Beginning of the End - Ellen G. White

servant, however, and he still left her to the control of her mistress.
"When Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence."
Hagar made her way to the desert. As she rested, lonely and
friendless beside a spring, an angel appeared. Addressing her as
"Hagar, Sarai's maid," he told her, "Return to your mistress, and
submit yourself under her hand." Yet words of comfort were
mingled with the reproof: "The Lord has heard your affliction. ... I
will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be
counted for multitude." She was instructed to name her child
Ishmael, "God shall hear."
When Abraham was nearly one hundred years old, the promise
of a son was repeated: "Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and
you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him.
... As for Ishmael," He said, "behold, I have blessed him ... and I will
make him a great nation."
Polygamy Brings Sorrow
The birth of Isaac filled the tents of Abraham and Sarah with
gladness, but to Hagar this event was the overthrow of her deeply
cherished ambitions. Everyone had thought of Ishmael as the heir of
Abraham's wealth and the inheritor of the blessings promised to his
descendants. Now he was suddenly set aside. Mother and son hated
the child of Sarah.
The general rejoicing increased their jealousy, until Ishmael
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