Beyond The Basics

Transcript:

Welcome to the Beyond the Basics Bible Study Podcast. My name is Dan Snyder and I am your host. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Beyond the Basics, where we are exploring the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, one chapter at a time.

Alright, well here we go again with another episode exploring the life of Abraham. We’re going to be in Genesis 21 today. And if you remember last episode, Abraham had an encounter with Abimelech where he lied and told him that his wife Sarah was his sister and Abimelech called him out.

And so now we’re about a year later, maybe a little bit less, and in chapter 21, now Sarah has conceived and gives birth to a son. So she names the son Isaac and Abraham made a feast on the day that Isaac was weaned so that he’s a couple years old now. And at this feast, Sarah saw Ishmael laughing at Isaac. So she told Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away. So Abraham sought the Lord and God told Abraham to listen to Sarah, do what she said. And he promised to make Ishmael a nation as well.

So Abraham sent them away and they went and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. So they’re wandering in the wilderness and they ran out of water and think that they’re going to die. They are about to die, or least they think they are, and the angel of God called out from heaven and said, “God has heard you, get up, get the boy up, hold him with your hand and I’m going to make him into a great nation.”

And at that moment, Hagar saw a well of water and they survived. So Hagar and Ishmael stayed in the wilderness. Ishmael grew up there in the wilderness of Paran. He took a wife from Egypt, which is where Hagar was originally from.

And then the story moves back to Abraham and Abimelech. And Abimelech here asks Abraham to swear that he’s not gonna deal falsely with him or his descendants or his posterity, but to deal kindly with him. And then there’s a dispute between Abraham and Abimelech’s servants over a well. So the two make a covenant. So Abimelech returned to the land of the Philistines and Abraham stayed there in Beersheba and called on the name of the Lord.

So that’s the overview of the chapter. So let’s get deeper in to Genesis 21.

So verse one starts out, the Lord visited Sarah as he had said. So remember that the Lord 25 years previously had promised that he would give Abraham and Sarah a child. And he reiterated this promise several more times over the years, but this is 25 years after the original promise.

But even in these first couple verses, this idea that the Lord had said that this child is going to come is repeated three times. So in verse one, it says, the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised.

And then in verse 2, Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. So three times in these first two verses, we’re told that the Lord had said or the Lord had promised or the Lord had spoken. And this is important that it’s repeating this phrase or this idea three times because it’s not only is it showing that God is faithful to his promise, it’s reiterating it, it’s repeating this idea to show the reader that, yes, God promised this and now the promise has come about.

But it’s also repeating it three times because three is the number of testing. We see the number three very often in the Bible in various places uh during a test. You may immediately think of Jesus in the wilderness being tempted three times. So I think that this is showing us that Abraham’s faith was tested over these 25 years. And we’ve talked about that many times over the last 10 chapters, that his faith was tested. That this shift in the story here, as it moves forward several months to a year, it’s saying that, all right, now here’s the time, we’re at the promised time, and Abraham has been tested for these last 25 years. Now his faith is going to be rewarded with a son.

So in verse 3, Abraham called the name of his son, Isaac. The word Isaac means “he laughs.” And leading up to this story and including the story, there is all kinds of laughter surrounding the circumstances of Isaac’s birth. So in Genesis 17:17 Abraham laughed. In Genesis 18:12, Sarah laughed. And then in verse 6 of chapter 21, Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me.”

In other words, God has finally brought her the joy of bearing a son. Then she says, “Everyone who hears will laugh over me,” meaning everyone will share in her joy.

And then in verse nine, Ishmael laughs. And many commentators say that he was laughing in mockery of either Sarah or Isaac. And we’ll get more into that here in a little bit.

So in verse five, it says Abraham was 100 years old when his son was born to him. The number 100 signifies fullness in Matthew 19:29: “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.”

So Jesus is saying anybody who leaves everything behind for me will receive eternal life and will receive all the rewards that I have for him. And then in Luke 8:8 it says, “Some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.”

