16:1–6 This chapter opens with a reminder of Sarai’s childless status (v. 1). Normally in the Bible this would be a signal that God is about to do something to redress the situation. In this case, however, the intervention comes from Sarai herself, not God. Sarai has an Egyptian slave named Hagar, presumably acquired during Abram and Sarai’s sojourn in Egypt (cf. 12:16). Her Egyptian status is not a random detail but part of an ongoing motif in the narrative contrasting the attractiveness and fertility of Egypt with the apparent fruitlessness of the Promised Land. Thus Egypt provides food when there is a famine in Canaan (12:10); Lot chooses the visually most attractive destination, even though it is outside the Promised Land, because it is “like the land of Egypt” (13:10); and here Hagar the Egyptian maidservant is instantly fertile while her mistress, the heir of God’s promise, is barren. This motif warns the original audience against the temptation to trust in the apparent bountifulness of Egypt when they find themselves in times of difficulty (cf. Num. 11:5).248

Sarai suggests that Abram should take Hagar as his concubine and have children through her (Gen. 16:2). This practice is well attested throughout the ancient Near East,249 and the children of such unions were normally considered full members of the family, inheriting alongside children born to the primary couple (cf. Genesis 30).250 It was also regarded in some situations as a potential treatment for infertility, with the child born to the maidservant somehow inducing a similar effect for the wife. Many of the ancient Near Eastern laws concerning the practice have to do with regulating the relational problems that would predictably arise: the maidservant’s elevating herself to equality with the wife, the maidservant’s being mistreated by the wife, questions regarding the maidservant’s being sent away or not, and so on. Genesis 16 could serve as a sociological case study of the reason behind such laws.

Sarai blames the Lord for her lack of conception (16:2). Her frustration is palpable, and of course God is indeed ultimately sovereign over the opening or closing of the womb, but instead of laying out her fears and concerns before the Lord, as Abram did in 15:2, she confronts her husband. She commands him to have sexual relations with her maidservant, Hagar, in hopes of Hagar’s having children that will be reckoned as belonging to Sarai (cf. 30:3). Abram in turn “listened to the voice” of Sarai, his wife, and does as she asks (16:2). Listening to one’s wife is not always problematic in Genesis; later the Lord commands Abraham to listen to Sarah’s voice and send Hagar and Ishmael away (21:12). However, Adam is earlier rebuked for listening to the voice of his wife (3:17), so the reader is forewarned that this failure of leadership (and reversal of gender roles) will likely not turn out well for Abram. In another echo of the fall narrative, Sarai “took” Hagar and “gave” her to Abram (16:3; cf. 3:6).

In this case Sarai’s plan works exactly as anticipated. Abram sleeps with Hagar, who becomes pregnant (Gen. 16:4). However, having conceived, Hagar then becomes proud and looks down on her mistress, an outcome foreseen in the Code of Hammurabi.251 Her resentment of her mistress is perhaps not surprising; Sarai never speaks directly to her in this chapter, and both Abram and Sarai treat her more like an object than a person. Yet Hagar is not blameless in this matter; verse 4 tells us that Hagar “looked with contempt [qalal] on her mistress”—the same word used in Genesis 12:3, where blessing is promised to those who bless Abram but a curse is pronounced on those who despise (qalal) him. Sure enough, Hagar’s disdain of Sarai ends up with her wandering in the wilderness.

Sarai in turn responds with anger against both Hagar and Abram, blaming him for her idea. She even boldly enlists the Lord as judge between them, confident that he will support her as the wronged party (16:5). Abram, meanwhile, abdicates his responsibility as leader in the home, just as Adam had done before him. He washes his hands of the whole matter, leaving Hagar to be abused by Sarai to the point that she feels she has no choice but to run away (v. 6)—an extremely desperate measure for a pregnant servant girl without resources or protection of any kind.252

16:7–12 Yet, despite her own sins and the sinful mistreatment of Hagar by Abram and Sarai, the Lord has not forgotten Hagar. His concern naturally extends to the poor and needy, the disadvantaged and helpless, even though there is nothing to suggest that Hagar knows the Lord or calls out for help to him in any way. She is carrying Abram’s child and, on that basis at least, receives the Lord’s care in the shape of an angelic messenger,253 the angel of the Lord (Gen. 16:7). He encounters Hagar on the way to Shur, which is itself on the road to Egypt, her homeland (cf. 1 Sam. 15:7). She is beside a spring, a natural place to rest on a journey. However, there may also be a wordplay here: ʿayin can mean “eye” as well as “spring,” and so it is a fitting place for the Lord to “see” her (Gen. 16:13).

