January 24, 2026 - Genesis 21 & Psalm 18:43-50

We trace how God keeps his word in Genesis 21 and Psalm 18:43-50, from Isaac’s birth and Sarah’s joy to a desert well for Hagar and Ishmael, a peacemaking covenant at Beersheba, and David’s praise for deliverance. The thread ties to Jesus, the anointed King who fulfills every promise.

• Isaac’s birth as proof of God’s reliability
• Sarah’s laughter turning from doubt to joy
• Hagar and Ishmael preserved by a revealed well
• Beersheba treaty modeling honest peacemaking
• David’s praise centering God’s protection and justice
• Promises to David pointing to Jesus the Messiah
• Joy in promise given and greater joy in promise kept

For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compassbiblesv.org. Keep reading. Keep growing. God’s Word is a lamp to your feet, and a light to your path.

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Readings

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan, where we are seeking to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength with God's word lighting the way. I'm Josiah Smith, joined by Tyler Sanborn. Today is Saturday, January 24th, 2026. Listen intently to God's written word. Genesis 21. The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son, who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac, and Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh over me. And she said, Who will have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age. And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham laughing. So she said to Abraham, Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac. And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, Be not displeased because of the boy, and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring. So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Bersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, Let me not look on the death of my child. And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation. Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Peron, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. At that time Abimelech and Fichal, the commander of his army, said to Abraham, God is with you in all that you do. Now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my descendants or with my posterity, but as I have dealt kindly with you, so you will deal with me and with the land where you have sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear. When Abraham reproved Abimelech about a well of water that Abimelech's servants had seized, Abimelech said, I do not know who has done this thing. You did not tell me, and I have not heard of it until today. So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant. Abraham set seven Ewambs of the flock apart, and Abimelech said to Abraham, What is the meaning of these seven ewambs that you have set apart? He said, These seven ew lambs will you will take from my hand, that this may be a witness for me that I dug this well. Therefore that place was called Bershaba, because there both of them swore an oath. So they made a covenant at Bershaba. Then Abimelech and Fikal, the commander of his army, rose up and returned to the land of the Philistines. Abraham planted a Tamarisk tree in Bershaba and called thereon the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Psalm eighteen, verses forty-three through fifty. You delivered me from strife with the people, you made me the head of nations, people who I had not known served me. As soon as they heard of me, they obeyed me. Foreigners came cringing to me, foreigners lost heart, and came trembling out of their fortresses. The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation, the God who gave me vengeance and subdued peoples under me, who rescued me from my enemies. Yes, you exalted me above those who rose against me. You delivered me from the man of violence. For this I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations, and sing to your name. Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever.

Wells, Oaths, And Peacemaking

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Tyler, if I was going to name or maybe not name, but give a heading to Genesis 21, it would be promises made, promises kept. Promises were made to Abraham and to Sarah. If you remember a few chapters previous to Genesis 21, we saw God tell them, You're gonna have a son, his name will be Isaac, I will return to you this time next year, and he will have arrived. And that's exactly what we see in Genesis 21. So it in my Bible, the ESV, it's just the heading is the birth of Isaac. But I think a more captivating way to say that is promises made, promises kept. And what I love about even how this chapter opens, the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. Promises made, promises kept. And we see Sarah's response to the birth of her son Isaac, and just the the reality of God keeping his promise to her, though she was old in years, and as she said, the way of women had passed from her, God, despite all of that, was true to his word. They have an offspring, they have their son Isaac, and she responds with great joy. And even the the name Isaac, the Isaac, the word Isaac means he laughs. Now, if you remember when Sarah was in the tent overhearing God talking to Abraham, saying, You will have a child, Sarah laughed in the tent. And that laughter was doubt. It was kind of snickering, and that that's when she's going, In my old age, God, this is when I'm gonna have a child. Abraham's old, I'm old. Come on. How can you say something like this? Don't be silly. So she laughed. But here we have in Genesis 21, Isaac being called Isaac, which means he laughs, and we see the laughter that was filled with doubt now has turned into laughter filled with joy. And I see such great encouragement in Genesis 21 that there is great joy in God keeping his promises. But there's there's a twofold joy to that, Tyler. There is joy in the promise itself, and then there's joy in the promise kept. And the illustration in my mind is my daughter is like many children are obsessed with ice cream, right? I'm sure you can sympathize with that.

David’s Praise And God’s Provision

SPEAKER_00 7:19

There's fun side note, there was uh a family, we had a life group last night, you just brought this to my mind. I wasn't thinking about sharing this, but a family in my life group confessed, maybe maybe declared they have ice cream five at least five nights a week. That's out of control. Don't tell your daughter.