Again, it’s talking about reaping a full return on that seed that fell into good soil.

So what it’s saying here in verse five is that Isaac was born in the fullness of Abraham’s life or in the fullness of time. In other words, Isaac was born at the exact right time. He was born at the time that God had intended. He was born at the perfect time in Abraham’s life. He was born at the exact time that God intended for Abraham and for redemptive history.

So moving down, verse eight, it says: And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had born to Abraham, laughing.

So she saw Ishmael laughing, which, that is Isaac’s name. Isaac means laughter or laughing. And so it says Sarah saw Ishmael Isaac’ing.

Some translations will say mocking, but others say playing. So there’s a little bit of dispute over what the meaning or the intended meaning of this verse truly is. Some translators take it as Ishmael was mocking or making fun of Isaac.

The thing to remember here though is Ishmael is a teenager and Isaac is probably only two or three years old at the most. So what reason would Ishmael really have to mock Isaac? I mean, who actually mocks a toddler? Like, they don’t really do anything to be worthy of being mocked. So in my opinion, the translations that say laughing or playing is probably more accurate, as in, Ishmael was just having fun with his little brother. He was playing with him.

But it also means it’s a little bit more difficult to accept Sarah’s actions because it’s understandable if Sarah wants to cast out a slave woman and her son if Ishmael is mocking her son. We can accept that a little bit better. It makes it little bit more cruel if Ishmael is just playing around with Isaac and having fun.

But it’s also possible that Sarah may have seen that happen and she may have been worried that Ishmael and Isaac were getting too close and that Ishmael would want to stay and be part of the family and end up taking Isaac’s inheritance. So this could be the reason for the difference in translations that her actions are very difficult to accept if Ishmael and Isaac were just playing and having fun.

So in verse 10, she says to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son.”

And this is in contrast to chapter 16, where Hagar had fled. This time, Sarah is sending her away. But Paul expounds on this in Galatians chapter 4. Paul reads this situation as parallels to what is happening in the spirit, in our own lives.

So we have a son of the slave which is Ishmael, the son of Hagar, and we have the son of the free, which is Isaac, the son of Sarah. And Paul in Galatians 4 makes this comparison. So I encourage you to read that chapter on your own. We’re not going to read it now. But for now, recognize that Paul makes this connection between the son of the slave and the son of the free.

So what’s happening here is that the son of the slave cannot coexist with the son of the free. In other words, we can’t be enslaved and be free at the same time. You’re either one or the other.

And Paul, when he makes this comparison, he’s talking about Jews who have bound themselves to the law and compares them to those who have found freedom in Jesus Christ. But this is something that we can learn from that we can’t bind ourselves, whether it’s to the Old Testament law or to the law of sin and death that we previously followed before we surrendered our lives to Jesus. If we’re free from sin, we can’t then be in bondage to sin. But if we’re in bondage to sin, we can’t be free.

So that’s the connection that Paul is drawing. Again, I encourage you to read Galatians chapter 4 and read the whole book. It’s more understandable in context to the whole book, but this chapter of Genesis 21, it’s laying out this lesson for us that we need to be careful. Isaac and Ishmael, the son of the slave and the son of the free, were playing together. That can’t happen. That can’t happen in our lives. And so Sarah cast out the slave. We need to cast out that which would keep us enslaved.

So moving on, Abraham was displeased. So Abraham actually sought the Lord this time, unlike last time when he just gave in to Sarah, Abraham actually went and talked to the Lord about this. He said, “God, what do I do?”

So God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman.”

Abraham didn’t want to send Ishmael away, but it was required for Isaac to fully receive the blessing of being Abraham’s heir. Isaac would not have been able to receive Abraham’s inheritance unless Ishmael was gone. Otherwise, Ishmael was in line to receive that inheritance. He was the firstborn.

