Holy Bible

And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. Genesis 16:1-3 Forestalling God's appointed time T. H. Leale. I. THIS MAY BE THE TEMPTATION OF THOSE WHO YET HAVE FAITH IN GOD. II. SUCH A COURSE APPEARS TO HAVE A RATIONAL WARRANT. 1. There was no human hope that the promise would be accomplished in that form in which they first understood it. 2. They were conforming to the common custom of the country. 3. The end they sought was worthy in itself. III. ALL ATTEMPTS TO BE BEFOREHAND WITH PROVIDENCE IMPLY AN INFIRMITY OF FAITH. 1. They are signs of impatience. 2. It is not our duty to aid God in the accomplishment of His promises. 3. Religion hereby degenerates into fanaticism. 4. Such an interference with the means by which God accomplishes His purpose shows a want of confidence in His power. ( T. H. Leale. ) Hagar, the slave girl F. B. Meyer, B. A. We might have expected that Abraham would have strenuously resisted every endeavour to induce him to realize for himself God's promise about his seed. Surely he will wait meekly and quietly for God to fulfil His own word, by means best known to Himself. Instead of this he listened to the reasoning of expediency. I. THE QUARTER WHENCE THESE REASONINGS CAME. Sarai. 1. It is always hard to resist temptation when it appeals to natural instinct or to distrusting fear. 2. We should be exceedingly careful before acting on the suggestions of anyone not as advanced as we are in the Divine life. What may seem right to them may be terribly wrong for us. II. THE SORROWS TO WHICH THEY LED. 1. To Sarah. 2. To Hagar. 3. To Abraham. III. THE VICTIM WHOSE LIFE COURSE WAS SO LARGELY INVOLVED. We mourn to see in her only one of myriads who have been sacrificed to the whim or passion, expediency or selfishness, of men. ( F. B. Meyer, B. A. ) Carnal expedients The Congregational Pulpit. I. THE FOLLY OF CARNAL EXPEDIENTS. Their danger lies in many directions. 1. Look at the method of our justification and sanctification before God. God's method is by faith, man's by works. The one is of promise, the other by natural means. The latter is illicit, and fails; only the former succeeds. 2. In providence. You may be looking for temporal prosperity; God may design it for you: but you have no right to seek it by covetousness or injustice, and making haste to be rich. 3. In gospel labours. You expect success, but it is delayed. 4. In regard to our sufferings and our hope of heaven. Some have been tempted to slay themselves, or those whom they have loved, in the midst of terrible affliction, to hasten their admission to glory, You may not have this temptation; but you may be restless, impatient, and unresigned. Say rather, "All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come." 5. In regard to the millennium, and the establishment of the gospel on earth. What hindrances and delays there are. Many seek to christianize the world by the sword, by pandering to human ignorance and superstition, or by indulging the lusts and passions of men. We must be faithful to principle, and leave results to God. II. GOD'S MERCIFULNESS TO THE SORROWFUL SAINT. "Thou God seest me." It suggests two things; 1. God's omniscience; and — 2. His kind regard of His people. Let us think of it:(1) In times of desolation and sorrow. You may be lonely and forsaken, but God sees you.(2) In times of wandering and waywardness. Then let it rebuke us, and bring us to repentance and contrition.(3) In times of temptation. Then let it deter us. "How can we do this thing, and sin against God?"(4) In times of perplexity. Then let us seek His guidance — the guidance of His eye and hand.(5) It suggests a contrast between this life and the next. ( The Congregational Pulpit. ) Lessons G. Hughes, B. D. 1. God's promise and covenant can hardly keep up faith in His own, against the discouragements of sense. 2. Sensible helps at hand may be an occasion to doubt of God's promise as being afar off. So was Hagar to Sarai (ver. 2). 3. Good souls in temptations may complain of this barrenness though God order it. 4. Sense of such wants may put souls upon unlawful means to have their desires of a seed. 5. Flesh persuades to take an uncertain peradventure in sense, rather than wait for God's promise in certainty (ver. 2). 6. Temptation may carry saints not only to the motion but action of evil. 7. Such temptations may make saints do evil, for ends seeming good. So Sarai gives her to wife. ( G. Hughes, B. D. ) The trial of faith -- its infirmity R. S. Candlish, D. D. I. IT ORIGINATED AT A TIME AND IN A MANNER, the consideration of which may well enforce the solemn warning, "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall;" — while it painfully illustrates that other affecting saying, that a man's worst foes may be those of his own household. This transaction took place (ver. 3) after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. During all that time he had walked with God, and God had done for him great things; he had trusted in the Lord, and had been delivered. He had found God faithful to him, and had been himself enabled to be faithful to God. In particular, he had very recently received a signal pledge of the Divine favour, and a strong confirmation of the hope set before him; and never, perhaps, had he stood higher, in respect of privilege, than now. And yet, at the very time when he stands so high, he is tempted, and he falls. II. THE TEMPTATION ITSELF IS A VERY PLAUSIBLE ONE. It bears all the marks of that subtlety which, from of old, had been the characteristic of that old serpent, the devil. Observe the spirit and manner in which the proposal is made by Sarai, and received by Abram. It is plainly such as altogether to preclude the idea of this step being at all analogous to an ordinary instance of sin committed in the indulgence of sensual passion. Most unjustifiable as was the patriarch's conduct, it is not for a moment to be confounded with that of David, for example, whose melancholy fall was caused by the mere unbridled violence of an unlawful appetite. There is no room for the introduction of such an element as this on the occasion of Abram's connection with Hagar. It originated in the suggestion of his faithful wife, and had, for its single object, the fulfilment of the Divine promise, whose accomplishment otherwise seemed to be growing every day more manifestly and hopelessly impossible (vers. 1, 2). ( R. S. Candlish, D. D. ) Sarah's sin; or carnal policy no aid to Divine plans A. Fuller. Unbelief is very prolific of schemes; and surely this of Sarai is as carnal, as foolish, and as fruitful of domestic misery as could almost have been devised. Yet such was the influence of evil counsel, especially from such a quarter, that "Abram hearkened to her voice." The father of mankind sinned by hearkening to his wife, and now the father of the faithful follows his example. How necessary for those who stand in the nearest relations, to take heed of being snares instead of helps one to another! It was a double sin: first, of distrust; and secondly, of deviation from the original law of marriage, and which seems to have opened a door of polygamy. ( A. Fuller. ) Sarai's expedient J. O. Dykes, D. D. Sarai's impulse, even if mistaken, was admirable for its unselfish abnegation of what is most precious to her sex. It was such a sacrifice as only a woman had it in her power to make. Had Abram been a polygamist, or had the adhesion of his house to the primitive marriage law been less loyal than it was, there was one obvious escape from the