Hagar and Ishmael
While waiting for their promised son to be...
While waiting for their promised son to be born, Abram and Sarai attempted an alternate plan that was not in keeping with faith.
Abram and Sarai faced the tension of her...
Abram and Sarai faced the tension of her being barren and beyond childbearing years. By custom, a barren woman could give her servant to her husband as a slave-wife; the child born to that union was considered the wife’s child and could be adopted as the heir. Sarai’s suggestion, unobjectionable by custom, set a problematic human plan in motion. God’s promises would be fulfilled by faith.
1Now Abram’s wife Sarai had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. 2So Sarai said to Abram, “Look now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go to my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family by her.”
And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 3So after he had lived in Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to Abram to be his wife.
Perhaps Hagar expected to become the favored wife...
Perhaps Hagar expected to become the favored wife instead of Sarai (cp. Prov 30:21–23).
4And he slept with Hagar, and she conceived. But when Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.†
5Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be upon you! I delivered my servant into your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant, she has treated me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me.”
6“Here,” said Abram, “your servant is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she fled from her.
7Now the angel† of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur.
The angel’s rhetorical questions encouraged Hagar to pour...
The angel’s rhetorical questions encouraged Hagar to pour out her heart to God. When she did, God commanded her to return and submit (16:9), promising that her son would have innumerable descendants. The angel of the Lord never referred to Hagar as Abram’s wife, only as Sarai’s servant. She would have Abram’s child, but Ishmael was not central to God’s covenant with Abram.
8“Hagar, servant of Sarai,” he said, “where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I am running away from my mistress Sarai,” she replied.
9So the angel of the LORD told her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.”
Hagar’s son would become the father of a...
Hagar’s son would become the father of a great but wild and hostile nation living in the Arabian Desert as perennial enemies of Israel (cp. 25:18). God blessed Ishmael as Abram’s descendant, but not as the line chosen to carry on the covenant. That blessing was reserved for Abram’s chosen heir.
10Then the angel added, “I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count.”
11The angel of the LORD proceeded:
“Behold, you have conceived and will bear a son.And you shall name him Ishmael,†for the LORD has heard your cry of affliction.12He will be a wild donkey of a man,and his hand will be against everyone,and everyone’s hand against him;he will live in hostilitytoward all his brothers.”13So Hagar gave this name to the LORD who had spoken to her: “You are the God who sees me,”† for she said, “Here I have seen the One who sees me!”
The names Beer-lahai-roi, which means “well of the...
The names Beer-lahai-roi, which means “well of the Living One who sees me,” and Ishmael (see 16:11) were a message and a rebuke for Abram and Sarai. God sees affliction and hears the cries of those in need. Sarai and Abram should have prayed rather than taking the fulfillment of the promise into their own hands by following social custom (cp. 25:21). Giving children to the barren woman is God’s work (Ps 113:9; cp. 1 Sam 1:1–28; Luke 1:1–25); impossible difficulties cannot be resolved by human intervention. The Lord hears the afflicted, sees them in their need, and will miraculously provide for them.
14Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi.† It is located between Kadesh and Bered.
15And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. 16Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.