And again, we can learn from this. Luke 14:26 says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

So Jesus is saying that we need to love God and be devoted to God and his purposes more than even our own families. We need to be willing to leave behind our families in order to follow God.

Now this does not mean we should send away all our siblings when they aggravate us. So if you are a kid and you’re listening to this, this does not give you permission to go to your parents and say, “Hey, Dan said that we need to send away our brothers so that we can follow Jesus.”

That’s not what I’m saying, kids. Okay? Love your brothers, love your sisters.

But what it means is that our love for God and His purposes must be supreme over everything else in our lives, even over our love for our own life. Being Jesus’ disciple must take priority and precedence over everything.

Even that word hate in that verse in Luke chapter 14, that doesn’t mean what we commonly think of as hate. The idea of hate in the Bible, at least in this context, is more related to the idea of love less. And we know that because of context of the entire Bible.

God commands us to love one another. He commands us to take care of our families and love our families. Husbands love your wives. Wives love your husbands. Love your children. Children obey your parents and honor your parents. All these things.

Jesus is not contradicting himself by saying, “Now hate your family.”

What he’s saying is, “Love your family less than me. Don’t prioritize your family over me.”

That’s what Abraham is doing here. He’s prioritizing God and His purposes over his own family. So he’s remaining obedient, even though it’s difficult, even though it’s hard, even though it seems like it’s the wrong thing. Abraham is doing the right thing because he knows that Isaac is the one that God has chosen to receive the promise. And that can’t happen as long as Ishmael is in his household. So he sends him away.

So God says, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”

God confirmed that Isaac is the one who would bear the promise, who would bear the seed, even though he wasn’t the firstborn.

And this actually continues a theme of the firstborn not receiving the inheritance. We haven’t talked about that a whole lot but that’s actually a very significant theme throughout Genesis especially. Seth is the thirdborn. He’s the one who bears the seed. And then Shem, son of Noah, is not the firstborn, but he’s the one who is the bearer of the seed. Abraham is not the firstborn. He’s the one who receives the promise of the seed. Isaac is the secondborn. Jacob is the secondborn. Judah is the thirdborn. So there’s the theme of the firstborn not receiving the inheritance, the promises of God, that promise of the coming seed.

So going to verse 14, Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar.

Abraham had vast wealth, but all he gave Hagar was bread and water. This is Abraham’s way of saying that Hagar and her son will not receive any of the inheritance. They don’t get anything. They are completely cut off. All they get is bread and water, just enough to sustain them for a few days.

And they put them on her shoulder, meaning Hagar must bear her own burdens now. So as far as Abraham is concerned, Ishmael is cut out of the inheritance.

So Abraham rose in the morning, took bread and a skin of water, gave it to Hagar and sent her and the child away. And then she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

So now we see Hagar and Ishmael wandering in the wilderness. And there’s some significant parallels between Hagar wandering and the Israelites in the book of Exodus wandering. And if you read closely, you can see these. So I’m going to highlight a few here for you.

So first, we have an Egyptian slave, is Hagar, sent away by Hebrew masters. But in the book of Exodus, we have Hebrew slaves that are sent away by an Egyptian master. So Hagar is sent away and she wanders in the wilderness, just like the Israelites in the book of Exodus.

And then verse 15, the water in the skin was gone, so there’s a lack of water in the wilderness, just like Israel encountered a lack of water and they cried out for water.

And then verse 16, she says, “Let me not look on the death of the child.” So her firstborn is about to die, just like the Egyptian firstborn would die later on in the book of Exodus. But then it says that Hagar lifted up her voice and wept, just like the Israelites lifted up their voices and wept. In Exodus 2:23, it says: During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God.

And so God heard Hagar’s cries just like he heard Israel’s cries.

And the next verse, Exodus 2:24, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

So in verse 19, God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. God provided water in the wilderness for Hagar, just like he provided water in the wilderness for Israel.

