START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 21:8-21
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM
OBSERVE:
This may be a somewhat troubling passage for some. Abraham and Sarah are not depicted in a very complimentary light. However, I appreciate the fact that the Scriptural writers are almost invariably honest, even about the flaws of great heroes and heroines of the faith. This is a reminder that the Bible is a real book about real people — not plaster saints.
We are reminded that Yahweh had promised Abraham he would have a multitude of descendants, as part of a larger covenant (Genesis 12:1-3). But time dragged on, and some of the promises seemed to be less and less likely — especially the promise of children. Abram and Sarai were growing old, well past normal child-bearing age.
We have evidence that Abram’s famous faith may have wavered a bit, when he said to Yahweh:
Behold, to me you have given no children: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir (Genesis 15:3).
Yahweh assured Abram that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5).
But evidently Sarai didn’t get the memo. She seems to be aware that God has made these promises to Abram, and she is grieved that she hasn’t delivered a child. So, she decides to take matters into her own hands — to manipulate the situation a bit. It is her idea to give her maidservant, the young Egyptian woman named Hagar, to Abram. The idea was that Hagar would be a surrogate mother, and the child would be adopted by Sarai.
Things didn’t quite work out that way. In fairness to Sarah (her name, and Abraham’s, are changed by Yahweh in Genesis 17: 5 & 15), Abraham was compliant with Sarah’s request that he have relations with Hagar. Again, we have an example of the realism of Scripture. Human nature being what it is, when Hagar conceived and bore a son named Ishmael, Hagar grew haughty (Genesis 16:4-5). And Sarah was jealous.
The fact is, Yahweh had always intended that his promise of the covenant would be continued through the child of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 17:15-19). So, the three Angels of the Lord appeared and promised that Sarah would bear a child — though she was ninety years old! (Genesis 18:1-15). The child would be called Isaac, which means (appropriately enough) he laughs.
All of this, of course, is backstory to our passage.
Sarah has given birth to her son, Isaac. And, as was the custom, when he was weaned, Abraham threw a party. But when Sarah sees Ishmael mocking Isaac, she is irritated. Bear in mind, Ishmael is Isaac’s half brother. But perhaps Sarah sees in Ishmael’s attitude some of the haughtiness that she had detected in Hagar, his mother. Sarah is decisive:
Therefore she said to Abraham, “Cast out this servant and her son! For the son of this servant will not be heir with my son, Isaac.”
Perhaps Sarah sees Ishmael as a threat to the dynastic promise made to Isaac. But Abraham is grieved. After all, he certainly loved his son, Ishmael, as well.
God reassures Abraham:
Don’t let it be grievous in your sight because of the boy, and because of your servant. In all that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice. For your offspring will be accounted as from Isaac. I will also make a nation of the son of the servant, because he is your child.
Yahweh offers a “both/and” option to Abraham — Isaac will be the heir of Yahweh’s covenant; but Ishmael will also be great. And realistically, Abraham will finally have some peace from these feuding women!
What Abraham does the next day is a little troubling to us — he gives Hagar and Ishmael some bread and water, and sends them out to the wilderness of Beersheba! A woman and a young boy — probably no more than a teenager, based on the math of Abraham’s age when Ishmael was born (eighty-six, according to Genesis 16:16).
Hagar and Ishmael are in a wilderness, no doubt filled with predators both animal and human, without resources and without a husband and father to protect and provide for them. Understandably, when the bread and water are gone, Hagar succumbs to despair. Ishmael is weakened by hunger and thirst — she lays him under a shrub so she doesn’t have to watch him die, and grieves her heart out.
We are reminded that this is not the first time Hagar has been exiled from the family of Abraham. Earlier, while Hagar was still pregnant with Ishmael, Sarah had driven her away. At that time, Yahweh had come to Hagar under similar circumstances in the wilderness. He had then told Hagar to submit to her mistress Sarah, and that her yet unborn son Ishmael would be a great nation and a mighty warrior (Genesis 16:9-12).
Once again, the angel of God intervenes on Hagar’s behalf. God hears their cries. He reiterates the promises that were made to Hagar years earlier:
Get up, lift up the boy, and hold him in your hand. For I will make him a great nation.
Hagar and Ishmael are spared:
God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went, filled the bottle with water, and gave the boy drink.
Although they can’t return to Abraham’s camp, God in a sense assumes the role of father with Ishmael:
God was with the boy, and he grew. He lived in the wilderness, and became, as he grew up, an archer. He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother took a wife for him out of the land of Egypt.
APPLY:
This passage is a reminder to us that God’s providence is not restricted to a particular nation or people. It is true that God called Abraham and Sarah for a particular purpose, and that it was through Isaac that salvation history would be enacted:
Sarah, your wife, will bear you a son. You shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him (Genesis 17:19).
Isaac would become the father of Jacob, who became known as Israel, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. To them and through their descendants, we receive the Law, the heroic stories of the Exodus, the royal dynasty of Judah, and the great prophetic tradition — all culminating in the coming of Jesus the Messiah.
However, God’s election of Isaac as the vessel through whom he would bless all nations (Genesis 17:18) does not mean that God rejects other tribes and other people. We get a hint of this in Abraham’s attitude toward both Ishmael and Isaac. When God promises that Sarah will be the mother of Isaac, Abraham wistfully seems to sigh:
Oh that Ishmael might live before you! (Genesis 17:18).
God assures Abraham, and Ishmael’s mother Hagar, on several separate occasions that Ishmael also will be blessed and will be the father of many nations (Genesis 16:10-12; 17:20; 20:18).
Though human beings may reject us, and even treat us as outcasts, God does not abandon us. Hagar and Ishmael are a demonstration of that assurance.
RESPOND:
One of the many factors that makes the Bible credible to me is its honesty and realism. The Scriptures don’t whitewash the reputations of its “saints” — from Abraham and Sarah, to David, to Peter.
That gives me great hope. God can work through flawed people and still accomplish his great vision for the world.
I find a song, written in 1981 by Michael Card and John Thompson, and then popularized by singer Amy Grant, to be an inspiration:
El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
El Elyon na Adonai,
Age to age you’re still the same,
By the power of the name.
El Shaddai, El Shaddai,
Erkahmka na Adonai,
We will praise and lift you high,
El Shaddai.
Loosely translated, the Hebrew phrases mean:
God Almighty, God Almighty,
The Most High God, O Lord,
We will love you, O Lord.
One of the verses of the song makes reference to the son of Abraham, and the deliverance of Israel when God turns the sea into dry land. The verse also includes the experience of Hagar in Genesis 16:7-13:
To the outcast on her knees,
You were the God who really sees…
God sees all of us who have felt like outcasts, and intervenes on our behalf.
Lord, there have been times when I have felt like an outcast. And there are many people in our world who feel that even more deeply than I do. I take comfort in the promise that you do see us, and you will deliver us. Amen.
PHOTOS:
“Hagar and Ishmael” by Jean-Charles Cazin is in the public domain.
SOAR Lectionary Bible Study 