Genesis 21

Genesis 21:1 Yahveh visited Sarah like he had said he would, and Yahveh did to Sarah as he had promised.

Genesis 21:2 And Sarah conceived and gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him.

Genesis 21:3 Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah gave birth to for him, Isaac.

Genesis 21:4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.

Genesis 21:5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

Genesis 21:6 And Sarah said, “God has made me a cause for laughter; everyone who hears will laugh about me.”

Genesis 21:7 And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have given birth to him a son in his old age.”

Genesis 21:8 And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.

Genesis 21:9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing.

Genesis 21:10 So she said to Abraham, “Expel this slave woman with her son because the son of this slave woman will not be an heir along with my son Isaac.”

Genesis 21:11 And the thing seemed very evil to Abraham because he was thinking of his son.

Genesis 21:12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not consider this an evil thing because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you because through Isaac will your seed be named.

Genesis 21:13 And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also because he is your seed.”

Genesis 21:14 So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, along with the child, and sending her away. And she left and wandered in the open country of Beer-sheba.

Genesis 21:15 After the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the shrubs.

Genesis 21:16 Then she went and sat down across from him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, because she said, “Let me not watch the child die.” And as she sat opposite him, she raised her voice and wept.

Genesis 21:17 And God heard the boy’s voice, and the agent of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid because God has heard the boy’s voice where he is.

Genesis 21:18 Get up! Lift up the boy and hold him strongly with your hand because I will make him into a great nation.”

Genesis 21:19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

Genesis 21:20 And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the open country and became an expert archer.

Genesis 21:21 He lived in the open country of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

Genesis 21:22 At that time, Abimelech, through Phicol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham, saying: “God is with you in all that you do.

Genesis 21:23 Now, therefore, swear to me by God that you will not deal deceptively with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have shown covenant faithfulness with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have stayed as a guest.”

Genesis 21:24 And Abraham said, “I do swear.”

Genesis 21:25 When Abraham later complained to Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech’s slaves had seized,

Genesis 21:26 Abimelech said, “I do not know who has done this thing; you did not tell me, and I have not learned about it until today.”

Genesis 21:27 So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant.

Genesis 21:28 Abraham set seven ewe lambs of his flock apart.

Genesis 21:29 And Abimelech asked Abraham, “What is the purpose of these seven ewe lambs you have set apart?”

Genesis 21:30 He said, “These seven ewe lambs you will obtain from my hand, that this gift may be a witness for me that I dug this well.”

Genesis 21:31 Therefore, that place was called Beersheba because they both swore an oath.

Genesis 21:32 So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines.

Genesis 21:33 It was there in Beersheba that Abraham planted a tamarisk tree and called on the name of Yahveh, the Permanent God.

Genesis 21:34 And Abraham was a guest for many days in the land of the Philistines.

Genesis 21 quotes:

“The birth of Isaac was a miracle birth. Everything about it—from the conception to the actual birth of the child required Divine power. Repeatedly Scripture, in reporting the coming of Isaac, emphasizes the great problems which required a miracle of God’s great power to bring the birth to pass. Our text on the coming of Isaac not only emphasizes the Divine prediction in the coming of Isaac, but it also emphasizes the need for Divine power for his coming. The need of a miracle of Divine power in the lives of Abraham and Sarah regarding the coming of Isaac had to do chiefly with age and the fact that the advanced age of Sarah and Abraham made having children impossible from the human standpoint. Three times in our text the age problem is mentioned—[1] “bare Abraham a son in his old age . . . [2] Abraham was a hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born to him. . . [3] I have born him a son in his old age.” Elsewhere the age problem of Sarah is mentioned, too. “Now Abraham and Sarah were old and well stricken in age, and it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women” (Genesis 18:11). Paul also cited the problem of Abraham and Sarah for child bearing when he said, “his [Abraham’s] own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old . . . the deadness of Sarah’s womb” (Romans 4:19). “

Bulter, John G. Isaac: The Promised Son. LBC Publications, 2008. p. 13.

“Just as Sarah’s harshness in Genesis 16:6 alludes intertextually to the harshness that the Israelites suffer at the hands of the Egyptian task masters (Exod 1:11-14), so also Genesis 21 (Hagar’s departure from her house of bondage to find herself wandering) alludes to the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, who will leave their bondage to wander in the wilderness. Perhaps worse than the later Israelites, Hagar and Ishmael wander in a state of uncertainty with no particular destination (Gen 21:14). Moreover, as we discover, divine provision comes without Hagar’s complaint or murmuring; God provides, as God would do for the Israelites later (Gen 21:17-20).”

Gossai, Hemchand. Barrenness and Blessing: Abraham, Sarah, and the Journey of Faith. Lutterworth Press, 2010. p. 35.

“The name given to this promised son was “he laughs” or “laughter.” Sarah cites her laughter and her own surprise at bearing a child in her old age (Genesis 21:6-7). The play on words is very interesting. The Hebrew word is yits-chag—appending the “jot” to tsachaq. The yod is the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the smallest letter and the “jot” mentioned by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 5:18. “Isaac” is the only translation for the 108 times that Yitschag (the proper name) appears in the Scriptures. It might well be translated “he mocks me!” Or maybe “the joke is on us!””

Morris, Henry M. The Book of Beginnings: A Practical Guide to Understand and Teach Genesis. Institute for Creation Research, 2012. p. 74.