Lesson date: 13/15/5854AA

Have you ever stopped and thought about Burger King’s motto “Have it Your Way” is our approach to Yah’s Word? Being raised Baptist is a perfect example of that, we hear a “prophecy” spoken and then the next thing we do is form a committee, take up an offering and then do what we heard was Yah’s Will. But I can assure you Baptists won’t wait 10 years like Abram and Sarai have done. By golly, we are going to get it done at the next business meeting. Let me give you an example.

Verse 5 – “I screwed up and it is your fault!” That is not what Sarai said but it is what she meant. Imagine what Hagar must have felt, “YHVH has promised the master of the house a son and I am now carrying it. I am now the mistress of the house. Why do I have to listen to that barren old woman?”

Verse 6 – Abram, probably afraid of Sarai’s wrath, simply told her, “She is your servant do what you want.” This was not the “grownup in the room” approach but simply a dodge. He might as well have told her, “You did it your way now, deal with it.” No matter what, Sarai mistreated Hagar and she fled into the wilderness.

Verse 7 is a very important verse because it begins a construction in Hebrew phraseology. Let’s disect it: “a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur”. This is huge. The word for spring is: H5869 – עין – ‛ayin – BDB Definition: 1) eye

So this spring is not the spring on the way to Shur but a spring near the spring on the way to Shur. We are given the impression that is spring is new or previously unknown. What does water represent? People. We now have an “eye” of people, not previously known to exist on the way to Shur = wall(end).

Verses 8-13 – The Angel of YHVH informs Hagar, at the previously unknown spring in the “wilderness” /midbar **((Bells and whistles should be going off right now.)) that the child she is bearing will become a people too numerous to count and that her son will be a wild man whose hand will be against everyone. Wild = H6501 – פּרה / פּרא – pere’ / pereh – BDB Definition: 1) wild ass ((In the sense of running wild”))

Look at Hagar’s response: “You are the Ěl who sees,” for she said, “Even here have I seen after Him who sees me?”

Let’s put our construction together: Near the spring of people previously unknown in the Word/midbar on the way to the wall/end, this people will be numerous, the children of a wild man(running wild) and against everyone and will spring up between the holy place/Qadesh/sanctuary and Hail/Bered.

Sound like anyone you know?

Where else do we see a woman flee into the wilderness, a large group of water(people) and an “eye” or hole open up in the wilderness(Word)? Maybe Revelation 12?

Verse 14 – A transformation takes place in this verse, “That is why the well”. A spring pops out of the ground and can be random but now this is a well = established. What does the name mean? “The well of the Living One seeing me.” An eye.

Verse 15 – Ishmael = H3458 – ישׁמעאל – yishmâ‛ê’l – BDB Definition: – Yishma’el = “God will hear”.

Verse 16 – All of this happened when Abram was 86 years old. Remember, all this began when Abram was 75 years old (Ber. 12:4)). Chapter 16 began after 10 years (85) and now Yishma’el is born when Abram is 86.

Ahavah vberakhot