Setting: Genesis 16:7-14
A person can live in the most intimate proximity with another for many years, even a lifetime I would guess, without really knowing them. Take heed, you husbands who think you know your wives, and you maidens who think you know your mistresses. You do not.
I was never in the habit of criticizing Sarai. It does not come naturally to any but the jealous to criticize the beautiful. And I was not made jealous, but awed by her beauty. I enshrined Sarai in my heart. She was not merely the outward picture of beauty, but the inward, too, so it seemed. So much so that when she approached me about bearing a child unto Abram, I did not foresee any issues that might arise between us on that account.
What serpent’s venom did rise up within her when my belly swelled with Abram’s seed. She seemed genuinely happy for me when my condition first became apparent, but it was not long until she began to exhibit subtle words of mild contempt, followed by not-so-subtle words and actions of malice and gall.
I will spare you the details, and tell you only that my life was made intolerable with insults to which I was not permitted to respond, chores of the most demeaning sort, vicious gossip, and finally blows to my own body that drove me from the camp. And to think, all of this from the kind, gentle, dignified Sarai that I met back in Egypt and treasured all these years. Who taught me the ancient stories of El Elyon and braided my hair like hers and laughed with me late into the night.
Of the ancient stories there is one that certainly comes to mind now. That of righteous Avel, struck down by the idiotic jealousy of his wicked brother Cayin, who was too blind to see that Avel could have been his teacher, rather than his victim.
The sweetest friends can be the bitterest betrayers.
I don’t need to tell you that banishment from the household of Abram was essentially a death sentence in the wilderness. The Elohim do not intend for a woman and her child to survive on the earth alone, but to be enfolded in the arms of a loving husband and a thriving community.
You will not believe what happened to me in the desert. Very well, but I will tell you the same. As I exited the camp, I found a bowl of lentil stew and a cake of unleavened bread sitting conspicuously in my path. I ate these and I walked many days and many nights in the strength of that gracious meal. I came at last to a small spring of water, bubbling up out of the ground, and the water was sweet to my taste, but my heart was still bitter.
I lay down there in the wilderness and asked the Elohim that I might die. I felt terrible guilt at the idea that my child would die with me, but I reasoned in my own bitterness that the life of the child would also be made bitter by Sarai. She would never allow him to become a great prince but would treat him even worse than she treated me. I confess, a part of me may not have wanted her to have the opportunity to change her mind, either. To put the bitter words behind her and act as if they were never spoken, and claim the child as her own and raise him as her son after having treated me so badly. I wanted them to find my swollen body dead by this spring of water, and for Sarai to cry out “what have I done?”
But this was not the will of the God who sees the calamity of the mistreated, and Who hears the cry of the oppressed.
The presence of Adonai was suddenly upon me there by the spring in the desert, and he said to me clearly in the dark of night, “Hagar, Sarai's maid, from where did you come, and to where will you go?” How is a woman, and a mere slave at that, to answer a god? I answered simply and truthfully about where I had come from, “I am running from the face of my mistress Sarai.” But as to where I intended to go, I gave no answer, for I had already been telling Him all day that I wanted to go down to Sheol, and there was no need to tell Him one more time again.
Adonai told me in a tone of voice at once commanding and yet gentle, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hands.”
I was not surprised to find that a god would side with a mistress over her slave. I gave no answer but sat in the darkness, weighing the substance of my spirit to see if I had it in me to return to my mistress, or if I had it in me to defy her and her God with her, or if all there was to do was to continue laying there in the desert till either death found me or my stubbornness broke.
As I contemplated these things He spoke once more, with words that energized me as I would not have thought possible. “I will multiply your seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.”
Was it true then? Was my child to be the fulfillment of Adonai’s promise to Abram, to make him a great nation? Let Sarai be bitter. Let her hold her breath until she turned blue and stomp her feet and slap people with sandals and scratch their faces. That wouldn’t change the declaration of the Elohim that from my loins and not hers nations would spring.
He continued, “Behold, you are with child, and will bear a son, and will call his name Ishmael; because Adonai has heard your affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; and he will dwell in opposition to his brother.”
I know not what came over me then. But as God spoke to me of a son whose name means “God hears,” I knew in my heart that He is also a God who sees, and I spoke to Adonai, that I might give Him a name even as He gave one to my child.
Think of it! A slave names a god! And I told Him boldly that His name is “El Ro’i”, the God who sees. And I thought I saw as it were His hindquarters as He departed from me, and I wondered aloud to the angels of the heavens, “has this poor woman actually seen the back of the one who sees me?”
