Genesis 21:17 Commentary and Bible Study

God heard the voice of the lad. These are not necessarily Ishmael’s prayers, but cries of grief and despair. Ishmael was Abraham’s boy, and God had promised to bless this son also (Genesis 17:20). We pray for our children, and here are hints that our prayers will be heard even when children have grown up.The angel speaks to Hagar as if she was wrong to have wept as she did. The wrong lay in not calling upon God for help. But she is an unbeliever. She shouldn’t be; she has been in Abraham's household; she has been in the family devotions, but she has not been faithful and she has not believed. She had had ample opportunity to observe Abraham’s prayers and to see how in every circumstance, he turned to God. It is kind and sympathetic, but it is also a reproof. You have been with Abraham long enough to know that God protects those who call upon him and is with them, and that he can be trusted. Why are you in this state and condition? ‘Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand.’ The Hebrew says something like, strengthen your hand, and take him. Not lift him up as a little child, but just lead him by the hand. ‘I will make him a great nation.’ There's the ultimate promise. Abraham had been told that twelve princes would come from Ishmael, and they are listed in Genesis 25:12-19. The promise was sufficient to allow her to face the hardship of life in the wilderness and to give her hope. Where there is true hope based upon the promise of God which cannot fail then there is strength in the heart to face all manner of hardships.