So why is this important? So we already noted that Paul drew the connection between the slave and the free. Ishmael was the slave, Isaac was the free. But the sons of Ishmael, the sons of the slave, would later be brought in and be counted among the sons of the free through Jesus. So just because Isaac received that promise of the coming seed and the inheritance in the land doesn’t mean that the sons of Ishmael or Gentiles would be completely cut off from that. It means that Gentiles would be allowed in as well.

I believe that’s what this is saying. That because Hagar and her son Ishmael went through the same journey that Israel went through many generations later, that it’s saying that Gentiles have the ability to be grafted in or brought into that promise that God made to Abraham.

The promise came to Isaac first. And even Jesus said that salvation is from the Jews. They’re the first ones to receive the promise and they will be the first ones to receive the fullness of the inheritance. But the Gentiles are able to be grafted in because the Gentiles have gone through the wilderness just like Israel did, through Ishmael. So the Gentiles can also be grafted in. I believe that’s what that’s saying.

So in verse 17 it says: God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven. So God heard the voice of the boy, but the angel called out to Hagar. And I’ve mentioned in previous episodes about the angel of the Lord. This doesn’t specifically call out this angel as the angel of the Lord or potentially pre-incarnate Jesus or the second person to the Trinity. But the author treats this angel in the same way.

First, the angel is distinct from God, he’s the angel of God, but then he speaks as God. Later on in verse 18, the angel says, “I will make him into a great nation.” Well, that’s what God says. So he’s speaking as God. So this is evidence of a pre-incarnate Christ or the second person of the Trinity appearing as an angel.

Remember, that word angel just means messenger. We think of angel in our modern context as a spiritual being that’s a servant of God or something, or maybe just like a cute little baby that’s floating on a cloud playing a harp, maybe, or something. And the Bible, the Bible doesn’t necessarily call out angels in that way, although in some places it does, and we’ll get to those places eventually. But really what an angel is, is a messenger. So it’s just one bringing a message.

So this can easily be God in human form bringing a message. And it would be very appropriate to call God an angel in those instances.

So as I mentioned, God says, “I will make him into a great nation.”

So God’s not against Ishmael. He wants to prosper Ishmael. He loves Ishmael. He’s Abraham’s son. And because Ishmael is Abraham’s son, God is going to bless Ishmael. Even though he’s not the son of the promise, even though he’s not the one who’s going to receive the covenant blessings, God’s not against Ishmael. He loves Ishmael and wants him to become a great nation.

And so he opened Hagar’s eyes and she saw a well of water and she gave the boy a drink so that he survived. He grew up in the wilderness, became an expert with a bow, and he married a woman from Egypt. And he would eventually become a great nation.

So now the story shifts. We go back to Abimelech, verse 22, which this may or may not be the same Abimelech as the previous chapter. We don’t know. He probably is the same, but Abimelech is a title, not a name. So we’re not quite sure.

In verse 22, Abimelech says to Abraham, “God is with you in all you do.”

In verse 23, “Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or my posterity.”

And he’s concerned about this because Abraham previously had dealt falsely with Abimelech in the previous chapter, in chapter 20. So it’s possible that there’s a new Abimelech now on the scene. That Abimelech’s son Abimelech is now on the scene and saw what Abraham did to his father and wants to get assurance from Abraham that he’s not going to do the same thing to him.

So Abraham said, “I swear I will not deal falsely with you.”

But then in verse 25, Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized. So Abraham had previously owned this well, but Abimelech’s servants took it from him. And so Abraham is saying, “Hey Abimelech, if I’m not to deal falsely with you anymore, you can’t deal falsely with me. But your servants took one of my wells, seized one of my wells.”

So Abimelech said, “I didn’t know that they did this, you didn’t tell me, and I’d never heard of it until today.”

So they made a covenant. In verse 27, Abraham took sheep and oxen to make the covenant.

