Genesis 21:1

Long-looked-for comes at last. The vision concerning the promised seed is for an appointed time, and now, at the end, it speaks, and does not lie; few under the Old Testament were brought into the world with such expectation as Isaac was, not for the sake of any great person eminence at which he was to arrive, but because he was to be, in this very thin, a type of Christ, that seed which the holy God had so long promised and holy men so long expected. In this account of the first days of Isaac we may observe,

I. The fulfilling of God's promise in the conception and birth of Isaac, Gen 21:1, Gen 21:2. Note, God's providences look best and brightest when they are compared with his word, and when we observe how God, in them all, acts as he has said, as he has spoken. 1. Isaac was born according to the promise. The Lord visited Sarah in mercy, as he had said. Note, No word of God shall fall to the ground; for he is faithful that has promised, and God's faithfulness is the stay and support of his people's faith. He was born at the set time of which God had spoken, Gen 21:2. Note, God is always punctual to his time; though his promised mercies come not at the time we set, they will certainly come at the time he sets, and that is the best time., 2. He was born by virtue of the promise: Sarah by faith received strength to conceive Heb 11:11. God therefore by promise gave that strength. It was not by the power of common providence, but by the power of a special promise, that Isaac was born. A sentence of death was, as it were, passed upon the second causes: Abraham was old, and Sarah old, and both as good as dead; and then the word of God took place. Note, True believers, by virtue of God's promises, are enabled to do that which is above the power of human nature, for by them they partake of a divine nature, Pe2 1:4.

II. Abraham's obedience to God's precept concerning Isaac.

1. He named him, as God commanded him, Gen 21:3. God directed him to a name for a memorial, Isaac, laughter; and Abraham, whose office it was, gave him that name, though he might have designed him some other name of a more pompous signification. Note, It is fit that the luxuriancy of human invention should always yield to the sovereignty and plainness of divine institution; yet there was good reason for the name, for, (1.) When Abraham received the promise of him he laughed for joy, Gen 17:17. Note, When the sun of comfort has risen upon the soul it is good to remember how welcome the dawning of the day was, and with what exultation we embraced the promise. (2.) When Sarah received the promise she laughed with distrust and diffidence. Note, When God gives us the mercies we began to despair of we ought to remember with sorrow and shame our sinful distrusts of God's power and promise, when we were in pursuit of them. (3.) Isaac was himself, afterwards, laughed at by Ishmael (Gen 21:9), and perhaps his name bade him expect it. Note, God's favourites are often the world's laughing-stocks. (4.) The promise which he was not only the son, but the heir of, was to be the joy of all the saints in all ages, and that which would fill their mouths with laughter.

2. He circumcised him, Gen 21:4. The covenant being established with him, the seal of the covenant was administered to him; and though a bloody ordinance, and he a darling, yet it must not be omitted, no, nor deferred beyond the eighth day. God had kept time in performing the promise, and therefore Abraham must keep time in obeying the precept.

III. The impressions which this mercy made upon Sarah.

1. It filled her with joy (Gen 21:6): "God has made me to laugh; he has given me both cause to rejoice and a heart to rejoice." Thus the mother of our Lord, Luk 1:46, Luk 1:47. Note, (1.) God bestows mercies upon his people to encourage their joy in his work and service; and, whatever is the matter of our joy, God must be acknowledged as the author of it, unless it be the laughter of the fool. (2.) When mercies have been long deferred they are the more welcome when they come. (3.) It adds to the comfort of any mercy to have our friends rejoice with us in it: All that hear will laugh with me; for laughing is catching. See Luk 1:58. Others would rejoice in this instance of God's power and goodness, and be encouraged to trust in him. See Psa 119:74.

2. It filled her with wonder, Gen 21:7. Observe here, (1.) What it was she thought so wonderful: That Sarah should give children suck, that she should, not only bear a child, but be so strong and hearty at the age as to give it suck. Note, Mothers, if they be able, ought to be nurses to their own children. Sarah was a person of quality, was aged; nursing might be thought prejudicial of herself, or to the child, or to both; she had choice of nurses, no doubt, in her own family: and yet she would do her duty in this matter; and her daughters the good wives are while they thus do well, Pe1 3:5, Pe1 3:6. See Lam 4:3. (2.) How she expressed her wonder: "Who would have said it? The thing was so highly improbable, so near to impossible, that if any one but God had said it we could not have believed it." Note, God's favours to his covenant-people are such as surpass both their own and others' thoughts and expectations. Who could imagine that God should do so much for those that deserve so little, nay, for those that deserve so ill? See Eph 3:20; Sa2 7:18, Sa2 7:19. Who would have said that God should send his Son to die for us, his Spirit to sanctify us, his angels to attend us? Who would have said that such great sins should be pardoned, such mean services accepted, and such worthless worms taken into covenant and communion with the great and holy God?

IV. A short account of Isaac's infancy: The child grew, Gen 21:8. Special notice is taken of this, though a thing of course, to intimate that the children of the promise are growing children. See Luk 1:80; Luk 2:40. Those that are born of God shall increase of God, Col 2:19. He grew so as not always to need milk, but was able to bear strong meat, and then he was weaned. See Heb 5:13, Heb 5:14. And then it was that Abraham made a great feast for his friends and neighbours, in thankfulness to God for his mercy to him. He made this feast, not on the day that Isaac was born, that would have been too great a disturbance to Sarah; nor on the day that he was circumcised, that would have been too great a diversion from the ordinance; but on the day that he was weaned, because God's blessing upon the nursing of children, and the preservation of them throughout the perils of the infant age, are signal instances of the care and tenderness of the divine providence, which ought to be acknowledged, to its praise. See Psa 22:9, Psa 22:10; Hos 11:1.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Gen 21:1 And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did unto Sarah as he had spoken.

Ver. 1. And the Lord visited Sarah.] God pays not his people with words only, as Sertorius did his soldiers, {a} He fools them not off with fair promises, {b} as Ptolemy (surnamed therefore Dωσων) did his favourites; but is real, yea, royal in his promises and performances. Of many promisers it may be said, as Tertullian of the peacock, all in changeable colours: as oft changed as moved. Italians all; as Aeneas Sylvius said of Italy; Novitate quadam, nihil habet stablile . Not so their ancestors, the Romans. They had a great care always to perform their word; insomuch, that the first temple built in Rome was dedicated to the goddess Fidelity. Great men’s words, saith one, are like dead men’s shoes: he may go barefoot that waits for them. Not so good men; they will stand to their oath, though it tend to their loss. {Psa 15:4} They are children that will not lie. {Isa 63:8} Their Father is a God that cannot lie. {Tit 1:2} He is the God of Amen, as Isaiah calleth him; {Isa 65:16} and "all his promises are Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus," {2Co 1:20} "the faithful and true witness". {Rev 3:14} Judah would not break promise with the harlot, lest he should be shamed. {Gen 38:23} One of the laws of the knights of the band in Spain was, that if any of them broke his promise, he went alone by himself, and nobody spake to him, nor he to any. When God serves any so, let him be so served. But the promises are ancient. {Tit 1:2} And not any tittle of them, as yet, ever fell to the ground. Wherefore, "gird up the loins of your minds, and trust perfectly on the grace that is brought unto you". {1Pe 1:13} "Faithful is he that hath promised, who also will do it". {1Th 5:24}

{a} Zonaras.

{b} Pollicitis dives quilibet esse potest . - Plutarch.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

- The Birth of Isaac

7. מלל mı̂lēl “speak,” an ancient and therefore solemn and poetical word.

14. חמת chêmet “bottle,” akin to חמה chāmâh, “surround, enclose,” and הוּם chûm “black. באר שׁבע beêr-sheba‛, Beer-sheba‘, “well of seven.”

22. פיכל pı̂ykol, Pikhol, “mouth or spokesman of all.”

23. נין nı̂yn “offspring, kin;” related: “sprout, flourish.” נכד neked “progeny,” perhaps “acquaintance,” cognate with נגד ngd, “be before” (the eyes) and נקד nqd, “mark.”

33. אשׁל 'êshel “grove;” ἄρουρα aroura, Septuagint.; אילבה 'ı̂ylābâh, “a tree,” Onkelos.

This chapter records the birth of Isaac with other concomitant circumstances. This is the beginning of the fulfillment of the second part of the covenant with Abraham - that concerning the seed. This precedes, we observe, his possession of even a foot-breadth of the soil, and is long antecedent to the entrance of his descendants as conquerors into the land of promise.

Gen 21:1-8

Isaac is born according to promise, and grows to be weaned. “The Lord had visited Sarah.” It is possible that this event may have occurred before the patriarchal pair arrived in Gerar. To visit, is to draw near to a person for the purpose of either chastising or conferring a favor. The Lord had been faithful to his gracious promise to Sarah. “He did as he had spoken.” The object of the visit was accomplished. In due time she bears a son, whom Abraham, in accordance with the divine command, calls Isaac, and circumcises on the eighth day. Abraham was now a hundred years old, and therefore Isaac was born thirty years after the call. Sarah expressed her grateful wonder in two somewhat poetic strains. The first, consisting of two sentences, turns on the word laugh. This is no longer the laugh of delight mingled with doubt, but that of wonder and joy at the power of the Lord overcoming the impotence of the aged mother. The second strain of three sentences turns upon the object of this admiring joy. The event that nobody ever expected to hear announced to Abraham, has nevertheless taken place; “for I have borne him a son in his old age.” The time of weaning, the second step of the child to individual existence, at length arrives, and the household of Abraham make merry, as was wont, on the festive occasion. The infant was usually weaned in the second or third year 1Sa 1:22-24; 2Ch 31:16. The child seems to have remained for the first five years under the special care of the mother Lev 27:6. The son then came under the management of the father.

Gen 21:9-21

The dismissal of Hagar and Ishmael. “The son of Hagar ... laughing.” The birth of Isaac has made a great change in the position of Ishmael, now at the age of at least fifteen years. He was not now, as formerly, the chief object of attention, and some bitterness of feeling may have arisen on this account. His laugh was therefore the laugh of derision. Rightly was the child of promise named Isaac, the one at whom all laugh with various feelings of incredulity, wonder, gladness, and scorn. Sarah cannot brook the insolence of Ishmael, and demands his dismissal. This was painful to Abraham. Nevertheless, God enjoins it as reasonable, on the ground that in Isaac was his seed to be called. This means not only that Isaac was to be called his seed, but in Isaac as the progenitor was included the seed of Abraham in the highest and utmost sense of the phrase. From him the holy seed was to spring that was to be the agent in eventually bringing the whole race again under the covenant of Noah, in that higher form which it assumes in the New Testament. Abraham is comforted in this separation with a renewal of the promise concerning Ishmael Gen 17:20.

He proceeds with all singleness of heart and denial of self to dismiss the mother and the son. This separation from the family of Abraham was, no doubt, distressing to the feelings of the parties concerned. But it involved no material hardship to those who departed, and conferred certain real advantages. Hagar obtained her freedom. Ishmael, though called a lad, was at an age when it is not unusual in the East to marry and provide for oneself. And their departure did not imply their exclusion from the privileges of communion with God, as they might still be under the covenant with Abraham, since Ishmael had been circumcised, and, at all events, were under the broader covenant of Noah. It was only their own voluntary rejection of God and his mercy, whether before or after their departure, that could cut them off from the promise of eternal life. It seems likely that Hagar and Ishmael had so behaved as to deserve their dismissal from the sacred home. “A bottle of water.”

This was probably a kid-skin bottle, as Hagar could not have carried a goat-skin. Its contents were precious in the wilderness, but soon exhausted. “And the lad.” He took the lad and gave him to Hagar. The bread and water-skin were on her shoulder; the lad she held by the hand. “In the wilderness of Beer-sheba.” It is possible that the departure of Hagar occurred after the league with Abimelek and the naming of Beer-sheba, though coming in here naturally as the sequel of the birth and weaning of Isaac. The wilderness in Scripture is simply the land not profitable for cultivation, though fit for pasture to a greater or less extent. The wilderness of Beer-sheba is that part of the wilderness which was adjacent to Beer-sheba, where probably at this time Abraham was residing. “Laid the lad.” Ishmael was now, no doubt, thoroughly humbled as well as wearied, and therefore passive under his mother’s guidance. She led him to a sheltering bush, and caused him to lie down in its shade, resigning herself to despair. The artless description here is deeply affecting.

Gen 21:17-21

The fortunes of Ishmael. God cares for the wanderers. He hears the voice of the lad, whose sufferings from thirst are greater than those of the mother. An angel is sent, who addresses Hagar in the simple words of encouragement and direction. “Hold thy hand upon him.” Lay thy hand firmly upon him. The former promise Gen 16:10 is renewed to her. God also opened her eyes that she saw a well of water, from which the bottle is replenished, and she and the lad are recruited for their further journey. It is unnecessary to determine how far this opening of the eyes was miraculous. It may refer to the cheering of her mind and the sharpening of her attention. In Scripture the natural and supernatural are not always set over against each other as with us. All events are alike ascribed to an ever-watchful Providence, whether they flow from the ordinary laws of nature or some higher law of the divine will. “God was with the lad.” Ishmael may have been cured of his childish spleen. It is possible also his father did not forget him, but sent him a stock of cattle with which to begin the pastoral life on his account. “He became an archer.” He grew an archer, or multiplied into a tribe of archers. Paran Gen 14:6 lay south of Palestine, and therefore on the way to Egypt, out of which his mother took him a wife. The Ishmaelites, therefore, both root and branch, were descended on the mother’s side from the Egyptians.

Gen 21:22-34

According to the common law of Hebrew narrative, this event took place before some of the circumstances recorded in the previous passage; probably not long after the birth of Isaac. Abimelek, accompanied by Phikol, his commander-in-chief, proposes to form a league with Abraham. The reason assigned for this is that God was with him in all that he did. Various circumstances concurred to produce this conviction in Abimelek. The never-to-be-forgotten appearance of God to himself in a dream interposing on behalf of Abraham, the birth of Isaac, and the consequent certainty of his having an heir, and the growing retinue and affluence of one who, some ten years before, could lead out a trained band of three hundred and eighteen men-at-arms, were amply sufficient to prove that God was the source of his strength. Such a man is formidable as a foe, but serviceable as an ally. It is the part of sound policy, therefore, to approach him and endeavor to prevail upon him to swear by God not to deal falsely with him or his. “Kin and kith.” We have adopted these words to represent the conversational alliterative phrase of the original. They correspond tolerably well with the σπέρμα sperma and ὄνομα onoma, “seed” and “name,” of the Septuagint. Abraham frankly consents to this oath. This is evidently a personal covenant, referring to existing circumstances. A similar confederacy had been already formed with Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre. Abraham was disposed to such alliances, as they contributed to peaceful neighborhood. He was not in a condition to make a national covenant, though it is a fact that the Philistines were scarcely ever wholly subjugated by his descendants.

Gen 21:25-26

Abraham takes occasion to remonstrate with Abimelek about a well which his people had seized. Wells were extremely valuable in Palestine, on account of the long absence of rain between the latter or vernal rain ending in March, and the early or autumnal rain beginning in November. The digging of a well was therefore a matter of the greatest moment, and often gave a certain title to the adjacent fields. Hence, the many disputes about wells, as the neighboring Emirs or chieftains were jealous of rights so acquired, and often sought to enter by the strong hand on the labors of patient industry. Hence, Abraham lays more stress on a public attestation that he has dug, and is therefore the owner of this well, than on all the rest of the treaty. Seven is the number of sanctity, and therefore of obligation. This number is accordingly figured in some part of the form of confederation; in the present case, in the seven ewe-lambs which Abraham tenders, and Abimelek, in token of consent, accepts at his hand. The name of the well is remarkable as an instance of the various meanings attached to nearly the same sound. Even in Hebrew it means the well of seven, or the well of the oath, as the roots of seven, and of the verb meaning to swear, have the same radical letters. Bir es-Seba means “the well of seven or of the lion.”

Gen 21:32-34

Returned unto the land of the Philistines. - Beer-sheba was on the borders of the land of the Philistines. Going therefore to Gerar, they returned into that land. In the transactions with Hagar and with Abimelek, the name God is employed, because the relation of the Supreme Being with these parties is more general or less intimate than with the heir of promise. The same name, however, is used in reference to Abraham and Sarah, who stand in a twofold relation to him as the Eternal Potentate, and the Author of being and blessing. Hence, the chapter begins and ends with Yahweh, the proper name of God in communion with man. “Eshel is a field under tillage” in the Septuagint, and a tree in Onkelos. It is therefore well translated a grove in the King James Version, though it is rendered “the tamarisk” by many. The planting of a grove implies that Abraham now felt he had a resting-place in the land, in consequence of his treaty with Abimelek. He calls upon the name of the Lord with the significant surname of the God of perpetuity, the eternal, unchangeable God. This marks him as the “sure and able” performer of his promise, as the everlasting vindicator of the faith of treaties, and as the infallible source of the believer’s rest and peace. Accordingly, Abraham sojourned in the land of the Philistines many days.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Gen_21:1-5

Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac

The birth of Isaac

I.

AS IT ILLUSTRATES THE POWER OF GOD.

