Genesis 16:1

Memory Verse

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne no child for him. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. (Genesis 16:1).

Sarai persuaded her husband to take her handmaiden to bear a child for Sarai, since she was barren (Genesis 16:2). Hagar conceived a son and thereby looked upon Sarai with little esteem (Genesis 16:3). As a result of her handmaiden’s despise, Sarai realizes she has brought violence upon Abram (Genesis 16:4). This type of violence is taking advantage of a situation to do wrong. It is the same violence that filled the whole earth before the Noahic flood (Genesis 6:11). Fearing the consequences, Sarai worried that the violence she had committed would cause the Lord to judge between them. In response, Abram instructed her to do with Hagar as she pleased, for she was her handmaid (Genesis 16:6).

Although Abram is saved, for he believed God when God promised descendants as numerous as the stars of the heavens, and this was counted to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6), Sarai had yet to express faith in God’s promise. Now she has taken matters into her own hands, bringing a situation upon Abram and his descendants that still plagues them today.

In Paul’s letter to the Christians in the Galatia region who were being persuaded not to obey the truth and to go under law, he uses the children born to Sarah and Hagar as an allegory of those who desire to put them under Law, and of those who live out from faith (Genesis 4:24–25). Just as the son of bondage persecuted the free son, so do those who seek to live by law persecute those born according to the Spirit (Galatians 4:29). However, just as with Ishmael, those who are not out from faith are cast out (Genesis 4:30–31).