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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Genesis 21:15 - 21:21
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Ishmael's Life Saved
v. 15. And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. Apparently Hagar lost her way, or some miscalculation interfered, for the water in the skin was exhausted before she reached a spring. The ensuing suffering soon became so great that the boy was unable to support himself. For a while his mother supported him, drawing him along and half carrying him, in the hope of finding water. But at last she was obliged to let him sink down, her mother-love, however, selecting a shady place under a bush.
v. 16. And she went and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow-shot; for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice and wept. Here are further traits of a mother's undying love. She would not abandon the lad entirely, even if she might have gotten help; she could not bear to see him suffer and probably die before her eyes of thirst. So she sat down at a distance equal to that usually taken by bowmen shooting at a target, and wept out loud in full abandonment to her grief.
v. 17. And God heard the voice of the lad; and the Angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he Isaiah
v. 18. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great nation. In this great extremity Ishmael forgot all his mocking and turned to the prayers which he had learned in his father's house. In answer to this prayer the Angel of God in the specific sense, the Son of God, who had appeared to her once before, Gen_16:9-13, bade her not to fear, but to arise, to lift up her son, and to support him, since he was not to die, but to live, and to become the ancestor of a great people.
v. 19. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. Help had been so near at hand, but Hagar, in her own exhausted condition, had not noticed the spring which welled forth at a small distance. Now she filled the skin which she carried and refreshed her son, thus saving his life.
v. 20. And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.
v. 21. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt. Ishmael grew up as a true son of the desert, living in the great wilderness which extends on the southern boundary of Canaan from Egypt to Arabia. The blessing of God rested upon him. He became very skilful with the bow and married an Egyptian woman whom his mother selected for him. This fact, unfortunately, strengthened the heathen element in the Ishmaelites and probably caused their abandoning of the true God in a very short time.