Sunday Night, December 2, 2018 PM

The Story Structure of Genesis 20–21

Let's go to Genesis, and we are in Genesis chapter 21 to understand a little bit about where we're at in the story. We've come to a critical point, is a sample of the storytelling we have in the Old Testament.

There's a very, sometimes, not always, but sometimes when there's a very important moment in the story, there are offset parallel stories on either side of it to emphasize it. If we really want to emphasize something, probably just state it out loud, this is what is important, and then explain why.

Or if we're telling a story, depending on what kind of story we tell, if we're telling the story of the resolution of a great conflict, we'll start with that, and then show how it all comes out in the end.

Or if we're telling a mystery story, and you've read mysteries, there's always the moment at the end where the detective unravels the whole shebang at the very end. But in ancient Near Eastern writing, and the way that they told stories, they tended to put the most important part of the story right smack dab in the middle.

And then layer it with parallel parts of the story. And there was a symmetry to that that would catch your attention. So here's a small portion of the example that we're in the middle of, and we're going to be reading in Genesis 21, but when we start reading in Genesis 21, we've just finished with the story of Abimelech, and how Sarah, he took Sarah because Abraham said, this is my sister, and he took her for one of his wives.

But God protected her and kept Abimelech from her. And everything was resolved, and at the very end we are told, at the end of chapter 20, that God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maids, and they bore children, for the Lord had closed fast all the wounds of the household of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's.

Wife.

And of course, as a reminder to those who are listening to the story, Sarah too is barren. She needs healing as well, in fact, very next verse, very next chapter, that's exactly what happens, that God heals Sarah supernaturally, and he keeps his promise to her, and he opens Sarah's womb.

So first of all, we have Abimelech and Abraham's wife happen there. The next part of the story is God opens Sarah's womb, and then the next part of the story is what happens in the rivalry between Sarah and Hagar, and things come to a critical moment at which Hagar and Ishmael are sent away, and only Sarah and Isaac remain with Abraham.

And this clarifies that Isaac is the chosen one, he is the seed, not Ishmael, and that conflict is the center of all the parallel parts of the story. So after God opens Sarah's womb, there's a miracle for her, which gives life to her womb, and gives life to her son Isaac.

The parallel story we read just after is when Hagar is wandering around with Ishmael in the wilderness of Beersheba, she runs out of water, and she's thirsty, and they're about.

To die.

She leaves Ishmael underneath a little scrub bush, and she doesn't want to watch him die of thirst, and God does a miracle for Hagar, he opens her eyes to find a well, so that both of them can have water, so both of them can live.

So God gave life to Sarah and her son, God gave life to Hagar and her son, he opened her womb, he opened her eyes. Parallel story. And the next thing we hear about is Abimelech and Abraham's well. Now we have another story about Abimelech, come back up, and now Abimelech has not taken Abraham's wife, he's taken his well, and once again, knows nothing about it, how it all came about.

And I notice this pattern, but then I begin to think about it more, I don't have room.

On the whiteboard.

But just prior to Genesis 20 is a really awful story, the end of the story of Lot after he's escaped from Sodom, and he and his daughters up on a mountain, and the story of how he ended up with his progeny up on a mountain with his daughters.

And the chapter right after this one, after 21 is 22, and it's Abraham up on a mountain with his progeny, right? Parallel stories. There's Lot up on a mountain and how he got his progeny, there's Abraham up on a mountain and how he was willing to give up his, the question was, how was Lot ever going to have any progeny?

Well, in a sinful way, he ended up with these children. But with Abraham, the test was, will he trust in God, what if he lays Isaac on the altar, what if Isaac dies? Well, Abraham believed God, that even if he killed Isaac, God would bring him back to life.

So it's Abraham up on a mountain with his progeny. The story before Lot up on a mountain with his daughters is the story of how he dealt with the people in his area, his relations with the people around him, Sodom and Gomorrah.

He was totally caught up with the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah. And because of that, the judgment came and his wife died, Lot's wife died. The story after Abraham up on a mountain with his progeny is a story of when Abraham's wife died, and he has direct dealings with the people of the land, and how different his dealings were with the people of the land versus what Lot did.

So there's a very large structure here in what has been preserved for us in the stories. Not every, we're not told everything, not every single story, not every single event that happened that Abraham was written down, but these were written for our instruction.