difficulty. It is instructive that neither Abram nor his wife thought of a second marriage. The usages of the time suggested a different mode. For a childless wife to treat the children born of a favourite slave girl as legally as her own was a resource very foreign to the notions of our western Christendom. Nevertheless, it sprang not unnaturally out of two peculiarities of society in Abram's day. One of these was the disadvantage, amounting positively to social discredit, which attached to childlessness, at a time when the primeval injunction to replenish the earth still retained its full force. The other was the complete surrender of a serf's legal and social rights into the hand of his master, which in the East characterized domestic servitude. Every home slave stood at the disposal of his lord for whatever service the lord might require. His very children were not his own, but his master's. For a mistress, therefore, to seek by means of a female slave and favourite attendant what Providence had denied to herself, was regarded under such a state of feeling as neither immoral nor revolting. It was not even held to be any real departure from the law of monogamy, or any infraction of conjugal fidelity. There is no doubt, however, that it did involve a certain lowering of the original conception of marriage. It paved the way for concubinage of a less excusable description. And in the majority of cases, as in the present instance, it could scarcely fail to turn out ill. ( J. O. Dykes, D. D. ) When she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyed. Genesis 16:4-6 The evils of abolishing social distinctions T. H. Leale. I. THOSE WHO ARE SUDDENLY RAISED IN THE SOCIAL SCALE ARE TEMPTED TO PRIDE AND INSOLENCE. II. THOSE WHO HAVE TAKEN PART IN THE ABOLISHING OF SUCH DISTINCTIONS ARE THE FIRST TO COMPLAIN OF THE EVILS CAUSED THEREBY. 1. They complain of their troubles so as to excuse themselves. 2. They often make rash appeals to Divine justice. III. THE RECOGNITION OF ORIGINAL RIGHTS IS THE BEST WAY OF DEALING WITH SUCH EVILS. 1. This is a better course than the immediate imputation of such evils to those who have caused them. 2. Meek submission becomes true might in the end. IV. THE EVILS BROUGHT ABOUT BY SUDDEN AND VIOLENT CHANGES IN THE SOCIAL STATE ARE NEVER FULLY REMEDIED. ( T. H. Leale. ) Lessons Bp. Babington. 1. Nothing more proud than a beggar set on horseback, and a very ape, if you place him up aloft, begins to bridle the matter and take upon him marvellously. 2. It teacheth that adversity is better borne than prosperity of many one. 3. It showeth the end of evil counsel, Sarah is beaten with her own rod. ( Bp. Babington. ) Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? Genesis 16:7-12 Providence and the outcast T. H. Leale. I. PROVIDENCE FINDS THE OUTCAST AND MISERABLE. 1. There are occasions in human life when the providence of God specially manifests itself. 2. Providence finds us for a purpose of mercy. 3. Providence is minute in its care and knowledge. II. PROVIDENCE TEACHES THE OUTCAST AND MISERABLE. 1. Lessons of reproof. 2. Lessons of instruction and guidance. III. PROVIDENCE INSPIRES HOPE IN THE OUTCAST AND MISERABLE. 1. The lowest and most despised have some purpose of Providence to serve. 2. All who have consciously felt the action of a Divine Providence have some memorial of God's goodness. ( T. H. Leale. ) The angel's message to Hagar J. O. Dykes, D. D. In this very gracious appearance of the angel to Hagar, it is possible, I think, to detect a two-fold design. Through her connection with Abram, this handmaid had been providentially elevated into a position which carried on the one hand duties, and on the other honour. 1. In the first place, it was her present duty to return and place herself again under the heavy hand of Sarai, in order that Abram's son might be born and nurtured in Abram's home. This, therefore, was the hard command, which in the first instance the angel was commissioned to deliver. God's revelations commonly attach themselves to the working of men's own minds. It is impossible not to suspect that, as she sat to rest after her hasty flight, Hagar's conscience was already whispering words like these before the angel appeared: "Return to thy mistress and submit thyself!" But if any such feeling worked dimly in her own mind, it would certainly have failed to send her back, had it not been sharpened by this imperative command from heaven. On the other side, God graciously encouraged Hagar to such an unwelcome duty, by revealing the honours which her relationship to Abram would bring along with it. When God blesses any man, that blessing proves itself like the consecrating oil on the Jewish high priest: it flows from the head down to the skirts of the garment. In recompense for a mistress's cruelty, Hagar was to become the ancestress of a mighty race, which for countless generations has ever since dwelt in the presence of all its brethren. ( J. O. Dykes, D. D. ) Hagar in the wilderness W. S. Smith, B. D. I. HAGAR'S DISTRESS. Affliction and solitude often give persons time to think, and arouse a desire to pray. Misery is a voiceless prayer, which God understands. II. GOD'S MESSENGER. An appearance of the Lord at Hagar's time of need and distress. III. GOD'S MESSAGE. 1. A rebuke. 2. A command. 3. A promise.CONCLUSION: We see then in this narrative a valuable lesson as to God's Providence, and the way in which God is personally interested in the welfare and destinies of men. Moreover, the narrative suggests a kind of parable of God's grace. We may see in it the principles of God's dealing with sinful and sorrowing men. 1. He sees their misery and sin. 2. He visits them in their distress. 3. He hears their prayers. ( W. S. Smith, B. D. ) Lessons G. Hughes, B. D. 1. Christ was the angel of Jehovah sent to the Church in old times. As here ( Isaiah 63 ; Matthew 3:2 ). 2. God finds sinners usually when they lose themselves. 3. God's finding of them is usually when souls are brought to great extremity. 4. God sometimes meets sinners when they are flying to his enemies (ver. 7). 5. God will have order and relations owned when sinners' servants may reject them. Sarai's maid. 6. God expostulates in displeasure with sinners for being where they should not be, leaving the place of calling and flying to other places. Here, servants, learn your duties. 7. Souls, when God expostulates with them, are brought to acknowledge their errors and sins (ver. 8). 8. God counsels sinners in His way when He bath convinced them. Return. 