Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking Isaac. Therefore she said to Abraham, “Drive out this slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be an heir with my son Isaac!”
Genesis 19:9-10 (NASB)
It’s difficult to understand why Sarah is so upset in this story when you read the English. Most translations render the word צִחֵּק (tsichek) to show Ishmael “mocking,” or “making fun of” Isaac.
But Sarah’s reaction is based on something much more concerning.
Up until this moment in scripture, nearly every instance of this word was in the Qal, or basic form: “laughter.” Abraham laughs, Sarah laughs, Isaac’s name is יִצְחָק (Yitzḥaq), and it’s the causitive form of this same word, so it means “to make laugh.”
But in Genesis 19:14, the word changes form.
So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, and said, “Up, get out of this place, for the Lord is destroying the city.” But he appeared to his sons-in-law to be joking.
Genesis 19:14 (NASB)
Here, tzachak becomes *tzichek.*
Lot’s sons-in-law think he is “joking” about the cities being destroyed. The context shows they didn’t take him seriously, so they didn’t go with him. That’s a proper use of this form of the word.
Is this what Sarah sees Ishmael doing to Isaac? Does she Ishmael just goofing around and gets annoyed by it?
If instead of looking backwards to Genesis 19, we instead look forward for the use of this word, it gets dark, quickly.
The next two times the pi’el form of this word shows up in Genesis, it carries a sexual connotation.
Now it came about, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down through a window, and saw them, and behold, Isaac was caressing his wife Rebekah.
Genesis 26:8 (NASB)She called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought in a Hebrew to us to make fun of us; he came in to me to sleep with me, and I screamed.
Genesis 39:14 (NASB)
After that, it shows up in Exodus, and it’s connected to both sexual activity and idolatry. This passage describes the people in front of the golden calf.
So the next day they got up early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and got up to engage in lewd behavior.
Exodus 32:6 (NASB)
The final time it shows up in scripture is with the story of Samson, when he’s led out to “entertain the Philistines.”
It so happened when they were in high spirits, that they said, “Call for Samson, that he may amuse us.” So they called for Samson from the prison, and he entertained them. And they made him stand between the pillars.
Judges 16:25 (NASB)
And this makes me wonder how Samson is actually being treated here. It’s very likely that he is naked for their amusement. For their pleasure.
If we read Sarah’s reaction to be tied to this forward view of tzichek, the picture is much more concerning. Perhaps we are meant to see that Sarah believes Ishmael is going to do something terrible to her son.
So she does what any mother would do.