Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 21-23.

The account of Hagar and Ishmael being sent away by Abraham reads to us as if Ishmael was a young child.  However, a careful reading shows that Ishmael was fourteen years old when Isaac was born.  So, he was older than fourteen when Isaac was weaned and he got himself in trouble so that Sarah insisted that Abraham send him away.  Realizing that Ishmael was a teenager when he mocked his baby half-brother puts a different light on the situation.  And, perhaps we should use the account of Ishmael as an object lesson for teenagers.

Every year I try to find something to write which does not involve the obvious points about the account of Abraham taking Isaac in to sacrifice him to God, but that story is just too important to avoid.  So, I usually fail.  We know from other records that the people Abraham lived among believed in child sacrifice.  Abraham had to be feeling that the people among whom he lived were judging him because he had not sacrificed Isaac to his God.  Abraham must have felt like they thought that if he truly had faith in God the way he said he did, if he truly served his God the way he claimed, why hadn’t he sacrificed his son to his God?  He hadn’t sacrificed Ishmael, but, to a degree, Ishmael was only the son of a slave, not his “real” heir.  So, God, who had no desire for child sacrifice, pushed Abraham to act, to go into the wilderness to sacrifice his son, Isaac.  God had a plan to show Abraham that He had no desire for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, that He had no desire for His people to sacrifice the children which He had given them.  On the way, Abraham made a prophecy, although he did not know he was doing so as he did.  When Abraham told Isaac that God would provide the lamb for the sacrifice, he thought he was misleading his son, that he was hiding from Isaac the fact that he intended to sacrifice him.  However, God was speaking through Abraham at that moment.  So, when the angel of Lord spoke to him at the same moment he noticed a ram caught in the thicket, he realized that God had indeed provided the lamb.  There are really two lessons here.  First, God does not want us to sacrifice our children.  We are to cherish the children God gives us (whether our biological children, or the children He gives us to train up in His service) and train them to love and serve God.  Second, He does not need or want us to sacrifice our children because He has provided.  In Jesus’ death on the cross, God sacrificed His own Son for our sins so that we would not sacrifice the children He gave us.  So, when people kill their children, God is heartbroken because they have not understood the depth of His love.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.