Clough Genesis Lesson 50
Sarai, Abram and Hagar – Genesis 15:18-6:-14
In this section of Genesis we’ve been
studying the life of Abraham, and we’ve noticed certain features that God has
revealed in the text and we could summarize what we’ve studied in Genesis 15 as
well as in the future we will encounter the same theme, and that is that in the
ancient world around Israel it was very, very clear, to almost the blind
observer, that the law of God prevailed over man. The Jews were unique in ancient history because
of all the world’s religions, no god ever entered into contract with his
people. That is a unique feature, a
distinctive, of the faith of ancient
Said another way for our modern age, what we face in the Bible is a God that rules society. The Bible does not believe in democracy as an origin point for value. Democracies are fine in some limited areas but not for determining values. The 51% cannot determine what is right and what is wrong; it has to be God and His authoritative Word that determines what is right and what is wrong. Nor can it be the almighty deified state, a group of elite planners after Plato, who want to put down everybody under their own dominion. This can’t be the source either; there is only one qualified source of value and law and that is God.
In Genesis 15 we saw the three promises of
the Abrahamic Covenant. We saw in Genesis 15:4-5 the seed promise; we saw how
this seed promise was specified as coming out of the genes of Abraham. Although it was not clear before Genesis 15
it certainly is clear after Genesis 15, that if Abraham is going to have a son
it will be through his body. We saw in
Genesis 15:18-21 the land promise, that Abraham has eternal title to the land. And then in Genesis 15:6-17 we have a
development section and this has to do with God purging the seed of Abraham to
prepare them spiritually to function. In
order to function as a worldwide blessing they have to go through a little
school of hard knocks. And this is why
we read in Genesis 15:13, “And He said unto Abram, Know for sure that thy seed
shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and
they shall afflict them four hundred years,” four hundred years is
approximately the length of the time of the Jewish bondage in
[14] “And also that nation, whom they shall
serve, will I judge: and afterward they shall come out with great
substance.” And in scholarly circles and
areas of Biblical theology it’s often commented that
Before we go any further in our study we
want to take these truths and give you an illustration of why it is, if you
will study the Bible carefully and study it as what it should be studied, a
source of information from the God who rules history, then we can have little
insights into our front page headlines.
Of course the front pages have been over the past several weeks the
For example, in Saturday morning’s paper
columnist Novak that Monachem Begin’s claim for Eretz Yisrael is based (quote)
“only upon alleged statements in the Bible,” (end quote). This has been a problem in the negotiations
because for the first time in serious international discussions there has been
one party in the discussion that has made the claim, not because we want this
land because of security, or we need this because of our trade, but the claim
has been put forward by Begin and his followers that we have claims to the land
by divine rights. Eretz Yisrael is the
Jewish word for “the
The Zionists are right in the claim that
the Jew ultimately has title to the land.
The land they have title to, if we draw a rough map here of the eastern
end of the Mediterranean, the Nile flowing north and the Sinai Peninsula with
Saudi Arabia here, Israel, the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea, this area, we find
according to the boundaries in Genesis 15:18, they have boundaries “from the
river of Egypt”… the river of Egypt is not the Nile; the river of Egypt is Wadi
El Arish; El Arish is a city still there, it was there in Bible times, along
the Mediterranean coast and it’s a long, sweeping valley from inland in the
desert area. When I drove down it looked
to me like that whole wadi must have been ten, fifteen miles wide; it’s not
wadi in the classical sense but it’s a long open area. And of course, when the rains come in the
Then to the northeast, however, imagine how
this would go over in the
However, Zionism is wrong in saying that the Jews today have a right to occupy all of that land because Messiah has not come and Messiah has not given them all of the land; they are to wait for the Messiah, and when Messiah comes He will give them that land and all of its boundaries. So there’s some things right in the Zionist claim and then there are some things wrong in the Zionist claim.
