I had the wrong idea about Hagar my whole life. The way her story is often told seems to paint her as the antagonist in the narrative of Sarah and Abraham. While there might occasionally be some pity expressed in the telling of her sad situation, she’s still the outsider, the runaway, the spiteful slave woman. She’s the ungrateful concubine who bears a child when Sarah can’t; she’s the woman with whom Abraham defiles his marriage bed. She’s not part of the main cast in the storyline of redemption, and she’s seemingly even in the way of it. If you’re looking for a bad guy—and Western readers often are—Hagar is it. But this perspective of the Hagar narrative distracts from a much richer undercurrent. It’s worth stepping back to take a closer look at her story. In it we see three important truths about the God we love and serve today: He sees us, he provides for us, and he saves us.
Understanding Hagar’s situation
In order to understand more fully God’s response to Hagar—the redemptive context—it is essential to take note of Hagar’s historical context.
It is particularly important to understand how the family unit would have worked during the time of Abraham and Sarah. Hagar was a slave in the household. She would have lived and worked with the family and was likely not near any of her own family. As a slave, she would not have had many rights, although the Laws of Hammurabi which were widely used during Abraham’s day did lay out guidelines for how to treat slaves.[1] As a woman, Hagar would not have had many other options. Women did not have careers or invest in their own trades outside the home. In order to survive, she had to live in someone’s household, either as a wife, concubine, or slave—something to remember when Abraham eventually turns her and Ishmael out into the wilderness. When Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham as a “wife,” Hagar gained the status of a concubine, which came with a certain promotion of rights, but did not make her equal to Sarah, the primary wife, or the “chosen woman” of the household.[2]
These cultural norms help explain the story as it unfolds, but on the human level do not make it any less painful for Hagar. Although Sarah might have had the legal right to give Hagar to Abraham and it might have been commonly done, it was not right in the eyes of God. Hagar was sinned against. In Sarah’s scheming and Abraham’s willingness to go along with the plan, they both defile their own marriage bed, which is designed by God to be between two people, and Hagar is the first victim of their sin. Further, Hagar did not have recall, legal or otherwise, for the abuse of which she was a victim. There was no legal system that would back her, no organizations on which she could lean for support, no church to whom she could reach out for help. She must have felt powerless and quite alone.
But the human level of the historical context is not the only dynamic of Hagar’s story. Indeed, this isn’t Hagar’s story, any more than it is Abraham’s or Sarah’s. This is God’s story. The Bible is the story of how God saves his people, and in this chapter of that story, he makes a covenant with Abraham—a binding legal promise—that he will bless Abraham with many descendants and that through him all nations of the world would be blessed as well. This promise to Abraham is fulfilled in Christ, in whom the whole world finds salvation from sin, an eternal inheritance, and are made to be sons of Abraham through faith.
How God Responds to Hagar’s Abuse
With the historical context set, we return to the story, which begins in Genesis 16: “Now Sarah, Abraham’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abraham, ‘The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.’” Hagar conceives and the text says, “she began to despise her mistress.” Sarah blames Abraham for her suffering (vs. 5) and Abraham responds: “Your slave is in your hands… Do with her whatever you think best” (vs. 6). And finally the text concludes: “Then Sarah mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her” (vs. 6).
What we translate into English as Hagar “despising her mistress” is more accurately rendered, “her mistress was lessened in her eyes.” Given the social strata of the culture, Hagar’s position as a mother made her feel higher than her mistress. We don’t know how she demonstrated this, if her conduct was inappropriate or her attitude or only the positioning of her heart. The word rendered as “mistreated” in English is far less vague. The semantic range of the word in Hebrew includes and even leans towards force or physical violence, so when we read that Sarah mistreated Hagar, it is no small thing. And, while we don’t know exactly what transpired between the two, we do know that Hagar fled because of it.
It’s here in the wilderness that Hagar is met by the angel of the Lord (vs. 7). The angel of the Lord is a term used to refer to theophanies in the Old Testament. That this is indeed the Second Person of the Trinity is confirmed later in this passage in vs. 13 when Hagar herself recognizes that she has seen God. It is not just an angel that comes to this runaway slave but God himself, making her one of only four women we see God speak to directly in the Old Testament.
In Gen. 16:13, we read: “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.’”[emphasis added]
This is the first thing we learn about God in this story: he sees us. Whether we put this in terms of our own grief or in counseling those who have been abused, this is an incredible comfort. The God of the universe who establishes kings and kingdoms saw a slave woman crying in the desert and he descended. In our hurt and pain and lostness, this God sees us, too.
