Chapter 7: Abram, Hagar and Ishmael

Q1 - Women in Bible times and even in certain cultures today do not have the rights and privileges we take for granted. However, women everywhere often seem to know how to work a situation in order to get their desired outcome. When Sarai turned on Abram and blamed him for Hagar’s insolence, she sought to put him in the middle of a situation she was responsible for creating. Why would she do this to her husband of so many years?

A1 - Sarai was Abram’s half sister. She was ten years younger, and it’s likely she had known him her entire life. She would definitely have known how to get him to do what she wanted. It didn’t have to be reasonable that she blamed him for Hagar’s behavior. Her objective was to be placed in full control of the situation. Here was a man who had just defeated the powerful forces of the invading kings with a handful of his own men, yet Sarai knew how to make him fold and acquiesce to her wishes.

Q2 - Sarai and Abram were pioneers in the faith. So far as we know from the scriptures, Abram’s encounter with Melchizedek was the only time they came in contact with anyone else outside their family who believed in and followed God. Abram had been called out from among pagan worshippers to go to a foreign land, and although he had faith in God, he was very much a work in progress. So it’s no wonder they relied on their own human reasoning to try and help God along with His plan to provide them offspring.

If you could go back in time and visit with Sarai and Abram, what counseling would you give them concerning their scheme to have children? What scriptures would you share with them? What examples could you offer of how God worked in other people’s lives?

A2 - Today we have access to the words and thoughts of so many people of great faith, but unfortunately, Abram lived before all of them and could not tap into their wisdom. Here are a few scriptures which come to mind.

A psalm of David:

I remain confident of this:
    I will see the goodness of the Lord
    in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord;
    be strong and take heart
    and wait for the Lord.

—Psalm 27:13–14, NIV

From the prophet Isaiah speaking of the Lord:

He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

—Isaiah 40:28b–31, NIV

From the writer of Lamentations, presumably the prophet Jeremiah, concerning the Lord:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail. 

They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.”

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
    to the one who seeks him;

it is good to wait quietly
    for the salvation of the Lord.

—Lamentations 3: 22–26, NIV

And of course, the Apostle Peter tells us this about God:

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

—2 Peter 3:8, NIV

After Sarai’s time, there would be other barren women who, by Divine Intervention, were able to conceive. Here are a few:

• Isaac would be the child God had promised to Abram and Sarai for so long, and it was to be through him that all of God’s promises would ultimately be fulfilled. Yet, Isaac and his wife Rebekah tried for years to have a child. Finally, Isaac pleaded with the Lord, and as a result, after 20 years of marriage when Isaac was 60 years old, Rebekah conceived and had twin sons (see Genesis 25:20–26).

• Another example would be Hannah, who had desperately wanted a child for years (see 1 Samuel 1). When God answered her prayer, she dedicated her son, Samuel, to His service. Samuel later became one of Israel’s greatest leaders, serving as a priest, prophet, and judge. Then after Samuel’s birth, Hannah went on to have more children: three sons and two daughters (see 1 Samuel 2:21).

• Then of course, there was Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. She and her husband, Zacharias, had no children and were both well advanced in years (see Luke 1:7). While performing his priestly duties inside the temple of God, Zacharias witnessed an angel of the Lord appear before him and tell him his wife would have a son whom they were to call John. When he questioned how this could possibly happen, the angel told him he would not be able to speak until the child was born. Elizabeth then conceived and bore a son, just as the angel had foretold. When relatives wanted to name the child after the family, Zacharias wrote on a tablet, “His name is John,” and with that he was able to speak once more (see Luke 1:5–66 for the story of John’s conception and birth).

There are a number of other scriptures and examples in the Bible which could have provided encouragement to Abram and Sarai if they had been written and available at the time. Share your favorites with your study group.

Q3 - Describe what type of person the angel of the Lord told Hagar her son would be. While such a future might not sound desirable to us today, consider this prophesy from Hagar’s point of view as a servant. Why might she have been pleased?

A3 - The angel told Hagar concerning her son, “He will be as free and wild as an untamed donkey” (Genesis 16:12, GW). (Many translations use the term “wild donkey” while others say “wild man.”) The angel went on to tell her he would fight with everyone and have conflict with his brothers. This let Hagar, who lived a life of servitude, know that her son would be able to hold his own in the world, that others would not get the better of him. So for Hagar, whom the angel convinced to return back to the woman who had mistreated her, knowing her son would live freely and be able to take care of himself might well have pleased her.