Now we come to a very interesting
chapter. Genesis 16 is held by both Jew
and Muslim alike, to give the origin of the Arab. It is this chapter where we find a womb of
One further note to help you follow with us in Genesis 16, maybe to solidify the big picture in your mind so we don’t lose the details, is if you will compare Genesis 16 with Genesis 3, what we have in Genesis 16 is a second fall, of sorts; that is, just as the first fall followed the creation of Adam and the giving of the covenant to Adam, or the giving of the mandate and the promises to Adam, and Adam listening to his wife, Eve, they falling, God cursing, so we have the pattern repeated here. Adam is the leader; Abram is the leader. We have Adam’s wife Eve, she initiates to Adam, Adam is a sucker for it, listens to her without checking it out from the Word, and falls. Abram has Sarai, she initiates to him, he is a sucker for it without checking out by the Word and he falls. As a result we have God cursing Adam and Eve and particularly cursing the ground that they should have farmed, subdued and had dominion over. And in Genesis 16 we find the same pattern; we find God coming down and providing a curse to the seed of Abraham; the Jew has fallen and the Jew has his own curse in history, the curse of the sons of Ishmael; they will follow the Jew wherever he goes to curse him, to oppose him, just like the fallen universe follows all men around to curse them and to oppose them. And we find, then, this is the seed of Ishmael or the rise of the Arabs. Not all Arabs arose here, some earlier, some later, but this is one of the key ones both for Jews, Moslems, as well as Christians.
Looking at Genesis 16:1 and seeing the situation, verse 1 is a circumstantial clause; the main action does not take place until verse 2 and in good Hebrew style the action verb is introduced slowly. Before the author tells you what’s fixing to happen he tells you the circumstances leading to that situation.
Genesis 16:1, “Sarai, Abram’s wife bore him no children.” That’s the first thing in the situation. This couple is under stress. Verse 3 tells us they are under stress for ten years. They had a promise given to them, when Abram was 75, that he would bear a son. One year goes by; two years go by, three years go by; ten years go by, still no son. God, is He slack concerning His promise? What is wrong; why doesn’t God bless, and there’s a major question the text introduces and answers here. Why does God delay blessing His own people? That’s a question you’ve all had. I’ve had it and I think every believer that’s ever lived has had it. Why is it sometimes true that God’s blessings do not immediately come?
“…and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian,
whose name was Hagar.” You notice the
name, “Hagar,” is associated with her lineage,
Here we have the rise of the Arab nation
and this will tell you something about the Arab behavior pattern. This line of Arabs are mixed nature, they
come from Ham and some of them come from Shem.
So you have a mix; the Egyptians are more Ham, they’re heavier here in
the influence through Mizraim from Ham.
This will explain to you a certain thing you observe in your front page
newspaper and that is it that of all the Arab countries it always seems like
Genesis 16:2, “Sarai said to Abraham,” and this tells us why God delayed the blessings. She says to Abram, “Behold now, Jehovah has restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her.” Except in the Hebrew it doesn’t say “I may obtain children by her,” that’s the sense of the idiom but in the original language it says that “I may be built up.” Now just a minute; what was the whole purpose of giving a seed to Abram? Was it to build Sarai up? Not at all. It was to give an inheritance to Abraham; through Abraham the world could be subdued for Jehovah God. That was the purpose; it was a higher purpose than just this one woman wanting to be built up. So here we have one answer to why God delays His blessing; because we can’t take His blessing, we get our eyes on the blessings instead of the Blessor. We can’t stand the prosperity test, and many believers there are who have blessing upon blessing delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed year after year after year after year. Why? Because God loves you, and He loves you enough and He knows enough about your heart that He knows that you simply can’t take blessing; you would get your eyes on the blessing, the blessing would become an enemy of God and He doesn’t want that for you and therefore He’s going to restrain His hand from giving you the blessing. So here we find one reason that’s very clear from the way this woman is acting here, and she’s got her eyes completely in the wrong place; it’s on what she gets—I may be built up.
Now it’s interesting that Sarai as she comes up with this also argues against God. Notice the construction in verse 2, she says, “Jehovah has kept me from bearing children” so we’re going to do it this way. In other words, I’m going to have my way come hell or high water and generally both do come. I will have my way, we will have a child and I don’t care how we’re going to get it. So right from the start we have a wife in the home who was out of control. That’s the first observation. The woman, at this point, is not being submissive to what she knows is the Scripture. She has had the covenant explained to her undoubtedly, she has lived for ten years in the land, she’s privy to all of this stuff. And she’s out of control; she’s crashed under the pressure of being promised a child and not being able to bear the child. And therefore she reacts emotionally and begins to go into a status of revolt and rebellion.
