Genesis Chapter 16

God had promised a son to Abram (Gen. 12:2; 13:15-16; 15:5), but Sarai was never specifically identified as the woman who would give him that son.  After ten years, they apparently felt the conflict between God’s promise of a son and Sarai’s inability to conceive; and because of impatience, Sarai proposed the marriage with Hagar as a solution to their problem.  It appears God intentionally created a dilemma in which Abram and Sarai were helpless to produce a son, so that it would be obvious in the end that what God had promised them, only He was able to execute (cf. Rom. 4:18-21).  Delay in fulfillment should not be seen as a denial of God’s promise.