9. God will have domestic order maintained and servants to submit to governors, and suffer sorrow, rather than sin, and leave their places (ver. 9; 1 Peter 3:18 ). ( G. Hughes, B. D. ) Hagar in the wilderness Washington Gladden, D. D. We have here a dramatic incident in the early Hebrew history. An Egyptian handmaid belonging to Sarai, the wife of Abram, was found by the angel of the Lord near a fountain of water in the wilderness. The angel's greeting is a recognition; he names her and defines her in three words: "Hagar, Sarai's maid!" he says, and the girl hears the searching voice and looks up to see a face of commanding majesty and sweetness. "Whence camest thou?" the angel demands. Was not the question superfluous? Do not the words already addressed to her show that the angel needed no information? If he knew her name and knew that she was Sarai's maid, he knew whence she had come. But questions are often wisely asked, less for the benefit of the questioner than of the questioned. For many a man, drifting on in a course of evil conduct that he has never stopped to define, it would be a good thing if someone, by a pointed question, could, get him to say out, in plain words, just what he is doing. If he would only honestly state it to himself, he would shrink from it with horror. Always when one is going in questionable ways it is well to pause and put the thing he is doing into a clear proposition. I am engaged in some business transaction and a good angel stands by my path and asks me, "What are you doing?" If the operation, though nominally legitimate, is really fraudulent, and if I, though sometimes a little too eager for profits, am not an ingrained rascal, it may be good for me to have the question put to me in just that way. For, on reflection, I shall be forced to answer: "I am endeavouring to get the money of my neighbour without giving him a fair equivalent." And, having been brought to put the matter into such plain words, I shall be forced, if I am not a rascal, to withdraw from the operation. Not only for clearing away the haze that often obscures an unworthy purpose, but also for removing the fog in which good purposes are sometimes involved, a pointed question may serve us. There are those whose intention to do right, to live the highest life, is rather nebulous. There are men who really mean to be the servants of Christ, but they have never said so, even to themselves. Their intention lies there, cloudy, crepuscular, in their mental horizon, but it is there. It influences their lives, not seldom; it ought to have far more power over them than it has, and would have, if it could only get from themselves a frank and clear statement. If some question could be put that would lead them to say right out in words what they mean to be — to objectify their purpose in language, so that they could look at it and understand it — the process would be most salutary. There is a deceitfulness of sin that sometimes hides from a man his own deepest and purest purposes; and if these could in some way be clearly discovered to himself, it would be a great service to him. Whether a man is good or bad at heart it is well for him to know the truth about himself; and any question, whether it come from the lips of angel or of mortal, that helps him to a clear self-revelation, is no doubt divinely spoken. Hagar answered the angel's question, "Whence camest thou?" honestly. "I flee from the face of my mistress, Sarai," she said. The girl was running away from home. It was a home by no means perfect, according to our standards, from which she was bent on escaping. But this home from which she had gone forth, in spite of all the enormities wrought into its structure, was about the best dwelling place on the earth in that day. She was turning her back on a better society, a purer life, a larger opportunity than she could find anywhere else in the world. This was the fact to which the angel's question, "Whence earnest thou?" at once recalled her. But this was not all. There was another question. "Whither wilt thou go?" the voice demanded, Hagar was going down to Egypt. And what was there in Egypt that could give her peace? It was a land of darkness and moral degradation; a land where the soul of man was held in hopeless subjection to the things of sense. This, then, is the simple fact that the angel's questions bring into the light of the girl's consciousness. Hagar was running away from the household of Abram, friend of God, and she was going down to Egypt. She was leaving a very light place, for a very dark one. Behind her were perplexities and discomforts, but great hopes also, and inspiring associations; before her was no relief for her trouble and no hope for her future. It was more than doubtful whether she would ever reach Egypt; she was far more likely to wander in the wilderness and perish by the way; but the goal, if she reached it, showed no prize worth striving for. It furnishes us a pertinent analogy. For there are other wanderers, in other wildernesses, to whom some good angel might well put the questions that Hagar heard by the fountain Lahai-roi, "Whence camest thou, and whither wilt thou go?" I suppose that I may be speaking to some whose feet are pressing the shifting sands of the wide wilderness of doubt. Their religious beliefs are in an unsettled and chaotic condition. They are only certain of one thing, and that is that they are not certain of anything. They are agnostics. Now there are subjects on which most of us can well afford to be agnostics. An agnostic is one who does not know. Well, there are quite a number of things that I do not know, and it seems to me the part of wisdom to say so. There are not a few subjects concerning which the Lord of light has seen fit to leave us in darkness. But while there are subjects of this nature, about which we do well to confess our ignorance, there are other subjects of which faith ought to give us a strong assurance. Agnosticism does well for certain outlying districts of our thought, but not for the great central tracts of religious belief and feeling. The navigator may acknowledge without shame that he does not know the boundaries or the channels of those Polar seas where man has never sailed; but you would not take passage with a captain who declared that he knew nothing of the way out of the harbour where his vessel lay, and nothing of the way into the port to which you wanted to go, and did not even know whether there were any such port. Just so in the religious life. All wise men know that there is much that they do not know; it is the beginning of wisdom to discern the limitations of knowledge; but the theory that all is uncertainty in the religious realm; that there is no sure word of promise, no steadfast anchor of the soul, no charted channels, no headlands of hope, no knowledge of a port beyond seas, is a bewildering, benumbing, deadening theory; out of it comes nothing but apathy and despair. This land of doubt is a wilderness, treeless, verdureless, shelterless, a dry and thirsty land where no water is. This is a truth — if it is a truth — that admits of no argument. It is a fact of experience; if none of you know that it is true, then it is true for none of you; if any of you do know it, you do not need to have it proved; the simple statement of it is enough. To all such wanderers, I bring the question of the angel to Hagar in the wilderness, "Whence camest thou?" You were not always in this wilderness; whence did you come? Do you not look back to a home from which your thought has wandered, a house of faith in which you once abode in confidence and peace? I am speaking now in parables, remember; it is not of the literal home where your father and mother dwelt of which I am speaking, but rather of that edifice of sacred thoughts and firm persuasions and earnest purposes and joyful hopes in which your soul was sheltered and comforted in the days of your childhood. Was there not for you, in those earlier days, a spiritual tabernacle of this sort, a house not made with hands, in which you found protection and peace? Was there not, I ask you, in the Christian faith of that past time, not only a comfort and a solace, but an inspiration, an invigoration, a bracing energy that you do not find in the dim and dismal negations of the present time? O wanderer, astray in the bleak wilderness of doubt, whence camest thou? But this is not the only question. "Whither wilt thou go?" Tarry here you cannot: here is no continuing city. Agnosticism is not the end, barren and