Genesis 16--Sarai and Hagar

Genesis 16 English Standard Version (ESV)
LISTEN:  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Gen.16
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Sarai and Hagar
16 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. 2 And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 3 So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. 4 And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. 5 And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” 6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

7 The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” 9 The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” 11 And the angel of the Lord said to her,

“Behold, you are pregnant
    and shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael,
    because the Lord has listened to your affliction.
12 He shall be a wild donkey of a man,
    his hand against everyone
    and everyone's hand against him,
and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.”

13 So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” 14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered.

15 And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

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While we have the benefit of reading chapter 16 immediately after reading chapter 15, let's not mistake this to mean "and then immediately after chapter 15, chapter 16 happened."  Abram has not stopped believing God's words, but he seems to have given up hope (at least temporarily) on the most obvious meaning of the words.  Both Abram and his wife Sarai have gotten to the point where they are concerned about having children, and Sarai believes that she is the problem (maybe she's unable to have children) and she comes up with the idea of using a surrogate--a method still used sometimes today and that was completely legal and could theoretically even be what God meant, because God only promised that Abram would have a son, but only that Abram would have a son that would be his heir and that Eliezer would not be Abram's heir.  God hasn't said yet that this son would be the son of Abram and Sarai.

With that said, today's passage should expose the problem with the rampant philosophy that "God helps those who help themselves."  In this case God was working towards a goal that was miraculous and that only He could accomplish.  He had orchestrated events to make it obvious that the child of promise would be nothing short of a miracle, and this would bring God all the glory.  However, when we try to "help" God we either to so because we don't believe He's powerful enough to accomplish His plan, He's not good enough to want to keep His word to accomplish His plan, He can't remember His promises to us, we've done something to make Him stop loving us so that His promise is not longer valid, or we simply want to "share" in the credit--really meaning we want ourselves to be the focus of the story instead of Him.

So, after 10 years of waiting since Abram was called out of Ur of the Chaldeans to the land of Canaan (though a much shorter time since the promise of Genesis 15), Abram takes Hagar, the Egyptian servant of Sarai as his wife and she bears him a son named Ishmael.  This brought division between Sarai and Hagar because Sarai was jealous and Hagar seemed to take opportunity to flaunt the fact that she could bear children to Abram and Sarai could not, and even if it wasn't intentional it was something Sarai had to deal with day after day as she felt inadequate every time that she saw Hagar and her pregnancy, and Sarai chose to mistreat Hagar and Abram chose to let Sarai do so.

We see a lot of parallels here to what happened in the Garden of Eden.  First we see doubt about God's words and God's plan.  Then we see a role reversal where the woman who has not received the covenant from God falls into temptation to make her own way and brings her husband along with her.  This is not me being misogynistic, nor am I blaming Eve or Sarai--in both cases the man was right there with them and was held responsible and was an active participant.  The sin then created a rift between the two of them as we see in the curse in Genesis that the woman's desire would from now on be to be in charge and rule over her husband--this idea of role reversal would not go away, and it created jealousy and resentment of God's blessing in the life of others just like we see with Cain and Abel.  Thankfully God intervened before Sarai's jealously led to murder like it did with Cain.

The angel of the Lord (that is the second person of the Trinity in the Old Testament) found Hagar after she had run away because she and her son had been mistreated by Sarai.  Much like us, the angel of the Lord asks us where we have come from and where we are going.  She answers that she is running away and the angel of the Lord gives her instructions to return to her mistress and submit.  Then the angel of the Lord gives a blessing and covenant to Hagar.

These words sound very familiar to the words that will be given to Mary later on, but are still very different.  God explains that Hagar is pregnant and would bear a son and God named the child Ishmael meaning "God listens."  Unlike the message given to Mary to announced the birth of Jesus we do not see this son being proclaimed to be the promised Savior from Genesis 3.  No, instead we see that Ishmael was promised to be like a wild donkey, and he would be angry at everyone wanting to make war with them and everyone would be angry with him and want to make war with him.  There is some dispute on how to interpret that last phrase in Hebrew whether this a continuation of the thought that he would be at war with all of his kinsmen (brothers), or that he would live outside of the land of his brothers (to the east).  Both are true because we'll see eventually that God will send Hagar and Ishmael out of the land of promise and make it clear to them that the land promised to them is to the east, but it's also not hard to see that it's true that the descendants of Ishmael and the descendants of Isaac have never stopped being at war with one another.  This also seems to be true for the descendants of Ishmael and the other descendants of Abraham that were born to him later in his life (we'll read about them later in Genesis).

​We now see what may be the first instance in the Old Testament of someone giving a name to God based off of one of His characteristics.  God has revealed Himself to man through names He's given to Himself at various times up to now, but Hagar now calls Him "The God who sees me."  This is a great and glorious name of God because He is the one that searches us out and finds us even when we are in the wilderness like Hagar, and He comes to us and says "I see your situation" and the answer to all of it is "I am with you."

Again, we see a marker laid down and named to remind people of this event and this name of God and His unchanging character.  A well was dug there and was named Beer-lahai-roi which means "The Well of the Living One Who Sees Me."  What a powerful testimony!  It seems that Hagar had good theology even if Ishmael and his descendants did not.  It seems that part of his rebellion will be to turn away from the God that his father and mother worshiped and to turn to the false gods of the nations around him.

Abram was 86 years old when Ishmael was born, Abram does not yet know that this was not God's plan, and God will allow Ishmael to grow up to be a teenager before God gives Abram the promise of Isaace.  We'll read about that next time, but that promise and event will so change their identity and the course of history that God gives both Abram and Sarai new names, and God gives them the sign of the Abrahamic covenant.

Are you like Abram and Sarai here trying to make God's promises happen in your way and in your time?  Are you like Hagar, just doing what you've been told to do and being mistreated because of it and while you hear from God and know that He sees you, His answer is to go back and continue to submit?  Are you a person that could be described the way that God described Ishmael, constantly at war within himself and with everyone else and an outcast because no one can get along with you and you can't get along with anyone else?  Was this really God's plan for Abram, Sarai, Hagar and Ishmael? We'll have to see, but know that God is working all things together for His glory and to accomplish His plan, even in times like these where it appears that we royally mess things up.  The consequences of this decision are long-lasting and devastating, just like all the other sins that we've read about so far.  Despite the sin, God loves Ishmael and Hagar and does not blame them for what happened.  Ishmael will not be the child of the promise as you will see that he received the promise of descendants, but no promise of land (at least, we haven't seen any such promise yet).  Unlike the blessing that Abram received that all the peoples of the world will be blessed through him, it appears that God tells Hagar that all the nations will receive nothing but trouble from Ishmael, and yet we'll see that God still loves him, and God still loves his descendants and has a place for them in His family if they turn to Him and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.  God will bless all nations, including the nations of Ishmael, through His Son of Promise, Jesus, as He takes away the sins of the world and brings many sons (and daughters) to glory.