In this chapter, the troubled wife Sarah passes away and Abraham weeps. She was his favourite piece of property and she even eventually gave him a son. He negotiates with the very kind and loving people of Canaan to eventually pay for a tomb (instead of taking charity from these despicable people). It's important that Abraham doesn't owe these people anything.

In this chapter, God surprises Abraham by telling him to kill the child. The true shock is that in the previous chapter God said that Isaac was the one his countless descendants would come from, but now this?! There's a strong argument to be made that this wasn't an emotional moment at all due to interpersonal relationships, but because Abraham was losing his main heir (having just sent his other one to die in the desert). But, once again, God slides in right after the victim gets PTSD and stops the event from happening. Abraham has proved himself (God isn't all-knowing), so God provides a ram to step in as a completely and utterly arbitrary placeholder for a sacrifice. But it's not a sacrifice, is it? It's just a random, pointless ram that doesn't mean anything. God just put this little theatrical presentation together so he could watch Abraham kill a meaningless ram he materialized in a bush.

In this chapter, Sarah's dreams come true! All the sex work paid off, she's now a mom! But living in a blended family with the slave woman and her son proves difficult as Ishmael is quite the jokester. This results in Sarah losing her cool and demanding that Abraham send the lesser mother and her lesser son away! Although this is upsetting for Abraham (he probably knows they'd die in the desert), God, in his infinite goodness and fatherly love, encourages Abraham to get rid of the scamp and his slave mother. It seems harsh until you realize that the only kids who matter are the ones God prefers to continue your very important bloodline.

In this chapter, Abraham tries to pimp his wife again, but this time God foils the plan BEFORE Sarah can do her sex work. We learn that you can be guilty of things you did based on false information. We learn that God will interfere with ones free will if they really like the sex worker about to be violated. We learn that Abimelech is still a man of honour and wants to do what is right. We learn that Abraham is the one who should be paid out for the (potential) offence against Sarah (that his lie would have caused). And we also learn that Sarah is Abraham’s half sister, so he was only half lying anyway.

In this chapter, God reveals his homophobia. There are people who want God to be more progressive, but this is a pretty direct indicator that he’s not. Someone, doesn’t say who, was tattle-tailing on the gay town of Sodom where (against all literal odds) everyone is at least bisexual. Lot tries to help his son’s in law (who are betrothed to his virgin daughters which Lot offered the whole town to defile), but they think he’s joking because Lot is always cracking wise about angels coming to destroy the town.

In this chapter, the Lord and 3 random men come hang out with Abraham who is a tremendous host. The Lord makes a comment about Sarah having a baby in a year and, not for nothing, Sarah thinks it’s a joke (she’s in her 90s). She does lie about it, but lying isn’t a big deal as seen in chapter 12. Then God withholds a little truth of his own from Abraham in a cheeky, fun way, but eventually Abraham gets the vibe that God is going to sweep away Sodom and Gomorrah. They have some fun negotiating (fun for Abraham, but tedious for God IF, and it’s a big if, he is all-knowing). Abraham doesn’t really know God because he thinks it’s far from him to kill people who are righteous for no reason. Arguably he’d have to kill everyone always because “every inclination of man’s heart is evil”.

In this chapter, God shows how concerned he is with the penises of children. He is also more concerned with Abraham circumcizing his slaves than telling him to not have slaves. Abraham scoffs at the idea of having a kid in his 90s, as if he didn't know Noah started going at it at 500. I go on a rant about how insane it is that God plays favourites and creates division arbitrarily based on who he likes more (certainly not on moral merit).

In this chapter, Sarai asks her faithful servant's consent to use her as a surrogate (that, or forced her slave to get pregnant by her husband). After conceiving, Hagar's hormones kick in and she gets irritable. After getting permission from Abram, Sarai is abusive toward Hagar until she can't take it and leaves. The Lord shows up to convince Hagar to return to her master? Boss? Hagar sees the Lord, which I guess is fine and doesn't cause death. Hagar does what she's told even though God is planning on more pain and suffering for her son's descendants. I just hope that this wasn't a futile exercise resulting in more abuse, just to end with Hagar wandering the desert again. Notably, God doesn't talk to Sarai at any point and tell her to be nicer.

Because I couldn't help myself, I thought I'd review the first 15 chapters we've done so far. I didn't realize how out of hand this episode would get. I apologize for the length, breadth and depth of this one. But, to be fair, these chapters are just so dense (double meaning), it's hard not to speak to all the tiny details.

In this chapter, the word of the Lord comes to Abram in a vision, but then also brings him outside because words can move around like people in visions. God re-promises the whole countless descendants things which Abram allegedly believes, which is seen as righteousness (somehow being convinced of something is righteous), but then immediately questions the thing the narrator said he believed. So Abram does a brutal ritual which, if done today, would be illegal and probable presumed satanic. Not surprisingly, Abram feels pretty heavy after cutting up 3 animals so he goes to sleep and misses the display of smoking pottery and fire.