Thoughts on Genesis: 16:1-16

Remember that a recurring theme throughout the time of the Patriarchs is that of being childless or not being able to have children; this is keenly seen in the life of Sarai. Sarai, unlike Abram, was not as confident in God’s ability to give them children…or she was simply tired of waiting. In any case, she decides to come up with her own plan for an heir.

“The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” (Genesis 16:2 NIV)

Wow. Would your response have been Abram’s?

Abram agreed to what Sarai said. (v. 2)

Now to many of us with monogamous and modern sensibilities, Abram seems like a dog at this point; how could he possibly think about sleeping with his wife’s slave? How could he do that and then have children with her? It just seems incredibly unthinkable.

Well it was wrong, but surprisingly it was not uncommon.

If a woman was unable to have a child during this era, it was common practice for them to give their husband their female servants to “have children through them.” Since they considered themselves the owners of those slaves, any children they produced were technically “theirs.” This is not last time this will happen, as we will see later both of Abram’s grandson Jacob’s wives will do the same thing.

But is having children vicariously through one’s slave acceptable? If God allowed it, is it not then acceptable? If God really wanted to keep Abram from doing it, could he not have sent an angel to tell him to stop? (Just like he sent an angel to stop him from killing Isaac…oooops spoilers) The answer is unequivocally, “no.” Yes, God allowed polygamy in the Old Testament to occur and many of the godliest examples of faith had many wives. However, the results from these marriages always is seen negatively. In other words, God allows it, but by the tone of the inspired writer’s comments, God did not sanction or approve of it. So yes, God allowed it and no he did not approve of it.

There has to be some room for some free will and human responsibility in all of that divine sovereignty; God was not going to keep Abram from sinning by caving to his nagging (and maybe even hormonal) wife.

But it gets better…

⁴ He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. ⁵ Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.” (vv. 4-5)

This is some of the most sadly ironic passages in Scripture. Abram gets ole Hagar pregnant and then once Hagar became aware of this she started to look down on Sarai, because she was obviously favored and her mistress was not. This reads like something out of Days of Our Lives…I mean this is ridiculous! You have to understand how much of a disgrace it was for a woman not to be able to have children; it was so disgraceful that a pregnant slave could think she was better than her wealthy, free mistress!

What is even more ridiculous is that Sarai comes to Abram, blames him, and expects him to fix it! I am sorry, but if I were to place bets on the one God would vindicate it would not be Sarai. Sarai decided that she was going to make a short cut to God’s promises and it fell completely apart; what is worse is that Abram went along with her! When he should have been a man and stood on the promises of God, he cowered before his unruly wife and sinned against God!

What a mess…

So, to make a long story short, Abram kind of shrugs off responsibility and basically says, “Well, she’s your slave, do what you want with her.” You never want to say something like that to a hormonal, childless, angry woman…because she did to Hagar exactly what she wanted. Apparently it was so bad that Hagar ran away.

Now, if this were some of us writing the story, we would have said, “Well, good riddance. That is what you get for being so snotty and thinking you are better than your master’s wife; you are not anything but a whore, a baby carrier for someone who is actually somebody.” This would be the logical attitude of those who grew up during the time of the story and again, it would have been quite common, but it is still unacceptable.

Especially to God.

The term “angel of the Lord,” literally means the Lord’s messenger. Now, it could have been just an ordinary angel, but many times when this word phrasing is used it is showing an event known as a Christophony, or an Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ. Now this might blow your mind so hold on. Jesus may have appeared to people in his pre-incarnate state; this makes sense if Jesus were somehow limited to our space-time continuum. But is it not just as plausible that Jesus appeared to Hagar and others in his incarnate state? If God is beyond time and Jesus is the person of God known as the Son, and the Son is eternally generated from the Father, then that means that the Son could actually be incarnate even though he has not even been born on our space-time continuum! That really blows the mind because we think of time as either a linear (West) or cyclical (East) progression.

So, in a real sense…Hagar could have been speaking to the resurrected Christ.

Wow.

The exchange is very short. The angel of the Lord asks Hagar where she is going and she tells him about her plot to run away from Sarai. We can imagine that Hagar told him all about her troubles and her mistreatment and how she just did what she was told and was hated for it (probably omitting the parts where she despised and looked down on her mistress). Surely, this will gain the angel of the Lord’s sympathy and cause him to correct the situation or at least be like, “Oh I see, wow. That’s awful! Let me direct you to the nearest battered slaves shelter…”

But that is not what he does.

⁹ Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.”(v. 9)

Wait, what? Hagar has her freedom; she has a son on the way that can be born in freedom! She is justly running away from mistreatment and seeking a better life…how can God tell her to go back? What I don’t believe is that God did not care or that God was unfeeling; if that were the case I don’t think he would go pursue her into the desert.

So, what is God doing? One, Hagar is probably pregnant and with little to no supplies; the fact that she is camped out by a spring means that she was probably exhausted and vulnerable. God was telling her to do what was in her own best interest (and her baby’s) to survive; she had to go back to Sarai. Two, Hagar had defied her mistress and had left the protection of the covenant of Abram; as long as she stayed in Abram’s household, she could be a recipient of the covenant blessings, but she must also submit to Sarai’s authority. Three, God would indeed let Hagar leave Sarai in the future, but the time was not right and she had to learn to trust him, and that he knew what was best for her.

In any case, God was good and sovereign and he was telling her to go back.

But as she turns to leave and obey, he says something like this, “Oh, Hagar. Wait a moment…”

¹⁰ The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”

¹¹ The angel of the Lord also said to her:

“You are now pregnant

and you will give birth to a son.

You shall name him Ishmael, ^g

for the Lord has heard of your misery.

¹² 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.” (vv. 10-12)

The Lord does not just tell her to go back and then leave, he gives her an amazing promise about her child and his descendants. She is to name her child, Ishmael which means, “God hears.” God had seen her misery and heard her tears; he would also answer her prayers. Ishmael would be a wild one though, and his descendants are still causing trouble to this very day.

Hagar responds in worship, naming the well-spring Beer Lahai Roi, or “Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.” Hagar had been seen by God, but more importantly, she had seen God and lived to name a well about it. The journey home must have been amazing; how much hope must have flooded her heart. And sure enough, she gave birth and Abram named her son, Ishmael.

And for a moment the skies cleared over paradise…

But only for a moment, for as the Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians:

³⁰ But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” (Gal. 5:30 NIV)