By James Strange Ph.D.
Professor in New Testament, Samford University
Confidence After We Fail – Genesis 16:1–5; 17:1–9
At this point in his long story, Abram has established a pattern of behavior: When he becomes dissatisfied with God’s timing, he tries to solve a problem despite God’s promise. In 15:2–3, Abram chose an heir unrelated to him, perhaps a slave of his household. Before that, having received a promise of protection, to save his own neck Abram allowed Sarai to be taken into the harem of Egypt’s Pharaoh — and profited from the arrangement (12:10–20).
In today’s passage, Sarai takes matters into her own hands, apparently learning little from her husband’s failures and her own suffering. The consequences are nearly calamitous for a woman and her child.
Read all of chapters 16 and 17.
Don’t take matters into your own hands. (1-5)
Surely when Abram said in Egypt, “Say you are my sister, so that … my life may be spared on your account” (12:13), Sarai was as powerless as Hagar is now. The story records no protest from either woman, implying their helplessness.
Despite her exploitation in Egypt and in anticipation of taking Hagar’s children as her own, Sarai “took Hagar … and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife.” For his part, Abram has either forgotten God’s promises or ignores them. When she conceives, having no choice over what happens to her body or to her offspring, Hagar wields one of the few weapons available to her: her mindset. But neither Sarai nor Abram is moved by Hagar’s humiliation. Both enforce the system of masters and enslaved human beings, and both will banish Hagar and Ishmael, not knowing whether mother and child will live or starve (21:8–14).
Do what God expects of you. (17:1-3)
It is now 24 years after Abram’s call, and God’s promises of offspring remain unfulfilled for this 99-year-old. Yet again God promises. The second covenant (see 15:7–21 for the first), marked by circumcision of males, is not with Abram alone but with his descendants.
God seeks a covenant relationship with us. (4-9)
Note that God speaks as if childless Abram already is a father (v. 5), implying the security of the promise.
“Abraham” is a variation of “Abram,” both meaning something like “exalted father,” but the narrator understands Abraham to mean “father of a multitude.” Abraham’s wife also will receive a new name, Sarah (“princess”), itself a variant of Sarai (v. 15). What is important is that new names signify new status, a heightened intimacy with God that often results from struggle (Gen. 32:28; Matt. 16:18). As we shall see, neither new status nor a new name erases the struggle, for within a covenant relationship, familiarity brings human and divine wills more frequently and more closely into contact. Hence, more opportunities exist for people to founder in the gap between submission and rebellion.
This potential is implied when it becomes clear that both parties have a role in this covenant. Abraham, Sarah and their offspring are not passive recipients of divine favor. Rather, they are charged to obey God. This responsibility will be explicit when Moses receives God’s Torah in the wilderness (Ex. 20; Deut. 5) and remains when Christ reveals “a new covenant in my blood” (1 Cor. 11:25).
If we learn anything from our ancestors in the faith, it is that God calls people without regard for their character. For their part, they are to obey God, which they do both well and poorly, and sometimes not at all. In response, God never relents, still evoking His children’s trust and obedience.
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