A Butterfly Flapping

Tag: Abraham

  • The Son of Which Promise?

    Genesis 16:1-16, 21:14-21

    This is a difficult story to tell from any of the four points of view. Each of their butterflies recognizes the reasoning behind their person’s actions, but each of the people create pain for the others. Only Isaac and his butterfly, IcB, are bystanders.

    Let me introduce each of the other four.

    Abram speaks directly with God, not needing as much the connection with his AbB line of butterflies (not to be confused with Abel’s butterfly).

    Sarai, Abram’s wife, is often at odds with her SB line, but for valid reasons. She is “past the ways of women” and has not had a child.

    Hagar, Sarai’s slave, probably bought from Egypt and given the HB line, is often the victim of Sarah’s frustration.

    Ishmael with his IlB butterflies is or is not, depending on the translation of one word, the innocent victim, the son of Hagar by Abram.

    Isaac, the son finally born to Sarai/Sarah and Abram/Abraham, is accompanied by IsB.

    ***

    As long as Ishmael could remember, his two mothers fought over him. One was Hagar, his biological mother, and the other was Sarai, the one who claimed him. He heard the story many times in their arguments as he huddled in the corner with IlB trying to comfort him with the thought, “This is not your fault.”

    How could it not be? He was the child born to their argument.

    The other two butterflies, HB and SB—would gather in the same corner, apparently communicating with each other. IlB sent his encouraging thoughts to the boy from his shoulder, but the spoken words carried more force than his thoughts.

    Hagar would complain, “You gave me to that old man like a cow to a bull. And you kept the calf, my son, as soon as you determined to wean him.” Sometimes HB would support her, but other times, she was careful not to think anything.

    Sarai’s face would turn red. “ ‘That old man’ is your master. You will speak of him with respect!” SB understood Sarai’s viewpoint, but she wanted to tone down the argument.

    “There was no respect for me, even when I carried the child you now claim! I could nurse the son I birthed and cleaned, but you took him away from me. I knew that would happen.”

    # # #

    Sarai was too old to have a child, but God had promised her a son. When no birth occurred, Sarai sent Abram to Hagar. “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”*

    SB shook her head, but held back her thoughts.

    After weeks of feuding between the two women, Sarai went to her husband.

    “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”*

    Abram wanted nothing to do with the two women fighting. “Your slave is in your hands. Do with her whatever you think best.”* ‘AB and SB conferred with each other. This will not be good.

    What Sarai seemed to think best was to humiliate the young woman whose bearing the child she had demanded until Hagar ran away into the desert. HB led the runaway to a spring and waited on a blade of grass.

    There an angel of the Lord found them. “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”*

    She knew where she was coming from, but not where she was going. With an angel of the Lord before her, she knew to tell the truth. “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai.”*

    Because he was an angel, he already knew that, but he only smiled. “Go back to your mistress and submit to her. I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”*

    Hagar had heard about the promise of God to Abram and Sarai, about the descendants. This sounded the same.

    But the promise held more details. “You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”*

    Trembling with both fear and awe, when the angel left, she gave a name to God, “You are the God who sees me,”* recognizing “I have now seen the One who sees me.”*

    Hagar and HB returned to Abram’s camp, and Ishmael was born. As the years went by, HB frequently reminded Hagar that the angel had said to submit to Sarai. In public, the feud between the women went silent. Hagar loved the son Abram had forcefully given her, but she hated the woman who had treated her like a cow to be bred so her mistress could have the calf, her son.

    For thirteen years, everyone believed Ishmael was the son of God’s promise. He was the darling of the camp, the favored one. Hagar considered him to be the son of God’s promise to her; the others claimed him as the son of the promise to Abram. The boy continued to be confused, as Hagar seethed in the background, resenting the man who took her, resenting the woman who claimed him.

    Then two things turned his life upside down, one short-term, one long-term.

    The short-term resulted from the vision of Abram, renamed Abraham at the age of 99, in which God required that every male person in the camp, slave or free, be circumcised. Everyone included 13-year-old Ishmael, who endured the same painful experience as the rest of the men. IlB tried to make him laugh, sometimes more successfully than others.