profitless as it is. The road that you are travelling leads down to Egypt, — to "a land of darkness as darkness itself, and where the light is as darkness." You have turned away from the old faith of Christian Theism, and there is nowhere for you to go but to Pantheism or to Atheism. And these are only different names for the same benighted land. There is no light in either of them. They will not satisfy your heart. They will not satisfy your imagination. They will not satisfy your reason. And if the mental darkness into which they conduct us is so dense, what shall we say of the moral darkness in which they envelop us; of the blotting from our sky of every star of hope; of the quenching of that torch of Bible truth by which our feet are guided through this land of shadows; of the extinguishment of our faith in the infinite love of God, which is the inspiration of all our holiest endeavours? No, my friend, I tell you truly, you who have lost your hold on the great spiritual verities and are wandering in the wilderness of spiritual doubt, you cannot tarry where you are; you must go further; and every step you go in the path that you are now travelling takes you nearer to a region where there is no ray of light or hope, a land of darkness and of the shadow of death. Can you not see, is it not clear, that you would better turn your face toward the spiritual home from which you have been wandering? Perhaps the old spiritual house in which your youth was nurtured may need enlargement in its intellectual part. Enlarge it, then l There is room on its strong foundations to build a house of faith large enough for the amplest intelligence. If there are gloomy corners in it into which the light ought to be let, let in the light! If there are chinks through which the bitter winds of a fatalistic dogmatism blow, stop them! If there are poisonous vines that have fastened on its walls, strip them off! It is the faith that we cherish, and not its flaws, nor its parasites. It is a precious faith, a glorious hope, a mighty inspiration that the old Bible offers still to those who will take it in its simplicity and rest in its strong assurances. ( Washington Gladden, D. D. ) Nature and office of angels Prof. J. G. Murphy. 1. The nature of angels is spiritual ( Hebrews 1:14 ). This characteristic ranges over the whole chain of spiritual being from man up to God Himself. Being spiritual, they are not only moral, but intelligent. They also excel in strength ( Psalm 103:20 ). The holy angels have the full range of action for which their qualities are adapted. They do not grow old or die. They are not a race, and have not a body in the ordinary sense of the term. 2. Their office is expressed by their name. In common with other intelligent creatures, they take part in the worship of God ( Revelation 7:11 ). But their special office is to execute the commands of God in the natural world ( Psalm 103:20 ), and especially to minister to the heirs of salvation ( Hebrews 1:14 ; Matthew 18:10 ; Luke 15:10 ; Luke 16:22 ). 3. The angel of Jehovah. This phrase is specially employed to denote the Lord Himself in that form in which He condescends to make Himself manifest to man. For the Lord God says of this angel, "Beware of Him, and obey His voice; provoke Him not, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in His inmost" ( Exodus 23:21 ), that is, My nature is in His essence. Accordingly He who is called the angel of the Lord in one place is otherwise denominated the Lord or God in the immediate context ( Genesis 16:7, 13 ; Genesis 22:11, 12 ; Genesis 31:11, 13 ; Genesis 48:15, 16 ; Exodus 3:2-15 ; Exodus 23:20-23 with Exodus 33:14,15). It is remarkable at the same time that the Lord is spoken of in these cases as a distinct person from the angel of the Lord, who is also called the Lord. The phraseology intimates to us a certain inherent plurality within the essence of the one only God, of which we have had previous indications ( Genesis 1:1, 26 ; Genesis 3:22 ). The phrase, "angel of the Lord," however, indicates a more distant manifestation to man than the term Lord itself. It brings the medium of communication into greater prominence. It seems to denote some person of the Godhead in angelic form. ( Prof. J. G. Murphy. ) Hagar Charles Jerdan, M. A. , LL. B. 1. In the story of Hagar and her slave-wifehood we have an emblem of the Mosaic Dispensation, which God interposed parenthetically during the long waiting of His Church for the coming of Christ ( Romans 5:20 ; Galatians 3:19 ). 2. "Hagar is a symbol of the expedients we make use of to win for ourselves what God seems unwilling to bestow — expedients not always glaringly sinful, but, though customary, yet not the best possible. And this episode warns us that from a Hagar can at best spring an Ishmael" (Dods). 3. This narrative solemnly calls us to guard against two apparently opposite sins which Abram and Sarai committed in the matter of Hagar, and which often meet still as temptations to the believer — the sin of distrust, and that of presumption. 4. In the appearance of the Angel of Jehovah to Hagar we have a beautiful example of God's tenderness towards the erring, and of His gracious readiness to forgive. 5. From Hagar's subsequent submission to her mistress we learn that while it is not in nature to rejoice in trial and persecution on their own account, yet so soon as we become persuaded that it is the Lord's will that we drink of this cup, and that there will be an abundant recompense hereafter, it does become possible for us to "glory in tribulations also." 6. Let us write upon our hearts this name of the Lord: "Thou God seest me." To do this is the sum of all religion, the centre of all security, and the source of all happiness. The God who sees us, and who permits us to look upon Himself, is the Angel of the Covenant, our Divine and Human Redeemer. May our eyes meet His every day! ( Charles Jerdan, M. A. , LL. B. ) The angel's questions A. Fuller. In calling Hagar "Sarai's maid," he seems tacitly to disallow of the marriage, and to lead her mind back to that humble character which she had formerly sustained. The questions put to her were close, but tender, and such as were fitly addressed to a person fleeing from trouble. The first might be answered, and was answered: "I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai." But with respect to the last, she is silent. We know our present grievances, and so can tell "whence we came," much better than our future lot, or "whither we are going." In many cases, if the truth were spoken, the answer would be, from bad to worse. At present, this poor young woman seems to have been actuated by mere natural principles, those of fleeing from misery. In all her trouble, there appears nothing like true religion, or committing her way to the Lord: yet she is sought out of Him whom she sought not. ( A. Fuller. ) Submission enjoined J. Parker, D. D. The angel did not say "fight it out and let the strong one win." He advised submission, and this is the first instance in which such advice is given in the Scriptures. It is a great Christian law we know, but it is early to find it in Genesis! "Submit yourselves one to another for the Lord's sake," is a lesson which reads well in the church; but Hagar heard it not under a Gothic roof, half-chanted by surpliced priest, but" by a fountain of water in the wilderness, in the way of Shur," — she the only hearer, the angel the priest of God! A good church, too, in which to learn the lesson of submission. I see Hagar taking a