These were written to stir up our faith. And there are so many parallel stories that all come down to the crux, to the core, of this section of Genesis, and it's simply this, it's Isaac, not Ishmael. That's a very important truth, very important truth for, as we travel through the tracing of the seed that was promised in Genesis 3 .15, very important truth for the Israelites whom Moses was leading about how they were specially chosen by God.

They came through Abraham, they came through Isaac, and so on, and then Isaac's son, Jacob. So that's the big picture, that's kind of the big structure of where we're at. We're coming up on a very critical passage, a very highlighted passage, if there was any way to put the letters in bold and underline it and everything else, and point the arrow, this is the core of the whole section, so I think it's helpful for us to know.

The Birth of Isaac and God Keeping His Promise

Okay, I'm going to start reading in Genesis 21, beginning in verse 1. Then the Lord took note of Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him.

Abraham called the name of the son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. Then Abraham circumcised the son of Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Now Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

Sarah said, God has made laughter for me, everyone who hears will laugh with me. And she said, Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children, that I have borne him a son in his old age?

So we see this emphasis at the beginning of chapter 21 of the Lord doing exactly what.

He said.

Do you see that?

Just as he said, just as he promised, just as God had spoken, so he did. What an important lesson after all of this mess from Genesis 12 to Genesis 20, of all the ups and downs of Abraham and Sarah's life, all the things that they had tried, all the things that they had done, all the places that they had been, and finally, the thing that God had begun talking about 25 years earlier, he brings to pass.

And when it seemed to be absolutely impossible, when it was assured that it was impossible. I think the other day, I think Becca told me about a woman who was 54 years old and she had triplets. Yeah, she said triplets, so, you know, and that's with all our modern science and everything.

Else.

A woman having a child when she is 90, this is definitely a miracle. God has done this in such a way that it cannot be understood as anything other than a miracle. And notice it was according to the point in time that God had spoken.

See, God promised to do it, he not only said he would do it, and it wasn't when he could get around to it, it wasn't when the events could possibly be fortuitous enough for him to pull it off, it was at the time he said it would be.

So he's in complete control here, he accomplished it for his glory and for their good. And Abraham called the name of the son who was born to him, Sarah bore to him, you hear the emphasis, Sarah's son, Isaac, of course, that's what God told him to name him, in chapter.

17.

And it was because Abraham laughed when he heard that he was not Ishmael, he was going to be through Sarah, he laughed. Sarah herself laughed the first time she heard of it, from the angel outside the tent, she laughed as well.

And so they give him the name Isaac, which means laughter, it's a name that testifies to the surprise, the shock, the turnabout of unbelief to joy, the laughter of unbelief became the laughter of joy, it testifies to the goodness of God, the miraculous power of God.

And notice that after we see that God did as he said, as he promised, as he had spoken, then we see that Abraham obeys. He circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.

Again, something else that God had spoken, but now Abraham's doing exactly as God has said for him to do. Abraham is involved with and in line with the spoken will of God, the plan that God.

Is bringing about.

Another emphasis on the miracle, Abraham was 100 years old when the son Isaac was born.

To him.

Sarah said, God has made laughter for me, everyone who hears will laugh with me. If you've ever had a testimony, if you believe what God did, and you want to share it, and of course she was given a son, a living testimony of the goodness of God, and she said, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children that I have born him a son in his old age?

You can just hear the joy, you can just sense the holy giddiness of this couple, especially with Sarah, as she has borne a son at long last when she was 90 years old. Now, when we hear this, they need to hear it in this way, and in fact we see that he's been doing this unlikely.

They need to hear that because they are very unlikely. They are reminded by Moses, God did not set his love on you or choose you because you were more in number than any of the other people, but you were the fewest of all the.

People.

You were the least of the nations that he could have possibly set his love on and chosen. But God delights in doing the impossible through the unlikely. And often the time frame, will of course not be our time frame, and we see that in the end, that when God does what he said he would do, he does it in the time that he has chosen, the testimony for his fame and his glory is at its maximal impact.

What a story. What a story that Abraham and Sarah have to share. What a perfect name for this child who would be living testimony of God's power. In verse 8 we read, the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.

So the setting is this feast for and honor of Isaac. It's a very special day in the life of the family. And the complications that Abraham and Sarah have brought into their life are about to bear grave consequences.

Isaac and Ishmael: Grace Versus Human Effort

Because Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had born to Abraham, mocking. That's a convoluted sentence, but it's getting all the back drama up to speed. The son of Hagar, the Egyptian, the person that they picked up in Egypt, the son that she had born to Abraham, he was mocking Isaac.