    The other would destroy him. Sarai, now called Sarah, was with child! Now all the attention went to the about-to-be mother. When the second son was born, IlB worried what would happen to Ishmael. Would Sarah continue to love him or would she see him as simply the son of her slave?

    At first, Sarah did, of course, spend more time with the new born, but she still seemed to consider Ishmael a member of her family, not the son of Hagar. Only Hagar resented the celebrations of Isaac’s first crawling, first steps, first words. HB reminded her to not display her jealousy. Those stages of Ishmael’s life had been celebrated too. And Hagar was still nursing the second child.

    When Sarah mentioned the time was coming to wean her son, SB noticed a change. Weaning was a celebration that the child was old enough, healthy enough to probably survive on normal food. The older the child was at weaning, the better his chances of survival. Isaac was approaching that age.

    Ishmael had been Sarah’s security, her back up. If Isaac did not live to be weaned, she still had a son to inherit from Abraham. But what would happen to Isaac when their father died? Ishmael, the son of the slave, would be the older son, the one who would inherit the birthright, not her precious son, the one she had borne.

    SB did not share this information with HB, but she worried about it.

    HB did notice a subtle change in Sarah’s attitude toward Ishmael, but she considered it to be the joy of watching her own son grow.

    IlB was busy tending to the teen’s activities, warning him against doing anything foolish.

    At the child’s weaning party, Ishmael played1,2 with his half-brother. Sarah, who had claimed the older child as her own, who had rocked him to sleep, who had held him tight, went into a rage. “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”*

    Ishmael was stunned. Now the hatred Sarah held for his mother included him. He had not cried during the circumcision, and he would not cry now, but the pain was much deeper, filling his whole body.

    Would Abraham defend him? Abraham, his father, had told him dozens of times how God promised him a son. Surely, he could count on his father.

    Ishmael did not know that, distressed, Abraham took the matter to the Lord. God encouraged him to do as his wife wished. “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”*

    All Ishmael knew was that, early the next morning, Abraham called Hagar and Ishmael to his tent. Giving them food and a skin of water, he sent them away. SB thought she had seen this coming. HB was surprised until she thought about it. IlB was stunned. How could this have happened without him expecting it?

    Because his mother hated Abraham as much as she hated Sarah, Ishmael dared not ask his mother why they had to leave. Why had his father turned him out with so little? What had he done wrong? How would they survive with so little water?

    As the slave woman and her son left, SB shared with the other two butterflies, “I’m sorry. I should have warned you both.”

    HB responded, “I should have seen it coming.”

    IlB shook his head, still not understanding.

    They wandered in the desert of Beersheba until the water gave out.

    Hagar put the boy3 under a bush, thinking, “I cannot watch the boy die.”*

    She sat down at a distance and wept.

    IlB folded his wings into the bush by Ishmael. Now he understood what Sarah had done and why. HB rested on Hagar’s shoulder, trying to encourage her. Help was coming.

    Hagar jumped as the angel returned. “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”*

    She watched her butterfly flutter over to the cover of a well of water, half buried in sand. She cleared it, refilled the skin, and the two castaways drank.

    God continued to care for Ishmael and his mother. They lived in the desert, and he became an archer. While living in the Desert of Paran, Hagar went to Egypt and brought back a wife for him. Tradition says the Arabs are Ishmael’s descendants.4

    ###

    God changed the circumstances. Their life would be different, but they would have a life, a future, because they had a promise.

    ________

    1The New Revised Standard Version, the Contemporary English Version, and others translate the word in Genesis 21:9 as “play.” The NIV, the Darby Translation, and others use the word “mock.” The Amplified Bible adds “Isaac” as the object of “mock.” (https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Genesis%2021:9, referenced 2/21/26)

    2 The Common English Bible and the English Standard Version say that Sarah saw Hagar’s son “laughing,” perhaps a reference to his name. (footnote d, Genesis 17:19, NIV, referenced 2/21/2026)

    3 At this point, Ishmael is at least thirteen (Genesis 17:35) plus the number of years Sarah would have nursed Isaac, in those days, probably three or four, but the scripture refers to the teenager as “the boy.”

