Genesis 16

¹ Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. ² And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. ³ So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. ⁴ And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. ⁵ And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” ⁶ But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. ⁷ The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. ⁸ And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” ⁹ The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” ¹⁰ The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” ¹¹ And the angel of the Lord said to her, “Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction. ¹² He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.” ¹³ So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”¹⁴ Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered. ¹⁵ And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

How would you like to see the oldest prenup in the world?

A few years ago this ancient tablet was discovered in Kanesh, which is the modern day province of Kayseri in central Turkey. This tablet with cuneiform inscriptions is four-thousand years old and is believed to constitute the oldest marriage contract in the world. It is a contract between a man named Laqipum and a woman named Hatala. Interestingly, the contract gives detailed instructions for what should happen if Hatala is unable to bear Laqipum a child.

Laqipum has married Hatala, daughter of Enishru. In the country [Central Anatolia], Laqipum may not marry another [woman], [but] in the city [of Ashur] he may marry a hierodule. If, within two years, she [Hatala] does not provide him with offspring, she herself will purchase a slave woman, and later, after she will have produced a child by him, he may then dispose of her by sale where-so-ever he pleases.

Should Laqipum choose to divorce her, he must pay [her] five minas of silver – and should Hatala choose to divorce him, she must pay (him) five minas of silver. Witnesses: Masa, Ashurishtikal, Talia, Shupianika.[1]

Fascinating! So if Hatala is barren, she is to purchase a slave girl to give to her husband so that an heir can be produced through her. The child will then become part of the family and the mother, the slave girl, will be sold off by Laqipum wherever he wants. This is, of course, jarring to modern sensibilities, though it does reflect the mindset and practice of at least some pagan people in the ancient world.

Interestingly, the same concept emerges in Abraham’s story. Sarai (Sarah) is barren. God has promised Abraham and Sarah a lineage, children and grandchildren etc., more than any human being could count. But Sarah is barren and, despite God’s dramatic assurances to Abraham in Genesis 15 that Abraham will have his own children, the couple still struggles to believe. Thus, Sarah takes matters into her own hands and gives a slave girl named Hagar to Abraham to try to make the situation come about in their own way. The results, as you might imagine, are disastrous.

John Walton has observed that, in the ancient world, marriage contracts sometimes specified different options for couples in the case of barrenness: “serial monogamy (divorcing the barren wife to take another, presumably fertile one)…polygyny (taking a second wife of equal status)…polycoity (the addition of handmaids or concubines for the purpose of producing an heir)…adoption.”[2] Walton argues that adoption is what is in view in Genesis 16: that Sarai would adopt the baby Hagar bore. In attempting this, Sarah and Abraham both were showing a lack of faith and a lack of trust in God’s promise to them. Even so, there is much we might learn from this sad chapter.

An absence of trust in God inevitably results in panic.

When we fail to trust in God, we panic. Put another way, panic is evidence that we have failed to trust in God. One can feel the desperation in the beginning of our chapter.

¹ Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. ^2a-b And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.

The stage is set with the blunt assertion that Sarai “had born him no children.” This stands in marked and stark contrast to the powerful ratification of the divine promise immediately prior to this text in Genesis 15. There, God asserted that Abraham would indeed have children. God then dramatically ratified that covenant promise with the rite of dissected animals. At the very least, then, Abraham should have been on a mountain-top of faith in Genesis 16. Whether he was or not—and his capitulation to Sarai’s scheme would suggest he was not in any lasting sense—Sarai was certainly notin a good place. This is seen not only in Sarai’s proposal but also in the not-too-subtle indictment she offers of God’s character. Did you catch it? Here it is: “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children.”

Abraham should have called her hand on this, for, again, Abraham had heard the covenant promise from God Himself and Abraham had seen it ratified with the shedding of blood. Abraham should have said, “Sarai, do you hear yourself? How can you indict God when our only hope is in God? How can you suggest that He is playing a cruel game with us?”

But Abraham does not rebuke Sarai. This is likely because, as we have seen, Abraham has his own struggles with believing and with trusting in a full sense (though, as we saw in Genesis 15, Abraham did believe!). No, Abraham does not push back against Sarai’s panic. Rather, Abraham folds.

For our purposes now, however, let us simply notice this: an absence of trust in God inevitably results in panic. When we fail to lean into the promise of God, to trust the full weight of our lives against it, panic and, to some extent, anger sets in.

I wonder if you are there today perhaps? I wonder if you feel that you have waited long enough, that God has failed to deliver? I wonder if you are angry? I wonder if, deep down, you are blaming God? And I wonder if you are panicking? It is easy to do. It is easy to despair. Yet we must not. We must continue to trust.

