All right, here we are in chapter 16 now. It's been about 10 years since Abraham has arrived in the promise line. In fact, the text tells us that we're going to look at it in just one moment. Sarah is 75, Abraham is 85, there's 10 years between the two of them, and yet still they have no child.
It's been a decade since God has said, come to the land that I will show you, I'm going to make your name great, your descendants, great et cetera. 10 years has elapsed and they're starting to get impatient. They're starting to want to kind of help God along a little bit, and that's the story about the birth of Ishmael. So let's read here verses 1 through 4, at least the first half of verse 4.
Here in your Bible, chapter 16 verse 1, which says, Now, Sarah Abraham's wife bore him no children. She had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. And Sarah said to Abraham, Behold, now the Lord has proven to me from bearing children. Go up into my maid, it may be that I shall obtain children by her.
And Abraham listened to the voice of Sarah. So after Abraham had dwelt 10 years in the land of Canaan, so there you have it. It's been 10 years since chapter 12, basically. Let's see here.
10 years in the land of Canaan, Sarah Abraham's wife took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to Abraham, her husband, as a wife. And he went into Hagar, and she conceived, and we'll stop there. Okay? So it's been 10 years and following ancient, near-eastern customs, a lot of commentaries pointed this out.
The head wife, the primary wife, is, look, I'm going to allow you. I'm going to allow you, my husband, to take my maid, so that I can have children through her. This is where we're going to see, is not according to God's plan. Abraham and Sarah are trying to force things along and speed things up a little bit.
God works with this failing. Okay, we're going to see this is really the story of Abraham's fall. We've seen all along. Abraham's faith is great.
His faith is going to be tested. He does have some, shall we call him, hiccups or speed bumps along the way. But this is the story of Abraham's fall because he should not have taken Hagar. The culture allows it, sure, but that doesn't mean it's right in God's eyes.
This is true today. Just because the culture says such and such a thing is okay to do, doesn't mean it's actually right when you follow God's law, not the law or the customs of the culture. Okay, so yes, this is an ancient year's term. Custom, Abraham took a maid, which God never permitted, never, he's allowing, he's working with it.
And there's going to be problems we're going to see, but he did take his maid, Hagar, to be a surrogate. Now, Hagar is an Egyptian and it's very interesting here because as this opens up, it says Sarah had an Egyptian maid. Now, that word Egyptian indicating where she comes from is very important because if you remember back in chapter 12 and 13, precisely chapter 12, to be more specific, Sarah and Abraham go down into Egypt when there was a famine in the land. And then you had the whole story about how Abraham said, oh, she's my sister and Pharaoh took her, and then they just got away to second.
She's not just your sister, she's your wife, and Pharaoh freaks out a little bit and then gives Abraham all this wealth and gold and silver and etcetera, etcetera, but also gave Abraham maid servants and men servants. So when did Abraham and Sarah both obtain Hagar, the Egyptian, probably when they went down to Egypt, which they never should have done as we discussed prior. They didn't have faith that God would provide in the land, so they took matters of their own hands, went down to Egypt, and then this is when they acquired Hagar. So if they never went to Egypt, they never would have had Hagar.
So you can kind of see how actions have consequences here, right? So Hagar does concede, Ishmael, that means Ishmael is half Hebrew, as well as half Egyptian. He is believed to be the father of the Arabs, but of course he is not the promised heir. He is going to be the son of Hagar, not the son of Abraham's wife, Sarah, or Sarah at this point in the story here.
So only the son of Abraham's covenantal marriage will be his heir. So this is a very interesting point here. Scripture does not outright condemn the actions of the patriarchs. We're going to see this in a much more detail later on with Jacob, okay?
That's a classic story. But even here with Abraham, he takes this maid to be the surugate, he sleeps with her in order to have a child instead of trusting God. Scripture is going to outright condemn him. You're going to see very subtly, this was a major sin.
It's Abraham's fall is what I'm calling it here in the lecture, Abraham's fall here in chapter 16, 17, and following. That are going to have major consequences in Abraham's personal life and his domestic household, okay? So this is his fall from grace. Now you're going to see immediately a couple of parallels that I have out here in your notes for you.
There are echoes between Abraham's story here and his fall from grace, if you want to call it that, with the fall from grace with Adam and Eve back in the garden. So the first parallel, there are two main parallels that I want to share with you right now. It says here that Abraham in verse two, listen to the voice of his wife. That is a direct echo, almost a verbatim parallel with how Adam listened to the voice of his wife back in chapter three verse seven.
Both men listened to the voice of their wife when they should have been morally upright and clung to God's law, right? Adam should have never taken the fruit. Adam should have protected his bride as we're seeing here. Abraham should have protected his bride in a number of different situations like with Pharaoh and we're going to see later with him like okay?
But still both Abraham listened to the voice of his wife and so did Adam, listened to the voice of his wife. Then the second parallel here, and this is really interesting, Sarah took Hagar and gave her to Abraham just like how Eve took the fruit and gave some to her husband who was with her. Okay? So both take the Hagar or the fruit respectively, even give the fruit or Hagar to her husband.
