So Abraham got up early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water, and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba.
Genesis 21:14 (NASB)
Beersheba means “the well of oaths.” The way we see it in Genesis 21 shows us the difference between God and man.
Abraham makes no covenant with Hagar. He sends her off with bread and water, and though he is worried about his son Ishmael, he makes no promise to them.
Get up, lift up the boy, and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him.”
Genesis 21:18 (NASB)
In the wilderness of Beersheba, God meets Hagar and makes an oath to her: to make Ishmael a great nation. This promise is similar the one made about Isaac.
Immediately afterwards, we see Abraham take an oath and make a covenant with Abimelech, king of Gerar and with the commander of Abimelech’s army. With the rich and the powerful.
He said, “You shall take these seven ewe lambs from my hand so that it may be a witness for me, that I dug this well.” Therefore he called that place Beersheba, because there the two of them took an oath. So they made a covenant at Beersheba; and Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, got up and returned to the land of the Philistines.
Genesis 21:30-32 (NASB)
Perhaps we are meant to learn that our oaths should be made to protect the weak and the lowly, as that is where God dwells. But instead, we are inclined to make covenant only with those who can benefit ourselves.