Hagar is a handmaid and a foreigner. Raised in Egypt, and now living with strange new masters, she lives with the unspoken truth that life is unfair and hard. Hagar keeps her head down and her mouth closed. She has no economic standing. Her job is to serve her headmistress, Sarai. Hagar is simply property. She holds no power nor has any social status. Everything she owns and does belongs to Abram and Sarai because she is an Egyptian slave.
Sarai is an Israelite woman and well-traveled. Married to Abram, she is the headmistress of the patriarch who God establishes a relationship with and makes a covenantal promise to.[1] Sarai believes she and her husband are somehow chosen by God. Sarai has social standing and authority. She is beautiful and wealthy. Sarai keeps her head up ... waiting for the day that God gives her offspring all the land they could possibly imagine. Except for one problem, Sarai is barren.
And in a world where women are honored and blessed by the children they can bear, Sarai knows deep down she is simply less than.
There's also an issue with Sarai's age. She is now past the point of childbearing. Given the context of her life with the promises of descendants by God, this was indeed a sore spot. What would she do with such domestic pressure? In her Hebrew community, she desperately needed her womb to comply. It was Yahweh after all that promised her husband a reward. Abram was to be the father of many nations. Their offspring were going to be innumerable, they would have more descendants than the stars in the sky[2]. But every barren day passed with fewer glimmers of hope.
How was this going to be possible?
Sarai had witnessed the Lord's miraculous work firsthand. She had seen Yahweh plague the Egyptian palace on account of her! Divine intervention delivered her from Pharaoh's harem that once jeopardized the promise of God to Abram and herself. She had seen the Lord destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Sarai had watched her husband swear faith before the Lord, God Most High, over and over again. But now, the days kept going by and people were taking notice. There was no child.
Through Sarai’s cultural and collective brainstorming ... she eventually came up with a plan: Hagar would have to be Abram's concubine. Sarai knew, that given her old age, the heir of the promise could not come through her biologically. So, one quiet night, under all those stars in the sky, she carefully floated her idea to her husband. In Abram's pragmatic mind, this made sense. How else would his lineage expand? With his bereft compliance and her fast thinking, they both reasoned to help further along the fulfillment of God’s promise through custom self-effort. A way around the plan if you will.
And there it was, Sarai suggested Abram sleep with Hagar and bear a child through her maidservant, which was a legal custom of their day. If Abram could get Hagar pregnant then the child would simply be regarded as their own. They would have an heir and a firstborn child. Sarai breathed a sigh of relief, her own human calculations overriding any thoughts that told her to pause ... to wait on God’s plan.
Self-autonomy concerning God is always a tricky thing.
Soon thereafter, Hagar was immediately delivered to the arms of Abram, and she conceived. Once pregnant, it wasn't long for both women to end up despising each other. Hagar understood her newfound pregnant position and Sarai regretted her for it. Bitterness, envy, and jealousy often crawl out of what we cannot have. Both ladies despised each other for very different reasons.
Every day Sarai was reminded of her own body’s betrayal and her doubt in the promises of God. Hager, an Egyptian slave’s womb was able to bear a child for her family! Infuriated, Sarai ended up abusing the woman she once placed in her husband's arms.
And Hagar would run away … to the desert place.
Renita Weems so brilliantly reminds us that, “As Abrams’s wife, Sarai proved to be unfaithful and too impatient to trust God’s promise to her husband. She lost sight of who she was in relation to the sovereign word of God, and in doing so, she lost sight of reality itself.”[3]
Hagar’s choice to run away is not so different from our own. Especially for those of us who are faced with unfair relationships. Hagar only sought to escape an abusive situation. And wouldn't we do the same? We will run to the desert when our back is up against a wall. Figuratively and literally.
“The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
Sometimes we read through Scripture and walk right on by holy places. But this is one of those thin spaces where we need to slow down. Take a moment and look around. Notice just how close heaven gets to the earth. God bends down and leans in.
The "Angel" notated here is looking for Hagar ... and ends up finding her on the road to Shur. Hagar is most likely tailgating it back to her old homeland of Egypt. It's interesting because the "Angel" here is identified with Yahweh in Genesis 16:13 as well as distinct from Yahweh in Genesis 24:7. More so, the "Angel of the Lord" could refer to a pre-incarnate Christ, but either way, it is God who is the one that is highly interested in Hagar's status.
Hagar simply tells the truth.
"I'm running away ..."
Here she is pregnant. Broken down and exhausted. Most likely hungry and thirsty and tired and weak. Longing to get away and go back to the only place she has known before.
I think so many of us know exactly what that feels like. We can feel empathy for Hagar's plight.
And yet, God has a plan in mind.
Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel added, “I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.” The angel of the Lord also said to her: “You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery”.[4]
In my mind, Hagar must have been like, "What? Wait. Are you kidding me? Go back?"
But Hagar understands something deeper is happening here. God is present. Yahweh is revealing certain things about Himself to her. This misplaced Egyptian slave, a woman who has been overlooked her entire life, is getting a once-in-a-lifetime encounter. God ... is speaking and revealing and allowing her to engage with Him.
Hagar listens. And for all it's worth, she obeys. She has an experience with the God of the universe and it changes everything about her from that moment forward.
Look, I admit, the story of Sarai and Hagar is hard to swallow. Given our own culture and time and place, there are many pieces of this narrative that I find reprehensible. But again, there is a rawness and certain reality to it that I cannot deny. The world can be cruel. People do crazy and awful things. What I'm so grateful about is that this story was never meant to be about Hagar or Sarai or even Abram. The story is about God. And more importantly, God's nature in light of people's choices.
God searches and finds.
God sees and listens.
God redeems and restores.
God hears and takes note of Hagar’s conflict and mistreatment and finds her in the desert place. Hagar learns the valuable truth that God sees her. She slowly grapples with and realizes the profound truth of what it means to have Yahweh notice her. An Egyptian, pregnant slave woman who is dealing with awful circumstances and misery.
And one of the most unexpected things in all of Scripture happens ... Hagar gives God a name. Yep. The very first name given by a human being, recorded in all of Scripture, is from Hagar. This woman who was used as a concubine, mistreated, abused, and neglected. Not only did Hagar give God a name, but she is also the only woman in Scripture given a promise of a vast number of descendants. Diane Bergant notes that “Usually a promise of descendants too numerous to count is made to the patriarchs … not to a runaway slave who is a foreigner. She is, in fact, the only woman in the Bible to whom such a promise is made directly”.[5]
But God doesn’t just see her. He’s not just some cosmic dictator with eyes prowling the earth. Interestingly, the Lord is interested in her son as well. In an intimate act, He instructs Hagar to name him Ishmael, which means, “God has heard’.[6] God takes the time to listen. Yes, God sees but He hears her too. God is intimately aware of Hagar’s situation and the life that lives inside of her. So much so that He provides revelation and a promise to her and her descendants. And what does Hagar do in return? Scripture gives us one of my favorite names for God in all of Scripture, named by a desperate woman on the desert floor.
“She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me.” For she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me”.[7]
Hagar would return to Abram and Sarai differently. Changed by Yahweh and coming back with a promise and a new name for their son as a reminder. Remember, Hagar didn’t have to respond how she did. She was so close to her native land. Dianne Bergant notes that “Shur, the locale where the encounter takes place, is on the northeastern border of Egypt. In other words, Hagar, the Egyptian, is close to home”.[8] Her old home that is. And yet, Hagar chooses to know that God sees her at this moment and knows what is best for her. Hagar can go back and face the hard reality of her situation because God has her back. Hagar chooses to trust God in the desert place and leaves with an encounter, a directive, and a promise.
Friend, God sees you.
God knows you.
God loves you.
God has vast promises for you.
God can use our hard, unfair, and wide-ranging circumstances for good. His love is dependable. He keeps all his promises, despite us being human and sinful. God never needs to escape. He doesn’t hide from anything you have done or something that has been done to you. He knows it all. And He can heal it all. There is nothing our great God cannot do or change or fix or redeem.
What we can learn from the people of Scripture is that trust in God builds over time from the choices we make. Especially when we are desperate and needy and tired and worn. When we feel unlovable, rejected, or disappointed with the reality of our circumstances, we need to remind ourselves that God is present.
Henri Nouwen speaks to the fact of two realities in our lives, “First, God has promised that you will receive the love you have been searching for. And second, God is faithful to the promise. So stop wandering around. Instead, come home and trust that God will bring you what you need.”[9]
Hagar responds in faith. And just as much as God saw Hagar, he was intimately aware of Sarai’s circumstances as well. Even though Sarai tried to carve out her own path in life and get things done her way, the Lord was merciful. Walwoord and Zuck explain that “The lesson was clear for Sarai, Abram, Hagar, Israel, and for Christians: God’s servants are to trust His Word and to wait for its fulfillment, enduring patiently till the end. It becomes increasingly clear in Genesis that any person or any nation that owes its existence to divine election should live by faith … But the good news for God’s people is that the living God sees and hears.”[10]
God reconfirms His promises to Abram and Sarai and changes their names. Sarah, the 90-year-old “princess” would become the mother who produced a lineage of kings. Sarah, who laughed and maneuvered, mistreated and lied, eventually in all her humanness and brokenness would come to consider the Lord “faithful who had promised”[11]. Because nothing is too incredible, too difficult, too hard to overcome what the Lord has promised to accomplish. And this is good news for me and for you.
Stand in the knowledge and promises of God.
He is faithful friends, to the end.
"Again & Again He comes for us; He lovingly finds us. He makes a way where there was no way." -Aundi Kolber[12]
[1] Genesis 12-17.
[2] Genesis 17:2-9.
[3] Renita J. Weems, Just A Sister Away: A Womanist Vision of Women’s Relationships in the Bible. (Pennsylvania, InnisFree Press, 1988) p12.
[4] Genesis 16:7-11.
[5] Dianne Bergant. Genesis: In the Beginning. (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2013). p 50.
[6] Ibid., p 50.
[7] Genesis 16:13.
[8] Dianne Bergant. Genesis: In the Beginning. (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2013). p 49.
[9] Nouwen, Henri J. M. The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey through Anguish to Freedom. 1st ed. (New York: Doubleday, 1996.) p 12.
[10] John F. Walvoord & Roy B. Zuck. The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures by Dallas Seminary Faculty, Old Testament. (Illinois: SP Publications, 1985) p 57.
[11] Hebrews 11:11
[12] Aundi Kolber, Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode and into a Life of Connection and Joy. (Illinois, Tyndale House Publishers, 2017), 42.
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