Title Chapter 5 Abraham's Mistake (Genesis 16:1)
Content As seen in the text above, sadly, Abraham, the father of faith, made a mistake and got a concubine. Here's how he got there.
He had received God's promise, "Look up to heaven, and count the stars... so shall your descendants be" (Genesis 15:5). Then Abraham believed the LORD, and the LORD said, "It was counted as his righteousness."
He certainly had faith enough to be counted righteous in the sight of God. But now he has failed in that test. That is, the test is as follows. Years passed, and 10 years had passed since he entered Canaan and received the promise, but he had no son.
“It was ten years after Abraham had dwelt in the land of Canaan when Sarai, Abraham’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, his maidservant, and gave him as a concubine.” got it
Of course, it was because he followed the advice of his wife. In Genesis 16:2, "Sarai said to Abram, "The LORD has not permitted me to bear fruit. Please sleep with my maidservant, lest I may have children by her." So Abram listened to Sarai." Abraham followed Sarah's advice and took Hagar as a concubine. This must have been Abraham's great mistake. As recorded in the Bible, Abraham had already been subjected to several not-so-little tests in the past.
He won any test well, but in some cases he fell. First look at the tests he has overcome.
1. He obeyed God's word, "Leave your country and your relatives and your father's house" (Genesis 12:1). It won well as he obeyed it. This made him a man pleasing to God.
2. There was a temptation to bring sorrow to Lot (Gen. 13:1-11). Even then, he had surrendered all his rights to him (Gen. 13:8-9). Then God was pleased with him.
He gave him the inheritance of Canaan and promised the generation of his descendants (Gen. 13:14-17).
3. I was even asked if I had the courage of faith. He defeated the allied forces of King Shinar with a small group of 318 men (Genesis 14:1-16). I know that it was the power of faith that came from the dependence of God. God had been his shield (15:1).
4. There were tests of worldly wealth and glory. But it also won. That is, he refused the great wealth offered by the king of Sodom (Genesis 14:21-23). How pleased God was with him back then. The Lord Himself said it was his reward (Genesis 15:1).
Then God will tell him that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Of course, it will be a later date, but he has overcome the difficult challenge of dedicating his beloved reader. But what kind of test he fell.
First, I lost the test of constantly relying on God in my daily life. That is, when there was a famine in Canaan, he should have kept the Promised Land, but he abandoned Canaan and went to Egypt (Gen. 12:10).
He should have been victorious by looking at God who provides for all his needs, no matter how poor he was, but he did not. In fact, it must be very difficult for us to continue to depend on God in our daily lives. Abraham had, of course, obedience and courage of faith. There were modest concessions and he was able to overcome material greed. However, it was not easy for him to overcome hunger and completely depend on God, so that he could cast away all his anxieties and live only looking at God's covenant. He had finally gone down to Egypt, unable to stand the test. There was a time in Egypt where he reached a great crisis (Gen. 12:14-15), but with God's special counsel, he was able to come out safely (Gen. 12:17-20).
The following is the test we see in today's text. If he had received a promise that "God will make your seed (offspring) multiply like the stars in the sky," he should have believed it and endured and endured it until God's time came. But he couldn't stand it for more than 10 years.
Finally, he tried to fulfill God's holy promise in the ugly way of man.
Finally, he took Hagar as a concubine to see his son. Hagi, neither Abraham nor Sarah were unbelievers. It must not have been that they did not believe God's promises at all. They believe in God's promise, but believe in the promise, but try to fulfill the promise by human evil means, not God's method.
God's holy promises are to be fulfilled only in God's holy way. It is impossible to fulfill God's covenant in a human way. Abraham had to wait for God's way and endure until God's appointed time came. But he did not, and there was his failure.
What we often feel as we read the Bible is how difficult it is to wait for the promise and be patient with it. We see it in the case of Jacob as well.
In Genesis 25:23, "...this people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger." The son who was born was Jacob. But he had to endure long in faith until God allowed it. But he couldn't stand it. He tried to fulfill that covenant by taking away the inheritance of the firstborn by human deceit.
Because of that, he had to suffer and struggle with his life.
It was God's punishment for his wrong ways. It takes much patience for us to receive God's promises.
In Hebrews 10:26, we see, “Patience is needed for you, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.” However, Abraham must have endured long in the peninsula to receive the promise, but he was exhausted after 10 years. Of course, the result of his acquisition of a concubine was also disastrous. First, there was a discord in the family. Hagar despised Sarah (Gen. 16:4). Sarah also mistreated Hagar and had to drive her out (Gen. 16:6). There was always a war between the descendants of Hagar, the servant girl, and the descendants of Sarah, and they became the enemies of Cheonchu.
The result of Abraham's acquisition of a concubine was indeed a tragedy. There are some people who doubted that God did not tolerate polygamy in the Old Testament times, such as the example of Abraham. But it is not. The Bible is strictly monogamous in both Old and New Testaments. Malachi 2:15 says, "Though the Lord is spirited, he has not made only one. Why did he only create one, so that he might obtain the hands of godly people. Therefore, be on guard against your spirit, that you do not deceive the wife of your youth." "He said This doesn't just mean being monogamous.
Only then can you have godly children. However, it is truly a sad thing in the history of Abraham that the ungodly scene was finally mixed and became a source of great misfortune among Abraham's seeds that were not.
Again, Abraham's acquisition of a concubine was never God's permission or acquiescence. Obviously it was his big mistake. Then how could he, the father of faith, make such a mistake? In a word, I think it was because he was still not completely free from old habits and old customs.
Then what is the old habit that Abraham got into? The so-called Hamurabi Code, which was dated to Abraham's time, was excavated early, and according to it, in Babylon, if a wife is unable to bear children, the law permitting a woman to be given to her husband to have children as her own has been In addition to the sutras of Hamurabi, traces of such laws appear in other archaeological sources. These are materials excavated in Mesopotamia, his hometown in the time of Maud Abraham. It is certain that it was an act of worldly unbelief that did not escape the customs of that time that Sarah and Abraham had Hagar as his concubine.
Let us now solemnly meditate on the following scriptures of the Apostle Paul, saying, “Put off your old self, which is corrupt according to the lusts of deceit, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, created after God in righteousness and holiness of truth Put on the new man you have received” (Ephesians 4:22-24).