The truth about God’s people (Gen 21:1-14)

As a teenager attending Bible study, I soon began to wonder if I were a Christian. I grew up in a Christian home, we went to church as a family. What was I missing? Was I really missing anything? At first, I tried to prove to myself that I belonged to God. One time, I was walking home alone late at night, and was worried about my safety. With pounding heart, I was nervously listening for footsteps behind me. Suddenly, I had an overwhelming sense of God’s protection surrounding me. It was a remarkable experience and for a while I wondered if that was the turning point in my life. I also thought that maybe I needed to work harder at becoming a nicer person and that would make the relationship with God real. I heard the gospel often enough, yet I was blind to it in my own life. It was only when I finally acknowledged that I did not know God and I was helpless to make the relationship happen that the Lord in His power gave me new life.

Isaac – life out of death

The truth is that God’s people are always the result of His renewing work, from death to life. Humanity can only produce life out of life, never out of death; only God, the source of Life can do the latter. Thus, Ishmael was a child of human will, while God gave Abraham and Sarah a son when it was humanly impossible and so revealed His power to give life to the dead (cf. Heb 11:12). Our reading is emphatic on this point (note the repetition of a son being born to Abraham and Sarah, as God had promised, in old age, when Abraham was a hundred – Gen 21:1-7).

Ishmael – the threat

Yet, as readers we are almost immediately confronted with the tension of Abraham’s other son. About three years have passed since Isaac’s birth (weaning usually happened around age three; Gen 21:8) and the child has survived the threats that life in the ancient world posed for infants. Beforehand, Ishmael was the only and much-loved son of Abraham, secure as the sole heir to his father. When the family celebrated Isaac’s weaning, Ishmael would have been about 16-17 (Gen 17:21, 25) and Sarah saw him ‘mocking’ (Gen 21:9). The Hebrew verb is an intensive form of ‘to laugh’ used elsewhere consistently with a negative connotation (‘to play’ in the context of idolatry – Exod 32:6, ‘to make sport of’ referring to adultery – Gen 39:14), so it is unlikely to be a neutral term here. Since the root of the word is the same as Isaac’s name, some suggest that the translation should be ‘he was Isaac-ing’, i.e. wanting to take or usurp Isaac’s place.

God’s verdict

Sarah’s jealousy was aroused and she demanded Ishmael’s removal with harsh words (‘drive out’) as she contemptuously left ‘this maid and her son’ unnamed (Gen 21:10). Despite Ishmael’s action, we cannot help sympathise with him and Hagar, as well as feel Abraham’s distress over the impending loss of this beloved son (Gen 21:11). Yet, God affirms that Sarah’s instinct is essentially right: it is through the child born of God’s will and power that the promised people of God will come (Gen 21:12). Had Ishmael stayed, Abraham might have been tempted to smudge the boundary line between his two sons.[1]

Who can be God’s people?

While much in this incident is specific to Abraham and Sarah’s family dynamic and cannot be applied directly to our lives,[2] the principle to take away is that there is a clear boundary between God’s people, born of God’s will (John 1:12-13) and those who are not, which should not be smudged. We cannot save ourselves and gain life by our efforts, nor can we do it for others – it is simply not in us. Neither can we save beloved family members or friends who do not know the Lord or evangelise people into new life by our own effort. If we try (by force, manipulation, or the like), we only end up producing ‘Ishmaels’, sons of the ‘flesh’, our own creations, not God’s. As Jesus says to Nicodemus, without being born of God’s Spirit, one cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3-8). We need to be people who trust God to do the work we cannot – in us and in others.

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[1] To the problem of God’s choice of one and not the other I shall return in another post but note here that separating the half-brothers early also avoided animosity to build up later. Interestingly, there is no further conflict mentioned with Ishmael and the only other time he re-appears in the story is when he and Isaac bury their father, Abraham (Gen 25:9). It seems that the early separation of the two brothers paid off and averted later animosity.

[2] It would be wrong, for instance, to suggest from this incident that believers should separate from unbelieving family members or that Christian parents should disown children who do not confess a Christian faith. Jesus calls us to be salt and light in the world, being in the world but not of it, and God who gives generously to the evil and the good (Matt 5:45) sets an example of loving not only those who are like-minded or lovable but also those who are not.

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