As the interaction concludes, the Lord tells Hagar that she is with child and that she should name him Ishmael—and in faith, she obeys.
How God responds to Hagar’s abandonment
When we next see Hagar caught in the middle of a family conflict, in which she is an innocent party.
In chapter 20, vs. 9–10: “Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking Isaac. Therefore she said to Abraham, ‘Drive out this slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be an heir with my son Isaac!’” The use of “mocking” here is disputed.[3] The word can actually be translated as “playing,” in which case we conjure in our minds images of Ishmael playing with Isaac the way any older boy might play with a younger brother. But perhaps he was mocking, perhaps he was arrogant. In either case, Sarah’s response is extreme, wishing Abraham to banish Hagar and her son.
Somewhat strikingly, God speaks to Abraham and tells him to listen to Sarah. So Abraham sends Hagar and his son Ishmael into the wilderness with bread and a skin of water (vs. 12–14). We’re not sure why this man of affluence sent his son away with such meager provisions, but ultimately, again, God uses this for his plan.
When the water in the skin was used up, she left the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away, for she said, “May I not see the boy die!” And she sat opposite him, and raised her voice and wept. God heard the boy crying; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Get up, lift up the boy, and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him. (Gen. 21:15–18)
Neither Hagar nor her son are part of God’s covenant people, they have been cut off. They are no longer a part of the redemptive line of history, and yet God hears the cries of Ishmael in the wilderness. Could it be that God is being faithful to his promise to Hagar when he told her to name her son Ishmael—a name which means, “God hears”? In faith, Hagar named her son so, and now God is bending down once again to care for and comfort them. Or perhaps God was being faithful to his servant Abraham in taking care of his seed, even though Ishmael was not a part of the promise. Maybe these are simply the actions of a good God who hears the cries of the needy and oppressed. As Calvin notes on this passage: “How truly it is said, that when father and mother forsake us, the Lord will take us up.”[4]
Applying Hagar today
Although Hagar’s story is far removed from our modern context and it is couched in redemptive purposes from which it cannot and should not be divorced, there are still worthy grains of insight to glean from this story.
First, leaders in the church, fellow Christians, and family will let us down. If not even the patriarchs of the Old Testament were above sin, how much more so our own pastors and mentors, parents or spouses? It is important to recognize that everyone is capable of inflicting great hurt. We must be watchful for the Hagars in our midst. For the church to turn blind eyes to abusers either in leadership or those sitting in the pews betrays an underlying contempt for the grace of our God who both forgives us our sins and calls us to obedience, and in no way reflects the character of God’s justice—a God who sees. Psalm 10:8 reads, “You will hear the cries of the oppressed and the orphans; you will judge in their favor, so that mortal men may cause terror no more.”
Second, our wounds do not go unnoticed by God. Whatever abuses have been levied against us, whatever injustices go unpunished by those in power, whatever our griefs or sorrows or aches, God sees them. He will bring justice in the end, and the guilty will not go unpunished. “He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings utter darkness into the light” (Job. 12:22).
Third, we have to wait to see the fulfillment of God’s promises. Ishmael might have been 15 years old by the time he and his mother were left in the wilderness, when God came once again to provide and to establish him. That was a long time for Hagar to wait to see how God’s promise would unfold. And she certainly could never have imagined how the Messiah would come and make it possible for her descendants to become legitimate heirs, freed from the slavery of sin. God did not only provide for Hagar in the wilderness, but through Christ he gave her descendants the hope of being true sons of Abraham and sons of God. This great hope is ours as well.
We might not understand the abuse we endure in our lifetimes, nor can we fathom the mystery of God’s providence, but as Hagar named her unborn son Ishmael in the middle of the wilderness, trusting God’s promise that he would hear them when they cried out, so we also should persevere in faith. God sees his people. God provides for his people. God saves his people.
Mary York is a writer, teacher, and journalist from San Diego. She is currently pursuing a double masters in theological and biblical studies from Westminster Seminary California.
[1] E. A. Speiser, The Anchor Bible: Genesis, (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday 1964), 119
[2] E. A. Speiser, The Anchor Bible: Genesis, 117
[3] E. A. Speiser, The Anchor Bible: Genesis, 155
[4] Jean Calvin, Commentaries, 550.
