MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Genesis 16:4-6
THE EVILS OF ABOLISHING SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS
By the elevation of Hagar from the condition of a bond-servant to that of a wife, her relation to Abram’s family was changed. This sudden advancement to a superior position brought new complications into the patriarch’s household. The evils of abolishing social distinctions receive a sad illustration in this narrative. The same great principles which are at work here apply to all times, though the external facts which spring from them are endlessly varied. All sudden and violent changes which disturb the foundations of human society are fraught with manifold inconveniencies and dangers. Some of these may be seen in this history.
I. Those who are suddenly raised in the social scale are tempted to pride and insolence. Sarai makes the complaint to her husband: “I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes.” Hagar’s new position in the household, and her possession of that fruitfulness which was denied to her mistress, made her boastful of the superior advantage, and she became proud and insolent. She reproaches the very person who had been the means of her advancement. Those who are not fitted by natural endowment and training for the higher stations of life are injured and exposed to many temptations by being suddenly forced into them. By a healthy ambition, plodding industry, and laborious self-culture, a man may greatly raise himself in the social scale. But this is a different case from that of those who are suddenly raised by the action of others whose aim is to make all men equal by means of violent changes in human society. Such forces directed towards the new adjustment of the social state can never maintain it in a condition of equilibrium. It is like the attempt to cause the surface of water to assume that of an inclined plane; when the constraining force is removed the water falls back to its original level. Human experience has proved that, in many cases, the morals of men have been entirely changed by their sudden exaltation to place, power, or wealth. They become full of conceit, and are scornful and reproachful towards others. The position of Hagar was not given her from any particular regard for herself, but in order to serve a special purpose. She mistook the grounds of the favours bestowed upon her. This has ever been the delusion of those who have been advanced from humble stations by the artificial regenerators of society, who only cared to serve their own selfish ends, and have but regarded the poor and lowly as steps along which they might climb to power and importance.
II. Those who have taken part in the abolishing of such distinctions are the first to complain of the evils caused thereby. Sarah herself proposed the elevation of Hagar to this honour, and she is the first to complain of the bitter evils which this false step had brought upon her. This has often been repeated in the history of mankind. Men have been forgetful of God’s order, and have tried to reconstruct society upon a new basis. Then they find that they have plunged themselves into unforeseen complications and troubles, and like Sarah—
1. They complain of their troubles so as to excuse themselves. Sarah throws the blame upon her husband. “And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee.” Men cling to the consolation that the evils from which they suffer are not due to their own conduct. The last thing they can be brought to do is to charge their evils upon themselves. Thus sinners who reap the reward of their own doings peevishly blame Heaven for their misfortunes. When a man by his own folly has perverted his way, then his heart fretteth against the Lord.
2. They often make rash appeals to divine justice. “The Lord judge between me and thee,” said Sarah to her husband. There is an appeal to Eternal Justice which is quite becoming in pure and strong souls when the oppression of human injustice lies heavy upon them. Job could appeal to his Vindicator on high, who would redress his wrongs and assert his integrity. But rash appeals to Heaven are mostly the sign of a weak cause. Men hide their own evils from themselves and others, and seek a passing comfort by claiming the consolations of the just. To invoke God seems, for the time, to put an end to all strife and to leave the matter with Him. Thus religion is used by some as a sanctuary whither they flee in the time of trouble. They use it only in emergencies. Many of those who have tried to anticipate God’s time by precipitating His purposes towards humanity, have to the last appealed to Heaven in vindication of the justice of their cause.
III. The recognition of original rights is the best way of dealing with such evils. Abram does not dispute the matter with his wife, but meekly says, “Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee.” (Genesis 16:6.) He takes no side, nor does he defend, as he might consistently have done, the just rights of Hagar in her new position. He refers back to Sarah’s original rights as mistress of the household, as his wife entitled to his affection, and as one who had the sole disposal of a servant who was still her property. Times have changed since then, the paid servant having succeeded the bond servant; still, the policy of Abram may be recommended to those who are called upon to act in similar domestic and social complications.
1. This is a better course than the immediate imputation of such evils to those who have caused them. It is sometimes better to quiet such disorders by presently using gentle means. To go at once to the bottom of the evil, and to apportion blame to those to whom it properly belongs, may cause irritation. Even a righteous reproof may be given at a wrong time, and in circumstances unfavourable to its success. Peace is sometimes better than vindication.
