Saturday, 6/27/15
This story of Abraham turning weary travelers into honored
guests was the Bible’s main lesson on our need to be hospitable to strangers.
In spite of the heat, Abraham ran out to greet the
strangers. Then, instead of presenting himself as a kindly host, he bowed, and
he insisted that it would be very kind of the strangers to accept his
hospitality.
Then to show how much he appreciated their becoming his
guests, he went overboard in preparing a huge quantity of food: a tender young
steer, and bushel baskets of fine dinner rolls.
While Abraham as a worthy host, showed no doubt over the
promise of a son in his extreme old age, it made his old wife Sarah laugh.
The tribal story tellers would have pointed out a connection between Isaac, the
future son’s name, and “eesack” an old Hebrew word for laughing.
At the beginning of this story there were three guests,
while at the end there was only one, and he seemed to be the Lord. They had a
commandment against making images of the invisible God. So, being afraid of presenting
God in any way, they made up this confusing story.
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