draught of the fountain, and trudging home again on weary feet; going back to work among the sharp thorns, and to have words keen as stings thrown at her all the day long. A sorry fate, you say, to be pointed out by an angel! But wait. You do not know all. Who could bear all the ills of any one human life without having some help, some light, some hope? A wonderful word was spoken to the woman — "I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude." As if he had said — "If thou didst know thy destiny, thou wouldst think little of Sarai's mocking; it is but a momentary pain; bear it with the heroism of silent patience." And, truly, this same angel speaks to us all. He says, "If you will walk in the way of the Lord you shall have blessing after sorrow, as the flowers bloom after the rain; persecution you cannot escape, nor slander, nor cruel words; but your light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh out for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. One hour in heaven will banish every sad thought of earth; submit, be patient, and return not evil for evil." Oh, listen to the angel; it is God's angel: it is God Himself. ( J. Parker, D. D. ) Water in the desert The following extract from Mr. Burleigh's graphic account of the march of the British columns from Korti to Metammeh and the Nile, gives a picture of the deprivation of water in the desert, which plainly shows what our soldiers have had to endure in this particular. "We started about three a.m., and succeeded in reaching Abu Halfa Wells at noon. We had turned into a ravine in the Galif range to get to the springs. Our first sight of them was dreadfully disappointing. At the foot of a low ledge of rock near a clustering of dying down palms in a black basin of mud lay a little pool of pea-green water, covered with scum. The pool was not more than 20 feet long and 10 feet wide, and a sounding taken with a pole showed it was not over 10 inches deep. The murmur of satisfaction with which we were prepared to greet the blessed water died away in our throats, and we all sadly gathered around the soupy substance that was to serve horse and man for drinking purposes. Inwardly many of us vowed never again, if we lived, to grumble again at the quality of the London supply. Our guide excitedly shouted there was water enoug

Benson Commentary Genesis 16:1 Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. Genesis 16:1 . We have here the marriage of Abram to Hagar, who was his secondary wife. Herein though he may be excused, he cannot be justified; for from the beginning it was not so: and when it was so, it seems to have proceeded from an irregular desire to build up their families, for the more speedy peopling of the world. Genesis 16:2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. Genesis 16:3 And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. Genesis 16:4 And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. Genesis 16:4 . Her mistress was despised in her eyes — Thus began the ill consequences of Abram’s marriage to Hagar: much mischief it made presently. Hagar no sooner perceives herself with child, but she looks scornfully upon her mistress; upbraids her, perhaps, with her barrenness, and insults over her. Sarai falls upon Abram, and very unjustly charges him with the injury, suspecting that he countenanced Hagar’s insolence: and as one not willing to hear what Abram had to say, she rashly appeals to God. Those are not always in the right that are most forward in appealing to God. Rash and bold imprecations are commonly evidences of guilt and a bad cause. Genesis 16:5 And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the LORD judge between me and thee. Genesis 16:6 But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. Genesis 16:6 . Thy maid is in thy hand — Though she was his wife, he would not countenance her in any thing disrespectful to Sarai. Those who would keep up peace and love must return soft answers to hard accusations; husbands and wives particularly should endeavour not to be both angry together. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her — Making her to serve with rigour; she fled from her face — She not only avoided her wrath for the present, but totally deserted her service. Genesis 16:7 And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. Genesis 16:7 . Here is the first mention we have in Scripture of an angel’s appearance; who arrested her in her flight. It should seem she was making toward her own country, for she was in the way to Shur, which lay toward Egypt. It would be well if our afflictions would make us think of our home, the better country. But Hagar was now out of the way of her duty, and going farther astray when the angel found her. It is a great mercy to be stopped in a sinful way, either by conscience or providence. Genesis 16:8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. Genesis 16:8-9 . And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid — 1st, This was to check her pride. Though she was Abram’s wife, yet he calls her Sarai’s maid, to humble her. 2d, It was a rebuke to her flight. Sarai’s maid ought to be in Sarai’s tent, and not wandering in the wilderness. Whence camest thou ? — Consider that thou art running away both from the duty thou wast bound to, and the privileges thou wast blest with, in Abram’s tent. She said, I flee from the face of my mistress — She acknowledges her fault in fleeing from her mistress; and yet excuses it, that it was from the face, or displeasure, of her mistress. And the angel said, Return to thy mistress — Go home and humble thyself for what thou hast done amiss, and resolve for the future to behave thyself better. Genesis 16:9 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. Genesis 16:10 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. Genesis 16:10 . I will multiply thy seed exceedingly — Hebrews Multiplying I will multiply it; that is, multiply it in every age, so as to perpetuate it. The Hagarenes, Saracens, and various other tribes of Arabs were descended from Ishmael, and they have been, and still are, a great people. Genesis 16:11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction. Genesis 16:11 . Ishmael — That is, God will hear; and the reason is, because the Lord hath heard — He hath, and therefore he will. The experience we have had of God’s seasonable kindness in distress should encourage us to hope for the like help in the like exigencies. Even there where there is little cry of devotion, the God of pity hears the cry of affliction: tears speak as well as prayers. Genesis 16:12 And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. Genesis 16:12 . He will be a wild man — A wild ass of a man; so the word is: rude, and bold, and fearing no man; untamed, untractable, living at large, and impatient of service and restraint. His hand will be against every man — That is his sin; and every man’s hand against him — That is his punishment. Those that have turbulent spirits, have commonly troublesome lives: they that are provoking and injurious to others, must expect to be repaid in their own coin. But this prediction chiefly respects the seed of Ishmael, who, it is here foretold, should be wild, free men, like wild asses, mischievous to all around them, and extremely numerous. Such they have been for almost four thousand years; infamous for theft, pillage, robbery, revenge, and murder. “It hath, therefore,” as Mr. Brown justly observes, “been the continued and common interest of mankind to extirpate them