Stories From The Hebrew Bible
THE BOY WHO BECAME AN ARCHER
Stories From The Hebrew Bible
THE BOY WHO BECAME AN ARCHER
After Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, Abraham moved his tent and his camp away from that part of the land and went to live near a place called Gerar, southwest, not far from the Great Sea. And there at last, the child whom God had promised to Abraham and Sarah was born, when Abraham his father was a hundred years old.
They named this child Isaac, as the angel had told them he should be named. And Abraham and Sarah were so happy to have a little boy that after a time they gave a great feast to all the people in honor of little Isaac.
Do you remember the story about Sarah’s maid Hagar, the Egyptian woman? Remember how she was sent away from her mistress and saw an angel by a well, and afterward came back to Sarah, and had a child whose name was Ishmael? So now there were two boys in Abraham’s tent, the older boy, Ishmael, the son of Hagar, and the younger boy, Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah.
In Genesis 16:12 an angel of the Lord tells us that Ishmael was a wild boy. He did not like the little Isaac, who was quiet and gentle, and he did not treat him kindly. This made his mother Sarah very angry, and she said to her husband: “Get rid of that slave woman. Her son will never share in your possessions with my son Isaac.”
Abraham felt very sorry to have trouble come between Sarah and Hagar and between Isaac and Ishmael; for Abraham was a kind and good man, and he was friendly to them all.
But the Lord said to Abraham,
Do not be troubled about Ishmael and his mother. Do as Sarah has asked you to do, and send them away. It is best that Isaac should be left alone in your tent, for he is to receive everything that is yours. I the Lord will take care of Ishmael and will make a great people of his descendants, those who shall come from him.
So the next morning, Abraham sent Hagar and her boy away. He gave them some food for the journey and a bottle of water to drink along the way. The bottles in that country were not made of glass or plastic, like ours. They were made from the skin of a goat, sewed tightly together. Abraham filled one of these skin bottles with water and gave it to Hagar.
And Hagar went away from Abraham’s tent, leading her little boy. She wandered over the desert until her water bottle was used up; and her poor boy, in the hot sun and burning sand, had nothing to drink. She thought that he would die of this terrible thirst, and she laid him down under a little bush; and then she went away, for she said to herself: “I cannot bear to look at my poor boy suffering and dying for want of water.”
And just at that moment, while Hagar was crying and her boy was moaning with thirst, she heard a voice saying to her:
Hagar, what is your trouble? Do not be afraid. God has heard your cry and the cry of your child. God will take care of you both, and will make of your boy a great nation of people.
It was the voice of an angel from heaven; and then Hagar looked, and there close at hand was a spring of water in the desert. How glad Hagar was, as she filled the bottle with water and took it to her suffering boy under the bush!
After this, Hagar did not go down to Egypt. She found a place near this spring, where she lived and brought up her son in the wilderness, far from other people. And God was with Ishmael and cared for him. Growing up in the huge desert wilderness of Beersheba, he became a wild man, and learned to shoot with the bow and arrow.
