10.24.26 – Sarah, Part 3

Every weekend I review the Torah portion from the previous week and examine lessons that we did not get an opportunity to discuss, usually because of time. We have talked on multiple occasions about how God has a way of packing a lot into a very small space. He does this by using linguistic and structural patterns that connect stories.

Each story in Genesis transports us back to the Garden, and each story launches us into the remainder of the Torah and the Tanakh.

I want to share with you some thoughts about the oppressive relationship between Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar, and how it acts, potentially, as the seed for something we will see in the book of Exodus. Sarah is still barren, but she has an Egyptian handmaid by the name of Hagar (the stranger) (Gen. 16:1).

This story takes place right after that prophetic moment when Abraham was first told that he was going to have a biological child (Gen. 15:4). Well, something else happened at that prophetic moment, too: a dark, prophetic nightmare, through which Abraham found out shocking news. His seed is going to find itself, strangers in a land not their own, and the inhabitants of that land will enslave them for four hundred years (Gen. 15:13).

If we are reading the story as though we are in it, or reading it for the first time, we do not know who the people will be that will oppress us or what land we will dwell in, but because we have read the end of the story, we know it is talking about Egypt, where the people of God would be oppressed as gerim (strangers).

Is it not interesting? Hagar the stranger's oppression (anah) (Gen. 16:6) is the same oppression (anah) that Israel will face in Egypt in the coming days (Gen. 15:13; Ex. 1:12). It is fascinating to me that each time Hagar is mentioned in our opening narrative, she is identified with Egypt... a little redundant, would you not say? Or is there something else the author is trying to tell us?

Just as Hagar, the Egyptian, was a stranger in Abraham and Sarah's tent, so too will Abraham's descendants be strangers in an Egyptian house. What took place on a seed level magnified into a national level... similar to the Garden and Sodom.

Egyptian slavery does not come out of nowhere. There are seeds, and this seems to be one of the many. Keep reading, Sherlock; there are more clues to come!

Many years later, Isaac is born (Gen. 21:1–7), and at the end of the three-year weaning process, we see Ishmael taunting the weaned boy (Gen. 21:8–9). Sibling rivalry is spilling again. Sarah will not stand for it anymore and sends Hagar, the Egyptian, and Ishmael out of the house (Gen. 21:10–13).

Abraham wakes up in the morning, gives her bread upon her shoulder and some water (Gen. 21:14). She journeys into the wilderness, where she gets lost. The water in the canteen runs out, she casts Ishmael down beneath some bramble branches; she situates herself a distance away and lets up her voice. She cries; she expects her child to die (Gen. 21:14–16). Amidst the distress, an Angel appears, telling her not to be afraid, points out a watering hole, and gives the promise of a great nation rising out of Ishmael (Gen. 21:17–19).

Does this story sound vaguely familiar? Who else left servitude with bread on their shoulder (Ex. 12:31–34, 51) and, according to the Egyptian Pharaoh, got lost in the wilderness (Ex. 14:3), amidst multiple water crises (Ex. 14–15)? And just as Hagar experienced divine intervention, so too did the Israelites. Hagar lays Ishmael under branches (Gen. 21:15), and Moses averts the water crisis by throwing a branch into the bitter waters (Ex. 15:23–25).

The same angelic "no fear" message given to Hagar (Gen. 21:17) is the same message given by Moses to Israel during their Reed Sea crisis (Ex. 14:13).

There are many more parallels within the stories: seeds of oppressive slavery and seeds of redemption. Scripture does not gloss over any of the shortcomings or sins of our "fathers" and "mothers," because they were meant to teach us life lessons to guide us, not just create theologies.

Scripture employs us over and over again to love the stranger! Do not wrong the stranger! We all know what it is like to be a stranger, and most know what it is like to be estranged. It is not fun. The Torah wants us to walk out of Egypt (Mitzraim) with this sensitivity toward people who feel like the other in our midst.

You were once a stranger to the promises and covenants of Israel (Eph. 2:12–13). Now you are strangers to the ways of the world (1 Pet. 2:11). Be careful how you entertain strangers, because you may be entertaining angels unaware (Heb. 13:2), and most of all, be careful not to estrange your brothers, who are part of the same body.

Shabbat Shalom!
Alan

www.lightintorah.org

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