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Genesis 16:11-12, "The angel of the Lord said to her:
behold you are with child and with have a son and you
shall call his name Yishmael, for Hashem has heard your
affliction. And he will be a wild donkey man, his hand
shall be against everyone and everyone’s hand against
him and he will live in the face (or presence) of his
brothers."
"Call me Ishmael." These were the famous first words of
Melville’s long novel, Moby Dick.
- Yet in just one word
- Yishmael - one name - the Bible says so much more!
- Listen carefully:
Yi-sh’ma-el. Do you hear the word within this name?
Shema!
- Y-ishma-el means
"God hears; God pays attention."
- Hashem heard her
affliction: when Hagar the Egyptian fled into
wilderness, Hashem heard her affliction, just as he
later heard the affliction of the children of Israel
in Egypt.
- How many of you can
say, God has heard my affliction?
- God pays attention
when you cry out to him in your need, when you know
there is none else you can trust. God has a soft spot
for the afflicted and broken-hearted! Isn’t this
awesome?
- The steadfast love
of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never will come
to an end!
Moreover, Hagar heard
Him. She paid attention and responded to what He said.
- For Shema is not
just to hear with one’s ears - it is to pay attention,
to trust with all your heart, with a readiness to
obey.
- When the angel of
the LORD told her to go back to her mistress, she
heard, trusted and obeyed.
- He did not promise
her a rose garden! It would not be easy to go back to
her mistress.
- Hagar went back,
because she knew that God had heard her affliction.
- She knew that the
God of Abram lives, and sees her, and would take care
of her.
- She trusted Him, and
she obeyed. This is the meaning of Shema.
- As the prophets and
Yeshua observed, many have ears but do not really hear
God’s word.
- To really hear, you
must pay attention, you must trust, and you must obey.
- As Ya’akov 1:22
says, "Do not be hearers of the word only, but doers!"
- When God pays
attention to you, and responds to you, because he
trusts you, will you pay attention to him, and respond
to him, because you trust him? . . .
Isn’t it ironic that
God should give this child the name Yishmael?
- He put the creed of
Israel - Shema! - into the name of this wild donkey of
a man!
- If only the children
of Ishmael and the children of Israel would truly hear
God!
- God saw that Ishmael
would be a wild donkey of a man, meaning a Bedouin, a
desert nomad, often at odds with his neighbors, not
the kind of person who would settle down easily.
- This does not
necessarily mean that Ishmael or his descendants would
hate his brothers.
- Though the NIV
translates it, "He will live in hostility with his
brothers," the Hebrew actually just says, "He will
live in the face or presence of his brothers."
- Genesis 25:9 records
that "[Abraham’s] sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in
the cave of Machpelah near Mamre."
- Isaac could have
been afraid of Ishmael, but he wasn’t.
- Ishmael could have
resented his brother, but he didn’t.
- Genesis simply
records that they come together to bury their father.
- Would that the
children of Isaac and Ishmael would come together to
bury their dead!
- They can, and they
will: when they truly pay attention to the God who
lives and sees, when they trust and obey the God of
Abraham, and the angel of the Lord - Yeshua the
Messiah!
- Amen? Let’s pray for
that to happen, soon. Come, Yeshua!
- May the children of
Yishmael and Yisrael hear that you live, that you see,
that you have heard their affliction, that you have
borne their affliction!
- Shema Yisrael! Shema
Yishmael! Adonai Eloheynu, Adonai Echad!
Amen. Amen.
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