But she’s not the only one that gets out of it, like it always happens in marriage, when one goes the other goes, and so the last sentence in Genesis 16:2, “And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.” The Hebrew writers had a neat way of playing with the readers. And this is too bad that we’ve lost this in the English translation. I don’t know how you could keep it in the translation really but let me tell you what’s going on here. One way the Hebrew writers had of manipulating their readers was to repeat sentences word for word, except for one or two words. Authors do this still but it was the center of their style. And here is you look at that last sentence of verse 2 very carefully, and mentally remove the word “Abram” from the sentence, and remove the word “Sarai,” and replace the word “Abram” with Adam and replace the word “Sarai” with “his wife,” you will discover it’s exactly the same sentence as Genesis 3, “And Adam hearkened to his wife.” The word “hearken” is the signal that something’s going on here, the author is saying look reader, look reader, I want you to see something.
The word “hearken” in the Hebrew, shma, it’s the word used by the [can’t understand word] faith [can’t understand word] of every orthodox Jew, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God.” It’s called by orthodox Jewry the shma. And it’s the imperative form of the verb to hear, to listen, but it means more than just listen; it means to obey an authority. And when it says, “Hear, O Israel,” it’s shma and God gives it and we are to respond to Him. This is, in other words, directed to God’s authority. And when you see it here, that “Abram shma-ed to the voice of Sarai,” there’s an inversion of the true order of creation. The husband, according to the Bible, is under the headship of Christ. 1 Corinthians 11 makes that quite clear; we have the husband, then the head of every woman; the wife, and so on down into the family. That’s the proper chain. It’s not the way I wrote the Bible or the way somebody else wrote it, it is the way we all are built, and if there’s nothing that’s going to be learned in Genesis 16 it’s when a home and a marriage and a family violates this order there is hell to pay in the home.
In this situation look what happened. The husband is supposed to be… of course Christ is not revealed here, he’s revealed as the angel of the Lord, He’s an Old Testament revelation of Christ. The husband is to be responsive, he is to hearken to the Lord; instead, reverse and revert the order, the husband is now taking orders from his wife. So by the end of verse 2 two people are out of it.
Before I go on, because I know what some men are going to do; they’re going to go home and say see, when I talk … Charlie said, and boom, step and squash her. Now to avoid that little thing let’s just hold the place and turn to Genesis 21. This tells the proper way, because inevitably a guy will get hold of this and he suddenly decides he’s going to be dictator. Well, be careful, the Bible balances things. And in Genesis 21:9 we have the same kind of thing happen. Here the wife is again and here she comes to the same husband and she’s giving advice. “And Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, which she had borne unto Abraham, mocking. [10] Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, with Isaac. [11] And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of his son. [12] And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah has said unto thee, hearken unto her voice,” does this conflict with the passage? No.
Here’s the difference. The wife has been given as a helper. We men have to understand that that’s their function, and they’re going to come back with advice to us, some good and some bad, and we have two, three options of handling this problem of advice from a woman. We can take it unconditionally; we can evaluate it and take it conditionally, or we can ignore them all the way. Two of those are wrong and anti-scriptural. The woman can’t function as a helpmate if her advice isn’t inputting itself into the system. The woman has the right to advise but the biblical way of doing it is after the husband listens to it and truly understands, then he is to consult the Word of God. He is to put it back and say now is this right, is she right or is she misled, I will be open to the leading but is it right. And you have evidence here in Genesis 41:12 that Abraham did precisely that. He listened to his wife and then he was troubled enough to pray about it and God said in this thing your wife’s advice is right, listen to it. So this is what we mean the biblical way of the husband and the wife. The husband does listen to his wife’s advice but he just swallow it hook, line and sinker. He is left to clear… and there’s a reason for this guys because you’re going to get it. You are held responsible. That woman of yours may advise you to do something and you say oh, whatever you want Hon, and you go out and do it, do you know who’s going to be answering for that? You are, not her, you, because you’re the dummy that let her do that. And so since you are the one that is going to bear it, it is a little in your interest to make sure that it’s clear before you go ahead and function.
