Jealousy

Genesis 21:8-12

Do you recall a time when you were jealous because someone else was receiving the attention that should have been yours?  Each of us has been there or if you have grandchildren, you’ve seen it happen many times.  In my corporate life at 3M, it amazed me how others took credit for the hard work and successes of another’s accomplishments.  Jealousy can bring about the dark side of our personality; things like envy, covetousness, resentment, bitterness and spite.  Verse 9, gives this account of Ishmael, the son of Hagar the slave woman and his dad, Abraham.

Ishmael, for about 13 years, has been the apple of his dad’s eye, and now at somewhere around sixteen, he is almost forgotten.  Both Hagar and Ishmael were pushed to the back of the line, and it is easy to explain the resentment that was in his son’s life.  It was not his or his mother’s fault, that his birth had been a temporary lapse of faith on the part of both Abraham and Sarah.  It may not be right but it is easy to see how Ishmael could make fun of his half-brother when so much fuss was being made over him on the day of the great feast.

It is not a good thing to make fun of a mother’s only son at anytime, but when a lady has waited to have that son for 90 years, you may want to be very discrete in making fun of her boy.  This is the account from Genesis 21:9,10, “But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing.  So she said to Abraham, “Cast out the slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.”  Old Abraham is what you might say, between a rock and a hard place, and he did not want to send his son away.  Often we see a “But God” and verse 12 is one of those times; “But God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman.  What even Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”

Once more God reminds Abraham that Isaac is the promised child and that Ishmael was an act of the flesh.  Because of Abraham’s temporary lapse of faith in God, he has to make a choice, between God promised child or his flesh child.  Look at the promise God gives Abraham; “And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.”  (Genesis 21:13)  Abraham and Sarah were in a hurry to help God out, and because of this act, there has been a battle through all of history of the hate of the slave woman’s son against the son of the promise.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice