Saturday Sisters: Sarah: And After the Promise was Fulfilled

Our Family Snapshot of Abraham and Sarah 

 Sarah always spoke her mind.  Her husband listened to her. 
  So Hagar became the mother of Ishmael, but
it turned out he wasn't the son God had meant when He told Abraham to leave his homeland.
  But Abraham loved that boy.  Sarah may not have cared for him, but Ishmael was Abraham's son.

How Old is a Boy?

  Looking in my exhausting concordance, i don't see any indication, from the words used,  of how old Ishmael may have been when Abraham followed Sarah's suggestion to toss Ishmael and Hagar out.
  However.
  In Genesis 21:15-18, Ishmael is called both a "boy" and a "lad."  If you check a concordance or multiple translations for verse 15, you will see the word NASB translates "left" is literally something more active, implying that Sarah caused a small child to be ejected from his home.
  The words used in the passage show Hagar's thought processes and God's:  Hagar's word "boy" emphasizes the mother/child relationship.  
  Maybe she coddled her chi son?
  God comes back with a word for Ishmael referring to his coming responsibilities.  It's used elsewhere for young males in serving or leadership positions.
  Doing the math indicates Ishmael may have been between sixteen and twenty, depending on how old Isaac was when weaned.

Citations and Math - Check me; Let Me Know If i'm Wrong!

Back to Sarah & Her Son

  So we now know that, Ishmael having been 13 when his half-brother was born, he was no tiny child when he was set free.  i may look more into this later when Hagar gets her own article.
  But Sarah, our heroine, had gotten her lifelong dream come true.  
  Is this the end of the story?

Notice there's no more stories about beautiful Sarah?  i wonder why?  Did she & Abraham learn to not lie about their status, was it the mom thing ( don't want someone who has a child), or that grey hair that came, at long last for Sarah, too?

  We don't know if or how much out of line Sarah's reaction was.  Kids do joke around.  But she accomplished her purpose, and God seemed to approve.
  Well, accomplishing the needful doesn't mean that causing suffering won't come back to get you.

Calm in the Home of the Only Son

  Scripture gives no indication at all how old Isaac was when his father was called to sacrifice him. 
  Sarah isn't mentioned in the narrative.  We hear of her casting out Hagar and Ishmael, then, after skipping a chapter, that she died.
  We can figure from the text that Isaac was 27 when his mother died.  (So much for the theory that his marriage, at age 40, was a way of assuaging his grief.)
  But while we can see that when sent away, Ishmael was a young man, the only word used in the chapter on Isaac's aborted sacrifice is "son," with various descriptors.
  Sarah must have watched Abraham go off with Isaac and the servants.  She saw there was no sacrificial animal going with them.  Did she know what was planned?  Was it because Abraham told her, or was she spiritually sensitive that way?
  Since Scripture doesn't tell us, we can't, of course, say for sure.  However, she was on the scene.  Either Abraham told her all that was in his heart, or she would have known something was up, and worried, put two and two together.
  A strong woman.  A smart woman.  
  A woman who passionately loved her son.
  And we know how our thoughts run away with us, lead us into worry.
  Did she think of Hagar's son, whom she had sent, at a possibily similar age, to a likely death?  
 They say that what goes around comes around.  God uses this in His dealing with us sometimes.

 When All Is Said and Done

   Women's stories do not receive much ink on the pages of Scripture.  Sarah's story is no exception, important though she was.
  The births and, especially, the deaths of many of Scripture's men are recorded, but only one woman's death is shared with us.*
  Sarah was her husband's partner and friend for over two thirds of his very long life.  When she died, he bought his first property in Canaan.

an imperfect wife, but a woman worth learning from

* And her daughter in law is the only woman whose birth is announced in the pages of the Bible.