Genesis 21:18

18 Come, take your child in your arms, for I will make of him a great nation.

Genesis 21:18 Meaning and Commentary

Genesis 21:18

Arise, lift up the lad
She had set herself down at some distance, and now she is bid to rise up and go to the place where she had left her son, and raise aim up from the ground, on which he lay along:

and hold him in thine hand:
or take hold on him with thine hand, and hold him up with it, he being so weak that he could not sit up without being supported:

for I will make him a great nation:
which is a renewal of a promise before made both to her and to Abraham, ( Genesis 16:10 ) ( 17:20 ) ( 21:13 ) ; and by this Hagar is assured that he would recover and live, and become a man and the father of children, who in time would become a great nation; (See Gill on Genesis 16:10), (See Gill on Genesis 17:20), (See Gill on Genesis 21:13), this shows that the Angel of God here speaking is God himself, or a divine Person, since none but he could make him a great nation.

Genesis 21:18 In-Context

16 And she went some distance away, about an arrow flight, and seating herself on the earth, she gave way to bitter weeping, saying, Let me not see the death of my child.

17 And the boy's cry came to the ears of God; and the angel of God said to Hagar from heaven, Hagar, why are you weeping? have no fear, for the child's cry has come to the ears of God.

18 Come, take your child in your arms, for I will make of him a great nation.

19 Then God made her eyes open, and she saw a water-spring, and she got water in the skin and gave the boy a drink.

20 And God was with the boy, and he became tall and strong, and he became a bowman, living in the waste land.