Day 31 Devotion – Birth of Ishmael

Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, Genesis 15:13-16

Picture: The Islamic prophet Muhammad.

This is one of the first prophesies in the Bible. God promises Abraham many descendants even though at this point Abraham is married to a barren wife. The land that is not theirs that they will serve in is Egypt. He is told they will spend approximately 400 years in Egypt. Then he is told they will come out with great possessions. This happens following the plague of the firstborn. Lastly, we see that it will be the fourth generation that they come out. The genealogy of Exodus chapter six will show us these four generations.


And the Angel of the LORD said to her: “Behold, you are with child, And you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, Because the LORD has heard your affliction. He shall be a wild man; His hand shall be against every man, And every man’s hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” Genesis 16:11-12


Abraham and Sarai got a little impatient waiting on a child of their own. It was customary among Mesopotamian peoples for a barren woman to have another woman serve as a surrogate. Sarai gets her maidservant to bear a child for Abraham and he is named Ishmael. This is important because the Arab peoples and therefore Islamic peoples of the Middle East trace their lineage back to Abraham through Ishmael. Hagar is told by an angel that Ishmael will give rise to a great nation that will fight with the world and the world against him. This is a perfect description of the Islamic movement. Muhammad started a campaign of taking the world by the sword and forcing the infidels to convert or be killed.