Promise, Covenant, And the Coming King

SPEAKER_01 7:39

That's out of control. But yeah, my daughter loves ice cream, and she she asks for it often. We we don't really have ice cream at our house. Like, I don't know if you have it in your freezer, but we don't typically keep it in our house. It's it's a rarity that we have it. So she'll ask me for it. And sometimes I will make the promise that yes, we can get ice cream. And just me saying that, me making the promise, I watch physically the joy on her face. A twinkle in the eye, a twinkle in the eye, excitement in the voice. Sometimes she does a little a little victory dance, yeah, a little wiggle. And she's just just the fact that her father said he would do something brings her great joy. Brings my daughter great joy. So there's there's joy in the promise itself and the expectation that that promise would come true. And by the way, my my daughter, she's not concerned about how much money I have in the bank. She's not concerned with the the vehicle that is necessary to get us to the ice cream shop. She doesn't know about debit cards, she doesn't know about the money that it will require me to spend to buy. It's not much money, but she doesn't know any of that. She doesn't know all of the steps that are required to get her ice cream. All she knows is that my father said we're getting this. And so she's she's taken that to the bank. And so there's joy on her face just because I said, you know what? Yeah, we're gonna go get ice cream. And she she knows nothing other than confidence because her father said, her daddy said, This is what we're going to do. Now, of course, there's joy in her hearing from her father, yeah, we're gonna get ice cream. But I tell you what, there's more joy when we get to the shop. No doubt. And she's got the ice cream in front of her, and so there's joy in the promise, yeah, but there's also greater joy in the promise kept and experiencing that uh reality. And so that's what we see here in Genesis 21. God made a promise, and I think there was some sense of joy, some sense of expectation. Uh, of course, we read that Sarah had doubt in her heart, she laughed, but you got to believe that there was some level of trust and some level of hope and expectation that that would come true. And now that it has, that joy is even greater, that joy is even sweeter. And I've mentioned on a previous episode that our staff is meditating on Psalm 23 and just the reality that God is our shepherd, the Lord is our shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores uh my soul, all of these promises in Psalm 23 that are so precious, there is great joy in clinging to the promises found in Psalm 23, just the promise themselves, the opening phrase, the Lord is my shepherd. That's a promise, and there's joy in just reflecting on that. But I'll tell you what, Tyler, there's greater joy when we experience that promise being kept. When we experience the shepherd leading us beside still waters, when we experience surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. When we experience tangibly God keeping his promises, whether it's in Psalm 23 or we see here in Genesis 21, there is great joy.

Closing And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Yeah, something I'm I'm making a connection to here is like I I'm not sure if it was explicitly stated to Abraham, if Hagar was there when when this promise was made to Abraham concerning his other son, uh the son that the Hagar bore, the son that is not attached to this covenantal promise. Now, she's she's on the run, she doesn't want to see her son die. So she removes herself, uh, thinking her son is is near death, and and God comforts her, he he brings, brings her her attention to a well nearby and and preserves her life. And uh the the promise, if we look back to Genesis 17, uh from this son, there's there's a blessing. This son is promised by God he will be fruitful, the the father of twelve princes and a great nation, and and that's not the nation of Israel, but that is still a promise to a real person in a real point in time, and for God's people and for those who are not God's people, God's promises still ring true.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Yeah, and that's another example of promises made, promises kept. God promised to Ishmael and to Hagar that he would also be a father of a great nation. And we see that being fulfilled here in Genesis 21. God provides for and protects Ishmael despite Sarah's dislike, her distaste, her envy, her jealousy, or whatever for Ishmael and Hagar, she's kind of tossed to the side by Sarah, but God doesn't toss her to the side. God doesn't toss Ishmael to the side. He is true to his word, he keeps his promise, he preserves uh Ishmael's life and Hagar's and he blesses them. And ultimately, we do see that there is a nation that comes from Ishmael. So again, if you're thinking about Genesis 21, promises made, promises kept, and there is great joy in the promise itself. Our God, our Father, made that promise. There's excitement, there should be anticipation, uh, but there's often greater joy in experiencing the promise kept.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Promises kept and and well is kept. If you're living in a desert, what's what's more valuable than than gold or or precious uh metals more than uh a great army? If you're if you're in the desert, you're in a place that is dry, a well is one of the most critical things that you could have possession of. And I love how uh I love how Abraham uh and the and Abimelech are interacting here. It's a great reminder for us to uh to live peaceably, to live in a way that's reasonable with others around us. And um, it seems like there was a a misunderstanding here. It was an honest mistake that uh Abimelech is unaware that this well was dug by Abraham, and we see we see uh Abraham taking steps to to make things right and to serve uh Abimelech to to afford him some some resources.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Uh I love I love how Abimelech is kind of like watching his back this time around. Oh no. You see in verse 23. Who's with him? Now therefore, swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me. Because remember, Abimelech was the one that took Sarah as his wife, and Abraham deceived him. So he's like, hey my man, we're we're cool, right? Remember?

unknown 14:11

Remember?