1. Gods power as distinctly seen.

2. Gods power as it affects personal interest.

3. Gods power manifested as benevolent.

II. As IT ILLUSTRATES THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD.

1. The promises of God sooner or later pass into exact fulfilment.

2. Their fulfilment justifies our confidence in God.

3. Their fulfilment is the stay of the believers soul.

III. As IT ILLUSTRATES THE FAITH OF MAN. Abraham believed in God against all human hope, and Sarah by faith received strength to conceive Heb_11:11).

1. It was a faith which was severely tried.

(1) By long waiting. Abraham had waited for twenty-five years.

(2) By natural difficulties. He and his wife had advanced to a stage of life when there could be no human prospect of offspring.

2. It was a practical faith. All the time he was waiting, Abraham was obedient to the word of the Lord.

IV. As IT LOOKS ONWARD TO THE BIRTH OF THE WORLDS REDEEMER.

1. Both births were announced long before.

2. Both occur at the time fixed by God.

3. Both persons were named before their birth.

4. Both births were supernatural.

5. Both births were the occasion of great joy.

6. Both births are associated with the life beyond. (T. H. Leale.)

Isaac a type of Christ

I. IN THY APPROPRIATENESS OF HIS NAME. Laughter, rejoicing.

II. IN THE PECULIAR CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS BIRTH.

III. IN BEING INTENTIONALLY OFFERED AS A SACRIFICE. Observe--

1. The description of the sacrifice which was given. Thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest. How naturally our thoughts are led by this language to Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, the Son of His delight, His dearly beloved Son.

2. He was to be presented as a sacrifice (Gen_22:1-2, &c). Here again we are directly led to Jesus. He came to be a sacrifice.

3. He was to be devoted and sacrificed by his Father. To Abraham God said, Take now thy son, &c. Jesus was Gods gift to the world.

4. He was to be offered on mount Moriah. To this spot, with his father, he travelled for three days, &c. Near the same spot--on Calvary, Jesus was sacrificed for the sin of the world.

5. Isaac bare the wood, which was designed to burn the offering. Christ also bare the cross on which He was to be crucified.

6. Isaac freely submitted to be bound and tied upon the altar. Jesus voluntarily went forth to death, and freely surrendered his spirit into the hands of his Father. But here the typical resemblance terminates. For Isaac a substitute is provided.

APPLICATION.

1. Let the subject lead us to contemplate the true desert of sin--which is death.

2. Consider the necessity of an atoning sacrifice.

3. Consider the infinite merit and preciousness of that sacrifice which God has provided--His own Son.

4. The necessity of a believing, personal interest in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

5. The awful consequence of neglecting the propitiation the love of God has provided--eternal death. (J. Burns, D. D.)

Light in the clouds; or, comfort for the discouraged

I. Back there in the beginning, Gods call to Abraham had been accompanied by a promise. From thy kindred, and from thy Fathers house unto a land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So accompanied with the call came the promise. He was to sacrifice--but sacrifice was only a rougher path to a smooth and shining end. Out of its thorns was to blossom a better destiny than Abraham otherwise could possibly have gained. It was not all cross for Abraham; it was crown, too, and the cross was but the ladder climbing up which he should reach and wear the crown. What was true for Abraham is just as true for you and me. There comes to us no call of God, how rough and heavy soever its yoke may seem, that is not cushioned too with promise, that does not point onward and upward from itself to some vast and burdened blessing which otherwise we could not gain! You must yield a bad habit. Yes, but in order that you may enter into a great self-mastering.

II. And the energy to do the duty, the strength to bear the burden, is to be found where? This is where it is to be found--in faith in the promise. Well, Abraham yields to the call and puts faith in the promise, and goes on and enters Canaan. They have staid in the land for several long years, and still their tent is voiceless of a child. They have been much blessed in other ways. Abraham is a person held, too, in very good repute. His name and position are most honourable. Every way and on every side the best things seem to come to Abraham--except the one special thing which he desires most of all, and which is absolutely essential to lift him into the high destiny God has promised him. He is still childless. I think, too, Abraham must have been just now in a despondent reaction after a great strain. The anxiety about Lot, and that military expedition, had taxed him terribly. I think all this, because the Word of God, which just now comes to him, seems to be a word answering to just such a mood as this. And then the Lord illustrates the glory of this promise to him. Look up, God said to Abraham; canst thou tell the stars to number them? So shall thy seed be. It is a great thing when a husband and a wife are united in the same faith. It is a great thing when they stand in equal faith, and so together pass forward into the uncertain years. Usually where a man and wife are believing people the wife has the greater faith. It is she who gets the firmest hold upon the Divine promises. It is she who rests on them the more utterly. It is she who, by many a faithful word and by the serene example of her trust, gives heart to the husbands failing courage, gives swiftness to his more laggard step. It was not so with Abraham and Sarah. Abraham was more a man of faith than Sarah was a woman of faith. And Abraham instead of being led on in the right way by his wife was led off in the wrong was by her. I have no time to wait to tell you of all the gain and shame which came to Abraham and to Sarah from this false step. How, even though Ishmael came to the tent, discord came with him; how jealous Sarah grew, and then how cruel. From the time of that second manifestation of the promise and the ratification of it full fourteen years have sped away. Ishmael has been born, but Ishmael is not the promised seed. Still Abrahams tent is empty of the true heir. I think Abraham had fallen into a lower sort of life since he had gone off in the wrong way. I suppose he tried to be content with Ishmael. That is the way a great many Christians live. They do not think that God means all He says. Possibly He may mean half; but never all, to them anyway. They must get on as best they can with a little joy and a little peace, and be very thankful for that little, and never hope that they can have much more. And then God comes to break in upon him with another and better word of promise still. He comes to him announcing for Himself a new name--God Almighty, Omnipotent, the God with whom nothing is impossible. Abraham, He says, I am the Almighty God; walk before Me, and be thou perfect, that is, sincere in faith--upright. And then the promise is again renewed in terms more unmistakable. Abraham is to have a son and Sarah is to be its mother. All Gods thoughts for us are always greater than our thoughts for Him. (W. Hoyt.)

Prayer sure to be answered

When the season has been cold and backward, when rains fell and prices rose, and farmers desponded, and the poor despaired, I have heard old people, whose hopes resting on Gods promise did not rise and fall with the barometer nor shifting winds, say we shall have harvest after all; and this you can safely say of the labours and fruits of prayer. (T. Guthrie.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gen 21:1. The Lord visited Sarah — That is, was present with her in his mercy, power, and faithfulness, to perform his gracious promise of giving her a child.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES.—

Gen_21:1. The Lord visited Sarah.] Jehovah, the Covenant God. To “visit,” in this connection, signifies drawing near for the purpose of conferring a favour (Gen_1:24; Rth_1:6.) The LXX. has ἐπεσκεψατο, a word adopted by St. Luke in two places in the song of Zacharias (Luk_1:68-78).

Gen_21:2. The set time. As promised in Gen_17:21; Gen_18:14.

Gen_21:3. Called the name of his son, Isaac.] In obedience to the Divine command (Gen_17:19).

Gen_21:4. Circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old, as God had commanded him.] (Gen_17:10-12.)

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Gen_21:1-5

THE BIRTH OF ISAAC

We now come to the first substantial result of God’s covenant with Abraham. The child which had only been present to the eye of faith and hope was now before him—God’s promises turned into realities, as they always shall be. As the birth of Isaac was not only marked by special circumstances, but is also an important event in the history of religion, it may be considered from several points of view.

I. As it illustrates the power of God. The birth of a son to Abraham is here regarded not as a common occurrence in the course of nature, but as the direct result of the visitation of God. (Gen_21:1-2.) It was an exhibition of Divine power, but in that form which we call miraculous.

1. God’s power as distinctly seen. No one who considers this vast universe, with its mighty forces and wonderful order, can fail to be impressed with an overwhelming sense of the power of God. But all men do not consider, and the very constancy and greatness of that power prevents it from being distinctly recognised. A miracle does not require more of Divine power than is put forth in the maintenance of the system of nature, but it may be to us a greater proof of that power. The birth of Isaac was the result of the special interference of God, and His power was distinctly seen. The observation of the regular course of nature taught Abraham what to expect, and he had his natural hopes like other men. But his faith in the promise of God enabled him to believe against such hope. He knew that God was “able” to perform, and now he had a special proof of it.

2. God’s power as it affects personal interest. This was not a wonderful thing which they were to gaze upon from the outside with distant awe and astonishment. They were personally interested in the event. They were an essential part of it. They were obliged to stand within that circle in which the power of God was now displayed, and the sense of it brought home to them. Doubt would be impossible of that which so intimately touched themselves. Thus, whatever is wrought within us, gives us the highest proof of God. What is the moral miracle of regeneration but the power of God so brought home to us that we have consciousness of its reality? Who can deny the Divine source of His heavenly birth?

3. God’s power manifested as benevolent. There are judicial visitations of God, when He comes to punish transgressors. (Exo_28:5.) But this was a friendly visit, full of grace and good gifts. The Divine power was put forth, not to alarm or crush, but with kind intent. This is the aspect of His power which is given to His saints to behold—the power of God unto salvation.

II. As it illustrates the faithfulness of God. The birth of this child was not only a loving and gracious expression of God’s power, but was also the accomplishment of His word. The child was given “according to promise.” His parents could not regard his birth otherwise than as a proof of the faithfulness of a covenant keeping God. Such experience have all His children.

1. The promises of God sooner or later pass into exact fulfilment. His word is as good as the fact, and he who trusts in that word has an inheritance upon a sure title. He has a substantial foundation for a hope which “maketh not ashamed.” The universe was but the thought of God expressing itself in an outward reality. He spake the word and creation arose. God’s word tends inevitably to pass into fulfilment.

2. Their fulfilment justifies our confidence in God. We ought to have confidence in God’s word without any immediate proof; but the journey of faith is long, and God has consideration for the infirmity of our poor human nature in giving us encouragement by the way. He deals with us as a kind Father who is always giving us reasons to love and serve Him. All is not left to the future world to disclose and verify. We have real and essential good now and here. Abraham had not received all the promises of God, but he had received enough to justify his confidence, and to encourage him to persevere in a life of faith to the end.

3. Their fulfilment is the stay of the believer’s soul. “The word of the Lord is a tried word.” We may consider it as sure, and we can build upon it without any misgiving. The memory of God’s past dealings becomes a ground of hope for the future. “Thou hast been my help” is a proper plea to urge in prayer for blessings yet to be given. God’s promises already verified give us that confidence which becomes the stay of our soul for the time to come. We feel that there is something sure and fixed in the midst of change and decay. We come to “know whom we have believed. It is only when the doctrines about God pass into the facts of experience within us that they become knowledge. And of all foundations to build upon the only secure one is knowledge. Our faith itself derives its value from the fact that it is concerned with realities.

III. As it illustrates the faith of man. The wonderful birth of this child was the reward of faith. Abraham believed in God against all human hope, and Sarah “by faith received strength to conceive seed” (Heb_11:11).

1. It was a faith which was severely tried.

(1) By long waiting. Abraham had waited for twenty-five years.

(2) By natural difficulties. He and his wife had advanced to a stage of life when there could be no human prospect of offspring. So the faith of believers is tried by many delays, and by difficulties that to the eye of sense seem to be insurmountable. Our way often appears to be shut up, as if we could go no further; but God interferes in His own good time. Our faith’s journey continues, and we pass on to new triumphs.

2. It was a practical faith. All the time that he was waiting, Abraham was obedient to the word of the Lord. Faith, with him, was not a mere sentiment, but was practically one with duty. It is quite indifferent whether we call his conduct faith or obedience. He chose a certain course of life, and entered upon certain duties, because he believed in God. Now that the promise is fulfilled he is still giving attention to his duty. He circumcised his son and called him by that name which God had appointed. (Gen_21:3-4.)

IV. As it looks onwards to the birth of the world’s Redeemer. This was not an isolated event, but had reference to a “Greater Man.” The whole life of Abraham was ordered so as to prepare the line along which the Messiah should come. The details of the birth of Isaac, considered merely in themselves, are but a piece of human history calculated to awaken but a passing curiosity and interest. But when they are regarded in their relation to the birth of the Son of God, these details are invested with a surpassing importance. Throughout the history of this chosen family, God was working out His way towards an end—the bringing in of His “first-begotten into the world.” (Heb_1:6.) The analogy between the birth of Isaac and that of Jesus Christ is obvious.

1. Both births were announced long before. Indeed, to Abraham the two births were virtually announced together. He had to wait many years before the promise was fulfilled, and the world had to wait through long ages for the birth of the Son of Man.

2. Both occur at the time fixed by God. Isaac was born at “the set time” of which God had spoken to Abraham. So the date of Messiah’s birth was fixed by the prophet Daniel. (Dan_9:24.) Seventy prophetic weeks are four hundred and ninety years. The re-establishment of the theocracy began thirteen years before the rebuilding of Jerusalem, 457 B.C. This number subtracted from four hundred and ninety years will give thirty-three years, to be reckoned from the commencement of the Christian era. Thus the Messiah was to be cut off in the middle of the last week. All this is now a matter of history. Thus the time when Christ should appear in the world was before appointed.

3. Both persons were named before their birth. Isaac’s name was given according to the Divine command. (Gen_17:19.) So was the name Jesus. (Mat_1:21.)

4. Both births were supernatural. Each was born after a miraculous manner.

5. Both births were the occasion of great joy. Abraham and Sarah had more than the common joy of parents. The event was so wonderful that amazement must have mingled with their delight. When Jesus was born angels and men rejoiced.

6. Both births are associated with the life beyond. The faithful shall “sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” They shall be “with Christ,” “for ever with the Lord.”

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES

Gen_21:1. God pays not His people with words only. He fools them not off with fair promises. Good men are the children that will not lie. (Isa_63:8.) Their Father is a God that cannot lie. (Titus 1, 2.) He is the God of Amen, as Isaiah calleth Him (Isa_65:16); “all His promises are Yea, and Amen in Christ Jesus” (2Co_1:20); “the faithful and true witness.” (Rev_3:14.)—(Trapp.)

Sarah’s visitation is a type of the visitation of Mary, notwithstanding the great distinction between them. The visitation lies in the extraordinary and wonderful personal grace, to which an immeasurable general human salvation is closely joined. But with Sarah this visitation occurs very late in life, and after long waiting; with Mary it was entirely unexpected. Sarah’s body is dead; Mary had not known a husband. The son of Sarah is himself a type of the son of Mary. But with both women the richest promise of heaven is limited through one particular woman on the earth, a conception in faith, an apparently impossible, but yet actual human birth; both are illustrious instances of the destination of the female race, of the importance of the wife, the mother for the kingdom of God. Both became illustrious since they freely subjected themselves to this destination, since they yielded their sons in the future, the sons of promise, or in the son of promise; for Isaac has all his importance as a type of Christ, and Christ, the son of Mary, is the manifesta-of the Eternal Son.—(Lange.)

Believers are visited with the word of promise, and then with the word of fulfilment.

Gen_21:2. This is stated as explanatory of the manner in which the Divine veracity affirmed in the first verse was established. God had promised that Sarah should conceive and bear a son, and she did thus conceive and bring forth; but it does not necessarily follow that the time of her conceiving was subsequent to the events related in the preceding chapter; on the contrary, there is every reason to believe that this took place some weeks or months before (comp. Gen_17:21), but it is mentioned here, without regard to date, merely as a fulfilment of the promise.—(Bush.)

Faith which once faltered may gather strength again and achieve noble deeds. Sarah has won a place amongst the ancient worthies. (Heb_11:11.)

The birth of this son was not according to nature (Gal_4:23), but above nature. The miraculous element marks throughout the history of the chosen people. Thus mankind was prepared for the grand miracle of the manifestation of the Son of God.

Human redemption belongs to a course of things altogether above nature, for nature preaches no doctrine of forgiveness, no restoration of powers when once they are dead. Grace alone can bring salvation.

With God nothing can occur out of season, or fall otherwise than at the appointed time.

One great difference between this child and the son of Hagar consisted in this: the one was “born after the flesh,” that is, in the ordinary course of generation; but the other, “after the spirit,” that is, by extraordinary Divine interposition, and in virtue of a special promise. Analogous to these were those Jews, on the one hand, who were merely descended from Abraham according to the flesh, and those, on the other, who were “not of the circumcision only, but also walked in the steps of the faith of their father Abraham.” (Rom_4:12.) The former were the children of the bondwoman who were cast out, the latter of the freewoman, who, being “His people whom He foreknew,” were not cast away, but were counted for the seed. (Gal_4:28-31; Rom_9:7; Rom_9:9; Rom_11:1-2.)—(Fuller.)

Gen_21:3. As the name is associated with the fulfilment, it keeps in mind the contrast between the idea and the reality. Her laughter of incredulity is turned now into the laughter of joy at the event. (Gen_21:6.) The name Isaac, therefore, is most significant. Through this name, Isaac is designated as the fruit of omnipotent grace working against and above the forces of nature. It is as much as to say, this son of promise is indeed he, the mention of whose birth was laughed as impossible. So, afterwards, Ishmael laughed at him, as too weak to be the ground of such attention and such hopes. (Gen_21:9.) And the name keeps in view this contrast of the natural and the supernatural.—(Jacobus.)

