The Story Through the Bible Gen 16
The Story through the Bible • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Names:
Names:
Sarai: My Princess and Sarah is Princess this change is attributed to being just for her family to being for all
Abram: ab -Father raam -Exalted = exalted father
Hagar means The Immigrant. Heh is just the definite article THE and Gar is a foreigner in a land not their own, often one that doesn’t even speak the native language. It’s the Sojourner of Ex 23:9
“You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
There is definitely a pretext in the backwards way it looks at her in relationship to the metaphorical Israel especially since she is a slave from Egypt.
Let’s remember where we are again, Abram has defeated kings, rejected worldly wealth through taking their things instead relying on God. God in turn makes a formal covenant with Abram that God will make him into many nations and give him a large portion of land. Abram has no children for this to be possible and the formal covenant was a sign, a proof that God did plan for him to have a child that would become many nations. That’s where we pick up in Genesis 16.
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. 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. 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. And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. 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!” 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.
Does this whole exchange remind anyone else of another of our stories so far?
How about verse 3 sounding like the ending line of chapter 3 vs 6...
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Hagar is desperate and has to flee… She must’ve felt that her life and that of her unborn child was threatened for such a drastic measure.
The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 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.” The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” 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.
OH, we didn’t do Ishmael… what’s his name mean? SHeMA Listen like the SHEMA
because the Lord has listened to your affliction.
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.”
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.” Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered.
The name of the well is Well of the Living one Who sees
And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.
It seems she did go back, and submit, and told the story because Abram names the son Ishmael.
We haven’t gotten to the Joseph story, but many of us know it.
Who sells Joseph into Egyptian slavery? Trick question a little sorry about that…
Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master.
So some of this story is an Egyptian slave taken from her home who submits to God’s will for which she is blessed, is the Mother of Ishmaelites who later sell the descendant of Abraham to Egypt who then submits to the will of God and is blessed and so is his whole family. There’s just a prophetic pattern that wraps up there nicely. The law later talks about how to treat immigrants/foreigners and they should not be treated in a way that would cause them to flee in fear of their life. Abram tries to make the will of God happen in the way he thinks but that backfires with some bitterness in their lives… it doesn’t break God’s plan though. Likewise Joseph’s brothers What do they do? try to eliminate Joseph so they won’t compete for the blessings of their father it brings bitterness in their life but God’s plan is not thwarted.
NOW… 13 years later…
When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on 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 called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.
Abraham: Like Sarai to Sarah just put in a heh - the letter that represents breath or spirit. It’s like a textual pun about putting the spirit in them. I have no idea if that’s how they viewed it back then but it certainly looks that way from here. We don’t have a clear definition for Abraham because there are no Hebrew words that line up. So we take from the text his name now means Father of a multitude of nations.
I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
Here we’re just re-stating something that’s been stated, attested and codified before.
And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.
There is a sign to signify the covenant that God made with Abraham. Every male if they’re a newborn it’s done on the eighth day. - with time fact about newborns eighth day and vitamin K
And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!” God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him.
Here we also find another name Isaac which just means He Laughs.
The promise from Gen 3 is going to continue on through this Isaac and the son of promise.
