Sarah And Hagar

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The year is 1850 BC and Abram and Sarai can’t conceive so Sarai allows her maid, Hagar, to become her husband’s concubine to bear children. The two eventually bore a son and named him Ishmael. He was the first son to Abram and born of a slave women.

Thirteen years later God came to Abram and made with him a covenant, changed his and his wife’s name to Abraham and Sarah and promised them a son. Not long after, Sarah bore Isaac, Abrahams second, freeborn son.

Later in the New Testament of the Bible, it is suggested that these two events act as an analogy for the Old and New Covenants, Ishmael signifying the Old Covenant while Isaac obviously represents the New Covenant.

There is much significance relating to the covenants in these events. The timeline, for example, is significant being that Ishmael was conceived first and representing the first of the two covenants. Also the fact that Ishmael was born to Abram by Hagar, a slave, is considerable because the Jews were slaves during the Old Covenant. Hagar was ugly (probably representing the harsh years of slavery the Jews went through), and aggressive (representing the escape of the Jews from Egypt).

Isaac, on the other hand, was freeborn, signifying the freedom of the Jews during the New Covenant. Also the name Isaac comes from the Hebrew word meaning “Laugh”, which most like represents the lighter years after slavery.

Finally, God and Abraham started the tradition of circumcision and others with Ishmael and continued it with Isaac, much like the Old Covenant’s tradition and culture was carried over to the New Covenants.

I feel this is a good analogy, whether planned out or deriving on some higher level or just a theory, and can be used to explain something deeper within the Bible....