And Sarai Abram's wife did not bear him [children]. And she had an Egyptian maidservant; and her name was Hagar.
Abram has God's promise of many descendants, but no child — and in the tents there is an Egyptian servant girl. This chapter turns on the gap between believing a promise and waiting for it.
One writer sets this chapter against the one before it, and names what drove the change.
The fifteenth chapter may be called Abram's faith chapter. The sixteenth is the chapter of unbelief. It was impatience which forced Sarai and Abram to act for themselves. Unbelief is impatience and impatience is unbelief. Faith waits patiently for the Lord, and on the Lord, to act.
The failure was not in trusting God's word at the start. It was in the stretch of time afterwards.
It is one thing to believe a promise at first. It is quite another thing to wait quietly for it to be kept. We see this difference in a child all the time. If I promise my child anything, he has no idea of doubting my word. Yet I can see the greatest possible restlessness and impatience about when and how it will happen.
Sarai's childlessness was a real fact, not an imagined one. The mistake lay in what she reached for to fix it.
Had Sarai said, "Nature has failed me, but God is my resource," how different it would have been! That would have been her proper ground, for nature really had failed her. But it was nature in one shape, and so she wished to try nature in another. She had not learned to look away from nature in every shape. In the judgement of God, and of faith, nature in Hagar was no better than nature in Sarai.
The verse names Hagar's nationality. One writer thinks that detail points back to Abram's earlier stay in Egypt.
Hagar the Egyptian (Genesis 16:3) later caused great sorrow and trouble in his household, and she became the mother of Ishmael. Was she one of those maidservants given to Abraham for Sarah's sake in Egypt? It seems very probable that this was the case.
Another writer ties the same detail to what came of the arrangement.
Abram, urged on by Sarah, tried to anticipate the will of God and the keeping of the promise in its time. So in Hagar we have the covenant of the law, the source of distress and unrest… Man is in haste. He will not wait God's time, and he will not wait on Him about how the promise is to be kept. This is full of moral warning to us. It is always the source of unrest and sorrow. Hagar, too, was an Egyptian — a reminder also of the lack of faith in Abram.
Sarai made the proposal, but Abram acted on it. One writer weighs what he should have learned from the chapter before.
Abram's experience with the Lord in Genesis 15 ought to have strengthened him. He should have been sure that God's promise would stand, even though they had had to wait so long for it… But he listened to the voice of Sarai instead of listening to the voice of God alone.
Another writer follows Sarah's part right through the story.
Remember, it was Sarah, not Abraham, who took the lead in the whole sad affair of Hagar. She gave her to her own husband. She treated her so harshly that she ran away. And in the end it was Sarah who made the angry demand to cast out the slave woman and her son — a demand God approved.
Two women and two sons in one household carried a meaning no one at the time could see.
Who would have seen the difference between law and promise when Hagar and Ishmael quarrelled with Sarah and Isaac? The Spirit of God not only saw it. He intended the record of these events to be the beautiful foreshadowing of the two covenants. The covenant of law has only a child of the flesh. The covenant of promise brings forth in due time the child of the Spirit.
God's own answer came years later, when Abram had nothing left to contribute.
Chapter 16 is a parenthesis. Abram has a promise, and now tries to make it good without God. But then Abram is set aside. His body is now dead at ninety-nine years old. God reveals Himself and says: "I am going to give you many descendants."… That is, now that you are viewed as dead, I can do something with you.
- Promise. Abram believed God in chapter 15; the test in chapter 16 is not belief but the waiting that follows it.
- Impatience. Unbelief and impatience are the same thing wearing different clothes — faith waits on the Lord to act.
- Substitute. Nature had failed Sarai, so she tried nature in another form. She led and Abram followed, and to faith Hagar was no better than Sarai.
- Egypt. Scripture names Hagar an Egyptian. That word points back to the earlier lapse of faith that likely brought her into the tents.
- Death first. God waited until Abram's body was as good as dead. Only then could the promised seed be His gift and not man's device.
And Sarai said to Abram, Behold now, Jehovah has shut me up, that I do not bear. Go in, I pray thee, to my maidservant it may be that I shall be built up by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.
God had promised Abram a son, and Sarai was still childless. So she proposed a shortcut through her Egyptian servant Hagar, and Abram agreed without a word of protest. What do you do with a promise God has not yet kept?
Commentators place Abram's failure here not in his faith but in his patience.
