Setting: Genesis 21:8-20
Extra-biblical Sources: Bereishit Rabbah 53:10,13
When Isaac was born, I had offered that one of the maidens under my supervision should nurse the child, and Sarah had quite arrogantly informed me that she was more than capable of nursing the child herself. What a peculiar situation, to see an old woman nurse a baby.
But nurse him she did, until the day that he was weaned, and then the boy’s father hosted a great feast. So great was that feast that men of renown throughout the earth came to partake in the bounty of Abraham’s great wealth. Among them were Og, son of Anak, and the old man Sheba, son of Ramah, and thirty one kings and their viceroys, and other great men such as that. It was a joyous time with much eating and drinking and dancing. But for my son and I, the festivity was not to last.
In truth it was Og that started the jeering, that giant oaf of a man who knows not when to shut his mouth. Said they to Og, “Did you not say that Abraham is like a barren mule and cannot beget child?” It was a good natured question from guests who had had too much to drink, and Og was meant to make some crude remark that would serve as an apology for doubting the old man’s virility.
But instead he answered thus: “Even now what is the measure of his gift?” and, gesturing toward the young Isaac, “is he not puny? I could crush him with my little finger!”
At this my son Ishmael laughed loudly, and Sarah, who had approached unnoticed some moments before, smacked my son across the face. Why she did not smack Og instead, I do not know.
My son merely laughed harder, but for my part I was filled with rage. That woman has never given Ishmael the respect he deserves as the firstborn of our patriarch. It was her idea that I should lay with Abraham, and every day since she has regretted her decision and taken it out on us.
I do not remember what I said to her in that moment, but I remember what she said, in the presence of all, to Abraham. “Cast out this slave woman and her son, for the son of a slave will not be heir with my son Isaac!”
I do not know why she should seem surprised that someone would make sport of her son, for she said herself that any who learned of a child being born to a woman so old would laugh. And what is more, she did name the child Isaac. Perhaps if one were sensitive about jokes and laughter one would have chosen a different name.
Ishmael continued to laugh but his laughter was suddenly cut off, for Sarah glared at him and I know not what kind of heathen curse she cast upon him, but he fell ill at once and groaned as one who is suffering from some terrible sickness.
Abraham looked very concerned, and I think I saw sadness in his eyes as well. He spoke words of peace and blessing, even if his face betrayed different emotions, and he went off to his tent to be alone and pray, even as the feasting and drinking continued for the rest.
The next morning he arose early from his tent as I was just beginning to stoke the fires for our first meal. He approached me, with a loaf of bread wrapped in a cloth, and a flask of water, and these he carried in his own hands. He placed these on my shoulder, and it was clear that I must leave the camp, as the old woman had demanded.
His words to me were strange, as was his expression, from which the sadness had departed: “Let in not be grievous in your sight because of your son and because of your own life; as Sarah has said to me, I will hear and do. For in my son Isaac shall my seed be named, yet the son of my bondservant Hagar Adonai will also make a nation, for he, too is my seed.”
I look at him and then to my son, pointing with my gaze, for Ishmael still lay sick with the curse of that woman. Abraham took the child and placed him on my other shoulder, opposite the flask of water and the bread. Thus I departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba, with a loaf of bread, a flask of water, and a child on my shoulders, till I could walk no more.
The water was gone even before evening came, for Ishmael was very thirsty in his strange sickness, and he often asked for drink, and though I knew it is unwise to drink freely while sojourning in the desert, I could not say no to him. When the water was gone and I could give him no more he became very weak, and he stopped talking and I feared he would die. I cast my son under one of the shrubs, and went and sat down over against him, a good way off, about a bow shot, for I said to myself, “let me not see the death of the child.”
And I sat there, my back against Ishmael, and I wept.
Then Adonai’s angel called to me from heaven, and I knew that it was he, for I recognized his voice, for he is my friend and my deliverer. He said to me, “What ails you, Hagar, that you cry so? Do not fear, for El has heard the voice of the child where he is. Get up, pick up the child once more, and hold him in your hands. I will make of him a great nation.”
And El opened my eyes so that I saw a well of water, and I went and filled the flask with water, and gave it to Ishmael to drink. And from that moment he started to become well again, and he grew and thrived in the desert, and became a skillful hunter with the bow.