Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 086. The Despairing and Jealous Wife

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | Download

Greater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 086. The Despairing and Jealous Wife


Subjects in this Topic:



II



The Despairing and Jealous Wife



1. When God called Abraham out of the country of the Chaldees, and brought him into the borders of Canaan, He told him that He would give that land to his offspring. Brooding over things when they had finally settled in what was really their permanent home by the oaks of Mamre, near Hebron, his heroic wife wondered how the promise made to her husband was to be fulfilled. Ten years had passed and no child was born. Abraham was rich and increased with goods; things had gone well with them from a worldly point of view since their return from Egypt; Abraham was a great man, but then the promise was, “I will make of thee a great nation,” and of this there was no sign; and brooding over these things Sarah came to the sorrowful conclusion that the promise was to be fulfilled not through her but through another. Abraham had much faith, and faith kept him patient, but Sarah could not wait. And so, in accordance with the custom of the times in which she lived, she gave her handmaid Hagar to be the wife of Abraham.



It was perhaps defective faith, and yet it was faith, that led the woman to this expedient. Had she herself before this time received the promise of a son, she would have been an example rather of unbelief than of faith. But whilst God promises that Abraham shall be a father, He says nothing about Sarah; He is silent on the point as to whether she is to be the mother of the nation that is to spring from his loins. This uncertainty may have influenced her to give that counsel to her husband which led to so much sorrow and strife in the household, so many jealousies and heart-burnings.



2. Sarah very soon found that her slave was assuming an air of superiority, and openly despising the mistress she had hitherto respected. The indignant and jealous woman appealed to her husband reproachfully, forgetting that the husband had only acted on her suggestion. If Abraham had been more courageous, we could be more severe in our judgment of Sarah. But the husband, taunted beyond endurance, handed his poor slave-girl over to her mistress, and the mistress made her life unbearable, until the maid ran away from the face of her mistress and sought shelter in the wilderness.



Perhaps Sarah is seen at her worst in this domestic quarrel, not only in her jealousy but in the way in which it finds expression, first towards her husband and then towards Hagar. And yet we would not have it otherwise; she is a true pioneer of woman's right in the right place. She will be mistress in her own home and reign there without a rival. It is a scriptural condemnation of polygamy in any form. But we must not forget that Sarah had been instrumental in bringing the trouble into the home, and God sent Hagar back to be under Sarah's care; and it was like a princess (for that is the meaning of Sarah) to receive her back and to make the best of the situation.



Magnanimity is well enough defined by its name, yet we may say it is pride's good sense and the noblest path to renown.1 [Note: Rochefoucauld, Maxims.]



The treasures are given in charge to a virtue of which we hear too little in modern times, as distinct from others; Magnanimity: largeness of heart: not softness or weakness of heart, mind you-but capacity of heart-the great measuring virtue, which weighs in heavenly balances all that may be given, and all that may be gained; and sees how to do noblest things in noblest ways: which of two goods comprehends and therefore chooses the greater: which of two personal sacrifices dares and accepts the larger: which, out of the avenues of beneficence, treads always that which opens farthest into the blue fields of futurity: that character, in fine, which, in those words taken by us at first for the description of a Queen among the nations, looks less to the present power than to the distant promise; “Strength and honour are in her clothing,-and she shall rejoice in time to come.”1 [Note: Ruskin, A Joy for Ever, § 59 (Works, xvi. 56).]