Genesis 21:10-21

Let us move forward to Genesis the 21st chapter because we get another appearance of the Angel of the Lord. This scene takes place about 15 years later, after Genesis 16. And it is a kind of follow up to that appearance or you could call it if you want, Part Two of the Angel of the Lord's appearance in chapter 16. We find that the conflict between these two women has not abated. Let us look at that.

I will just let you know that this word could also be translated laughing. And probably what we have is a good indication that what [Ishmael and] Hagar were doing was she [he] was making fun of Isaac, whose name was laughter. Right?

Like I said, this is about 15 years later and we see how things have progressed from chapter 16, and there is still that conflict between Sarah and Hagar and Sarah finally gets her wish to have Hagar and Ishmael sent away. Her demand in chapter 16 was jumping the gun by 15 years on what God wanted to do. So when she asked at this point, God told Abraham, let her go. My plans have come to fruition up to this point and Ishmael has been born in Abraham's house and he has learned enough of the way of God and come to honor Abraham enough. And this is a big point that the Arabs, his descendants, bring up all the time. We too are children of Abraham. And so this is necessary for the conflict that is to last from that point about 4,000 years. God wanted this to happen. It is part of His plan, part of what He is working out.

Now, here the Angel of the Lord is called the angel of God, but verse 18 very clearly clarifies that it is Yahweh. He uses here the first person pronoun, "I will make him a great nation." So God is taking great care here to make sure that Ishmael survives to fulfill the prophecies that He had made to both Abraham and Hagar about Ishmael, because here in this chapter He tells Abraham that he is an important part of the plan. He is going to make of him a great nation.

It is interesting, both stories in chapters 16 and 21 contain wells: Beer Lahai Roi and this one, the spring that she found when God opened her eyes. And wells are symbolic of life; they contain water. Water is necessary for life. And so we see here that God provides life to Ishmael and He provided life to Ishmael because He had a prophecy to fulfill, and not only the prophecy but His great plan. So he kept him alive and his mother alive and then he was able to fulfill the prophecies.

We get a sense here if we are reading these various chapters in parallel, that the Angel of the Lord—God—is dealing with these two descendants in a very similar way, in a parallel way. And in both, because I am treating Genesis 16 and Genesis 21 as one unit here, Abraham obeys God's instruction concerning the lads. If you want to look at that back in chapter 21, verses 12 to 14 and here in chapter 22 in the first nine verses, you see Abraham doing exactly what God told him to do. He hears the voice out of heaven telling him to do this for Ishmael or send Hagar away and he gives her provisions and sends her away. And in the other here in 22, he leaves to go to Mount Moriah, packs up his stuff, takes Isaac along, and does exactly what God said to do.

Both instances were tests of Abraham, I believe, to see if he would obey when he heard what God told him to do. They were tests of his obedience and his submission to God. And both, as I have been kind of mentioning here, were audible tests. They were not the Angel of the Lord appearing and saying, "Abraham, do this." No, it was just a voice in his head or however it happened, saying, "Abraham, I want you to do this for Ishmael and Hagar," or do this, take Isaac, etc. We could call these tests of hearing. Does not Paul say in Romans 10:17 that "faith comes by hearing"? And so he acted in faith once he heard the voice of God.

Now, just as in summary (I am not going to go to all of these things), I want to give you an indication of all the sorts of interesting parallels and … . . .