_SARAI, BEING BARREN, GIVETH HAGAR HER HANDMAID TO ABRAM: WHOM AFTERWARDS SHE TREATS HARDLY, HAVING BEEN DESPISED BY HER. THE ANGEL OF THE LORD RECALS HAGAR, WHO HAD FLED FROM HER MISTRESS, AND FORETELS THE BIRTH OF ISHMAEL. ISHMAEL IS BORN._... [ Continue Reading ]
SARAI ABRAM'S WIFE BARE HIM NO CHILDREN, &C.— Sarai, being now seventy-five years old, and having continued ten years in the land of promise, began to suspect, that she should have no offspring by her husband; and therefore, anxiously desirous of the _promised seed,_ she requests her husband to take... [ Continue Reading ]
MY WRONG BE UPON THEE, &C.— Hagar, finding that she had conceived, immediately despised her mistress, not only imagining that she should thus stand first in Abram's love, but also bring an heir to all his possessions. Sarai was indignant at her behaviour, which doubtless was insolent; upon which she... [ Continue Reading ]
ABRAM SAID, BEHOLD, THY MAID IS IN THY HAND— i.e.. in thy power, ch. Genesis 24:10. Genesis 39:4. REFLECTIONS.—We have here, 1. Hagar's insolence. No sooner with child, than she forgets her station, and begins, in conceit perhaps of the promised seed, to usurp over the mistress of the family. 2. S... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THE ANGEL OF THE LORD, &C.— Hagar was treated so harshly by her mistress, that she resolved to fly from her, and seek a retreat in her own country: as she journeyed towards which, she found in the wilderness of Shur (probably that part of Arabia Petraea which lay next AEgypt) a fountain, and the... [ Continue Reading ]
HE SAID, HAGAR, SARAI'S MAID— The angel calls her _Sarai's maid,_ to remind her of her duty and dependence, which she ought not to have relinquished. He advises her, therefore, to return, and patiently to submit to the treatment, however hard to bear, which she had fled to avoid; at the same time co... [ Continue Reading ]
I WILL MULTIPLY THY SEED, &C.— The angel here speaks authoritatively, and not as bearing a message from another: _I will multiply._ In the next chapter, Genesis 17:20 the same promise is renewed: "And these passages," says the Bishop of Bristol, "evince, that the prophecy doth not so properly belong... [ Continue Reading ]
HE WILL BE A WILD MAN— In the original it is, _a wild ass man;_ and the learned Bochart translates it, _tam ferus quam onager,_ as wild as a wild ass. But what is the nature of the animal to which Ishmael is so particularly compared? It cannot be described better than it is in the book of Job 39:5;... [ Continue Reading ]
AND SHE CALLED THE NAME OF THE LORD,—THOU GOD SEEST ME— or perhaps, _"she called upon,_ she _invoked_ the name of the Lord who spoke to her: and one said, _Thou_ [art] _the God, seeing me, i.e._. regarding my misfortunes, and revealing thyself to me; and one used this expression the rather, as _she... [ Continue Reading ]