Read Genesis 21
Isaac's birth has been anticipated for years, and for many chapters for the reader, yet it is mentioned with little emphasis.
Isaac is born. Sarah calls him "laughter", saying the whole world will laugh with her. Abraham has him circumcised, including him in the covenant with YHWH.
v9 - Ishmael's "mockery" uses the same words as when Lot's sons-in-law think he's joking, or laugh at him. It indicates an offense, and implies lewdness. Whatever Ishmael did toward Isaac was probably more than simply laughing at him, and offensive enough to separate him from his brother.
v10 - Cultural law stated that a wife could provide a son for her husband through a handmaiden, and also that the destiny of the handmaiden and child would remain under the authority of the same wife if they chose to do this. Sarah is exercising this authority in this chapter.
Sarah asks Abraham to put Hagar and Ishmael away. He does, but only after God promises to bless Ishmael.
v11 - It has already been well established that Abraham cares deeply for Ishmael. He probably considered him to be God's promised son for the first thirteen years of his life. All of his hopes and dreams had rested on his firstborn. Sending him away would have been difficult. However, in the big picture of the story of Abraham, it was necessary so that Isaac would become his heir.
v17 – God heard the boy crying. This is the same phrase used for God hearing Abel’s blood cry from the ground. It is the same phrase used for God hearing the oppression of the Israelites in Egypt. God hears the cries of the oppressed.
God rescues Hagar in the desert. Hagar is visited by God again, and again blessed and provided for. To have two visitations in a lifetime happens to very few people in all of scripture. This Egyptian handmaiden and her son were blessed by God.
v21 - Ishmael marries an Egyptian.
vv22-34 - Abraham makes a treaty with the Philistines.
The well and its water
Abraham "owns" the well in the sense of his rights as an alien squatter. This would have been culturally understood. He is not claiming ownership of land, but rights to the water from the well, because he came to it first. The trade with Abimelech is to ensure the contractual agreement they had judged between them, not a land purchase. The land was not Abimelech's to sell.
(see the entry on Ishmael and Christian Islamaphobia.)
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