Abraham, Session 4

What causes us to doubt?

Have you ever been promised something over, and over only to be disappointed when it has not happened?

But what happens when someone fulfills all their promises? Do we still doubt them?

In Genesis 15-16, we find Abram doubting God’s promise for a son. Had God ever let Abram down? Had He ever given him a reason to not trust Him?

So why do we find Abram and Sarai doubting God would keep His Word?

Now, let’s turn the questions more personal. Has God ever given US a reason to doubt Him? So, HAVE we ever doubted Him? Why?

Learning Objectives

• Understand God’s sovereignty amidst delay and learn submission to His timing.

• Understand ancient Near Eastern covenant-making and surrogate motherhood.

• Appreciate the vast scope of God’s story of redemption.

Abram’s Doubt

In Genesis 14, last week we saw the faith Abram had in defeating multiple kings. If you remember, he didn’t even spend time in praying, he just acted. Now, in Chapter 15 we go from faithful to again doubting.

Genesis 15 ESV

1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. 7 And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” 17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

Abram had lost his confidence in God. But God continues to remind Abram “I am your shield”. God had just seen him victorious in battle! Abram’s response, however, reveals a surprising amount of insecurity, especially given his recent battlefield success. Indicating his sense of doubt, Abram reminds God that he is still childless. Earlier, Abram had simply accepted God’s promise and acted in good faith (Gen 12:1–9), but here, Abram questioned God’s plan and sought tangible details.

In earlier chapters, God had repeated His promise to Abram several times in different forms. He had originally promised to make Abram a “great nation” and to make his name great (Gen 12:1–3). He had also promised to give the land of Canaan to Abram’s offspring (Gen 12:7). Later, God promised Abram that his offspring would be as numerous as the “dust of the earth” (Gen 13:14–17). However, time had passed, and Abram and Sarai still lacked a child.

To meet Abram’s challenge, God initiated a ritual intended to confirm His covenant promise. He commanded Abram to slaughter five animals—a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a pigeon. Abram did so, dividing the larger animals in half and laying the pieces across from each other. He then drifted off into a “deep sleep” (Gen 15:12), during which God revealed that his descendants would experience captivity and slavery before returning to the land of promise. This prophetic insight was meant to reassure Abram by providing specific details of when God’s promise would be fulfilled. In emphasizing that God had future plans for Abram’s offspring, this vision reassured Abram that God had a long-term plan in place (Gen 15:13–21).

But…God would not allow this to happen before His timing was perfect.

This delay caused Abram to doubt.

He wondered if perhaps his servant, Eliezer, was supposed to be his heir and inherit the land God had promised him. Abram bluntly explained the problem to God: “Look, you have not given me a descendant” (Gen 15:3). God responded not with rebuke—although this would have been justified—but with reassurance. In repeating the promise yet again, God explicitly stated that Abram’s own son would be the heir (Gen 15:4). Abram responded by trusting in God (Gen 15:6), and God led Abram in a ritual confirming the covenant promise (Gen 15:9–20).

Taken Into Own Hands

In Genesis 16, despite God’s confirmation, we find Abram again doubting that God would fulfill His promise. Despite God’s reassurance in Gen 15, Abram’s lingering doubts led him to “listen to the voice of Sarai” (Gen 16:2).

Sarai proposed that Abram take her servant, Hagar, and have children with her (Gen 16:2). Abram agreed, and Hagar conceived (Gen 16:3–4). Hagar’s pregnancy caused strife between her and Sarai, who sent Hagar away (Gen 16:5–6). God intervened, and Hagar returned to give birth to Ishmael (Gen 16:15).

Perhaps Abram felt confident in God’s promise of the covenant land, but not in His promise of an heir.

Genesis 16 ESV

1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. 2 And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 3 So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. 4 And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. 5 And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” 6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. 7 The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” 9 The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” 11 And the angel of the Lord said to her, “Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction. 12 He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.” 13 So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” 14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered. 15 And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

Historical & Cultural Background. Sarai’s suggestion that Abram have children through her servant may seem strange to us. However, this was a common solution to infertility in the ancient Near East. According to an Assyrian marriage document from the 19th century BC, if the bride could not provide her husband with offspring, she had to purchase a slave woman for childbearing. An Akkadian tablet from the 15th century BC lists a similar requirement, adding that the children of the slave woman must be given the inheritance and not be sent away.

Other ancient legal texts include similar stipulations. The Laws of Lipit-Ishtar—a set of Sumerian laws from the 20th century BC—indicate that if a man’s wife has not produced children, but the man has a child by a prostitute, that child should be his heir.3 The Code of Hammurabi, an ancient Babylonian law code, also contains several laws regarding children born by slave women.

The commonality of this practice helps explain why Abram and Sarai turned to Hagar to produce a child. Furthermore, 11 years had passed between the time Abram first received God’s promise and the birth of Ishmael. Abram had already waited more than a decade for God to fulfill His word—and yet, Abram’s time of waiting was still not over. He was 100 years old when Isaac was born, meaning that he had to wait more than two decades before he had a legitimate heir (Gen 21:5). In Genesis 15–16, Abram’s time of waiting on God was not even half over—a key point to remember as we examine these chapters more closely.

While we don’t learn of God’s disapproval of Abram and Sarai’s actions until Gen 17:19, their attempt to influence the outcome of His promise quickly led to unforeseen strife. Hagar’s pregnancy became a source of contempt between her and Sarai. Hagar likely felt proud that she conceived, and Sarai was jealous of her success. Hagar unwisely developed an overconfident attitude toward Sarai. While the plan was Sarai’s idea, Sarai blamed Abram for the outcome. After Abram gave Sarai free rein to discipline Hagar, Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she ran away.

In the wilderness, an angel appeared to Hagar and convinced her to return to Sarai and Abram. The angel instructed her to name her son Ishmael (meaning “God hears”) and promised that he, too, would become a great nation. The angel’s command in Gen 16:9 implied that Hagar could expect divine blessing and assistance, but only if she maintained her connection to Abram. This reaffirmed God’s promise that all families of the earth would be blessed through Abram (Gen 12:3).

The angel also revealed that Ishmael’s life would be characterized by conflict and hostility, not peaceful blessing (Gen 16:12). In this way, the angel indicated that Ishmael was not the promised son, and his descendants would not inherit the land—this would be reserved for another son. Hagar accepted this and prayed to God before returning to Sarai. She called Him the “God of seeing,” or “El-Roi” (Gen 16:13), unwittingly affirming what Sarai and Abram had overlooked: God oversees and directs everything, and those who follow Him never have any reason to doubt His plan.

Abram and Sarai pursued an alternative means of obtaining the son of promise (see Gen 16:2). Another early church figure, Ambrose of Milan, recognized in this episode God’s protection of Abram’s descendants—the source for the ultimate Son of promise, Jesus Christ. Abram and Sarai intervened in God’s plan and, from the human perspective, messed things up. Ambrose asserted that despite this, God intervened to ensure the legitimacy of the Messiah’s heritage—that He would be a son of Abram by Sarai:

Summary

But in Isaac, the legitimate son, we can see the one who is the true legitimate Son, the Lord Jesus, of whom at the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew we read that he is the son of Abraham. (Ambrose, On Abraham 1.3.20). Despite Abram and Sarai’s impatience, God displayed His grace and sovereignty by providing them with reassurance and protection.

Grigoni, M. R., Custis, M., Mangum, D., & Whitehead, M. M. (2012). Abraham: Following God’s Promise (Ge 15:1–16:15). Lexham Press.