I'm not trying to be smutty here -- I promise! But this story of Abram and his wife Sarai is kind of ... should we say questionable? Sarai comes up with a plan to bear Abram a son: "Sleep with my Egyptian maidservant," she says. Abram agrees. I wonder if he had to think very long before he agreed to sleep with another woman. I'm not sure what the customs and culture were like back then, but I imagine this scenerio raised an eyebrow or two. It comes as no surprise that once this maidservant knew she was pregnant that she began to despise Sarai. Sarai picked up on this and went to Abram. He told her to do what she wished, so she began mistreating Hagar. Like her later descendant Sammy, she got on her bad motor scooter and rode away...
I'm sorry. Bad joke.
God sent "an angel of the Lord" to speak to Hagar. Many scholars interpret this visitation as being God Himself (i.e. Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity). This messenger told her to go back and submit to her mistress (Sarai), and that her descendants would be "too numerous to count."
"You are now with child
and you will have a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
for the Lord has heard of your misery.
He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyon's hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
towards all his brothers."
Many scholars point to this as the division between Judaism and Islam, pointing to Ishmael as the father of Islam, whose later descendant, Mohammed, would found the religion sometime between 570 and 632 A.D. It's interesting that God comforted this woman and that He cared to explain part of the future to her (just as He did Abram, even fore-telling the slavery in Egypt and Moses' leadership out of Egypt). I wonder if God has a plan for Muslims, as He hinted that He does for the Jews in Romans 9-11 and specifically in 11:25:
"I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: 'The deliverere will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my coveneant with them when I take away their sins.' As far as the Gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and His call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobediencece so that He may have mercy on them all."
Very interesting... Maybe God has a plan to give revelation and saving knowledge to the Muslims near the end of the age. I don't know.