Panic inevitably results in faithless, foolish decisions.

One of the many problems with panic is that it tempts us to faithless, foolish decisions. Consider:

^2c-e Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. ³ So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. ^4a And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived.

It is difficult not to miss the obvious parallels with Eden. Here, as in Eden, the wife offers the husband something forbidden. And here, as in Eden, the husband appears promptly to forget the Lord and take the forbidden fruit. And, as we will see, here, as in Eden, ruin and pain are the results.

Sarai appears to command Abraham to have physical relations with Hagar, though ultimately it is Abraham who agrees to this. Verse 2 ends with the blunt, “And Abraham listened to the voice of Sarai.” In doing so, in this case, he was listening to her voice over and against God’s voice. The result is likewise stated matter-of-factly: “And He went in to Hagar, and she conceived.”

Perhaps, at this point, Sarai felt that she had solved the problem. But this was merely the quiet before the storm of consequences hit. It is oftentimes the case that human beings will content themselves with some immediate resolution of an issue, congratulating themselves on having solved this or that problem, only to discover quick on the heels of it that they have created a much bigger problem.

Many will be familiar with the Carrie Underwood song, “Jesus Take the Wheel.” The chorus is memorable:

Jesus, take the wheel
Take it from my hands
‘Cause I can’t do this on my own
I’m letting go
So give me one more chance
And save me from this road I’m on
Jesus, take the wheel

I would like to suggest that if you take the song “Jesus Take the Wheel” and play it backwards you get Genesis 15. Genesis 15 and its record of Abraham’s and Sarah’s actions is the very opposite of giving the wheel to Jesus. This is what happens when we wrench the wheel from Jesus and determine, in a flourish of panic and anger, that we will steer things ourselves. Perhaps we can do so very briefly so long as the road is straight, but human beings have not proven themselves adept at handling the curves, and sharp curves lay ahead for Abraham and Sarah.

Faithless, foolish decisions inevitably result in spiritual, personal, and individual wreckage.

What happens next is utterly predictable. In short, problems arise between Hagar and Sarai and then between Sarai and Abram.

^4b-c And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. ⁵ And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” ^6a-b But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.”

There is a progression to the hostilities that surface in this chapter. First, we see that Hagar looked with contempt at Sarai. One cannot help but guess that there was at least an initial effort to keep things together, to put a happy face on the situation, and to move forward as if all of this was going to go swimmingly: Hagar would have the baby, Sarai would take the baby, God’s promise would thereby be fulfilled, and life could go on. But that did not happen. Instead, Hagar looked with contempt at Sarai.

How was this communicated? Probably somewhat passively aggressively. After all, Sarai had the power between the two ladies. How did she register Hagar’s contempt for her? Perhaps she caught an ever-so-slight smirk from Hagar when Sarai was discussing the family with Abraham. Maybe she saw, or thought she saw, Hagar’s quick, almost-imperceptible sideways glance in her peripheral vision. Or was it something in the way Hagar answered Sarah, a slight shift in tone, something different than the way she used to sound before she became pregnant? However it was perceived, the disdain certainly existed.

Then, the next step of the progression: Sarai unloaded on Abram. This is all quite astonishing! She blamed Abram! While we might be tempted to rush to Abraham’s defense—“Ummm, excuse me Sarai, this was your idea, remember?! Should have thought that through a bit more, no?”—we must stop and remember: Abraham was the head of that house. Abraham allowed these events to take place. It was Sarai’s idea, but it actually happening depended upon Abraham’s acquiescence.

Let us here, too, see a parallel with Eden. Eating the forbidden fruit was Eve’s suggestion to Adam, yet, in the New Testament, Adam is help responsible for bringing death into the world: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). Therefore, while we are right to point out the absurdity of Sarai’s blame-shifting, we are also right to grant her overall point: Abraham could have and should have stopped this.

Next, we see another step in the progression of hostilities: Abraham turns Hagar over to Sarai and gives a greenlight for Sarai to do whatever she wants. The results are not pretty:

^6c-d Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her.

We are not told what this “harsh” behavior looked like. Undoubtedly, however, it was not Sarai’s finest hour. Sin always brings shrapnel. It hurts not only the one who has sinned but also everybody in the vicinity. It is hard not to feel for Hagar. After all, she was forced into this sad situation and now she is abused by Sarai. As a result, she flees and, in so doing, she takes us to the next level of conflict-escalation.

