I have loved The Old Testament for decades because it has opened my eyes to see the merciful Jehovah. Consider the life of Abraham and triangle of trial that involved obedience, love and anguish. It is the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar.
To recap: The ancient custom dictated that if a married woman could not produce children for her husband after ten years of marriage, she was to give him another wife. This Sarah did out of obedience. She gave her young maid, Hagar, to Abraham for a second wife. Hagar was not just a maid though, Legends of the Jews claim that Hagar was one of Pharoah’s daughters whom Pharoah gifted to Sarah when she and Abraham left Egypt (Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 1:223). If this was really so, you can imagine how a young girl who was raised in royal courts felt when she became a maid and a wife to Abraham, when he was 86 years old and that any children she had by him would by custom legally belong to Sarah? The story of Hagar tugs at my heart. When her life became unbearable, Hagar fled but she met the God of Israel in her flight, who told her through an angel that He had ‘heard her affliction’ (Genesis 16:11). This touched the depth of Hagar’s heart to such an extent that she called the name of the Lord ‘THOU GOD SEEST ME’ (v13). The merciful Jehovah not only told Hagar that He sees her but that He will make it up to her for the hard life she was called upon to live. He promised her that her son will become a great nation (Genesis 17:20) and that his posterity ‘shall not be numbered for multitude’ (Gensis 16:10). What consolation that must have been to Hagar who had to watch her son be overlooked as Abraham’s heir!
When Jehovah reaffirmed His covenant to Abraham and promised him an heir once again, Abraham beseeched Him to accept Ishmael as his heir because Abraham loved Ishmael but God refused and named a future baby by the name of Isaac as the heir of the covenant (Genesis 17:19). Not only the promise but reassurance, “I have heard thee” (v20). In other words, I SEE YOU TOO and I will make it up to you. Jehovah promised Abraham that his posterity would be as innumerable as the stars of heaven (Genesis 15:5); that he would become the ‘father of the faithful’ and the founder of the covenant race through whose posterity all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 17; 22:15-18). And then the mercy…..He also told him that Ishmael would be included in the fulfillment of that promise because he would be blessed with 12 sons and God would make of him ‘a great nation’ (Genesis 17:20). Does this not make you want to weep?
Sarah, who languished until her old age, in obedience, waiting for her promises to be fulfilled, became a mother of nations, and ‘kings of people came of her’ (Genesis 17:16). But that is not all, she paved the way of belief that if God can cause an old, barren woman to conceive, He can also make a young, virgin girl to do so and bear a Son of God. How honourable her merciful blessings that God gave her! This makes ME want to weep…..
The God of heaven sees all and He makes up for it all, to those who seek Him and would have Him be their God. May you, who are in the waiting room, receive an increase of faith in the God of Abraham.....the God who fulfils His promises through grace and mercy, now and forever.
Who is a God like Thee
Jehovah, our King?
Who sees our frailties
Who heeds our pleas;
Who answers in mercy
And runs to our relief.
Who is a God like Thee?
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
(Art: Encircled in the Arms of His Love by Eva Koleva Timothy)
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