Here we find unbelief casting its dark shadow across the spirit of Abraham... "And Sarai said to Abram, Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children." These words show the usual impatience of unbelief. Abraham should have treated them as such, and waited patiently on the Lord to fulfil His gracious promise. The poor heart naturally prefers anything to the attitude of waiting. It will turn to any expedient — any scheme — any resource, rather than be kept in that posture. It is one thing to believe a promise at the first, and quite another thing to wait quietly for it to be fulfilled... Abraham shows faith in Genesis 15, yet fails in patience in Genesis 16... God makes a promise, faith believes it; hope expects it; patience waits quietly for it.
Sarai names God as the reason she has no children, and draws a wrong conclusion from it. The results reach the whole household.
Faith does not reject earthly blessings when God gives them; but when someone tries to run ahead of God's time, it always brings sorrow. God will certainly perform His promise, but in His own way and time. Nature was impatient and could not wait. Unbelief made Sarai say that she was not included in the promise. Failure in this case seems greater in Sarai than in Abram. Still, he, like Adam, listened to his wife instead of trusting God. Hagar's son Ishmael is born. Sarai becomes envious, Hagar presuming. The result is strife in the household. This is always the case where the head of the house forgets his responsibility to God.
Hagar did not appear from nowhere. She most likely came from Abram's earlier stay in Egypt — an old failure supplying the material for a new one.
In the famine mentioned earlier, Egypt was near at hand, offering a refuge from worry about daily supply. The same thing happens here. "An Egyptian maid" — one of those maidservants, no doubt, that Abram had picked up during his stay in that evil place — was held out to him as relief in his worry about the promised seed. "And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai."
The goal was right; the method was not. Abram wanted the son God promised, but took a road God never opened.
To see the promise fulfilled, Abram did not need to fall back on a means that was merely human, and morally wrong as well. But he listened to the voice of Sarai instead of giving his full attention to the voice of God.
Later Scripture reads these two women as a picture. That is what gives the episode its lasting weight.
Flesh is impatient and wants the result at once, in its own way. She proposes her Egyptian servant Hagar, and Abram listens instead of walking by faith... The Letter to the Galatians gives the certain clue to what we might otherwise never have understood. It is the covenant of Sinai that she represents... The law brings not peace but wrath, not the fulfilment of the promise but fleshly pride, and a child born in sorrow who cannot be the heir... The believer has no more to do with it for himself now than Abram then should have taken Hagar.
The same pull works on believers today. It starts where grace itself looks barren.
Sarai stands for the principle of grace. And here is one of the strangest, saddest things in a believer's experience: what ought to be the source of fruitfulness in his life and walk looks barren... It is Sarai's barrenness that troubles us. And how, in this distress, Sarai herself seems to urge us to leave her, persuading us that Hagar may build her up!
Sarai devised the plan and Abram agreed to it. The blame does not fall evenly.
Without doubt Sarah was more to blame than Abram. In short, it was haste, springing from an obvious lack of faith. So she gave Hagar to her husband, and the results of that union soon appeared. As always, the one most to blame suffered the most.
- Promise — God pledged a son. Abram believed it in Genesis 15 and stumbled over the waiting in Genesis 16. Faith believes a promise; patience waits quietly for it.
- Impatience — Waiting is the posture the heart resists most, and it will take up any scheme rather than stay in it.
- Blame — Sarai traces her childlessness to God and concludes she is outside the promise. Abram, like Adam, listens to his wife instead of trusting God.
- Shortcut — Hagar was Egyptian, likely acquired during an earlier lapse. The plan was human and morally wrong. Galatians reads Hagar as the covenant of Sinai, and her son cannot inherit.
- Sorrow — Running ahead of God's time always brings sorrow, and the one most to blame suffered the most.
And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar, the Egyptian, her maidservant, at the end of ten years that Abram had dwelt in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram, as his wife.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was lightly esteemed in her eyes.
Abram's household tried to secure God's promise by its own arrangement. The moment Hagar conceived, that arrangement turned on the woman who devised it. Commentators read what follows as a family tragedy and as a picture of something larger.
Abram believed God in the chapter before. But believing a promise and waiting for it are not the same thing.
The poor heart prefers anything to the attitude of waiting. It will turn to any scheme, any resource, rather than be kept in that position. It is one thing to believe a promise at first. It is quite another to wait quietly for it to be fulfilled... Abraham shows faith in Genesis 15, and yet he fails in patience in Genesis 16. So we feel the force and beauty of the apostle's word in Hebrews 6: "followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." God makes a promise. Faith believes it, hope looks forward to it, and patience waits quietly for it.
The contempt lands on the woman who arranged it, and it costs her dignity. The writer quotes an older translation: the ESV's "looked with contempt on her mistress" reads there "her mistress was despised in her eyes."
