When God Speaks to Women - Part 4

Hello and welcome back to the Women’s Weekly Bible Challenge! I’m Lisa Ann Spencer.

Today we are continuing our series, When God Speaks to Women, Part 4.

Last week we introduced the next woman addressed by God, which is Hagar.

At first it may seem strange that God would address an Egyptian handmaid.  However, if you consider the circumstances, it is not surprising.  When God speaks to Hagar, she is with child by Abram, the man to whom God, on three occasions, had made a promise regarding his seed possessing the land of Canaan before he ever had any children.

Genesis 12:7 And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.

And,

Genesis 13:15 For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.

And,

Genesis 15:4 … he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.

And we read this remarkable statement:

Genesis 15:6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him Abram for righteousness.

18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

Before we get to Hagar, we need to establish Abram’s genealogy since understanding the seed line is important.

There is a phrase which occurs in the Bible 16 times, “the generations of”, which will help us follow this seed line.

The first time it is found in Genesis 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

Generations are living things.  We see the word ‘GENE’ and may think of ‘genetics’.

The next use is in Genesis 5:1 This is the book of the generations of Adam.  In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;

The passage goes on to list the genealogy of Adam through his son Seth.  Remember that his firstborn son, Cain, was banished after murdering his younger brother, Abel, so that Cain lost the exalted position of firstborn.  Seth now is considered the firstborn son.

Genesis 6:9 is next.  These are the generations of Noah:  Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

And Genesis 10:1 Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.

 

The chapter goes on to document the genealogy of Japheth, verse 2; Ham, verse 6; and Shem, verse 22.

 

Next we move on to Genesis 11:10 These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred yeas old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:

The following verses details Shem’s genealogy.  Then the Bible narrows the lineage down to a descendant of Shem named Terah.

Genesis 11:27 Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.

We have narrowed down the generations of:

• The ‘created’ heavens and the earth; The ‘made’ earth and the heavens,
• Adam
• Noah
• The sons of Noah
• Shem
• Terah

The narrowing down of the genealogy to Terah is by God’s design.  It is based on His prophecy to the serpent in Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

We are tracing “her seed” to whom the prophecy was spoken. But notice also that in this passage, God is speaking to the serpent who also has a seed.

We can shed light on this from Scripture.

John 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

I have pointed out many times in these Bible studies that there are only 2 ways:

1. God’s way
2. Satan’s way

And we can also see two seeds:

1. God’s seed
2. Satan’s seed

Each person must decide for themselves which seed they will be.  We’ll talk about this more in a future study, but for now, let’s get back to Abram and Hagar.  

Turn to Genesis chapter 12. 

I mentioned last week that we have jumped 2000 years in world history from Eve to Hagar.  Genesis chapters 1 through 11 covers 2 millennia because God was proceeding through the generations quickly in order to get to this man Abram.

Abram, who’s name was later changed to Abraham, is the most well known man in the world, even today.  It is important to understand this.

Beginning at Genesis 12, God begins to slow down the narrative of the history as the Bible begins to focus in on this man Abram.

Genesis 12:1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2 And I will make of the a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

It is amazing for God to choose one man on the face of the whole earth to set apart to bless everyone on the earth!  Genesis 18:19 gives us a reason for God choosing Abram.

For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the WAY OF THE LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

Continuing with Hagar's story...

Genesis 12:5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

There God appears to Abram as we already read in 12:7.

And God makes a covenant with Abram regarding ‘thy seed and this land’ as we saw in Genesis 15:18.

Now we will pick up the story where we left off last week with Hagar.

Your challenge last week was to find ‘Hagar’ and ‘Agar’ in your Bible.  I hope you took the time to do that.

Using Blue Letter Bible, Hagar is found 12 times in 10 verses.

Using Bible Gateway, 14 results are found, including the Hagarites and the Hagarenes, which we will not cover in today’s lesson.

We first find Hagar mentioned in Genesis chapter 16.  Let’s read verses 1-6 to get the full story.

Genesis 16:1 Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

We decided last week that since the scripture does not shed light on why Hagar despised Sarai, we should not make assumptions.  I think we will see the answer to that question in the future when we find her mentioned in the New Testament.

What we do know is that Hagar is now Abram’s wife (v. 3), she has conceived (v 4.), and she hates Sarai extremely (vs 4-5).  

Sarai went to Abram, as the head, to ask what the LORD’s judgment should be in this case that Sarai calls, 'my wrong'.  Abram, as head, turned the judgment over to Sarai.  Then we read that Sarai dealt hardly with her; so hardly that Hagar fled.

The word ‘hardly’ is found 8 times in scripture. I recommend you do another concordance search to see if you can determine the meaning of the word more precisely. The Webster's 1828 Dictionary may also be used to illuminate the definition.

Here are a few definitions:

• Scarcely; barely; almost not.
• Not wholly.
• Grudgingly, as an injury.
• Severely; unfavorably
• Rigorously; oppressively
• Unwelcomely; harshly
• Coarsely

As Sarai’s handmaid, Hagar was totally dependent on Sarai for provision; food and raiment. Using the definitions above, it could have been that Sarai scarcely provided for her; or made her work rigorous and oppressive. Whatever the meaning, it was so bad that Hagar fled. 

And now we come to 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.

 

This generates many questions:

Where was Hagar going? Who is the angel of the LORD? And why was he looking for her?

I believe He was looking for her because she was carrying the seed of Abram to whom He had made promises. 

This is the first reference to ‘the angel of the LORD’ in scripture, but here are others for comparison:  In Exodus 3:2 we read that the angel of the LORD appeared to Moses out of the burning bush, and when we compare that to Mark 12:26 and Luke 20:37, we see that both refer to Him that spoke from the burning bush as God.

Your challenge this week is to find out where Hagar was going by searching for ‘Shur’ in your concordance.

Next week in PART 5 of WHEN GOD SPEAKS TO WOMEN, we will hear what God has to say to Hagar, then begin to look at all of the references to Hagar.  This will help us understand her significance to the purpose of God.

The material in the Blog is covered in this video: