The Devotional Journey
Bible Reading 14
Yahweh provides the promised son
Read Genesis 21:1–34.
We finally read about the birth of Isaac. Yahweh’s promise of a son for Abraham and Sarah was finally fulfilled! God supernaturally provided a son even though Sarah was long past her childbearing years. There was no mistaking God’s hand in this.
As instructed, they named the son Isaac, which means “he laughs”. Originally, God had told Abraham to give the promised son this name because Abraham had laughed in disbelief when God had announced Isaac’s birth. So his name would be a constant reminder of that faithless moment in their lives.
But now Sarah brings fresh meaning to her son’s name. She says that everyone who sees Isaac will laugh in joy with her for gaining a son in her old age. Even when her faith was weak, it did not impact God’s ability to deliver on His promises!
But not every one was happy. Ishmael, now 16 or 17 years old, mocked Isaac. As a result, Sarah wanted to get rid of Ishmael and Hagar. This caused distress to the whole family. This was another reminder of the consequences of sin and not waiting for God to fulfil His plans according to His way and at His timing. (Recall that having a child through Hagar had been Sarah’s idea.)
But God allowed Sarah to send Hagar and Ishmael away. This was because Ishmael was not part of God’s overall plan to work through the promised son of Abraham. But Abraham was concerned for Ishmael and so God promised Abraham that He would take care of Ishmael. After all, Ishmael was Abraham’s son.
God told Abraham that from Ishmael would also come a nation of people. We again see how gentle and kind God is to care for Hagar and Ishmael even though they were sent away. In fact, Hagar’s life turned out this way due to the poor choices made by Sarah and Abraham years before. But God is sovereign, He is all-powerful. He never loses control of the world. He is able to rescue a situation despite the poor choices of people.
The people living in the land could see that Yahweh was with Abraham and was blessing him. Two of them, Abimelech and his army commander Phicol, both Philistines (another people group) came to see Abraham to talk about making a contract between them. They wanted to make sure that there would be peace between Abraham and them. This contract allowed Abraham to settle in the land in peace. Abraham named the area Beersheba. (This is an example of a person-to-person contract in the Bible.)
In today’s reading, we see that God looked after Abraham, Hagar, Ishmael as well as Abimelech, who was happy to make peace with Abraham.
When God made Abraham promises, He not just fulfilled them, He continued caring for and looking after Abraham and those around him.
God wants us to know what kind of a divine Person He is. Is this a God whom you can trust? What do you think? Tell God how you feel about Him today based on what you have read about His character.