Gen_21:4. The patriarch here pursues his accustomed tenor of obedience, by subjecting his child to the painful rite of circumcision. Nothing is of higher value in the sight of God than an implicit observance of His positive precepts, and a disposition to adhere with punctilious strictness to the letter of the command, neither failing nor exceeding in the rule of duty. This is peculiarly important in the matter of sacramental institutions, where, as we learn from the example of the Papists, human perverseness is prone to fabricate new observances, and enforce them by promises and threatenings equally unknown to the Scriptures. Well would it be were they as much intent upon performing what God has really enjoined.—(Bush.)

The joy of a great blessing should not hinder us from paying the minutest attention to duty, and carefully observing every ordinance of God.

This was a sign of the covenant love of God towards the child, stamped upon him. Circumcision was an Egyptian, not a Jewish rite. It was therefore an adopted ceremony, and a religious signification was now thrown into it. So it is with our rites of baptism, of the Lord’s day, of the Supper of the Redeemer. These institutions were in existence before the time of Christ; He made them new by connecting them with new ideas. It is wise thus to vitalize existing forms, to infuse into them fresh meaning. We do not want new ones, the old are good enough for us; for what we want is, to throw into the old a new life, that that which is dying out may become alive. Circumcision was a coarse rite given to a coarse nation, a sign that they could understand; notwithstanding, they forgot that it was only a symbol. Prophet after prophet testified against this. As soon as the form began to lose its meaning and became substituted for the spiritual reality, it was proclaimed by our Master and His inspired servants that both were dead. And the fate of that institution is the fate of all form when it becomes nothing but form; and men are wanted now who will say out with Apostolic authority, baptism is nothing, the Lord’s Supper is nothing, unless a living spirit be within them.—(Robertson.)

Gen_21:5. The sacred historian takes care to show that the birth of Isaac was above nature.

1. Hence, it foreshadows the miraculous birth of Jesus.

2. It was the beginning of a Divine supernatural agency which would continue to work throughout the history of the chosen people. Even to this day, the inextinguishable life of this ancient race is a perpetual witness to the power of God—indeed, a miracle wrought before our very eyes.

Isaac was born thirty years after the call of Abraham, and when his parents had lived for sixty years in fruitless marriage union. After many delays and difficulties insurmountable by nature, God’s promised mercies come at last.

Isaac.—

1. The child of hope.

2. The child of prayer.

3. The child of faith.

If we believe in the miracle of creation, we are prepared to believe in any other miraculous interference of God. He who brought life and being from barren nothing can afterwards depart from His established ways, and give life when nature forbids the hope of it.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

NINTH SECTION

The birth of Isaac. Ishmael’s expulsion. The Covenant of peace with Abimelech at Beer-sheba

Gen_21:1-34

1And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken. 2For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God [Elohim] had spoken to him. 3And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac [Jitzhak; he or one will laugh].4And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old [at the eighth day], as God 5[Elohim] had commanded him. And Abraham was an hundred years old when his son Isaac was born unto him.

6And Sarah said, God [Elohim] hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me. 7And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have borne him a son in his old age. 8And the child grew and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.

9And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had borne unto Abraham, mocking. 10Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. 11And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight, because of his son.

12And 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 hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed [thy descendants] be called.1 13And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. 14And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and [took with her] the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba [seven wells; well of the oath]. 15And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. 16And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bowshot [as archers]: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over 17against him, and lifted up her voice and wept. And God [Elohim] heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God2 [Elohim] called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; for God [Elohim] hath heard the voice of the lad where he Isaiah 18 Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation. 19And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. 20And God was with the 21lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an [mighty] archer. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran [Gesenius: prob. a region abounding in caverns]: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.

22And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech and Phichol [mouth of all; i.e., commanding all] the chief captain of his host [general] spake unto Abraham, saying, God 23[Elohim] is with thee in all that thou doest: Now therefore swear unto me here by God [Elohim] that thou wilt not deal falsely [injure deceitfully] with me, nor with my son, nor with my son’s son: but [rather] according to the kindness [truth] that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned. 24And Abraham said, I will swear. 25And Abraham reproved Abimelech [brought a charge against him] because [in the case] of a well of water, which Abimelech’s servants had violently taken away. 26And Abimelech said, I wot not [have not known] who hath done this thing; neither didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of it but to-day. 27And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; and both of them made a covenant.

28And Abraham set [still] seven ewe-lambs of the flock by themselves. 29And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe-lambs, which thou hast set by themselves? 30And he said, For these seven ewe-lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me that I have digged this well. 31Wherefore he called that place Beer-sheba; because there they sware both of them. 32Thus they made a covenant at Beer-sheba: then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol the chief captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines.

33And Abraham planted a grove [Tamarisk, tree] in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. 34And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines’ land many days.

GENERAL PRELIMINARY REMARKS

1. Delitzsch holds (“not led astray by Gen_21:1”) that Gen_21:1-21, forms the fourth Elohistic part of the third section of the life of Abraham. The first part (Gen_21:1-8, of Genesis 21) goes back to Genesis 17, unfolds itself with a clear reference to it, and forms one whole with it. The second verse here refers to Gen_17:21. According to Knobel on the contrary, only Gen_21:2-5, belong to the original writing; the rest consists of Jehovistic enlargements, out of records which, at the most, may possibly be Elohistic. Since Delitzsch describes Genesis 20 also as Elohistic, it is plain that he must assume different Elohistic sources. But out of this assumption the whole arbitrary and artificial hypothesis may be developed. There must certainly be some internal reason for the change of the names in the first and second verses. That the name Elohim should be used in the history of the expulsion of Ishmael, and of the covenant of Abraham with Abimelech requires no explanation: Abimelech does not know Jehovah; Ishmael walks under the general providence of God. The reason lies in the fact that in Gen_21:2 there is a reference to Gen_17:21, while Gen_21:1 refers to Gen_18:14. So likewise it is with the circumcision of Isaac, which Elohim commanded (Gen_21:4); it embraces in Isaac both Esau and Jacob. Sarah also (Gen_21:6), refers the name of Isaac to the arrangement of Elohim; since every one in the world (existing under Elohim), would recognize Isaac as a miraculously given child—awakening laughter and joy.3

2. It is questionable whether we should refer Gen_21:8 to what precedes, or what follows. Delitzsch favors the first connection, Knobel and Keil the last. They suppose that the feast at the weaning of Isaac gave occasion for the expulsion of Ishmael. But this is not certain, and were it even certain, Gen_21:8 could, notwithstanding, belong to the conclusion of the history of the childhood of Isaac.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Isaac’s birth, circumcision, and the feast at his weaning.—(Gen_21:1-8).—And the Lord (Jehovah) visited. [“The Sept. has ἐπεσκέψατο, a word adopted by St. Luke in two places in the song of Zacharias (Luk_1:68-78), who thus intimates the connection between the birth of Isaac and the birth of the promised seed.” Wordsworth p. 93. He refers also to the connection of the song of the blessed virgin with these exultant and thankful words of Sarah. See also Gen_17:17-19; Luk_2:21; Joh_8:56; and Luk_1:44-47.—A. G.] Sarah.—פָקַד to come to, to visit, to visit with the purpose of aiding, of saving, or with the design to punish, marking the great transitions in the providence of God; an idea running throughout the Scriptures (Gen_50:24; Exo_3:16), to express which, according to Knobel, the Elohist uses זָכָר (ch.Gen_8:1; Gen_19:29; Gen_30:20); where, however, in the two first cases, the ideas are widely different. The pregnancy of Sarah is traced back to Jehovah, since the conception of Isaac is a fruit of faith, i.e., of that connection of the sexes, on the part of both parents, animated and sanctified through faith.—As he had said (Gen_18:14).—As God had said to him (Gen_17:21).—[These expressions have an exegetical value, not only as showing the divine faithfulness, and the development of his plan, but as showing also how the different parts of this book are inwoven together, and thus prove its unity.—A. G.]—As God had commanded him (Gen_17:12).—It is assumed, alluding to what had been done before on this occasion, that the son should bear the name Isaac. God had given him this name already, before his birth (Gen_17:19; comp. Gen_19:11). The special cause of this name lies in the laughing of Abraham (Genesis 17) whose darker echo is heard in the laugh of Sarah (Genesis 18), and the laughter of the people at this singular birth, of which Sarah speaks further here. The one thread running through all these various laughs is the apparently incredible nature of the event. Knobel, therefore, holds, without sufficient ground, that these are “different attempts to explain the origin of the name.”—An hundred years old (see Gen_17:24).—And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh.—Delitzsch signalizes the poetical force of the two sentences of Sarah. “They are joyful cries, the first a distich, the second in three lines. Hence also the term מִלֵּל instead of דִּבֵּר. Sarah, without doubt, goes back to the divine giving of the name, which the laughing of Abraham had occasioned. But then also, she glances at her own laughing, which is now followed by another and better laugh, even the joyful cry of a thankful faith. That laugh arose from her unbelief, this Jehovah has given to her as the fruit of her faith. But she must explain still further, and that not without a certain feeling of shame.” (Delitzsch, comp. Gen_18:12.)—All that hear will laugh with me.—[מִי with the perfect has the sense of the conjunctive. Keil, p. 172.—A. G.]—i.e., with astonishment at the miraculously given child.—A great feast.—Starke: “The Hebrews, and other eastern nations, named their feasts from the drinks (מִשְׁתֶּה), as if more regard was paid to the drinks than to the food.” But as the joy over Isaac, in respect to the promise given in him, was directed more to the spiritual than the bodily, so also without doubt this feast was arranged with reference to the same thing.—And the child grew.—Knobel and Keil refer the eighth verse to the following section. “Ishmael,” Keil remarks, “mocked at the feast held at the weaning of Isaac.”4Knobel: he had made sport. But it is hardly probable that Ishmael had thus made sport or mocked on one occasion only. “The weaning of the child was often delayed, sometimes after three (2Ma_7:27; Mungo Park’s “Travels,” p. 237), and even after four years, (Russel: “Natural History of Aleppo,” I. p. 427). [“The weaning from the mother’s breast was the first step to the independent existence of the child” (Baumgarten), and hence gave occasion for the profane wit and mocking of Ishmael, in which there was, as Keil remarks, unbelief, envy, and pride.—A. G.] It was observed by Abraham, as also to day in the lands of the east, as a family feast. Schröder: “The Koran fixes two years, at least, as the period of nursing children.”

2. The expulsion of Ishmael (Gen_21:9-21).—And Sarah saw the son of Hagar.—It is not said that this happened at the feast upon the weaning of Isaac. The different explanations of מְצַחֵק. The first explanation: The word describes one making sport, as Gen_19:14; Ishmael appears as a playful lad, leaping and dancing around, who thus excited the envy of Sarah. Thus Knobel, after Aben Ezra, Ilgen, Gesenius, Tuch. The Septuagint and Vulgate introduce so much into the text: “playing with Isaac.” Since Ishmael was fourteen years of age at the birth of Isaac, and now about sixteen to seventeen, Sarah must certainly have seen him playing with Isaac much earlier, with jealousy, if his playfulness generally could indeed have excited her jealousy. But if Ishmael, at the feast-day of Isaac, was extravagantly joyful, he thus gave an assurance of his good-will towards her son, the heir of the house. Hence the second explanation: The word describes the act of scoffing, mockery. Keil and others, after Kimchi, Vatabl, Piscat, Grot, against which Knobel objects that the word in question was never used of mocking. “Still less,” he adds, “are we to think of a persecution of Isaac (Gal_4:29; Rosenm.; Del.), or of a controversy about the inheritance (the old Jewish interpret.), or of an idolatrous service (Jonathan, Jarchi).” Delitzsch explains: “Ishmael, at the feast of the weaning of the child, made sport of the son of his father instead of sharing the joy of the household.” But the text certainly says only that Sarah made the observation that he was a jesting, mocking youth. But since the מְצַֹחֵק follows so directly upon יִצְחָק, so we may certainly conjecture that the word is here used to denote that he mimicked Isaac, jeered at him, or he ridiculed Isaac. [He does not laugh, but makes himself sportive, derides. This little feeble Isaac a father of nations! Hengstenberg: Beiträge, ii. p. 276. Kurtz urges well in favor of the stronger meaning of the word, the force of the Pihel and the fact that the conduct of Ishmael so described was made the reason by Sarah for her demand that the son of the bondwoman should be driven out, p. 202.—A. G.] Leaving this out of view, the observation of Sarah was certainly the observation of a development of character. Ishmael developed a characteristic trait of jealousy, and such persons pass easily, even without any inclination, to mockery. It is probable that this reviling conduct appeared in some striking way at the feast of the weaning of Isaac, although this cannot be inferred with certainty from the text. “The Rabbins feign here a controversy between the children, about the descent of Isaac from Abimelech, about the inheritance, and the like.” Schröder. Sarah does not regard him directly as a pretender, claiming the rights of primogeniture, but as one unworthy to be heir with her son. Even later, the moral earnestness and the sense and love of truth in the heir of the promise, are wanting in the talking and fiction-loving Arab. But tradition has added to this feature, his hand is against every man, and thus has found the explanation, that he persecuted Isaac with his jests and scoffs, a tradition which Paul could use in his allegorical explanation. [The apostle does far more than merely use a Jewish tradition. He appears to allude to the use made of this history by the prophet Isaiah (Gen 54), and in his explanation of the allegory states that the conduct of Ishmael towards Isaac was a type of the conduct of the self-righteous Jews towards those who were trusting in Christ alone for righteousness, or who were believers. This mocking, therefore, was the persecution of him who was born κατὰ σάρκα against him who was born κατὰ πνεῦμα. In this view, the word can only mean the unbelieving, envious sport and derision of this youth, proud of his mere fleshly preëminence, as Keil and Hengstenberg hold. He was thus, obviously, in heart separated from the household of faith.—A. G.] The passages, however, which Delitzsch quotes (Gen_39:14 and Eze_23:32) for the meaning of צחק, to scoff, must not be overlooked. In her estimate of character, Sarah was far superior to Abraham, as Rebekah was also superior to Isaac in judgment in reference to her two sons.—Cast out5 this bondwoman and her son.—Knobel thinks that according to Gen_25:6 the Elohist has not admitted into the record any such expulsion. The unmerciful severity towards his own son and his mother, does not agree well with the character of Abraham, and it is doubtful, therefore, whether we are dealing here with a literal fact. But this is a mere human arbitrariness, in which the lofty, pure motive, remains unappreciated. [There is underlying all these objections of Knobel and others who sympathize with him, a false hermeneutical principle, viz., that we must interpret and explain the word by what we conceive to have been the moral state and feelings of these historical personages.—A. G.] The word of Sarah was displeasing to Abraham also. It is not the Angel of the Lord, but God as Elohim, who confirms the judgment of Sarah. For the exclusion of Ishmael was requisite not only to the prosperity of Isaac and the line of the promise, but to the welfare of Ishmael himself.—For in Isaac shall thy seed be called (see Gen_17:19).—There are three explanations of these words: 1. After Isaac shall thy seed be named (Hofmann). But Delitzsch reminds us that the people of the promise are only once called Isaac (Amo_7:9). 2. In Isaac shall thy seed be called into existence (Drechsler); better, 3. In Isaac shall the people which is, and is called (Isa_41:8) the peculiar seed of Abraham, have its point of departure (Bleek, Delitzsch).—And also of the son of the bondwoman (comp. Gen_17:20; Gen_16:12).—And Abraham rose up early in the morning.—He did not yield to the will of Sarah, but indeed to the command of God which, as it seems, came to him in a revelation by night. This decided, perfect, prompt cheerfulness, proves that he would, at the command of God, sacrifice Isaac also (Gen_22:3).—And took bread and a bottle of water.—The narrative passes over the provision of Hagar with the simple requisites for her journey; with the bread it may be thought (Gen_25:6) that there was included a provision with money for a longer time. He had doubtless made known to his household the revelation of the night, so that Sarah might not be elated nor Hagar depressed.—And the child.—[He was now about sixteen or seventeen—a youth. “Boys were often married at this age.” Ishmael was soon after married. This must be borne in mind in our estimate of the command given to Abraham.—A. G.] According to the Septuagint, Tuch, and others, the author places the burden upon the boy also; [The ו conjunctive makes it necessary that the וְאֶת הַיֶּלֶד should be connected with the principal verb יִקַּח. Keil, p. 172.—A. G.] but this does not follow from the text. Knobel correctly recalls to view that Ishmael was at this time at least sixteen years old. Delitzsch, on the contrary, understands the passage in the first instance thus: Abraham placed Isaac [Ishmael?—A. G.] also upon the back of Hagar; and speaks of inconsistencies and contradictions in the context; but then, he himself destroys this interpretation in a casual side remark. The Vulgate also here corrects the Septuagint.—She departed and wandered.—In the first case she found the way easily, for her flight was voluntary, but in this case she is quickly lost, no doubt because of the extreme agitation of her mind on account of her sudden dismissal. Luther has admirably shown these inward causes for her wandering.—In the wilderness of Beersheba.—Southerly from Beersheba (see Gen_21:33), bordering upon the desert El Tih.—And the water was spent in the bottle.—This was the special necessary of life for those passing through the desert. The boy began to faint from thirst.—And she cast the child.—The words here have certainly the appearance as if spoken of a little child. But a wearied boy of sixteen years, unacquainted with the straits of the desert, would naturally be to the anxious mother like a little child. The expression, she cast him, is an expression that, with a feeling of despair, or of renunciation, she suddenly laid down the wearied one, whom she had supported and drawn along with her, as if she had prayed that he might die, and then hastened away with the feeling that she had sacrificed her child. A whole group of the beautiful traits of a mother’s love appear here; she lays her child under the protecting shadow of a bush; she hastens away; she seats herself over against him at the distance of a bowshot, because she will not see him die, and yet cannot leave him, and there weeps aloud. Thus also Ishmael must be offered up, as Isaac was somewhat later. But through this necessity he was consecrated, with his future race, to be the son and king of the desert. And now Hagar must discover the oasis, which is also a condition of life for the sons of the desert.—As it were a bowshot.—Just as the stone’s throw in Luk_22:41.—And God heard the voice of the lad.—The weeping of the mother and the child forms one voice, which the narrative assumes. It is a groundless particularism when it is said Ishmael was heard because he was the son of Abraham.—And the Angel of God.6—As Jehovah himself is Elohim for Ishmael, so the Angel of the Lord (Jehovah) also is for him the Angel of God. There is no word here of a peculiar angelic appearance, for Hagar only hears the call of the Angel from heaven. But the call of the Angel was so far completed by the work of God that he opened her eyes. Since she suffers on account of the people of revelation, the angel of revelation here also, as in her flight, Genesis 16, protects and rescues her.—What aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not.—Her heart grows firm and strong again under the revelation from above.—And hold him in thine hand.—Jerome infers admirably from this expression as to the sense of the former passage, “from which it is manifest that he who is held could not have been a burden upon his mother, but her companion.”—For I will make him a great nation.—A repetition of the earlier promise in Genesis 16. He therefore cannot die.—I will make him.—It is only the Angel of Elohim, who is Elohim, who can thus speak.—And she saw a well of water.—A living fountain, not merely a cistern. The cisterns were covered, and only discoverable by signs which were known only to those who were entrusted with the secret. Some have conjectured that Hagar now discovered these marks of a cistern. But it is a well in the peculiar sense which is here spoken of.—And gave the lad drink.—Ishmael is saved, and now grows up as the consecrated son of the desert.—And became an archer.—The bow was the means of his livelihood in the desert. “Some of the Ishmaelitish tribes, e.g., the Kedarenes and Itureans (Gen_25:13-15), distinguish themselves through this weapon.” Knobel. For the twofold signification רֹבֶה, see Delitzsch, p. 410.7—And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran.—Ishmael is already in the way from Palestine to Arabia. The wilderness of Paran is the present great desert El Tih. It runs from the southern border of Palestine, especially from the desert of Beersheba, beginning with the desert of Sin, between Palestine and Egypt, southeasterly down to the northern part of the Sinaitic peninsula, where it is limited by the mountains of Paran [Robinson and Coleman think it embraces the whole great desert, and this supposition best meets the various notices of this desert in the Scriptures.—A. G.] (See the article in the “Bible Dictionary for Christian People.”)—A wife out of the land of Egypt.—Hagar takes a wife for her son from her own home. Thus the heathen element at once receives additional strength. The Ishmaelite Arabs are thus, as to their natural origin, sprung from a twofold mingling of Hebrew and Egyptian blood; of an ideal and contented disposition, inwoven with a recluse, dream-like, and gloomy view of the world.