2. Meek submission becomes true might in the end. Meekness was the only treatment which was suited to a mind enduring the tortures of self-reproach. The time for calm reason would come, when that meek spirit which endures evils rather than give offence would gain the true victory.
IV. The evils brought about by sudden and violent changes in the social state are never fully remedied. Abram by his yielding spirit appeased the anger of his wife, and cut off all further occasion of quarrel. But he yielded too much. Hagar, indeed, was the bondmaid of Sarah, and, according to the usage then prevailing, her property; still she was in some sense the wife of Abram, and entitled to his protection. He ought not to have given her up entirely to the will of a passionate and jealous woman. But things could not be exactly as they were before in Abram’s household. A false step had been taken, and though the evils it caused might be mitigated yet they could not be wholly undone. When once social usages and relations are disturbed, the reformation of the evils caused thereby can only be partial.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Genesis 16:4. The success of our schemes in gaining our own immediate ends is no sure indication that God approves of them.
The most abject, when placed in positions where their natural advantages give them a superiority over others, are the most tempted to pride.
The results of our own presumptuous anticipation of God’s time and purposes soon show themselves. By our short-sighted wisdom we often set a snare by which our own feet are taken.
Solomon says that “an handmaid that is heir to her mistress” is one of those things for which the “earth is disquieted” (Proverbs 30:23).
If carnal strength succeeds in bearing any fruit, the immediate result is contempt of better things. For the flesh can achieve nothing without being exalted. Sarai, therefore, instead of being “built up,” as she hoped, by Hagar, reaps through her fresh humiliation.—(Jukes: “Types of Genesis.”)
The jealousies, the heart-burnings, and mutual reproaches which we now find disturbing the peace of his pious family, are such as might have been anticipated from the course of policy unhappily pursued. That the Egyptian bondmaid, so strangely and suddenly honoured, taken out of her due place and station and admitted to the rank and privileges of a spouse, should forget herself and become high-minded, was precisely such conduct as might have been expected on the part of a slave treated as Hagar was, and having a temper unsubdued and a mind uninstructed, as Hagar’s probably were. She could not enter into the plan which the heads of the house had formed, or into the reasons and motives which led them to form it. To their servant, if not to themselves, it must have been fraught with a vitiating and corrupting tendency; and assuredly it did prove to her a temptation to insolence and insubordination stronger than she could withstand. Hence Abram and Sarai had the greater sin. There was a cruel want of consideration in what they did. Even if they felt that they were at liberty, so far as they themselves were concerned, to do it, and that they were safe in doing it, were they not bound to ask how it might affect their dependent, whom they made a party in the transaction? Is not this the duty of all heads of families? Alas! how is it discharged! Do parents and masters—do the heads and members of households among Christians—duly weigh and recognise their responsibility in this particular? Do you, we might say to them, in all affection—do you, with special reference to this consideration, apply the maxim, “All things are lawful unto me, but all things edify not?”—(Candlish.)
Genesis 16:5. There is often a sad reaction which follows an over-strained zeal. Those who have been driven to adopt insane schemes of policy, when their own failures are brought home to them wildly impute the blame to others.
We cannot disturb the settled order of society, even when the end proposed is good, without producing serious evils.
We are too ready to blame others for those misfortunes in which we have taken the chief part in bringing upon ourselves. Passion dulls the moral perceptions of the soul.
Being now made to reap according to that she had sown, she begins, when it is too late, to repent of her rashness. But instead of condemning her own conduct, and confessing that her folly had recoiled upon herself, she turns the edge of her resentment against her husband. Had the good man formed a deliberate design of injuring and insulting her, she could not have employed harsher language. Indeed, her conduct throughout was that of a peevish, unreasonable, and disappointed woman; and its weakness and wickedness are aggravated by her appealing to God in a case where she was clearly and consciously in the wrong. As if she had taken it for granted that her husband would not hear her, she exclaims: “The Lord judge between me and thee!” Such hasty and passionate appeals to heaven, instead of indicating a good cause, are commonly the marks of a bad one. A truly serious spirit will pause before interposing the name of God on any occasion, and will shudder at the thought of employing it on a false or frivolous one.—(Bush.)