And in verse 28 Abraham gave Abimelech seven ewe lambs, probably as compensation for Abimelech’s loss of his well. And this shows that Abraham, even though he owned the well, it was rightfully his, he’s not a greedy man. He still compensated Abimelech for the loss of the well.

So let’s talk about how this chapter points to Jesus.

So Isaac, he’s a picture of Jesus in several different ways, and this is from David Guzik, and this is actually gonna start off several chapters here where Isaac and his immediate family, and Isaac himself especially, are really, really clear parallels to Jesus. They’re gonna be really significant, and a lot of them, over the next few chapters.

In this chapter, again this is from David Guzik, you can find his commentary on Enduring Word or Blue Letter Bible. He’s got a really great commentary on the whole Bible. You can read it for free on those two websites. So I got this from him.

So first of all, Isaac is a picture of Jesus because both sons were promised by God. Both were result of miraculous conceptions. Isaac, obviously born to a woman who is 90 years old and Jesus born to a virgin, so miraculous conceptions. Both were born after a period of delay. Isaac was born after 25 years. Jesus was born after 400 years of silence without God speaking through the prophets in Israel.

Both mothers were given assurance based on God’s omnipotence. And that word omnipotence means He is all-powerful. So in Genesis 18:13-14, if you remember from a few weeks ago, the Lord told Abraham, “You’re gonna have a son within the next year.” And Sarah had laughed because she had been eavesdropping. And the Lord heard her and said, and the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”

And then in Luke 1:34-37 it says: Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I’m a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called Holy – the son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

So both of those women received those assurances based on God’s supreme, all-powerful nature. He told Sarah, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

He told Mary, “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

Both sons were named before they were born. Both were born at the appointed time. As I mentioned in verse 2 of Genesis chapter 21, it says, Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him.

And in Galatians 4:4 Paul says: But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law.

So both sons had come at the fullness of time, or at the time that God had appointed.

Both births were accompanied by great joy. In verse six of Genesis 21, if you remember from earlier, Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh over me.”

So everybody’s gonna laugh. Everybody’s gonna be joyful.

Luke 1:46-47, Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

This is after she was told that she would have the child. And in Luke 2, verses 10 through 11 the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

So those are several ways in which Isaac parallels or is a picture or is a type of Jesus.

Another way this chapter points to Jesus, I mentioned this earlier, is that the angel of God spoke to Hagar. And I mentioned a few ways in which we can infer that this is the second person of the Trinity or a pre-incarnate Jesus, because it is God coming in the flesh, which is Jesus. And in fact, in John chapter 1 verse 18, it says: No one has ever seen God; God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known.

So what John is saying is that nobody’s ever actually seen God, the Father, but God who’s at the Father’s side has made Him known. Jesus has made the Father known. So if this is the angel of God, but it’s also God because He speaks as God, then this must be Jesus, reincarnate Jesus, because no one has seen God. Jesus is at the Father’s side making known the Father. That’s why we can say that this is God and also the angel of God.

So here’s some questions for reflection.

First, why do you think God waited 25 years to give Abraham and Sarah their promised son?

Have you been waiting for a long time for anything that God has promised you? How have you dealt with that and what can you learn from Abraham and Sarah’s journey?

Why do you think God told Abraham to listen to Sarah and do what she said?

How far are you willing to go to make Jesus the supreme authority in loving your life?

Have you ever needed to cut friends out of your life to remove the temptation to slip into worldly living?

Why did God wait until Hagar and Ishmael were nearly dead before he rescued them?

And last, what lesson can we learn from Abraham and Abimelech about how to approach someone who has wronged us?

Well, thank you. That’s this week’s episode on Genesis 21. Don’t forget, go to the website, subscribe, and get access to all these study guides for these chapters. Don’t forget to press the subscribe button, whether you’re listening on YouTube or follow on your podcast app, give the show a rating, all different ways you can support the show. I always appreciate it. So next week we’ll get into Genesis chapter 22. Thanks once again for listening.