He had promised a son, no doubt, but He had not said that this son would be Hagar's. In fact, the story shows that both Abraham and Sarah "multiplied their sorrow" by turning to Hagar. For "when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes." This was but the beginning of those multiplied sorrows, which flowed from hurrying after nature's resources. An Egyptian slave-woman trampled down Sarah's dignity, and Sarah found herself in the place of weakness and contempt. The only true place of dignity and power is the place of felt weakness and dependence.
A second writer points to the flaw in the plan itself.
Sarai could never be bound to the child the way his own mother would be. Verse 3 says she gave her maid to Abram "as his wife." So the child could not belong to Sarai at all. Hagar knew this. When she conceived, she despised Sarai, because Hagar had done what Sarai could not.
One writer reads the episode as a picture of law brought in to do what only promise can do.
Abram takes Hagar to have a child by her. Believers today do the same when they take up the law as a way to bear fruit, not for justification at all. Their very thought is the thing on trial here. At first the effect seems all anyone could wish: fruit comes at once. Only when God speaks does it become clear that Ishmael is not the promised seed after all. The immediate result is, Sarai is despised... So it ever is. Once you admit the principle of law, what is law if it is not sovereign? Faith may still cling to barren Sarai and own her, but the principle now brought in is still the exact opposite of it.
Another writer names the covenant that stands behind the picture.
The letter to the Galatians gives us the sure clue to what we might otherwise never have understood. Hagar stands for the covenant of Sinai, which answers to the Jerusalem of today, in bondage with her children. The law works not peace but wrath. It does not bring the promise about; it produces pride in the flesh, and a child born in sorrow who cannot be heir... The believer has no more to do with the law for himself now than Abram then should have taken Hagar.
Sarai's answer to the fallout was blame, not confession.
Sarah was only reaping the fruit of her own proposal, and yet she laid the blame on Abraham... This will not do. Hard treatment will not get rid of the slave woman. When we make mistakes and have to face the results, we cannot undo them by acting with a high hand... If we have done wrong, we should humble ourselves and confess the wrong, and wait on God for deliverance.
The chapter does not end in the damage.
Sarah was certainly more to blame than Abram. In short, she acted in haste, through an obvious lack of faith. So she gave Hagar to her husband, and the fruit of that union soon appeared. As always, she who was most to blame suffered the most... But we have again in this chapter the faithfulness of God even in the case of Hagar, who is told to return to her mistress and humble herself before her.
- Impatience — Abram believed the promise in chapter 15 but would not wait for it in chapter 16. Believing and waiting are not the same.
- Contempt — the first return on the shortcut is Sarai despised. The woman who devised the plan is the one it humbles.
- Sorrow multiplied — this scorn is only the beginning. Stepping off the path of faith brings deeper trial than staying on it.
- Pride, not the heir — in Galatians, Hagar stands for the covenant of Sinai, which produces pride in the flesh and a son who cannot inherit.
- Recovery — the way back is not blame or hard treatment. It is confessing the wrong and waiting on God, who stayed faithful even to Hagar.
And Sarai said to Abram, My wrong be on thee! I have given my maidservant into thy bosom; and now she sees that she has conceived, I am lightly esteemed in her eyes. Jehovah judge between me and thee!
Sarai had proposed the arrangement herself. Now that it has gone wrong, she turns on Abram and calls on the LORD to judge between them. The verse raises a question we all meet: what do we do with the trouble our own plans cause?
Sarai aims her complaint at her husband, though the plan was hers.
"And Sarai said, May the wrong done to me be on you!" When we act wrongly, we are often quick to lay the blame on someone else. Sarah was only reaping the fruit of her own proposal. Yet she says to Abraham, "May the wrong done to me be on you!" Then, with Abraham's permission, she tries to get rid of the trial her own impatience had brought on her.
Her demand that the LORD step in as judge points to what she felt she had lost.
Sarai blames Abram for the situation that arose after Hagar's conception. She asks the Lord to judge between her and Abram. No doubt she felt that Hagar was in effect robbing her of her husband. Abram did not remind her that the whole matter was her suggestion. But he made it clear to her that he had no intention of considering Hagar his wife.
Sarai complains that Hagar now looks down on her. There was a reason behind it.
Sarai should surely have realized that a child born in this way would not be hers at all. She could never be attached to the child in the way his own mother would be. In fact, verse 3 describes her giving her maid to Abram as giving her to him "as his wife." So the child could not possibly belong to Sarai. Hagar knew this. When she had conceived, she despised Sarai, because Hagar had achieved what Sarai could not.
Sarai had a better option, and she did not take it.
