The birth of Isaac, departure of Ishmael
21
📚And the LORD looked after Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had spoken 📖. 2 📚For Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time which God had told him. 3 📚And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac 📖. 4 📚And when his son Isaac was eight days old Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded him. 5 📚And Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.6 📚And Sarah said, “God has made me laugh; all who hear it will laugh with me”. 7 📚And she said, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age”.
8 📚And the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. 9 📚And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she bore to Abraham, mocking.
21:9 This was Ishmael. Gen 16:1, 4, 15; Gal 4:22-23. At this time he was about sixteen years old, Isaac only two or three.⚜
10 📚Therefore she said to Abraham, “Drive out this slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman will not be heir with my son, with Isaac”.
11 📚And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of his son.
21:11 The error Abraham made in the matter of Hagar (Gen 16:1-2) now brings much sorrow to him. Going our own way in anything usually results in grief. Only the will of God is good, pleasing and perfect – Rom 12:2.⚜
12 📚And God said to Abraham, “Let it not be grievous in your sight because of the lad and because of your slave woman. Listen to Sarah’s voice in everything she has said to you, for in Isaac shall your offspring be called.
21:12 Rom 9:7; Heb 11:18. Isaac, the child God promised, was chosen by God to be the heir of Abraham and the one through whom the Saviour of the world would come. The covenant of blessing to the world which God had made with Abraham (Gen 12:1-3) was confirmed to him. The rest of the Old Testament for the most part, and part of the New Testament is the story of Isaac’s descendants through Jacob. This covenant was not confirmed to Ishmael. There was only the promise that he too would become a great nation – vs 13,18.⚜
13 📚And I will also make a nation of the son of the slave woman, because he is your offspring”.
14 📚And Abraham got up early in the morning 📖, took bread and a bottle of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, gave her the boy 📖 and sent her away. And she left and wandered around in the desert of Beersheba.
15 📚And the water in the bottle was finished, and she thrust the boy under one of the bushes. 16 📚And she went and seated herself opposite him at a distance of about a bow shot. For she said, “Let me not see the boy’s death”. And she sat opposite him, raised 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 is bothering you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard 📖 the voice of the lad where he is. 18 📚Get up, pick up the lad, and hold him up with your hand, for I will make him a great nation”.
19 📚And God opened her eyes 📖, and she saw a well of water and she went, filled the bottle with water, and gave the boy a drink.
20 📚And God was with the boy, and he grew, lived in the desert, and became an archer. 21 📚And he lived in the desert of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
21:21 Paran was located south of Canaan in the Sinai peninsula.⚜
22 📚And at that time it came about that Abimelech 📖 and Phichol, the chief captain of his forces, spoke to Abraham, saying, “God is with you 📖 in all that you do. 23 📚So here and now swear to me by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my son or with my son’s son, but that the same kindness that I have shown to you, you will show to me, and to the land where you have been staying for a time”.
24 📚And Abraham said, “I will swear it”.
25 📚And Abraham rebuked Abimelech because of a well of water which Abimelech’s servants had taken by force. 26 📚And Abimelech said, “I do not know who has done this thing, and you did not tell me, and I did not hear it, until today”.
27 📚And Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant. 28 And Abraham put seven ewe lambs from the flock by themselves. 29 📚And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs which you have put by themselves?”
30 📚And he said, “Take these seven ewe lambs from my hand, so that they will be a witness for me, that I have dug this well”. 31 📚Therefore he called that place Beersheba, because there the two of them took an oath.
21:31 Beersheba can have two meanings – “well of the oath” or “well of the seven”.⚜
32 📚In this way they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phichol, the chief captain of his forces, got up and returned to the land of the Philistines 📖. 33 📚And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God 📖. 34 📚And Abraham stayed for many days in the land of the Philistines.