Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Sarai said to Abram, “This wrong is your fault. I gave my servant into your bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived, she despised me. May Yahweh judge between me and you.””
(Genesis 16:5)

Sarai had conceived this plan. She had pushed for it. She had Abram agree to it. Now, because it wasn’t working out how she thought, she’s blaming Abram. It’s sad, but frequently this is exactly how we treat others. We cause problems, but we put the blame elsewhere instead of owning up to it. Sarai admits this is a mistake, but tries to make it Abram’s mistake.

God warns us about this several times in scripture. He even talks to us about the benefits of His plans and us following them (Proverbs 10:22). It is always a mistake for us to try and force God’s hand or to seize something we’ve been promised in our own strength. Obedience means patience. There is sowing, there it TIME, and THEN there is harvest. God set it up that way in part to make sure we’re ready to receive. It’s easy to get, it’s hard to receive. Just ask big lottery winners. They’re often broke within 5 years. They got, but they didn’t know how to receive.

This whole situation is another classic one-of-many examples throughout the scriptures of the wisdom of accepting God’s system of one man and one woman in a covenant relationship (marriage). It was His system from the beginning and it NEVER changed (Matthew 19:3-8). There are ALWAYS problems when we stray out of accordance with God’s systems.

The sage Steinsaltz writes: ‘The situation was very delicate for Sarai, and her emotional response to Hagar’s pregnancy was ambivalent. Sarai said to Abram: The villainy done to me [ḥamasi] is on you; you have done me wrong. In this context ḥamas does not bear its usual meaning of theft or robbery, but merely indicates an illegal or improper act. Sarai said: Of my own volition, I gave my maidservant into your bosom. And then she saw that she conceived and I was diminished in her eyes. Therefore, the Lord shall judge between me and you. This was not an outright accusation that Abram had harmed her, but a demand that he stand by her side in a more conspicuous manner.’

The sage Radak writes: ‘ותאמר חמסי עליך, Sarai referred to the insolent behavior she was being subjected to by Hagar as being due to her having had Avram’s interest at heart instead of her own. She accused her husband of not disciplining Hagar for her insolent behavior toward her. She herself had been unwilling to treat Hagar harshly out of respect for Avram’s dignity. ‘ישפוט ה, our sages in Rosh Hashanah 16 say that if someone invokes Divine judgment on a fellow Jew, he or she will become subject to such judgment first. They derive this from Genesis 23,2 where Avraham mourned Sarah’s death, i.e. she who was 10 years junior to him died first. The Talmud assumes that this rule applies in examples such as ours, when Sarai had no evidence that Avram had been aware of Hagar’s insolence toward her. Had he become aware of this firsthand, there is no question that he would not have tolerated such behavior from Hagar against her. It is quite inconceivable that Avram should have remained silent when his wife was being insulted. This was so in spite of the fact that Hagar had been raised in status to be his wife instead of being merely Sarai’s slave. וביניך, the word is written plene, i.e. with the letter י between the נ and the ך, something that occurs almost only here in connection with the word בין. For instance, we have such spellings of the word בינכם וביניו, in Joshua 3,4 where in the very same verse it occurs both spelled defectively בינכם and plene וביניו, “between you (pl) and between him.” There is an allegorical explanation quoted by Rashi for the spelling which suggests that in her jealousy Sarai looked at Hagar’s swollen belly with the evil eye, something which would have resulted in Hagar losing her fetus. This is why the angel told her that she was pregnant, a fact that Hagar had been well aware of; however the idea was that Hagar would give birth to a son, etc., i.e. that she need not fear to abort her fetus on account of Sarai having given her the “evil eye.”‘