Woman Begat Woman

TV fans know that soapies are not happy stories.  The story of Michal in the Bible (1 Samuel 18) appears to be such a story. Movies, commentators and preachers have shown her in an unfavourable light but she was a woman betrayed by the two men in her life, David and her father, King Saul.  From the beginning it seems that the concerns of Michal's father, the servants and David revolved around David becoming the king's son in law. Michal however loved David who appears to have had the good looks of a young Brad Pitt. This is the only time in the Old Testament when we are told that a woman loved a man. We are never told that David loved Michal. When things did not go well for David and Michal's father, Saul, tried to kill him, Michal saved David's life and helped him escape.  No sooner was David out the way that her father married her off to another man, Palti (1 Samuel 25:44). In the next episode of this good soapie material we discover that David had been v...

There is a story in the bible of an African woman who was harassed not only for being a woman and black but also because she was a slave. Hagar's story begins after years had passed and there was no sign of a child for Abraham and his wife Sarah, Hagar's mistress. Sarah decided a solution was for Hagar to be a surrogate mother! (Genesis 16:1-3). However relationships at home become unbearable between the two women when Sarah started ill-treating Hagar and she  decided to flee. The Angel of the Lord found her at the road leading to Shur and told her to return to Sarah but not before making her the amazing promise that she would be the ancestress of a multitude that could not even be numbered. (Genesis 16:9-12).   She was also given a name for the child, Ishmael, meaning, "God hears".   In response Hagar does what no male or female had ever done before! She gives God a name. She calls God, El-roi, "the God who sees me". She is amazed that she can say, ...