January 7: Genesis 21:8 – Genesis 23:20; Genesis 11:32; Genesis 24:1–67

God Protects Hagar and Ishmael – Genesis 21

• Abraham plans a great feast when Isaac is weaned. Sarah sees Ishmael laughing about Isaac and tells Abraham to send away Hagar and Ishmael. (Even in this culture, it would be considered reprehensible for Sarah to send away Hagar and Ishmael in this way. As well, Abraham loved his son Ishmael.)
• God tells Abraham to do as Sarah says, as He will make a nation of both Isaac and Ishmael.
• The next morning, Abraham gives Hagar bread and water, and sends her away with Ishmael. The two wander in the desert of Beersheba.
• When the water was gone, Hagar placed Ishmael under a bush and went away from him (about "a bow shot away") so she would not have to watch her child die. She and Ishmael cry, and God hears them.
• An angel appears to Hagar and tells her to go get Ishmael because God will make a great nation of him. God opens Hagar's eyes and she sees a well, where she fills her water skin and gives water to Ishmael. 
• God is with Ishmael as he grows up, and Ishmael lives in the wilderness of Paran and becomes an expert with a bow. His mother takes a wife for him from the land of Egypt (one of her own people).

A Treaty with Abimelech

• Abraham reproves Abimelech about a well of his that Abimelech's servants had seized. Abimelech denies knowing anything about it.
• The two men make a covenant, with Abraham giving Abimelech seven ewe lambs.
• Abimelech and his army commander Phicol return to the land of the Philistines, and Abraham plants a tree at Beersheba, calls on the name of the Lord there, and sojourns for many days in the land of the Philistines.

The Sacrifice of Isaac

• God appears to Abraham and tells him to take Isaac, go to the land of Moriah, and there offer Isaac as a burnt offering.
• Abraham obeys. The next morning, he saddled his donkey and took Isaac and two men with him. He cuts wood to build a fire and goes to the place where God directs him. 
• On the third day, Abraham sees the place God has directed him to and tells the two men to stay with the donkey while he takes Isaac and goes to worship the Lord. 
• Isaac points out that they have wood and fire but no lamb to offer as a sacrifice. Abraham tells him that God will provide the lamb.
• When they reach the place God told Abraham to go, Abraham builds an altar, lays the wood in order, and binds Isaac and places him on the wood. When Abraham takes the knife to slay Isaac, God tells him not to lay his hand on the boy, and tells him that He now know that Abraham fears Him since he would not even withhold his only son from Him.
• Abraham sees a ram caught by its horn in a thicket behind him, and takes the ram and offers it as a burnt offering.
• The angel of the Lord tells Abraham that because of his obedience, God will bless him and multiply his offspring.
• Abraham returned to the two men and his donkey, and they all return to Beersheba, where Abraham continues to live.

The Burial of Sarah – Genesis 23

• Sarah dies, and Abraham goes to the Hittite elders to request a place to bury her. Since Abraham is consider "an honored prince," they give him their finest tomb to bury her.
• Abraham offers to pay the owner of the tomb, but the owner refuses and gives to tomb to him for four hundred pieces of silver (not nearly its worth).

Isaac and Rebekah – Genesis 24

• In his old age, Abraham has his servant swear that he will not take a wife for Isaac from the daughters of the Canaanites. Abraham instead wants him to go back to Abraham's country and take a wife from his people.
• The servant questions what to do if the woman he chooses will not come with him, and Abraham tells him he will not have to do what he's been instructed but he's not to take Isaac back to the country of Abraham.
• The servant takes ten camels and many gifts and departs for Nahor, in Mesopotamia. There he stops at a well while the women of the area are drawing water. The servants asks that God would show him the right woman by having her offer to water his camels when he asks her to get him water (a gesture that went far beyond her social duties).
• A beautiful woman comes to the well and the servant asks her for a drink. When she finishes giving him a drink, she offers water for his camels. The servant asks whose daughter she is, and if he can spend the night in her father's house.
• She tells him she is the daughter of Bethuel, son of Milcah and Nahor, and that they have plenty of straw, fodder, and room for him to spend the night.
• The servant worshiped the Lord, and the woman ran home and told her mother's household what had happened.
• The woman, Rebekah, has a brother named Laban, who comes to the well to meet the servant. Laban brings him back to the house and cares for the servant and his camels. The servant refuses to eat until he can say what he needs to say. He then tells Laban the story of Abraham and the servant's journey to find a wife for Isaac.
• Laban and Bethuel tell the servant to take Rebekah to be Isaac's wife. The servant gives Rebekah and her family silver and gold and garments.
• The family asks for ten more days with Rebekah, but the servant wants to leave before then, They ask Rebekah when she wants to leave, and she says she will go with him now. She and her nurse go with the servant.
• Meanwhile, Isaac is dwelling in the Negeb. He goes out into the field toward evening to meditate, and sees the camels coming.
• Rebekah sees Isaac in the field and asks the servant who he is. When the servant tells her he is his master, she veils herself (this would have been appropriate for an unmarried woman who was about to come into the company of a man). The servant tells Isaac of everything that has happened.
• Isaac takes Rebekah as his wife. He loves her, and she gives him comfort after Sarah's death.

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.