Testimonia — Early Christian Bible Commentary
Genesis 21 · World English Bible
1The LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as he had spoken.
2Sarah conceived, and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.
3Abraham called his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.
4Abraham circumcised his son, Isaac, when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.
5Abraham was one hundred years old when his son, Isaac, was born to him.
6Sarah said, “God has made me laugh. Everyone who hears will laugh with me.”
7She said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? For I have borne him a son in his old age.”
8The child grew and was weaned. Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.
9Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.
10Therefore she said to Abraham, “Cast out this servant and her son! For the son of this servant will not be heir with my son, Isaac.”
11The thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight on account of his son.
12God said to Abraham, “Don’t let it be grievous in your sight because of the boy, and because of your servant. In all that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice. For your offspring will be named through Isaac.
13I will also make a nation of the son of the servant, because he is your child.”
14Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a container of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder; and gave her the child, and sent her away. She departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.
15The water in the container was spent, and she put the child under one of the shrubs.
16She went and sat down opposite him, a good way off, about a bow shot away. For she said, “Don’t let me see the death of the child.” She sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice, and wept.
17God heard the voice of the boy. The angel of God called to Hagar out of the sky, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Don’t be afraid. For God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.
18Get up, lift up the boy, and hold him with your hand. For I will make him a great nation.”
19God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went, filled the container with water, and gave the boy a drink.
20God was with the boy, and he grew. He lived in the wilderness, and as he grew up, he became an archer.
21He lived in the wilderness of Paran. His mother got a wife for him out of the land of Egypt.
22At that time, Abimelech and Phicol the captain of his army spoke to Abraham, saying, “God is with you in all that you do.
23Now, therefore, swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son’s son. But according to the kindness that I have done to you, you shall do to me, and to the land in which you have lived as a foreigner.”
24Abraham said, “I will swear.”
25Abraham complained to Abimelech because of a water well, which Abimelech’s servants had violently taken away.
26Abimelech said, “I don’t know who has done this thing. You didn’t tell me, and I didn’t hear of it until today.”
27Abraham took sheep and cattle, and gave them to Abimelech. Those two made a covenant.
28Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves.
29Abimelech said to Abraham, “What do these seven ewe lambs, which you have set by themselves, mean?”
30He said, “You shall take these seven ewe lambs from my hand, that it may be a witness to me, that I have dug this well.”
31Therefore he called that place Beersheba, because they both swore an oath there.
32So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Abimelech rose up with Phicol, the captain of his army, and they returned into the land of the Philistines.
33Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God.
34Abraham lived as a foreigner in the land of the Philistines many days.
World English Bible · World English Bible; source eBible.org.
Notes on Genesis 21
1871 (English edition) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Gen. xxi. 6.
Editorial footnote · The City of God, THE CITY OF GOD. / BOOK SIXTEENTH. / ARGUMENT., editorial note Footnote_301_301 · Original source
1871 (English edition) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Gen. xxi. 12, 13.
Editorial footnote · The City of God, THE CITY OF GOD. / BOOK SIXTEENTH. / ARGUMENT., editorial note Footnote_303_303 · Original source
1871 (English edition) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Gen. xxi. 12.
Editorial footnote · The City of God, THE CITY OF GOD. / BOOK SIXTEENTH. / ARGUMENT., editorial note Footnote_324_324 · Original source
1871 (English edition) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Gen. xxi. 10.
Editorial footnote · The City of God, THE CITY OF GOD. / BOOK SEVENTEENTH. / ARGUMENT., editorial note Footnote_401_401 · Original source
1872 (English edition) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Cf. Gen. xxi. 2.
Editorial footnote · Against Celsus, The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2 / BOOK IV. / Chapter XLIII., editorial note f664 · Original source
1885 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Gen. xxi. 9–12.
Editorial footnote · Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter LVI.—God who appeared to Moses is distinguished from God the Father., editorial note cite_note-183 · Original source
1887 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Gen. xxi. 12
Editorial footnote · On the Good of Marriage, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Section 31, editorial note cite_note-2 · Original source
1887 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Gen. xxi. 19.
Editorial footnote · On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants, Chapter 36 [XXII.]—Man’s State Before the Fall.; original source section: Chapter 36, editorial note cite_note-5 · Original source
1888 (historical English edition; physical printing year uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Gen. xxi. 9, 10.
Editorial footnote · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 12, editorial note cite_note-3 · Original source
1894 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Gen. xxi. 12; xxii. 2.
Editorial footnote · S. Cyril, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Lecture 5, editorial note cite_note-25 · Original source
1897 (latest original copyright year; printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Gen. xxi. 8.
