Genesis 21 begins with the birth of Isaac, a promise fulfilled that God had made to Sarah and Abraham..."The Lord did exactly what He promised.. all happened at the time God had said it would". Isaac was then circumcised just as God had commanded. Later, Abraham became distressed when he learned that Sarah wanted to send Hagar and Ishmael away, but the Lord told Abraham it would be all right and Ishmael would still be blessed and made into a great nation also. Abraham , following God's guidance , provided Hagar with food and water and sent her on her way. Hagar became discouraged as she wandered in the wilderness and God spoke to her, comforting her and reminding her that He had not forgotten her and would still make a great nation from Ishmael's descendants. At the conclusion of this chapter, king Abimelech made a treaty with Abraham. Since Abimelech knew that Abraham's God was with him and blessed him in everything, he asked Abraham to always show kindness to him and his country. Abraham settled in the land of the Philistines and remained there for a long time.

Genesis 20 gives the account of Abraham's encounter with the king of Gerar, Abimelech. Here again, Abraham did not have faith in God to protect himself and his wife , so he told yet another king that Sarah was his sister. But, God in His mercy did not allow the king to take Sarah and God came to him in a dream and told him the truth. Upon learning about Abraham's lie, Abimelech was surprisingly gracious to Abraham and gave him gifts of sheep and cattle and offered to let him live anywhere in his land. Abraham prayed to God for healing for Abimelech and his wife and family and God restored their fertility.

Genesis 19 begins with a visit from two angels who appeared to Lot in Sodom. Lot invited them to his house to refresh, have a meal, and spend the night, but "before they lay down, the men of Sodom surrounded the house.. and called to Lot saying, 'Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them.' " Lot could not persuade them to leave and they threatened him, but the angels "reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them.. they struck the men who were at the doorway with blindness". Then the angels explained to Lot that they had been sent by God to destroy Sodom, so they told Lot to take his daughters and sons-in-law and leave immediately from the city. The sons-in-law didn't believe Lot, so Lot took his wife and daughters only. Lot hesitated before leaving, so the angels "seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them." The angels agreed to allow Lot and the women to stay in a small town nearby, and the angels said, "very well, I will not overthrow the town you speak of". Then the Lord "rained down fire and burning sulfur on Sodom ... utterly destroyed them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, wiping out all the people and vegetation" . So, God justly destroyed the wicked cities where Lot had lived, but He remembered His promise to Abraham and showed mercy toward Lot and those with him, protecting them in the small town nearby.

In Genesis 18, God appears to Abraham again. This time Abraham sees three men and ran to meet them, saying "My Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, please do not pass Your servant by." Abraham invited them to stay and rest, have their feet washed and have a bite to eat, in order to "refresh" themselves. I found it interesting that the passage alternates, referring to the visitors in the singular form ( the Lord, He, the LORD ) and sometimes in the plural form ( "they" , "them", 'the men" ). The Lord told Abraham that Sarah would soon have a son, but Sarah laughed upon hearing this. But the Lord asked, "Is anything too difficult for the LORD?" He also reminded Abraham that he would be blessed as a great and mighty nation, "for I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him." Then "the men" stood up and looked down toward Sodom, as Abraham was seeing them on their way. When God saw that Sodom's sin was exceedingly grave, Abraham asked, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked (in Sodom)?" Then Abraham said, "Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?" After a prolonged dialogue between Abraham and God about this, the Lord said He would not destroy all of Sodom if there were a few righteous there. This passage reveals God's faithfulness to keeping His promises to Abraham and also His mercy and justice in dealing with Sodom.

Genesis 17 is about the covenant given by the Lord with Abram and his descendants. The Lord appeared to Abram and called him to "walk before me and be blameless". The Lord confirmed His covenant that he would make Abram a father of many nations and gave him a new name, Abraham. God said the covenant would be an everlasting covenant for generations to come and reminded him also of the promise of the whole land of Canaan to be an everlasting possession to Abraham's descendants. God said "I will be their God" and "as for you, you must keep my covenant... every male among you shall be circumcised." God said, "my covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant". Then God said, "As for Sarai, .. her name will be Sarah.. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations, kings of peoples will come from her". But, Abraham fell down laughing , asking "will a son be born to a man a hundred years old?" God answered, "Yes, you wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac.. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants". Though Abraham seemed to have doubts about having children at his age, he faithfully took his son Ishmael and all those born in his household, every male including himself, and were all circumcised just as the Lord had commanded to honor the covenant.

In Genesis 16, Abram and Sarai make plans to have a child a different way, rather than trusting God and waiting for God to fulfill his promise. They instead ask their servant, Hagar, to have relations with Abram and conceive a child. Sarai later regretted the decision and treated Hagar harshly and Hagar left town. An angel of the Lord spoke to Hagar and instructed her to return and submit to Sarai. The angel also said to her "the Lord will greatly multiply your descendants". So, the Lord showed compassion to Hagar and blessed her and she was amazed saying, "You are the God who sees me".

In Genesis 15, God speaks to Abram in three visions and gives the covenant promise to his descendants. In the first vision, God reminds Abram of His protection and the great reward and blessings that He is going to give him. But, Abram is confused and asks, "what good are blessings when I don't even have a son?". God reassures him that he will have a son to inherit the blessings and all that He is giving to Abram. In fact, God tells Abram that his descendants will be great in number like the stars in the night sky. At this, "Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord declared him righteous because of his faith". God also reminded Abram that He is the same God who brought him out of his former homeland and will give him a new "promised" land.
To further reassure Abram of the promise of the land He would give him, God told him to bring animal sacrifices and they performed a traditional agreement custom of cutting the animals in half. Abram experienced two more prophetic visions, which the Lord explained to him. The first was a "terrifying vision of darkness and horror", which the Lord explained as a time when Abram's descendants will be oppressed in a foreign land as slaves. But, the Lord also explained that they would return to the land with great wealth one day. In the last vision, Abram saw a "smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the animal carcasses", which symbolized the covenant the Lord made with Abram that day.