    4 The Quran states that several prior writings constitute holy books given by God to the prophets and messengers amongst the Children of Israel, in the same way the Quran was revealed to Muhammad. These include the Tawrat [Torah], believed by Muslims to have been given by God to the prophets and messengers amongst the Children of Israel, the Zabur (used in reference to the Psalms) revealed to David (Dawud); and the Injil revealed to Jesus (Isa).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_view_of_the_Bible, referenced 2/21/2026.

  • Sacrificing the Child of the Promise

    Genesis 22

    “Why have you been crying, Mother?” Isaac stood at the tent door, staring at his mother. He stepped inside and took her hand. “We’re going to make a special sacrifice. We’ll be back within a few days.”

    Her smile did not reach her eyes as she waved him away.

    The preteen* turned and joined his father. A donkey carried the wood for the altar, and two servants stood waiting with Abraham. A few butterflies fluttered above them. Sarah watched the small group, led by Abraham and her son, disappear in the distance.

    The combination of pain and anger dried Sarah’s face. She understood the real purpose of the journey. Sarah and Abraham had argued long into the night.

    “You can’t do this! We won’t have any sons to carry on. There will be no descendants like stars in the sky!” she shouted.

    Abraham shook his head and replied softly. “This is what God told me to do. ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.’ I have to, because …”

    “NOOOO!” she screamed. “God told us we would have a son. A son. One son! Not any more! We can’t get Ishmael back. You sent him away. We have no other sons to fulfill God’s promise.”

    She cried, threatened, pleaded, anything to dissuade him, to no avail. He turned away. And now they were gone, gone to sacrifice her son, the son she had nursed and burped. The son she had watched, holding out her hands, as he took his first steps. The son whose first tooth she had sewn into the hem of her robe.

    As the sun rose high in the sky, the grieving mother slipped back into the tent. Picking up their sleeping blanket, she shook it angrily. She lifted it to fold it up, but instead, wadded it into a bundle and threw it into the corner. She would sleep in something else.

    She turned to look out the tent flap. A butterfly circled near the front of the tent.It rose and fell, managing to face her most of the time. She glared at it. If this was God’s gift to them, as the elders said, it was not what she wanted. What she wanted was the son God gave her.

    “But Isaac is the Son of the Promise,” she shouted, almost blowing the butterfly away.

    The servants were nowhere around. Years of serving Sarah had taught them better than to remain close when their mistress showed her temper. She continued the argument with Abraham, even though he was out of sight and sound.

    “Remember? Remember what God said when you had that other vision?” She stomped her foot on the hard-packed floor. “I hate your visions!” Her tone mocked her husband. “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”* She remembered another vision. “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.”*

    She sank to the floor in despair. “Remember what God told you when you became Abraham instead of Abram? I went from Sarai to Sarah? God said, ‘Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.’ ”* Head in her hands, she sobbed. “Isaac, my only son Isaac, my precious child, my tall, handsome son.”

    Tears spent, she raised her head and lifted her hands, pleading, “God, you are my only hope now. You gave me this son when I had no hope. You scolded me for laughing, but you told us to name him ‘Laughter.’ Take care of this child, your child, the child you promised me.”

    No voice answered, no vision of a safe return appeared, but somehow, Sarah found some peace. The butterfly continued its circle, seeming to stare at her. She wondered if this could be a sign from God. Surely God, who had given her this son, would not take him away now.

    She knew her husband well. He would have no peace with the command ringing in his ears. “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” *

    Would he have the courage even to look at his son walking beside him?

    Would Abraham question his vision? Could he consider that he might have been mistaken? Might he have imagined what he heard? Might Sarah have been right? Was this God speaking? The people of their time believed that their gods sometimes required the sacrifice of their oldest son. He hated the thought of others doing it.

    But the words would fill his ears again. “Take your son …” He had always obeyed, and he would obey now.

