Genesis 21

        God delivers on His promise to Abraham and Sarah. Sarah conceives and bares a son whom Abraham names Isaac, per the instructions of the Lord. (Genesis 17:19) Isaac’s name means “laughter” because both Abraham and Sarah had reacted with laughter at the impossibility of Sarah conceiving. (Genesis 17:17 & 18:12) At the time of Isaac’s birth Abraham is 100 and Sarah is 90. Sarah is especially joyful. (v. 6-7) When Isaac is eight days old, Abraham circumcises him according to the instructions of the covenant given to Abraham by God. And, some weeks later, Abraham hosts a great feast for all his household in honor of Isaac as soon as the boy is weaned. (v.8)
 
       Verses 9-13: But now the consequences of Abraham’s and Sarah’s sin regarding Hagar bears full fruit. Ishmael, now 14, mocks Isaac, scoffing and deriding him. (v.9) Ishmael has good reason to be jealous and resentful. Because of Isaac, he has lost his status and inheritance as Abraham’s firstborn and heir. (The fact that verse 9 uses the word “mocking”, which is a derisive and scornful form of laughter, is to point out the irony of this in relation to Isaac’s name.) Sarah witnesses Ishmael’s behavior and immediately goes to Abraham and demands that he cast out Hagar and Ishmael from their household. Now that she has a son of her own, she refuses to allow Ishmael to be the heir.
          Abraham takes the matter to God, who assures him that Isaac is the chosen son through whom God will make a blessed and chosen nation. He tells Abraham to do as Sarah instructed, and that He will also make a great nation of Ishmael because he, too, is of Abraham’s seed. (v.13) This is an interesting aspect of God’s original promise to Abraham. Even though Abraham and Sarah sinned by trying to fulfill God’s promise through their own ways and means, God still chooses to honor Hagar’s seed. And the way that verse 13 is worded strongly suggests the only reason God will make a great nation of Ishmael is because Abraham is his father. Yet, ironically, the nation that results from Ishmael’s seed becomes a bitter and vicious enemy of the children of Israel, causing nothing but strife and all kinds of conflict with God’s chosen people, even up to this present day.
         Paul uses this situation as an example of the war between the flesh and the Spirit after salvation in his letter to the Galatians. In chapter 4: 22-31, he compares us of the NT church age, the redeemed, to the seed of Isaac. Our flesh, the old man, is like the seed of Ishmael. In order to walk upright before God and to always be striving for holiness, we must cast out the old man as Abraham cast out Hagar and Ishmael.
 
       Verses 14-21: Abraham rises up early the next morning, gives Hagar some water and food and then sends her away into the desert. She wanders through the wilderness of Beersheba until the water and food are gone. She has no shelter, no one to taker her and Ishmael in, and she finally comes to the end of herself. In utter despair, Hagar leaves Ishmael, who has very likely fainted from lack of bread and water and the heat of the day, under a shrub and then goes off on her own because she doesn’t want to witness the death of her only child. (v.16)
       But Ishmael wakes up and he cries out for his mother. God hears the boy’s cry and visits Hagar, telling her to not be afraid and to go back to her son. An angel appears to show Hagar a nearby well from which she fills up her water bottle and gives to Ishmael to drink. God then provides for the two of them, sustaining them in the desert, until they end up in the region of Paran. Ishmael, who is now of age, takes himself a wife whom Hagar selects from her home country of Egypt.
 
         Verses 22-34: Because of the incident in the previous chapter regarding Sarah, Abimelech recognized that God was with Abraham, and now he meets with Abraham to ask that he always deal kindly and truthfully with the king and his progeny. Abraham agrees. But then Abraham tells Abimelech of an incident regarding the king’s servants and a well that Abraham’s servants had been using. (v.25) Abimelech was unaware of the actions of his servants, so Abraham makes a covenant with the king for future use of the well. The place where this treaty is made is called Beersheba (v.32), which means “Well of the Oath”. Abraham plants a grove there and then calls “…on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God.” (v.33)
        Verses 32 and 34 reveal that Abimelech is a Philistine king. The historical note in my study Bible says that the coastal plain where Abimelech ruled and where Abraham is now living would later become fully occupied by the Philistines from 1200 B.C. onward. Thus, Abimelech and his seed would eventually become that nation with whom the children of Israel would have many ongoing conflicts and strife.