Abraham Allegiant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 4) (31 page)

Time passed and Abram and Sarai rebuilt their lives. But there was one thing they could not build: A family. As much as El Shaddai promised them, those promises seemed farther and farther away with each year. Abram could only imagine that his servant Eliezer, who had been adopted into their family, must be the heir of his family name. How else was El Shaddai going to accomplish such a task with Sarai long past childbearing age and Lot moved back into the pentapolis of wickedness?

Sarai on the other hand, could stand the impossible no longer. She loved El Shaddai, and believed in him, but it dawned on her that she would have to take things into her own hands if she was to fulfill God’s promise of a family dynasty.

She did the only thing that made sense to her, she offered Abram one of her servants as concubine to produce the promised seed. It was an acceptable custom in the land to do so, and she herself was old and useless anyway, so what did it matter?

Sarai barged into the tent one evening, pulling Hagar, an Egyptian maid, with her. Abram looked up surprised. He had been praying for El Shaddai to give him some little sign of encouragement after years of hearing nothing.

Sarai was irritated. She sputtered out the words, “El Shaddai has seen fit to prevent me from bearing children. Go into my servant Hagar and give me children through her.”

Abram was speechless.

Sarai was impatient. “Do you not find her pretty?”

“Sarai.”

“Abram, if you love me, you will give me children through my servant.”

It was clear to Abram she would not take no for an answer. And after all, it was for the sake of the Promise. El Shaddai’s own promise. Eliezer might be heir worthy, but actual children made much more sense to him. At least, it was making much more sense to him as he looked at Hagar’s beautiful young face and supple form. Sarai knew Abram had always had a predilection for Egyptians, and even in this terrible situation, Sarai was thinking of her husband.

Abram did not like the idea of having more than one wife. Variety was the herb of life, but Sarai was already enough to handle as it was. Though he loved her more than life itself, he could barely understand her emotional ways. Now, he imagined the stress of two women’s impossible demands to please. He felt like he was walking into a volcano and would regret it later.

But Hagar
really was
looking
very
good.

She looked very good three times that night. Abram felt like he broke a new record at this age. He had always loved the Egyptian way of doing things when it came to beauty and love.

But the regret started almost immediately.

As soon as Hagar told Abram she was with child, Sarai felt her world implode.

Sarai had come in from gathering some barley stalks for food when she noticed Hagar in the tent, holding her tummy protectively and watching Sarai with contempt.

Sarai stopped what she was doing and walked over to Hagar, glaring back at her.

A slight smirk crossed Hagar’s lips. “
I
need to rest.
I
am with child.”

Condescension oozed with every word from Hagar.

Sarai said, “How dare you.”

Sarai turned and headed out of the tent and straight out to the flocks where Abram was taking a break with his shepherds.

She motioned to him, and he came over to her.

She was steaming mad. Abram swallowed.

Sarai spoke with venom, “May the wrong done to me be upon your head.”

Abram did not say anything. He did not know what he had done wrong now, and he did not want to add to the boiling cauldron.

“I gave Hagar for you to have your fun, and as soon as she was pregnant, she looked upon me with contempt! May El Shaddai judge between me and you this awful wrong done to me!”

Abram was flustered. He would not let this go on. “Sarai, you speak to me as if it is my fault.”

“It is your fault! You impregnated her.”

“But you gave her to me against my better judgment.”

“Now you are blaming me!” said Sarai.

“I am not blaming you.”

“Well then what is it when you say
against your better judgment
? That sounds accusational to me.”

He knew he could not win. Nothing he said would change her mind. It only fueled the fire.

So he decided to take control of the conversation.

“Sarai, she is
your
responsibility. She is
your
servant to do with her as
you
please. So go do what you must.”

“All right, I will. I will do with her what I must.”

Sarai stormed away and Abram sighed, having dodged the arrow for just the moment.

Sarai stomped back to the tent, whipped back the curtain, and went right up to Hagar, and started slapping her in the face. Hagar tried to cover up, but Sarai was relentless.

Hagar tried to cry out, “I am with child!”

Sarai said, “Yes, yes, we all know you are with child. You are endlessly reminding me you are with child. And fortunately this is not going to hurt that child. This will only sting you for being insubordinate and disdainful of your mistress.”

Finally, she stopped.

Hagar looked up at her, and Sarai still saw that contemptuous look in her eyes, so she started to slap her again.

“I am going to wipe that silly little look of defiance right off your face, you ungrateful little minx!”

When Sarai picked up a small rug to use as a tool, Hagar could take no more of it. She ran out of the tent.

Sarai stopped. She could not believe what she had just done. She had become overwhelmed by her own emotions. Taken away, possessed by a spirit of rage.

Now she tried to catch her breath.

She walked outside to find Hagar, but she was nowhere to be found. She had run away.

Later that afternoon, Hagar had not returned for the lunch meal and Sarai was getting frightened for her. She could not take care of herself in the hill country. She wondered where she might be and blamed herself for the outburst.

What was happening to me?
she thought. And the memory of that giant queen and her treatment of Sarai intruded in on her thoughts.
I have become the very monster I detest.

Abram arrived back at the tent and asked Sarai where Hagar was.