from the earth. But though almost every noted conqueror who hath appeared in the world, whether Persian, Grecian, Roman, Tartar, or Turkish, hath pushed his conquests to their borders, or even beyond them, into Egypt or Arabia Felix, not one hath ever been able to subdue these Ishmaelites, or deprive them of their freedom.” Here then we have another remarkable prophecy most evidently fulfilled, and a continued and standing proof, before the face of the whole world, exactly like that which arises from the present state of the Jews, of the truth of divine revelation. He shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren — Although threatened and insulted by all his neighbours, he shall keep his ground; and, for Abram’s sake, more than his own, shall be able to make his part good against them. Accordingly, we read, Genesis 25:18 , that he died, as he lived, in the presence of all his brethren. But this also was chiefly intended of his posterity: for Ishmael had twelve sons, who gave rise to as many tribes or nations, called by their names, and who dwelt southward in Arabia, before the face, or in the presence of the Ammonites and Moabites, of the descendants of Keturah, and of the Edomites and Jews, all nearly related to them. Genesis 16:13 And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me? Genesis 16:13 . And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her — That is, thus she made confession of his name, Thou God seest me — This should be, with her, his name for ever, and this his memorial, by which she would know him, and remember him while she lived, Thou God seest me. Thou seest my sorrow and affliction. This Hagar especially refers to. When we have brought ourselves into distress by our own folly, yet God has not forsaken us. Thou seest the sincerity of my repentance. Thou seest me, if in any instance I depart from thee. This thought should always restrain us from sin, and excite us to duty, Thou God seest me. Have I here also looked after him that seeth me? — Probably she knew not who it was that talked with her till he was departing, and then looked after him, with a reflection like that of the two disciples, Luke 24:31-32 . Here also — Not only in Abram’s tent, and at his altar, but here also, in this wilderness: here, where I never expected it. Genesis 16:14 Wherefore the well was called Beerlahairoi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. Genesis 16:14 . The well was called Beer-lahai-roi — The well of him that lives and sees me. It is likely Hagar put this name upon it, and it was retained long after. This was the place where the God of glory manifested the special care he took of a poor woman in distress. Those that are graciously admitted into communion with God, and receive seasonable comforts from him, should tell others what he has done for their souls, that they also may be encouraged to seek him and trust in him. Genesis 16:15 And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael. Genesis 16:16 And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Genesis 16:1 Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. BIRTH OF ISHMAEL Genesis 16:1-16 IN this unpretending chapter we have laid bare to us the origin of one of the most striking facts in the history of religion: namely, that from the one person of Abram have sprung Christianity and that religion which has been and still is its most formidable rival and enemy, Mohammedanism. To Ishmael, the son of Abram, the Arab tribes are proud to trace their pedigree. Through him they claim Abram as their father, and affirm that they are his truest representatives, the sons of his first-born. In Mohammed, the Arabian, they see the fulfilment of the blessing of Abram, and they have succeeded in persuading a large part of the world to believe along with them. Little did Sarah think when she persuaded Abram to take Hagar that she was originating a rivalry which has run with keenest animosity through all ages and which oceans of blood have not quenched. The domestic rivalry and petty womanish spites and resentments so candidly depicted in this chapter, have actually thrown on the world from that day to this one of its darkest and least hopeful shadows. The blood of our own countrymen, it may be of our own kindred, will yet flow in this unappeasable quarrel. So great a matter does a little fire kindle. So lasting and disastrous are the issues of even slight divergences from pure simplicity. It is instructive to observe how long this matter of obtaining an heir for Abram occupies the stage of sacred history and in how many aspects it is shown. The stage is rapidly cleared of whatever else might naturally have invited attention, and interest is concentrated on the heir that is to be. The risks run by the appointed mother, the doubts of the father, the surrender now of the mother’s rights, -all this is trivial if it concerned only one household, important only when you view it as significant for the race. It was thus men were taught thoughtfully to brood upon the future and to believe that, though Divine, blessing and salvation would spring from earth: man was to co-operate with God, to recognise himself as capable of uniting with God in the highest of all purposes. At the same time, this long and continually deferred expectation of Abram was the simple means adopted by God to convince men once for all that the promised seed is not of nature but of grace, that it is God who sends all effectual and determining blessing, and that we must learn to adapt ourselves to His ways and wait upon Him. The first man, then, whose religious experience and growth are recorded for us at any length, has this one thing to learn, to trust God’s word and wait for it. In this everything is included. But gradually it appears to us all that this is the great difficulty, to wait; to let God take His own time to bless us. It is hard to believe in God’s perfect love and care when we are receiving no present comfort or peace; hard to believe we shall indeed be sanctified when we seem to be abandoned to sinful habit; hard, to pass all through life with some pain, or some crushing trouble, or some harassing anxiety, or some unsatisfied craving. It is easy to start with faith, most trying to endure patiently to the end. It is thus God educates His children. Compelled to wait for some crowning gift, we cannot but study God’s ways, It is thus we are forced to look below the surface of life to its hidden meanings and to construe God’s dealings with ourselves apart from the experience of other men. It is thus we are taught actually to loosen our hold of things temporal and to lay hold on what is spiritual and real. He who leaves himself in God’s hand will one day declare that the pains and sorrows he suffered were trifling in comparison with what he has won from them. But Sarah could not wait. She seems to have fixed ten years as the period during which she would wait; but at the expiry of this term she considered herself justified in helping forward God’s tardy providence by steps of her own. One cannot severely blame her. When our hearts are set upon some definite blessing things seem to move too slowly, and we can scarcely refrain from urging them on without too scrupulously enquiring into the character of our methods. We are willing to wait for a certain time, but beyond that we must take the matter into our own hand. This incident shows, what all life shows, that whatever be the boon you seek, you do yourself an injury if you cease to seek it in the best possible form