Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight, is study #4 of Genesis, chapter 16 and we are going to read Genesis 16:4-6:

And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: JEHOVAH judge between me and thee. But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.

I will stop reading there. As we have been discussing this chapter, we have seen that these two women and their children represent two covenants or gospels:

• the true Gospel;
• a false gospel.

One is the Gospel of grace and the other is a gospel of works.

God has painted this spiritual picture by allowing this historical situation to develop in the lives of Abram, his wife and their handmaid. As we talked about earlier, Sarai attempted to solve the problem that God had brought in to their lives concerning the promised seed. It had been quite some time since God had told Abram he would have an heir that would come forth from his own bowels. To solve that problem, Sarai came up with the idea of having children through her handmaid, so she gave Hagar to Abram to wife. And it did work because Hagar conceived and was with child, but it was not what God had in mind. God had in mind to give Abram a seed through his wife Sarai. It was not long after Sarai gave her handmaid to her husband that she realized her error. She said to Abram in Genesis 16:5:

And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee…

Why did she say it was a wrong? What had happened to make her realize this was an error and a foolish thing for her to do? It was after Hagar conceived and she realized she was with child that her mistress Sarai was “despised in her eyes.” We can clearly see the historical setting and how that could happen when one woman is unable to have a child with her husband, but then another woman enters the picture and becomes the second wife and quickly becomes with child. Then the second wife felt she was special and that she had done something the other wife was unable to do. She could begin to think more highly of herself and think that Abram would favor her more than the other woman because, after all, she was able to give him an heir and Sarai could not. All these things began to work in Hagar’s mind and she began to think more highly of herself than she ought to think and she despised her mistress.

It is similar, historically, to the situation we read about in 1Samuel, chapter 1 where a man had two wives. You know, whenever we read of a man with more than one wife, we read about trouble, whether it be Jacob with Leah and Rachel and their handmaids that were given to him to wife or whether it be this man in 1Samuel 1:1-6:

Now there was a certain man of Ramathaimzophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jehoram, the son of Elihu, the son of Tofu, the son of Zap, an Hamathite: And he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto JEHOVAH of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of JEHOVAH, were there. And when the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions: But unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion; for he loved Hannah: but JEHOVAH had shut up her womb. And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because JEHOVAH had shut up her womb.

You can see how it was between these two women that were wives of Elkanah. There was competition and one was the adversary of the other. Of course, in this case it is a spiritual picture because “adversary” identifies with Satan. The name “Satan” means “adversary.” Hannah was a true child of God and God later blessed her and she would give birth to Samuel the prophet. But, historically, the man had two wives and one had children and the other did not, so the natural tendency of a fallen human being is to think you are something special because you can bear children and be a mother, while the other wife cannot. And this is where the law of God forbids this situation and the law of God wisely restricts men and women to one wife or one husband: “What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Through his own sin, mankind gets entangled in these kinds of relationships and situations and it always causes grief. In that time, they thought it was acceptable for a man to have more than one wife. Today man has divorced and remarried, so they have done the same thing in having multiple spouses and it causes nothing but trouble.

In this situation when there should have been one wife, there were two and one was jealous of the other. The adversarial wife sensed that her husband loved Hannah, so she provoked her sore on a point that Hannah could do nothing about and that was her children. JEHOVAH had shut up Hannah’s womb. Children are a blessing of the Lord, as we read in the Psalms, and to not have children was as if God had withheld His blessing. On the other hand, the other wife had children and she was “blessed.” This was the line of thinking that Hagar more than likely operated under as she thought, “I am blessed of the Lord. God has blessed me with a child.” Then she probably began to think of herself more as the chief wife than as a servant and she began to despise her mistress and this did not sit well with Sarai. Sarai immediately began to realize that she was at fault, as it says in Genesis 16:4-5:

… and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: JEHOVAH judge between me and thee.

Some theologians and commentators have thought that Sarai was trying to shift the blame to Abram, because she said, “My wrong be upon thee,” or upon Abram, is if he were to blame. I think they say this because they miss the spiritual picture between a husband and wife. What does the Bible tell us is the spiritual picture of a marriage? In this case, the husband Abram typifies Christ and the wife or bride represents all the elect believers. The marriage relationship is an illustration of God’s salvation program. Remember, what God tells us in 1Peter about this marriage between Abraham and Sara in 1Peter 3:5-7:

For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.

