January 5: Genesis 15:1 – Genesis 17:27

God's Covenant with Abram – Genesis 15

• The word of the Lord comes to Abram in a dream, telling him not to be afraid.
• Abram reminds God that he is childless, and that the heir of his house is Eliezer of Damascus, who is no blood relation to Abram.
• God assures Abram that a biological child will be his heir and that his descendants will be like the stars (innumerable).
• Abram believes God.
• God reminds Abram that He is the One who brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to the land that Abram will inherit. God tells Abram to bring him a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. Abram does as he is instructed.
• At nightfall, Abram falls asleep and "horror and great darkness" fall upon him.
• God tells Abram that his descendants will be "strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years." (Gen. 15:13) (This refers to the Israelites as slaves in Egypt.) God then tells Abram that he will judge the nation they serve, and afterward the people will come out of the land with many possessions.
• When the sun goes down, a smoking oven and burning torch appear. God tells Abram that to his descendants He has given this land, from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates.

Hagar and Ishmael – Chapter 16

• Sarai has no children, and she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. With the hope that Hagar would bear children for her, Sarai has Abram take Hagar as a wife.
• Hagar conceives a child, and Sarai becomes despised in Hagar's eyes. (While this type of surrogate was culturally acceptable, the act of Sarai taking Hagar's child would be incredibly difficult for Hagar.)
• When Sarai addresses Abram about Hagar's treatment of her, Abram tells Sarai to do with Hagar as she pleases. Sarai deals harshly with her, and Hagar flees her presence.
• An angel of the Lord appears to Hagar and asks where she has come from and where she is going. When Hagar responds, the angel tells her to return to Sarai and submit herself to her, and that her descendants will be multiplied so that they are innumerable.
• The angel tells her Hagar will bear a son, that she should call him Ishmael, and that he will be a "wild man" (he will be unsettled, ever on the move). Still, while Ishmael's people will often be at war, they will endure. (And they do. Ishmael's people are the Arabs of the Middle East, and very few people from the Old Testament have survived till today. Only the Hebrews [descendants of Isaac] and the Arabs [descendants of Ishmael] remain.)
• Hagar bears Abram a son, and Abram names him Ishmael.

The Sign of the Covenant – Chapter 17

• When Abram is ninety-nine years old, God appears to him and tells him to "walk before me and be blameless" (Gen. 17:1), and God will make a covenant between them and multiply Abram greatly. He tells Abram that he will be the father of many nations, and his name is now to be Abraham.
• God also tells Abraham that He will give him and his descendants all the land of Canaan, and that He will be their God.
• As a sign of this covenant, God tells Abraham that all male children shall be circumcised on the eighth day (all servants should also be circumcised). Any who are uncircumcised will be cut off from their people because they have broken the covenant.
• God changes Sarai's name to Sarah, and tells Abraham that he and Sarah will have a son and that she will be the mother of many nations.
• Abraham laughs because he is one hundred years old and Sarah is ninety years old.
• Abraham, out of love for his son, asks that Ishmael "might live before" God, and God assures him that He has blessed Ishmael and will continue to bless Ishmael.
• God repeats that they will have a son, and tells Abraham that they are to name him Isaac (which means "laughter"). He also says that while He will bless Ishmael, His covenant will be with Isaac.
• Following God's instructions, Abraham circumcises all the men of his household that day.