Hagar and Ishmael

Sarai's plan made good sense to the people of her day. Ten years had gone by. God promised a son in 12:2 and again in 15:4-5. Genesis 16:3 says Abram had now been in Canaan ten years. Sarai is old. Still there is no baby. If you have prayed for one thing for years, you know how she feels. And the plan was legal. Old marriage contracts from that part of the world tell us what a childless wife could do. She could give a servant to her husband and count the child as her own. Sarai is not doing something shocking. She is using the normal answer of her day. So what was wrong with it? Nobody asked God. Nobody prayed or waited for His answer. In 16:2 Sarai says, “the Lord has restrained me from bearing children” — she knew God was the One in charge of her family. Then she tried to solve the problem without Him. The plan was sensible, legal and common, but it was not what God had said. God had promised to give the son Himself. When we get tired of waiting, we can be tempted to do the same thing. God wants us to bring our waiting to Him and trust Him to keep His word.

In 16:1-3 Sarai's plan looks sensible, and it helps to see why before we see what was wrong with it. Genesis 16:3 dates the plan to ten years after Abram came to Canaan. That is ten years after the promise of 12:2, and some time after the covenant of chapter 15. The long wait put heavy pressure on Abram and Sarai. Marriage documents from Mesopotamia in the second millennium BC allow exactly this. A childless wife could give her shiphchah (say: shif-KHAH), her slave girl, to her husband, and the child counted as the wife's. In 16:2 Sarai says, as the older English puts it, “I shall obtain children by her”. The verb comes from the word for building: she hoped to be built up through Hagar. This was an accepted custom of her world, not something she invented. But two things in these verses show what was wrong. First, Sarai's opening words name God as the reason she has no children — atsarani YHWH, the LORD has held me back. Yet her next words leave Him out of the answer completely. She knew God was in charge, but she did not ask Him what to do. Second, 16:2 says “Abram heeded the voice of Sarai”. These are the same words God spoke to Adam in 3:17, “you have heeded the voice of your wife”. Both times a man listened to a human voice instead of trusting what God had said. We should not look down on Sarai from four thousand years away. Most of us would have been tempted the same way. Her sin was quieter than open rebellion. A promise was given, the wait was long, and a lawful, clever plan took the place of trusting God. Jesus said that apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5), and that includes making His promises come true.

God promised Abram a son when he first came to Canaan. Ten whole years went by after that. Abram and Sarai kept hoping, but no baby came. So Sarai came up with a plan of her own. Her servant girl Hagar would have the baby instead. People really did make plans like that. It was allowed where they lived. But God had never asked them to do it. Nobody stopped to pray and ask Him either. They tried to make God's promise happen by themselves.

Abram and Sarai got tired of waiting. So they made a plan of their own. God had not asked them to do that.

Within three verses the plan fell apart, and all three people in the house did wrong. Hagar looks down on Sarai (16:4). Hagar is carrying the child, and Sarai is not. The Bible says “her mistress became despised in her eyes”. Hagar was proud and unkind, and that was wrong. But it did not make what happened next all right. Sarai blames Abram (16:5). “My wrong be upon you!” she says. Then she adds, “the Lord judge between you and me.” But it was her plan. She was the one who suggested it. Now she wants God to take her side against Abram. When something goes wrong, it is easy to blame someone else. Abram steps back (16:6). “Indeed your maid is in your hand; do to her as you please.” In chapter 15 Abram spoke boldly with God. Now he does not say one word to protect a girl in his own home. He just hands her over. And Hagar runs (16:6). She is pregnant, and she runs into the open desert. She takes the road toward Shur, which is the road back to Egypt. She is going home. What do we learn from this? Abram is praised for his faith in chapter 15, and he is clearly in the wrong in chapter 16. God's Word tells us the truth about His people, even the heroes. Abram was not made right with God because he was always good. He was counted righteous because he believed God (15:6). That is good news for us. God does not save us because we never fail. He saves us by grace when we trust in Jesus.

