Shared Word Translation
Genesis 21
The Birth of Isaac
And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as he had spoken. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”
Hagar and Ishmael Sent Away
And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit with my son Isaac.”
And the matter was very displeasing to Abraham because of his son. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be displeasing in your sight because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her voice, for through Isaac shall your seed be named. And also of the son of the slave woman I will make a nation, because he is your seed.”
So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, placing it on her shoulder, along with the boy, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.
When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him at a distance, about a bowshot away, for she said, “Let me not see the death of the child.” And she sat opposite him and lifted up her voice and wept.
And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Rise, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an archer. He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
Covenant at Beersheba
At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do. Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my offspring or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned.”
And Abraham said, “I will swear.” When Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized, Abimelech said, “I do not know who has done this thing. You did not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today.”
So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant. Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock apart. And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What is the meaning of these seven ewe lambs that you have set apart?” He said, “These seven ewe lambs you shall take from my hand, that this may be a witness for me that I dug this well.”
Therefore that place was called Beersheba, because there both of them swore an oath. So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines.
Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines.