The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel Read online

  HAGAR THE EGYPTIAN was not pretty. But Sarai always declared her handsome. She’d chosen this one in the first place because she had large hands and large feet, strength, bones like tent stakes. Only recently had Sarai also noted the generous width of Hagar’s hips. Room. Wide black eyes, a broad forehead, not much learning, of course—but room.

  On the morning after Hagar slept in Abram’s compartment, Sarai saw for the first time that Hagar’s hair was long and glossy and raven-black. One might call it beautiful. That same morning she commanded her maidservant to cut her hair short. “It has always interfered with your work,” she said.

  And then she saw that Hagar her maidservant had conceived. The Egyptian’s complexion glowed so dark and fiercely that her eyes and teeth were a shock of whiteness. And when she began to show her teeth more and more in smiling, Sarai knew of a certainty that Hagar, too, knew a baby lay in her womb.

  Soon another sign proved both Hagar’s pregnancy and her awareness: she swaggered. Distinctly, she began to throw her hips left and right when she walked; and she began to look her mistress dead-level in the eyes; and she simply did not do the things Sarai commanded her to do. She never did get around to cutting her hair.

  Sarai said, “Hagar, you go and draw the water this morning.” But Hagar sighed and said she was tired, turned on her heel, went to Abram’s side of the tent, sat down and ate figs.

  And grew huge.

  One day Sarai and a midwife were demonstrating how a maid might bear the babe on the knees of her mistress. The older woman made a roll of her sleeping mat and reclined against it, her legs thrust straight before her; Hagar sat on Sarai’s thighs, leaning back on the old woman’s breast, drawing her own legs up as high as she could; the midwife crouched over Sarai’s ankles and faced Hagar, reaching down between Hagar’s thighs.

  “You see?” said Sarai. “The child will come out on my knees. I’ll wrap my arms around you, Hagar, and press down on your belly like this—”

  Hagar cried out and slapped Sarai’s hands. “That hurts,” she said. She stood up and swaggered out of the tent. Sarai sat stunned. The midwife lowered her face and said nothing.

  On the following day, Sarai found Hagar sitting in the shade of Abram’s tent with a bowl of figs.

  Sarai stood above her. “You struck me,” she said.

  Hagar said, “Yes, and I told the master, your husband, that I was sorry. So I am sorry. And I told him, too, that you didn’t mean to hurt me. It’s just that I am soft and you are bony. I think he understands the difference, don’t you? I said that maybe I am tender now because I am in the way of women, and that maybe you are rough because you are not.”

  Sarai opened her mouth to answer but groaned instead—a humiliating sound. So then she shouted her words: “It’s your turn to…get water—”

  Hagar said, “I’m sorry. Your husband commanded me to rest. I am obeying Abram.”

  The next time that Sarai sought to practice the bearing of this infant upon her knees, Hagar said, “Perhaps that won’t be necessary anymore.”

  Straightway Sarai gathered her robe and, like a storm arising from the sea, she went in search of Abram.

  This was a country of high grassy hills from which one could see many miles around. Sarai climbed a bald knoll and shaded her eyes and looked for the flocks of her husband, and then for the colors of his garments. He would be among shepherds today, choosing a lamb with which to trade for a particular luxury in the cities: a baby cradle.

  There he was. There was Abram.

  Even before she had reached the valley of his flocks, Sarai yelled, “Old man! Old man! May the wrong done to me be upon your head, old man!”

  Her flesh was mottled brown by age and the harsh weather. Her hair had grown limp and thin and colorless. Nevertheless, when her body went taut with anger and her eye blazed, Sarai was young again, a warrior.

  “The woman whom you embraced,” she shouted, “the woman who now has conceived in her Egyptian womb, your maid and my servant—she looks upon me now with contempt,” cried Sarai. “I will not abide it, Abram. I will not, and the Lord will have to judge between me and you, therefore!”

  Abram stood facing her as she approached. When she paused to draw a breath he said, “She is in your power, Sarai. Do as you please. I won’t interfere.” Then he returned to his work.

  Sarai was left to her own devices. She accepted that as power and freedom, and she became relentless.

  From that day forward if Hagar refused to draw water, Sarai commanded two menservants to carry her by the armpits down to the spring and then to carry her back again while she bore the full waterskins however she might. Soon the maid found the strength to go for water on her own.

  There were no figs for Hagar now. Nor naps during the day. And Sarai herself cut the Egyptian’s hair so close to the skull that the tender skin burned in the sun.

  When, finally, Sarai brought the raven-black tresses back to Hagar, together with a stiff linen cap, and required the maid to make of her own long hair a wig; when Sarai announced that she herself would wear the wig on special occasions in company with her husband Abram, Hagar the Egyptian disappeared.

  In spite of her condition she ran far away from the tents of Abram—almost to the border of her homeland, Egypt. It was several months before she returned, exhausted, gaunt, but pregnant still.

  She told Abram that the angel of the Lord had appeared to her by a spring of water on the way to Shur. The angel had promised her a son: Name him Ishmael, the angel said, for the Lord has heard your affliction. He shall become a wild ass of a man, yet from him shall come so many descendants that they cannot be numbered for multitude.

  So Hagar bore Abram a son. And he named the baby Ishmael.

  But it was not born on Sarai’s knees.

  Sarai was forced to watch all these things from a distance.

  Yet even at a distance she saw the look on her husband’s face as he laid the babe in the crook of his arm: tenderness! The old man’s eyes were dewy.

  III

  THEN THE LORD appeared to Abram and said, I am El Shaddai. I am God Almighty. Walk before me. Serve me perfectly.

  Immediately, Abram fell on his face.

  God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you. No longer shall your name be Abram. You are Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations, and I will likewise establish my covenant with your descendants after you—an everlasting covenant!

  I give you and your descendants all the land of Canaan—an everlasting possession!

  You, Abraham, and every male among you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins. It shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.

  As for your wife, Sarai: her name shall be Sarah. I will bless her. I will give you a son by her, and kings and peoples shall come from Sarah.

  Abraham said, “Shall Sarah bear a child? Oh, that Ishmael might live in your sight, O Lord!”

  God said, No! Sarah your wife shall bear you a son and I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant!

  When he had finished saying these things, God went up from Abraham.

  Then Abraham took Ishmael his son and all his slaves, every male in his household, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him.

  IV

  ALTHOUGH MAMRE, where Abraham often encamped, was on ground high enough to grow cool in the evening, during a summer’s day the heat of the sun could be intolerable. It was Abraham’s habit, then, to raise three sides of his tent on poles in order to cast a shade all round his room and to allow the dry wind to blow through it. Here he would rest in the afternoon, leaning against a straw mat that had been rolled up for his back.

  By now the man was ninety-nine years old. He spent the hottest hours of the day dozing. Sometimes his old eye would roll open and he’d watch the oak trees floating in the heat waves; sometimes his eye would close and he would dream; sometimes he’d reach for a waterskin sweating and co
oling in the wind.

  And so it happened one afternoon that, opening a lazy eye, Abraham saw not trees but people standing by the tent, three men staring down at him. Strangers!

  The old man jumped up and bowed down to the ground and said, “Stay a while. Rest a while.”

  Strangers must also be guests. Therefore, Abraham said, “Sirs, let a little water be brought to wash your feet while I fetch some food for you.”

  The men said, “Thank you. Do as you have said.”

  So Abraham went round to Sarah’s side of the tent and asked her to make flat cakes of barley meal. He himself ran down to the herds and selected a tender calf for cooking. He roused his household from their afternoon naps and caused a general commotion throughout the encampment.

  Finally he returned to his guests and spread goatskins underneath an oak tree and laid out cakes and meat and curds and milk, a generous meal.

  He stood to the side and watched while they ate.

  When they had finished they said, “Where is your wife? Where is Sarah?”

  How could strangers know her name? Her new name! “In the tent,” he said.

  One of the men dipped his fingers in water to wash them, then leaned against the oak and said, “When I return this way in the spring, your wife Sarah shall be suckling a son.”

  Abraham felt the hairs on his neck begin to tingle. Suddenly this was not mere dinner conversation. It felt intimate and dangerous.

  He was about to respond, when the stranger turned toward the tent and called out, “Sarah! Sarah, why did you laugh?”

  A tiny voice in the dark interior said, “I didn’t laugh.”

  The stranger said, “Yes, you did. When I said you would bear a son you laughed in your heart and mumbled, Shall old age have pleasure anymore? Woman,” said the stranger, “is anything too hard for the Lord?”

  Abraham gaped. His heart had begun to race wildly. His mind could scarcely keep pace with events. The Lord! This fellow had said, Is anything too hard for the Lord?

  Once more, louder now but hidden still behind the reed screen of the tent, Sarah said, “I did not laugh!”

  The three men were rising up, preparing to travel on. “You did, you know,” the more glorious one said. “You laughed.”

  And then they left. They set out on the long road that descended to the city of Sodom.

  For more reasons than he could contemplate, Abraham followed. It was the hospitable thing, surely, to accompany one’s guest on his way. But Abraham had recognized in one figure something grander than a guest. By the cold in his bones he suspected that holiness was here. Therefore, Abraham followed, speechless, yet incapable of turning around and going home again.

  As dusk darkened the earth, two of the strangers continued down the road alone. The exalted one paused and Abraham, too, stopped.

  Then this one spoke in tones transcendent and powerful. It was indeed the Lord who said to Abraham, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great. Their sin is very grave. I want to judge whether the accusation is accurate. That is why I am passing this way. That is why I am here.”

  Abraham glanced south-southwest to the cities in the valley far below. Citizens were lighting the night fires. A hundred tiny fires—they looked like a rash on the earth. Lot lived there.

  Abraham closed his eyes and set his jaw. He thought that he should consider carefully his next action, but he could not. He couldn’t think at all. He acted.

  He said, “Will you destroy the righteous with the wicked?”

  The holy figure did not respond.

  Abraham wiped his mouth and spoke again. “Suppose there are fifty righteous in the city. Will you spare it for fifty? Surely the judge of all the earth would not slay righteous people because of the wickedness of others.”

  The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous in Sodom, I will for their sake spare the city. Yes.”

  Old Abraham bowed his head and shut his eyes and took a deep breath and spoke. “I know I am but dust and ashes,” he said. “But I started to speak and I must finish.” He raised his face. “What if there are five less than fifty righteous? Would you destroy the city for lack of five?”

  The Lord said, “For forty-five I will spare all.”

  Abraham said, “Ah, Lord, suppose there are only forty?”

  “For forty I will not destroy the city.

  “Thirty?”

  “If I find thirty righteous I will withhold the punishment.”

  “What if there are only twenty?”

  “And for twenty,” said the Lord, “I will spare Sodom.”

  Abraham discovered that he was breathless, trembling and sweating. But he was not yet finished. “Oh, let not the Lord be angry with me,” he said. “I will speak but this once more. Suppose, O Lord, that there are found only ten righteous within the city? What then?”

  The Lord said, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”

  Then the Lord went his way. But Abraham held ground where the dreadful conversation had taken place. He stared down toward Sodom, watching over his nephew Lot. Watching.

  LATE THAT SAME EVENING two travelers arrived in Sodom. Lot, who was as hospitable as his uncle Abraham, invited them in and fed them and gave them pallets upon which to sleep.

  But soon the men of the city surrounded his house, bellowing: “Bring out your visitors that we may lie with them!”

  Lot himself stepped out and shut the door. “I beg you, brothers,” he said, “don’t act so wickedly. These men are my guests. But I have two daughters who are still virgins—”

  The men of Sodom only roared the louder, “Get out of the way, Hebrew!” They rushed forward to break down the door.

  But immediately the guests, angels of the Lord, snatched Lot in, shut the door, and by a mystery struck blind the entire company of men outside.

  The angels said, “The sin of this city is so grievous that the Lord has sent us to destroy it. If there are any people here that you love,” they said, “go now and warn them.”

  In fact, Lot’s daughters were betrothed to men whom he respected. He ran to tell them of the Lord’s decision. But they laughed outright at his news and scorned any suggestions he made about escaping. Lot was grieved by the prospect of their destruction.

  By dawn, then, the angels actually had to drag him, his wife, and his daughters from their house. They drove them through the city gate, saying, “Run for your lives! Don’t look back, don’t stop in the valley, run to the hills or you will be consumed! Run!”

  IN THE MORNING Abraham stood on a high hill and watched as fire and pitch and a smoking brimstone rained down upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham saw heaven lick the valley black, consuming every breathing thing and every green thing that had ever lived there.

  When finally smoke went up from Sodom like the smoke of a furnace, the old man sat down and covered his face and wept. “Not even ten!” he said. “O Lot, God could not find as few as ten righteous people in the city you chose for yourself. Where are you now? Where are your daughters? Where is your wife?”

  Lot and his daughters were safe in caves. But while they were fleeing the fire, his wife had stopped for a last glance at the city and in that instant had turned into a standing pillar of salt.

  V

  SOON AFTER THE DESTRUCTION of Sodom, Abraham struck camp and traveled south into the Negev. Near Gerar he found new pasture for his flocks, so he stayed a while.

  In the fall he and his men sheared the sheep, causing a daylong bawling from the terrified creatures while the women washed the fleeces clean of dirt and oils. They combed the wool out and packed it in bales. During the winter Abraham’s household transported it to the city of Gerar and bartered for articles of copper and bronze, tools, utensils, weapons, pottery—and perhaps something pretty for one’s wife if she were about to have a baby.

  In the spring the sheep dropped new lambs.

  And then the Lord kept his promise to Sarah.

  In the small cool hours of a morn
ing, Sarah bore Abraham a boy. The midwife brought the infant outside—a wiry, watchful child—and Abraham could not speak. The old man took the baby and gazed upon skin as fresh as petals—but he could not utter a word.

  Eight days later, Abraham circumcised his son with a sharp flint knife. Then he made a great feast, gathering together his whole household to eat and drink and celebrate with him.

  And before the day was over, Sarah’s joy grew too great to be contained. The old woman laughed. She covered her face and laughed soundlessly, so that the entire company fell silent thinking she was crying. But then she rose up and clapped her hands and sang: “God has made laughter for me! Oh, laugh with me! Let everyone who hears my story laugh! Sisters, sisters, where was your faith? Who guessed yesterday that Sarah would suckle a child today? Yet I have borne my husband an heir in his old age.”

  Abraham stood to the side watching his wife. Now he went to her and took one of her hands in his own and held it until she stood still and returned his gaze. They were a small, wiry pair beneath the blue firmament.

  Then Abraham looked down at Sarah’s hand, this cluster of tendons and bone. One by one he touched the brown spots on the back of it. “Old woman, old woman, more precious than rubies,” he murmured, “we will name the child for laughter. We will call him Isaac.”

  She was ninety years old. He was one hundred.

  VI

  AT THE BIRTH of Ishmael years ago, Abraham had given Hagar her own tent in which to train and raise the boy. Hagar’s tent never had pride of place. It was always pitched some distance from Abraham and Sarah’s. And through the years Hagar, too, chose to keep distance between herself and the mistress of the household.

  Abraham observed the choice and understood.

  But privately he watched Ishmael grow into a youth of a nearly animal independence and dark intensities. Though he never spoke the thought aloud, it pleased Abraham to see the lad’s spirit emerge both free and eager. On the other hand, it troubled him that the same spirit was wearing Hagar down. Large hands, large feet, her body was rawboned still; but her heart was tired and her mind uncertain.