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Don't deal falsely with me.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Yeah, that's that that just came to my mind as you were saying that. Yeah, so so there is this uh this attitude of pursuing peace, uh pursuing unity and and and overlooking offenses or overlooking mistakes made, acknowledging them, but saying, hey, like this is this is my well, I dug it. But you know, moving forward, let's just agree. Remember, this is mine, and as a as a sign of this, I'm gonna give you some gifts, I'm gonna award you uh some things to take on your way. Uh as I am a man who's seeking to be true to my word, unlike uh that one time way back that I called my wife my sister. Um, but no, there's a good example for here, us to to live um to live with people in a peaceful way, not taking vengeance, leaving that to the Lord. And we'll see, we'll see in uh in Psalm 18 rather, David leaving vengeance to the Lord. We don't want to retaliate, we don't want to take matters into our own hands. We want to um look at our enemies even and say, you know what, I want to bless you, I want to, I want to take care of you, I'm I'm gonna pray for you. Um if you're hungry, I'm gonna feed you, if you're thirsty, I'm gonna give you a drink. And I I can imagine Abraham saying, I I know this is my well, here's some animals. Uh take a take a wineskin full of water on your way from this well.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Yeah, and I think Psalm 18 shows us the idea that we're talking about where God provides for Ishmael, provides for Hagar, provides for Abraham, provides for Sarah. Uh God's provision and his resources are endless, and David is is clinging to that, him to provide protection, him to provide vengeance. He even says in verse 46, the Lord lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation, the God who gave me vengeance and subdued peoples under me, who rescued me from my enemies. Yes, you exalted me above those who rose against me, you delivered me from the man of violence. And so David is just clinging to the providence, really, the provision of the Lord, and seeing all of those things that took place as coming directly from God, and is rightfully acknowledging God as the one who is providing those things. And so, what a great example for us as we think about God providing for Ishmael and Hagar with these wells and Abraham and Abimelech and David. We see such great examples of God providing God uh doing what he said he would do, protecting his people, leading his people. Even Psalm 23, you know, I just reference God being a shepherd that loves his sheep, that loves his people, uh, and what a great example of that that is in Psalm 18.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Speaking of covenants and promises made, promises kept, we see uh at the end of Psalm 18, uh, this note where David and his offspring will endure, will live, and will carry on. Uh, verse 50, I'll just read it for you. Great salvation he brings to his king, talking about the deliverance from his enemies, um, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever. This is uh a nod to the uh the offspring of David that would one day through Jesus, the Messiah, come and and rule. Uh the Davidic covenant involves a house, a kingdom, and a throne. And through the line of David, um and through the covenant that God made with David, he's he's thinking about these promises. He's thinking that through me, through my offspring, God is going to going to establish a people, a place for his people, and and a rule and a throne for his people. Yeah, ultimately.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

And I see here in your notes a messianic conclusion that points to the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And the anointed, there's there's three offices in the Old Testament that are included with anointing. The prophet, the prophets are anointed, the priests are anointed, and the kings are anointed. And so we see David when he is commissioned as a king, he's anointed with oil on his head. Uh, but the word Messiah in Greek means the anointed one. And so there is a sense in which David is anointed as a king, but it's pointing forward, and he's looking forward to the anointed one, the one through whom the king of kings and lord of lords, of course, uh will rule and reign and establish his kingdom and his government of his government and his peace. There shall be no end, right? That's that's what David's looking forward to. And we do we know ultimately in the genealogy of Matthew, we see uh that Jesus is from the line of David. He is the fulfillment ultimately of that promise. So promises made, promises kept. That's a great just way to even break down a lot of what we see in the Old Testament, but even specifically an encouragement from Genesis 1, where we we see uh that God made some promises specifically to Abraham and to Sarah, and he kept those promises. And as a result, Sarah and Abraham experienced the joy of God providing and being true to his word. Well, thanks for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast. For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass bible sv.org. Keep reading, keep growing. God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.