Genesis 16:7-14
The story of Hagar is brief in the grand scheme of the Biblical narratives. Genesis has just narrowed the scope from an overall narrative on creation (Gen. 1-11) to zoom in on one family who will be the focus of God’s work (Gen 12-22).[1] While the narrative has zoomed in on the story of Abram and the work of God in the people of Israel, Hagar’s story stands as a reminder that God’s blessing continues to extend beyond them and into the rest of creation. While the Israelites through the line of Abraham are God’s chosen people, Hagar is a reminder that the reach of God will not be exclusive.
Genesis 16:7 begins as the angel of the Lord appears to Hagar by a spring of water in the wilderness. Leading up to this encounter Hagar, the Egyptian slave-girl of Sarai, has been married to Sarai’s husband Abram in the hopes that she might conceive a child for her childless mistress (v.1-4). When Hagar sees that she has conceived, she begins to “look with contempt on her mistress” and this causes Sarai to retaliate with force against her slave Hagar. As a result of this harassment from Sarai, Hagar flees (v. 4-6).
Here we pick up in verse 7 with what one commentary calls the “annunciation,” which parallels other Biblical passages where a woman encounters God or a divine being with the news that they will bear a son.[2] With Hagar’s annunciation story, she is found in the wilderness by an angel of the Lord, a mal’akh yhwh. This is the first appearance of mal’akh yhwh in the Bible, and it is the first time since the story of the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3) where a divine being interacts with an individual woman.[3] The verb matza, to find, suggests that the angel of the Lord was actively looking for Hagar when he finds her by the spring of water. The author then notes that Hagar is headed to Shur, which Robert Alter says is the way she would take in going back to Egypt, her homeland.[4]
In addressing Hagar, the angel of the Lord shows that he knows her name and title, which suggests a familiarity with her.[5] Though it seems that the angel of the Lord knows her, and was able to find her, he still asks where she is coming from and where she is going. Hagar explains that she is running away from her mistress Sarai (v.8). With no explanation, the angel of the Lord tells Hagar to return to her mistress and submit to her in verse 9. Tikva Frymer-Kensky in Women in Scripture suggests that though this goes against Israel’s law code for runaway slaves (Deut. 23:16), it parallels God’s speech in Genesis 15:13 when God tells Abram that his descendants will be “enslaved and degraded before their redemption”.[6]
With no further interjections from Hagar, the angel of the Lord continues by telling Hagar that “I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude” (v.10). To the reader of Genesis, this blessing would sound familiar because it is the same blessing given to Abram by God in the chapter prior to this (Gen. 15:5) as well as other patriarchs.[7] Just as God promised that Abram’s descendants would be uncountable, the angel of the Lord makes this promise to Hagar and her descendants. In Hebrew, the words multiply and multitude, ravah and rov, together are used to provide emphasis on the promise being made. Hagar is the only woman in the Torah to be given the blessing of a multitude of offspring, and this coupled with her status as a foreign slave from Egypt would not have been lost on the author or the Israelites reading her story.[8]
The angel of the Lord’s announcement continues as he identifies Hagar’s pregnancy, telling her that he will be named Ishmael because the Lord has heard her afflictions (v.11). A common Hebrew practice is to name characters after actions that have taken place and we see that with the naming of Ishmael. Ishmael means “God hears,” coming from the verb shama (to hear) and the angel of the Lord says he will be given this name because God heard Hagar.[9] Ishmael is professed to become a “wild ass of a man” and be at odds with everyone, even his brothers (v.12). One commentary suggests that being compared to a “virile strong male animal” is usually a compliment and positive attribute ascribed to a man in the ancient Near East.[10] However, the JSP Commentary goes further to make the connection between Hagar, an oppressed slave, to her son Ishmael and future descendants who will be “a people free and undisciplined.”[11]
In response to this declaration, Hagar finally speaks again. Hagar “named the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are El-roi’ (v. 13).” Elizabeth Tracey recognizes the significance of Hagar’s naming of God by acknowledging that the “narrator introduces Hagar’s words with a striking expression afforded to no one else.”[12] Hagar is the only one who is honored with naming God. It should also be noted that in this verse the author switches from angel of the Lord, mal’ akh yhwh, to yhwh alone. Robert Alter and other scholars note that the messenger or angel of the Lord may have been superimposed on the story as a way to not anthropomorphize God, but it could also be that the author had a more fluid notion of God and other divine manifestations.[13] The name El’ roi has various interpretations like “God who sees me (Alter)” and “God of my seeing (JSP),” but they all recognize that God sees Hagar. God hears Hagar in verse 11, now in verse 13 God sees her. The second half of verse 13 is difficult to translate as the Hebrew is unclear, and Alter suggests that it has something to do with the Israelite belief that no one can survive seeing God.[14] Whatever the translation, the point is that God has heard and seen Hagar and blessed her, and she has seen God and lived.
