Genesis 21:8 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Genesis 21:8

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Isaac is now weaned so he is at least three years old. Abraham makes a feast to celebrate the life of their child and it should be an occasion of great rejoicing. But Sarah saw something which deeply disturbed her, not necessarily on that day, but possibly. She saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, the son which she had borne to Abraham, mocking. Some modern versions say ‘laughing’, as though here is this three-year-old child, and he is supposed to be the heir, and his name is laugh. ‘Well, laugh’, Ishmael says, and he laughs at him; he just jeers in perhaps not a very nice way, but nevertheless in a harmless way. But that is not the right way to interpret it. There is a very negative sense here and it is how the Hebrew word is translated in some other places. There is significance to this mockery which Sarah immediately notices with consternation, and this is not her oversensitive reaction, for it is confirmed by the Lord. This is the unbelief of a 17-year-old boy reflecting the unbelief of Hagar his mother. The pair of them are in this. It is possibly his pride too. He is the heir, he thinks. ‘Is this child going to usurp me? It is bad enough that he came alongside me.’ He did not believe the fact that Isaac was the heir whom God had promised, and he had contempt for Isaac. ‘Why,’ – and in ancient times, this could be a cause of contempt and even today in some societies – ‘he has an aged mother’, and he expressed his contempt and his hatred and his resentment. Perhaps there was physical abuse in this also, and it possibly went on for some time; the tense is continuous. ‘Wherefore she said unto Abraham’ – let me express it slightly differently – ‘it is time, my husband, to put out this bondwoman and her son for the son of this bond woman shall not be heir with my son.’ This is not a jealous mother; this is what God had said. ‘This Hagar: it is getting worse and worse by the day, by the week. She and her loutish son are quite convinced that there is no such thing as Isaac, as the heir and the family of promise, the seed royal and a great nation in the plan of God. We have got unbelievers under the roof of our house; it is getting worse. It is time for them to go. We cannot bring up Isaac in this atmosphere, and it is not safe for him.’

Application

This Ishmael will not be the heir of the land promised to Abraham, nor to the spiritual blessing which the land represents. He is to be cast out. Paul takes up these events in Galatians 4:29-30 and calls Ishmael’s treatment of Isaac persecution, and makes it a typical act which represent the persecution of the children of promise by the children of the world in all ages. It was therefore right, according to the apostle, that Ishmael should be driven out, in order to teach that the promise is given only to those who are truly in the covenant of grace. Paul tells us that some of these things are to be seen not only as literal history, but as an allegory, and a very interesting one, indicating difference between unbelieving Jews and converted Christians.

When the child is born, there's a great feast of thanksgiving at weaning time. There are no baby showers in the Bible, or the kind of things that happen today, carnal style celebrations. But there is real thanksgiving to God in which everybody is brought together. Once the child has got over the dangerous years, once the infant is settled on life's journey, then you give God the glory.

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Genesis 21:8 Commentary and Bible Study