Context & Key Themes Thirteen years of silence. From the birth of Ishmael in chapter 16 to the opening of chapter 17, God does not speak. Abram is 86 when Ishmael is born. He is 99 when God appears again. Thirteen years of living with a son who is not the promised son, thirteen years…
Context & Key Themes Ten years have passed since God called Abram and promised him offspring as numerous as the stars. Nothing has happened. Sarai is still barren. And so the two of them do what human beings do when they are tired of waiting for God: they try to help. Genesis 16 is a…
Context & Key Themes Genesis 15 contains two of the most theologically significant moments in the entire Old Testament. The first is verse 6, which Paul and James will both quote in the New Testament as the foundation of the doctrine of justification by faith. The second is the covenant of the pieces — an…
Context & Key Themes Genesis 14 is unlike any chapter that has come before it. Suddenly we are in the world of kings and armies, battles and alliances, captives and rescuers. Abram the wandering patriarch becomes Abram the military commander, pursuing a coalition of four kings with 318 trained men from his own household. And…
Context & Key Themes Abram returns from Egypt humbled. The compromise in chapter 12 has not broken the covenant, but it has reminded us who the man is underneath the call — someone capable of fear, of self-protection, of choosing the expedient over the true. Back in Canaan, back at the altar, he calls on…
Context & Key Themes Genesis 12 is the pivot on which all of Scripture turns. The first eleven chapters have told the story of universal humanity — creation, fall, flood, the scattering of nations. Now the focus narrows with stunning precision to one man, one call, one promise. Everything from this point forward in the…
Context & Key Themes Genesis 11 contains two stories that seem separate but are deeply connected. The first is the Tower of Babel — humanity’s attempt to build a monument to itself, to stay together in defiance of God’s command to fill the earth, to make a name rather than honor God’s. The second is…
Context & Key Themes Genesis 10 is called the Table of Nations for good reason — it is a genealogical map of the entire known world as the ancient Hebrews understood it, showing how every nation on earth descended from the three sons of Noah. It is not riveting reading in the way that narrative…
Context & Key Themes Noah steps out of the ark into a world that has been washed but not changed at its deepest level. The human heart is the same as it was before the flood — God acknowledges this himself in verse 21, noting that the intention of man’s heart is evil from youth….
Context & Key Themes The flood has run its course. Now comes the turn — three of the most important words in the flood narrative, and arguably among the most important in all of Genesis: but God remembered. Not that God had forgotten in any human sense. But that He was now actively moving on…