020. VIII. The Promise Of A Son To Sarah

§ VIII. THE PROMISE OF A SON TO SARAH Genesis 11:30; Genesis 16:1 b, Genesis 16:2; Genesis 16:4-14; Genesis 18:1-15

1. Sarah’s presentation of Hagar. Now Sarah was barren; she had no children; but she had an Egyptian maid-servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarah said to Abraham, Behold now, Jehovah hath denied me children; go in, I pray you, to my maid-servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.

2.Her jealousy and Hagar’s flight. Then Abraham heeded the voice of Sarah and went in to Hagar, and she conceived. But when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. Therefore Sarah said to Abraham, May the wrong I suffer be upon you. I myself gave my maid-servant into your bosom; and now that she sees that she has conceived, I am despised in her eyes; Jehovah judge between me and you. But Abraham said to Sarah, Behold, your maidservant is in your power, do to her whatever seems (right to you. Then Sarah ill-treated her, so that she fled from her presence.

3.Divine promise to Hagar. And the Messenger of Jehovah found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarah’s maid-servant, Whence earnest thou ? and whither art thou going ? And she said, I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarah. Then the Messenger of Jehovah said to her, Return to thy mistress and submit thyself to her authority. Moreover the Messenger of Jehovah said to her, I will make thy descendants so many that they cannot be numbered. The Messenger of Jehovah also said to her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son; and thou shalt call his name Ishmael [God hears], because Jehovah hath heard of thy ill-treatment.

He shall be like a wild-ass, His hand against every man, And every man’s hand against him; And he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.

Then she called the name of Jehovah, who had spoken to her, El-roi [Thou art a God that seeth me]; for she said, Have I seen God and am I still alive, after I have looked upon him ? Therefore the well is called Beer-lahai-roi [Well of the living One who seeth me], (behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered).

4. Abraham’s hospitality. Jehovah also appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he was sitting at the entrance of the tent in the heat of the day; and, as he lifted up his eyes and looked, there stood three men before him. And as soon as he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them and bowed himself to the ground, and said, My lords, if now I have found favor in your sight, do not, I pray you, pass by your servant. Let now a little water be brought, I pray you, that you may wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree; and let me bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves; afterward you may pass on, since for this reason you are passing by your servant. And they replied, Do even as you have said. So Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and bake cakes. Abraham also ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, that he might prepare it quickly. And he took curds and milk, with the calf which he had dressed, and set before them, and he was waiting on them under the tree, while they ate.

5.Promise of a son to Abraham and Sarah. Then they said to him, Where is thy wife ? And he said, There within the tent. And he said, I will certainly return to thee about a year from now, and then Sarah thy wife shall have a son. But Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent, which was behind him. Now Sarah and Abraham were old, well advanced in years (it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women). Therefore Sarah laughed to herself, saying, After I am old and worn out shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also ? And Jehovah said to Abraham, Why did Sarah laugh, saying, “Shall I, even when I am old, indeed bear a child?” Is anything too wonderful for Jehovah ? At the appointed time about a year hence, I will return to thee and Sarah shall have a son. Then Sarah denied, saying, I did not laugh; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay, but thou didst laugh.

I.Literary Form and Origin. Simply, graphically, and with rare fidelity to human feeling and the peculiar life of the ancient nomad, two important and closely related incidents in Abraham’s domestic history are here recorded. They both deal with a theme of perennial interest —the mystery of birth and parenthood. No subject was of more vital import to every Semitic family than the birth of the son who should perpetuate its name and traditions. The story of Ishmael answered from the Hebrew point of view the question: “What was the origin of the Ishmaelites and what relation were they to the Israelites?” To their Hebrew readers the second story had a double fascination because Isaac was the bond that bound them to their ancestor Abraham. It was natural that they should think of his birth as being divinely heralded. The sudden introduction of Jehovah in connection with the promise, instead of the angelic beings, suggests perhaps that in the earlier part of the narrative the prophetic historian did not wish to represent the Deity as partaking of food.

Ovid has preserved the closest parallel (Fast. 5, 495 ff.). This Greek tradition states that the three gods, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hermes, were once received as guests by an old man of Tanagra, Hyrieus by name. After eating the meal which he provided for them, they desired him to ask something for himself. Since he was childless, he expressed a wish for a son. The son, whom they gave him by a miracle, was Orion.

II.Meaning of the Story of Hagar and Ishmael. The marriage customs of the East are here assumed. Even in the later Hebrew laws, barrenness was regarded as a possible basis of divorce (St. O. T., IV, Appendix 1). The husband in any case was free to take another wife. The Code of Hammurabi in one of its laws formulates the primitive usage when a wife could not bear children to her husband:

