The story with Hagar cannot help appearing, at the very least, strange to a modern reader. Meanwhile, in the age of the Patriarchs people often acted this way, since a child, even one born from a slave woman, could still inherit from the master of the house if the master of the house was his father. And among ancient people, childlessness was considered a grave misfortune and a sign of the gods' anger.

In Abraham's case the situation was made even heavier by Sarah's impatient expectation: after all, she knew about the covenant and about the promises God had given no worse than her husband did. Meanwhile, ten years had already passed (v. 3), and Sarah naturally grew more and more anxious: she was aging, her husband was aging too, and the heir promised by God still had not appeared (vv. 1-2). Everything for which Abraham had once left the land of his fathers and moved to a foreign, unknown country was collapsing. And in Sarah's mind a thought arose by itself: why not speed up the course of events? Is this what God is waiting for from her? Of course, the child of a slave woman is not one's own, but at least he would still be considered an heir, and God's work would continue.

So Ishmael came into the world, and with him contempt and jealousy (v. 4). It would appear, what rivalry can there be between a mistress and a slave woman? But slavery among the Hebrews was never what it was among the ancient Greeks and Romans, or among the ancient Egyptians, where slaves at times were not counted as people. Slavery among the Hebrews was mild and patriarchal, and slaves were looked upon essentially as younger, not fully entitled members of the tribe, who of course had no voice in the tribal council but otherwise were like everyone else. It is no accident that in antiquity the Hebrews used one and the same word for an adolescent and a slave. And if a slave woman became the mother of an heir and the master's concubine, the wife's position in the house became ambiguous (v. 5).

Abraham, for his part, appears to have regarded all the complaints and reproaches from Sarah as not entirely fair: after all, Sarah herself, on her own initiative, had created the situation from which she now suffered. And he gave her the opportunity to resolve this situation at her own discretion (v. 6). The decision was quick, though hardly just: Hagar, together with her child, was in effect driven out of the house. By all appearances, a woman's jealousy outweighed all the considerations that had earlier led Sarah to approach Hagar with the proposal that she bear an heir for the master.

After everything that happened, it became clear to both Abraham and his wife that God's plans cannot be carried out by human efforts alone. At times, as it turned out, the best help one can give God in the fulfillment of His plan is patient waiting. Still, God does not abandon the fugitives (vv. 7-12): in the end, He is the one who has to solve the problems created by people who want to serve Him but do not know how. Everything is resolved well, and another people appears in the Middle East with its own future and its own history. God finds a place under the sun for everyone. And yet, while reading today's passage, a question arises involuntarily: is it worth creating needless problems both for God and for ourselves?

God, as we know from the corresponding biblical story, promised Abraham a son. An heir. The very one with whom all the promises God gave Abraham concerning the future of his descendants would be connected. Abraham waits, but there is still no heir. Sarah waits too, but she and Abraham wait differently. Abraham waits simply, with trust; he believes God, who promised him what He promised.

Yes, of course, to wait for a child at their age is complete madness. But God promised Abraham a son, and to believe Him this time is no greater madness than the madness required to believe Him from the very beginning, back in Haran. So it is for Abraham, because God had spoken with him, not with Sarah. He was a reality for Abraham, but not for his wife. For Sarah too, of course, but differently: through Abraham's stories. Sarah surely trusted her husband, and could not fail to trust him; otherwise they would have parted much earlier.

And yet she had not heard God, at least not heard Him the way Abraham had. It is one thing to hear for oneself; it is another to judge by another person's stories, even the stories of someone close. In the first case, faith is based on trust in the One who spoke; in the second, on trust in the storyteller. In the first case there is more trust, a fuller trust, and this is natural. With such a measure of trust, it is easier to wait. If one is waiting on the basis of another person's stories, waiting is also possible, but more difficult. One cannot show distrust, even if it sits somewhere in the very depths of the soul.

However, if it is there after all, it will reveal itself all the same. It will reveal itself paradoxically, turning into a desire to bring about the promised thing more quickly by one's own strength. Hence the concubine: a child born to a concubine could be adopted and would become that very heir. And then it turned out that everything was not so simple, that the most ordinary female envy could become a problem, such a problem that Sarah would soon not want to see either her own husband's child or his mother.

Did the maidservant-concubine really "despise" her mistress so much? It is hard to say. Who, indeed, can say for certain how an old childless mistress of the house will react to the natural joy and pride of motherhood in a comparatively young maidservant-concubine? Thus the desire to fulfill God's will more quickly produced problems that God had to deal with separately. He managed, which cannot be said of people with their zeal. The human desire to solve God's tasks for Him is a terrible force, but God manages even with that.

Time passes, and the promise on which Abram's whole life is now founded still has not been fulfilled. Clearly, God is waiting for some decisive step from him; it is time to act. And he acts: a son born of a slave woman is legally considered his heir and Sarah's son. The Lord allows and accepts his move; Ishmael too will be a famous man and a great father of nations. But the promise is not fulfilled by human moves and stratagems. It is God's work, and God must fulfill it by His own methods. Therefore God was waiting from Abram not so much for decisive actions as for decisive faith: the ability to allow that the impossible is possible and attainable if it is God's work, for that is exactly how all the most important events of human life take place...