3. The covenant between Abraham and Abimelech (Gen_21:22-34).—And Abimelech spake unto Abraham.—Abimelech, i.e., father of the king, or father-king, the king my father, the title of the kings at Gerar; Phichol, i.e., the mouth of all, probably also a title of the highest officer of the kings at Gerar. The proposition of Abimelech to Abraham to make a covenant with him rests upon a deep feeling of the blessing which Abraham had in communion with God, and upon a strong presentiment that in the future he would be a dangerous power to the inhabitants of Canaan. It is to this man’s praise that he does not seek in a criminal way to free himself from his anxiety, as Pharaoh in his hostility to the Israelites in Egypt, or as Saul in his hostility to David, but in the direct, frank, honest way of a covenant. Abimelech has indeed no presentiment how far the hopes of Abraham for the future go beyond his anxieties. The willingness, however, of Abraham to enter into the covenant, is a proof that he had no hopes for the personal possession of Canaan. As a prudent prince, Abimelech meets him in the company of his chief captain, who might make an impression of his power upon Abraham, although he addresses his appeal chiefly to his generosity and gratitude. He appeals to the faithfulness which he had shown him, and desires only that he should not be injured by Abraham either in his person or in his descendants. But Abraham distinguishes clearly between political and private rights, and now it is for him to administer rebukes.8—And he reproved Abimelech because of a well of water (see Gen_13:7; Gen_26:15; the great value of wells in Canaan).—But the ingenuous prince in part throws back the reproach upon him: Abraham had not spoken of the matter until to-day, and he had known nothing of it. He is ready, therefore, to make restitution, and now follows the making of the covenant.—Sheep and oxen.—The usual covenant presents (Isa_30:6; Isa_39:1; 1Ki_15:19).—Seven ewe lambs of the flock.—Although the well belonged to him, he secures again in the most solemn way its possession, through the execution of the covenant, since a gift which one of the contracting parties receives from the other binds him more strictly to its stipulations (Ewald: “Antiquities,” p. 18).—Beersheba.—It is a question, in the first place, how the name is to be explained, and then, what relation this well, in its derivation, sustains to the wells of Beersheba (Gen_26:32). Knobel asserts that the author explains Beersheba through oath of the wells, since he takes שֶׁבַע for שְׁבוּעָה, oath; but literally the word can only signify seven wells. Keil, on the other hand, asserts that the sense of the passage is this: that the wells take their name from the seven lambs with whose gift Abraham sealed his possession. When we recollect that in the name of Isaac differently related titles were united, we shall not press the antithesis between the seven wells and the wells of the oath. The form designates it as the seven wells, but the seven really marks it as the well of the oath. “נִשְׁבַּע, they sware, literally they confirmed by seven, not because three, the number of the deity, is united in the oath with four, the number of the world (Leopold Schmidt, and this exposition is undeniably suggestive), but on account of the sacredness of the number seven, which has its ground and origin in the number seven of the creation (which, however, may be divided into the three and the four); they chose seven things for the confirmation of the oath, as Herodotus, among others, testifies of the Arabians (Gen_3:8).” Keil. According to Knobel, the narrative of the name Beersheba (Gen_26:30) is only another tradition concerning the origin of the same name. “But Robinson,” Delitzsch replies, “after a long time the first explorer of the southern region of Palestine, found upon the borders of the desert two deep wells, with clear, excellent water.”9 These wells are called Bir es Seba, seven wells; after the erroneous explanation of the Bedouins, the well of the lions. According to Robinson, Beersheba lay in the bed of a wide watercourse running here towards the coast, called Wady es Seba (Rob. “Pal.” i. p. 300).—And he planted a grove (tamarisk).—“Probably the Tamarix Africana, common in Egypt, Petrea, and Palestine; not a collection (compare with this tamarisk of Abraham, that in Gibeah, 1Sa_22:6, and that in Jabesh, 1Sa_31:13).” Delitzsch. “They were accustomed to plant the tamarisks as garden trees, which grew to a remarkable height and furnished a wide shade.” [Calvin remarks that the planting of the trees indicates that Abraham enjoyed more of quiet and rest after the covenant was made than he had done before.—A. G.] Michaelis. The tamarisk, with its lasting wood and evergreen foliage, was an emblem of the eternity of God, whom he declared, or as Keil expresses it, of the eternally enduring grace of the true God of the Covenant. But it is questionable whether Abraham, the great antagonist of all that is traditional in mythology, overthrowing the symbolism of nature, would make such an exception here. We must then also suppose that his preaching of Jehovah, the eternal God, both preceded and followed the planting of the tamarisk. Knobel thinks it is clear that a remarkable tamarisk stood there, which one then traced back to Abraham. As a planter of the tamarisk, Abraham appears a prophet of civilization, as in his proclaiming of the eternal God (the קָרָא with beth is always more definite than simply to call upon; it designates also the act of proclaiming) he is the prophet of the faith (the cultus).—The name אֵל עוֹלָם appears to be used here as a peculiar explanation of יחוה, and thus to justify the translation of this name by the words, the eternal. But Abraham had earlier (Gen_14:22) designated Jehovah as El Eljon, then recognized him (Gen_17:1) as El Shaddai. It follows from this that Jehovah revealed himself to him under various aspects, whose definitions form a parallel to the universal name Elohim. The God of the highest majesty who gave him victory over the kings of the East, the God of miraculous power who bestows upon him his son Isaac, now reveals himself in his divine covenant-truth, over against his temporary covenant with Abimelech, as the eternal God. And the tamarisk might well signify this also, that the hope of his seed should remain fresh and green until the most distant future, uninjured by his temporary covenant with Abimelech, which he will hold sacred.—Abraham sojourned in the land of the Philistines.—Abraham evidently remained a longer time at Beersheba, and this, together with his residence at Gerar, is described as a sojourn in the land of the Philistines. But how then could it be said before, that Abimelech and his chief captain turned back from Beersheba to the land of the Philistines? Keil solves the apparent difficulty with the remark, the land of the Philistines had at that time no fixed bounds towards the wilderness; Beersheba did not belong to Gerar, the kingdom of Abimelech in the narrower sense.—Many days.—These many days during which he sojourned in the land of the Philistines, form a contrast to the name of the eternal God, who had promised Canaan to him.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Sarah’s visitation a type of the visitation of Mary, notwithstanding the great distinction between them. The visitation lies in the extraordinary and wonderful personal grace, to which an immeasurable general human salvation is closely joined. But with Sarah this visitation occurs very late in life, and after long waiting; with Mary it was entirely unexpected. Sarah’s body is dead; Mary had not known a husband. The son of Sarah is himself only a type of the son of Mary. But with both women the richest promise of heaven is limited through one particular woman on the earth, a conception in faith, an apparently impossible, but yet actual human birth; both are illustrious instances of the destination of the female race, of the importance of the wife, the mother, for the kingdom of God. Both become illustrious since they freely subjected themselves to this destination, since they yielded their sons in the future, the sons of promise, or in the son of promise; for Isaac has all his importance as a type of Christ, and Christ the son of Mary is the manifestation of the eternal Son.—The visitation of Sarah was that which Jehovah had promised a year before. He visits the believer with the word of promise, and visits him again with the word of fulfilment. Abraham must have waited five and twenty years for the promise, Sarah only one year.

2. Isaac: he will laugh, or one will laugh (see Gen_17:19). The believer laughs at the last.

3. The sons of old age and miraculously-given children: the sons of Noah, Isaac, Joseph (Gen_37:3), Benjamin (Gen_44:20), Samuel, John the Baptist, and Christ.

4. The little song of Sarah, the sacred joyful word of the mother over Isaac. The first cradle hymn.

5. The feast of the weaning of Isaac. “The announcement, the birth, the weaning of the child.—All this furnishes matter for manifold joy and laughter; יִצְחַק, i.e., the laughter, the fulness of joy in his name. Our Lord reveals the profoundest source of this joy when he says (Joh_8:56), Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad. Since Sarah, the wife of one, became the mother of Isaac, she became the mother of Israel (Isa_51:2; Mal_2:15; Eze_33:24), and since she is the mother of Israel, the ancestress, and, in some sense, the mother of Jesus Christ, who derives his flesh and blood from Isaac, out of Israel, and in whom Abraham is a blessing to all the nations, the birthday of Isaac, spiritually viewed, thus becomes the door or entrance of the day of Christ, and the day of Christ the background of the birthday of Isaac.” Delitzsch. Calvin dwells especially upon the circumstance that Sarah nursed her child. “Whom he counts worthy of the honor of being a mother he at the same time makes nurse; and those who feel themselves burdened through the nursing of their children, rend, as far as in them lies, the sacred bonds of nature, unless weakness, or some infirmities, form their excuse.” It is remarkable that a century after the Genevan Calvin, the Genevan Rousseau should again hold up the sacredness of this law of nature, that mothers should nurse their own children, against the unnatural custom at his time of using wet-nurses, although, indeed, he himself had fundamentally no right to plead it.

6. The whole context confirms the Hebrew tradition, which finds in the jests of Ishmael the kindred idea of mockery, and upon this rests the confirmation of the allegorical explanation of Paul (Galatians 4; comp. “Biblework” on Gal_4:22-30). [The apostle, however, does not say that the history was designed to be typical, but had been used and may be used to illustrate the truth he was discussing.—A. G.] [Ishmael mocked the child of promise, the faith of his parents, and therefore the word and purpose of God. His mocking was the outward expression of his unbelief, as the joy of his parents, which gave rise to the feast, was of their faith. It thus reveals his character as unworthy and incapable of sharing in the blessing, which then, as now, was secured only by faith. Hence, like Esau, Saul, the carnal Judaizers of the apostle’s day, all who trust in themselves rather than in the promise, he was cast out.—A. G.]

7. Female tact and accuracy in the estimate of youthful character. Sarah. Rebekah. Sarah’s interference with the order of Abraham’s household cannot be without sin, but in this case she meets and responds to the theocratic thought. This fact is repeated in a stronger form in the position of Rebekah over against that of Isaac, since she secures to Jacob the right of the first-born. Both fathers must have their prejudices in favor of the rights of the natural first-born corrected by the presaging, far-seeing mothers.

8. Abraham rose up early in the morning, especially when a command of the Lord is to be fulfilled or a sacrifice is to be brought (Genesis 22).

9. The expulsion of Hagar. Since Ishmael had grown to nearly sixteen years of age in the house of Sarah, her proposal cannot be explained upon motives of human jealousy. The text shows how painful the measure was to Abraham. But the man of faith who should later offer up Isaac, must now be able to offer Ishmael also. He dismisses him, however, in the light of the promise, that his expulsion confirmed his promotion to be the head of a great nation, and because the purpose of God in reference to Isaac could only become actual through this separation. The separation of Lot from Abraham, of Ishmael from Isaac, of Esau from Jacob, proceeds later in the separation of the ten tribes from Judah, and finally in the excision of the unbelieving Jewish population from the election (Romans 10.; Galatians 4.). These separations are continued even in the Christian Church. In the New-Covenant, moreover, the Jews for the most part have been excluded as Ishmael, while many Ishmaelites on the contrary have been made heirs of the faith of Abraham. The Queen of Sheba perhaps adheres more faithfully to wisdom than Solomon.

10. The moral beauty of Hagar in the desert, in her mother-love and in her confidence in God. Hagar in the desert an imperishable pattern of true maternal love.

11. The straits of the desert the consecration of the sons of the desert. The terrible desert, through the wonderful help of God, the wells, and oases of God, became a dear home to him. There is no doubt, also, that after he had learned thoroughly by experience that he was not a fellow-heir with Isaac, he was richly endowed by Abraham (Gen_25:6), and also remained in friendly relations with Isaac (Gen_25:9).

12. Abimelech’s presentiment of Abraham’s future greatness, and his prudent care for the security of his kingdom in his own person and in his descendants. The children of Israel did not attack the land of the Philistines until the Philistines had destroyed every recollection of the old covenant relations. Abimelech ever prudent, honest, and noble. The significance of the covenant of peace between the father of the faithful and a heathen prince (comp. “Covenant of Abraham,” ch.14).

13. Abraham gives to Abimelech upon his desire the oath of the covenant, as he had earlier sworn to the king of Sodom. “I will swear,” the sign of the condescension of the believer, in the relations and necessities of human society. Bearing upon the doctrine of the oath.

14. Abraham learns the character of Jehovah in a living experience of faith, according to his varied revelations, and with this experience the knowledge of the attributes of God rises into prominence. As Elohim proves himself to be Jehovah to him, so Jehovah again proves himself to be Elohim in a higher sense. God the Exalted is the Covenant God for him; God the Almighty performs wonders for him; God the Eternal busies himself for him in the eternal truth of the Covenant.

15. Abraham calls upon and proclaims the name of the Lord. The one is in truth not to be separated from the other. The living prayer must yield its fruit in the declaration, the living declaration must have its root in prayer. The faith of Abraham in Jehovah develops itself into a faith in the eternal truth of his covenant, and in the ever green and vigorous life of the promise. [“He calls upon the name of the Lord with the significant surname of the God of perpetuity, the eternal, unchangeable God. This marks him as the sure and able performer of his promise, as the everlasting vindicator of the faith of treaties, and as the infallible source of the believer’s rest and peace.” Murphy.—A. G.] For the tamarisk (see Dictionaries of the Bible) and for the meaning of the desert of Beersheba and the city of the same name (see Concordances).

16. Abraham, Samson, and David, in the land of the Philistines. Alternate friendships and hostilities. Abraham at first gains in South-Canaan a well, then a grave (ch, 23.). Both were signs of his inheriting the land at some future time.

17. Beersheba, honored and sanctified through the long residence of Abraham and Isaac. This city marking the southern limits of Israel in contrast with the city of Dan as a northern limit was, later, also profaned through an idolatrous service (Amo_5:5; Amo_8:14).

18. Passavant dwells upon the glory of the Arabians in Spain for seven centuries. “Indeed, they still, to day, from the wide and broad desert, ever weep over the forsaken, crushed clods of that heroic land.” But what has Roman fanaticism made of the land of Spain? He says again: “Arabia has also its treasures, its spices, and ointments, herds of noble animals, sweet, noble fruits, but it is not a Canaan, and its sons, coursing, racing, plundering, find in its wild freedom an uncertain inheritance.” “Gal_4:29 is fulfilled especially in the history of Mohammed.”

