Genesis 16

Ishmael

1 But Sarai, Abram's wife, had no children. So Sarai took her *servant, an Egyptian woman named Hagar,

*servant - slave

2 and gave her to Abram so she could bear his children. "The LORD has kept me from having any children," Sarai said to Abram. "Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her." And *Abram agreed.

* Abram agreed - Just as Adam agreed with Eve! Literally – “obeyed”.


God is delaying until Abram and Sarai are totally incapable of having children! But, Sarai gets in a hurry and gives up on God. This is a “God helps those who help themselves” deal. Abram is now 85 years old and Sarai is 75. Hagar, her slave, was probably quite young and was acquired in Egypt.

Just as Adam listened to his wife's voice and did the wrong thing, Abram listened to the voice of Sarai and did what he should not have done. It was Abram's fault, as the spiritual leader in his home, for not discovering if this was in fact what God wanted.

The promise had been made that Abram would have a son from his own body. The offer of Hagar did not necessarily contradict that promise. He and Sarai had waited ten years in Canaan and years before that. The idea had a sensible ring to it, but Abram was replacing God's plan with his own wisdom. He never asked God about the Sarai’s plan. Abram failed both as a child of God and as a husband.

Men can be weak and inadequate at home even though they can succeed in the business world. We cannot escape the tensions of life in a family ­ the heartache, the memories, the incorrect ways of treating each other that have become habit over the years. And these are the hardest to change.

Sarai had good reason to think Abram was fallible when it came to following God, and to suggest a new course for them. Do you remember when they went to Egypt the first time? Abram abandoned her to Pharaoh's harem. Fearing for his own life, he did not provide security and understanding of her situation. Abram's leadership, his faith in God, did not seem to be alleviating any of Sarai's frustration and hurt. Therefore, in the midst of the turmoil and tension, she went to him with a plan: "Maybe I can have a baby by this woman."

Abram should have taken his wife in his arms and presented her before the Lord to ask Him to meet her needs and to help them both to understand what God had promised. He should have promised security and leadership when she was living with her heartache and sickness of spirit, but he did not.

Did Abram really listen in the sense of understanding what Sarai was really trying to say? Was she asking for reassurance of Abram’s love, even if she could not provide him with a son? Was she asking for reassurance of God’s love and infinite power? Did she need to be reminded of God’s promise? Did she wish Abram to turn her down? Abram may have obeyed without really hearing what Sarai was trying to say.

Compare to Samuel’s father’s attitude toward his wife who was unable to have children: 1 Samuel 1:8 - "What's the matter, Hannah?" Elkanah would ask. "Why aren't you eating? Why be so sad just because you have no children? You have me--isn't that better than having ten sons?"

Sarai’s suggestion was a testing of the patience of Abram’s faith. God had said to Abram, I will cause you to become the father of a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and I will make you a blessing to others. (Genesis 12:2). He had said, further, Then the LORD brought Abram outside beneath the night sky and told him, "Look up into the heavens and count the stars if you can. Your descendants will be like that--too many to count!" (Genesis 15:5), yet ten years had passed since the first of these promises and still Abram was childless. When the Lord repeated His promise And Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD declared him righteous because of his faith. (Genesis 15:6), and now he was left to wait for the fulfillment of it. But waiting is just what we find so hard to endure.

3 So Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as a wife. (This happened ten years after Abram first arrived in the land of Canaan.)

Sarai gave Hagar to Abram as a substitute wife, a common practice of that time. A married woman who could not have children was shamed by her peers and was often required to give a female slave to her husband in order to produce heirs. The children born to the slave woman were considered the children of the wife. Abram was acting in line with the custom of the day, but his action showed a lack of faith that God would fulfill His promise.

Israel suffers from the effects of this mistake to this day since the descendants of Ishmael and Esau are today’s Arabs.

4 So Abram slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When Hagar knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress Sarai with contempt.

5 Then Sarai said to Abram, "It's all your fault! Now this servant of mine is pregnant, and she despises me, though I myself gave her the privilege of sleeping with you. *The LORD will make you pay for doing this to me!"

*Hebrew – “Let the LORD judge between you and me.”

This was Sarai’s idea, but it backfired on her and she blames Abram. The man of God became the mouse of God. Instead of meeting her need for security, understanding, love, and a touch of God in her life, Abram had merely increased the threat to her.

6 Abram replied, "Since she is your servant, you may deal with her as you see fit." So Sarai treated her harshly, and Hagar ran away.

Abram returned Hagar to Sarai to be her slave again rather than a 2nd wife.

Abram caved in again. When Sarai was furious with Hagar, he said, "Okay, do what you want. It‘s up to you." He did not pray. He did not care. The great friend of God, the great example of faith for everyone, became a mouse.

God is absent from the first 6 verses. Sarai blamed God for keeping her from having children. But no one had consulted God or sought His will. No one had remembered His promise to provide a son.

7 The *angel of the LORD found Hagar beside a desert spring along the road to **Shur.

*Angel of the Lord mentioned here for the first time – occurs 58 times in the Old Testament. “Angel of God” occurs 11 times. Messenger of Jehovah.
1. Identified with Jehovah (Yahweh) in Genesis 16:13; 22:11-12; 31,11 & 13; 48:16; Judges 6:11, 16,22; 13:22-23; Zechariah 3:1-2.
2. Yet distinct from Jehovah in Genesis 24:7; 2 Samuel 24:16; Zechariah 1:12.
3. May refer to a “theophany” of the preincarnate Christ – See Genesis 18:1-2; 19:1; Numbers 22:22; Judges 2:1-4; 5:23; Zechariah 12:8.

**Shur – a fortified wall on the north-eastern border of Egypt. This is quite a distance from Mamre.

8 The angel said to her, "Hagar, Sarai's servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?" "I am running away from my mistress," she replied.

9 Then the *angel of the LORD said, "Return to your mistress and submit to her authority."

Hagar needed to face her problem rather than running away from it. A runaway slave could be executed! See the example of the runaway slave Philemon in the New Testament.

The angel of the Lord addresses her as Sarai’s servant (slave), thus disallowing her marriage with Abram; and second, she is told to return to her mistress.

10 The angel added, "I will give you more descendants than you can count."

11 And the angel also said, "You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to name him *Ishmael, for the LORD has heard about your misery.

*Ishmael means "God hears."

12 This son of yours will be a wild one--free and untamed as a wild donkey! He will be against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live at odds with the rest of his brothers."

Twelve Arab tribes directly descended from Ishmael are listed in Genesis 25:12-18.

There are also the genealogies of other Arab tribes, including the Moabites and Ammonites from across the Jordan (Genesis 19:36-37), the Edomites (Genesis 36:1-43), Midian, Sheba, Dedan in Arabia (Genesis 25:1-6). These tribes intermarried and made alliances in a vast area from present day Iraq to Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. It was Muhammad (570-632) who forged them into one Arab people.

Jews and Arabs have been at each others’ throats for almost 4000 years. Jews and Arabs even fight over which son of Abraham was the real son of promise. The Old Testament says it was Isaac. The Koran says it was Ishmael. The Koran teaches that it was Ishmael that Abraham almost sacrificed to the Lord, not Isaac. What would the world be like today if Abraham had trusted God and waited for Him to provide a son through Sarah as He promised instead of trying to “help God” by having a son through Hagar?

Galatians 4:22-31 - The Scriptures say that Abraham had two sons, one from his slave-wife and one from his freeborn wife. The son of the slave-wife was born in a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God's promise. But the son of the freeborn wife was born as God's own fulfillment of his promise. Now these two women serve as an illustration of God's two covenants. Hagar, the slave-wife, represents Mount Sinai where people first became enslaved to the law. And now Jerusalem is just like Mount Sinai in Arabia, because she and her children live in slavery. But Sarah, the free woman, represents the heavenly Jerusalem. And she is our mother. That is what Isaiah meant when he prophesied,

"Rejoice, O childless woman!
Break forth into loud and joyful song,
even though you never gave birth to a child.
For the woman who could bear no children
now has more than all the other women!"

And you, dear brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, just like Isaac. And we who are born of the Holy Spirit are persecuted by those who want us to keep the law, just as Isaac, the child of promise, was persecuted by Ishmael, the son of the slave-wife. But what do the Scriptures say about that? "Get rid of the slave and her son, for the son of the slave woman will not share the family inheritance with the free woman's son." So, dear brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, obligated to the law. We are children of the free woman, acceptable to God because of our faith.

13 Thereafter, Hagar referred to the LORD, who had spoken to her, as *"the God who sees me," for she said, "I have seen the One who sees me!"

