Genesis 21:9

EXPULSION OF HAGAR AND ISHMAEL, Genesis 21:9-21.

9. Sarah saw With a mother’s careful eye .

Mocking Some suppose he mocked at the feast held at Isaac’s weaning, and made derision of the contrast between the weak child and the great hopes entertained concerning him . But the Piel form of this word appears everywhere to carry with it the associations of some carnal and lascivious indulgence . Sarah saw Ishmael ( מצחק ) committing some lewd act, perhaps of self-pollution, and the sight filled her with an indignation and contempt towards him, which led her to insist on banishing from her household both him and his mother. She would not have her Isaac contaminated by such an associate. So, too, the word, as used in Genesis 19:14, denotes that Lot’s son-in-law, to whom all things were impure, could not comprehend Lot’s words of warning, but regarded him as one of the lewd fellows who were out at night indulging in the common practices of Sodom . In Genesis 26:8, it evidently means some carnal intercourse between Isaac and Rebekah, such as was proper only between husband and wife, and the same thought is equally noticeable in the language of Potiphar’s wife in Genesis 39:14-17, and the lewd play of the Israelites at the feast of the golden calf . Exodus 32:6. And we may well believe that the sport which Samson was brought out to make before the merry and perhaps half-drunken Philistines (Judges 16:25) was some naked exposure and obscene abuse . These are all the places in which the Piel form of צחק occurs, and there is, therefore, no need of giving it a different sense in any one of these passages .