19. Upon the covenant of Abraham and Abimelech, Passavant quotes the words, Blessed are the peace-makers. Schwenke represents Abimelech as a self-righteous person, but without sufficient reason.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See the doctrinal paragraphs.—The connection between Isaac’s birth and Ishmael’s expulsion.—The joyful feast in Abraham’s house.—Hagar’s necessity; Hagar’s purification and glorification.—Abraham’s second meeting with Abimelech.—Abraham at Beersheba, or the connection between civilization and the cultus in Abraham’s life. An example for Christian missions.

1. Isaac’s birth (Gen_21:1-8). Gen_21:1. In the providence of God we first experience that he himself visits us, that he gives us himself; then that he visits us with his deeds of salvation. “Noble natures regard what they are as one with what they do.” It is true of God above all others, that we come to know him in his gifts, and his gifts in his visitation.—The section affords appropriate texts for baptismal discourses. Starke: the repetition (as he had spoken, of which he had spoken) has the utmost emphasis. The promises of God must at last pass into fulfilment, even when all hope has been lost by men. His promises are yea and amen.—Luther: “Moses abounds in words, and repeats his words twice, in order to bring before our minds the unutterable joy of the patriarch. This joy would be increased also (if it is true, as some say, that the Son of God in human form appeared to Sarah in the sixth week, and wished her joy of her young son, Gen_18:10).—H. C. Rambach: Isaac’s birth in many respects resembles greatly the birth of Christ: 1. Both births were announced long before; 2. both occur at the time fixed by God; 3. both persons were named before they were born; 4. both were supernaturally (miraculously) conceived; 5. both births occasioned great joy: 6. the law of circumcision begins (as to its principle) with Isaac, and ceases in (through) Christ. Gen_21:7. In her joy Sarah speaks of many (several) children, when she had borne only one son, who, however, was better to her than ten sons.—She will say: Not only has my dead body received strength from God, to bring a child into the world, but I am conscious of such strength that I can supply its food which sometimes fails much younger and more vigorous mothers.—Sarah did this (nursed her child) although she was a princess (Gen_23:6) and of noble blood, for the law of nature itself requires this from all, since, with this very end in view, God has given breasts to all and filled them with milk. The Scriptures united these two functions, the bearing of children and nursing them, as belonging to the mother (Luk_11:27; Luk_23:29 : Psa_22:10). Thus these two things were reckoned among the blessings and kindness of the Great God (Gen_49:25), while an unfruitful body and dry breasts are a punishment from him (Hos_9:11-14).

Gen_21:8. (Whether, as the Jews say, Shem, Melchizedec and Selah were present at this feast, cannot be said with certainty.)—Abraham doubtless had his servants to share in the feast, and held instructive conversation with them, exhorting them to confidence in God, to the praise of his name. It is a peculiarly spiritual, joyful, and thankful feast.—An enumeration of biblical feasts (2Co_1:20).—The blessing of children. Ingratitude, in regarding many such gifts (children) as a punishment.—Feasts after baptism are not opposed to the will of God, but they should still be observed to his honor, with pious people, without luxury, and other poor women in childbed should not be forgotten.—Schröder: Gen_21:1. He is faithful (Num_23:19).—Since every birth flows from (is a gift from) God (Psa_127:3), so we may rightly say, that the Lord visits those to whom he sends children.

Gen_21:3. Isaac was the son of the free-woman, born through the promise of God (Gal_4:22-23), consequently a type of every child of God, who through the strength of the promise, or of the gospel, is born to freedom and of a free-woman. (Roos.)—What strange disappointments! The son, who receives from God who hears the cries and wishes of men, his name Ishmael (God hears) is not the promised one, but the promise was fulfilled in the other, Isaac, who was named according to a more common human custom! [The laughing of Abraham (Gen_17:17) has however a greater spiritual worth than the cry of Hagar for help (Gen_16:11).]—Passavant: Behold, two children of one father and in the same house, reared under one discipline, consecrated before the same altar, of like hearts, borne before God upon the same prayer and thus offered to him, and still so unlike in their minds and ways, in their conduct and aims, etc.; the dark mysteries of nature and grace.—Taube: The birth of Isaac and expulsion of Ishmael an example of what occurred at the Reformation, and of what must take place in us all.

2. Ishmael’s removal (Gen_21:9-21). The theocratic separations in their import: a. Judgment in respect to the fitness for theocratic purposes, but not, b. in respect to a destination to blessedness.—[So Henry. We are not sure that it was his eternal ruin; it is presumption to say that all those who are left out of the external dispensation of God’s covenant, are therefore excluded from all his mercies.—A. G.]—The providence of God over Ishmael.—The Arabians.—The Mohammedan world.—Mission Sermons.—The external separation presupposes an inward estrangement.

Starke: Gen_21:9. A laughing, jesting, gay, and playful youth. It may be that Ishmael had reviled Isaac because of his name which he had received from a laugh, and had treated him with scorn.—Lange: Gen_21:10. Sarah could not have been without human weakness in this harsh demand; but the hand of God was in it.—Cramer: The faults and defects of parents usually cleave to their children, hence parents, especially mothers during pregnancy, should guard themselves lest they stain themselves with a grave fault which shall cleave to their children during their lives.—Bibl. Tüb.: The mocking spirit is the sign of an evil, proud, jealous, envious heart; take heed that thou dost not sit with the scorner (Psa_1:1)—Bibl. Wirt.: Cases often occur in a family in which the wife is much wiser than her husband, hence their advice and counsel ought not to be refused (1Sa_25:3; 1Sa_25:17). Polygamy produces great unhappiness.—Cramer: There will arise sometimes disputes between married persons, even between those who are usually peaceful and friendly. Still one should not give loose reins to his passion, or allow the difference to go too far.

Gen_21:12. Lange: Here we see that the seed of the bondwoman shall be distinguished from Isaac.—The general rule is, that the wife shall be subject to her husband, and in all reasonable things obey him, but here God makes an exception.—Since Abraham in the former case had followed his wife without consulting God, when she gave him Hagar to wife, so he must now also fulfil her will.—The comparison of Ishmael with the unbelieving Jews at the time of the New Testament: the haughty, perverse, scoffing spirit of persecution; the sympathy of Abraham with Ishmael, the compassion of Jesus towards the Jews; the expulsion and wandering in the wilderness, but still under the Divine providence; the hope that they shall finally attain favor and grace.—Cramer: The recollection of his former sins should be a cross to the Christian.—One misfortune seldom comes alone.—Bibl. Wirt.: There is nothing which makes a man so tender and humble as the cross, affliction, and distress.—Gerlach: The great truth that natural claims avail nothing before God, reveals itself clearly in this history.—Isaac receives his name from a holy laughing; Ishmael was also a laugher, but at the same time a profane scoffer.—Calwer, Handbuch: What we often receive as a reproach, and listen to with reluctance, may contain under the rough, hard shell a noble kernel of truth, which indeed agrees with the will of God.—Schröder: (Luther supposes Abraham to invite to the feast all the patriarchs then living; with Melchizedec and the King of the Philistines.)—Isaac, the subject of the holy laugh, serves also as a laughing-stock of profane wit.—Ishmael is the representative of that world in the church yet scoffing at the church. (In the letter to the Galatians of the bond-church, in opposition to the free.—Both, if I may say so, are the sons of laughter but in how different a sense. Sarah does not call Ishmael by his name (a clear sign of her indignation), and shows her contempt by calling him the son of this bond-woman. (Luther: Gen_3:24; Pro_22:10; Joh_8:35.)

Gen_21:13. Ishmael remained his son, and indeed his first-born, whom he had long held for the heir of the blessing. It is never easy to rend from our hearts the objects of our dear affections. But he who must soon offer Isaac also is here put into the school for preparation. Michaelis sees in this removal the evidence that God was displeased with polygamy.

Gen_21:14. In many points surely the men of God seem somewhat cold and hard-hearted (Exo_32:27; Deu_13:6 ff; Deu_33:9; Mat_10:37; Luk_14:26). After this distinction was clearly made, Ishmael himself might draw near again (Gen_25:9) and indeed share in the possessions of his rich father. Baumgarten.—The expulsion of Ishmael was a warning for Israel, so far as it constantly relied upon its natural sonship from Abraham.—Thus the Papists to-day, when they parade their long succession, say nothing more than if they also called Ishmael the first-born.

Gen_21:17. We see moreover here that if father and mother forsake us, then the Lord himself will take us up. Calvin.—The same: Gen_21:19. If God withdraw from us the grace of his providence we are as surely deprived of all means of help, even of those which lie near at hand, as if they were far removed from us. We pray him, therefore, not only that he would supply us with what we need, but give us prudence to make a right use of it; otherwise it will happen that, with closed eyes, we shall lie in the midst of our supplies and perish.10—Passavant: Hagar’s marriage was Sarah’s own deed, not the work of God, and this also made her fearful. Men easily become anxious about their own, self-chosen ways.—Abraham obeys.—The obedience of the pious blessed in its results in all cases.—God knows how to find us, even in the wilderness.

3. Abraham’s covenant with Abimelech (Gen_21:22-34).—Traces of noble minds in the heathen world.—The Hebrews and the Philistines.—Why they attract and why repel.—Starke: Bibl. Tub.. Even the world wonders at the blessedness of the pious.—Bibl. Wirt. It is allowed the Christian truly to enter into covenant with strange, foreign, and, to a certain extent, with unbelieving people.—A pious man ought to complain to the rulers of the reproach and injustice he suffers.—Rulers should themselves guard the care of the land, since courtiers often do what they wish.—The Rabbins (Gen_21:33) think that Abraham planted a garden of fruit-trees, in which he received and entertained the strangers, from which he did not suffer them to depart until they became proselytes.—It is probable that Abraham had pitched near a grove or wood, from which he might have wood for his sacrifices, and in which he might perhaps hold his worship, and also that he might have more shade in this hot Eastern land.—I am also a stranger here upon the earth.—Gerlach: Gen_21:22. The blessing of God which rested upon Abraham awakened reverence even in these heathen, who served still the true God; a type of the blessing which, even in Old-Testament times, passed over from the covenant people upon the heathen.—Schröder: A consolation follows upon the great sorrow (Calvin).—The oath was an act of condescension to the evident mistrust of the Princes; in the other aspect an act of worship.—The Holy Scriptures regard the oath as if a peculiar sacrament; there is the name of God, and the hearts of the people are reconciled, and mistrust and strifes destroyed. (Luther).—Nature fixes itself firmly when all goes well. But faith knows here no continuing city (Berlenburger Bibel).—Moses reports three sacred works of Abraham: 1. He labored; 2. he preached; 3. he bore patiently his long sojourn in a strange land.

Footnotes:

[1][Gen_21:12.—In Isaac shall seed be called to thee.—A. G.]

[2][Gen_21:17.—Not מלאךְ יהוֹה, as in Gen_16:7.—A. G.]

[3][“The birth of Isaac is the first result of the covenant, and the first step toward its goal. As it is the germ of the future development, and looks to the greater than Isaac—the New Testament Son of Promise—so it is the practical and personal pledge on God’s part, that the salvation of the world shall be accomplished.” Jacobus.—A. G.]

[4][Kurtz says that Ishmael laughed at the contrast between the promises and corresponding hopes centring in Isaac, and the weak nursling, p. 201.—A. G.]

[5][Bush suggests that it is some legal divorce which is intended. The Heb. word has that meaning, see Lev_21:7; Lev_21:14; Lev_22:13; Isa_57:20.—A. G.]

[6][The angel of Elohim, not Jehovah, because Ishmael, since the divinely ordained removal from the house of Abraham, passes from under the protection of the covenant God, to that of the leading and providence of God, the ruler of all nations. Keil, p. 173.—A. G.]

[7][Baumgarten renders a hero an archer; and refers for an analogy to the phrase נַעֲרָה בְתוּלָה, p. 223.—A. G.]

[8][Murphy renders Kin and Kith to represent the Hebrew נִינִי נֶכְדִּי, p. 334.—A. G.]

[9][There are thus, in fact, two wells, from which the city might have been named, and from which it was named, according to the two accounts or testimonies in Genesis. Delitzsch, p. 296.—A. G.]

[10][So we do not see the fountain opened for sinners in this world’s wilderness until God opens our eyes. Jacobus.—A. G.]

Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

21:1-2 See 18:10.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

CHAPTER XXI

Isaac is born according to the promise, 1-3;

and is circumcised when eight days old, 4.

Abraham's age, and Sarah's exultation at the birth of their son, 5-7.

Isaac is weaned, 8.

Ishmael mocking on the occasion, Sarah requires that both he and his

mother Hagar shall be dismissed, 9, 10.

Abraham, distressed on the account, is ordered by the Lord to

comply, 11, 12.

The promise renewed to Ishmael, 13.

Abraham dismisses Hagar and her son, who go to the wilderness of

Beer-sheba, 14.

They are greatly distressed for want of water, 15, 16.

An angel of God appears to and relieves them, 17-19.

Ishmael prospers and is married, 20, 21.

Abimelech, and Phichol his chief captain, make a covenant with

Abraham, and surrender the well of Beersheba for seven ewe

lambs, 22-32.

Abraham plants a grove, and invokes the name of the everlasting

God, 33.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXI

Verse 1. The Lord visited Sarah] That is, God fulfilled his promise to Sarah by giving her, at the advanced age of ninety, power to conceive and bring forth a son.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

1. And the Lord visited Sarah. In this chapters not only is the nativity of Isaac related, but because, in his very birth, God has set before us a lively picture of his Church, Moses also gives a particular account of this matter. And first, he says that God visited Sarah, as he had promised. Because all offspring, flows from the kindness of God, as it is in the psalm,

‘The fruit of the womb is the gift of God;’ (Psalm 127:3;)

therefore the Lord is said, not without reason, to visit those, to whom he gives children. For although the foetus seems to be produced naturally, each from its own kind; there is yet no fecundity in animals, except so far as the Lord puts forth his own power, to fulfill what he has said, Increase and multiply. But in the propagation of the human race, his special benediction is conspicuous; and, therefore, the birth of every child is rightly deemed the effect of divine visitation. But Moses, in this place, looks higher, forasmuch as Isaac was born out of the accustomed course of nature. Therefore Moses here commends that secret and unwonted power of God, which is superior to the law of nature; and not improperly, since it is of great consequence for us to know that the gratuitous kindness of God reigned, as well in the origin, as in the progress of the Church; and that the sons of God were not otherwise born, than from his mere mercy. And this is the reason why he did not make Abraham a father, till his body was nearly withered. It is also to be noticed, that Moses declares the visitation which he mentions, to be founded upon promise; ‘Jehovah visited Sarah, as he had promised.’ In these words he annexes the effect to its cause, in order that the special grace of God, of which an example is given in the birth of Isaac, might be the more perceptible. If he had barely said, that the Lord had respect unto Sarah, when she brought forth a son; some other cause might have been sought for. None, however, can doubt, that the promise, by which Isaac had been granted to his father Abraham, was gratuitous; since the child was the fruit of that adoption, which can be ascribed to nothing but the mere grace of God. Therefore, whoever wishes rightly and prudently to reflect upon the work of God, in the birth of Isaac, must necessarily begin with the promise. There is also great emphasis in the repetition, “The Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken.” For he thus retains his readers, as by laying his hand upon them, that they may pause in the consideration of so great a miracle. Meanwhile, Moses commends the faithfulness of God; as if he had said he never feeds men with empty promises, nor is he less true in granting what he has promised, than he is liberal, and willing, in making the promise.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

XXI.

BIRTH OF ISAAC, AND REJECTION OF ISHMAEL.

(1) And the Lord (Jehovah) visited Sarah as he had said.—See Gen_17:19, where it is Elohim who gives the promise. So here in Gen_21:2 the name Elohim is interchanged with Jehovah.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1. visited] Cf. 1Sa_2:21; Luk_1:68. The word is used for the dealings of God, sometimes, as here, in blessing, and sometimes in punishment.

The two clauses of this verse are identical in meaning: the first probably refers to Gen_18:10-14 (J): the second to Gen_17:16; Gen_17:21 (P). If the second clause is from P, the substitution of “Jehovah” for “God” is probably either editorial, or a transcriptional error.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And the Lord visited Sarah as he had said,.... To Abraham, Gen 17:16; in a way of mercy and kindness, by fulfilling his promise, giving strength to conceive and bear a child; see Sa1 2:21,

and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken; which intends the same thing in different words; and the repetition is made to cause attention to God's fulfilment of his promise, who is always faithful to his word, even in things very difficult and seemingly impossible, as in the present case: hence the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem paraphrase it, God did a wonder or wonders for Sarah in causing her to conceive when she was so old, and in such circumstances as she was.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Visited, either by the angel, chap. xviii. 10, or by enabling her to have what he had promised, at the return of the season.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The Lord visited Sarah, i.e. performed his gracious promise of giving her strength to conceive and bear a child. God's visitation of a person in Scripture use, is the manifestation and execution of his purpose or word towards that person, and that either for evil, and so it is an inflicting of evils threatened, as the word visiting is used, Exo 20:5; Psa 59:5; or for good, and so it is used for the actual giving of mercies promised, as here, and Gen 50:24; Exo 4:31; Rth 1:6.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Birth of Isaac. Dismissal of Hagar and Ishmael. Covenant between Abraham and Abimelech

8. Weaned] in his second or third year, as is usual among Orientals.

9. Ishmael had no doubt been regarded as Abraham's heir until the birth of Isaac. The change in his prospects may account for his conduct, which St. Paul uses to illustrate the persecution of the Christians by the Jews (Gal_4:29). Proud of their natural descent as children of Abraham, the Jews scorned the idea that God could regard others as His spiritual children and allow them to share in their privileges and blessings: see Galatians 3, 4. The story affords painful evidence of the jealousies and unhappiness caused by polygamy.

