Hagar is Sarah’s Egyptian slave. She was given to Abraham as a concubine by her mistress. When Hagar is pregnant, tensions arise between her and Sarah. She makes Hagar’s life so difficult that she flees into the desert. An angel of the Lord speaks to her there. She must return, but will give birth to a son who will become the father of many tribes. When Ishmael is born and grows up, Abraham and Sarah still have a son. Ishmael is too much and is sent away permanently together with his mother Hager.
The story of Hagar as a surrogate mother for Sarah and Abraham
Sarah (who was previously called Sarai) and Abraham (who was previously called Abram) could not have children. While they had received the promise from God that a great nation would arise from them (Genesis 12:2). After years of waiting, Sara becomes impatient. She makes a proposal to her husband Abraham: Take my slave Hagar. Because she is my slave, the child she bears is also mine. Then it will be our child. Hagar can serve as a kind of surrogate mother (Genesis 16:3). This custom may seem bizarre, but ancient cuneiform texts from ancient Mesopotamia have been found describing this custom. Apparently this custom was more common in ancient times.
An ancient oriental custom
One of these texts comes from the Old Assyrian colony in Anatolia. This text is dated to around 1900 BC. A marriage contract stipulates that if the woman does not have a child within two years, she can buy a slave for the husband. The best-known text in this context is found in the Codex Hammurabi (no. 146). This concerns the marriage of a naditu, a Sumerian temple woman, who is not allowed to have children because of her position in the temple. Her husband then has the right to take a second wife, but if she wants to avoid this, she can give her husband a slave. In the world of the ancient Near East, a slave could be seen as a kind of womb-with-legs.
Sarah makes Hagar’s life difficult
Sara’s plan succeeds. Hagar sleeps with Abraham and becomes pregnant. Once Hagar becomes pregnant, she loses respect for the older, barren Sarah. As the bearer of Abraham’s child, Hagar feels equal to Sarah. The Hammurabi laws show that this does not have to be just an emotional equality. These laws recognize the possibility that the pregnant slave can claim equality with her mistress. At the same time, the laws also allow the mistress to continue to treat her as a common slave (Codex Hammurabi law 146). Sara appears to choose the latter. Hagar remains a slave and she must obey Sarah. Sarah even goes one step further, for as it is written: ‘Then Sarah made her life difficult’ (Genesis 16:7).
Hagar flees into the desert
Rather than submit to her mistress, Hagar flees into the wilderness. She heads into the desert. This is her exodus. Later in the Bible we hear of Israel’s captivity in Egypt. How the people flee from slavery in Egypt into the desert through the powerful hand of God. Hagar’s history is a preview of this. She is someone who flees from slavery into the desert and meets God there. Because, just as God will soon care about Israel’s fate, He will now care about Hagar’s fate. God does not lose sight of Hagar.
An angel of the LORD found her in the wilderness by a well of water, the well that is on the road to Shur. “Hagar, Sarai’s slave, where have you come from and where are you going?” he asked. ,I have fled from Sarai, my mistress,, she replied. “Return to your mistress,” said the angel of the LORD, “and obey her again.” (Genesis 16:7-9)
Hagar must return as Sarah’s slave
The angel’s command to Hagar to return as a slave to her mistress Sarai seems strange. She will probably be humiliated by her mistress again. Why would God respect Sarai’s property rights more than Hagar’s freedom? This is strange since Israel’s later legislation stated that runaway slaves were not to be returned to their masters: ,You shall not hand over to his master a slave who takes refuge in you, (Deuteronomy 23:16). But the angel’s speech here parallels God’s speech to Abraham in Genesis 15:13, which states that his children would be enslaved and humiliated before being redeemed. Both passages use the key terms that Israel uses to describe the experience in Egypt. Hagar, the slave from Egypt, is a foreshadowing of Israel, the future slaves in Egypt. The Egyptian Hagar will be humiliated as the descendants of Abraham in Egypt will be humiliated. And the Lord “heard how hard you endured” (Genesis 16:12). Thus God will hear the oppression of Abraham’s descendants: ‘The lamentation of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have seen how cruelly the Egyptians oppress them’ (Exodus 3: 9).
Hagar receives the blessing in Ishmael
Hagar must return to Sarah, her mistress. However, she is not sent back empty-handed. God blesses Hagar. The Eternal speaks good words about her. These are the words spoken by the Angel of the Lord: I will give you many descendants, so many that they will not be numbered. You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You must name him Ishmael, because the Lord has heard how hard you were going through. The Lord heard her. God heard her complaints. He knows how hard it has been for her and that it will be hard for her.
The Egyptian Hagar as a slave of the Hebrew Sarah
The dominant image in the Bible is that the Hebrew people were slaves to Egypt. In this story we find the opposite. The Egyptian Hagar is a slave of the Hebrew Sarah. Sarah, the matriarch of the Israelites, oppresses an Egyptian woman who is her slave. Of course, this reversal does not undo the oppression that the Israelites experienced in Egypt, but it does question the idea that Egypt alone is a place of oppression.