All right, let’s go back to Genesis 16:3 and watch. And so “Sarai takes Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt in the land ten years,” in other words, the time note put in there that she should have known better, “and gave her to her husband, Abram, to be his wife.” Now you don’t catch this right off the bat but again please notice the text carefully. This author of Genesis, his style is such that he doesn’t come right out and say so and so is wrong, or so and so is right. Now the author of Kings does do that; the author of Chronicles does that, but not the author of Genesis. His style is a little different, and his style is use of clever words and he’s done it right here. Do you notice that when Sarai is talked about in verses 1-3 she’s always qualified? See what follows the name? In Genesis 16:1, “Sarai, Abram’s wife.” Verse 3, “Sarai, Abram’s wife.”
That ought to strike you as interesting. We don’t need to be told this woman is Abram’s wife; she’s been his wife for three chapters now, why do we have to be told this time and again? Because the author is saying this woman has a position with respect to this man, now watch what this foolish woman is going to do to her own position. She thinks she is going to get that baby, regardless of whether God restrains her womb or not, she is going to have what she wants, period. And so at the end of verse 3 the author, in very great irony, says what does she do? She gives Hagar to be Abram’s wife. What he’s just said is what this woman, in a brilliant flash of genius did was knock herself out from being his wife. So it’s unusual to have the expression, a maiden, instead of being a concubine it says she “gave her” to be Abram’s wife, not just his concubine, his wife. So his first wife is responsible for his second wife’s position, and wiping herself out of a position. Not too smart Hon!
And then the second thing that the author does in verse 3 to show that he’s just amazed that she would do this is in the Hebrew the indirect object of the verb to give, I give something to somebody, here’s the way it looks: she gave it to Abram, let me get it literally, it says she gives it to Abram, to him, to her husband, so there’s three indirect objects in that sentence: to him, to Abram, to her husband. Now why does a verb need three indirect objects, particularly when the indirect objects are all synonymous, all the same thing? Because of emphasis, just for shock, the writer is trying to connote shock that this woman would do this kind of thing, that she would not see through her own foolishness. It was a custom of its time, true, but nevertheless, whether it was a custom of its time or not the point still remains that she should have known better.
Let’s look further. Genesis 16:4, “And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.” I don’t know how many of you saw the film, John Huston’s film, The Bible, and of those who saw the film I wonder how many remember how, when he filmed this he showed the attitude of Hagar toward Sarai. I partially remember how he did it, I believe he had Sarai outside the tent and there was a light in the tent and the light was shining against the tent wall and after Hagar had become pregnant she walked proudly by the other side of the tent and Sarai was on the other wall and she was looking at her in her pregnant figure, and this is the way he got the dig, the little catty dig that went on from one woman to the other. Whatever it was, that’s an imaginative movie maker’s impression of it, the Bible doesn’t tell us but in some say “she despised” and the Hebrew word for “mistress” here is lady, it’s a term of upper class, “she despised her lady.” And the word to “despise” is the word to slight. The nearest thing, maybe, that you can picture in your mind to this would be the attitude of people who are newly rich. If you’ve ever watched the difference and attitude of a family that’s had wealth for a long, long time, it really doesn’t mean that much to them, and they’re usually not uppity and up-tight about it, they just have it and they use it and that’s it, no problem. But you take the person whose newly wealthy, it always seems like they have to go around and deliberately impress… they are the people that have to have the special Lincoln Continental, it has to be such and such, the big show, they have to have the affected air and so on, to impress everyone, the attitude of the new rich.
Well, here Hagar is somewhat the same way, you see because virtue of her position in the home now, by virtue of her pregnancy, who is the wealthy woman? Hagar is; she has blessing and she has wealth and she’s proud of it. So imagine what we face; we’re four verses into the chapter and now we’ve got all three people screwed up. So this is how we find the home when the main action begins to start. We have a wife who’s rebellious against God and what God wants for her. She’s manipulated her husband; her husband was stupid enough to let her do it, and now even the maid is out of it. So with this where can you go wrong? Everywhere! Let’s watch.
Genesis 16:5, “And Sarai said unto Abram, my wrong be upon you: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes,” so this, men, is why you always want to at least have your say, because whatever happens you’re still going to get blamed for it. You see, had Abram opposed Sarah he would have gotten blamed in verse 2, well you never listen to me, you don’t love me, that approach. Well, then he did listen to her, it fouled up like he should have seen it foul up, and guess who catches it? Sarah doesn’t say well honey, that was my fault, I faked you out. Oh no, it’s her husband’s fault, “my wrong be upon you.” And then to add insult to injury, again strong in the Hebrew, she says, “I, even I have given you my handmaid.” The pronoun “I” is repeated and when it’s repeated like that it’s repeated for emphasis, I’ve done this for you and look at what happens to poor me, now “the LORD judge between me and you.”
