Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #8 of Genesis, chapter 16 and we are going to read Genesis 16:9-14:

And the angel of JEHOVAH said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands. And the angel of JEHOVAH said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude. And the angel of JEHOVAH said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because JEHOVAH hath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren. And she called the name of JEHOVAH that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me? Wherefore the well was called Beerlahairoi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.

I will stop reading there. We have been taking some time to carefully look at the spiritual dimension or spiritual teaching regarding Hagar and Sarai. We know that Hagar represents the covenant of works, the covenant of those that attempt to get right with God by keeping the law of God.

Here, the “angel of JEHOVAH” is God Himself and He went after Hagar and convinced her to return to her mistress. He did this for a very definite reason and the reason was that it was not yet time for the separation to take place between Hagar or Sarai because the promised seed to Sarai was not yet conceived or born. It would be later, after the promised seed Isaac was born and after Isaac was weaned that Sarai turned to her husband Abram and told him to cast out the bondwoman and her son. It grieved Abram, but he did cast them out.

At this point in time, God has not yet developed the spiritual picture to the degree He wants it developed, so it was necessary for Hagar to return to the household, so He did pursue her. The angel of JEHOVAH said to her in Genesis 16:10:

I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.

We know that Hagar represents all children of the flesh or children of bondage or those that are under works gospels. They are numerous because it is much easier to develop a works gospel and to tell people, “Accept the Lord Jesus Christ.” In other words, do this simple work of acceptance, make that decision and then come down the aisle and be (water) baptized. Then they imply or they state outright, “Now you are a child of God.”

God take this to heart, in one sense, and he reckons them as children, but they are children of the covenant that Hagar represents, the covenant of works. Man can attempt to do those kind of works, but he cannot perform the work that the law of God requires because a person would have to keep the whole law perfectly. And, yet, these gospels do not tell their followers, “If you do this work of accepting Christ or of water baptism, then you have to keep the entire law of God (the entire bible) perfectly. You cannot offend on one point or you become guilty of all.” So, because it seems easy, people think, “Yeah, I will say I accept Christ. It sounds like a good idea. I can do this work and then I am saved and I do not have to worry about hell or destruction. I have God on my side and, basically, I can go live like I want and I can do what I please, while also being saved.” That sounds good to large numbers of people, so they sign up. They fill the churches and congregations. They fill the pews.

God, recognizing that, says to Hagar, “I will multiply thy seed.” Abram’s seed is not in view here. God is speaking directly to Hagar. “I will multiply your seed, Hagar.” It says in Galatians, chapter 4 that all born of her are children of the flesh, so God is saying, “I will multiply the children of flesh that have some outward identification with my kingdom.” With Israel of old, these would have been the Jews and during the New Testament church age and after, they were professed Christians. And they shall not be numbered for multitude. Yes, there have been censuses performed, but no one knows the exact number of professed Christians, but it is about two billion. Of that number, there could have been some elect that eventually came out of the churches, so no one knows the exact number of professed Christians, as it says here: “…it shall not be numbered for multitude.” In other words, there will be so many children of the flesh, you will not be able to number them because they will be like the sands of the sea. And the number “two billion” is an enormous number. If you want some idea, just start counting, “1, 2, 3,” until you get to two billion. You probably will not make it to that number.

It is an incredibly large number of people that have been deceived. They have been lied to and they have been told: “Follow our covenant. Follow our gospel and you will be saved and enter into the kingdom of God and have eternal life.” They are promised all the things that the true Gospel promises and these promises have been applied by the churches to these people, but they will never receive them because they are under the wrong covenant. They are not children of Abraham, spiritually. The promise of inheriting the Promised Land, the new heaven and new earth, was made to Abraham and his seed, not to Hagar and her seed, even though Abram played a part in producing the seed of Hagar, Ishmael and all the later generations. But that was not the line from which the seed would come. Physically, Christ came through the lineage of Abraham and Sarah. Spiritually, He came through that line and all the elect that are counted for the seed in Him come through the covenant of promise, which is the covenant of grace and not works.

So, here, God is saying that this seed of Hagar shall not be numbered for multitude because it will be such an enormous number. It says in Romans 9:27:

Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:

In this statement, we have the two covenants. We have the one that will be as the sand of the sea, the children of Israel, and we have the other, a remnant that was among the children of Israel. It is the same situation when we carry it over in to the New Testament age. We have the professed Christians that are as the sand of the sea and out of them there is the remnant that are saved. So, the far greater number are the children of the flesh or the children that were produced through the covenant that Hagar represented, the works gospels. It is easier to get people to sign up than it is for the Lord Jesus Christ to die for His elect people. He died for certain ones and they are the remnant and they are the only ones that are the children of the promise and identified with Sarai, the mother of us all.

