Suppose the Hatfields and McCoys were related?

Can you imagine "Devil Anse" Hatfield and the "Ol' Randell" McCoy finding out they had the same great-great grandfather? It is doubtful the feud would have been any less intense; if anything, it may have fueled the flames. A few years (almost 4000) before the Hatfields and McCoys, another feud between two other families began; the difference is that these two families had the same ancestor. The two families? The Jews and the Arabs. The ancestor? Abraham. The feud? Still going on today.

God made a promise to Abraham, whose name at the time was Abram: "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:2-3 NIV)

But…Abram and his wife Sarai had a bit of a problem understanding God's promise; Abram and Sarai had no children and Abram's biological clock was running out of time (he was seventy-five at the time). Some ten years later, they still had no children. Sarai came up with what she thought was a good plan: Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said. (Genesis 16:1-2 NIV)

Wait a minute! Is this a line out of a Hollywood screenplay? No, it's Scripture. We read on: So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. Abram did not appear to have any hesitations about his wife's kinky idea…but he should have: When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me." (Genesis 16:3-5 NIV)

Sarai began mistreating the pregnant Hagar and Hagar fled. An angel of the Lord found Hagar in the desert and told her about her child and the impending 'family feud':

The angel of the LORD also said to her: "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers." (Genesis 16:11-12 NIV) The foreboding of angel of the Lord was that Ishmael, Abram's first child, would live in hostility toward all his brothers.

Fourteen years later, God changed Abram's name to Abraham, "…for I have made you a father of many nations", and told him, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her." (Genesis 17:5,15-16 NIV) A year after this encounter with God, Abraham and Sarah-in spite of their advancing age-had a son, Isaac.

Early on, the hostility between the brothers began: (Genesis 21:8-13 NIV) The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, "Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac." The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But God said to him, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring."

Because of Sarai's impatience, Abram's first child, Ishmael, was born to him through his extramarital union with Sarai's maid, Hagar. Ishmael is the ancestor of the Arabs.

Isaac, the son God had long promised to Abraham and Sarah, was born fourteen years later. Isaac would become the father of the Jews.

Now, 4000 years down the road, not too many days go by without the headlines of newspapers around the world giving us the latest casualty reports of the feud between the descendants of these two sons of Abraham. What would the world in the Middle East be like today if Abraham had listened to God instead of Sarai? Even the Hatfields and the McCoys didn't take that long to end their feud.