Setting: Genesis 16:3-6
Extra-biblical Sources: Bereishit Rabbah 45:4-6
One could not really say that Sarai was past the age for childbearing, for in her case there never was such an age. The signs that would have signaled the end of her fertility never arrived, for her fertility was never with her to begin with.
This is not to say that the Elohim could not do as they please and work in her a strange and wonderful thing. But they have a saying in the lands to the east that I try to bear in mind, “trust God but tie your camel,” which is to say that while God can work a wonder if He so choose, it is better not to test Him. It is better to do for God what God wishes, rather than make God come down and do it Himself.
Like any young man I assumed in my youth that I would inherit the house of my father, and that the fruit of my loins would in turn inherit it from me. It was to my surprise as much as any other that I found myself marrying a barren woman, yet even then I had the son of my brother to raise up as my own. And perhaps this was an appropriate arrangement in light of my role in Haran’s death.
Then Lot abandoned me and I was left with Eliezer of Damascus, born a slave in my household, as my only heir. But as has been recounted, on the night of great blackness Adonai declared that my heir would be from my own loins.
I recounted that night to Sarai with excitement and wonder, but there was something in my recounting that did not please her at all. She seized upon the words that I spoke before Adonai, when I said, “look, I go childless!”
“You go childless, Abram? Do you not have the option to take another wife from the many beautiful women of the land? Do we not both know that it is not Abram that goes childess, but Sarai?”
I had never even contemplated taking another wife, and this my princess ought to have known, but she was beside herself with anger and confusion.
“Imagine,” she said, calmly, “two men are imprisoned, and as their king passes by, one of them cries out to him, ‘execute justice for me!’ The king stops his important tasks and comes down to listen carefully to the prisoner. He hears the man's plea and executes justice for him, that he may be released. Will his fellow not have a grievance against him, saying “I have a grievance against you, for had you said “Execute justice for us” he would have released us both, but as you said “Execute justice for me,” he released you but not me.”
And in Sarai’s mind my plea before Adonai that “I go childless” was a plea concerning myself and not her. And to be fair, who can say what the gods are thinking, or what mistakes in our grammar they may hold against us?
Sarai was very hard on herself. She insisted that she was not worthy to bear a child, as God had clearly decided, for we had been in Canaan ten years, and still, no child. She was certain that I must take Hagar as a reward from the hand of El Elyon, that His promise to me might be fulfilled, of a son from my loins. This child would be raised by Sarai as her own, as indeed Hagar was her property and Hagar’s children her own, and thus she would obtain a son in this way.
I listened to my wife. There were many reasons to do so. Inasmuch as we were blessed when I gave Sarai to an Egyptian, we would surely now also be blessed when Sarai gave an Egyptian to me. In both cases is the giving not a sacrifice made in faith, that El Elyon will bring about good in the lives of those who trust Him?
Hagar was also young and vigorous, and while her beauty did not compare to Sarai (no woman’s beauty does), I confess that something in me was pleased by the idea of variety.
Besides these things, as I have said, it seems generally wise to work out the promises of El with our own lives, rather than daring Him to come down and work with His own hands. He had said that I should have a son from my own loins. To act in faith of this promise would surely be to impregnate a fertile woman, and so I went in to her.
Imagine the complexity and the intensity of my emotions when Hagar conceived, and the conception became a point of contention between my wife and her maidservant. In truth, Hagar’s attitude changed when she saw that she was with child, and her mistress was despised in her eyes.
Sarai came to me in tears, for a rumor had reached her ears that her friend and servant had spoken thus: “My mistress Sarai is not inwardly what she portrays outwardly: she pretends to be a righteous woman, but she is not. For had she been a righteous woman, see how many years have passed without her conceiving, whereas I conceived in one night!”
I inquired of Hagar on this matter and she did not deny it but rebutted that Sarai had taken to calling her “that poor woman,” and that she made her carry her water buckets and bath towels to the baths, and that she had driven her out of the tent so that she must spend the night out in the cold, and that she had slapped her face with a slipper.
I addressed both women directly that there must be no more quarreling, and yet Sarai insisted that I must punish Hagar harshly and publicly. I told Sarai, “I am constrained to do her neither good nor harm”, for El Elyon wills that if a man joins a slave to himself as his wife, he may send her away again, but he must no longer deal with her as a slave, because he has already humbled her enough by lying with her.
“After we have vexed her,” I reasoned, “how can we now enslave her again?” At this Sarai was so upset that she clawed my face with her fingernails so that it bled, and she departed from my presence without being excused.
I found her in her tent and she bitterly accused me, “my wrong be upon you and your silly child. I have given my maid and my friend into your very bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes. Adonai judge between me and you.”
To appease her I said, “Look, your maid is in your hands; do to her whatever seems best to you,” for I reasoned that while El wills a man to treat his wives with respect, Sarai was hemmed in by no such law.
I do not know what transpired that night, but in the morning the woman Hagar was gone from our camp, having departed into the desert.