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Abraham and Isaac: First Scene Abraham kneels as host before three mysterious visitors (shown as three angels), God in disguise. They tell him he is to have a son by his aged wife Sarah. She listens, chuckling in unbelief, at the tent door. Genesis 18.1-4, 9-12 -- And the Lord appeared to him by the terebinths of Mamre.... He lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, three men stood in front of him. When he saw them he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, "My lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree.... They said to him, "Where is Sarah, your wife?" And he said, "She is in the tent." The Lord said, "I will surely return to you in the spring, and Sarah your wife will have a son." And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?" The name Isaac is Hebrew for laughter (see Koran -- Holy Prophet 69-72). The kneeling Abraham typifies generous Middle-Eastern hospitality, also suggested by the adjacent table. Note the bowl of water for foot washing and the bundle of sticks to start a cooking fire. Ghiberti's depiction of the three strangers as angels postdates Andrei Rublev's famous icon of the Holy Trinity by only a few years. The tent roof inscriptions (YHW?, AB/YHWH?) are probably invented letters derived from ancient Hebrew or Arabic scripts. The tree grove may represent the "terebinths of Mamre" of the text. |