Hagar and Ishmael as Main Characters

A number of scholars say Genesis 16, the story of Hagar and Ishmael, is the center of the Abrahamic narrative (Gen. 12–25). That’s very odd. Hagar appears to be a side character, Sarai’s Egyptian handmaid who bears Abram’s first son, Ishmael. The episode seems tangential to the main plot line. Why should Hagar get a starring role at the heart of the biography of Israel’s founding father?

Though Hagar isn’t mentioned prior to Genesis 16, her story is tightly woven into its context. Most obviously, it’s linked to the quest for a “seed” that dominates Abraham’s life. In Genesis 15, Yahweh tells Abram he must wait for Yahweh’s promises of seed and land. In the following chapter, Sarai tempts him to impatience: “You can have a son now.” Abraham “listens to the voice of his wife,” an echo of Genesis 3, when Adam heeds the voice of Eve and eats the fruit of the forbidden tree. We anticipate a fall story.

As Alastair Roberts has noted, the Genesis 3 theme of open eyes runs throughout chapter 16. Hagar “sees” she’s conceived and despises Sarai “in her eyes.” When Sarai complains about Hagar, Abram gives her permission to do whatever seems good in her eyes. When Hagar flees to the wilderness, she discovers that Yahweh sees her. Further, Hagar is Egyptian, likely acquired when Abram went to Egypt to find food during a famine. Egypt was once a solution to the barrenness of the land, and now Abram turns to an Egyptian maid to overcome Sarai’s barrenness. Egypt and Egyptians are an oasis in the wilderness.

But Genesis 16 isn’t just woven in. It’s a preview of future events and a turning point in the story of Abraham. 

Sarai suggests Hagar as a surrogate womb, young and presumptively fertile, but things don’t go as planned. She doesn’t like the way Hagar reacts, as the “maid” begins to despise her mistress. The two women switch places. Unintended though it may be, the inversion is implicit in Sarai’s plan. When Sarai offers Hagar’s fertile womb to Abram, she raises Hagar’s status from maid to wife. Sarai says, “I gave my maid into your bosom,” a phrase with intimate erotic and romantic overtones. To Abram, Hagar isn’t a uterus. He enjoys this taste of forbidden fruit. When Sarai objects, Abram washes his hands and demotes Hagar to her original status: “your maid,” Abram calls her. Then Abram disappears from the story, another Adam evading responsibility for the mess he created.

With Abram absent, Sarai takes her revenge. She treats Hagar “unjustly” or “harshly” and “afflicts” her. The verb has been used only once before in Genesis, to describe the future slavery of Abram’s descendants: “they will be enslaved and afflicted four hundred years” (15:13; see Exod. 1:11-12). With this hint, Hagar’s role in Genesis becomes clear: Her life is a type of Israel’s history. What happens to her and her son will one day happen to Abraham’s other children. Every detail of her experience foreshadows Israel’s future. Though afflicted, Hagar is fruitful. She flees her oppressor, as Israel fled Pharaoh. She finds springs in the wilderness where the angel of Yahweh comes to her, speaks to her, calls her by name. 

This is the first appearance of the angel of Yahweh in Scripture, and he takes the stage to rescue Hagar. Throughout the Old Testament, men find their future brides at wells and springs. The angel of Yahweh comes to Hagar as husband, after her “husband” Abram has renounced her. Yahweh proves to be husband of widows, father to fatherless Ishmael. He promises to “greatly multiply” the children of Hagar until there will be “too many to count,” a promise elsewhere given only to Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob. Hagar in fact receives the promise in this form even before Abraham does.

Long before Moses sees the back of Yahweh, Hagar sees God and is seen by him. She calls him roi, “God of sight,” and names the place “The well of the living one who sees.” Hagar names God, something not even Moses attempts. In the following chapter, Yahweh tells Abram that Ishmael will enjoy blessings, multiply, and become a father of twelve princes. As Paul says in Galatians 4, Ishmael is the first Israel, Abraham’s glorious family according to the flesh. Up to Genesis 16, Abram’s house is infertile, dead, childless. Hagar brings his house back from the grave. As in Ruth, as in the first-century church, the incorporation of Gentiles catalyzes Israel’s resurrection.

Hagar’s experience recoils on Abram, who has slunk ignominiously into the shadows. Hagar’s return to his house forces Abram and Sarai to answer an ethical challenge. Will they continue as oppressors, or will they treat this stranger with kindness? Will Abram acknowledge Ishmael as his son? The challenge is broader. As Roberts observes, Hagar’s name rhymes with the word for “the stranger,” ha-ger. Abram is called to instruct his household in the way of justice, and through his experience with Hagar, Abram learns justice and mercy toward strangers and outcasts, widows and orphans. Genesis 16 is at the center of the Abraham story because it marks a turning point in Abram’s maturation, a stage in his transformation from Abram to Abraham. When he returns in the story, Adamic Abram has become Godlike, father to fatherless Ishmael and a protector, if not a husband, to Hagar. 

Peter J. Leithart is president of Theopolis Institute. 

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