Mothers and Fathers and Sons

Previously on Supernatural…

Attempted rape, attempted sexual assault bait-and-switch, the destruction of two cities, a spouse gets turned into table salt, incest, and a lot of PattyKates screaming.

Let’s see what the Creator has in store for us this week…

God makes good on his promise to Sarah and gets her knocked up. The bouncing baby boy is named Isaac (“laughter” which, as an aside, is an awesome name) and Sarah, true to form, is all CHECK IT BITCHES! I GOT ME A BABY FROM GOD.

The kid is circumcised and eventually weaned, at which point Abraham – ever the proud papa – throws him a Weaning Block Party to celebrate. Invited to this party is Isaac’s half-brother, Ishmael (he of Sarah’s “Have sex with my slave girl” fame). Sarah sees Ishmael tease her golden child, as brothers are wont to do, and is not having it. She goes all helicopter mom and bitches to Abraham about there only being room for one precious snowflake in the desert. Hers.

Sarah tells Abraham that she wants Ishmael and his mom, Hagar, to get gone which bums Abraham out because, you know, he loves both of his sons. Still though, this p*ssywhipped fool packs Hagar and Ishmael up and sends them out into the desert and Sarah is just the WORST, y’all.

God tells Abraham to do as his wife says and chill because he’ll HANDLE. IT. He promises Abe that he’ll make a nation out of Hagar’s son’s descendants.

Poor Hagar ends up wandering around aimlessly around Beer-sheba (which would be a great name for a bar) until her canteen runs dry. Desperate and out of provisions, she leaves her son under a bush and walks away, not wanting to watch her son die. The boy’s crying, she’s crying, EVERYONE is crying and then the Angel of God pops up and is all, “What’s up, girl? Why you so sad? Relaxy-taxi. God’s got this”. Then a well appears out of nowhere and Hagar gives her kid some water and God repeats the nation of descendants promise to Hagar.

Little Ishmael grows up to be an expert archer, among other things…

So we’ve talked about how for years these stories were all part of oral tradition. I keep picturing a bunch of dudes sitting around a campfire, taking turns one-upping each other:

“Oh, you think THAT’S bad? Wait ‘till you hear about that time God…”

You just know that during these storytelling events there was that one guy – we’ll call him Frank – who always chimed in with some random, seemingly pointless story. Like when you’re talking with friends about some current event and one of them pipes in with a story about their cat.

Well, Frank interjects in the middle of Chapter 21 with a story about king Abimelech and a well and some oxen and so help me, I was like, “WTF Frank? What does that have to do with anything?”

Later on, God calls upon Abraham. He tells Abe to take his only son – yes, that one son he loves more than life itself – and head on over to the land of Moriah.

Moriah, not Mariah…

Wait, what for? Are they going camping? No… don’t be absurd. It’s to sacrifice him of course! Abraham is to take his only son up some mountain and kill him for God.

‘Cause. Obedience and Faith. God wants this guy to kill his son to prove his devotion. This, right here, is where that line about God creating man in His own image rings true.

Abraham goes through the motions of setting up a wilderness Kill Room and right as he’s about to murder his kid, God is like:

“JK! LOL! Nah, man. I was just messing with you. Go ahead and substitute with lamb. We’re cool.”

I have more issues with this than room or headspace to write them.

After the infanticide fake-out, God promises Abraham (again) that his descendants will conquer their enemies and there will be nothing but top-shelf blessings, all because Abraham obeyed him when asked to murder his son.

Conclusion

I just. Wow. Thanksgiving dinners with Abraham’s crowd must have been a hoot. All those stories about that time when your dad was going to kill you and not having to save any pie for your (literally) long-lost brother.

Tune in next… whenever we get around to it … for our next installment: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.

 

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