In 16:4-6 all three people in the house act badly, one after another. Hagar's reaction in 16:4 is wattekal, from qalal (say: kah-LAL), to be light or of little weight. Sarai becomes small in her eyes. The reason is easy to see in that culture. Having children gave a woman standing. The pregnant slave now ranks above the childless wife in the one thing that counted most. Sarai's speech in 16:5 opens with chamasi aleykha, my violence or my wrong be upon you. This was a set phrase for making a complaint. It ends with yishpot YHWH beyni uveneykha, may the LORD judge between me and you. Yet the plan was hers. Now she asks God to judge against the man who did what she asked. Sin always looks for someone else to blame, just as Adam and Eve did in 3:12-13. Abram answers in 16:6, hinneh shiphchatekh beyadekh, behold your slave girl is in your hand. With these words he gives up the protection he owed her as head of the house. Two chapters later he will plead with God for Sodom. Here he says nothing at all for a woman in his own tent. Sarai's harsh treatment of Hagar is the verb anah (say: ah-NAH), to afflict or mistreat. Exodus 1:11-12 uses the same word for what Egypt later does to Israel. Here an Egyptian woman is afflicted by the family of promise; later the family of promise is afflicted by Egypt. God does not excuse Sarai's harshness, and He does not treat Hagar as the problem. Hagar runs bederekh Shur, by the way of Shur. That is the road toward Egypt. She is not wandering. She is going home, and a pregnant woman alone on that road is in real danger.

Sarai's plan fell apart very fast. Hagar was soon going to have a baby. Then she began to look down on Sarai for having none. Sarai turned around and blamed Abram. “This is your fault!” she told him. But it had been her own plan. Abram did not stand up for Hagar. He just stepped back. “She is your servant. Do what you want.” So Sarai was hard on Hagar, and Hagar ran away. Hagar, Sarai and Abram all did wrong. The Bible tells us the truth, even about God's people. Only God is always good.

The plan did not work at all. Everyone got cross with everyone else. And poor Hagar ran away.

While everyone in the house was doing wrong, God was already at work. God goes after her. He does not go after Abram, who behaved badly. Nor does He go after Sarai, whose plan it was. He goes after the slave girl running down the road to Egypt. “The Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness” (16:7). A first in the Bible. This is the first time the Angel of the Lord appears. In 16:10 He speaks as God Himself: “I will multiply your descendants.” In 16:13 Hagar says she has seen God. Many Christians believe this was the Son of God, before He was born in Bethlehem. The first person He appears to in all of Scripture is a foreign slave woman. Nobody was looking for her. He says her name. Sarai calls her “my maid”. Abram calls her “your maid”. Neither of them ever calls her Hagar. But in 16:8 God speaks to her by name. Then He asks two questions. “Where have you come from, and where are you going?” He knows the answers. He asks anyway, because a question invites a person to tell the truth. And she does: “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” God gives her no lecture and no scolding. And He gives her a promise like Abram's. “I will multiply your descendants exceedingly, so that they shall not be counted” (16:10). It is like the stars-and-sand promise of 15:5. Now it is said to a slave girl in a desert. In 16:9 God sends her back to the house she ran from. That was hard for Hagar. But right after that He says, “the Lord has heard your affliction” (16:11). He does not tell her that her pain was nothing. He never says Sarai was right. He sends her back with a promise and a name for her son, and He goes with her. When God asks us to do something hard, He never sends us alone.

In 16:7-12, for the first time in the Bible, we meet the mal'akh YHWH (the messenger, or angel, of the LORD). Who is this messenger? In 16:10 the speaker promises, “I will multiply your seed”. He speaks in the first person and with God's own authority. In 16:13 Hagar says the one who spoke to her is God. The same pattern comes again at 22:11-18, Exodus 3:2-6 and Judges 6:11-24. There the messenger speaks as the LORD and is also sent by Him. Many Christians, from the early church until today, believe these are appearances of the Son of God before He was born as a man. That fits what we see here: the Angel speaks as God, and Hagar says she has seen God. John 1:18 tells us that no one has seen God at any time, but the Son has made Him known. Three details in these verses show God's care for her. First, in 16:8 God says Hagar shiphchat Sarai, Hagar, slave girl of Sarai. God speaks her name, and no one else in the chapter uses it. Second, God asks two questions: ei-mizzeh vat ve'anah telekhi, where have you come from and where are you going? God is not questioning her like a judge. He is inviting her to tell her story, and she answers honestly about the half she knows. Third, 16:11 explains the name Ishmael, Yishma'el (say: yish-mah-ALE), God hears: ki shama YHWH el-onyekh, because the LORD has heard your affliction. The word for affliction comes from the same root anah used of Sarai's treatment in 16:6. In 16:9 God commands her to go back and submit. That sends her back into a household that has treated her badly, and it was a hard command. But God gives her three things with it. First, the promise of 16:10-11 comes with the command, so she does not go back with nothing. Second, 16:11 says God has heard her mistreatment; He does not call it acceptable. Third, in 16:15 her son is born alive and named. For a pregnant woman alone on the Shur road, that was not the likely outcome. God was protecting her and her baby. Going back did not mean God approved of what Sarai did. In 16:12, pere adam (say: PEH-reh ah-DAHM), a wild donkey of a man, is a picture of a free life that nobody tames or rules. The next phrases describe a people living in tension with its neighbors. They are not a curse on him. Genesis 21:20 says God was with the boy, and 25:12-18 lists his twelve sons by name. God cared for Ishmael and kept His word to Hagar.