Well now you’d think at this point Abram would finally say hey, you know, I’m sort of a spiritual cluck in all this, I’d better get my stuff in gear and start ruling in this area, pull the chestnuts out of the fire and get this thing straightened up. Oh no, not Abram, he just kind of slides along in the male zombie attitude, okay honey, whatever you want, to it. And that’s exactly what Abram does in verse 6.
Genesis 16:6, “[But Abram said unto Sarai,] Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her has it pleases you.” Again, no direction, no leadership, just let her do whatever, she screwed up once, try again Sarah, screw up again, I’m sitting here watching. So she does, “Sarah dealt harshly with Hagar, and Hagar flees from her face.” Now with the fleeing we are introduced to the tragedy of a third person in the story, this second woman, and the acting out of this tragedy is one of the most powerful biblical stories to encourage a woman in this kind of a situation. When it says “she fled from her face,” it means right here in this home situation, where you Abram, you have Sarai, and Hagar under them, that she breaks that family unit. You know the excuse, I’ve had it to here, I can’t take it any longer, I’m splitting. And she does. Her solution to the problem, Hagar’s solution, is she’s had it and she’s going to leave, period over and out. That’s her solution to the problem. This is the second female solution proposed in the text.
Now let’s watch how God handles the problem because Abram hasn’t handled the problem and you’ve got two women running around like chickens with their head cut off and the man who’s supposed to be articulating in the situation is not, so God comes in. Genesis 16:7, “And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness,” notice the word he “found her, [by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur],” the attitude is that God searched for her. Now God in omniscience obviously didn’t search in the sense that God didn’t know but it’s a concern; the verb to find means that He’s concerned for. God is concerned when the woman is faced in this situation; she has been treated harshly, and Hagar has that awful choice that many women have to face: how can I be submissive in a family type situation where I am not loved, where I am not cared for, where nobody really looks out for me. And it’s very discouraging; it’s very, very difficult to be in that situation. And Hagar’s solution, like many women, is just I’m going to leave… I’ve going to leave. Let’s see where she leaves to, what great piece of real estate does she find to hide in.
We can go back because if you notice, in
Genesis 15:7 at the end it tells us where, it says it’s “in the way to
Shur.” Let’s look at what that way to
Shur looks like and then we’ll understand the story a little bit better. [shows slides] Here’s the Sinai triangle;
the way to Shur leads from
It was in that scene that the angel of the Lord comes, and He said to Hagar, and notice how He starts the counseling. The woman is centered on her problem in her own home but the angel of the Lord comes with two great refreshing questions for this woman, because the tendency always is when you’re in this kind of a problem, is the problem is so vexing and so irritating that all you can see is the problem. And two great questions the angel of the Lord asked her is woman, where have you come from and where are you going. [Genesis 16:8, “And He said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid, from where came thou? And where will you go?] You see, you can’t answer those two questions without getting very, very big and very, very deep; you’ve got to answer some other questions: what is the purpose of my whole life, where have I come from and where am I going. See, those are tough questions, very hard questions to answer. Now who is it that’s asking the questions? It says “the angel of the Lord.” We don’t have time to prove it, we will Wednesday night, and we’ll prove it elsewhere, but here I just assert the angel of the Lord is the preincarnate Lord Jesus Christ. This is how Christ shows up or the Trinity shows up in the Old Testament. The fact that it’s the Trinity, by the way, is also shown in Genesis 16:13, notice it says, later, after the incident is all finished, Hagar turns around, “And she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, Thou God seest me,” the idea is there were several Lords and the one that spoke to her she called “God seest me,” in other words, it was the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity that spoke to her.
But there’s something else interesting here. Remember I said watch repetition in the text. Now look at Genesis 16:9 and how it starts; look at verse 10 and how it starts; look at verse 11 and how it starts. What do you see? A tremendous heavy, heavy emphasis on the speaker, “And the angel of the LORD said to her,” verse 9; “And the angel of the LORD said to her,” verse 10; “And the angel of the LORD said to her,” verse 11. Now we don’t have to be told three times that the angel of the Lord… that’s a literary technique that is in there to show the titanic structure, the majesty of the one’s who’s doing the speaking. And the significance of this passage is that this is the first time of a Christophany in the Old Testament. And though it may be rebuking to the men, it’s interesting the first time Christ comes to earth in preincarnate form He comes to a lonely woman. The woman is the first one to see Jesus Christ in the Old Testament by way of theophany. And she’s going to be amazed, Hagar is totally flabbergasted by this whole thing and it comes out later on in her response.