As with Adam and Eve, the angel of the Lord asks a question designed to elicit a confession: “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” (16:8; cf. 3:9, 11, 13). Since the angel addresses her by name, it is clear that he already knows her story, but he induces her to admit, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai” (16:8). The angel responds with a command and a promise. The command is that Hagar should go back to Sarai and submit to her mistreatment (v. 9). It would be better for her to be in the house of blessing, even under such circumstances, than to go back to Egypt in peace and abundance. If she returns to Sarai, the Lord will bless her child on an Abrahamic scale: the Lord will ensure that her offspring will be too numerous to count (16:10; cf. 15:5). Hagar is also informed that her child will be a son, and she is commanded to call him Ishmael, which means “God heard,” because the Lord has heard her cry of affliction.254 This is the first time in the biblical text that a positive promise is made directly to a woman, while the divine instruction concerning Ishmael’s name is a mark of the Lord’s interest in Ishmael and his future.

The Lord’s care and protection for Hagar and Ishmael are all the more remarkable because these two will not ultimately be part of God’s people. Yet the Lord’s care for these outsiders is also profoundly encouraging to his own people. If the Lord takes such personal care of Hagar and Ishmael in their time of need in the wilderness, how much more will he take care of his own people when they are in distress?

In fact, the parallel is very apt. Hagar’s cry of affliction heard by the Lord (Gen. 16:11) explicitly parallels Israel’s cry amid the bondage of Egypt (Ex. 3:7). Sarai’s oppression of her Egyptian maid forms a miniature picture in reverse of the suffering and oppression Israel will later undergo in Egypt. But the similarities between Hagar’s situation and that of the Israelites only highlights the difference between the commands that the Lord gives each of them. God will say to Pharaoh, “Let my people go!” (Ex. 5:1), but he says to Hagar, “Return to your mistress and submit to her” (Gen. 16:9). One must find freedom by leaving the house of bondage, while the other will find freedom only by reentering the house of bondage. Hagar is sent back simply because there is no blessing to be found apart from Abram and his seed. Painful though the path of submission may be, there is no other way for Hagar to receive the blessing of God.

However, Hagar’s blessing will come at a long-lasting cost for Israel. Her son, Ishmael, will be a “wild donkey of a man” (v. 12), that is, someone not bound by normal social conventions. He will live outside society in the wilderness, “close to” or “in hostility to”—the Hebrew ʿal-peney can mean either255—his brothers (v. 12). As we might put it, Ishmael will constantly be in his brothers’ faces. His hostility to Isaac will eventually cause him and Hagar to be sent away from the Abrahamic family (21:9–13).

As an “also-son” like Esau, in R. Syrén’s terminology, Ishmael will father an “also-people,” whose existence as legitimate offspring of Abram will be part of Abram’s legacy of blessing.256 Yet their continuing bitter opposition to Israel will confirm and display their non-elect status. They will receive a measure of common-grace blessing via their relationship with Abram but not the special-grace blessing that comes only to the true heirs of Abram, who share his faith. Of course, the same could be said for many of Abram’s physical descendants in Israel.

16:13–16 Hagar responds to this revelation of God with obedient faith. She identifies God as El roʾi, the “God of seeing” (v. 13).257 In seeing the angel she believes that she has actually seen the one who has been watching out for her, and so thenceforth the spring at which the encounter takes place is called “Beer-lahai-roi” (“the well of the Living One who sees me,” ESV mg. on v. 14; cf. 24:62; 25:11). She then returns home to Abram and Sarai, despite Sarai’s mistreatment, and there bears Abram’s son, whom Abram names “Ishmael,” just as the Lord had commanded (16:15). At this point, eleven years after Abram’s initial call, he is eighty-six years old. He will still be waiting for a child by Sarah thirteen years later, which is where the following chapter picks up the narrative.