12. In Isaac shall thy seed be called] i.e. the promises should centre in Isaac.

14. Beer-sheba] 30 m. S. of Hebron.

15. Bottle] (RM 'skin'): made of the skin of a sheep or goat. All openings are sewn up and made watertight with pitch except the neck, which is tied up when the skin is full.

17, 18. Formerly (Gen_16:7-8) God sought out Hagar to reprove her, and bid her go back upon her course: now He appears to her to comfort her, and supply her needs and those of her child. In both ways, He displays His grace.

19. A miraculous supply of water is not suggested here. God enabled Hagar to see an existing spring of water.

21. Wilderness of Paran] Et-Tih, the country between Canaan and the Peninsula of Sinai. The descendants of Ishmael, Bedouin Arabs, still possess the country. It was the scene of the wanderings of the Israelites: cp. Deu_1:19; Num_10:12.

22-34. Abraham was still living in the neighbourhood of Abimelech, king of Gerar: see Genesis 20. He was now regarded as a chieftain of great importance (cp. Gen_23:6), and the king here seeks to enter into a covenant of friendship with him. Abraham takes the opportunity to secure his right to a well which he had made. Abimelech acknowledges Abraham to be the rightful possessor by accepting the seven lambs which he offers. The place was henceforth called Beer-sheba, 'well of the seven,' or 'well of the oath,' because the covenant had been ratified by the sacred or perfect number seven which was the usual number of things sworn by. Some very ancient wells have been discovered at Beersheba which marks the southern limit of Palestine.

33. A grove] RV 'a tamarisk tree': see on Gen_12:6.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

BIRTH OF ISAAC, 1-8.

“At last the time of fulfilment has arrived. During five and twenty years cheering assurances had brightened the gloom of Abraham’s pilgrimage; he had risen to God by altars and prayers, and God had descended to him by visions and revelations; he had obeyed, with spontaneous faith, and had received signs and pledges; a covenant had sanctified, and miraculous aid had protected his life; land and posterity were promised, blessings guaranteed to his seed and to mankind; the child of faith had been announced both to him and to Sarah; and the realization corresponded strictly with the promises.”— Kalisch.

1. The Lord visited Sarah — The same Lord (Jehovah) who interposed to rescue her from Abimelech. Comp. Gen_20:18.

Visited — Any favour of divine Providence is a gracious visitation; but this was special in being the fulfilling of a promise often repeated.

As he had spoken — See Gen_17:16; Gen_17:19; Gen_18:10; Gen_18:14.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And the Lord Jehovah; not because the verse is Jehovistic (Knobel, Bleek, et alii), but because the promise naturally falls to be implemented by him who gave it (vide Gen_18:10) visited remembered with love (Onkelos), ejpiskeyato (LXX; cf. Exo_4:31; 1Sa_2:21; Isa_23:17) though itsometimes means to approach in judgment (vide. (Exo_20:5 Exo_32:34) Alleged to be peculiar to the Jehovist (the term used by the Elohist being, (Gen_8:1 Gen_19:29 Gen_30:20) the word occurs in Gen_1:24, which Tuch and Bleek ascribe to the ElohistSarah as he had said, (Gen_17:21 Gen_18:10, Gen_18:14) God"s word of promise being ever the rule of his performance (cf. Exo_12:25; Luk_1:72) and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spokeni.e. implemented his promise; the proof of which is next given (cf. Num_23:19; Heb_6:18)

Vers. 1-8.

The son of promise, or a young child"s biography.

I THE BIRTH OF ISAAC

1. A surprising phenomenon. "Who would have said that Sarah should have suckled sons?" Motherhood at ninety was certainly unusual, especially when conjoined with paternity at a hundred. In a world presided over by a personal Deity there must always be room for surprises.

2. A miraculous production. That the conception and birth of Isaac were due to Divine interposition that in fact, the child of promise was a special supernatural creation is asserted by Paul as well as Moses. (Rom_4:17)

1. An accomplished prediction. Not only the fact of Isaac"s birth, but the exact time was specified beforehand. And now the long-looked-for child had arrived. A signal proof of the Divine veracity, it was another pledge to God"s people in every age of the Divine fidelity in implementing his gracious word of promise.

2. A joyous inspiration. Isaac"s birth not simply wok o laughing echoes in Sarah"s tent, but opened founts of song in Sarah"s breast; which was not wonderful, considering that the tender infant over which she exulted was the child of her own and Abraham"s old age, the child of promise, the fruit of faith and the gift of grace, and the Heaven-appointed heir of the covenant blessing.

3. A prophetic intimation. Sarah"s anthem contained a higher note of melody than that occasioned by a mother"s joy; there was in it too the gladness of a faith that saw in Isaac the harbinger and pledge of another and greater Seed. Like the birth of Isaac, that of Christ was fore announced by God, waited for in faith, accomplished through Divine power, and welcomed with bursts of joy.

II THE CIRCUMCISION OF ISAAC.

1. The import of the rite. (see on Gen_17:10) It implied the formal reception of the party upon whom it was imposed within the prime of the Old Testament Church; it signified the putting away of the filth of the flesh; it took the subject of it bound to a holy life. Of a like import is the Christian sacrament of baptism, which, however, differs from the Hebrew rite in looking back upon a Christ already manifested, instead of forward to a Christ that was still to come.

2. The authority for the rite. This was exclusively the Divine commandment the sole reason that can be assigned for the observance of the Christian sacraments, which in themselves are only symbols of spiritual transactions, and have no validity apart from the appointment of Christ.

3. The index to the rite. This was contained in the name generally given on the occasion of its observance: cf. Abraham, (Gen_17:5) John the Baptist, (Luk_1:60) Jesus. (Luk_2:21) With this ancient custom must be connected the Christian practice of naming children at baptism.

III THE WEANING OF ISAAC.

1. A mothers duty fulfilled. The first duty of a mother is to her babe, and to withhold the sustenance God has provided for her babe"s necessities is both to violate Divine law and to perpetrate a fraud upon her helpless offspring. Sarah, though a princess, was not above discharging the duties of a nurse an example which Sarah"s daughters should diligently follow.

2. A childs independence begun. From the moment of weaning a child may be said to enter on a separate and as it were independent existence, attaining then for the first time to a distinct individuality of being.

3. A fathers joy expressed. The interesting event was celebrated by a festal entertainment, at which, if not Shem, Melchisedeck, and Selah, according to the Rabbis, the inmates of Abraham"s household were doubtless present. "God"s blessing upon the nursing of children, and his preservation of them during the perils of infant age, are signal instances of the care and tenderness of Divine providence, which ought to be acknowledged to its praise" (Henry).

Lessons:

1. The right of parents to rejoice in their children.

2. The duty of parents to introduce their children to the Church of God.

3. The propriety of parents recognizing the separate individualities of children.

HOMILIES BY R.A. REDFORD Vers. 1-8.

Birth, circumcision and weaning of Isaac.

Here, is

I THE FAITIIFULNESS OF JEHOVAH. "As he had spoken. At the set time." "God hath made me to laugh.

II THE FAITH OF HIS SERVANT, which was evidenced in waiting, hoping, naming the son born unto him, obeying the commandment.

III THE GIFT of God was THE REVELATION of God: his love, his power, his purpose, his patience.

IV Taken TYPICALLY, the foreshadowing of the miraculous conception, the kingdom of God, as originating in the sphere of human infirmity and helplessness; as being the introduction of bright hope and cheerful promise into the gloomy barrenness of human life; as the lifting up of man"s state into the covenant of God, sealed with his appointed ordinance, surrounded with the promised blessings. Isaac was the type of Christ, Sarah of Mary, Abraham of the people and Church of God.

V SARAH"S SONG, the first cradle hymn of a mother"s thankful joy, representing the Divine delight in the pure and simple happiness of those who are children of God. Abraham rejoiced to see the brightness of the future. (Joh_8:56)

VI THE WEANING FEAST. All called in to share in the joy. Household joy should be widespread. We may suppose that such a banquet was religious in its character so, not only is it a sanction of religious festivals, but it reminds us that we should connect the events of the family life immediately with the word and ordinances of God. R.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

In this chapter we have,

I. Isaac, the child of promise, born into Abraham's family, ver. 1- 8.

II. Ishmael, the son of the bond-woman, cast out of it, ver. 9-21.

III. Abraham's league with Abimelech, ver. 22-32.

IV. His devotion to God, ver. 33, 34.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Genesis 21

And the Lord visited Sarah, as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken." Here we have accomplished promise - the blessed fruit of patient waiting upon God. None ever waited in vain. The soul, that takes hold of God’s promise by faith, has gotten a stable reality which will never fail him. Thus was it with Abraham; thus was it with all the faithful from age to age; and thus will it be with all those, who are enabled, in any measure, to trust in the living God. Oh! it is a wonderful blessing to have God Himself as our portion and resting-place, amid the unsatisfying shadows of this scene through which we are passing; to have our anchor cast within the veil; to have the word and oath of God, the two immutable things, to lean upon, for the comfort and tranquility of our souls.

When God’s promise stood before the soul of Abraham, as an accomplished fact, he might well have learnt the futility of his own effort to reach that accomplishment. Ishmael was of no use, whatever, so far as God’s promise was concerned. He might, and did, afford something for nature’s affections to entwine themselves around, thus furnishing a more difficult task for Abraham to perform afterwards; but he was in no wise conducive to the development of the purpose of God, or to the establishment of Abraham’s faith - quite the reverse. Nature can never do ought for God. The Lord must visit and the Lord must "do," and faith must wait, and nature must be still; yea, must be entirely set aside as a dead, worthless thing, and then the divine glory can shine out, and faith find in that outshining all its rich and sweet reward. "Sarah conceived and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him." There is such a thing as God’s "set time," His "due season," and for this the faithful must be content to wait. The time may seem long, and hope deferred may make the heart sick; but the spiritual mind will ever find its relief in the assurance, that all is for the ultimate display of God’s glory. "For the vision is for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie; though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. . . . . . but the just shall live by his faith." (Hab. 2: 3, 4) This wondrous faith! It brings into our present all the power of God’s future, and feeds upon God’s promise as a present reality. By its power the soul is kept hanging upon God, when every outward thing seems to be against it; and, "at the set time," the mouth is filled with laughter. "Abraham was an hundred years old when his son Isaac was born unto him." Thus nature had nothing to glory in. "Man’s extremity was God’s opportunity;" and Sarah said, "God hath made me to laugh." All is triumph when God is allowed to show Himself.

Now while the birth of Isaac filled Sarah’s mouth with laughter, it introduced an entirely new element into Abraham’s house. The son of the free-woman very speedily developed the true character of the son of the bond-woman. Indeed, Isaac proved, in principle, to be to the household of Abraham, what the implantation of the new nature is in the soul of a sinner. It was not Ishmael changed, but it was Isaac born. The son of the bond-woman could never be anything else but that. He might become a great nation, he might dwell in the wilderness, and become an archer, he might become the father of twelve princes, but he was the son of the bond-woman all the while. On the contrary, no matter how weak and despised Isaac might be, he was the son of the free-woman. His position and character, his standing and prospects, were all from the Lord. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

Regeneration is not a change of the old nature, but the introduction of a new; it is the implantation of the nature or life of the Second Adam, by the operation of the Holy Ghost, founded upon the accomplished redemption of Christ, and in full keeping with the sovereign will or counsel of God. The moment a sinner believes in his heart, and confesses with his mouth, the Lord Jesus, he becomes the possessor of a new life, and that life is Christ. He is born of God, is a child of God, is a son of the free-woman. (See Rom. 10: 9; Col. 3: 4; 1 John 3: 1, 2; Gal. 3: 26; Gal. 4: 31)

Nor does the introduction of this new nature alter, in the slightest degree, the true, essential character of the old. This latter continues what it was, and is made, in no respect, better; yea, rather, there is the full display of its evil character in opposition to the new element. "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other." There they are in all their distinctness, and the one is only thrown into relief by the other.

I believe this doctrine of the two natures in the believer is not generally understood; and yet, so long as there is ignorance of it, the mind must be utterly at sea, in reference to the true standing and privileges of the child of God. Some there are, who think that regeneration is a certain change which the old nature undergoes; and, moreover, that this change is gradual in its operation, until, at length, the whole man becomes transformed. That this idea is unsound, can be proved by various quotations from the New Testament. For example, "the carnal mind is enmity against God." How can that, which is thus spoken of, ever undergo any improvement? The apostle goes on to say, "it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." If it cannot be subject to the law of God, how can it be improved How can it undergo any change? Again, "that which is born of the flesh is flesh." Do what you Will with flesh, and it is flesh all the while. As Solomon says, "Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar, among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him." (Prov. 27: 22) There is no use in seeking to make foolishness wise: you must introduce heavenly wisdom into the heart that has been heretofore only governed by folly. Again, "ye have put off the old man." (Col. 3: 9) He does not say, Ye have improved, or are seeking to improve, "the old man;" but, Ye have put it off. This gives us a totally different idea. There is a very great difference between seeking to mend an old garment, and casting it aside altogether, and putting on a new one. This is the ides of the last-quoted passage. It is a putting off the old, and a putting on of the new. Nothing can be more distinct or simple.

Passages might easily be multiplied to prove the unsoundness; of the theory, with respect to the gradual improvement of the old nature - to prove that the old nature is dead in sins, and utterly unrenewable and unimproveable; and, moreover, that the only thing we can do with it is, to keep it under our feet in the power of that new life, which we have in union with our risen Head in the heavens.

The birth of Isaac did not improve Ishmael, but only brought out his real opposition to the child of promise. He might have gone on very quietly and orderly till Isaac made his appearance; but then he showed what he was, by persecuting and mocking at the child of resurrection. What then was the remedy? To make Ishmael better? By no means; but, "cast out this bondwomen and her son; for the son of this bond-woman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac." (8-10) Here was the only remedy. "That which is crooked cannot be made straight;" therefore you have only to get rid of the crooked thing altogether, and occupy yourself with that which is divinely straight. It is labour lost to seek to make a crooked thing straight. Hence all efforts after the improvement of nature, are utterly futile, so far as God is concerned. It may be all very well for men to cultivate and improve that which is of use to themselves; but God has given his children something infinitely better to do, even to cultivate that which is His own creation, the fruits of which, while they, in no wise, serve to exalt nature, are entirely to His praise and glory.

Now the error into which the Galatian churches fell, was the introduction of that which addressed itself to nature. "Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved." Here salvation was made to depend upon something that man could be, or man could do, or man could keep. This was upsetting the whole glorious fabric of redemption, which, as the believer knows, rests exclusively upon what Christ is, and what He has done. To make salvation dependent, in the most remote manner, upon anything in, or done by, man, is to set it entirely aside. In other words, Ishmael must be entirely cast out, and all Abraham’s hopes be made to depend upon what God had done, and given, in the person of Isaac. This, it is needless to say, leaves man nothing to glory in. If present or future blessedness were made to depend upon even a divine change wrought in nature, flesh might glory. Though my nature were improved, it would be something of me, and thus God would not have all the glory. But when I am introduced into a new creation, I find it is all of God, designed, matured, developed by Himself alone. God is the actor, and I am a worshipper; He is the blesser, and I am the blessed; He is "the better," and I am "the less;" (Heb. 7: 7) He is the giver, and I am the receiver. This is what makes Christianity what it is; and, moreover, distinguishes it from every system of human religion under the sun, whether it be Romanian, Puseyism, or any other ism whatsoever. Human religion gives the creature a place more or less; it keeps the bond-woman and her son in the house; it gives man something to glory in. On the contrary, Christianity excludes the creature from all interference in the work of salvation; casts out the bond-woman and her son, and gives all the glory to Him, to whom alone it is due.

But let us inquire who this bond-woman and her son really are, and what they shadow forth. Galatians 4 furnishes ample teaching as to these two points. In a word, then, the bond-woman represents the covenant of the law; and her son represents all, who are "of works of law," or on that principle (ex ergon nomou). This is very plain. The bond-woman only genders to bondage, and can never bring forth a free man. How can she? The law never could give liberty, for so long as a man was alive it ruled him. (Rom. 7: 1) I can never be free so long as I am under the dominion of any one. But while I live, the law rules me; and nothing but death can give me deliverance from its dominion. This is the blessed doctrine of Rom. 7. "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you should be married to another, even to him that is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." This is freedom; for, "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.’’ (John 8: 36) So, then, brethren, we are not children of the bond-woman, but of the free." (Gal. 4: 31)

Now, it is in the power of this freedom that we are enabled to obey the command, cast out this bondwoman and her son." If I am not consciously free, I shall be seeking to attain liberty in the strangest way possible, even by keeping the bond-woman in the house: in other words, I shall be seeking to get life by keeping the law; I shall be establishing my own righteousness. No doubt, it will involve a struggle to cast out this element of bondage, for legalism is natural to our hearts. "The thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight, because of his son." Still, however grievous it may be, it is according to the divine mind that we should abidingly stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hat made us free, and not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage." (Gal. 5: 1) May we, beloved reader, so fully and experimentally enter into the blessedness of God’s provision for us in Christ, that we may be done with all thoughts about the flesh, and all that it can be, do, or produce. There is a fullness in Christ which renders all appeal to nature utterly superfluous and vain.