    Sarah clutched the tooth in the hem of her robe, but she did not sleep. She had not slept since they left. This was the third day of anguish and grieving, alternating with a strange peace. When the peace came upon her, she dozed. But after a short time, she would wake with a start, shaking in fear.

    At dawn, she crept out, looking over the hill, scanning the horizon. Of course, the darkness restricted her view, but she sat outside, staring where they had gone, willing herself to see a mountain that far away. Instead, in the moonlight, she saw a rabbit creep cautiously along the edge of the trees. And the butterfly returned, seeming to try to communicate with her.

    It would be today. They would need about three days to reach the land of Moriah, to reach whatever mountain. It would be today.

    The servants came and offered her breakfast, but she shook her head. They returned to their chores, cleaning up from the meal they had prepared, beginning the next meal. She saw them close enough to keep an eye on her, but far enough away to not disturb her. They had heard her screams of rage, her arguments with absent Abraham, and they had put the pieces together. They whispered sympathetically, but they stayed away. The butterfly followed her wherever she went.

    She dozed. Did she dream? Or was she somehow transported to the place? She seemed to hover in the air as Abraham lifted the wood from the donkey and hung it from a sling on Isaac’s back.

    The butterfly! Over Isaac’s head, was it the same butterfly? It couldn’t be in two places at once, but Isaac’s butterfly looked the same.

    Abraham turned to the two young men with them. He pointed to the mountains. “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”* She heard a catch in his throat when he said “we.” Did he mean that? Not if he was going to obey God’s order. Was that a sign or a slip of the tongue? He shook his head and touched his knife in its sheath inside his belt. Knowing him, he had spent the night sharpening the blade.

    They set off together, the son carrying the wood and the father carrying the ember, carefully cradled in a small pot. Isaac’s butterfly flew along with them, staying close to the young man.

    Abraham’s had accompanied them, but it hung back more than normal. Did it know what was going to happen?

    About mid-morning, Isaac looked over at his father. “The fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”*

    “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”*

    His answer reminded Sarah of her question. Would God provide a lamb? Isaac was the promised son. Isaac was the son to give them uncountable descendants, more than the stars in the sky. How could that happen if he offered Isaac as a burnt offering?

    Something on Abraham’s face told Sarah what the man was thinking. She had heard it many times: God knew the future. God knew the plan. He would trust God’s promise and plan. “Trust.” She saw his lips form the word over and over, softly.

    When Abraham picked up the first stones to make the altar, Sarah willed herself to flee. She could not stay. If she had any control of this vision, she would not remain there with them.

    Back at the camp, a woman ventured toward Sarah with a bowl of stew, but when she shook her head, the servant returned to the others.

    Sometime later, the dozing mother leaped to her feet, almost bumping into the butterfly hovering above her. “NO! STOP! NO!” In her semi-conscious mind, she had seen the flash of a knife. “Stop him, God,” she shouted to the wind, to the butterflies with her son and her husband. “Don’t let him do it! Don’t let him kill my son! Don’t let him! Isaac is your promise! Your covenant! Don’t let him kill your promise!”

    She ran to the top of the hill, to the grove of trees, sobbing and screaming, “NO!” as her feet carried her to where she had last seen them. At the top of the hill, she collapsed. “No,” she murmured. “He’s your child too. The child of the promise. You promised …”

    In her frustration, she swatted at the butterfly. “Go away! Stop following me!”

    Ignoring the butterfly, she lay motionless on the ground until sunset, when she stumbled to her tent. Had God heard her? Had God responded? Had God protected her son? The child of the covenant?

    Exhausted, she slept fitfully, still clutching the hem of her robe. Her half-awake dreams alternated between seeing the altar Abraham had built and feeling her son safe in her arms.

    The next day, she accepted a bit of bread from the servants before returning to the top of the hill on the other side of the trees. And she waited, watching the butterfly. She had waited twenty-four years after God’s first promise for this child to be born. She could wait two or three days for him to return safely with his father.

    At noon, she shook her head at the servant who came to offer her a bit of meat. She spent a few minutes looking at the servants as they whispered and glanced in her direction. Then she turned back to the horizon, waiting and watching, watching and waiting.

