Genesis 16, Hagar's Child

God has made promises to Abram and his descendants. But Abram is bothered by this, for he has NO children! In the culture of the ANE (ancient Near East) there are a number of acceptable ways to father children....

Genesis 16:1-4, An heir through Hagar
Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.

Since Sarai has been unable to bear children, she suggests a possible substitute mother, her maid, Hagar. Although this seems wrong to us, this would have been acceptable in the patriarchal culture of the ANE. Indeed, Hagar probably considered this an honor, a promotion. She certainly is proud, later, that she is the mother of Abram's heir.

Genesis 16:5-6, "Hagar despises me!"

Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me."

"Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." 

Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

Abram is accused by Sarai of doing exactly what Sarai had told him to do! The Hebrew word cheq (חֵיק), translated "[into your] arms" here, is a masculine noun from a root that probably meant "to inclose". (A sexual image is implied.) Various translations render the word as "bosom", "lap", "arms", depending on the context. 

Despite fathering the child, Abram washes his hands of Hagar.  "Not my responsibility," he says.  So Sarai coldly sends Hagar and her child away.

Genesis 16:7-14, Don't leave!
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.

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. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward  all his brothers."

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."

That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.

Hagar runs from Abram and Sarai. She is headed home to Egypt and is on the road to Shur (on the Egyptian border) when the "angel of Yahweh" intervenes and tells her to return to Abram. The messenger assures her that she too will have descendants too numerous to count.

The name "Ishmael", meaning "God hears", is built on the verb shama (שָׁמַע), "to hear" or "to listen". In Deuteronomy 6:4-9, we have the famous "Shema Israel" ("Hear, Oh Israel!"), the call to devote oneself fully to YHWH and the Mosaic Covenant. By adding the prefix יִ (ye, indicating the pronoun "he"), and the suffix אל (-el, meaning "god") one obtains יִשְׁמָעֵאל. The name of the young boy is then Ye-Shema-El, literally "he - hear - God," or in the English grammatical structure, "God, he hears."

 

"Beer Lahai Roi" means "well of the Living One who sees me." Hagar names her son after the God who hears her cry and names the well after the One who saw her suffering.  In a later chapter she will still need to lean on the One who hears and sees.

Genesis 16:15-16, Ishmael stays
So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

Here we are told that Abram names the child, apparently following Hagar's wishes. Ishmael will stay in the tribe of Abram, for the time being. Indeed, he will remain their thirteen years and is probably viewed, during that time, as Abram's heir.

Some Hebrew vocabulary

Our Hebrew word for the day is qol, voice, sound.

קוֹל

The word appears in verse 2, as Abram listens to the voice of Sarai.

Some Random Thoughts

The ancient story of Hagar and her son recently led an Indonesian father to examine how he brings up his own "strawberry" children in a modern world. The father's essay is here at Christianity Today.

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First published Jan 19, 2023; updated Jan 19, 2026