He was mocking, he was play-acting, he was being disrespectful. You can imagine how he may feel. After all, he's the firstborn, in his understanding, in his mother's understanding, he's the firstborn.

And they're having this big celebration for this secondborn child. So he's mocking. Verse 10, therefore she said to Abraham, drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac.

This is the critical point. It's a critical point. It's not the son that was born to Abraham through the scheming of Abraham and Sarah. It was not the son that they tried to produce because they were being impatient with God's timing.

It wasn't the son of human effort that was going to be the heir. It was going to be the son of divine gifting. Paul makes a lot out of this in Galatians. And he points out that even as the son that was of human effort was driven away and said, no, he will not be the heir with son Isaac.

There will be no mixture of the two together. Only the son that was of the divine power of God, of the pure grace of God. This is the only son who is going to remain with us. Even so, Paul says, we have to drive out the so-called gospel of works.

That which is of human effort. This gospel cannot abide with the gospel of grace alone. And he uses this very strong analogy to upbraid the Galatians for tolerating a gospel of works, allowing that to foment in their churches.

This is driven out. There is no peace between the two. Well, what does Abraham feel about that? Verse 11, the matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son. Anybody else have a different translation of verse 11 besides distress?

Grievous? Such a polite word. Abraham was not polite. He lost his temper is what it means. It's very strong in the Hebrew. He lost his temper. He got mad. He got angry. Couldn't abide this to be so. As you may imagine.

But this is the way.

This is the inevitable consequence of Abraham and Sarah deciding that they would have a child.

Through Hagar.

Bad idea. This is the inevitable consequence, the inevitable conflict between the two. You can't have both. It's either going to be one or the other. And the conflict between doing things our way and doing things God's way was forged, what happened in the garden.

God promised there would be conflict between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. He promised there would be conflict. It's no great surprise that Ishmael is mocking Isaac. It's no great surprise.

There is a conflict. There is a fight. There is a grave and irreconcilable contrast between those. And so Ishmael is to be cast out. But God said to Abraham, do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid.

Whatever for through Isaac your descendants shall be named. God says this is going to be a split. For there to be a divorce between these two sides. Hagar and Ishmael must leave. So that there's no confusion.

So that there's clarity about Isaac. Through Isaac your descendants shall be named. So critical verse in verse 10, critical verse in verse 12. And again, this is of utmost interest for the original audience, the nation of Israel.

As they're listening to their own origin story. How was it that we came about? How was it that we were set apart as a distinct and peculiar nation of God's own people? How did that happen? And I think that it's well that Paul reflects so deeply on this passage in Galatians.

As he talks about the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he clarifies that the promises were to Abraham and to his seed. It makes much of the fact that the word is in the singular. Particular word, it's in the singular.

It wasn't to seeds, but to seed he says. And that even as God was so particular to highlight Isaac and cast out Ishmael. So it is that God was very particular to showcase his son Jesus Christ. And to cast out any other kind of gospel.

When Jesus came, one of the reasons why he caused so much controversy among the religious elite of Israel. Was because he came to claim what was his own. And the stewards would not bear to have the son tell them what to do.

And he came and said all of this is mine. You're treating it like it's yours. You're just the stewards. You're just the renters. You're just the tenants. And you're supposed to be giving the glory to God.

You were only here temporarily. And he came and cast them out into the street. This is all my father's. This is mine. And then he opened it up to anybody to come into this kingdom. Including the people he had tossed out.

Which made them pretty angry. They would be set on par with everybody else. And they would not abide that message. But here we see that there is this casting out of Ishmael and Hagar. And God says it's necessary.

And he comforts Abraham. And of the son of the maid, I will make a nation also. Because he is your descendant. God always does what he promises. And he said back in Genesis 12 and 13 and 15 and 17. That Abram was Abraham, the father of multitudes of nations.

And that kings would come from him. And that his descendants would be as numerous as the sands of the seashore. As numerous as the stars in the heavens. And the ultimate fulfillment of that is in the innumerable multitude of the redeemed.

Who wrote their father Abraham. And yet also God sought to give the fulfillment in a physical sense. In the ethnic descendants of Abraham. And so he would bless Ishmael with many descendants. Who still live in this world today.

In great numbers. And this is all part of God's plan as well. To bring glory and to magnify his name. Verse 14. Both of those things are very difficult for Abraham. But this is one of the reasons why we see him as an example of a man of faith.