God went looking for Hagar in the desert. The Angel of the Lord found her by a spring. Then He said her name. “Hagar.” Sarai never called her by her name. Abram never did either. To them she was just “my servant” or “your servant.” But God knew her name, and He said it. He asked her two gentle questions. “Where have you come from? Where are you going?” He already knew the answers. He asked so she could tell Him her trouble. Then He promised her a family too big to count.

God came and found Hagar in the desert. He said her name out loud. Then He gave her a promise too.

Next, Hagar does something that no one else in the Bible ever does. Hagar names God. “Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees” (16:13). All through Genesis, people name altars, wells and children. Nobody else in Scripture gives God a name. The one person who does is an Egyptian slave girl in a desert. Her name for God is about being seen. In her language it is two words: El Roi, the God who sees me. Then she asks in wonder, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?” The well keeps the name. It is called Beer Lahai Roi (16:14), the well of the Living One who sees me. People named the well for what God did there, so everyone who drank from it would remember. Years later Isaac lived near that same well. Then Ishmael is born. She went back. The boy was born. Abram named him Ishmael, just as God had said (16:15). Abram was eighty-six years old (16:16). So Genesis 16 teaches us two things. When people try to make God's promise happen by themselves, it hurts everyone. And even then, God goes after the one person nobody is looking for. He sees you too — when you are lonely, when you have messed up, and when you think nobody notices. Jesus came for that very reason: to seek and to save the lost.

Genesis 16:13-14 shows us who God is. Genesis 16:13 records something that happens nowhere else in the Bible: wattiqra… shem YHWH, she called the name of the LORD. Elsewhere in Genesis people call on the name of the LORD (4:26, 12:8). Or they name a place for what happened there (22:14, 28:19). Only here does a human being give God a name, and that human being is a foreign slave woman. The name itself, El Roi (say: el ROY), means God of seeing, or God who sees me. The second half of 16:13 reads, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?” The Hebrew is very short, and it can also mean, have I really seen God and lived? Either way, Hagar is amazed. The God who saw her had let Himself be seen by her, and she was still alive. The holy God had come near to a lowly servant girl in grace. Genesis 16:14 keeps the name in the land: Beer-lahai-roi, the well of the Living One who sees me. It lies between Kadesh and Bered. The place comes back at 24:62 and 25:11, where Isaac lives near it. God's care for Hagar was part of the story of Abraham's family, not something off to the side. In Galatians 4:21-31, Paul uses Hagar and Sarah as a picture of two covenants, Sinai and promise. His point is about who stands in which covenant: slavery under the law, or freedom by God's promise. It is not a judgment on Hagar, and it does not cancel the kindness God showed her. Genesis 16 is one of the gentlest pictures of God's care in the five books of Moses. So Genesis 16 shows us two things side by side: people trying to manage God's promise, and God going after a person nobody cared about. Genesis 17 answers the first when God renews His promise to Abram; 16:13 answers the second. Both point to Jesus, who keeps every promise of God and came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).

Then Hagar did something no one else in the Bible ever did. She gave God a name. “You are the God who sees me,” she said. In her language the name was El Roi. It means the God who sees. Later the well there was named after that day. Hagar was a servant girl from Egypt. She had run away, and nobody was looking for her. But God saw her and came to her. He even let her give Him a name. God sees you too, wherever you are.

Hagar gave God a brand new name. “You are the God who sees me.” She is the only one who ever did that!

Hagar and Ishmael

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