, looked up to him and respected him and kings vied for his attention. She was amused and impressed by his serious demeanor, sharp wit, and austere bearing when he was with them. “But with me he is gentle and loving,” she whispered in secret delight.

  She leaned back on her heels and let her hair fall loose around her shoulders. At least until Hagar came he had loved only her. Now she had the recurring fear that Hagar might hold some special place in his heart. Hagar had given him a son and that made all the difference. “Dear God,” she prayed, “let this be the night I finally conceive.”

  Abraham was able to forget Lot for a night, but the next day he was confronted by the problem. “Lot is too embarrassed to come to you,” one of the servants reported.

  “Is he well? Where’s he been? I must see him immediately,” Abraham spoke in clipped phrases, showing his frustration.

  “My lord,” the man said, growing fearful, “he’s outside the camp with his daughters.”

  “Where are his servants, his tents, and his flocks?”

  “My lord,” the servant grew nervous, “he seems to have lost everything. Even his clothes are worn and ragged.”

  Abraham could not imagine Lot in such a state. Lot, the man who had always been so proud and even arrogant. The man who dressed in the finest linen, had his beard trimmed, tinted, and perfumed every day, and boasted of his adherence to fine manners. “Show me where he is. It’s enough that he’s alive. I feared that I would never see him again.”

  Abraham followed the servant through the camp, out to the tents of the shepherds. There, sitting outside one of the tents, was a man who looked faintly familiar. Abraham stopped and stared. It was indeed Lot. He was sitting hunched in an attitude of dejection. His clothes were threadbare, his feet shod with a country man’s sandals made of woven reeds. His hair was long and matted
.

  Abraham hesitated. He didn’t want to shame Lot in any way. It was obvious that Lot had been left with nothing. “Lot,” Abraham said as he came forward.

  Lot looked up, startled. He squinted into the sun. His mouth fell open. Instead of getting to his feet and swaggering forward to embrace his uncle as he would have done in the past, he fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands. “My uncle,” he said, “for my daughters’ sakes, have mercy.”

  Abraham reached down and lifted him to his feet. “Thanks to our God, you are safe. I was afraid I would never see you again.”

  “How can you say, ‘Thanks to our God’? Your God brought about all this destruction. It’s mere chance that I escaped.”

  “Not chance, Lot. All Sodom would have been spared if there had been ten righteous people in the city.”

  “How do you know this? Who told you this?”

  “The Elohim, he told me. He said, ‘Shall I not tell my friend Abraham this thing that I do?’”

  “So then it was set. Fate decreed it; it was hopeless from the beginning.”

  Abraham sadly shook his head. “No, Lot, not hopeless. I bargained with him. He agreed to spare Sodom if he could find even ten righteous people. In the end your family was the only one rescued.”

  Lot was speechless. He studied his uncle, looking for some wavering in his conviction. When he found none, he began to sputter. “It would have been better for me had I died in Sodom,” he blubbered. “I have nothing. I’ve lost everything.”

  “No, no,” Abraham protested. “It’s easy to replace things but impossible to replace family. Come, have something to eat. Let us get some clothes for you, and then I’ll hear your story.”

  It was late in the day before Abraham was finally free to hear Lot’s story. Lot asked to bring his daughters and speak with his uncle alone. Though he was now well dressed and had been fed, he had not lost his demeanor of defeat. He sank down on the cushion opposite his uncle and motioned for his daughters to sit off to one side. “My uncle,” he said, “I’m grateful for your kindness. You may regret it when you’ve heard my story.”

  “I know much of your story already. It’s tragic.”

  “Most of the tragedy we brought on ourselves.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Mara died, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know. How?”

  “It was her fault. The visitors told us to hurry and not look back. Mara was outside the city when she thought of a carnelian necklace she loved. She insisted on going back. I couldn’t stop her. She didn’t even reach the city before she was killed, covered with burning ash.”

  “But you and your daughters escaped.”

  “We barely escaped. We first went to a small town and then hid in a cave. We thought we were like Noah, the only ones left alive. That’s why my daughters …”

  Lot couldn’t finish the sentence. He hung his head in embarrassment. His daughters looked at each other and finally the elder spoke. “You must understand, we thought we were the last people alive. Our fiancés would not come with us. They were lost with Sodom.”

  After a slight pause she went on. “It seemed important to keep life on earth alive.” She was at a loss for words. She looked at the younger sister who hesitated only a moment and then spoke in a voice so low it was hard for Abraham to hear. “We lay with our own father so we might have children,” she said.

  “You what!” Abraham was puzzled, then astounded.

  “We made him drunk, then lay with him to have children. Is that so wrong?”

  Lot wiped the perspiration from his brow and shifted uneasily. “Wrong? Of course, it’s wrong,” he said. “Even if they thought it was their only chance to have children, it was wrong. You see how Sodom has changed us.”

  For the first time Abraham understood why ten righteous persons could not be found in all of Sodom. Everyone, even his nephew, was tainted. However, he saw the suffering involved and judged they had been punished enough. “I don’t condone what has happened,” he said finally, “but we are your family and you can depend on us.”

