Genesis 17:15-22 And God said to Abraham, As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.… Abraham believed God, and was overcome with joyful surpass. But a doubt immediately occurs, which stakes a damp upon his pleasure: "The promise of another son destroys all my expectations with respect to him who is already given!" Perhaps he must die, to make room for the other; or if not, he may be another Cain, who went out from the presence of the Lord. To what drawbacks are our best enjoyments subject in this world; and in many cases, owing to our going before the Lord in our hopes and schemes of happiness! When His plan comes to be put in execution, it interferes with ours; and there can be no doubt in such a ease which must give place. If Abraham had waited God's time for the fulfilment of the promise, it would not have been accompanied with such an alloy: but having failed in this, after all his longing desires after it, it becomes in a manner unwelcome to him! What can he do or say in so delicate a situation? Grace would say, Accept the Divine promise with thankfulness. But nature struggles; the bowels of the father are troubled for Ishmael. In this state of mind he presumes to offer up a petition to heaven: "Oh that Ishmael might live before Thee!" Judging of the import of this petition by the answer, it would seem to mean, either that God would condescend to withdraw His promise of another son, and let Ishmael be the person; or if that cannot be, that his life might be spared, and himself and his posterity be amongst the people of God, sharing the blessing, or being "heir with him" who should be born of Sarah. To live and to live before God, according to the usual acceptation of the phrase, could not, I think, mean less than one or other of these things. It was very lawful for him to desire the temporal and spiritual welfare of his son, and of his posterity after him, in submission to the will of God: but in a case wherein natural affection appeared to clash with God's revealed designs, he must have felt himself in a painful situation: and the recollection that the whole was owing to his own and Sarah's unbelief, would add to his regret. (A. Fuller.) Parallel Verses KJV: And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. |
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