So the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water. Interesting, isn’t it, how many women are found by the fountains of water in the Scripture. That is important later too. She answers the question, she says, [8b] “I flee from the face of my mistress,” my lady, “Sarai.” Genesis 16:9, “And the angel of the LORD said unto her, return to thy mistress, and submit [thyself under her hands.]” Huh, you gotta be kidding, return and submit? Go back to that home, back to all the flack, back to all the pressure, where the stuff runs downhill and I’m the bottom, you want me to go back there? That’s right. Go back and get your place in the ordinance of the home. But…but… but… just go back and take your place.
Now this is tough and it’s very, very difficult and it’s easy for someone to say who hasn’t been in the situation, Hagar is catching tremendous amounts of this situation from Sarai and she is ordered by the angel of the Lord, you go back and you get back in that family situation and you function the way you’re supposed to function. That’s a pretty tall order to ask of any woman in this kind of situation, or by way of principle any man when he’s in some organization in this kind of principle. It’s really tough.
So now in the last few verses we’re going to come to the Lord’s reason why you can do it if you have to. Now we’re used to the easy answer, ah, I can’t do that, I’m at the end of my rope, and God says which end, the beginning or the end? And so what we have here is an explanation of how you can take it, in a position of submission, when that person to whom you’re submitting is not really too loving towards you; in fact, they probably don’t give a damn about you. Now how are you going to take that kind of pressure, particularly the woman in this situation. Watch how God deals with her problem. Remember, this is Christ that’s talking to here, we don’t have some fumbling counselor here, we have the One who shall be called The Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, He’s the one that’s doing the counseling.
Genesis 16:10, “And the angel of the LORD said to her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.” So the first thing the Lord deals with her is He uses the legal language of what? Where did we last hear something like verse 10? That was back in the Abrahamic Covenant, that’s legal language, and so what Jehovah is promising this woman is Hagar, you’re going to have a piece of the action, your life is going to be significant, even when you go back and submit to the monster. Submitting and going back means that you will be a productive person in history, your life has meaning, purpose and definition. And you will be blessed for it, and what makes your soul able to take all of the pressure and all of the “nobody loves me” and all those kind of things, what will enable you to get through the problem is at least to know that you’re not going to be erased.
Think of it for a moment; what’s the one thing that keeps you going, really keeps you going. It isn’t necessarily because you’re always happy, because many of us go through many, many months of our lives when we’re not basically happy because of various situations. So it isn’t present-centered joy that really does keep anyone going, is it, finally. If you really believe that you’ll take pills to get real. But for most people who reflect on this, present happiness is not what propels you and can carry you through times of pain, can carry you through times of disappointment. What propels you and keeps you able to function is to know that it’s all going to be worthwhile. That’s what propels you. And that’s what has to happen for a woman in this situation. He has to be given a reason why it’s worth it. Why should I stay with this man? Why should I stay under this woman? Why should I stay in my present problems? Because it’s worth it for this reason, this reason, this reason, this reason and this reason. Hagar can’t be the mother of one of the greatest nations on earth out in that place, wandering around the rocks and counting grains of sand. That is not going to be… she will be a zero if she stays out there and God doesn’t want the lonely woman to be a zero, He wants her to be a productive woman.
And so he tells her to go back, and if you’ll go back, because verse 10 is contingent on verse 9, if you go back, then “I will multiply your seed exceedingly,” try Me, test Me out, see if I can’t give your life purpose. Genesis 16:11, “And the angel of the LORD said to her, Behold, you art with child,” which further assures this woman that somebody at least understands; she has no man so she can’t look to a man to understand her; she looks to the woman over her and the woman doesn’t understand or doesn’t care, but at least God cares, and God understands she’s pregnancy and God’s sensitive to her pregnancy. And God says when you bear that son, which gives her assurance that it will be a successful pregnancy, incidentally, implicit in this is the fact that you’re not going to lose your child, you’re going to bring this child to full term and it’s going to be a healthy baby and it’s going to function and it’s going to be a father of a great nation. So even her pregnancy will have meaning for her.