⁷ The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. ⁸ And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” ⁹ The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” ¹⁰ The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” ¹¹ And the angel of the Lord said to her, “Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction.

This next level is interesting because it is couched in a blessing. God, faithful to His word, does indeed apply the heart of the promise to Abraham’s offspring through Hagar: “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” This is fascinating. God names the boy Ishmael and He says that He has heard Hagar’s cry for help. Even so, the birth of Ishmael sets the stage for even greater and wider conflict:

¹² He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.” ¹³ So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” ¹⁴ Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered. ¹⁵ And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

This is ominous and does not bode well. Many believe we see the fulfillment of this prophecy even now in the conflicts in the Middle East.

See in these sad words the devastating effects of sin: it brings conflict that is rarely contained. Sin has ripple effects, just like righteousness. Where righteousness blesses all those around, sin wounds. As a result of their panic and foolish decision, Abraham and Sarah were now at odds, two new people are brought into a conflicting relationship with the family—Hagar and Ishmael—and the stage is set for societal conflict through the offspring of Hagar and Sarah to come.

When you are tempted to panic and to act on your own terms and out of your own wisdom, heed the warning of Genesis 16. You might say, “There can be nothing worse than this waiting!” But let me assure you: there is something worse? And what is that? What is worse than waiting on God is the disaster that comes when we stop waiting.

It is better to wait in the questions with God than to step away from Him into your own answer.

What are we to do, then? In short, we are to wait, to trust, to believe, and to be still. In Lamentations 3 we read:

²⁶ It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Notice how this goes against the grain of our instant society. Modern American life says, “It is bad to wait!” The scriptures say, “It is good that one should wait.” Wait how? “Quietly.” Wait for what? “For the salvation of the Lord.”

Are you tempted to take the wheel into your own hands and force a resolution to your problem? Consider that only God can bring peace, even if he brings it in a way and time that is not clear to us. In Proverbs 3 we read:

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. ⁶ In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. ⁷ Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. ⁸ It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

Notice that trusting in the Lord is the antithesis of leaning on your own understanding and being wise in your own eyes. To trust is to acknowledge the limitations of our own sight. To trust is to acknowledge that our own clocks and watches can mislead us. Sarah and Abraham leaned on their own understanding. We are dealing with the aftermath even now.

When I was in college I used to listen a lot to the Christian artist Wayne Watson. He had a song entitled “Walk in the Dark” than has stayed with me.

Where are You taking me? why are we turning here?
this road is strange to me-this path is not so clear
must be the place where my doubt turns to faith
where I close my eyes and take Your hand

I’d rather walk in the dark with Jesus
Than walk in the light on my own
I’d rather go through the valley of the shadow with Him
Than to dance on the mountains alone
I’d rather follow wherever He leads me
Than to go where none before me have gone
I’d rather walk in the dark with Jesus
Than to walk in the light of my own 

I’ve made some plans you know-mapped out a strategy
Somebody tell me where did the seasons go? have You forgotten me?
I’ve heard the darkest hour is just before dawn
And wherever You are the sun will shine

I’d rather walk in the dark with Jesus
Than walk in the light on my own
I’d rather go through the valley of the shadow with Him
Than to dance on the mountains alone
I’d rather follow wherever He leads me
Than to go where none before me have gone
I’d rather walk in the dark with Jesus
Than to walk in the light of my own 

There will be shadows, but I won’t be shaken
‘Cause You’ve never forsaken a vow
You’ve never failed me before, this I know
And, Jesus, You won’t fail me now

I’d rather walk in the dark with Jesus
Than walk in the light on my own
I’d rather go through the valley of the shadow with Him
Than to dance on the mountains alone
I’d rather follow wherever He leads me
Than to go where none before me have gone
I’d rather walk in the dark with Jesus
Than to walk in the light of my own[3]

How about you? Would you rather walk in the dark with Jesus or walk in the light on your own? For some of you this is a very real decision right now in this very moment. You are struggling. You are scared. You are frustrated. You are panicking.

What are you going to do? What are you going to do?

I pray that you and I both will learn from Abraham and Sarah and trust in God’s good plan. Let us wait on our great God. Let us wait and trust and know that He is good. Let us trust in His timing. Let us lean on His understanding and not our own.

He is good. He knows what He is doing. He has not forgotten His promise.

 

[1] https://www.realmofhistory.com/2017/11/22/oldest-marriage-contract-infertility/

[2] John H. Walton, “Genesis.” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009, p.87.

[3] https://www.newreleasetoday.com/lyricsdetail.php?lyrics_id=56653