Hagar as a counterpart of Abraham
Hagar is the counterpart of Abraham. God speaks directly to her. The Eternal enters into a direct relationship with Hagar that is independent of His relationship with Abraham. Hagar also responds to the Lord in an independent way. She thus called upon the Lord who had spoken to her: You are a God of seeing. For, she said, have I not seen him here who has looked after me? (Genesis 16:13). From this the spring there owes its name, Lahai-roi. Lachai-Roï can be translated as source of the Living One who sees me. Corresponding to this is Mary’s response to a messenger from God in Luke 1: ,Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, my heart rejoices in God my Savior, for he has regarded me, the least of whom is his servant, (Luke 1:46-48a).
Ishmael and Isaac (Genesis 21)
Hagar returns to her mistress and serves her. Hagar has a son and Abraham names him Ishmael. Abraham was eighty-six years old when Ishmael was born. Many years later the promise to Abraham and Sarah was fulfilled. Sarah finally has a son from Abraham and they name him Isaac. When Sarah saw that Ishmael was laughing at Isaac, she went to Abraham to complain. In this mocking of Isaac by Ishmael, a pun is made on the meaning of the name Isaac, which means to laugh. In Genesis 21 verse 6, Sarah says about the birth of Isaac: ‘God makes me laugh, and everyone who hears this will laugh with me.’
So she (Sarah) said to Abraham, ,Cast out that bondwoman and her son, for I do not want Isaac my son to share the inheritance with the son of that bondwoman., This proposal did not please Abraham at all; after all, it was his own son. But God said to him, “Don’t worry about the boy or your slave. You must do everything Sarah asks you, because only the descendants of Isaac will count as your descendants. But I will also bring forth a nation from the son of your bondwoman, because he too is your child.” (Genesis 21:10-13)
Hagar and Ishmael in the desert
Hagar and Ishmael are freed from slavery through Sarah (Genesis 21:9-14). In the desert, Hagar and Ishmael become thirsty. Here too, their fate parallels what will happen to Israel later, because the newly freed slaves go to the desert and become thirsty (Exodus 15: 22-25). God saves the dying Ishmael, not because of Hagar’s cries or God’s promises to Abraham, but because God heard Ishmael’s voice (Genesis 21:15-21). God’s promises to Hagar are confirmed in her son, just as God’s covenant with Abraham is reaffirmed with Isaac and his son Jacob. Like Jacob, Ishmael has twelve sons. Hagar is the ancestor of these twelve tribes of Ishmael (Genesis 25:12-15).
Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert, Josef Straka / Source: Josef Straka, Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Similarities between Ishmael in the wilderness and the sacrifice of Isaac
There are many similarities between Ishmael, who almost dies of thirst in the desert, and Isaac, who is almost sacrificed by his father Abraham. In both stories it is God who orders patriarch Abraham to get rid of his son. Ishmael, the son of Hagar, is exiled and Isaac must be sacrificed (Genesis 21:12-13; 22:1-2). Both descriptions of the story state that Abraham wakes up early in the morning. Then he prepares supplies for the journey (Genesis 21:14; 22:3). In both traditions the life of a son of Abraham almost comes to an end. Hagar’s son Ishmael almost dies of thirst (Genesis 21:15-16). Isaac comes close to being slaughtered by his father (Genesis 21: 9-10). At the very last moment in both stories there is an intervention of the Lord (Genesis 21:17, 22: 1112). In both stories there is a blessing for the future of those involved (Genesis 21:18; 22: 16-17). Isaac’s father and Ishmael’s mother see something new after the rescue. Hagar notices a spring of water (Genesis 21:19) and Abraham finds a ram in the bushes that can serve as a sacrificial animal (Genesis 22:13). Both narrations conclude with announcements about the children’s marriages (Genesis 21:21; 22:20-24).
Hagar in the New Testament
The apostle Paul mentions Hagar in his letter to the Galatians. He uses Hagar in a strongly polemical section as a metaphor for two different forms of piety. Paul uses this image to show that for him the regime of the law (the Torah) is equivalent to slavery. Paul compares other Jewish Christians and Jews who disagree with his freer view of the law to Hagar. He compares those who agree with him to Sara. In this way he creates a strong contrast.
It is written that Abraham had two sons: one by his bondwoman and one by his freeborn wife. The son of the slave woman owed his birth to the course of nature, but that of the free-born woman to the promise. This is an image: the women represent two covenants. Hagar represents the covenant of Mount Sinai in Arabia, which gives birth to slaves. As an image of that covenant, Hagar embodies present-day Jerusalem, which lives in slavery with its children. But the heavenly Jerusalem is free, and that is our mother. (Galatians 4:22-26)
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- God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22)