and manner, and decline upon some lower thing which you can secure by some easy stratagem of your own. The device suggested by Sarah was so common that the wonder is that it had not long before been tried. Jealousy or instinctive reluctance may have prevented her from putting it in force. She might no doubt have understood that God, always working out His purposes in consistency with all that is most honourable and pure in human conduct, requires of no one to swerve a hair’s-breadth from the highest ideal of what a human life should be, and that just in proportion as we seek the best gifts and the most upright and pure path to them does God find it easy to bless us. But in her case it was difficult to continue in this belief; and at length she resolved to adopt the easy and obvious means of obtaining an heir. It was unbelieving and foolish, but not more so than our adoption of practices common in our day and in our business which we know are not the best, but which we nevertheless make use of to obtain our ends because the most righteous means possible do not seem workable in our circumstances. Are you not conscious that you have sometimes used a means of effecting your purpose, which you would shrink from using habitually, but which you do not scruple to use to tide you over a difficulty, an extraordinary device for an extraordinary emergency, a Hagar brought in for a season to serve a purpose, not a Sarah accepted from God and cherished as an eternal helpmeet. It is against this we are here warned. From a Hagar can at the best spring only an Ishmael, while in order to obtain the blessing God intends we must betake ourselves to God’s barren-looking means. The evil consequences of Sarah’s scheme were apparent first of all in the tool she made use of Agur the son of Jakeh says: "For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear. For a servant when he reigneth, and a fool when he is filled with meat; for an odious woman when she is married, and a handmaid that is heir to her mistress." Naturally this half-heathen girl, when she found that her son would probably inherit all Abram’s possessions, forgot herself, and looked down on her present, nominal mistress. A flood of new fancies possessed her vacant mind and her whole demeanour becomes insulting to Sarah. The slave-girl could not be expected to sympathise with the purpose which Abram and Sarah had in view when they made use of her. They had calculated on finding only the unquestioning, mechanical obedience of the slave, even while raising her practically to the dignity of a wife. They had fancied that even to the deepest feelings of her woman’s heart, even in maternal hopes, she would be plastic in their hands, their mere passive instrument. But they have entirely miscalculated. The slave has feelings as quick and tender as their own, a life and a destiny as tenaciously clung to as their God-appointed destiny. Instead of simplifying their life they have merely added to it another source of complexity and annoyance. It is the common fate of all who use others to satisfy their own desires and purposes. The instruments they use are never so soulless and passive as it is wished. If persons cannot serve you without deteriorating in their own character, you have no right to ask them to serve you. To use human beings as if they were soulless machines is to neglect radical laws and to inflict the most serious injury on our fellow-men. Mistresses who do not treat their servants with consideration, recognising that they are as truly women as themselves, with all a woman’s hopes and feelings, and with a life of their own to live, are committing a grievous wrong, and evil will come of it. In such an emergency as now arose in Abram’s household, character shows itself clearly. Sarah’s vexation at the success of her own scheme, her recrimination and appeal for strange justice, her unjustifiable treatment of Hagar, Abram’s Bedouin disregard of the jealousies of the women’s tent, his Gallio-like repudiation of judgment in such quarrels, his regretful vexation and shame that through such follies, mistakes, and wranglings, . God had to find a channel for His promise to flow-all this discloses the painful ferment into which Abram’s household was thrown. Sarah’s attempt to rid herself with a high hand of the consequences of her scheme was signally unsuccessful. In the same inconsiderate spirit in which she had put Hagar in her place, she now forces her to flee, and fancies that she has now rid herself and her household of all the disagreeable consequences of her experiment. She is grievously mistaken. The slave comes back upon her hands, and comes back with the promise of a son who should be a continual trouble to all about him. All through Ishmael’s boyhood Abram and Sarah had painfully to reap the fruits of what they had sown. We only make matters worse when we endeavour by injustice and harshness to crush out the consequences of wrong-doing. The difficulties into which sin has brought us can only be effectually overcome by sincere contrition and humiliation. It is not all in a moment nor by one happy stroke you can rectify the sin or mistake of a moment. If by your wise devices you have begotten young Ishmaels, if something is every day grieving you and saying to you, "This comes of your careless inconsiderate conduct in the past," then see that in your vexation there is real penitence and not a mere indignant resentment against circumstances or against other people, and see that you are not actually continuing the fault which first gave birth to your present sorrow and entanglement. When Hagar fled from her mistress she naturally took the way to her old country. Instinctively her feet carried her to the land of her birth. And as she crossed the desert country where Palestine, Egypt, and Arabia meet, she halted by a fountain, spent with her flight and awed by the solitude and stillness of the desert. Her proud spirit is broken and tamed, the fond memories of her adopted home and all its customs and ways and familiar faces and occupations, overtake her when she pauses and her heart reacts from the first excitement of hasty purpose and reckless execution. To whom could she go in Egypt? Was there one there who would remember the little slave girl or who would care to show her a kindness? Has she not acted madly in fleeing from her only protectors? The desolation around her depicts her own condition. No motion stirs as far as her eye can reach, no bird flies, no leaf trembles, no cloud floats over the scorching sun, no sound breaks the death-like quiet; she feels as if in a tomb, severed from all life, forgotten of all. Her spirit is breaking under this sense of desolation, when suddenly her heart stands still as she hears a voice utter her own name "Hagar, Sarai’s maid." As readily as every other person when God speaks to them, does Hagar recognise Who it is who has followed her into this blank solitude. In her circumstances to hear the voice of God left no room for disobedience. The voice of God made audible through the actual circumstances of our daily life acquires a force and an authority we never attached to it otherwise. Probably, too, Hagar would have gone back to Abram’s tents at the bidding of a less authoritative voice than this. Already she was softening and repenting. She but needed some one to say, "Go back." You may often make it easier for a proud man to do a right thing by giving him a timely word. Frequently men stand in the position of Hagar, knowing the course they ought to adopt