*"the God who sees me” - Hebrew - El-roi

14 Later that well was named *Beer-lahairoi, and it can still be found between Kadesh and Bered.

*Beer-lahairoi - means "well of the Living One who sees me”.

15 So Hagar gave Abram a son, and Abram named him Ishmael.

16 Abram was eighty-six years old at that time.

Let’s review some of what we have seen.

1. A clear choice was presented to Abram ­ the two women stood before him. The choice included the option to trust God in a situation that seemed difficult if not impossible and to refuse to trust anything else. On the other side, the choice offered replacing God with man's means.

2. God will call each one of us to dry periods when the days seem to run together and there is nothing going on as far as we can see: no sons are being born; there is no place to go, nothing dramatic to do. There will be times when there is no voice from God. When we’re uncertain what God is doing and why he isn’t doing it more quickly is when we are the most vulnerable. This vulnerability shows up most powerfully in our homes. The hardest thing for a Christian man or woman to do is to succeed in being godly in his or her home. Being men as leaders in the home is the hardest thing we will ever be called to do.

3. God reveals Himself most quietly and most profoundly in our own homes. The Christian home is the place where we discover God in the framework of truth and love. The family is the place where our children learn what God is like. We are called to be strong leaders in our homes.

Chapter 16 exposes a problem which often confronts Christians: ‘When do I work and when do I wait?’ Saul was wrong to go ahead and offer the sacrifice, even though circumstances seemed to demand it (I Samuel 13), because Saul had been commanded to wait (I Samuel 10:8). In Acts chapter 12 it was wrong to wait, when the Christians gathered should have worked. Peter was in prison, condemned to death (12:1-3). The believers had gathered to pray for Peter. But when Peter was standing at the door knocking, continued prayer was an act of unbelief. Then it was time to work (to open the door), not to wait (in prayer).

How do we know when we should work and when we should wait?

1. Work when God has clearly given us the responsibility and the authority to do so. God had never placed the responsibility for producing a child on Sarai, or Abram. God had promised to provide the child. Just as God had prevented Sarai from conceiving, so He would provide an heir.

2. We can’t succeed in any activity for which God has not given us the power to produce spiritual fruit. As shown in Galatians 4, Ishmael was a result of the work of the flesh, not the spirit. Isaac was the result of divine activity in Abram and Sarai. No work of faith is the work of the flesh.

3. Move ahead only when our motivation to do so is that of faith. Sarai acted because God had prevented her from having children. Sarai’s and Abram’s actions show a motive of fear, not faith.

4. Be reluctant to work when it appears that God has been preventing what we have been seeking. Knowing the difference between problems and prohibitions requires the wisdom which God freely gives as we ask for it in faith (James 1:5-6).

5. Be very careful about doing things that appeal to your ego. Stop and think of the inclination Abram could have had to follow Sarai’s instructions. Remember, Sarai was essentially encouraging Abram to go to bed with her slave. Hagar probably was both young and attractive. Do you think Pharaoh would have given Abram a slave girl as part of a dowry if she were old and ugly?

6. Don’t undertake any work when our main reason for doing so is to relieve pressure. The only reason Abram took Hagar was to appease, and perhaps silence his wife. Pressure from others is usually a poor reason for taking on any task.

7. Never work when our methods are inappropriate to our goals and to God. While the goal of Abram and Sarai’s efforts was the birth of a son, an heir, the means didn’t bring glory to God.

Abram learned the painful consequences of trying to help God. God does not need and cannot use our help. God wants to work through us. God intended to give Abram and Sarai a child – in His time.

Faith is trusting God’s promises of despite the problems, and knowing that with God all things are possible. Unbelief focuses upon the problem. Faith believes not only that God will give us what He has promised, but that He will provide us the means to do so, and if not, that He alone will do it.

God spoke to Hagar in this chapter, but not to Abram or Sarai. In fact, the book of Genesis tells us that God did not speak to Abram for 13 years. When we choose to act upon circumstances, God may speak to us only through circumstances - loudly and clearly and painfully.

Chapter 16 reveals that Abram’s home was beset by the same difficulties we face today: Wives pressuring their husbands into doing what seems right; Husbands relinquishing their responsibility instead of leading in their homes. Why is it that in most Christian homes, it’s the wife who is the spiritual leader?