The birth of Ishmael
16
📚Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children, and she had a maidservant, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. 2 📚And Sarai said to Abram, “Now look, the LORD has kept me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maidservant. It may be that I can obtain children through her”. And Abram listened to Sarai’s voice.3 📚And Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar, her Egyptian maidservant, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. 4 📚And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.
16:1-4 God had promised Abram that an heir would be born to him (Gen 15:4). Now Abram makes the mistake of trying to fulfill God’s promise in his own way, instead of waiting for God to do so in His way. He listens to the voice of his wife instead of waiting for God’s voice. The results were sad indeed for Abram and Sarai, and deeply affected the whole history of Western Asia. The offspring of Abram and Hagar was Ishmael, the progenitor of twelve Arab tribes (Gen 16:11; 17:20; 25:12-18). The descendants of Ishmael and Isaac (Gen 21:1-3) have often been opposed to each other even to this day.⚜
5 📚And Sarai said to Abram, “The wrong I suffer be on you. I gave my maidservant into your arms, and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes. The LORD judge between me and you”.
6 📚But Abram said to Sarai, “Look, your maidservant is in your hand. Do whatever you please to her”. And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she ran away from her presence.
7 📚And the angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the desert, by the spring on the way to Shur.
16:7 Angels are mentioned about 300 times in the Bible. They are spirit beings usually unseen by men. But they may appear in the form of men from time to time. Both the Hebrew and Greek words for angel means “messenger”. Angels were created by God for His service. Some important references to them are: Gen 28:12; Job 1:6; 38:7; Ps 78:49; 91:11; 103:20; Dan 6:22; Matt 1:20; 13:39, 41; 16:27; 22:30; 25:41; 26:53; John 1:51; Acts 7:53; 8:26; 12:7-11; 2 Cor 11:14; Col 2:18; Heb 1:6-7; 1 Pet 1:12; 2 Pet 2:4; Rev 1:1; 22:8-9.
There are innumerable angels (Rev 5:11), but the angel in this verse is a very special one. His name is “the angel of the LORD (Jehovah)”. He appears many times in the Old Testament and speaks as if He were God Himself (Gen 31:11-13; Ex 3:2-6), and He has divine attributes (Gen 16:10; 48:16). He is identified as the LORD (Jehovah – Jud 2:1-3; 6:12, 14, 16, 23). His name is “wonderful” (Jud 13:18; compare Isa 9:6). He appeared several times in the form of a man (Jud 13:3, 6, 10, 11, 13). For these reasons it seems certain that this angel is none other than the Son of God, Jesus Christ, coming to help and bless men before His birth of a virgin many centuries later.⚜
8 📚And he said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maidservant, from where have you come? And where are you going?” And she said, “I’m running away from the presence of my mistress Sarai”.
9 📚And the angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority”. 10 📚And the angel of the LORD said to her, “I will increase the number of your offspring exceedingly, so that they will be too many to count”.
11 📚And the angel of the LORD said to her, “See, you are with child. You will give birth to a son, and shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard of your misery 📖.
16:11 Ishmael means “God hears”.⚜
12 📚And he will be a wild man. His hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand will be against him. And he will live in the presence of all his brothers”.
13 📚And she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, “You are the God who sees me”, for she said, “Here have I also seen him who sees me 📖?” 14 📚Therefore the well was called Beer Lahai Roi. To this day, it is between Kadesh and Bered.
16:14 This name means “The well of the Living One Who sees me”.⚜
15 📚And Hagar bore Abram a son. And Abram called his son’s name, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. 16 And Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.