Genesis 21:8-21--God Protects Hagar and Ishmael

READ:  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+21%3A8-21&version=ESV
LISTEN:  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Gen.21.8-Gen.21.21

​God Protects Hagar and Ishmael

8 And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. 10 So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” 11 And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. 13 And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.” 14 So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Let me not look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

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We return one last time to Hagar and Ishmael, not because this is a historical narrative about them, but because they were important to Abraham and this is his narrative.  We have seen how when Ishmael was born that Hagar was mistreated by Sarai and Abram did nothing to stop it.  The birth of Isaac has now brought back old tensions that are probably close to sixteen years old now as Ishmael was thirteen when he was circumcised and it was a year after the sign of circumcision that Isaac was born and mothers usually did not wean their children in that time until they were around two years old.  It is a rough estimate, but when we see the word "boy" or "child" being used to describe Ishmael at this point, it is not describing his youth, but probably reminding us that that's how his parents still think of him, or possibly that's the way that he was still acting.

Like with many "blended families" (that's the politically correct term today, who knows what it will be tomorrow), Hagar and Ishmael are competing for love and attention with Sarah and Isaac, and feel they are getting the short end of the stick because Isaac is the child of the promise even though Ishmael was the first born and by all legal rights should have been receiving the blessing and birthright, but this was not God's plan.  We'll see this over and over again in Genesis for God to say that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.  The fathers will desire to bless their firstborn and choose them as their favorite and God will have to tell them that He has made a different choice and that the blessing and birthright are to pass to the younger.

Sarah goes to Abraham and insists that he cast out Hagar and Ishmael--remember that Hagar was her slave and she was already told once to do with her as she pleased.  Abraham didn't like this idea at all because he loved his son Ishmael, and we already see where several times He's tried to ask God to change His plan so that Ishmael would be the one to receive the blessing and birthright, but God knew what He was doing and said that Ishmael would not be the person through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed, but He did allow Ishmael to receive the promises of land and descendants, but the land Ishmael would have as his own would not be the land in which Abraham sojourned, but would be back to the east.  And God tells Abraham to listen to Sarah because bad things are going to happen if Isaac and Ishmael stay together and that it is time to send Hagar and Ishmael out on their own--out of the land which Isaac is supposed to inherit.

In a similar situation to the first time that we see Hagar out in the wilderness, she has traveled as far as she can go and they are out of water and without much shade.  She "makes" sixteen year old Ishmael hide in the shade of the bushes there and went a way's away so that they would not have to watch each other die.  She too had forgotten the covenant that God had made with her as God could not bring it to pass if He killed her child.  So the angel of the God tells her that God has not just seen her, but also her son (remember that she had named the Lord, "The God who sees me" the last time she was in such a situation).  She is commanded to get up and take her son by the hand and keep moving because God was serious about His promises and intends to keep them.

Just like before, God opens her eyes and shows her a well where she and her son can get enough water to keep from dying and to refill supply of water for their journey.  It was what they needed exactly when they needed it, but they didn't see the provision until they called upon the Lord and He opened their eyes.

We don't hear anything more about Hagar in Genesis, but we do see that God kept his promise to take care of Ishmael.  While we don't see it here, remember that God made a promise that he would be the father of twelve princes.  While all we see here is that he lived a nomadic life in the wilderness of Paran and became a bow-hunter and that he fulfilled the prophecy of being a wild donkey of a man that couldn't get along with others and others couldn't get along with him.  His mother found a wife for him from her home country of Egypt and we'll see later that there seemed to be good relations between the Ishmaelites and the Egyptians for many years (they at least seemed to do business with one another).

Note:  Since I had to look it up, the wilderness of Paran is in the Sinai peninsula (between the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba that are part of the Red Sea).  We'll read more about this area in the books of Exodus and Numbers as this is the exact area that Moses had to lead the Israelites through to come out of Egypt and go to the Promised Land of Israel.

​Image below from ​https://bibleatlas.org/full/wilderness_of_paran.htm