Genesis 16 Summary - 5 Minute Bible Study

Genesis 16

WHEN:

• Abram was born in approximately 1996 B.C. and died in 1821 B.C. at 175 years old (Gen 25:7).

• The events recorded in Genesis 16 happened sometime between 1921-1896 B.C.

CHARACTERS:

• Abram – A man from Ur of the Chaldeans who moved to Canaan at God’s instruction. God promised to bless all the nations of the earth through him and his descendants.

• Sarai – Abram’s wife. She was barren and couldn’t conceive children.

• Hagar – Sarai’s Egyptian servant who was given to Abram as an additional wife.

WHERE:

• The key location in Genesis 16 was a spring of water known as Beer-lahai-roi.

• The exact location is unknown, but most historians believe Beer-lahai-roi was located somewhere within the boundary of the black box on the map.

OUTLINE:

• ABRAM, SARAI, AND HAGAR (16:1-6):

  • Sarai, Abram’s wife, had an Egyptian servant named Hagar.

  • Sarai was unable to have children, so she told Abram to take Hagar and attempt to have children with her.

  • Hagar successfully conceived a child, and from that time on she began to look down on Sarai.

  • Sarai “dealt harshly” with Hagar which led her to run away from Abram’s house.

• THE ANGEL OF THE LORD MAKES HAGAR A PROMISE (16:7-16):

  • The angel of the Lord found Hagar by a spring of water in the wilderness and asked her where she was going.

  • She told him she was fleeing from her “mistress Sarai.”

  • The angel told Hagar to return to Sarai. He told her she was pregnant with a son and the Lord was going to make her child’s descendants into a large nation.

  • Hagar was instructed to name her son Ishmael.

  • The angel foretold Ishmael would be a “wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him.”

  • Hagar blessed the Lord and called Him the “God of seeing” because He looked after her in her time of trouble.

  • The spring of water where the angel of the Lord met Hagar became known as Beerlahairoi.

  • Abram was 86 years old when Ishmael was born.

APPLICATION:

• You can’t rush God’s plan.

• In Genesis 12, God promised to make Abram’s descendants a “great nation.”

• As Sarai and Abram got older, the chances of conceiving a child naturally decreased significantly.

• Rather than trusting God’s promise, Sarai decided to take matters into her own hands, find an additional wife for her husband, and solve the problem her own way.

• In the upcoming chapters, we’ll see that Sarai’s plan didn’t solve the problem and it ended up causing a lot of problems in Abram’s household.

• It is always better to trust God patiently than to take matters into our own hands in an attempt to solve things more quickly.