Genesis 16:1-3 Now Sarai Abram's wife bore him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.… 1. God's promise and covenant can hardly keep up faith in His own, against the discouragements of sense. 2. Sensible helps at hand may be an occasion to doubt of God's promise as being afar off. So was Hagar to Sarai (ver. 2). 3. Good souls in temptations may complain of this barrenness though God order it. 4. Sense of such wants may put souls upon unlawful means to have their desires of a seed. 5. Flesh persuades to take an uncertain peradventure in sense, rather than wait for God's promise in certainty (ver. 2). 6. Temptation may carry saints not only to the motion but action of evil. 7. Such temptations may make saints do evil, for ends seeming good. So Sarai gives her to wife. (G. Hughes, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. |
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