and yet hesitating to adopt it until it is made easy to them by a wise and friendly word. In the promise of a son which was here given to Hagar and the prediction concerning his destiny, while there was enough to teach both her and Abram that he was not to be the heir of the promise, there was also much to gratify a mother’s pride and be to Hagar a source of continual satisfaction. The son was to bear a name which should commemorate God’s remembrance of her in her desolation. As often as she murmured it over the babe or called it to the child or uttered it in sharp remonstrance to the refractory boy, she was still reminded that she had a helper in God who had heard and would hear her. The prediction regarding the child has been strikingly fulfilled in his descendants; the three characteristics by which they are distinguished being precisely those here mentioned. "He will be a wild man," literally, "a wild ass among men," reminding us of the description of this animal in Job: "Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwelling. He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing." Like the zebra that cannot be domesticated, the Arab scorns the comforts of civilised life, and adheres to the primitive dress, food, and mode of life, delighting in the sensation of freedom, scouring the deserts, sufficient with his horse and spear for every emergency. His hand also is against every man, looking on all as his natural enemies or as his natural prey; in continual feud of tribe against tribe and of the whole race against all of different blood and different customs. And yet he "dwells in the presence of his brethren"; though so warlike a temper would bode his destruction and has certainly destroyed other races, this Ishmaelite stock continues in its own lands with an uninterrupted history. In the words of an authoritative writer: "They have roved like the moving sands of their deserts; but their race has been rooted while the individual wandered. That race has neither been dissipated by conquest, nor lost by migration, nor confounded with the blood of other countries. They have continued to dwell in the presence of all their brethren, a distinct nation, wearing upon the whole the same features and aspects which prophecy first impressed upon them." What struck Hagar most about this interview was God’s presence with her in this remote solitude. She awakened to the consciousness that duty, hope, God, are ubiquitous, universal, carried in the human breast, not confined to any place. Her hopes, her haughtiness, her sorrows, her flight, were known. The feeling possessed her which was afterwards expressed by the Psalmist: "Thou knowest my down-sitting, and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. Thou tellest my wanderings; put Thou my tears in Thy bottle; are they not in Thy book?" Even here where I thought to have escaped every eye, have I been following and at length found Him that seeth me. As truly and even more perceptibly than in Abram’s tents, God is with her here in the desert. To evade duty, to leave responsibility behind us, is impossible. In all places we are God’s children, bound to accept the responsibilities of our nature. In all places God is with us, not only to point out our duty but to give us the feeling that in adhering to duty we adhere to Him, and that it is because He values us that He presses duty upon us. With Him is no respect of persons. the servant is in his sight as vivid a personality as the mistress, and God appears not to the overbearing mistress but to the overborne servant. Happy they who when God has thus met them and sent them back on their own footsteps, a long and weary return, have still been so filled with a sense of God’s love in caring for them through all their errors, that they obey and return. All round about His people does God encamp, all round about His flock does the faithful Shepherd watch and drive back upon the fold each wanderer. Not only to those who are consciously seeking Him does God reveal Himself, but often to us at the very. farthest point of our wandering, at our extremity, when another day’s journey would land us in a region from which there is no return. When our regrets for the past become intolerably poignant and bitter; when we see a waste of years behind us barren as the sand of the desert, with nothing done but what should but cannot be undone; when the heart is stupefied with the sense of its madness and of the irretrievable loss it has sustained, or when we look to the future and are persuaded little can grow up in it out of such a past, when we see that all that would have prepared us for it has been lightly thrown aside or spent recklessly for nought, when our hearts fail us, this is God besetting us behind and before. And may He grant us strength to pray, "Show me Thy ways, O Lord, teach me Thy paths. Lead me in Thy truth and teach me: for Thou art the God of my salvation; on Thee do I wait all the day." The quiet glow of hopefulness with which Hagar returned to Abram’s encampment should possess the spirit of every one of us. Hagar’s prospects were not in all respects inviting. She knew the kind of treatment she was likely to receive at the hands of Sarah. She was to be a bondwoman still. But God had persuaded her of His care and had given her a hope large enough to fill her heart. That hope was to be fulfilled by a return to the home she had fled from, by a humbling and painful experience. There is no person for whom God has not similar encouragement. Frequently persons forget that God is in their life, fulfilling His purposes. They flee from what is painful; they lose their bearings in life and know not which way to turn; they do not fancy there is help for them in God. Yet God is with them; by these very circumstances that reduce them to desolateness and despair He leads them to hope in Him. Each one of us has a place in His purpose; and that place we shall find not by fleeing from what is distressing but by submitting ourselves cheerfully to what He appoints. God’s purpose is real, and life is real, meant to accomplish not our present passing pleasure, but lasting good in conformity with God’s purpose. Be sure that when you are bidden back to duties that seem those of a slave, you are bidden to them by God, Whose purposes are worthy of Himself and Whose purposes include you and all that concerns you. There are, I think, few truths more animating than this which is here taught us, that God has a purpose with each of us; that however insignificant we seem, however friendless, however hardly used, however ousted even from our natural place in this world’s households, God has a place for us; that however we lose our way in life we are not lost from His eye; that even when we do not think of choosing Him He in His Divine, all-embracing love chooses us, and throws about us bonds from which we cannot escape. Of Hagar many were complacently thinking it was no great matter if she were lost, and some might consider themselves righteous because they said she deserved whatever mishap might befall her. But not so God. Of some of us, it may be, others may think no great blank would be made by our loss; but God’s compassion and care and purpose comprehend the least worthy. The very hairs of your head are all numbered by Him. Nothing is so trivial and insignificant as to escape His attention, nothing so intractable that He cannot use it for good. Trust in Him, obey Him, and your life will yet be useful and happy. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.