As the encounter between God and Hagar has climaxed in her naming of God, the narrative ends with the author mentioning a familiar well commemorating the encounter and a note letting the reader know she did return to Abram and Sarai to have Ishmael. However abrupt the ending seems, it is significant to recognize that Hagar’s encounter with God is why the well was called Beer-lahai-roi, or “Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.”[15] The author is telling the readers that the well they know of received its name from this encounter, which tells us that the story of Hagar was significant enough to have a place of commemoration. The Torah: A Woman’s Commentary notes that “Hagar is the only woman whose experience is enshrined in a place name.”[16] The retelling of Hagar’s encounter with God also may reflect the well’s familiarity within Israelite culture.
In
the Berit Olam’s commentary on Genesis 16 they point to God’s concern for the
“alien” or foreigner and describe it as “one of the most important literary
leitmotifs of the Old Testament.”[17] I
see the meaning of Hagar’s story in its literary context as a reminder to the
readers that God’s justice and blessing extends beyond them as the people of
Israel to the ones who seem furthest outside of God’s reach. Hagar experiences
the same grace as the patriarchs of Israel in her blessing of descendants by
God and the commemoration of her experience in a historical place. She represents
the people who will enslave the Israelites, but she is still blessed by God. It
is a plot-twist for the readers as they see a foreign slave-girl take an exodus
into the wilderness, as they have done, and come out having received the
blessings of patriarchs. From a literary perspective, I understand this story
to be a reminder that God is with the Israelites in their exile, but not to
take it lightly because not even they can see and name God and live as Hagar
did. Before they can read of Abram’s name change to Abraham and see God fulfill
the covenant of generations through Isaac, they must first see the blessing
given to a foreign slave-girl so that they do not underestimate God’s ability
to stretch beyond his chosen people.
Bibliography
Alter, Robert. The Five Books of Moses. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008.
Cotter, David W. Genesis. Berit Olam. Liturgical Press, 2003.
Fretheim, Terence E. The Pentateuch. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000.
Meyers, Carol L., and Carol Lyons Meyers. Women in Scripture: a Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books and the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 2002.
Sarna, Nahum M. The JPS Torah Commentary: the Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991.
Tracy, Elizabeth. “Hagar: She Who Speaks with God by Elizabeth Tracy.” Hagar: She Who Speaks with God. Accessed October 10, 2019. https://www.bibleodyssey.org/people/related-articles/hagar-she-who-speaks-with-god.
Weiss, Andrea L., and Tamara Cohn.
Eskenazi. The Torah: a Women’s Commentary. New York: Women of Reform Judaism, 2008.
[1] Terence E. Fretheim, The Pentateuch (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 85.
[2] Andrea L. Weiss and Tamara Cohn. Eskenazi, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (New York: Women of Reform Judaism, 2008), 73.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008), 79.
[5] Nahum M. Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: the Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 120.
[6] Carol L. Meyers and Carol Lyons Meyers, Women in Scripture: a Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books and the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 2002), 87.
[7] Andrea L. Weiss and Tamara Cohn. Eskenazi, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (New York: Women of Reform Judaism, 2008), 73.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008), 79.
[10] Andrea L. Weiss and Tamara Cohn. Eskenazi, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (New York: Women of Reform Judaism, 2008), 73.
[11] Nahum M. Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: the Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 121.
[12] Elizabeth Tracy, “Hagar: She Who Speaks with God by Elizabeth Tracy,” Hagar: She Who Speaks with God, accessed October 11, 2019, https://www.bibleodyssey.org/people/related-articles/hagar-she-who-speaks-with-god.
[13] Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008), 78-9.
[14] Ibid, 80.
[15] Carol L. Meyers and Carol Lyons Meyers, Women in Scripture: a Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books and the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 2002), 87.
[16] Andrea L. Weiss and Tamara Cohn. Eskenazi, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (New York: Women of Reform Judaism, 2008), 74.
[17] David W. Cotter, Genesis: Studies in Hebrew Narrative & Poetry (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003), 85.