Sarai burst into tears, “I do not know, I do not know! I drove her away, and now she is somewhere in the desert or the hills and the wild animals will get her, and it is all my fault, and I am so sorry, Abram, please forgive me!”

She bawled into his arms. He held her tight.

“My precious beautiful Sarai.”

“What have I done?” She whimpered.

Abram patted her back reassuringly. “She will be back. I am sure she just wanted to give you time to cool off.”

Sarai said through her tears, “I just want a family of our own.”

“Sarai,” he said with a hurt voice, “We are a family, you and I. We may not have children, but that does not make us any less a family before the eyes of El Shaddai.”

He was right. She realized that by saying such a thing, she was reducing their marriage to a mere tool for having children. When El Shaddai created marriage in the Garden, he said the first priority was oneness. Procreation was second in importance to that union. She was making an idol out of children and negating her husband as her priority.

It only made her cry more in repentance.

“I am so sorry, my husband. You are my heart and soul. Please forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive, my beauty pie. You are
my
heart and soul.”

They kissed.

He said, “I did not tell you about the vision I had.”

She looked at him curiously. “What vision?”

“Well, I was sitting by the Diviner’s Oak of Moreh down by the river.”

She interrupted, “What did you see?”

“El Shaddai appeared to me,” he said.

“In what form?” she said. “Was he just a voice or did you see him?”

“Calm down,” he chuckled. “I am trying to remember the details. He appeared in earthly form and told me — now what was it again? Something about — oh yeah, he told me that my reward would be great, or something like that.”

“Something like that?” She sighed. “Then what did you say?”

“Well, I told him that I still had no children and assumed Eliezer would be our inheritor.”

Getting Abram to tell her the details was like getting a mule to talk. She said, “Then what did he say?”

“He said, Eliezer would not be my heir, but that we would have a child of our own.”

He sat there, leaving the line like it was the climax of the story without an ending. Sarai’s eyes went wide with wonder. “Come on, Abram, do not make me beg for the details.” Men were terrible gossips. They just did not have a sense for the conversationally dramatic.

“I am trying to remember now,” he said.

“You remember our number of cattle, sheep, and goats, and the exact kinds of predators and prey in our area down to the long haired jackrabbit. You can describe every possible variation of a shepherd staff or sickle sword. But you cannot remember what El Shaddai says to you?”

“I remember now. I just needed to jog my memory a bit.”

“Well?” she said impatiently.

He grumbled, “Well, then he brought me out under the sky and showed me the stars of the heavens, and said, ‘number them if you can.’ I laughed and he said, ‘so shall your seed be.”

Sarai said, “Then what did you say?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I just believed him. And then he told me I was righteous.”

“Why did you not tell me this, my beloved?” she said.

“I thought it would just drive you more into your sadness because it was just another hurry up and wait promise. I am sorry. I should have told you.”

“You are probably right,” she said. “It would have depressed me further. You know me so well.” She held his face and kissed him.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot, then he had me sacrifice a goat, a heifer, and ram, a turtledove and a pigeon.”

“You almost forgot
that
?” she said incredulously.

“He made a covenant and passed between the halves of the sacrifices. And he told me once again that he gave this land to my seed, from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates.”

Abram’s face then turned sober. “But then a great darkness fell over me and he said that my seed would be sojourners in a land not their own and that they would be slaves and be afflicted for four hundred years.”

“Four hundred years?” she gasped. “That is forever.”

“But he would judge that nation and bring them into this land in the fourth generation.”

She was as confused as ever with El Shaddai’s vague hinting. “So it will be four hundred years before your seed inherits this land?”

Abram added, “He said the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet complete.”

Sarai was confused. “Whatever does that mean?”

“I do not know,” said Abram. “But it does not sound good.”

Just then, Hagar came back into the tent.

She looked to Sarai to see if she was going to be punished. But Sarai was too exhausted, and she was genuinely sorry for her excess.

“Where did you go, Hagar?” said Sarai.

“The spring of water on the way to Shur,” said Hagar.

“I am so sorry for raging out of control,” said Sarai. “You did not deserve that. Please forgive me.”

Hagar nodded her head. “I am sorry, mistress, for my arrogance.”

Abram sighed with relief. And he knew he would get sex that night — maybe from both of them.

Then Hagar said, “El Shaddai visited me at the spring.”

Sarai was shocked that her lowly servant received such a royal presence. “What did he say?”

“He said I was to bear a son and to call his name Ishmael.”

Sarai’s eyes started to tear up. Everyone but her was getting a visit from El Shaddai. She held it back. She was not going to blow again. She was supposed to be more spiritually mature than that.

Hagar continued, “He said he would multiply my seed so that it would be a multitude.”

Sarai and Abram looked askance at one another.

Abram said, “Hagar, did you just hear my discussion with Sarai
?”

“No,” she said.

They did not believe her.

Abram put his hands on his hips and asked, “Are you repeating El Shaddai’s words to me as if he spoke to you?”

“I swear not, my lord,” said Hagar. “He told me to return to my mistress and submit to her, and then he said that he had heard my affliction and that he was giving me a son who would be a wild donkey of a man who would fight with everybody.”