Thoughts on Hagar the servant, surrogate and woman.
Genesis 16
Gen 16: 1-2. Hagar was Sarai's Egyptian servant and her property. She was most likely forced to accompany Abram and Sarai when the Pharaoh expelled them from Egypt because of Abram's deception in claiming that the beautiful Sarai was his sister. We can only assume she had no choice in leaving her homeland and as Sarai's chattel probably had little choice when Sarai offered her to Abram as a means to producing a child for Sarai who was childless.
Gen 16: 3-6. Unfortunately for Sarai, Hagar conceived rather quickly and Hagar started to see that she had increased status which led to strife
between Sarai and Hagar. Hagar started to despise Sarai because Sarai couldn't get pregnant whereas she had become pregnant quickly. Sarai feels this loss of her status immediately as she has constantly lived with the shame of having no children. At this point Sarai lashes out at Abram for "causing this to happen" probably realizing that Abram was not infertile and she was the one with problem. In frustration Abram tells Sarai to deal with her own servant how she thinks fit and with that Sarai starts to treat Hagar very harshly. Abram shows no apparent concern for the baby he has just helped create, let alone the woman that Hagar was. He was probably preoccupied with the fact that he hadn't trusted God to keep his promises and shouldn't have agreed to Sarai's original offer of Hagar as a means to a son.
Hagar must of felt totally heart-broken; her new feelings of value, of being a new mother and maybe even her feelings of affection for Abram have now been crushed. Faced with all this, she runs away from Hebron back to her life in Egypt. Surprisingly she covers about 130 kilometres (80 miles) in her newly pregnant state and reaches a spring on the road to Shur.
Unfortunately there is no narrative about the journey but imagine the stress of being a slave fleeing away from your owner, being a young woman on her own and also suffering morning-sickness and the tiredness that comes from being pregnant! How she obtained food and water is unknown. I assume she would have had to travel when things were cool and she would have to travel incognito. Taking all these things into account she may have taken weeks to get as far as she did and my guess she was pretty low and feeling very alone when she arrived at the well.
Gen 16:7- 13 At her lowest the Angel of the Lord finds her. I find this term "finds her" quite intriguing as God would have known where she was anyway! However I think it shows God's care for her in that He consciously appeared in human form and met her where she was.
The Lord greets her saying:
"Hagar, Sarai's servant, where did you come from and where will you go?". Imagine meeting someone you have never known before who knows your name, your job and who gets right to the heart of your problem within 13 words!
The Lord acknowledges Hagar's status as Sarai's servant which would not have been lost on her. She knew deep in her heart of her obligations to Sarai and Abram. The Lord is not unkind but does give her a difficult task of returning and submitting to Sarai along with an amazing list of promises for her:
- God would greatly multiply her offspring.
To her ears this would have been incredible news. She was being treated as a person not a chattel. She would be a valuable woman and she would leave a legacy.
- She was pregnant and would give birth to a son.
The start of this verse seems a little odd at first reading, in that the Lord first says "you are with child". When I read this I thought this was superfluous as she would know this but I wonder if the weeks of travel and lack of rest, food and water would have played on her mind and she may have thought the baby had died within her. Here God is giving her hope about her son.
- Her son's name would be Ishmael.
His name came from God's heart and mouth and what joy this would have brought her. Ishmael means "God hears" and through her son's name came the message "I have heard and I care".
- God has heard her affliction.
This is interesting; how do you hear "affliction"? I've concluded that the pain of affliction spills out from the heart through the lips with cries of fear, frustration or futility. God had heard all those times that Hagar had to accept reprimand or scolding just because she was pregnant or she was just an Egyptian slave.
God goes on to tell Hagar that her son will be a wild man who will be against everyone and everyone will be against him. Hagar doesn't seem to react to this news about her son but she does excitedly declare that "You are the God that sees" and "I have openly seen Him that appeared to me". She is so excited about this that she names the well as "Beer-Lahai-Roi" and it is here that one of the names of God, "El Roi" (the God that sees me), is used or the first and only time in the Bible.
She returns to Sarai but the next verse simply says "And Hagar bore Abram a son...". No reference about the journey back, the submission to Sarai or how Abram reacted. One thing is sure, she was changed. Her encounter was so great that she must have told everyone her story because seventy-five years later when Isaac settles at the same well after the death of Abraham it's name was still in use.
Because she bore a child to Abraham blessing flowed through her life and she remained with Abraham and Sarah for about another 16 years. Abram loved Ishmael and later in Genesis he pleads with God to let Ismael be the one in whom the promises of God would be fulfilled. Alas, God says "no" as there was the true son of promise to be born but God did promise that Ishmael would be a son of promise who would be fruitful and God would be with him.
