November 7, Genesis 21
The LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had promised. - Genesis 21:1
This chapter is one of the great passages in the Bible affirming the absolute reliability of God’s word. God does what he says he is going to do. The promises God made to Abraham reached far beyond the birth of one baby to an elderly couple. But the rest of all the promises and prophecies that would lead to the Savior's birth from Abraham's descendants were contingent on this first improbable promise coming true.
Sarah's comment sums it up quite well: "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age" (verse 7). Abraham and Sarah themselves would not have thought it possible apart from their faith in God's promise. No one looking at a 100-year-old man and a 90-year-old woman would have imagined it could really happen. Who would have said? God said it, and that settled it. Isaac arrived, just as God said he would.
Isaac was the name God had given Abraham and Sarah for the baby before he was conceived. Then he was circumcised when he was 8 days old, because God commanded it. We will watch Isaac's life go by in chapters to come. He enters Abraham and Sarah's home and the Bible story as a newborn baby. We’ll watch him grow old and die at age 180.
This chapter not only tells about Isaac's arrival. It also relates Ishmael's departure from Abraham’s home and family circle. Ishmael was born about 14 years earlier, the son that Hagar bore in Sarah's ill-conceived attempt to force God's promise to come true.
About the time Isaac was weaned (probably two or three years old in their culture), Ishmael would have been a 17-year-old boy. Sarah had struggled with anger and resentment toward Hagar and her son since before Ishmael was born. But when she saw Ishmael mocking his little half-brother Isaac at the weaning feast, it was the last straw. She gave Abraham the ultimatum: Hagar and Ishmael had to go. Abraham loved Ishmael, but he realized Sarah was right. There was more reason for Ishmael to leave than just Sarah's jealousy. Sarah didn't want Ishmael to be a threat to her son's claim to be Abraham's heir. God led Abraham to send the boy and his mother away, promising to make a great nation of Ishmael, as well. But it was Isaac through whom the promise of God blessing his people would come.
God showed his care and provision for Ishmael by appearing to his mother in the desert when she feared her son was going to die. The Lord provided what they needed to go on with their journey, and gave Hagar promises about the young man's future. He would be an exile from Abraham’s family, but he would still be a great nation.
That's another reminder that God cared about and worked in the lives of many people and nations in the years before Christ came. We know more about his dealings with Israel. That's the central storyline of the Old Testament. But Melchizedek and Ishmael and others we will meet remind us that God was no limited tribal God, but the LORD Almighty who ruled over all the earth. His words would come true, whether the promises were addressed to the main character in the main story, or spoken as an aside to other people.
Abraham lived many years in Gerar as a friendly ally to the Philistine king of the region while Isaac was growing up. The relationship between Abraham and Abimelech was both frank and cordial. Abraham was a great man; he spoke as a peer to the Philistine king. Before Isaac was fully grown, God would tell Abraham something that seemed to contradict everything else he had already promised and told Abraham. But I will save that story for tomorrow.
Copyright © 2021 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—November 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
Commentaires