  Lot broke down and wept. His two daughters gratefully accepted the help Abraham offered and began to relax.

  A week later, after Lot had recovered sufficiently, he was heard complaining, “We all know, if it hadn’t been for the promises my uncle kept talking about, I wouldn’t have been here. It’s really my uncle’s fault. And to think, none of his promises have ever come true.”

  Three months passed before Sarah was sure she was pregnant. She immediately wanted everyone to know. To her surprise, people looked at her with either pity or disbelief. Some were scornful that she should even imagine such a thing. “Never mind,” she said, “you’ll see.”

  As the months passed it was true that she had all the signs of being pregnant. Her stomach grew large like a ripe melon, and her breasts filled out until they looked like a young girl’s. Most of all, she began to openly resent Hagar. “Hagar was a mistake,” she told Abraham one evening. “If I had just waited.”

  “But you didn’t, and now we are responsible for Hagar. We have a young boy who loves us as his parents.”

  Sarah tossed her head and her mouth stiffened. “We no longer need her. Once I have my own son she can have Ishmael back.”

  “Have Ishmael back?” Abraham said. “What are you suggesting? He’s my son and I love him.”

  “He’s not really a true son, Abraham. My son will be the son of the promise.”

  “Sarah, Sarah, what terrible things are you thinking?”

  “It seems very simple to me. Before I found I could have a child, I needed her. Ishmael seemed the only son I could have. Now everything is different.”

  Abraham was astounded by her reasoning. He loved Ishmael. Ishmael was a bright boy who thrived outdoors. He remembered how the Elohim had told him that Sarah would bear a son, and it was this son by which his seed would be called and nations blessed. He struggled to remember what had been said about Ishmael. No word of covenant was mentioned, but blessings were promised and the statement was made that he would bear twelve princes.

  Abraham pondered over the word princes. It was true that if Ishmael were in Egypt, he would be a prince. Pharaoh was his grandfather. “How strange,” Abraham thought, “he shall be the father of princes.”

  There was also a sense in which he was a son of the covenant because Ishmael had been circumcised.

  For the first time Abraham realized that with the birth of Sarah’s child there could be conflict. He would have to be strong. He must not let Hagar or Ishmael be hurt.

  The time passed quickly. Sarah gloried in every aspect of her pregnancy. She could talk of nothing else. When she first felt movement, she held both hands over her rounded stomach and waited. When she felt again the forceful push, she laughed. It was real. She was not mistaken. She was really going to be a mother, even at her age.

  When the days became hot and the women came to wring out cloths in cool water to place on her head and wrists, she laughed. When she was too big and clumsy to grind the grain for her sweet cakes, she laughed. When her clothes no longer fit, she laughed. Everything was a delight. Nothing was burdensome or hard. To carry a child was infinitely wonderful, and Sarah intended to enjoy every minute of it.

  “Wait until she comes to the birthing stool,” the women whispered among themselves. “She won’t laugh then. She won’t think it is such a wonderful thing.”

  They were wrong. Sarah bore the hours of trauma and pain without complaint, because even they were part of her need and desire. When the small red screaming bundle was at last held up for her to see, she reached out for him. “How beautiful he is!” she cried.

  As people gathered around to see the child, they asked what he was to be called. Abraham stepped forward and took the child in his arms. They all became silent, watching him, noting the look of wonder and joy on his face. “Isaac, Laughter, he is to be called Isaac,” Abraham said.

  Sarah looked up at
Abraham with tears in her eyes as she said, “The Elohim has kept his promise and brought me laughter. Everyone who hears of this will laugh and rejoice with me. How impossible it seemed that I should give my husband a son in his old age.”

  That night as Abraham walked out under the stars, he felt new excitement. Sarah was a mother at last. The old curse of Ningal was broken, which proved the Elohim was stronger than the earth goddess. To promise a young virgin a child was simple, but to give a woman well past the age of childbearing a child was an astonishing miracle.

  Sarah didn’t complain when Abraham and the men of the tribe came to circumcise Isaac when he was only eight days old. “If the Elohim has seen fit to give me a child,” she said, “surely I can trust him to protect him. He is a strong child.”

  Abraham reached down to take him from her arms, and for a moment she clung to him. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, “there will be many mothers after you who will cringe at such a thing. Let it be known that you were strong and trusted the Elohim.”

  Sarah let him go but hurried after Abraham to the tent door where she stood and wept until she heard the cry that told her the worst was over. When Isaac was brought back to her, she studied his little face for any sign of pain. When there was none, she laughed and put him to her swollen breast as a reward for bravery.

  From the very first, Sarah began to shut Ishmael out. She wouldn’t let him hold the baby, and she grew impatient when he wanted to show her an unusual rock formation or tell her of some adventure. In the past she had taken great pains to listen and encourage him, but now she was always too busy. Worst of all, she finally told him in a moment of impatience that she was not his mother.

  “Hagar, the Egyptian, is your mother,” she said and didn’t notice the hurt and shock evident in Ishmael’s face. He backed away and went out of the tent to hunker down in the crevasse of a great rock. He brooded and pondered and finally hated the child who had come to take his place.