Who believed God and he had these instructions. He followed through with what God told him to do. So this is the critical moment where there is distinction. Between Ishmael and Isaac. And then we come to the other side of it.

Where God does a miracle for Hagar and Ishmael. Opening her eyes in her time of need. So let's begin reading verse 15. When the water in the skin was used up she left the boy under one of the bushes. And she went and sat down opposite him about a bow shot away.

Before she said do not let me see the boy die. And she sat opposite him and lifted up her voice and wept. A few things here. One, how opposite is her situation than Sarah's? In Sarah's story we hear that her mouth is full of laughter.

That she is full of joy because of her son. And here in the parallel story the contrast is so deep. As Hagar is filled with sorrow and she is weeping for her son. And we see that she goes a bow shot away.

This is a bit of a pointed head to the fact that Ishmael becomes an archer. But she goes a bow shot away and she resides there. And she is weeping. Now it's interesting I think that we have this story at all.

Isn't it? I mean Abraham wasn't there. None of his servants were there. It's just Hagar and Ishmael. And the details of the story are so poignant. How did we have this story? Obviously God reveals these details through the Holy Spirit to Moses as he writes them down.

We also remember that when Abraham dies is the next time that Isaac and Ishmael see one another. I imagine that the story was told then. And Ishmael remembers the details. And these are his words about the bow shot away.

As he describes the story that his mother told him. And this is kept as part of the story of God's providence in the descendants of Isaac. How it was what happened to Ishmael after he left. So I think that's where we're getting these details from.

Now the other part of this, you see that she does not want to see the boy die. So she is hiding her face because she can't bear the thought of watching him die. This is one of the most pitiful scenes in all of scripture.

And notice in verse 17, God heard the lad crying. God heard the lad crying. She was weeping. But he was crying out too. We see the mercy and the compassion of God. And the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven.

And said to her, what is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not fear. For God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. The first time Hagar encounters God, the angel of the Lord. She is confronted with a God who sees.

And here is the God who hears. What grace to be shown who God is. The God who sees and the God who hears. And this too I think is preparatory for us in our understanding of God incarnate of Christ. A God who sees and a God who hears.

A God who is compassionate. A God who comes to those who are in grave need. And he says, do not fear. For God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift the lad, and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him.

And God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the lad a drink. God was with the lad and he grew and he lived in the wilderness and became an archer.

He lived in the wilderness of Paran and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. So this well, for whatever reason she could not see the well.

She could not see the well.

She did not know where it was. She could not find it. She must have had some idea that there was water in the area. You do not just strike out in some random direction. She was heading south. She was heading back to Egypt where she was from.

There were well-known travel areas. This is wilderness, but there were areas you knew where to walk, where to travel. And there would be wells or oases that people knew about. But just her and her son, obviously, they must have gotten off course.

She was just not able to find the place where she was supposed to get the next drop of water. You could not carry that much water with you because of the weight issue. So she knew there was a well somewhere.

She could not find it, though. She did not know where it was. And God revealed the well to her so that she and her son did not die, but they were able to get what they needed and survive. So it is a miracle of God.

Abraham, Abimelech, and the Well at Beersheba

He opens her eyes and gives water to her and her son and gives them life. Then we come to the last part of the story where we have Abimelech once again. Now it came about at that time that Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham saying, God is with you in all that you do.

Now, therefore, swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my offspring or with my posterity, but according to the kindness that I have shown to you, you shall show to me and to the land in which you have sojourned.

And Abraham said, I swear it. Abraham, of course, God is progressively working out his promises in Abraham's life. He's becoming a great mighty man in the land. We'll see by chapter 23 how well respected Abraham is, how powerful his name is amongst the people of the land.

And Abimelech has already had dealings with Abraham because of Sarah, and he knows what kind of God Abraham serves. And Abimelech is just trying to make sure that all of the people in his area, that he is aligned with them in a prosperous and positive way.

He's trying to be the best king that he could be. And Abraham is willing to be in alliance with Abimelech, especially now that Abimelech and his leaders fear the Lord, at least at some levels we talked about last time.

They had no fear of the Lord, but now they do. But notice what Abraham complains about, verse 25. But Abraham complained to Abimelech because of the well of water which the servants of Abimelech had seized.

And Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this thing. You do not tell me, nor have I heard of it until today. This is Abimelech's standard answer to everything. I had no idea what was going on. I didn't do anything wrong.