What do we learn from all this? In the midst of human mistakes God shows his love and his mercy. Abram and Sarai made a "right mess of things" and Hagar was a mainly a bystander but God showed His love for Hagar just at the time she needed His help.
Gen 16: 1-2. Hagar was Sarai's Egyptian servant and her property. She was most likely forced to accompany Abram and Sarai when the Pharaoh expelled them from Egypt because of Abram's deception in claiming that the beautiful Sarai was his sister. We can only assume she had no choice in leaving her homeland and as Sarai's chattel probably had little choice when Sarai offered her to Abram as a means to producing a child for Sarai who was childless.
Gen 16: 3-6. Unfortunately for Sarai, Hagar conceived rather quickly and Hagar started to see that she had increased status which led to strife
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| Guess who's pregnant...? |
Hagar must of felt totally heart-broken; her new feelings of value, of being a new mother and maybe even her feelings of affection for Abram have now been crushed. Faced with all this, she runs away from Hebron back to her life in Egypt. Surprisingly she covers about 130 kilometres (80 miles) in her newly pregnant state and reaches a spring on the road to Shur.
Unfortunately there is no narrative about the journey but imagine the stress of being a slave fleeing away from your owner, being a young woman on her own and also suffering morning-sickness and the tiredness that comes from being pregnant! How she obtained food and water is unknown. I assume she would have had to travel when things were cool and she would have to travel incognito. Taking all these things into account she may have taken weeks to get as far as she did and my guess she was pretty low and feeling very alone when she arrived at the well.
 |
| On the way to Egypt |
Gen 16:7- 13 At her lowest the Angel of the Lord finds her. I find this term "finds her" quite intriguing as God would have known where she was anyway! However I think it shows God's care for her in that He consciously appeared in human form and met her where she was.
The Lord greets her saying:
"Hagar, Sarai's servant, where did you come from and where will you go?". Imagine meeting someone you have never known before who knows your name, your job and who gets right to the heart of your problem within 13 words!
The Lord acknowledges Hagar's status as Sarai's servant which would not have been lost on her. She knew deep in her heart of her obligations to Sarai and Abram. The Lord is not unkind but does give her a difficult task of returning and submitting to Sarai along with an amazing list of promises for her:
- God would greatly multiply her offspring.
To her ears this would have been incredible news. She was being treated as a person not a chattel. She would be a valuable woman and she would leave a legacy.
- She was pregnant and would give birth to a son.
The start of this verse seems a little odd at first reading, in that the Lord first says "you are with child". When I read this I thought this was superfluous as she would know this but I wonder if the weeks of travel and lack of rest, food and water would have played on her mind and she may have thought the baby had died within her. Here God is giving her hope about her son.
- Her son's name would be Ishmael.
His name came from God's heart and mouth and what joy this would have brought her. Ishmael means "God hears" and through her son's name came the message "I have heard and I care".
- God has heard her affliction.
This is interesting; how do you hear "affliction"? I've concluded that the pain of affliction spills out from the heart through the lips with cries of fear, frustration or futility. God had heard all those times that Hagar had to accept reprimand or scolding just because she was pregnant or she was just an Egyptian slave.
God goes on to tell Hagar that her son will be a wild man who will be against everyone and everyone will be against him. Hagar doesn't seem to react to this news about her son but she does excitedly declare that "You are the God that sees" and "I have openly seen Him that appeared to me". She is so excited about this that she names the well as "Beer-Lahai-Roi" and it is here that one of the names of God, "El Roi" (the God that sees me), is used or the first and only time in the Bible.
She returns to Sarai but the next verse simply says "And Hagar bore Abram a son...". No reference about the journey back, the submission to Sarai or how Abram reacted. One thing is sure, she was changed. Her encounter was so great that she must have told everyone her story because seventy-five years later when Isaac settles at the same well after the death of Abraham it's name was still in use.
Because she bore a child to Abraham blessing flowed through her life and she remained with Abraham and Sarah for about another 16 years. Abram loved Ishmael and later in Genesis he pleads with God to let Ismael be the one in whom the promises of God would be fulfilled. Alas, God says "no" as there was the true son of promise to be born but God did promise that Ishmael would be a son of promise who would be fruitful and God would be with him.
What do we learn from all this? In the midst of human mistakes God shows his love and his mercy. Abram and Sarai made a "right mess of things" and Hagar was a mainly a bystander but God showed His love for Hagar just at the time she needed His help.
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