Editorial footnote · Commentary on Matthew (surviving edition contents), Book 12, Chapter 31, editorial note cite_note-7 · Original source
Date uncertain | Ambrose of Milan
185. So Abraham gained God after he had dug the well. So Isaac, while walking by the well, received that wife who was coming to him as a type of the Church. Faithful he was at the well, unfaithful at the pool. Lastly, too, Rebecca, as we read, found him who sought her at the well, and the harlots washed themselves in the blood in the pool of Jezebel.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · On the Holy Spirit, Chapter XVI., source paragraph 15 · Original source
Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo
Of which thing I do not doubt what follows is to be understood, "And will divide Israel in twain," to wit, into Israel pertaining to the bond woman, and Israel pertaining to the free. For these two kinds were at first together, as Abraham still clave to the bond woman, until the barren, made, fruitful by the grace of God, cried, "Cast out the bond woman and her son." We know, indeed, that on account of the sin of Solomon, in the reign of his son Rehoboam Israel was divided in two, and continued so, the separate parts having their own kings, until that whole nation was overthrown with a great destruction, and carried away by the Chaldeans. But what was this to Saul, when, if any such thing was threatened, it would be threatened against David himself, whose son Solomon was? Finally, the Hebrew nation is not now divided internally, but is dispersed through the earth indiscriminately, in the fellowship of the same error. But that division with which God threatened the kingdom and people in the person of Saul, who represented them, is shown to be eternal and unchangeable by this which is added, "And He will not be changed, neither will He repent: for He is not as a man, that He should repent; who threatens and does not persist,"—that is, a man threatens and does not persist, but not God, who does not repent like man. For when we read that He repents, a change of circumstance is meant, flowing from the divine immutable foreknowledge. Therefore, when God is said not to repent, it is to be understood that He does not change.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · The City of God, THE CITY OF GOD. / BOOK SEVENTEENTH. / ARGUMENT., source paragraph 310 · Original source
Date uncertain | Augustine of Hippo
4. No man can return into his mother’s bowels and be born again. But some one is born of a bond woman? Well, did they who were born of bond women at the former time, return into the wombs of the free to be born anew? The seed of Abraham was in Ishmael also; but that Abraham might have a son of the bond maid, it was at the advice of his wife. The child was of the husband’s seed, not of the womb, but at the sole pleasure of the wife. Was his birth of a bond woman the reason why he was disinherited? Then, if he was disinherited because he was the son of a bond woman, no sons of bond women would be admitted to the inheritance. The sons of Jacob were admitted to the inheritance; but Ishmael was put out of it, not because born of a bond woman, but because he was proud to his mother, proud to his mother’s son; for his mother was Sarah rather than Hagar. The one gave her womb, the other’s will was added: Abraham would not have done what Sarah willed not: therefore was he Sarah’s son rather. But because he was proud to his brother, proud in playing, that is, in mocking him; what said Sarah? “Cast out the bond woman and her son; for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” It was not, therefore, the bowels of the bond woman that caused his rejection, but the slave’s neck. For the free-born is a slave if he is proud, and, what is worse, the slave of a bad mistress, of pride itself. Thus, my brethren, answer the man, that a man cannot be born a second time; answer fearlessly, that a man cannot be born a second time. Whatever is done a second time is mockery, whatever is done a second time is play. It is Ishmael playing, let him be cast out. For Sarah observed them playing, saith the Scripture, and said to Abraham, “Cast out the bond woman and her son.” The playing of the boys displeased Sarah. She saw something strange in their play. Do not they who have sons like to see them playing? She saw and disapproved it. Something or other she saw in their play; she saw mockery in it, observed the pride of the slave; she was displeased with it, and she cast him out. The children of bond women, when wicked, are cast out; and the child of the free woman, when an Esau, is cast out. Let none, therefore, presume on his birth of good parents; let none presume on his being baptized by holy men. Let him that is baptized by holy men still beware lest he be not a Jacob, but an Esau. This would I say then, brethren, it is better to be baptized by men that seek their own and love the world, which is what the name of bond woman imports, and to be spiritually seeking the inheritance of Christ, so as to be as it were a son of Jacob by a bond woman, than to be baptized by holy men and to become proud, so as to be an Esau to be cast out, though born of a free woman. Hold ye this fast, brethren. We are not coaxing you, let none of your hope be in us; we flatter neither ourselves nor you; every man bears his own burden. It is our duty to speak, that we be not judged unhappily: yours to hear, and that with the heart, lest what we give be required of you; nay, that when it is required, it may be found a gain, not a loss.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 12, source paragraph 7 · Original source