[Genesis 16:11b, “…and shall bear a son, and shall call his name Ishmael; because the LORD has heard thy affliction.”] And you will call that boy… you’re going to have a son and you’re going to call him Ishmael. Now I wrote here, back when we were studying verse 2 I wrote the Hebrew word to listen or to hearken; it was shma. Look at Ishmael’s name and see if you can spot it? Ishmael, there it is in the middle of it, the “I” is just a verb form on it, and notice the two letters on the other of his name, El, that’s Elohim, short for El. It means God hearkens.
Here is the first Arab and his name is that God has hearkened. But how has God harkened. Let’s watch the chain of command. First we have Christ, then we have the husband, in this case Abraham. We have the wife, in this case Sarai; and we have Hagar, the maid. We should have a chain of command that functions this way so that Abram hearkens to the Lord. What we have in the story, in fact, is Abram hearkening to the woman, and we have this kind of a flow; the whole thing’s backwards and so what God says, okay buddy, you won’t hearken to me, I’ll tell you what, I’ll hearken to the last person on the totem pole on the bottom, see how you like that. So God, instead of solving the problem through Abraham in an orderly says, if you want to go outside the chain of command big boy, I’ll go outside the chain of command too. And I’ll come down here and I’ll hearken to the woman that you just stepped all over and you’re going to be sorry you did it because now this is the curse on Israel; everywhere Israel goes in history she will be followed by the Arabs and everywhere there will be conflict for the rest of history; just as from Genesis 3 everywhere man goes, whatever he does, crumbles in his hands because of dust, death, sorrow and pain. So there was a general curse and now there’s a special curse.
And it describes in Genesis 16:12… I only suggest this, I’m not sure of the medical basis for it, but I’ve often wondered when I see passages like verses 11 and 12 whether it’s true that what the woman thinks and what the woman does during the time of her pregnancy affects the body and personality and make-up of that child she’s carrying. In this case Hagar is a bitter woman; she’s in rebellion. And it’s interesting, the personality of the baby she bears during that pregnancy is a bitter and rebellious son. Now this is not to excuse Ishmael, it’s not to say he can blame his mother. It’s just to say that when Ishmael sins instead of sinning in the way of, say Saul, sinned, proud, arrogant, human good type sin, when Ishmael sins it’s going to be this kind of sin. Verse 12 says “He will be a wild ass of a man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of al his brethren.”
We don’t have time but you might take down
Job 38:5-8 because that passage describes the metaphor of the wild ass. It’s not what we think in terms of a stupid
person that we call an ass today. A wild
ass in that day meant a person who was lonely, a wanderer, and who could not
get along with anybody else, just out by himself in solitude. And so this is the kind of person. And what do we see in the front pages of the
paper? The PLO is now trying to
assassinate Sadat;
Now for the punch line, Genesis 16:13, “And she called the name of the LORD who spoke unto her, Thou God seest me; for she said, Have I also here looked after [seen] Him that seeth me? [14] Wherefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.” There is a debate in verses 13-14 of how to take this, and the debate centers on a word, “roi,” it’s [sounds like: roe-e], and the question is whether this Hebrew expression ought to be taken as a participle, a participle that would be translated “who sees,” or whether it ought to be translated as a noun in which case it would be “vision.” Now your translations, most of them that I’ve checked take this as a participle; for example in verse 13 it will say “Thou God, is the one who sees me,” it’s taking “roe-e” as a participle, “Thou God seeth me,” and then the second time it’s used, “Have I also here looked after Him who sees me,” second occurrence of the participle, and then verse 14, “Therefore the well was called,” well=“Beer,” B-e-e-r is the word for “well,” the well “lahai,” “la” is of, “hai” is living, “the well of the living one who sees me,” that’s the way you translate it if you took all of these as participles.
But here’s a problem with that approach. The emphasis in the context isn’t on God seeing Hagar; it’s true He does, it’s true He’s concerned, but that’s not the main thrust of the chapter. Moreover, in the end of verse 13 is a nonsense phrase, “Have I also looked after him that sees me?” Now there’s only one way this particular preposition “after” can be translated in this kind of a context and it means “have I also hear understood him that sees me.” Well, if the emphasis is on her understanding, then it’s not on God understanding her. You see, there’s these two elements.