Why blame me? So Abimelech is really good at that. These lines are well rehearsed. But it sounds exactly like what happened with Sarah. I didn't know she was his wife. No one told me. They didn't tell me.

It's almost the exact same kind of thing. I think that when you read these stories out loud, you're supposed to clown a little bit with Abimelech's voice. The children with their parents listening to the story there in Israel would have probably been chuckling at Abimelech.

Here we go again. So Abraham does something interesting. He takes sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech. Last time Abimelech gave him stuff. Now Abraham is giving Abimelech stuff. And the two of them made a covenant.

Then Abraham set seven new lambs of the flock by themselves. Abimelech said to Abraham, what do these seven new lambs mean that you have set them by themselves? He said, you shall take these seven new lambs from my hand that it may be a witness to me that I dug this well.

Therefore they called that place Beersheba because the two of them took an oath. Beersheba is a combination of oath taking and the word for seven. So seven new lambs. It's a seven-fold oath. It wasn't just one lamb that Abraham gave to Abimelech.

It was seven of them. And so the seven-fold oath takes place here because Abraham went, this is my well. I dug it. Quit calling it your own. And maybe Abimelech would give the seven new lambs to the servants who are trying to take possession of the well.

Look, stop with the well. Here's a lamb. We'll call it even. But you can see how critical water is in this wilderness region.

Verse 31.

Therefore they called the place Beersheba because the two of them took an oath. They made a covenant at Beersheba. And Abimelech and Philip, the commander of his army, arose and returned to the land of the Philistines.

See there, they're a Philistine group. Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba. There he called on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God, and Abraham sojourned in the land of the Philistines for many days.

So there's a few things here that we can take note of. I think one of them is the way in which Abraham deals with Abimelech and Phicol. He does what is necessary to honorably lay claim to the well that he dug.

He doesn't go to war with Abimelech. He goes a very peaceful route, which we find time and again where Abraham could have just said, this is mine. He very generously deals with those around him. The thought to me was, as far as I can find, I've written on this, think about Hagar.

She's wandering about in the wilderness of Beersheba. She's trying to get down to Egypt because that's where she's from. Where else am I going to go? She knows there's a well somewhere in the area, but she can't find it.

It was a common practice for nomads or sojourners that they would cover up the wells to hide them. And God revealed it to her so she could find it. But it says she was in Beersheba, the wilderness of Beersheba, in which she needed this well.

Then we're reading about a well that Abraham dug in this very same area. It was a well that Abimelech's servants had taken from Abraham. And the region wasn't called Beersheba until after Abraham made this covenant with Abimelech.

So it sounds like to me that this is the same well. It sounds like to me it's the same well. It's possible that it's not, but it seems to me that we're being told where she is. She's in the wilderness of Beersheba.

And that's where Abraham is sojourning in this area, and there's this well that he dug in the wilderness of Beersheba. And what was hidden from her that she couldn't find, how does Abraham correct the problem of it being camouflaged and concealed in this wasteland?

He plants a tree. He plants a tamarisk tree at Beersheba. He plants a tree essentially there next to the well is the idea. He plants a tree so that it is marked. In this critical journey where everything is dependent on getting this water in this wilderness wasteland, Abraham plants a tree next to this well so that it is marked, so you know where the water is, knows where the water is.

So that's interesting to me. It seems to me that throughout this passage, with the way that Paul emphasizes the critical nature of Isaac versus Ishmael and then this dispute about the well, if we know where the water is in a dry and thirsty land, we ought to mark it pretty clear, don't you think?

And we ought not let others hijack the message in my mind. So if there's a well at a critical juncture in the wilderness of Beersheba, Abraham is not willing to give it up. He's willing to complain to Abimelech about that, even with the commander of Abimelech's army sitting there.

Look, you can't take this well from us. This is a critical well. And after he gets it back in the right way, he marks it. This source of water is critical to life out here. I can't let it go away, and we're not going to lose it again.

And it just seems to me in the kind of spiritual wilderness in which we live, we know where the water of life is. Let's mark it clearly and not let others hijack it, which I think is just kind of an analogy of principles here.

Any questions or thoughts before we close? I think it was important for the Israelites to know how well their ancestors had treated the Philistines above board, honorably, before they got into a conflict with them.

Yes, just as you said.

He is risen. Yeah, that's good. Well, let's close by singing the doxology.

Praise God.