We read in Genesis 16,
“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai”.
This is our first introduction to Hagar. Her previous history we can only surmise, but in all probability they acquired her during their sojourn in Egypt. As the years passed Abram and Sarai must have wondered how the Lord’s promise would be fulfilled when He had said that their seed would be as the stars in heaven (Genesis 15. 5).
How human this whole episode is. Can’t one really see how Hagar, once the servant, now having conceived and bearing her master’s child, would look down upon her mistress. Sarai, too, responded naturally for if she let this behaviour go unchecked the rest of the servants would soon follow the example and there would be no respect in the camp. So Sarai was harsh to her, causing her to flee to the desert. Here we leave the natural and come to the divine, for we are told that an angel of the Lord found Hagar and advised her to return to her mistress. Here also was made a promise to Hagar and the son she would bear and call Ishmael, for we read in verse 10, “And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly that it shall not be numbered for multitude”. He also went on to tell her that her son would be a wild man and his hand would be against every man.
So she returned and in due course Ishmael was born. Years passed and then, through the grace of God, Isaac was born to Abraham and Sarah. At his weaning Ishmael was seen to mock him and Sarah angrily ordered Abraham to cast him and his mother out. He hesitated—naturally enough as this was his son also—but God told him to do as Sarah said, “For in Isaac shall thy seed be called”. Ishmael was not to be forgotten and the Lord promised to make a nation from him: the wild Arab races have descended from him.
How must Hagar have felt when cast out with a young child in to the desert once more? The extent of her sorrow was such that we are told that when the little water they had was finished she threw Ishmael under a bush and then sat afar off so that she might not see him die. God in his loving mercy cared for them once more and they lived to settle in Paran, and later Ishmael took a wife from Egypt.
There are many lessons for us in all this, even from the example of what happened when Abram and Sarai took matters into their own hands to provide the promised son. How often do we try to take matters out of God’s hands to forge our own destiny, even though we know the way, quite often with disastrous results.
How beautifully this episode is used also in Paul’s letter to Galatians 4. 22, when he speaks of the allegory of the two children,
“For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid the other by a freewoman, but he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise”.
As Isaac was the true heir and Hagar and Ishmael were cast out, so the law as a limited phase in God’s plan of redemption was in due time supplanted by the covenant of faith established finally and eternally in Christ.
The Solution