Ishmael was
the son of Sarah’s slave, Hagar.
We meet
Hagar in Genesis 16. After long years of not being able to have a baby, Sarah
decides to try to have a child by proxy.
Apparently this was the practice of the day. Hagar was Sarah’s choice for the proxy.
We do not
know where Sarah got Hagar, nor how long she had her. We do know that Abraham traveled to Egypt to
avoid a drought a few years before this.
When he was in Egypt, he and Sarah lied about their relationship saying
that Sarah was his sister. As a result of the lie, Pharaoh took Sarah to be his wife. God intervened and stopped Pharaoh. Because of
Sarah, Pharaoh gave Abraham many gifts including male and female servants. My
guess would be that Hagar was one of these servants. We do know that Hagar was
Egyptian.
When
Abraham was 85 years old Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham in order to produce a
child. Genesis 16:4 tells us, “When Hagar
knew she was pregnant, she began to treat her mistress, Sarai, with contempt.”[i] (NLT)
Hagar felt that Sarah was beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn.
Sarah could not get pregnant so this was, according to the logic of the day,
obvious evidence that Sarah was cursed. All this is implied in the Hebrew word
translated “contempt.”
Sarah was
not about to put up with this; so, she humbled Hagar. She treated Hagar so harshly that Hagar
finally ran away.
On the way
to Egypt we find Hagar sitting by a spring of water.
7The angel
of the LORD found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness, along the
road to Shur. 8The angel said to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant,
where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress,
Sarai,” she replied.
9The angel
of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her authority.” 10Then
he added, “I will give you more descendants than you can count.”
11And the
angel also said, “You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to
name him Ishmael (which means ‘God hears’), for the LORD has heard your cry of distress. 12This
son of yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his
fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in
open hostility against all his relatives.” (NLT)
Hagar cried
out to the Lord in distress and he heard her.
Hagar was
in distress. The cry of distress expressed the misery of Hagar's circumstances.
Life treated Hagar bad. She was a slave.
She was used to produce a male heir for her mistress. Slavery and polygamy
represent two huge issues of social injustice.
God’s answer to
Hagar’s distress
is: “Return to
your mistress, and submit to her authority.”
We jump
ahead 16 years and find Hagar still living in her mistress’s
household. Her son Ishmael was Abraham’s only son
until just 3 years ago. We join the family as they celebrate Abraham’s son
Isaac. On the day Isaac was weaned,
Abraham threw a big party. “But Sarah saw Ishmael—the son of
Abraham and her Egyptian servant Hagar—making fun of her son, Isaac.” (Genesis 21:9, NLT)
The Hebrew
word used for “making fun” is an intensive form of the word “Isaac,” which
means “laugh.” Galatians 4:29 gives more information on this when it says
that Ishmael “persecuted” Isaac. Isaac was 3. Ishmael was 16. This apparently was no
laughing matter.
What was
life like in Hagar’s tent? We do not know, but could Ishmael’s attitude
have been influenced by Hagar’s? Hagar treated Sarah with contempt. 16 years later Ishmael
treated Isaac with contempt.
Hagar again
ends up in the wilderness a second time. This time she is not heading to Egypt,
she is wandering aimlessly. She has been kicked out along with her young son. Ishmael
wears out before his mother. It seems he
is close to death; so, his mother lays him down and goes off a distance because
she cannot bear to watch him die.
I will go
ahead and ask a question that I do not like. How much of Hagar’s suffering
did she bring upon herself? I do not like the question because slavery is wrong
and polygamy is wrong. Suffering and
abuse are inherent in these two systems. I do not want to imply that the victim
of an evil system is somehow responsible for the evils of that system.
However, I
was convicted by the realization that Hagar thought she was better than Sarah
because she could have a baby and Sarah could not. Having been wronged by
slavery and polygamy, the revenge for Hagar was sweet. Whenever she walked in front of Sarah her
protruding belly would remind Sarah that Hagar was blessed where Sarah was
cursed. The Bible tells us that she despised Sarah because of this.
Compare
Hagar’s response
to the New Testament. Jesus taught us: “I say, love
your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” (Matthew 5:44, NLT)
The Bible
does not endorse slavery, but it does recognize it as a fact. In the same way the Bible does not endorse
divorce, but it does recognize it as a fact.
Jesus taught us that divorce was not God’s intention, but allowed only
because of the hardness of men’s heart.
The passage
is Matthew 19:3-8:
3Some
Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question: “Should a
man be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
4“Haven’t you read
the Scriptures?” Jesus replied. “They record that from the beginning
‘God made
them male and female.’ 5And he said, ‘This explains why a man leaves his
father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ 6Since
they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined
together.”
7“Then why
did Moses say in the law that a man could give his wife a written notice of
divorce and send her away?” they asked.
