So at the LORD's command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran. All of them were leaders of the Israelites. – Numbers 13:3

Today's Scripture Reading (January 23, 2025): Numbers 13

When Abraham and Sarah were of an advanced age, Sarah became pregnant. I can't imagine the joy and amazement that must have been present in the home of the elderly couple. And maybe the worry. Sarah was elderly, long past her childbearing years. No one could understand the dangers such a pregnancy might present to both the woman and the child. I am sure extra precautions were taken for the nine months of the pregnancy. And when the pregnancy was over, and Isaac was being held in his mother's arms, a celebration began that had never been experienced by Abraham and Sarah. Abraham was a hundred years old, and Sarah was ninety. 

Maybe it was Sarah's words that summed up the moment. "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me … Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age" (Genesis 21:6-7).

Isaac was the pride of his parents. And yet, there was also a predictable problem in the family unit. Isaac had an older brother, well, half-brother. His name was Ishmael, and while he was fourteen years older than his younger sibling, he was also making the journey from being the heir presumptive of Abraham to relinquishing that role to this new baby in the family: Isaac would now be the heir apparent. 

I am not sure that we can understand how that might have felt. In Ishmael's culture, the fourteen-year-old would have been considered an adult, yet a little boy still lived inside him, a little boy who one day was the most important child in the land and the next day had to give that title over to his younger brother.

According to the biblical story, one day, Sarah looked out and saw Ishmael teasing Isaac. It was probably a typical practice between siblings throughout history, but it was an incident that roused Sarah's anger. How dare anyone make fun of her child. As a result of this incident, Sarah calls Abraham and commands that Ishmael and his mother, Hagar, be sent away. She will not let Abraham share Isaac's inheritance with anyone other than her son, especially not this child of a slave girl. Abraham was upset, but he did as Sarah had commanded. Hagar and Ishmael were sent away into the desert of Paran.

Now, hundreds of years later, Isaac's descendants stood in the same wilderness where once Ishmael had been sent, and according to tradition, the place Ishmael's descendants still lived. Israel had been ejected from the land promised to Abraham, just as Ishmael had. And it was from this wilderness that Israel was going to make its first attempt to return home.  

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Numbers 14