Genesis 16
16
The Birth of Ishmael
1Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children, and she had a maidservant, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. # Gal 4:24 2And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from having children. Please go in to my maid; it may be that I will obtain children through her.”
Abram listened to Sarai. 3So after Abram had been living for ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, his wife, # Ge 12:4–5 took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. 4He went in to Hagar, and she conceived.
When she saw that she had conceived, she began to despise her mistress. 5Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my maid into your arms; and when she saw that she had conceived, I became despised in her eyes. May the Lord judge between you and me.” # Ge 31:53; Ex 5:21
6But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your maid is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her presence.
7The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness. It was the spring on the way to Shur. # Ex 15:22 8And he said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?”
And she said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.”
9Then the angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.” 10The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly so that they will be too many to count.” # Ge 17:20; 21:13
11Then the angel of the Lord said to her,
“Behold, you are pregnant
and will bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael,
because the Lord has heard your affliction. # Ex 2:23–24; 3:7
12He will be a wild man;
his hand will be against every man,
and every man’s hand will be against him.
And he will dwell
in the presence of all his brothers.” # Ge 21:20; 25:18
13Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are the God who sees,” for she said, “Have I now looked on Him who sees me?” # Ge 32:30; Ps 139:1–12 14Therefore the well was called Beer Lahai Roi. # Ge 24:62; 25:11 It is between Kadesh and Bered.
15So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the son she bore Ishmael. # Ge 25:12 16Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.
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Genesis 16: MEV
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The Holy Bible, Modern English Version
Copyright © 2024, 2017, 2014 by United Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House. All rights reserved.
Genesis 16
16
The story about Hagar and Ishmael
1-3Abram and Sarai lived in that Canaan country, and after they were there for 10 years, they still had no kids. Sarai had a woman from Egypt working for her, called Hagar. She was Sarai’s slave. That means Sarai owned Hagar, and Hagar had to do everything that Sarai told her to do.
Sarai was sad because she had no kids, but she got an idea about how to get a baby for herself. So she said to Abram, “God has stopped me from having my own kids. But listen. I want you to sleep with Hagar, like she is your wife. You see, she belongs to me, so if she has a baby, that baby will really belong to me.” So Abram did that, just like Sarai said. 4He slept with Hagar like she was his wife.
Then Hagar found out that she was going to have a baby, so she started rubbishing Sarai all the time, because Sarai didn’t have any kids. 5So Sarai said to Abram, “I blame you for this trouble. I gave Hagar to you, and now she is going to have a baby, and she is rubbishing me all the time. I reckon God knows that I am right, and you are wrong.”
6But Abram said to Sarai, “Hagar belongs to you. You are her boss, so do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai started to treat Hagar in a really bad way. So Hagar left Abram and Sarai’s camp and ran away.
7Hagar started walking through the desert, along the road that went to a town called Shur, near Egypt. She sat down next to a water-hole there in the desert. God’s angel messenger went to her there. 8He said, “Hagar, you belong to Sarai, so why are you sitting out here in the desert? Where are you going?”
Hagar said, “I’m running away from my boss, Sarai. She is too hard on me.”
9God’s angel messenger said to her, “Don’t do that. Go back to your boss, and do what she says.” 10And the angel also said, “God is going to give you a really big family. You will have a son, and later on lots of people will be born into his family, and they will be a real big family, so that nobody will be able to count all those people.” 11The angel said, “You are going to have a baby boy, and you will name him Ishmael, because that name means God listens. You see, God listened to you. He heard about your trouble, and he will help you. 12And Ishmael, your son, he will live like a wild donkey. He will go anywhere he wants to, and he will fight against everybody, and everybody will fight against him. He will not live close to his relatives.”
13Then Hagar said to herself, “I have seen the God that sees me, and he looks after me.” So she gave God a name, she called him the God that sees me. 14So that’s why people call that water-hole the water-hole that belongs to the one that is alive and sees me. That water-hole is between a place called Kadesh and a place called Bered.
15Soon after that, Hagar had a baby boy, and Abram named him Ishmael.#Galatians 4:22 16Abram was 86 years old at the time when Ishmael was born.
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