Wife and Concubine

 Chapter 17

Wife and Concubine

(Genesis Chapter 16)

Abram and Sarai’s situation was becoming increasingly paradoxical.  Some of YHVH’s promises were materializing very rapidly, while others, namely the obvious and most essential - that of posterity - seemed to be getting further and further away.  Sarai had not only been barren all their married years, but now, to make matters worse, she was way beyond childbearing age.  Thus, a very distraught spouse, following the custom of that day that allowed a wife to give her handmaid to her husband and have children vicariously through her, was about to do just that.  Abram, being a righteous man, did not consider this option until Sarai brought it up.  It is hard to know what he thought.  Did he truly believe this would be the child YHVH had promised him?  Apparently, he did.

So Hagar, Sarai’s Egyptian maid, bore Abram his first son.  As mentioned, firstborn have princely rights in the family, and hence the situation was potentially very volatile.  Indeed, troubles soon began to manifest.  After she conceived, Hagar became proud and despised her mistress.  Sarai blamed her husband for the situation, while he, without retorting, gave his wife the authority to deal with this state of affairs (ref. Genesis 16:5-6).  

Sarai’s solution was to treat Hagar so harshly that the latter ran away.  Although the child in Hagar’s womb was not the promised seed, YHVH still had a plan for him.  The Almighty sent an angel who found Hagar in the desert and conveyed a message: “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand” (Genesis 16:9). YHVH commanded Hagar to promptly submit to Sarai’s authority.  Was this episode establishing divine order in the Abrahamic family?  If so, then any challenges that would arise in the future in the form of jealousy, envy, and contention would be met with the authority of YHVH’s sealed promise.

Hagar’s child received from the Creator a portion of his father’s blessings of multiplicity, and his seed was destined to also become part of that “dust of the earth.”  YHVH said of Hagar’s son Ishmael and his posterity:  “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted for multitude...”  “He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation” (Genesis 16:10; 17:20).  This child was to have a unique disposition and nature (one that would be contrary to that of YHVH’s kinsman-redeemer):  “He shall be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren” (Genesis 16:12). 

Typically, YHVH’s pronouncements to an individual have long-lasting effects that continue to be magnified as they play out in history.  This is certainly true of Ishmael and his progeny, including in our own days.  Thus, what YHVH established by His word here in Genesis entered the very life force of the seed, along with the particular nature that would manifest wherever this seed/progeny would be dispersed.

Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael.  Both mother and child lived in his tents, and for several years things seemed to settle down.  Then one day YHVH came to Abram again…