Genesis 16:2 so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said.
The people we listen to at critical moments in our lives can often alter the course of our lives for either good or not so good. I purposely didn’t phrase it, either good or evil. Sometimes there are better and worse outcomes. But the advise we receive does make a difference.
And the advice given in our text altars the course of history. The middle east conflicts are a result of this advice. Perhaps even the rise of Islam and the continual violence that is increasingly taking over our world is a result of this advice. So don’t underestimate the power of your advice for others, and their advice for you.
What I find insightful is Abram’s listening to his wife. Do you remember another moment in the text of Genesis when a man listened to his wife? He ended up eating the fruit she had offered. And we know how that turned out!
Now I am not saying that all advice from a woman should be ignored. If you quote me saying that, I will deny it vehemently. Women form half of humanity, and in one sense, men are not complete without them. Adam needed Eve to be complete, and together they are called humanity (mankind in many translations).
But here is a time, like that in the Garden, when the man of God did not take hold of the promise of the LORD. Both these men, Adam and Abram, had been given access to the same promise. They would be blessed, fruitful, increase in number and rule over the earth. But both men listened to their wife’s bad advice.
But what I think is more important in this passage is that this is the first instance where the results of the removal of the blessing on women from chapter 3:16 comes to fruition. That verse says, “To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
What has often been understood from this verse is that a woman’s labor at childbirth will be physically painful. While this pain is real, ask any woman who has endured it, this isn’t what that verse is talking about. We see in our text today the outworking of this result of disobedience.
Instead of Sarah being able to conceive and bear children at the normal timing, she has been unable to conceive. Her desire is for children, to bring fruit for herself and her husband, but this has been thwarted. It has been years of trying.
And she lets her disappointment overrule her trust in the promise of the LORD. She has lived in that land, and possibly absorbed the local custom when it comes to the role of servants/slaves that was prevalent in that culture. She exchanged the glory of the LORD’s promise for the quick and “easy” solution.
This trouble around childbearing is repeated in the story to come in Israel’s history. Women are kept from bearing children and then the promise gets put aside and other women are brought into the mix as a ‘solution.’ And each time it happens, trouble follows. There is strife between the women, and the life of the man gets more complicated as well. This is what this word to the woman after the fall is about.
Think about this in our time. How many struggles happen because of the desire of the wife for the husband and it not being fulfilled? How many affairs have started because of the misplacing of passions? The battle of the sexes. There wasn’t supposed to be a battle. Both man and woman were supposed to trust in the promise of the LORD. Will you trust?
The Arnold Journey 