8Jesus
replied, “Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard
hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended. (NLT)
Slavery is
treated the same way. Slavery exists
because of the hardness of men’s hearts. The Bible provides concessions to our hard hearts,
but it was not what God originally intended. When the Apostle Paul wrote to the
Colossians he said: “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try
to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. Serve them
sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord.”
(Colossians 3:22, NLT)
The book of
Philemon is a letter written by Paul as he was sending the slave Onesimus back
to his owner, Philemon. The law protected the slave owner’s rights. It
was a legal institution in that day.
I enjoy
reading Fredrick Douglas’s writings. His wrote
two autobiographies, the first being written before the civil war was titled, “Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.” One of the
things that Douglas points out is that anytime there is absolute power given to
one human being over another abuses are bound to happen.
I would go as far as to say that when we think we are better than
another, abuse is going to happen. The gospel says, “Love your
neighbor as yourself,” and “Consider others as more important than yourself.” Abuses of
position happen in government, business, Churches and families. Whenever one
person lords it over another and forgets the Lord’s command to love your neighbor as
yourself, abuses are likely to happen.
What though
are we to do when we suffer unjustly? 1 Peter 3:13-17 addresses this issue when
it talks to us about our attitude:
13Now, who
will want to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14But even if you
suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t worry or
be afraid of their threats. 15Instead, you must worship Christ as
Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be
ready to explain it. 16But do this in a gentle and respectful way.
Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be
ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ. 17Remember, it is better to suffer
for doing good, if that is what God wants, than to suffer for doing wrong!
(NLT)
Hagar was
not suffering for doing good. She also
was not fighting against slavery and oppression. In her attitude she showed
that she thought she was better than Sarah.
This attitude set her against Sarah and Sarah against her. She was
suffering in part because of a bad attitude.
Later on
Ishmael adopted the same sort of attitude.
Even before he was born God said of Ishmael: “12This son of
yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist
against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open
hostility against all his relatives.” (Genesis 16:12, NLT)
Ishmael
raised his fist against everyone and as a result everyone was also against
him. He lived out the results of the
attitude he adopted. His descendants
learned the attitude and became a nation living in open hostility with its
neighbors.
There is a
theme that runs through this story that is important for us as believers.
When Hagar
had given up and sat down to wait for the end, God heard the boy crying, and
spoke from heaven to encourage her. There was a spring of water nearby. God opened her eyes so that she could see it.
Previously,
when Hagar had run away, God heard her cry of distress and answered her. He spoke to her directly and promised to make
Ishmael into a great nation.
The
important point in all of this is the name God gives Ishmael. The name means
God hears.
I believe
that Ishmael and Hagar ended up living in the desert isolated from their
relatives because they did not get this message. God hears. The two times they called on the Lord He
answered, directly.
The
attitude they displayed showed they were focused on things other than God.
Hagar and then Ishmael tried to fight their way out without calling on the
Lord. When they did call on Him, He
answered. The first time it was, “Go back and submit.” The second time God gave water and saved
their lives.
1 Peter
4:19 says, “So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on
doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for he
will never fail you.” (NLT)
The two
keys in this passage are to keep doing what is right and to trust our lives to
God. If we believe God hears us when we
call, we can do this without hesitation.
Onesimus
did. Converted under Paul’s ministry, he went submissively back to Philemon, trusting
God for the outcome. He was doing what
was right in the sight of men because this was what the law required. He was
doing right in the sight of God because he was entrusting himself to God.
Philemon later set Onesimus free and, according to tradition, Onesimus became
the bishop of the church at Colossae.
I want to
make something clear. I am not saying we
should not stand up for what is right.
We are to defend and protect those who are weaker than we are. Caring for the orphan and widow is given in
the book of James as representing true religion. Paul, himself, appealed to
what at the time was the Supreme Court when his case was not getting a proper
hearing. Paul, however, did not pretend to be better than those that imprisoned
him. He did not curse or treat them as
any less than himself. He prayed for
them, told them about Christ and ultimately many lives were saved.
If you are
being abused by a family member, you can in all humility put up boundaries and
even seek protection from the law. More importantly you can call on the name of
the Lord and receive strength and courage to do what is necessary to protect
yourself.
Our
attitude shapes everything we do. It is one of the most important things about
us. Our attitude needs to be informed by
the message: God hears. God knows. God
cares.
The best
way to inform our attitude was demonstrated by Paul when he was wrongly beaten
and imprisoned. He worshiped. He sang
praises. He did this not because of how he felt, but in spite of how he felt. We
can have attitudes based on the weather, the stock market, our neighbor’s cat, the
flat tire or the latest drama in our lives. Or we can have attitudes based on
the fact that God hears us when we call.
God cares.
The only
two times that Hagar and Ishmael are recorded as calling on the Lord, He
answered. How often do we really humble ourselves and call on the Lord? How
often do we let our bad attitude speak before we call on the Lord?
[i] Scripture
quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible: New Living Translation.
Copyright 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House foundation. Used by permission of
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.