From This Heart of Mine ... : June 2025

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Hagar ... broken & alone ... or was she?... Lesson 5

Genesis 12: 4-20; 16:1-15; 21:8-21 (NKJV)

Welcome back to our study on Hagar! Last week we watched Hagar have her first encounter with the Lord. He told her what He wanted her to do, did she obey? That’s what we’re going to find out in today’s lesson.

Let’s pick up with Genesis 16:15 …

15 So Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

Hagar obeyed God and returned to her mistress. She bore Abram his first-born son and named him Ishmael, just as the ‘the Angel of the LORD’ had commanded.

Even returning under the strength of the LORD along with her encounter with the LORD, how hard do you think this would have been for Hagar?

Did the tensions between Sarai and Hagar that had been there before return? I think it’s likely, after all nothing had changed except Hagar’s relationship with God. Sarai had to live with the reminder every day that Ishmael was her husband’s son by another woman, a woman that she had once felt somewhat close to, but now despised, and as we’ll soon see, Hagar wasn’t completely innocent either!

Fast forward some 13—14 years, Abram is 100 years old, and Sarai is 90. God has changed Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sarah (Genesis 17:5, 17).

Abraham, concerned about Ishmael’s future, says to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before you!’ (Genesis 17:18). Is Abraham making a plea to God that Ishmael be the ‘promised child’ or is Abraham, out of love for his son, requesting God to bless him also? We don’t know, but what we do know is that God tells Abraham that Sarah would bear the promised son. (Up until this time, it hasn’t been specifically stated in scripture that God had said the son of promise would be born of Sarah. Could that have been the reason Abraham went along with Sarah’s plan to involve Hagar in helping God keep His promise?) God even goes so far as to tell Abraham the name he was to give to the promised child he and Sarah would have. (Genesis 17:19)

Let’s move over to Genesis 21 and continue our study there …

The events in this chapter take place some 25 years after Abraham and Sarah’s sojourn in Egypt. They were now living in the area of Gerar or maybe Beersheba.

Verse 8: So the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was weaned.

The child referred to here is Issac, who was possibly around 3 years old, the time when children were weaned at this time in history. His weaning signified his ability to eat solid food and his transition from infancy to a young child. The feast Abraham gave was a celebration of this milestone in Isaac’s life.

Verse 9: And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, scoffing.

According to the Greek Lexicon, the word scoffing means: to laugh, to mock, to play, to jest, to laugh outright, to sport, to ridicule, to scorn. Wonder where Ishmael learned that? Could it have come from observing the way his mother and Sarah interacted with each other.

If we are calculating everyone’s ages correctly, this would have put Ishmael around the age of 17. Seventeen-year-old Ishmael was making fun of 3-year-old Isaac! Ishmael should have known better!

All the years of watching Abraham interacting with Ishmael and seeing their relationship grow deeper and deeper, likely came to the surface when Ishmael scoffed at Issac. That was probably the last straw! The mama bear in Sarah came out in full force ...

Verse 10: Therefore, she said to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac.”

According to the laws and customs of that time, Sarah had the right to do and make this decision.

Oh boy! Here we go again only this time, it seems that Hagar and her son are being cast out by Sarah’s choice. Is Hagar going to leave Abraham and Sarah’s home for the second time? Is Abraham going to let this happen, I mean Ishmael is not a babe in Hagar’s womb anymore? Abraham has had several years to grow to love his son, is it going to make a difference?

Meet me back here next Thursday and we’ll see how this scene plays out.

patsy @ From This Heart of Mine

~ a place for women to gather and study God's Word ~

Sources used for this study:

Various translations of the Holy Bible

Various commentaries

Several trusted and biblically sound online sources

Dictionary of New Testament Background, Editors: Craig A Evans & Stanley E. Porter

Archaeological Study Bible

All the Women of the Bible by Edith Deen

Daughters of Eve by Lottie Beth Hobbs

Halley’s Bible Handbook by H. H. Halley

Thursday, June 5, 2025

Hagar ... broken & alone ... or was she? Lesson 4

Genesis 12: 4-20; 16:1-15; 21:8-21 (NKJV)

Welcome back to our study on Hagar! Last week we could almost feel the tension that not only existed but seemed to grow and escalate between Hagar, Abram and Sarai! Whew … it was thick and palatable to say the least so much so that Hagar decided to flee!

Let’s see what happens next …

Genesis 16

Verse 7: Now the angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur.

Hagar, likely on her way back to Egypt, stops by a spring of water in the wilderness. (This was evidently a well-known watering place on the route to Egypt.)

While there, the angel of the LORD appears to her. This angel of the LORD was none other than Jesus pre-incarnate.

Verse 8: He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?” And she said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.”

Look at Hagar’s answer: “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress!” She acknowledges that she is Sarai’s handmaid. The fact that she was with child nor the fact that she had run away changed her position … she was still Sarai’s handmaid. Her responsibility to Sarai had not changed!

Hagar could flee from Sarai, but not from the presence of God. She was engaged in an illegal flight which could have been punished severely, even with death. In addition, there would be terrible dangers and hardships on the journey that lay ahead of her if she persisted.

Look at what the LORD told her to do …

Verse 9: Then the angel of the LORD said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.”

Return and submit! She was to return to Sarai, her position; submit to Sarai’s authority and fulfill her responsibilities.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, Sarai had done wrong but so had Hagar by running away!

One has to wonder what thoughts ran through Hagar’s mind as she heard the LORD’s words and contemplated going back.

Did pride and defiance rear its ugly head in Hagar’s heart? Could she have thought something along the lines of ‘I will not, I’d rather die!’ Could she have blamed it all on Sarai and maybe even Abram? Did she feel betrayed by Abram? Why didn’t he stand up for her and their unborn child? Or was she simply dumbstruck by the encounter with the LORD?

I’m sure many such thoughts swirled through her mind as she contemplated what the LORD was saying to her … and He wasn’t finished yet!

Verse 10: Moreover, the angel of the LORD said to her, “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.”

This was the same promise God had made earlier to Abram in Genesis 15:5 and Genesis 22:17.

It would be easy to assume that the promise God made to Abram and the one He made to Hagar were meant for the same child, their child, but we know from Genesis 17: 15-22 that it was Abram’s and Sarai’s child that was the promised child, not Abram’s and Hagar’s.

Verses 11 and 12: And the Angel of the Lord said to her: “Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, Because the Lord has heard your affliction. 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.”

In other words, Ishmael would ‘live in hostility’ among his family and with everyone around him.

Doesn’t that still play out through Ishamel and Isaac’s descendants today? Look at the conflict in the Middle East, this is where it all started!

Look at what else God tells Hagar about her unborn child …

Her unborn child was a boy …

She was to name him Ishmael …

His nature would be that of a wild, hostile man …

He would be aggressive and hostile toward others.

Verses 13 and 14: Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?” 14 Therefore the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; observe, it is between Kadesh and Bered.

It’s here that Hagar has her own personal encounter with ‘the God Who sees.’ No longer is she observing and hearing about Him via Abram and Sarai, here she learns first-hand that God cares about her … a poor, broken, pregnant and alone Egyptian slave.

Hagar has met the Lord and while her circumstances haven’t really changed in a physical way, her spiritual circumstance has changed in every way! While Hagar didn’t have God’s written word, we do and so the question begs to be asked, ‘Does meeting God in His word change our lives and circumstances?’

Does Hagar obey God’s command to return to Sarai and submit to her? If she does, do you think things will be better for her? We’ll find out next week when we meet back here on Thursday for another lesson in the life of Hagar.