The Murder-Ballad of Abraham and Isaac

This week’s Torah reading of Vayera (Genesis 18-22) is the centerpiece of a trilogy devoted to Abraham. In the entirety of the Pentateuch, only Moses receives more attention. But Moses gets to perform miracles; Abraham merely muddles along, founding monotheism. Just what that entails is the subject of this reading.

I’m going to focus on the climactic scene, which unfolds like a terrible murder ballad—but first, a swift rundown of the interrelated sub-plots. At the opening, three angels come and prophesy to Abraham that he’ll have a son. Immediately thereafter, God announces His intention to destroy Sodom. Abraham persuades God to spare the city if He finds ten righteous men therein. But it turns out that there’s only a single righteous man—Abraham’s nephew Lot, who has been so corrupted by living in Sodom that he offers up his daughters to the neighbors if they’ll only refrain from raping his guests, who happen to be the angels from the previous segment.

The angels whisk Lot and his family away and torch Sodom. Frightened by what he has seen, Lot hides in a cave with his two daughters, who give him wine and seduce him. Abraham then flees (perhaps from this disgrace) to Grar, where he tells Sarah to pose as his sister, whereupon she is seized and taken to King Abimelech. Abimelech releases her after the Lord appears to him in a dream, and then he reproaches Abraham: