Distressed

DEVOTION

GENESIS

DISTRESSED

Gen 21:8-13

8 The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. 9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, 10 and she said to Abraham, "Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac." 11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. 12 But God said to him, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. 13 I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring."

NIV

Two situations are within this text. The first is the great feast regarding the weaning of Isaac. It would seem strange for us today to hold a big party when our son left his mother’s breast for solid food. Today, our babies do not even take solid food upon being weaned, but rather are nourished with jars filled with mushy things. Still this is not a time when we throw a great celebration. But in the time of Abraham this was a special event. From other scriptures we find references to counting all males three years and up, whose names are in the genealogical records, for the purpose of serving in the temple. Samuel’s mother indicated she would take him to the temple, where he was to live after he was weaned. It would not have been possible for him to live in his own until he was weaned or about three years of age. So it was a special transition time from being an infant attached to its mother and becoming counted among the men. Surely he was still under the charge of a male, as he had not reach twelve, becoming accountable to God for his own life. But he would be leaving his mother and being under the charge of his father. A great transition for boys in that day. Now Ishmael was already seventeen years of age, as Abraham was eighty six when he was born, and one hundred when Isaac was born plus the three years now at the time of his weaning makes seventeen years. Ishmael was making fun at this transition of the little boy being counted as among the males. At seventeen Ishmael had already not only been counted among the males but had transferred to manhood at twelve. We are not told if Abraham held a great feast when Ishmael was weaned, but it would seem because of his mocking that might not have happened for him, even though he was a son of Abraham. This word mocking is taken from the Hebrew word meaning to mock, to make merry, to laugh out loud, to make sport of something. We can take our lesson from this. Whenever someone else’s success is celebrated, how do we feel? Certainly we would not ever mock their success openly, or maybe we might in some other way. It could be possible we might attempt to discredit their success and thus nullify the celebration. If their success was due to some underhanded method, which we were aware of, would we speak to someone about it, thus mocking the celebration of their achievements?  Ishmael had a choice, he could have entered into the celebration giving more joy to his father. But he choose to mock. This actually caused Sarah to become vindictive toward him and his mother Hagar. We can just imagine Sarah screaming at Abraham about Ishmael’s behavior and telling him to get rid of him and his mother. Both the behavior of Ishmael and Sarah brought distress to Abraham. Ishmael to his father, Sarah to her husband. Whenever we mock in any fashion we actually bring distress to our Father as well as discredit our own reputation as his child. We also bring distress to our Lord as he is our bridegroom, our husband.  Yet God intervened for the sake of Abraham’s distress. He assured him he should rest easy regarding Ishmael, for God knows he too is his son and he will bless him, making him into many nations as well. Here is another lesson. If we are ever in the situation of being mocked, or one of our family being mocked by another, when we have strife within our family members, we should not get distressed over it, for God sees our situation and he assures us he will handle it, as he watches over our lives, he directs our paths, he orders our steps. As, with Abraham, we should not have cause to be distress for any reason. If we ever feel distressed, God is there to relieve our distress. Let us neither bring distress nor feel distressed.