Genesis 21

The Birth of Isaac

¹Now Yahweh attended to Sarah as He had said, and Yahweh did for Sarah what He had promised. ²So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised.

• GEN 21:1[MIRACLE]Sarah gives birth to Isaac in her old age
• GEN 21:1[FULFILLS]Sarah specifically (not Hagar) would bear Isaac the next year ← GEN 17:19-21
• GEN 21:1[FULFILLS]Sarah would have a son at this time next year ← GEN 18:10

³And Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore to him. ⁴When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded him. ⁵Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

⁶Then Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears of this will laugh with me.” ⁷She added, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

⁸So the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned.

Sarah Turns against Hagar// Galatians 4:21–30

⁹But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking her son, ¹⁰and she said to Abraham, “Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac!”

• GEN 21:9[NOTABLE]Ishmael, now a teenager, mocks little Isaac, and Paul later calls it persecution in Galatians 4:29. Sarah demands that Hagar and Ishmael leave, and Abraham sends them into the desert with bread and water. Here the family splits in two. Isaac's line becomes the Jewish people, and Ishmael's line is seen as the father of the Arab peoples. Many Bible teachers trace the tension between Israel and her neighbors back to this family break. Today's wars also have modern causes like land, politics and religion, but the family split starts right here.
• GEN 21:10[FORESHADOW]Sending away the slave woman and her son pictures the old covenant giving way to the new → GAL 4:22-31
• GEN 21:10[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → GAL 4:30

¹¹Now this matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son Ishmael. ¹²But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to everything that Sarah tells you, for through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned. ¹³But I will also make a nation of the slave woman’s son, because he is your offspring.”

• GEN 21:12[PROPHECY]Abraham's promised offspring would come through Isaac → ROM 9:7; HEB 11:18
• GEN 21:12[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → ROM 9:7
• GEN 21:12[QUOTED]Quoted in the New Testament → HEB 11:18
• GEN 21:13[NOTABLE]God does not forget Ishmael. He promises to make him a nation too, because he is Abraham's son. That promise comes true in 25:12 to 18, where Ishmael's twelve sons become twelve tribal rulers. God cares about both sides of this family.

¹⁴Early in the morning, Abraham got up, took bread and a skin of water, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her away with the boy. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba. ¹⁵When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes. ¹⁶Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” And as she sat nearby, she lifted up her voice and wept.

• GEN 21:14[NOTABLE]Early the next morning Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael away with only bread and a skin of water, and they wander in the desert near Beersheba. This is the moment the two halves of Abraham's family go their separate ways.

¹⁷Then God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, “What is wrong, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he lies. ¹⁸Get up, lift up the boy, and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” ¹⁹Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

• GEN 21:17[MIRACLE]The angel of God calls to Hagar and opens her eyes to a well

²⁰And God was with the boy, and he grew up and settled in the wilderness and became a great archer. ²¹And while he was dwelling in the Wilderness of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

The Covenant at Beersheba

²²At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do. ²³Now, therefore, swear to me here before God that you will not deal falsely with me or my children or descendants. Show to me and to the country in which you reside the same kindness that I have shown to you.”

²⁴And Abraham replied, “I swear it.”

²⁵But when Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well that Abimelech’s servants had seized, ²⁶Abimelech replied, “I do not know who has done this. You did not tell me, so I have not heard about it until today.”

²⁷So Abraham brought sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant. ²⁸Abraham separated seven ewe lambs from the flock, ²⁹and Abimelech asked him, “Why have you set apart these seven ewe lambs?”

³⁰He replied, “You are to accept the seven ewe lambs from my hand as my witness that I dug this well.” ³¹So that place was called Beersheba, because it was there that the two of them swore an oath. ³²After they had made the covenant at Beersheba, Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army got up and returned to the land of the Philistines.

³³And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called upon the name of Yahweh, the Eternal God. ³⁴And Abraham resided in the land of the Philistines for a long time.