C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 21 Isaac and Ishmael and the Covenant with Abimelech

1. Isaac’s birth (Gen 22:1-3) 2. His circumcision (Gen 22:4-8)

3. Ishmael mocking (Gen 22:9)

4. Sarah’s demand (Gen 22:10-11)

5. God speaks to Abraham (Gen 22:12-13)

6. Hagar and Ishmael cast out (Gen 22:14-16)

7. The intervention of God (Gen 22:17-21)

8. The covenant with Abimelech (Gen. 22:22-34)

Isaac, the promised seed, was born at the set time as God had spoken.

As there was a set time when the promised son was born to Abraham, so there was an appointed time when God gave His Son “when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son.” There is also a set time, when the First-Begotten will be brought into the world again, His second coming. Then it will be the set time for Israel, too, when God remembers His promises and when He visits and does all, what He has spoken concerning them. “Thou shalt arise and have mercy on Zion; for the time to favor her, yea, the set time is come” (Psa 102:13).

Isaac’s name means laughter, the laughter of God in view of man’s helplessness. Isaac the promised one, the only one, in his wonderful birth and in his name is a type of the promised seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is God’s laughter over Satan, sin and death.

Sarah laughed again, but it is the laughter of joy. The word the Lord spoke to her: “is anything too hard for the Lord?” wrought faith in her heart. “Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised” (Heb 11:11). We have called attention before to the allegory in Gal 4:21-31. This passage gives meaning to the historical account. Sarah stands for the grace covenant; Hagar for the law covenant. As soon as the Seed came (Christ) the law was cast out. The law was only the schoolmaster till Christ came. Hagar’s son also typifies the flesh. Isaac is typical of the nature which grace bestows. No sooner was Isaac weaned and a great feast made than the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, mocked. Ishmael manifests his true character. As long as there was no Isaac, nothing is heard of Ishmael; the presence of Isaac makes known what was in the son of the bond-woman. The presence of the new nature makes known what the flesh really is and it is fulfilled what is written “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.”

Here we have also a dispensational picture. According to the passage in Galatians Hagar corresponds to Jerusalem which is now, the one who is in bondage with her children. As Hagar wandered in the wilderness so the natural descendants of Abraham have become wanderers. It is on account of that “covenant of grace” that rich grace in the Lord Jesus Christ, which they rejected that they are cast out. But they are like Hagar in the wilderness of “Beersheba”, which means translated, “well of the oath,” reminding us of the oath of God and His gifts and calling, which are without repentance. Like Hagar’s eyes their eyes are blinded and they see not the “well of water” which is for them. A time, however, will come when their eyes will be opened and when they shall draw water out of the wells of salvation (Isa 12:3). The rest of the chapter is taken up with the record of the covenant, which Abimelech made with Abraham. He, who had been healed in answer to the prayer of Abraham, now acknowledges openly that God is with his servant. This shows the faithfulness of God to His promises. Abraham is blest and is a blessing. In the grove of Beersheba he called on the name of Jehovah, the everlasting God.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Isaac Born, Circumcised, and Weaned

v. 1. And the Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as He had spoken. The Lord visited Sarah by doing to her as He had promised, by granting her what she had desired for so many years, a child of her own. Children are a gift of the goodness of God.

v. 2. For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which God had spoken to him. God’s promise was literally fulfilled, for at just the time that He had named at His last visit the son of promise was born, a stranger in truth, for Abraham was still sojourning in the land of the Philistines. The birth of Isaac was an act of faith on the part of Sarah, who with all her human infirmities was a true child of the Lord, Heb 11:11.

v. 3. And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac. The emphasis is again upon the fact that this was the son of promise, that he was the son of Abraham, not by a servant, but by Sarah, his wife. He complied with God’s command in giving his son the name Isaac (he that laughs), Gen 17:19. As the joyous laughter of Abraham had been caused by the great contrast between the idea and the reality, so the birth was a miracle of God’s mercy, whence the son should always be an object of joyful and grateful contemplation.

v. 4. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old, as God had commanded him. Gen 17:11-12.

v. 5. And Abraham was an hundred years old when his son Isaac was born unto him.

v. 6. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.

v. 7. And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham that Sarah should have given children suck? For I have born him a son in his old age. It was an occasion of great rejoicing; for Sarah, with reference to the name which the Lord had selected for the child, cried out: "Laughter God has prepared for me; all that hear it will rejoice with me," full of astonishment at the miraculously given child. Who would ever have thought or dared to express the idea that she should yet have a child of her own to cuddle and to nurse?

v. 8. And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. So Abraham shared the grateful joy of his wife, making the occasion of his son’s weaning a great festival, with the customary feast. This happened when Isaac was about three years old. This story reminds us of the greater miracle of the birth of Jesus, who also, but in a far more wonderful manner, was born contrary to the course of nature. Isaac, too, is a type of the believers of all time. For just as he was born by virtue of the divine promise, so we are spiritual children of the promise, Rom 9:8; Gal 4:28; 1Pe 1:23.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Gen 21:15-19

In this hidden well, which Ishmael’s prayer uncovered, lies many a true lesson, if only we have the right sort of pitcher to dip and draw.

I. How came the well to be there, just where and when it was wanted? The Arab shepherds who dug it never meant it for wandering travellers, but for their own flocks. God guided the steps of Hagar to it. Life is full of hidden wells—stored-up blessings, ready at the right moment to supply the answer to prayer. God foresees our prayers as well as our necessities.

II. Our encouragement to pray is not our own goodness, but God’s. We plead not the name of Abraham, or of any earthly parent or friend, but the name of Jesus, God’s own dear Son.

III. Learn from this story not to think little things of no importance, and not to be afraid to pray to God about little things as well as great. There are two reasons which prove that God does not disdain to attend to little things: (1) He has made many more little things than great, and has made the greatest things to depend on the least; (2) God is so great, that the difference between what we call great and little is to Him as nothing; and He is so wise, that nothing—not a thought or atom—is small enough to escape His eye.

IV. Prayer itself is a hidden well; a secret source of strength and joy and wisdom, not only in times of trouble, but always. Do not wait for trouble to drive you to prayer, but say, like the Psalmist, "O God, Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee."

E. R. Conder, Children’s Sermons, "Drops and Rocks," p. 25.

Reference: Gen 21:16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 974.

Gen 21:17

A minister once said to a boy, "Can you pray? How did you pray?" He said, "Sir, I begged." He could not have used a better word: praying is begging of God.

Prayer is very much like a bow. The arrow is a promise; the string is faith. You use your faith; with your faith you send a promise up to the skies. David said, "I will make my prayer and look up,"—look up and see where the arrow comes down again.

There are a great many things to think of in prayer. Let me tell you of one or two.

(1) You should always address God by one of His names or titles, in a very reverent way. You have to thank God for His mercies; you have to confess to God your sins; you have to trust God to bless you; you have to ask for other people; then to end all "For Jesus Christ’s sake." Tell God anything you like, only take care you ask it all in the name of Jesus, because we have no promise to prayer that God will hear us unless we add the name of Jesus to it.

(2) Every boy and girl ought to have a form of prayer, though they need not always use it. A psalm is sometimes very good. But the more you practise, the more you will have to say out of your heart.

(3) Wandering thoughts often trouble us in prayer. They are like the birds which flew down on Abraham’s altar and spoilt the sacrifice. We must drive away these little birds; we must ask God to keep off the wandering thoughts.

(4) When you are praying always remember that there is One who is offering up that prayer for you to God. That prayer does not go to God just as you send it up: but before it gets to the throne of God it gets much sweeter. Jesus puts His sweet incense into our prayer. So God will be pleased with us for His sake.

(5) Pray always. You cannot always kneel down and pray, but little prayers in your hearts can be always going up. These little darts or ejaculations can be sent up anywhere, at any time.

J. VAUGHAN, Sermons to Children, 5th series, p. 105.

I. This passage teaches a lesson to parents. It teaches that God is with us at our work; that the wilderness of life is full of Him; that in the waste of this world He is close beside us; that our children are His children; that He sees them under the shrub of the desert; that He has a property in them, a work for them, a work in them; that they are heirs, not of the desert in which they seem to be perishing, but of the many mansions of their heavenly Father’s house. Believe that your children have been united to Christ; and that if you teach them to claim this union for themselves, its strength and its healing shall come out for them day by day as you seek to bring them up for Him.

II. This passage contains instruction for the young themselves. (1) God saw the lad as he lay beneath the desert shrub. And He sees you, wherever you are, at home or abroad—His eye is ever on you. Learn this lesson first—God’s eye is ever on the lad, and sees him wherever he is. (2) God was the true protector of the lad, and He is your true and only Friend. He sees in you the adopted children of Jesus Christ. Even from your helpless infancy has He thus looked on you, and had purposes of love towards you. (3) God had a purpose for the lad and a work in him. He meant him to become a great nation in these waste places. His casting out, dark as it seemed, was preparing the way for this; and so it is with you. Everything around you is ordered by God for an end. That end is truly your best spiritual happiness. (4) God heard the voice of the lad; and He will hear you in every time of your trouble. Ishmael was heard because he was the son of Abraham; you will be heard because you are the son of God through Christ.

S. Wilberforce, Sermons, p. 115.

Homeless, helpless: is there any sight more pitiable than this—a child in the wilderness? Think of the hundreds about us, pinched with hunger, perishing in sore need; the young life passing away neglected, to appear before the throne of God, there by its presence to plead against us, or else rising up in this wilderness to avenge our disregard,—"a wild man, whose hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him."

I. We dwell on these words especially as teaching the Father’s care for the children. Do not think of this event as occurring under a dispensation so different from ours that we can find in it no distinct teaching for to-day—very beautiful, but of little worth save for its beauty. These words mean a thousandfold more to us than they could do to Hagar. The Father had not then revealed Himself in the only-begotten Son. The Son of God went away into the wilderness; He shivered in the cold night-blast; He felt the pitiless beating of the storm. And now in all the world there is not one poor child shut out from His sympathy, for He Himself has lived a child of poverty and woe.

II. Not to angels now is this work of rescue given. It is our high honour and prerogative to be the ministers of the Father’s love. Angels may bring the tidings, perhaps, but only that we may obey. Angels shall reveal the means, but only that we may carry the blessing. Hagar must fill the bottle and give the lad to drink; she must lift him up and hold him by the hand.

M. G Pearse, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 303

References: Gen 21:17.—Bishop Walsham How, Plain Words to Children, p. 90. Gen 21:19.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii., No. 681; vol. xix., No. 1123; vol. xxv., No. 1461. Gen 21:22.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 416. Gen 21:22-33.—R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. i.,

Gen. 21

In the story of Hagar and Ishmael, we notice:—

I. The outcast. As Abraham is the father of all the faithful, so the Arab Ishmael is the father of all our outcasts. He was an impudent boy, who mocked his betters, and became "a wild ass of a man," whose hand was against every man. Do not despise the poor outcast children of our cities. Respect them for their sorrows; take them into your pity; let them find a home in your heart. For are we not all outcasts, the children of Adam the outcast? Are we not the followers of Him who makes the outcasts of earth the inmates of heaven?

II. The God of the outcast. The highest kindness is to be personally interested in us and to meet our wants. And God showed such kindness to Ishmael. Notice, it was the voice of the lad, not of the mother, that God heard. God pities most those who most need pity; and so should you. When Ishmael is before you, try to be godlike.

III. The angel of the outcast. It is part of angels’ work to cheer and save the outcast. A church near Dijon contains a monument with a group of the Bible prophets and kings, each holding a scroll of mourning from his writings. But above is a circle of angels who look far sadder than the prophets whose words they read. They see more in the sorrows than the men below them see. The angels see the whole of the sins and sorrows of the young, and so rejoice more than we can do over the work of God among them. The orphans of society are cast upon the fatherhood of God, and He wishes them to be the children of the Church and the children of our adoption.

IV. The allegory of the outcast. Look at that lad in the desert perishing of thirst and a fountain at his side. Are you not a spiritual Ishmael to-day, a wanderer upon life’s highway, perishing of thirst at the side of the fountains of living water? Earth is a sandy desert, which holds nothing that can slake your soul’s thirst. But Jesus Christ has opened the fountain of life, and now it is at your very side.

J. Wells, Bible Children, p. 19.

References: Gen 21—F. W. Robertson, Notes on Genesis, p. 50; R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. i., p. 346; M. Dods, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Gen 21:6.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 167. 21:0-12.—R. S. Candlish, Book of Genesis, vol. i., p. 356. Gen 21:14.—Parker, vol. i., p. 231. Gen 21:20.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii, p. 25.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ISHMAEL AND ISAAC

Genesis 21, 22

Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. Which things are an allegory.- Gal_4:22.

"Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son." Gen_22:10

IN the birth of Isaac, Abraham at length sees the long-delayed fulfilment of the promise. But his trials are by no means over. He has himself introduced into his family the seeds of discord and disturbance, and speedily the fruit is borne. Ishmael, at the birth of Isaac, was a lad of fourteen years, and, reckoning from Eastern customs, he must have been over sixteen when the feast was made in honour of the weaned child. Certainly he was quite old enough to understand the important and not very welcome alteration in his prospects which the birth of this new son effected. He had been brought up to count himself the heir of all the wealth and influence of Abraham. There was no alienation of feeling between father and son: no shadow had flitted over the bright prospect of the boy as he grew up; when suddenly and unexpectedly there was interposed between him and his expectation the effectual barrier of this child of Sarahs. The importance of this child to the family was in due course indicated in many ways offensive to Ishmael; and when the feast was made, his spleen could no longer be repressed. This weaning was the first step in the direction of an independent existence, and this would be the point of the feast in celebration. The child was no longer a mere part of the mother, but an individual, a member of the family. The hopes of the parents were carried forward to the time when he should be quite independent of them.

But in all this there was great food for the ridicule of a thoughtless lad. It was precisely the kind of thing which could easily be mocked without any great expenditure of wit by a boy of Ishmaels age. The too visible pride of the aged mother, the incongruity of maternal duties with ninety years, the concentration of attention and honours on so small an object, -all this was, doubtless, a temptation to a boy who had probably at no time too much reverence. But the words and gestures which others might have disregarded as childish frolic, or, at worst, as the unseemly and ill-natured impertinence of a boy who knew no better, stung Sarah, and left a poison in her blood that infuriated her. "Cast out that bondwoman and her son," she demanded of Abraham. Evidently she feared the rivalry of this second household of Abraham, and was resolved it should come to an end. The mocking of Ishmael is but the violent concussion that at last produces the explosion, for which material has long been laid in train. She had seen on Abrahams part a clinging to Ishmael, which she was unable to appreciate. And though her harsh decision was nothing more than the dictate of maternal jealousy, it did prevent things from running on as they were until even a more painful family quarrel must have been the issue.

The act of expulsion was itself unaccountably harsh. There was nothing to prevent Abraham sending the boy and his mother under an escort to some safe place; nothing to prevent him from giving the lad some share of his possessions sufficient to provide for him. Nothing of this kind was done. The woman and the boy were simply put to the door; and this, although Ishmael had for years been counted Abrahams heir, and though he was a member of the covenant made with Abraham. There may have been some law giving Sarah absolute power over her maid; but if any law gave her power to do what was now done, it was a thoroughly barbarous one, and she was a barbarous woman who used it.

It is one of those painful cases in which one poor creature clothed with a little brief authority stretches it to the utmost in vindictive maltreatment of another. Sarah happened to be mistress, and, instead of using her position to make those under her happy, she used it for her own convenience, for the gratification of her own spite, and to make those beneath her conscious of her power by their suffering. She happened to be a mother, and instead of bringing her into sympathy with all women and their children, this concentrated her affection with a fierce jealousy on her own child. She breathed freely when Hagar and Ishmael were fairly out of sight. A smile of satisfied malice betrayed her bitter spirit. No thought of the sufferings to which she had committed a woman who had served her well for years, who had yielded everything to her will, and who had no other natural protector but her, no glimpses of Abrahams saddened face, visited her with any relentings. It mattered not to her what came of the woman and the boy to whom she really owed a more loving and careful regard than to any except Abraham and Isaac. It is a story often repeated. One who has been a member of the household for many years is at last dismissed at the dictate of some petty pique or spite as remorselessly and inhumanly as a piece of old furniture might be parted with. Some thoroughly good servant, who has made sacrifices to forward his employers interest, is at last. through no offence of his own, found to be in his employers way, and at once all old services are forgotten, all old ties broken, and the authority of the employer, legal but inhuman, is exercised. It is often those who can least defend themselves who are thus treated; no resistance is possible, and also, alas! the party is too weak to face the wilderness on which she is thrown out, and if any cares to follow her history, we may find her at the last gasp under a bush.