Here, we see that Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. Then God speaks of husbands giving honor unto the weaker vessel, the wife. Remember how God details His salvation program in Romans, chapter 9 where He says, in Romans 9:21-23:

Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

Clearly, God is relating vessels of honor to vessels of mercy to those whom He had chosen to salvation. In other words, it is His elect people. And that is the language of 1Peter 3:7: “Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel.” The husband is honoring his wife as a vessel and they are to treat their wives as vessels unto honor, meaning to look at them as Christ looks upon His eternal church, the body of all the elect. How did God view His church? He saw them as spotless and sinless because He had paid for all their sins. He forgave them. He was forbearing with them. He was not judging them because every reason for their judgment had been cast upon Him and He suffered and died for those sins. Therefore, when Christ looks at His bride, the eternal church, she is as a pure vessel of honor and not of dishonor.

You know, it is sorrowful but true that as human beings, husbands sometimes fail to live up to the living illustration God has established for the marriage between husband and wife. When our wife does something displeasing to us and it angers us, we sometimes respond by lashing out as if the wife was not a “vessel of honor,” but a “vessel of dishonor,” and as if she were an unsaved person still under the wrath of God and subject to the outpouring of wrath.

Sometimes, in an argument and in anger the husband is, as it were, bitter toward his wife and he pours out his wrath as if she were not joined to him in marriage as Christ is joined to his bride, the elect. It is as if that marriage is another type of relationship other than a relationship that is all grace, mercy and love. By God’s grace, if the husband is a true child of God, he does come to his senses: “I did wrong. It does not matter that my wife was wrong. My response was wrong.” You know, the husband’s responsibility is to follow God’s command for husbands. Often, the husband thinks, “This is what my wife should do, according to God’s command.” That is not the husband’s responsibility – it is the wife’s responsibility. On the other hand, the wife is thinking about what the husband is obligated to do: “My husband does not love me as Christ loves His church.” So, she could begin to be troubled in her mind, which could provoke the unkind word or the harshness from her husband in whatever he was responding to, because each of the spouses is wrong in the thinking.

God lays down the rules for marriage, like the wonderful information we find in Ephesians, chapter 5 where wives are to be in submission to their husbands as the eternal bride is in submission to Christ and where husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves His eternal bride, the church. God did not give this information for both parties so that one spouse could become an “expert” in what the other spouse is to do and vice versa. No – they are not jailhouse lawyers. They learned the law regarding what the other party must do. It is amazing how one spouse can know what the other spouse is to do, but they do not learn what God wanted them to learn for their own role. You see, that is the nature of man. We try to excuse and justify our own sin and we focus on pointing the finger on the other person.

However, the best Biblical wisdom for a marriage would be, “Wives, concentrate on what God says to wives. And, husbands, concentrate on what God says to husbands.” Yes – you can be aware of what your spouse is to do, but the moment you start thinking, “Well, my wife did not deal with me in the way that God would have a wife to deal with her husband,” then the husband has strayed in to an area he does not belong. It is best to just get away from that thinking: “No – I should not think this way. I am just going to start thinking of what God would have me to do.” And what does God require me to do when my wife does me wrong? He requires me to forgive and forebear. That is what God would have me to do and not to be bitter against her. “Husband, love your wife.” Be an example of the true Gospel and the true Jesus Christ and do not be an example of a false gospel where there is bitterness and anger. Those involved in that kind of a gospel relationship are under the wrath of God and subject to the wrath of God, so we do not want to represent that kind of marriage.

Here, in Genesis 16 Sarai realized that it is her wrong and she recognized that fact: “My wrong be upon thee,” meaning the wrong would be upon her husband Abram, who typifies God or Christ and the eternal marriage of Christ and His bride. And every single wrong or sin we would ever do is upon Christ, so this statement is painting a wonderful truth: “My wrong, O Lord, is upon thee.” And we could pray this regarding any wrong we have ever done in our lives. When we look back and we see all our awful sins and, yet, because God has saved us we can say, “O, Lord, that wrong, too, is upon you. That terrible thing I thought, said or did is upon thee.” It is a wonderful Gospel statement that reminds us that all our sins have been cast upon the Lord Jesus Christ and charity has covered a multitude of our iniquities and we are cleansed from all sin. They are not upon us any longer, but they were laid upon Him: “All we like sheep have gone astray,” as it says in Isaiah 53:4-6:

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and JEHOVAH hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.