Historical
Context: This portion of our
history, takes place at approximately 3'000 B.C.
Authorship: The
Torah books are all attributed to the authorship of Moses, which he most
probably wrote during Israel's forty-year period of wandering in the
desert. Some editorial remarks were
later added to these books by priests and other divinely inspired writers, such
as Joshua and Samuel.
Discussion
Points:
Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she
had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, "The LORD has
kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can
build a family through her."
What
was the promise God made to Abram? God
had promised to give Abram descendants (15:4).
Do you think Sarai has faith in God's promise at this point? Sarai believes that God is not keeping His
promise or is too slow in keeping His promise.
She therefore takes matters into her own hands. This is reminiscent of Abram's taking matters
into his own hands when they went to Egypt, instead of allowing God to protect
them. And we remember that when Abram
did that, he just made matters worse.
Let's
see what the affects are of Sarai's idea to take matters into her hands rather
than wait on God's timing. Negative
consequence number one is that in taking matters into her own hands, Sarai and
Abram have a problem in their marriage because now Abram is having sex with
another woman besides just Sarai.
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan
ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to
her husband to be his wife. 4
He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
What
is the negative effect toward Hagar in Sarai's decision? Hagar is a slave and now she is being taken
advantage of by having to have sex with Abram against her will. Basically, Hagar is being raped because as a
slave, she cannot disobey the order to have sex with Abram. Secondly, even if Hagar does have a child,
the child is not going to be hers. As a
slave, any child that Hagar has will belong to Sarai and Abram. That's why Sarai said in verse 2, " Go,
sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her."
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her
mistress. 5 Then Sarai
said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my
servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me.
May the LORD judge between you and me."
What
are negative effects happening now between Hagar, Sarai, and Abram? Hagar begins to think that she's better than
Sarai because Hagar can do something that Sarai can't; have children. So Hagar begins to disrespect Sarai and Sarai
gets mad, blaming Abram for it. So now
Hagar and Sarai are fighting and Sarai and Abram are fighting.
6
"Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her
whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from
her.
What's
the negative effect toward Hagar in this verse?
Sarai was so mean to Hagar because Hagar was disrespecting her, thinking
that she was better than her because she could get pregnant, that Hagar ran
away.
7
The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the
spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have
you come from, and where are you going?" "I'm running away from my
mistress Sarai," she answered. 9
Then the angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit
to her." 10 The
angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too
numerous to count."
The
angel of the Lord is Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity before He was born
as a human. We know this because He
speaks in the first person for God and later we'll see that Hagar calls the
angel of the Lord God and is not corrected for it. Whenever you see "Angel
of the Lord" in the Old Testament, that is an appearance of Jesus before
Jesus was born to Mary.
What does Jesus tell Hagar? First of all, He addresses Hagar by
name. God cares enough about this slave
to know her name. Think about that. Abram and Sarai don't care about Hagar. They'll use her and rape her and mistreat
her, but God cares enough about her to call her by name. The huge, awesome God of the universe knows
your name too.
We
would probably think that God would encourage Hagar to keep running away. Why would God want anyone to be a slave? But He tells Hagar to go back and obey Sarai. Yet He also makes a promise to Hagar to bless
her. Now that Hagar has seen Jesus and
heard His promise to her, she is able to return to that difficult situation
with Sarai and Abram and deal with it because she has been given new hope from
God.
This is what
happens in our life. We have difficult
situations, but if we have had an experience of Jesus in our life, we can face
those difficult situations with strength and hope.
11
The angel of the LORD also said to her: "You are now with child and you
will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your
misery. 12 He will be a
wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand
against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."
Hagar's
son is to be named Ishmael and he will live in hostility toward all his
brothers. His brother is soon going to
be Isaac, the father of Jacob, the father of the Israelites, or the Jews. Ishmael is the ancestor of the Arabians, or
the Muslims. So when God says that
Ishmael and his brothers will be fighting, God is predicting the way that Jews
and Muslims and Christians have always fought and are always fight now.
13
She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees
me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me." 14 That is why the well was
called Beer Lahai Roi ; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
Hagar
called God, "the One who sees me".
That's important. Think about
it. Even though Hagar was going through
a really tough time, God had His eye on her.
He knew what was happening and He was looking out for her. That's important for us to remember. The huge, awesome God of the universe always
sees us, no matter what we're doing, whether we're going through a bad time or
a good time. God always cares about us
enough to keep His eye on us. He sees us
and He's always looking out for us.
15
So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had
borne. 16 Abram was
eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.
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