So this is a very clear, it's subtle, right? You have to read the stories side by side and spend some time reflecting on it and studying it. But it's very clear here how scripture is depicting Abraham in a negative light. He is very similar to Adam as a matter of fact here, okay?
So clearly Abraham can be just in here. This is even the stories aftermath and consequences as well. So there's incredible tension that erupts immediately. We're going to read this in just a second.
Tension in the family, content between Sarah and Hagar. Abraham is going to suffer greatly because of this whole development with the birth of Ishmael to Hagar after the tension that erupts between Sarah and Hagar. Ultimately he's going to have to exile his son and Hagar into the wilderness as we're going to see later on. And this is going to cause incredible pain for Abraham.
In an Ishmael's descendants are the Arabs. And I don't know if you knew this kind of tongue in cheek here, but the Jews and the Arabs don't really get along all that well. Okay, there's a lot of family strife between these two nations and these two peoples. None of that would have happened if Abraham had said, no, honey, God promised me a son through you.
We're just going to wait. God will deliver on his promises here. So this is a big theme, right? Here at Abraham and Sarah, I take matters into their own hands.
They lapse in their faith and they're trying to speed up the process to obtain an heir, a son and heir that God promised, but with their own powers, their own sexual powers, right? This is not good. Like the theme that we've seen all the way back in Genesis 3 was that God will deliver on his promises and his blessings. You don't need to grasp at the blessings in your own way, right?
Take matters into your own hands. This is essentially the temptation that Satan levied against Adam and Eve, right? You can be like God determining good and evil. God already made the minutes and lightness.
Just wait for the blessing. Same thing true here. Don't grasp at this heir, Abraham, with your own sexual powers, wait for God's blessing and he will deliver. That's the theme that's running throughout all of Genesis and really all of the scriptures here, wait for the blessing.
And so immediately we see the tension between these two women, the rest of verse four says, okay, so she conceived and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt and I said to Abraham, I find this hilarious actually. Sarah said to Abraham, may the wrong gun to me be on you. I gave my maid to her embrace and when she saw that she conceived, she looked on me with contempt. I can almost see Abraham right there.
Just throwing up his hands and say, well, hold on a second. This was your idea all along, right? So how is this my fault, right? He doesn't say that.
He kind of checks out a little bit actually. And he says, whatever you want to do, just do it here. And so Hagar has to flee Sarah's oppression and also Abraham's non-involvement. This really is on Abraham as this is going to be clear in the next chapter.
This is Abraham's fault. He was the one who went in and slept with Hagar and now he was checking out saying, honey, do whatever you want to do here. Okay. Now in the wilderness, Hagar is there.
She's pregnant and she's out of spring at a well and God sends an angel to command her to return home to submit to her mistress, Sarah. And the angel says that Ishmael will be blessed as well. And we're talk a lot more about this later on when Ishmael, when he's about 17 years old, is exiled from the family with his mother. We'll talk more about how God really does want to bless all nations.
And so the angel says that Ishmael is going to be blessed. Ishmael will have great descendants because of Abraham, right? This is this is promise number three. All nations, all peoples will be blessed in him and we're seeing it immediately in Ishmael.
Yes, Ishmael is not the heir. He's not the son of the promise. But he will be blessed because of Abraham, just like all the other nations will be blessed through the seed of Abraham later, which is going to, of course, be Jesus Christ. And so Sarah, excuse me, Hagar names the Lord the God of seeing, right?
Because God has seen her plight. This is really interesting here. This is the first time that an angel appears to a human being. This happens a lot more afterwards.
But an angel appears to Hagar here, this person for the first time. And this is the first time also that a person gives God a new name. Hagar says he is the God of seeing. And I really like that because yes, the blessings are going to come through Abram.
But you can see how God is wanting to bless even the Egyptians seeing through Hagar, right? And even the Ishmaelites through Hagar's son. I think that's really, really beautiful. So she returns to Ishmael is born when Abram, Abraham, Abraham, and later is going to be 86 years old.
So 11 years after he arrives, Ishmael, whose name means, by the way, God hears or God listens, he's born. There's actually something really interesting there. Yes, Ishmael means God hears or God listens. But some people have pointed out that Ishmael, the fact that there's the root word in Hebrew, which is to listen, that might refer to how Abram listens to the voice of his wife, which is going to bring out all of his tension and conflict in his family.
Okay, so there's kind of a double entangle going on here. Yes, God hears, God listens, that's true. Ishmael, L is God. But then also kind of echoes how Abram listens to the voice of his wife.
And that's no more no. Okay. All right, so then that brings us to chapter 17. And this is all a flow.
It's not like chapter 16 is just some random story about how Abram, you know, committed his deed and took Hagar to his bed in order to have a son. These actions in chapter 16 are going to directly affect what happens next in chapter 17. So keep that flow in mind. So let's open up chapter 17 verse 1, just when Abram was 99 years old, so immediately, you know, 13 years have passed.
He's 99 years old, and the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty. This is the famous El Shaddai. I am El Shaddai. I am God Almighty, or God of mountains of different interpretations.
I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will multiply you exceedingly versus one and two. So after 13 years of silence here, Abram is 99 years old.
That means, of course, Ishmael is 13 years old. Now God speaks to Abram out of the clear blue, right? But his first words are, walk before me and be blameless. So that's kind of a subtle slap on the hand, maybe not a not so subtle slap on the hand.
Why? Because Abram was not blameless in the previous chapter. He was not walking with God in trust and filial obedience, right? The love of a son to a father.
He was not trusting God. So he needs to walk before God and be blameless, like Enoch and like Noah, he had a lapse of faith. He kind of really fell from grace, so to speak here, in the behavior and these actions in chapter 16. And this is true, of course, of us.
God says to all of us, walk before me, be blameless, be blameless, be holy as God is holy. There's a lot to say there, but this command, walk before me and be blameless, is the God's command for all of us. Okay? So walk before me and be blameless.
I'm going to make a covenant between me and you. Let me just read these next few verses. Then I want to unpack this a little bit more in the next major section of this lecture. So chapter 17, still verse 3, Abram fell in his face and God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.
No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make nations of you and kings will come forth from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you, etc. Okay?
We can stop right there. All right? So this great covenant, yes, the part one, a great nation will be fulfilled, but now I will make your name great. This is part two.
Kings will come forth from you. You will be a great dynasty. This is the covenant that God swears to Abram and throughout the rest of chapter 17. So Abram's name is now changed to Abraham, which means a father of a multitude or a father of many nations here.
And we're going to see farther down here in verse 15. Sarah's name is changed to Sarah, meaning princess or some people have even said queen mother, which makes perfect sense because Abraham is the father of many nations or father of a multitude and kings will come forth from him and Sarah. Well, if kings are coming from them, then it makes sense that she would be the queen mother because that was the custom at the time. There's a lot to say about this when we talk about the story of Solomon and Bathsheba, his queen mother.
We have to talk about that another time. The queen mother makes a lot of sense as the meaning for her name. Now God swears this oath. I'm going to make you a great name.
Kings will come forth from you. You'll be a great dynasty. And I love this because he symbolizes, he preenacts it by literally changing his name. I will make your name great.
King's will come forth from you. And to show you that I mean business, I'm going to change your name. Abraham to Abraham, Sarah to Sarah. He literally changes their name to show that he will make of him a great name.
He just really doubles down on his promises here. And in scripture, name changes are really significant. You see different examples of having your notes, certainly now Abraham and Sarah, Abraham and Sarah. Yes, we're going to see a few a few, a couple lessons down the line here.
Jacob is to Israel. And the New Testament, the famous example is Simon to Peter, a change of name, especially by God, indicates a change in the person's mission and identity and who they are. Simon turns to rock. He's the rock of the church in the New Testament.
Now Abraham here is a father of multiple nations and kings will come forth from him. So this is a great moment here where God elevates that second promise now to the level of an oath. He swears an oath, but it's reciprocal at this point. And there's a sacrifice that's involved.
Blood must be spilt for all the reasons that we talked about before. And the positive element, your positive meaning of the spilt blood is that we're family, we're kinsmen. But the negative aspect is if you ever break the covenant oath, may your blood be spilt. It's kind of a self-malidithary oath as we discussed previously.
So what's the blood that must be spilt in this covenant, right? It's going to be his own flesh. His own blood must be spilt in the right of circumcision. And a lot of people say, why is circumcision?
This seems totally random. Yes, the ancient New Year's term cultures did have circumcision. For example, the Egyptians, this is going to be important later. The Egyptians circumcised their sons at the age of 13 because it was a rite of passage and to manhood of puberty, right?
So like, great, your teeth, son. I mean, now it's time to be a man, right? And it's symbolized by the circumcision of horse camp. So cultures did have this.
But here, God says, you must be circumcised on eight days old, which was not common. So why? Why is circumcision all of a sudden being included here into the story? Because of chapter 16.
It's because of what Abraham did in chapter 16, trying to force God's hand, illicitly taking this other woman to try to produce an heir, a son, by his own sexual powers. So what ends up happening here is that circumcision is a sign. It's a punitive and a penitential sign of his behavior. So every single time, as we're going to see all the pack as a little bit more, but every single time, a little Jewish boy uses the rest of our man for that matter, uses the rest room, or bathes, you see that mark of circumcision and you realize what did Abraham do?
He didn't trust God. He tried to have a son illicitly. So it's punitive, right? It's a punishment but it's also penitential and it teaches Abraham to be patient and to be watchful for God's blessing.
And incidentally down the line, it also teaches the whole people of Israel to wait for the son of the promised Jesus Christ. The true seed that is sent in the son of Abraham that will come many years later in Jesus Christ, they must be patient as well and don't take matters into their own hands. All right, there's a good parallel there. Okay, so let's go on here and I'm happy.
This is a punitive penitential sign. I'm Dr. Nick. Thank you so much for watching this clip.
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God bless you.