When evils come upon us, we often regret them merely because of their sad consequences to ourselves. There may even be a sorrow for sin which is not “after a godly sort.”
We can only retain our true dignity and power by quietly waiting for God’s time.
He must not be sent for all in haste to decide the controversy, who, if He had come, you may soon see which of them would have had the worst of it. The best, we see, have their domestic contentions; some household words will now and then pass betwixt them; we match not with angels, but men and women. Two flints may as soon smite together, and not fire come forth, as two persons meet in marriage and not offences fall out. Publius Rubius Celer was held a happy man among the Romans, that commanded it to be engraven upon his gravestone that he had lived three and forty years and eight months with C. Ennia, his wife, sine querela, without the least quarrel. (Trapp.)
We may with confidence appeal to God when our conscience is clear and our cause is just; but to do so in the spirit of rashness and peevishness, in order to relieve our passionate temper, is impiety.
Genesis 16:6. As Abram’s faith was tried on other occasions, so here is a trial to his spirit of meekness—to the power of Divine grace within him in maintaining his temper amidst the provocations of domestic life.
How to meet quarrels.
1. By a calm demeanour. To catch the contagion of the passion and rage of others is to impair the accuracy of our judgment, and to make ourselves partakers of their evils.
2. By recognising whatever rights those who quarrel with us may have on their side. Abram acknowledged the fact that Hagar belonged to her mistress and was entirely at her disposal.
3. By meekly yielding to the weak when there is no prospect of bringing them to a rational mind. Sarah was the “weaker vessel,” and it was of no use, in that state of her temper, to reason with her upon the whole question. It is better to turn away wrath by a soft answer than to prolong a hopeless struggle.
Abram is tempted to carry too far his indulgence towards one who is apparently to realise his anxious longing; and under this natural feeling, has he become less sensitive than otherwise he would have been in regard to her whom he should honour, and more tolerant of disrespect or insult shown to her? We may gather this from Sarai’s complaint; for she would not probably upbraid her husband without a cause. And if it were so, how sad an instance we have here of the difficulty of stopping short when a single doubtful step is once taken! Abram, when he consented to the specious proposal made to him, thought that he was acting disinterestedly and for the best. But other and less worthy motives began to mingle with his better purposes; and, at all events, he is now entangled in a net of his own making. He is no longer free; he is a slave of circumstances; and he is compelled to make the best he can of a painful perplexity and hard necessity; to do violence to his feelings, perhaps even to his convictions of duty; and to consent, at last, to the degradation and disgrace of one whom now, after what had passed, he is surely bound, not less in duty than in the current opinion of the age, to consider as having claims upon his regard.—(Candlish.)
Abram seems to have been brought into a situation wherein he was at a loss what to do; and thus, as Sarai is punished for tempting him, he also is punished with a disordered house for having yielded to the temptation. And now Sarai, incited by revenge, deals hardly with Hagar—much more so, it is likely, than she ought—for though the young woman might have acted vainly and sinfully, yet her mistress is far from being a proper judge of the punishment which she deserved. The consequence is, as might be expected, she leaves the family and goes into a wilderness. Indeed, it were “better to dwell in a wilderness than with a contentious and angry woman.”—(Fuller.)
Sarai deals hardly with the bondmaid, who therefore flees the house. If through faith’s impatience the principle of law is exalted out of its place, and thus dishonour is done to the free woman, a re-action follows, for Sarai is best loved, and though barren never loses her rightful empire over the believing heart. The spirit of faith at once gives Hagar up, and for a season the bond-maid is lost to Abram’s house; the elect permits her to be so abused that for awhile she flees and is lost sight of. Who that knows this path but has seen how the affection of law, when contempt has through it been poured upon a higher principle, is ejected even from that place, where as hand-maid it might be most useful. So does legality lead to antinomianism, and this when law as yet cannot be dispensed with. The time comes, indeed, after Isaac is born, when there is no further need for the bond-maid, and she is cast out for ever. At present the bond-maid is needed. She is therefore sent back by the Lord to her true place as Sarai’s maid. For “the law is good if it be used lawfully.” (1 Timothy 1:8.) The sorrow comes from exalting it out of its proper place.—(Jukes: “Types of Genesis.”)