Regarding the children of Israel that are said to be as the sand of the sea, notice how that language relates to what we read in Revelation 20:7-8:

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

The “thousand years” refers to the 1,955 years of the church age. Again, it says “the number of whom is as the sand of the sea,” and that is speaking of the children of Israel and they represent the New Testament churches. When Satan was loosed, where did he go? He entered in to the corporate churches and he took his seat as the man of sin ruling in the congregations. The majority of people within the churches and congregations of the world were unsaved (children of Hagar) and Satan ruled over them and gathered them to battle to bring spiritual destruction upon the churches and to do battle with the kingdom of God. So, Satan had his emissaries. They were pastors, bishops, priests and elders and deacons and they gathered together the congregations and went forth to battle during the time of the Great Tribulation period. In other words, they were children of the flesh coming against the children of the spirit, the elect of God. They drove them out of the churches, “killing” them in that way during that little season of Great Tribulation.

So, here, God is really identifying the “mother” of all those later generations of fleshly believers and it was Hagar: “I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.”

Let us go on to Genesis 16:11:

And the angel of JEHOVAH said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because JEHOVAH hath heard thy affliction.

The name “Ishmael” is a name that literally means “JEHOVAH will hear.” It is a compound word made up of two Hebrew words that mean “God” and “will hear.” The angel of JEHOVAH is eternal God and He has heard her affliction. Remember, Sarai dealt hardly with Hagar; that is, Sarai afflicted Hagar. That is why Hagar fled into the wilderness. She was on her way to Egypt, but God interrupted her flight. It was not yet time for her to flee. It was not yet time for the separation of the wheat and tares and to separate the children of the flesh from the children of the promise. Historically, Old Testament Israel still had to be worked out and, after that, the entire church age had to be worked out and the wheat and tares had to grow together there.

Therefore, God heard Hagar’s affliction and the Lord would multiply her seed and it would become a great seed that shall not be numbered for multitude.

At this point, I should point out that Ishmael was a child of Hagar and Galatians, chapter 4 is clear that the child of Hagar is a child of the flesh – all born of her are born of the flesh. That is the spiritual picture God was drawing between the two children, Ishmael and Isaac, and their respective mothers. While that is true, there is a complication to this, because the Lord also had an end-time program that concerned the descendants of Ishmael. We are not going to look at this right now, but when we get to chapter 17 we will look at it further. But let us look at something in chapter 17 and we will see how Ishmael comes up again, as God reiterates the promised seed that will be born of Sarai. It says in Genesis 17:18-20:

And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.

Again, we see that God says, “I have heard thee,” concerning Ishmael, which ties in with his name, which means “God will hear.” But, God was now speaking to Abraham and this is not the same thing as the promise to Hagar, where He said he had heard her concerning her seed – that identifies with children of the flesh. But, here, in Genesis 17, there is another aspect to this. God is hearing Abraham’s beseeching of the Lord regarding his son Ishmael and this will tie in with what we read in Isaiah, chapter 60, concerning descendants of Ishmael and the great multitude that God will save at the end of time during the Great Tribulation period. But we are not going to get into this until we reach Genesis, chapter 17 and, Lord willing, we will look at these things.

By the way, God did not write the Bible to be easily understood and it can have various applications or types and figures that represent only a single “type and figure.” There can be second or even third layers of spiritual meaning, but we will look at this another time.

Again, it said in our verse in Genesis 16:11:

And the angel of JEHOVAH said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because JEHOVAH hath heard thy affliction.

Then it says in Genesis 16:12:

And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.

Again, this refers to Ishmael and it is very curious and difficult language that is being used by God in verse 12. It is difficult for many reasons, but it is just not easy to see what God is saying here. He said, “And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him,” and we tend to think of this, perhaps, in only a negative way, because it is referring to Ishmael. And we know that Ishmael is the progenitor of the Arab nations, which are mostly identified with the Muslim religion (Mohammed and the religion he developed) that has thrived in that part of the world for many centuries. We know that in this time of the end, in a sense many people look at the descendants of Ishmael that populate many of these Muslim nations and they do see a “wild man,” as it were, and someone whose hand is against every man. This is due to the tremendous number of acts of terrorism at the time of the end and it seems that there is not one specific nation that is a target of these terrorists. They can target the United States or they can target places in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and even other nations of the Muslim religion. It seems they target every man – there is no single target or even a narrow group of targets. So, we wonder if this is what God is talking about. And it may play some part. It may play some part in God’s end-time program and the final judgment of mankind. The role of Ishmael’s descendants may be that their hand is against every man and every man’s hand against him; there may be some Biblical truth in this.

Of course, there is more to it than that. We could say the same thing of the statement that he will be a “wild man.” That statement is not what it appears to be, but we do not have time to discuss this in this study. Lord willing, in our next Bible study, we will look at the word “wild” and we will see how it relates to Ishmael. We will also look at the other statement that says, “his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” We will see what we can learn.

Again, we always need to pray for wisdom and we ask the Lord for His help, as we compare scripture with scripture, to help us define these kinds of vague statements. We certainly need the Spirit’s guidance to assist us and lead us into all truth.