If a man has married a votary (i.e., a woman consecrated to a god), and she has given a maid to her husband, who has borne children, and afterward that maid has placed herself on an equality with her mistress because she has borne children, her mistress shall not sell her. She shall place a slave-mark upon her and reckon her with the slave girls. If she has not borne children, her mistress may sell her. This ancient law contemplates the same domestic infelicity, as arose in the household of Abraham. The patriarch’s attitude in the matter is also explained and justified in the light of early Semitic custom. In the eyes of the law the slave wife was still the property of Sarah. In fleeing from her mistress, Hagar naturally goes toward her native home. Shur is that part of the wilderness which borders on Egypt to the west (cf.Genesis 20:1; Genesis 25:18, Exodus 15:22). Among the early Semites springs were regarded as dwelling places of the deity. The waters gushing forth from the dry, rocky earth were a never ceasing miracle. It would appear that the present tradition originally centred about the famous desert well of Beer-lahai-roi, whose name meant well of the living one who seeth me. The story of the revelation and promise to the traditional ancestress of the Ishmaelites made it a spot sacred even to the Hebrew inhabitants of Canaan. The place is probably to be identified with Ain Muweileh, a caravan station with seven wells, on the main route from Palestine to Egypt. It is about fifty miles southwest of Beersheba and twelve miles west of Ain Kadish. The popular tradition also evidently aimed to explain the name Ishmael, God hears. The vivid, poetic description of the Ishmaelites, as represented by their tribal ancestor, is true to the character and life of the wandering Arab. They were like the wild ass, free, untamed, ever roaming from place to place. Subsisting largely by robbery, they were at enmity with all their neighbors. Out in the wilderness but on the borders of Canaan they lived, kinsmen yet foes of the Hebrews.

III.Abraham’sDivineGuests. The account of Abraham’s hospitality is one of the truest and most graphic pictures in oriental literature. The hot stillness and solitude of an eastern noonday, the patriarch seated beside his tent door, his sudden glimpse of three strangers approaching along the way, his eager and courteous reception, which makes their acceptance of his hospitality seem a favor to him rather than to them, and the haste to provide for their needs—each of these scenes stands out in clear relief. The food set before the guests is that of the nomad: thin rolls of bread, baked on the hot stones, curdled milk, the famous leben of the modern Arab and, as a special delicacy, a calf tender and good. To see that every want of his guests is at once supplied, Abraham himself stands by and serves them, as they sit beneath one of the wide-spreading oaks or terebinths of Mamre. As the guests depart, the promise is given to the aged patriarch and his wife that within a year they should have an heir. In this oldest tradition the name which he bore (Isaac), is connected with the Hebrew verb sahak, to laugh, and is explained by his mother’s skeptical laughter when a son is promised to her in her old age. In the parallel priestly narrative of Genesis 17:17 it is Abraham who laughs. It was thus that the popular interest in etymology and the belief in the significance of the name shaped in part these early traditions of the race.

IV.Historical Significance of the Stories. The story of Hagar is a chapter from early Semitic tribal history. Hagar, like Ishmael, apparently represents a nomadic people. In the inscriptions of the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, Hagaranu is the name of an Aramean tribe, living not far from Babylonia. A tribe bearing a similar name is mentioned in the south Arabian inscriptions (cf. also 1 Chronicles 5:10; 1 Chronicles 5:19; 1 Chronicles 11:39; 1 Chronicles 27:31).

If it could be proved that a land and people of Mucri were to be found in ancient times southwest of Canaan, it would furnish a satisfactory explanation of Hagar’s origin, for Mucri contains the same letters as the Hebrew word for Egypt. If not, Hagar is called an Egyptian, because the Arab tribe which she represents, had been partially Egyptianized through living close to the land of the Nile. At least, in the narrative, Hagar figures as a typical daughter of the desert. Possibly, in the present narrative, Ishmael is intended to represent, as in later periods, all of Israel’s nomadic neighbors to the south. It seems more probable, however, that the reference is to a definite tribe, living in early times in the wilderness south or southwest of Canaan.

Interpreted in the language of history, this tradition then would mean that the nomadic ancestors of the Hebrews early made alliances and intermarried with certain Arab tribes in the wilderness that lies between southern Palestine and Egypt. At least both recognized the same bonds of kinship and religion. This early tradition of a common origin and faith is especially significant, for in the days of Moses the Israelites received from contact with certain of these tribes that great impetus to the worship of Jehovah which is recorded in the narratives associated with Sinai (cf. § XXI). The story of the promise of the birth of Isaac is rich in its illustrations of the social life and customs of the early Semitic ancestors of the Hebrews. The story, as a whole, emphasizes again concretely the supreme fact that the same divine Providence, that so signally delivered the Hebrews in many later crises was, from the earliest days, guiding the destiny of his people.

V.Aim and Teachings. Interest in the meaning of certain prominent names, in the origin of sacred places, of the Ishmaelites, and of their relationship to the Hebrews, and in the reason why the Hebrews were heirs to a nobler destiny undoubtedly influenced the early prophetic historians to preserve these traditions. They also add certain important touches to the growing prophetic portrait of Abraham. In a trying domestic crisis he realizes the Semitic ideal of justice and devotion to his wife. As host, in his delicate consideration for the needs and wishes of his guests, he attains to the highest standards of hospitality, whether oriental or occidental.

Each narrative also suggests its own prophetic teaching: (1) To the outcast and needy the divine voice ever comes with its message of counsel and promise. (2) The sphere of God’s care and blessing was by no means limited to Israel. (3) He who generously receives strangers often entertains the messengers of the Lord. (4) Unselfish service for others always brings its sure and rich reward.