So I prefer to take these words, roe-e [sp?] for this and other reasons, to mean a vision, or the content of what she sees, not what God sees. So then we go through verse 13, “And she called the name of Jehovah who spoke unto her, You are a God of vision,” that is, you’re a God who reveals yourself. She’s just been the first woman in history that experienced a Christophany, “You are a God who reveals Yourself,” and then in the end of verse 13, here she is, hot, irritated, pregnant and alone at this place in the spring, at that place you saw out in the sand, and she says, and it’s a poignant expression here in the Hebrew, if we were translating it’d look something like this literally, “have not I—[dash] even I seen in this place of all places,” that’s the flavor of the sentence. In other words, she’s amazed of what she’s seeing, that God Himself would come down to speak to her, a lonely handmaiden, an Egyptian, not even a Jew, an Egyptian of all things, and she knows that, she’s caught it from Abram and Sarai and the remarks that have gone on in that home, and she says your God appeared to me? A maid? An Egyptian? And out here in this lonely dusty area? There’s a [can’t understand word] of amazement that God would be that concerned for her.
So then she says, “I have looked in this place after me, I have understood the One who gives me a vision.” That is, He’s given me a vision for my life; I thought I had it knocked, I was going to split, I was going to break out of this whole thing and go off by myself and probably die of thirst—really a significant accomplishment to go out in history as, walk out in the desert and drop dead of thirst. Instead God tells me to go back, get back in the system, accommodate myself to God’s chain of command even though nobody really loves or really cares for me, but God does and my life has purpose and that purpose is not dependent on someone immediately loving me. That overrides that and that gives me the stuff inside my soul to be able to take all the flack and all the callousness that goes on in that situation.
And therefore the well, and here’s the clincher, because if we translate this as a noun look what we get, “This is the well of the One who lives,” comma, “the vision.” In other words, that which is living in the Bible is that One which is effective. Ever see the expression in the Old Testament, we believe in Jehovah God because He is a God who lives. What’s that against? The idols who don’t, and the idols are ineffective, so when you see this adjective, “the living One,” it means the effective one, the thing that causes effects in history, the thing that matters, that changes things. And so she says this is the well of the One who lives, the Word of God, because the vision is what she sees of God. So what matters most to this woman is the Word of God for her life, personally, specifically applied to her life.
Now that’s not all; as we’ve gone through this story and as this mysterious
name of the well appears in verse 14, “the well of the Word of God,” does this
ring any bells with those of you who are familiar with the New Testament. I just said this was the Lord Jesus Christ in
His preincarnate appearance. He appears
to a lonely woman at a well; don’t we see that in the Gospel of John, chapter
4, another lonely woman, and isn’t the parallel remarkably striking that the
woman that Jesus appears to at the well in John 4 is a woman who has been
booted out of what we’ll call society, basically kicked out, the adulteress,
the Samaritans that don’t want her around and she’s alone because she just
can’t associate socially with anybody else and she meets the Lord at the well
and the Lord gives her water. Why do
these women always show up at wells? Why does God meet the woman at the well
all the time? Remember where Moses met Zipporah? At the well.
And you notice these women at the well that occur, that keep on going on
in the Bible, always have a problem, at the well; they’re either thirsty,
Zipporah, the rock problem and the well, the woman at the well she didn’t
really have a physical problem but she had a social problem, they always have a
problem at the well.
Now I think this has been mentioned in the
womanhood course but I’ll mention it here, there’s a deep motif in the
Scriptures that associate the well with the woman. It’s not just the fact that the physical womb
of the woman is a well but it’s deeper than that. It’s that the woman’s function in history is
the life-producer and the well is primarily where the water comes to produce
the plants that we eat; they’re both life sources. So we have life sources brought together in
this powerful metaphor, and what God is doing, these women are always in
trouble at the well and He’s always making them able to produce. What did He tell that woman at the well in
All right, the same thing has happened here. Hagar has met Christ at the well, and she may go back and submit and experience the cattiness of Sarai, and Abram may just as well be the bumpkin leader he was here, but the woman’s got something different that enables her to take it now. She knows directly from Jesus Christ her life has a purpose; a purpose that can’t be broken by any man who doesn’t care for, love her, but a purpose that goes on because the God of Scripture in history loves her and has given her a promise.
We’re going to close by singing….