1. slavegirl. Hebrew shifḥah. The tradition of English versions that render this as “maid” or “handmaiden” imposes a misleading sense of European gentility on the sociology of the story. The point is that Hagar belongs to Sarai as property, and the ensuing complications of their relationship build on that fundamental fact. Later on, Hagar will also be referred to as ʾamah. The two terms designate precisely the same social status. The only evident difference is that ʾamah, the more international of the two terms, is often used in administrative lists whereas shifḥah occurs in contexts that are more narrative and popular in character.

2. And Sarai said. Sarai-Sarah’s first reported speech, like that of Rachel later on in the cycle, is a complaint about her childlessness. The institution of surrogate maternity to which she resorts is by no means her invention, being well attested in ancient Near Eastern legal documents. Living with the human consequences of the institution could be quite another matter, as the writer shrewdly understands: Sarai’s first two-sided dialogue with her husband (verses 5–6) vividly represents the first domestic squabble—her bitterness and her resentment against the husband who, after all, has only complied with her request; his willingness to buy conjugal peace at almost any price.

be built up through her. The Hebrew ʾibaneh puns on ben, “son,” and so also means, “I will be sonned through her.”

3. as a wife. Most English versions, following the logic of the context, render this as “concubine.” The word used, however, is not pilegesh but ʾishah, the same term that identifies Sarai at the beginning of the verse. The terminological equation of the two women is surely intended, and sets up an ironic backdrop for Sarai’s abuse of Hagar.

4. in her eyes. It is best to leave the Hebrew idiom literally in place in English because Hagar’s sight will again be at issue in her naming of the divinity after the epiphany in the wilderness.

5. your embrace. Literally, “your lap,” often a euphemism for the genital area. The emphasis is pointedly sexual.

7. the LORD’s messenger. This is the first occurrence of an “angel” (Hebrew, malʾakh, Greek, angelos) in Genesis, though “the sons of God,” the members of the divine entourage, are mentioned in chapter 6. “Messenger,” or one who carries out a designated task, is the primary meaning of the Hebrew term, and there are abundant biblical instances of malʾakhim who are strictly human emissaries. One assumes that the divine messenger in these stories is supposed to look just like a human being, and all postbiblical associations with wings, halos, and glorious raiment must be firmly excluded. One should note that the divine speaker here begins as an angel but ends up (verse 13) being referred to as though he were God Himself. Gerhard von Rad and others have proposed that the angel as intermediary was superimposed on the earliest biblical tradition in order to mitigate what may have seemed an excessively anthropomorphic representation of the deity. But it is anyone’s guess how the Hebrew imagination conceived agents of the LORD three thousand years ago, and it is certainly possible that the original traditions had a blurry notion of differentiation between God’s own interventions in human life and those of His emissaries. Richard Elliott Friedman has actually proposed that the angels are entities split off, or emanated, from God, and that no clear-cut distinction between God and angel is intended.

in the wilderness, . . . on the way to Shur. Hagar is in the Negeb, headed south, evidently back toward her native Egypt. Shur means “wall” in Hebrew, and scholars have linked the name with the line of fortifications the Egyptians built on their northern border. But the same word could also be construed as a verb that occurs in poetic texts, “to see” (or perhaps, more loftily, “to espy”), and may relate to the thematics of seeing in Hagar’s story.

10. And the LORD’s messenger said to her. The formula for introducing speech is repeated as Hagar stands in baffled silence in response to the command that she return to suffer abuse at Sarai’s hand. Even the promise of progeny does not suffice to allay her doubts, so, with still another repetition of the introductory formula, the messenger proceeds (verse 11) to spell out the promise in a poetic oracle.

surely multiply. The repetition of the verb in an infinitive absolute could refer either to the certainty of multiplication or to the scale of multiplication (“I will mightily multiply”).

11. Ishmael. The name means “God has heard,” as the messenger proceeds to explain. The previous occurrence of hearing in the story is Abram’s “heeding” (shamaʿ, the same verb) Sarai’s voice. God’s hearing is then complemented by His and Hagar’s seeing (verse 13).

your suffering. The noun derives from the same root as the verb of abuse (or, harassment, harsh handling, humiliation) used for Sarai’s mistreatment of Hagar.

12. his hand against all. Although this may be a somewhat ambiguous blessing, it does celebrate the untamed power—also intimated in the image of the wild ass or onager—of the future Ishmaelites to thrive under the bellicose conditions of their nomadic existence.

in despite of. The Hebrew idiom suggests defiance, as E. A. Speiser has persuasively shown.

13. El-Roi. The most evident meaning of the Hebrew name would be “God Who sees me.” Hagar’s words in explanation of the name are rather cryptic in the Hebrew. The translation reflects a scholarly consensus that what is at issue is a general Israelite terror that no one can survive having seen God. Hagar, then, would be expressing grateful relief that she has survived her epiphany. Though this might well be a somewhat garbled etiological tale to account for the place-name Beer-Lahai-Roi (understood by the writer to mean “Well of the Living One Who Sees Me”), it is made to serve the larger thematic ends of Hagar’s story: the outcast slavegirl is vouchsafed a revelation which she survives, and is assured that, as Abram’s wife, she will be progenitrix of a great people.