Sarah And Abraham As A Concubine According To Hauer And Young

A wife. A slave. A husband. Sarah. Hagar. Abraham. Love and respect from a man to his wife was a luxury and rare in Sarah and Abraham’s day. But Sarah and Abraham managed more of both than most people in their day. Parents chose their children’s mates with very little consideration taken for the people involved. Marriage was more about political alliances and producing children to keep one’s family line going, along with the human race in general. When Sarah is found to be barren, Abraham doesn’t bat an eye for he had a strong relationship and faith in God and God had made a covenant to make him the father of many nations (Genesis 15). When old age was upon Sarah, she came up with an idea for him to take her Egyptian slave, Hagar, as a concubine
His faith is continually tested through his story and especially with his son. Hauer and Young believe he was portrayed as so faithful to show how God rewards those who follow Him. They do go on to point out his faults also but to point out he was still a human with sins and mistakes. They use the first example of him passing his wife off as his sister to avoid his own death (Genesis 12:10-20). If when the Pharaohs had taken Sarah and had relations, God could not carry out his plan with a woman who would then be considered dirty. Abraham not only did this once but twice. Another example Hauer and Young used was when he took Hagar as a concubine, to hurry the promised child of the covenant along. When God renamed Abram to Abraham (Genesis 17:5), he was changing his name to mean “father of many (Hauer and Young, 61).” Understandably, when Sarah doesn’t produce children for him, Abraham, as does Sarah, came to understand they must provide Abraham with a woman to produce him a child. Having this child was important on Abraham’s end of the covenant with God but doesn’t realize that God is to provide that child; it wasn’t up to the humans to determine when and who the child would be. This is where Hagar is introduced to the story. The test from God here is that Abraham and Sarah didn’t have faith that He would provide a child in their own age. This leads into Hauer and Young’s last point of Abraham’s skepticism. When the angel appeared to Abraham to deliver the news of a child, Abraham has very skeptical faith in the Lord, his God. Abraham went as far as to laugh at the Lord about being able to have a child in such a ripe age. Not only does this final test fall onto Abraham but on his barren wife also who exhibits the same skepticism and laughter (Genesis 18:9-15). That faith became solidified at the delivery of Isaac from God to Sarah and Abraham. Abraham’s faith underwent its