Later when we passed by that spring I told Abram privately of what had happened there, and he called the spring Beer Lahai Roi, and while many know it by this name few know why it is called thus.
I was never in the habit of criticizing Sarai. It does not come naturally to any but the jealous to criticize the beautiful. And I was not made jealous, but awed by her beauty. I enshrined Sarai in my heart. She was not merely the outward picture of beauty, but the inward, too, so it seemed. So much so that when she approached me about bearing a child unto Abram, I did not foresee any issues that might arise between us on that account.
What serpent’s venom did rise up within her when my belly swelled with Abram’s seed. She seemed genuinely happy for me when my condition first became apparent, but it was not long until she began to exhibit subtle words of mild contempt, followed by not-so-subtle words and actions of malice and gall.
I will spare you the details, and tell you only that my life was made intolerable with insults to which I was not permitted to respond, chores of the most demeaning sort, vicious gossip, and finally blows to my own body that drove me from the camp. And to think, all of this from the kind, gentle, dignified Sarai that I met back in Egypt and treasured all these years. Who taught me the ancient stories of El Elyon and braided my hair like hers and laughed with me late into the night.
Of the ancient stories there is one that certainly comes to mind now. That of righteous Avel, struck down by the idiotic jealousy of his wicked brother Cayin, who was too blind to see that Avel could have been his teacher, rather than his victim.
The sweetest friends can be the bitterest betrayers.
I don’t need to tell you that banishment from the household of Abram was essentially a death sentence in the wilderness. The Elohim do not intend for a woman and her child to survive on the earth alone, but to be enfolded in the arms of a loving husband and a thriving community.
You will not believe what happened to me in the desert. Very well, but I will tell you the same. As I exited the camp, I found a bowl of lentil stew and a cake of unleavened bread sitting conspicuously in my path. I ate these and I walked many days and many nights in the strength of that gracious meal. I came at last to a small spring of water, bubbling up out of the ground, and the water was sweet to my taste, but my heart was still bitter.
I lay down there in the wilderness and asked the Elohim that I might die. I felt terrible guilt at the idea that my child would die with me, but I reasoned in my own bitterness that the life of the child would also be made bitter by Sarai. She would never allow him to become a great prince but would treat him even worse than she treated me. I confess, a part of me may not have wanted her to have the opportunity to change her mind, either. To put the bitter words behind her and act as if they were never spoken, and claim the child as her own and raise him as her son after having treated me so badly. I wanted them to find my swollen body dead by this spring of water, and for Sarai to cry out “what have I done?”
But this was not the will of the God who sees the calamity of the mistreated, and Who hears the cry of the oppressed.
The presence of Adonai was suddenly upon me there by the spring in the desert, and he said to me clearly in the dark of night, “Hagar, Sarai's maid, from where did you come, and to where will you go?” How is a woman, and a mere slave at that, to answer a god? I answered simply and truthfully about where I had come from, “I am running from the face of my mistress Sarai.” But as to where I intended to go, I gave no answer, for I had already been telling Him all day that I wanted to go down to Sheol, and there was no need to tell Him one more time again.
Adonai told me in a tone of voice at once commanding and yet gentle, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hands.”
I was not surprised to find that a god would side with a mistress over her slave. I gave no answer but sat in the darkness, weighing the substance of my spirit to see if I had it in me to return to my mistress, or if I had it in me to defy her and her God with her, or if all there was to do was to continue laying there in the desert till either death found me or my stubbornness broke.
As I contemplated these things He spoke once more, with words that energized me as I would not have thought possible. “I will multiply your seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.”
Was it true then? Was my child to be the fulfillment of Adonai’s promise to Abram, to make him a great nation? Let Sarai be bitter. Let her hold her breath until she turned blue and stomp her feet and slap people with sandals and scratch their faces. That wouldn’t change the declaration of the Elohim that from my loins and not hers nations would spring.
He continued, “Behold, you are with child, and will bear a son, and will call his name Ishmael; because Adonai has heard your affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; and he will dwell in opposition to his brother.”
I know not what came over me then. But as God spoke to me of a son whose name means “God hears,” I knew in my heart that He is also a God who sees, and I spoke to Adonai, that I might give Him a name even as He gave one to my child.
Think of it! A slave names a god! And I told Him boldly that His name is “El Ro’i”, the God who sees. And I thought I saw as it were His hindquarters as He departed from me, and I wondered aloud to the angels of the heavens, “has this poor woman actually seen the back of the one who sees me?”
Later when we passed by that spring I told Abram privately of what had happened there, and he called the spring Beer Lahai Roi, and while many know it by this name few know why it is called thus.