    Despite knowing they would not travel at night, she did not return to the tent when the sun sank. She kept her vigil, even though she could see nothing. The moon stayed in bed, and dark clouds covered the stars. She shivered in the night air, but she watched, listening for the clopping of donkey’s hooves, the slapping of sandals, the scuffles of tired feet. The butterfly waited on a twig nearby. She wondered if butterflies sleep.

    Morning came, and she ate the bit of hot porridge the servant offered. “Thank you. This is good,” she told her gently. The servant stared at her in surprise, then turned and went back to the camp.

    “Maybe I should not be so harsh with them,” she thought. “They are trying to take care of me.”

    Another sleepless night and she remained outside her tent. She ate and drank what the servant brought her. She decided the butterfly was sleeping, its wings folded tightly above it. She tried to remember seeing butterflies this close before. Only once, when the three men came by and she laughed when one of them, when God promised her a son.

    As the sun began its afternoon descent, she thought she saw something on the horizon. She closed her eyes, shook her head, and looked again. Nothing moved. She sighed. “I’m tired,” she thought. “I haven’t really slept in how many days? I’m seeing things.” Another moan. Her shoulders sagged. “Oh, how I want to see them return.”

    Gradually, she became aware of someone beside her. Not the butterfly resting nearby. She felt someone close. She felt a comforting Presence, like when she was a child, when she was sick, and her mother sat by her. “I’m going crazy,” she thought, “I’m going crazy.”

    She continued to wait, alone, but not alone. She spoke to the Presence. “God, why would you do such a thing to my son? Why would you tell my husband to sacrifice your child of the promise?”

    She remembered being called out from Harran, the city where they lived, to a place God would show them. Was that so they would recognize that God was different, so they could go beyond what others believed their gods wanted? Sometimes she seemed to understand God in new ways, but sometimes she held onto her old ideas. Was change coming? Did she have new understandings about God?

    If Isaac lived, would he also find new ways to live, new ways to offer worship, new ways to serve? Somewhere inside her, deep within her mind and soul, she felt a vibrant affirmation. She looked at the butterfly, flapping its wings above her.

    In the silence that followed, Sarah tried to clear her thoughts. Lack of sleep. That was her problem. If they did not return tonight, she would go back into the tent and sleep. She wanted to be awake and alert when …

    The butterfly swooped down, almost touching her, and then flew away toward where they had gone. She followed it with her eyes. What did she see in the distance? Something moving! Several somethings moving! In the dusk, she could not count the figures. The shorter one, was that the donkey? She squinted into the setting sun, but she could not tell. As the sun hovered over the horizon, as the figures dropped into the shadows, she could not see them.

    She started in their direction. At first, a slow, deliberate walk, but then her feet flew faster and faster, running breathlessly as a tall figure rushed toward her.

    As their bodies collided, she heard Abraham’s voice saying, “He’s OK. It’s all right.” She sank into his arms, then turned and grabbed her son, her tall, handsome son. At his age, he often pulled away, but this time he hugged her close, lifting her off the ground.

    “Thank you, God,” she cried, as her feet dangled above her son’s ankles and their butterflies swooped around them both.

    Together, they returned to the camp. Abraham handed the donkey’s rope to the young men and followed Sarah, still clutching her son’s hand, into the tent.

    “I don’t know,” he said, “if God was testing me—the angel seemed to say that. Or if you were right, if maybe something else. But the angel stopped me, and we sacrificed a ram caught in the bushes instead.” He paused. “We hurried back because I knew you were worried.” He reached out and touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry it was so hard for you.”

    As she heard the butterflies landing softly on the tent, Sarah drifted off to sleep, clutching the child of the promise. She felt again the words of the Presence. “They will learn that I care about each of you, about all of you, and I do not wish the sacrifice of anyone.” She wondered how long it would be before people would learn.

    * * *

    * No age is given for Isaac at this point. The most common understanding of the event is that Isaac was a child, but verse 6 says that Abraham “placed” the wood on Isaac. The amount of wood needed for such a sacrifice suggests an older Isaac. A child could not have carried what the donkey did.