1And YHWH took account of Sarah as He had said, and YHWH did to Sarah as He had spoken.
2And Sarah became pregnant and gave birth to a son for Abraham in his old age at the appointed time that God had spoken.
3And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, to whom Sarah had given birth for him: Isaac.
4And Abraham circumcised Isaac, his son, at eight days old, as God had commanded him.
5And Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac, his son, was born to him.
6And Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh for me.”
7And she said, “Who would have said to Abraham, ‘Sarah has nursed children’? Yet I’ve given birth to a son in his old age.”
8And the boy grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a big feast in the day that Isaac was weaned.
9And Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, fooling around.
21:9. fooling around. The Greek text has “fooling around with her son Isaac,” which can connote either playing with Isaac or mocking him. The word in Hebrew is , which is a pun on the name Isaac. It will occur again in the story of Isaac, Re-bekah, and Abimelek (Gen 26:8).
10And she said to Abraham, “Drive this maid out—and her son, because the son of this maid will not inherit with my son, with Isaac.”
11And the thing was very bad in Abraham’s eyes in regard to his son.
21:11. the thing was very bad in Abraham’s eyes in regard to his son. The Israelite who wrote this text—which favors his own ancestor, Isaac—still expressed sympathy for Ishmael. He wrote of Abraham’s affection for him and God’s promise for him.
12And God said to Abraham, “Let it not be bad in your eyes about the boy and about your maid. Everything that Sarah tells you: listen to her voice; because seed for you will be called by Isaac.
21:12. seed for you will be called by Isaac. Meaning: Abraham’s best-known line will later be identified as children of Abraham-Isaac-Jacob, rather than Abraham-Ishmael or Abraham-Midian or Abraham-Zimran.
13And I’ll make the maid’s son into a nation as well, because he’s your seed.”
21:13. I’ll make the maid’s son into a nation as well. Namely, the Ishmaelites. Their genealogy appears in Gen 25:13–18, and they will figure in the Joseph story (37:25–28; 39:1). They do not appear in the Torah after that.
14And Abraham got up early in the morning and took bread and a bottle of water and gave to Hagar—he put them on her shoulder—and the boy and he sent her off. And she went and strayed in the Beer-sheba wilderness.
15And the water was finished from the bottle, and she thrust the boy under one of the shrubs,
16and she went and sat opposite, going as far as a bow-shot, because she said, “Let me not see the boy’s death.” And she sat opposite and raised her voice and wept.
17And God heard the boy’s voice. And an angel of God called to Hagar from the heavens and said to her, “What trouble do you have, Hagar? Don’t be afraid. Because God has heard the boy’s voice where he is.
18Get up. Carry the boy and hold him up in your hand, because I shall make him into a big nation.”
21:18. I shall make him into a big nation. These words are spoken by the angel, but they certainly appear to be the words of God, not the angel itself. Angels do not make great nations in the Tanak. This is another demonstration that angels are not independent beings in the Hebrew Bible but are rather expressions of God’s presence. (See the comment on Gen 18:3.)
19And God opened her eyes, and she saw a water well, and she went and filled the bottle with water and had the boy drink.
20And God was with the boy, and he grew, and he lived in the wilderness and was a bowman.
21And he lived in the Paran wilderness, and his mother took him a wife from the land of Egypt.
22And it was at that time, and Abimelek and Phichol, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, saying, “God is with you in everything that you do.
23And now, swear to me here by God that you won’t act falsely to me and to my offspring and to my posterity Like the kindness that I’ve done with you, you’ll do with me and with the land in which you’ve resided.”
24And Abraham said, “I’ll swear,”
25and Abraham criticized Abimelek about a water well that Abimelek’s servants had seized.
26And Abimelek said, “I don’t know who did this thing; and also, you didn’t tell me; and also, I didn’t hear of it except for today.”
27And Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave to Abimelek, and the two of them made a covenant.
28And Abraham stood seven ewes of the sheep by themselves.
29And Abimelek said to Abraham, “What are these seven ewes that you’ve stood by themselves?”
30And he said, “Because you’ll take these seven ewes from my hand so that it will be evidence for me that I dug this well.”
31On account of this he called that place Beer-sheba, because the two of them swore there
32and made a covenant in Beer-sheba. And Abimelek and Phichol, the commander of his army, got up and went to the land of the Philistines.
33And he planted a tamarisk in Beer-sheba and he called the name of YHWH El Olam.
34And Abraham resided in the land of the Philistines many days.