Genesis 16King James Version
Sarai is barren. She gives her servant Hagar to Abram so he can have a child through her. Hagar conceives. Sarai treats her harshly and Hagar runs into the wilderness. The angel of the Lord finds her by a spring and tells her to return. Her son will be called Ishmael.
Sarai has not conceived after ten years in Canaan. She gives her Egyptian servant Hagar to Abram as a surrogate. Hagar conceives and begins to despise Sarai. Sarai blames Abram and treats Hagar harshly. Hagar flees into the wilderness. An angel finds her at a spring, asks where she came from and where she is going, and tells her to return and submit. He promises her a son, Ishmael, who will be a wild man at odds with everyone. Hagar names the spring after the God who saw her.
A desperate plan to force the promise produces a child God sees and names, and introduces the first person in scripture to name God.
13: "And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?" Hagar, an Egyptian slave woman, is the first person in the Bible to give God a name. She does it in a wilderness after being cast out.
The practice of a wife giving her servant to her husband to produce an heir was codified in Mesopotamian law codes contemporary with this story. Sarai is following a legal custom. That makes Hagar's vulnerability more, not less, acute: it is entirely within the system, and no one in the household has to acknowledge it is wrong.
Sarai, impatient and then cruel; Abram, passive; Hagar, seen by God when no one else cares; the angel, who asks her name and destination.
Hagar's story is a recurrent reference point for liberation theology. She is a marginalized woman, a slave, a foreigner, who encounters God directly without any prior covenant. Her son Ishmael becomes the ancestor of the Arab peoples in later tradition. The chapter is honest about how badly she is treated and how God responds.
For when you have been used and then discarded, and you are sitting alone in a desert with no plan. The angel's first question, whence camest thou and whither wilt thou go, is not interrogation. It is someone choosing to see you.
1Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.
2And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.
3And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.
4And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.
5And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the LORD judge between me and thee.
6But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.
7And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.
8And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.
9And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.
10And the angel of the LORD said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.
11And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.
12And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.
13And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?
14Wherefore the well was called Beerlahairoi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.
15And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael.
16And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram.