Chapter 21
The Promised Son.[a] 1 The Lord visited Sarah, as he had said he would. The Lord fulfilled what he had promised to Sarah. 2 Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the very time that the Lord had established. 3 Abraham named the son whom Sarah bore Isaac. 4 Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him to do. 5 Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born.
6 Sarah said, “God has given me a reason to laugh out loud. All will smile because of me.” 7 She then said, “Who would have ever said to Abraham, ‘Sarah will nurse sons’? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
Ishmael Is Sent Away.[b] 8 Isaac grew and was weaned. On the day that he was weaned, Abraham threw a great banquet. 9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, the one whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with[c] her son Isaac. 10 She said to Abraham, “Send this slave and her son away, for the son of this slave must not be an heir together with my son Isaac.”
11 This greatly distressed Abraham for he was concerned for his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not let this matter with your son and the slave woman distress you. Listen to what Sarah tells you. Listen to her voice, for it is through Isaac that descendants will bear your name. 13 But I will also make the son of the slave woman become a great nation, for he is your son.”
14 Abraham arose early in the morning and gave Hagar bread and a skin of water, placing them on her back. He entrusted the child to her and sent her away. They left and wandered in the desert of Beer-sheba.
15 When they used up all the water in the skin, she placed the child under a bush 16 and went and sat down opposite him, about the distance of a bowshot. She said, “I do not want to see the child die.” She sat opposite him and began to sob.
17 But God heard the voice of the child, and the angel of God called upon Hagar from the heavens and said, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not fear because God has heard the voice of the child from where he lies. 18 Get up, take the child, and hold him by the hand because I will make a great nation of him.”
19 God opened her eyes, and she was able to see a spring of water. She went over to it and filled the skin and gave the child some water to drink.
20 God was with the child, and he grew and lived in the desert and became an archer. 21 He lived in the desert of Paran, and his mother found him a wife in the land of Egypt.
22 First Link with the Promised Land.[d] At that time, Abimelech along with Phicol, the commander of his army, came and said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything that you do. 23 Therefore, swear by God that you will not act deceitfully with me or with my sons or my descendants. As I have been friendly to you, so too, you will be friendly with me and with the land in which you have dwelt as a guest.”
24 Abraham answered, “I swear it.”
25 But Abraham complained to Abimelech about a well that the servants of Abimelech had seized. 26 Abimelech said, “I do not know who did this thing. You never told me about this and I did not hear about it until today.”
27 So Abraham took some sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant. 28 Abraham set apart seven fat lambs. 29 Abimelech said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of the seven lambs that you have set aside?”
30 He answered, “Please take these seven lambs from me, and let them be a sign to you that I dug this well.” 31 Because of this the place is called Beer-sheba (the well of the seven), for they both swore an oath there. 32 After the covenant had been concluded at Beer-sheba, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, left and returned to the land of the Philistines. 33 Abraham planted a tamarisk at Beer-sheba, and there he called upon the name of the Lord, the Eternal God. 34 Abraham dwelt in the land of the Philistines for many years.
Footnotes
- Genesis 21:1 Isaac, who is born by the divine will even though nature is not up to the task, symbolizes the fact that salvation, which is foretold in his person, is not the work of human beings but entirely a gift of the Lord. The passage represents a fusion of the three sources.
- Genesis 21:8 The two stories that follow are from the Elohist tradition. According to a number of critics, the first story is another version of the Yahwist-Priestly story in 16:4-16. It is to be noted, among other things, that Ishmael is here shown as a boy, while at the period here indicated he would have been an adolescent.
St. Paul uses the incident as an argument that the new Covenant replaces the old (Gal 4:21-31). - Genesis 21:9 Playing with: this can also be translated as mocking. According to the later Jewish tradition, the word here refers to immoral or idolatrous practices on the part of Ishmael (“mocking” in the sense of Gen 39:14, 17); St. Paul, however, interprets it as meaning persecution (Gal 4:29), perhaps resulting from envy.
- Genesis 21:22 Two popular traditions are fused to explain the name “Beer-sheba”: one explains it as meaning “well of the oath,” the other as “well of the seven,” that is, the seven lambs that the Patriarch gives the master of the territory as a guarantee of the agreement between them.