Still, both for Abraham and for Ishmael, it was better this severance should take place. It was grievous to Abraham; and Sarah saw that for this very reason it was necessary. Ishmael was his firstborn, and for many years had received the whole of his parental affection: and, looking on the little Isaac, he might feel the desirableness of keeping another son in reserve, lest this strangely-given child might as strangely pass away. Coming to him in a way so unusual, and having perhaps in his appearance some indication of his peculiar birth, he might seem scarcely fit for the rough life Abraham himself had led. On the other hand, it was plain that in Ishmael were the very qualities which Isaac was already showing that he lacked. Already Abraham was observing that with all his insolence and turbulence there was a natural force and independence of character which might come to be most useful in the patriarchal household. The man who had pursued and routed the allied kings could not but be drawn to a youth who already gave promise of capacity for similar enterprises-and this youth his own son. But can Abraham have failed to let his fancy picture the deeds this lad might one day do at the head of his armed slaves? And may he not have dreamt of a glory in the land not altogether such as the promise of God encouraged him to look for, but such as the tribes around would acknowledge and fear? All the hopes Abraham had of Ishmael had gained firm hold of his mind before Isaac was born; and before Isaac grew up, Ishmael must have taken the most influential place in the house and plans of Abraham. His mind would thus have received a strong bias towards conquests and forcible modes of advance. He might have been led to neglect, and, perhaps, finally despise, the unostentatious blessings of heaven.

If, then, Abraham was to become the founder, not of one new warlike power in addition to the already too numerous warlike powers of the East, but of a religion which should finally develop into the most elevating and purifying influence among men, it is obvious that Ishmael was not at all a desirable heir. Whatever pain it gave to Abraham to part with him, separation in some form had become necessary. It was impossible that the father should continue to enjoy the filial affection of Ishmael, his lively talk, and warm enthusiasm, and adventurous exploits, and at the same time concentrate his hope and his care on Isaac. He had, therefore, to give up, with something of the sorrow and self-control he afterwards underwent in connection with the sacrifice of Isaac, the lad whose bright face had for so many years shone in all his paths. And in some such way are we often called to part with prospects which have wrought themselves very deep into our spirit, and which, indeed, just because they are very promising and seductive, have become dangerous to us, upsetting the balance of our life, and throwing into the shade objects and purposes which ought to be outstanding. And when we are thus required to give up what we were looking to for comfort, for applause, and for profit, the voice of God in its first admonition sometimes seems to us little better than the jealousy of a woman. Like Sarahs demand, that none should share with her son, does the requirement seem which indicates to us that we must set nothing on a level with Gods direct gifts to us. We refuse to see why we may not have all the pleasures and enjoyments, all the display and brilliance that the world can give. We feel as if we were needlessly restricted. But this instance shows us that when circumstances compel us to give up something of this kind which we have been cherishing, room is given for a better thing than itself to grow.

For Ishmael himself, too, wronged as he was in the mode of his expulsion, it was yet far better that he should go. Isaac was the true heir. No jeering allusions to his late birth or to his appearance could alter that fact. And to a temper like Ishmaels it was impossible to occupy a subordinate, dependent position. All he required to call out his latent powers was to be thrown thus on his own resources. The daring and high spirit and quickness to take offence and use violence, which would have wrought untold mischief in a pastoral camp, were the very qualities which found fit exercise in the desert, and seemed there only in keeping with the life he had to lead. And his hard experience at first would at his age do him no harm, but good only. To be compelled to face life single-handed at the age of sixteen is by no means a fate to be pitied. It was the making Of Ishmael. and is the making of many a lad in every generation.

But the two fugitives are soon reminded that, though expelled from Abrahams tents and protection, they are not expelled from his God. Ishmael finds it true that when father and mother forsake him, the Lord takes him up. At the very outset of his desert life he is made conscious that God is still his God, mindful of his wants, responsive to his cry of distress.

It was not through Ishmael the promised seed was to come, but the descendants of Ishmael had every inducement to retain faith in the God of Abraham, who listened to their fathers cry. The fact of being excluded from certain privileges did not involve that they were to be excluded from all privileges. God still "heard the voice of the lad, and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven."

It is this voice of God to Hagar that so speedily, and apparently once for all, lifts her out of despair to cheerful hope. It would appear as if her despair had been needless; at least from the words addressed to her, "What aileth thee, Hagar?" it would appear as if she might herself have found the water that was close at hand, if only she had been disposed to look for it. But she had lost heart, and perhaps with her despair was mingled some resentment, not only at Sarah, but at the whole Hebrew connection, including the God of the Hebrews, who had before encouraged her. Here was the end of the magnificent promise which that God had made her before her child was born-a helpless human form gasping its life away without a drop of water to moisten the parched tongue and bring light to the glazing eyes, and with no easier couch than the burning sand. Was it for this, the bitterest drop that, apart from sin, can be given to any parent to drink, she had been brought from Egypt and led through all her past? Had her hopes been nursed by means so extraordinary only that they might be so bitterly blighted? Thus she learnt to her conclusions, and judged that because her skin of water had failed God had failed her too. No one can blame her, with her boy dying before her, and herself helpless to relieve one pang of his suffering. Hitherto, in the well-furnished tents of Abraham, she had been able to respond to his slightest desire. Thirst he had never known, save as the relish to some boyish adventure. But now, when his eyes appeal to her in dying anguish, she can but turn away in helpless despair. She cannot relieve his simplest want. Not for her own fate has she any tears, but to see her pride, her life and joy, perishing thus miserably, is more than she can bear.

No one can blame, but every one may learn from her. When angry resentment and unbelieving despair fill the mind, we may perish of thirst in the midst of springs. When Gods promises produce no faith, but seem to us so much waste paper, we are necessarily in danger of missing their fulfilment. When we ascribe to God the harshness and wickedness of those who represent Him in the world, we commit moral suicide. So far from the promises given to Hagar being now at the point of extinction, this was the first considerable step toward their fulfilment. When Ishmael turned his back on the familiar tents, and flung his last gibe at Sarah, he was really setting out to a far richer inheritance, so far as this world goes, than ever fell to Isaac and his sons.

But the chief use Paul makes of this entire episode in the history is to see in it an allegory. a kind of picture made up of real persons and events, representing the impossibility of law and gospel living harmoniously together, the incompatibility of a spirit of service with a spirit of sonship. Hagar, he says, is in this picture the likeness of the law given from Sinai, which gendereth to bondage. Hagar and her son, that is to say, stand for the law and the kind of righteousness produced by the law, -not superficially a bad kind; on the contrary, a righteousness with much dash and brilliance and strong manly force about it. but at the root defective, faulty in its origin, springing from the slavish spirit. And first Paul bids us notice how the free-born is persecuted and mocked by the slave-born, that is, how the children of God who are trying to live by love and faith in Christ are put to shame and made uneasy by the law. They believe they are Gods dear children, that they are loved by Him, and may go out and in freely in His house as their own home, using all that is His with the freedom of His heirs; but the law mocks them, frightens them, tells them it is Gods firstborn; law lying far back in the dimness of eternity, coeval with God Himself. It tells them they are puny and weak, scarcely out of their mothers arms, tottering, lisping creatures, doing much mischief, but none of the housework, at best only getting some little thing to pretend to work at. In contrast to their feeble, soft, unskilled weakness, it sets before them a finely-moulded, athletic form, becoming disciplined to all work, and able to take a place among the serviceable and able-bodied. But with all this there is in that puny babe a life begun which will grow and make it the true heir, dwelling in the house and possessing what it has not toiled for, while the vigorous, likely-looking lad must go into the wilderness and make a possession for himself with his own bow and spear.

Now, of course, righteousness of life and character, or perfect manhood, is the end at which all that we call salvation aims, and that which can give us the purest, ripest character is salvation for us; that which can make us, for all purposes, most serviceable and strong. And when we are confronted with persons who might speak of service we cannot render, of an upright, unfaltering carriage we cannot assume, of a general human worthiness we can make no pretension to, we are justly perturbed, and should regain our equanimity only under the influence of the most undoubted truth-and fact. If we can honestly say in our hearts, "Although we can show no such work done, and no such masculine growth, yet we have a life in us which is of God, and will grow"; if we are sure that we have the spirit of Gods children, a spirit of love and dutifulness, we may take comfort from this incident. We may remind ourselves that it is not he who has at the present moment the best appearance who always abides in the fathers home, but he who is by birth the heir. Have we or have we not the spirit of the Son? not feeling that we must every evening make good our claim to another nights lodging by showing the task we have. accomplished, but being conscious that the interests in which we are called to work are our own interests, that we are heirs in the fathers house, so that all we do for the house is really done for ourselves. Do we go out and in with God, feeling no need of His commands, our own eye seeing where help is required, and our own desires being wholly directed towards that which engages all His attention and work?

For Paul would have each of us apply, allegorically, the words, Cast out the bondwoman and her son, that is, cast out the legal mode of earning a standing in Gods house, and with this legal mode cast out all the self-seeking, the servile fear of God, the self-righteousness, and the hardheartedness it engenders. Cast out wholly from yourself the spirit of the slave, and cherish the spirit-of the son and heir. The slave-born may seem for a while to have a firm footing in the fathers house, but it cannot last. The temper and tastes of Ishmael are radically different from those of Abraham, and when the slave-born becomes mature, the wild Egyptian strain will appear in his character. Moreover, he looks upon the goods of Abraham as plunder; he cannot rid himself of the feeling of an alien, and this would, at length, show itself in a want of frankness with Abraham-slowly, but surely, the confidence between them would be worn out. Nothing but being a child of God, being born of the Spirit, can give the feeling of intimacy, confidence, unity of interest, which constitutes true religion. All we do as slaves goes for nothing; that is to say, all we do, not because we see the good of it, but because we are commanded; not because we have any liking for the thing done, but because we wish to be paid for it. The day is coming when we shall attain our majority, when it will be said to us by God, Now, do whatever you like, whatever you have a mind to; no surveillance, no commands are now needed; I put all into your own hand. What, in these circumstances, should we straightway do? Should we, for the love of the thing, carry on the same work to which Gods commands had driven us; should we, if left absolutely in charge, find nothing more attractive than just to prosecute that idea of life and the world set before us by Christ? Or should we see that we had merely been keeping ourselves in check for a while, biding our time, untamed as Ishmael, craving the rewards but not the life of the children of God? The most serious of all questions these-questions that determine the issues of our whole life, that determine whether our home is to be-where all the best interests Of men and the highest blessings of God have their seat, or in the pathless desert where life is an aimless wandering, dissociated from all the forward movements of men.

The distinction between the servile spirit and the spirit of sonship being thus radical, it could be by no mere formality, or exhibition of his legal title, that Isaac became the heir of Gods heritage. His sacrifice on Moriah was the requisite condition of his succession to Abrahams place; it was the only suitable celebration of his majority. Abraham himself had been able to enter into covenant with God only by sacrifice; and sacrifice not of a dead and external kind, but vivified by an actual surrender of himself to God, and by so true a perception of Gods holiness and requirements that he was in a horror of great darkness. By no other process can any of his heirs succeed to the inheritance. A true resignation of self, in whatever outward form this resignation may appear, is required that we may become one with God in His holy purposes and in His eternal blessedness. There could be no doubt that Abraham had found a true heir, when Isaac laid himself on the altar and steadied his heart to receive the knife. Dearer to God, and of immeasurably greater value than any service, was this surrender of himself into the hand of his Father and his God. In this was promise of all service and all loving fellowship. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; I am Thy servant, the son of Thine handmaid: Thou hast loosed my bonds."

So incomparable with the most distinguished service did this sacrifice of Isaacs self appear, that the record of his active life seems to have had no interest to his contemporaries or successors. There was but this one thing to say of him. No more seemed needful. The sacrifice was indeed great, and worthy of commemoration. No act could so conclusively have shown that Isaac was thoroughly at one with God. He had much to live for; from his birth there hovered round him interests and hopes of the most exciting and flattering nature; a new kind of glory such as had not yet been attained on earth was to be attained, or, at any rate, approached in him. This glory was certain to be realised, being guaranteed by Gods promise, so that his hopes might launch out in the boldest confidence and give him the aspect and bearing of a king; while it was uncertain in the time and manner of its realisation, so that the most attractive mystery hung around his future.

Plainly his was a life worth entering on and living through; a life fit to engage and absorb a mans whole desire, interest, and effort; a life such as might well make a man gird himself and resolve to play the man throughout, that so each part of it might reveal its secret to him, and that none of its wonder might be lost. It was a life which, above all others, seemed worth protecting from all injury and risk, and for which, no doubt, not a few of the homeborn servants in the patriarchal encampment would have gladly ventured their own. There have, indeed, been few, if any, lives of which it could so truly be said, The world cannot do without this-at all hazards and costs this must be cherished. And all this must have been even more obvious to its owner than to any one else, and must have begotten in him an unquestioning assurance, that he at least had a charmed life, and would live and see good days. Yet with whatever shock the command of God came upon him, there is no word of doubt or remonstrance or rebellion. He gave his life to Him who had first given it to him. And thus yielding himself to God, he entered into the inheritance, and became worthy to stand to all time the representative heir of God, as Abraham by his faith had become the father of the faithful.

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

Yahweh paid attention to Sarah

Here the phrase "paid attention to" refers to Yahweh helping Sarah have a baby. AT: "Yahweh helped Sarah" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

bore a son to Abraham

"gave birth to Abraham's son"

in his old age

"when Abraham was very old"

at the set time of which God had spoken to him

"at the exact time that God had told him it would happen"

Abraham named his son, the one who had been born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac

"Abraham named his newborn son, the one Sarah gave birth to, Isaac" or "Abraham named their newborn son Isaac"

Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old

"When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him"

eight days

"8 days" (See: Numbers)

had commanded him

"had commanded Abraham to do"

translationWords

Yahweh

Sarah

promise

conceive

Abraham

God

Isaac

circumcise

day

command

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

'וה' פקד את שרה וגו AND THE LORD VISITED SARAH —It (Scripture) places this section after the preceding one to teach you that whoever prays for mercy on behalf of another when he himself also is in need of that very thing for which he prays on the other’s behalf, will himself first receive a favorable response from God, for it is said (at end of last chapter), “And Abraham prayed for Abimelech and his wife and they brought forth” and immediately afterwards it states here, “And the Lord remembered Sarah” — i. e. he had already remembered her before he healed Abimelech (Bava Kamma 92a).

פקד את שרה כאשר אמר HE REMEMBERED SARAH AS HE SAID — He remembered her by granting her pregnancy.

כאשר דבר [HE DID TO SARAH] AS HE HAD SPOKEN — by granting her the birth of a son (Pesikta). Where are the expressions “saying ״ and “speaking” used respectively in regard to these? “Saying” is mentioned in the verse (17:19) “And God said (ויאמר): “nay, but Sarah, thy wife” etc.; — “Speaking“ is mentioned in (15:1) “And the word (דבר “speaking”) of the Lord came to Abraham”, and this was when He made the Covenant between the Pieces where it was stated, “This man (Eliezer) shall not be thine heir, [but one who shall be born from thee shall be thine heir],” and He brought forth this heir from Sarah.

ויעש ה' לשרה כאשר דבר AND THE LORD DID UNTO SARAH AS HE HAD SPOKEN — means, spoken to Abraham.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

AND THE ETERNAL ‘PAKAD’ (VISITED) SARAH AS HE HAD SAID. That is, by granting her pregnancy. And the Eternal did unto Sarah as He had spoken by granting her the birth of a son..Thus the words of Rashi.But the word pekidah is only an expression of remembrance and attention to the one who is remembered, such as: G-d will surely remember (‘pakod yiphkod’) you; I have surely remembered you; And Samson remembered his wife by [bringing her] a kid. Here, too, the sense of the verse is that the Eternal remembered Sarah, and He did to her as He had spoken. This expression is also found in connection with all barren women who later give birth. Thus, in the case of Rachel: And G-d remembered Rachel; and in the case of Hannah: And G-d remembered her. Similarly, the Rabb is said, “Biblical verses which mention pikdonoth are equivalent to verses which mention Divine remembrances.” is treated as one mentioning remembrance. Thus, Ramban proves that the word pakad in the verse here can mean “remembered,” and not as Rashi explained it as meaning “granting pregnancy.”

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Ad-noy remembered. Literally, “And Ad-noy remembered” — after Avraham prayed for Avimelech, Hashem remembered Sarah.

As He had said. “I will bless her” (17:16) — that is, He delivered her from the curse of Chavah (see 3:16).

As He had spoken. “I will also give you a son through her” (17:16) — in defiance of the general rule that elderly parents beget daughters.

Sforno on the Tanakh — English translation: “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

וה' פקד את שרה, she conceived and gave birth in accordance with the times predicted. Seeing the matter was something so unusual, miraculous, the Torah repeats this fact repeatedly. Normally, when the Torah repeats certain information it does so by using different words, changing the syntax; Here too, the verse commences with the verb פקד, but then uses the word ויעש to tell us the same thing. At the very end of the verse it changes the syntax a third time, writing כאשר דבר, “as He had said.”

Radak on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash” (CC BY 4.0); “Rabbi Mike Feuer, Jerusalem Anthology” (CC BY 4.0); and “R. David Kimhi on the first book of Psalms, Translated by R.G. Finch, London, 1919” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.