If we have done wrong, we should humble ourselves and confess the wrong, and wait on God for deliverance. But there was nothing like this shown in Sarah's case. Quite the reverse. There is no sense of having done wrong. Far from waiting on God for deliverance, she tries to rescue herself in her own way. Yet we will always find that every effort to fix our errors, before we fully confess them, only makes our path harder.
The quarrel in verse 5 did not begin in verse 5. It began when two people decided God was taking too long.
The fifteenth chapter may be called Abram's faith chapter. The sixteenth is the chapter of unbelief. It was impatience which forced Sarai and Abram to act for themselves. Unbelief is impatience and impatience is unbelief. Faith waits patiently for the Lord, and on the Lord, to act. "Whoever believes will not be in haste." Abram and Sarai attempted to help the Lord fulfil His promise. What a failure they made of it!
One shortcut spread trouble through the whole house.
God will perform His promise surely, but in His own way and time. Nature was impatient, and could not wait... Failure in this case seems greater in Sarai than in Abram. Still, he, like Adam, listened to his wife instead of trusting God. Ishmael is born. Sarai becomes envious, Hagar presumptuous. Household strife is the result.
Forgiveness and consequences are two different things.
Grace forgives the sin and restores the soul, but we still reap what we sow. Abraham and Sarah had to put up with the slave woman and her son for many years. Then they were rid of them in God's way. There is a special blessedness in leaving ourselves in God's hands.
Notice who paid most.
Undoubtedly Sarah was more to blame than Abram: in short, there was haste through an obvious lack of faith... As always, she who was most to blame suffered the most. It was not so much Abram as Sarah who suffered for her folly about her maid.
This household also carries a wider meaning. One writer connects Hagar with the law.
At Sarah's urging, Abram tried to run ahead of God's will and of the promise being fulfilled in its own time. So in Hagar we have the covenant of the law, the source of distress and unrest. God, however, takes care of the seed according to the flesh. The application of this as a figure is clear from Galatians 4... Man is in a hurry. He will not wait for God's time, and he will not wait on Him about the means of fulfilment. This is full of moral warning to us. It is always the source of unrest and sorrow.
- Haste. Impatience and unbelief are the same thing. Genesis 15 is Abram's chapter of faith; Genesis 16 is the chapter of unbelief.
- Household. Haste breeds strife. Sarai grew envious, Hagar grew proud, and one shortcut divided the home.
- Blame. When the shortcut fails, the flesh points at someone else — even when the plan was our own idea.
- Confession. The way out is down. Own the fault, ask forgiveness, and wait on God to deliver instead of rescuing ourselves.
- Harvest. Grace forgives the sin, but we still reap what we sow — and the one most to blame suffered the most.
And Abram said to Sarai, Behold, thy maidservant is in thy hand do to her what is good in thine eyes. And Sarai oppressed her; and she fled from her face.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And the Angel of Jehovah found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur.
Hagar has run from Sarai's harsh treatment, pregnant, with no home to go to and no plan beyond escape. Scripture does not record what she did next, only that she was found — and the one who found her is called "the angel of the LORD."
The messenger who meets Hagar makes promises only God can keep. That settles who He is.
In the verses that mention the angel of the Lord (vv. 7, 9, 10), the angel is clearly the Lord Himself. It is He who multiplies Abram's descendants. The term "angel" means a messenger, and Malachi 3:1 speaks of "the Lord whom you seek" as "the messenger of the covenant."
The title itself is flexible, and the surrounding words decide its sense each time it appears.
This expression, "the angel of the LORD," occurs over 100 times in the Old Testament. It means messenger or agent. Sometimes it describes an angelic messenger. Sometimes it refers to the Lord Himself. The context makes clear which is meant. In Genesis 16:7 the context proves that the Angel of the Lord is the Lord Himself.
Hagar is not the one searching here. The word "found" carries the weight of the verse. The search was on God's side. And the question He asks next shows how little she had planned.
But the Lord still had a good and kindly interest in Hagar. The angel of the Lord comes to her in her lonely distress as she is by a spring of water. At least she could find water, but it was a different matter to find food and shelter. The angel asked her where she had come from and where she would go. She could answer the first, but had no answer for the second. She was fleeing from her mistress. But where could a pregnant woman go, especially with no relatives or friends to contact?
Shur lay on the way back to Egypt, the country Hagar came from. Her direction of travel matches her name, and both fit the meaning Scripture itself gives her.
Of Hagar we also have the inspired interpretation. She is the covenant "from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery" — the only form of religion that man's natural thinking leads him to. Hagar is an Egyptian, a child of nature, or, as the letter to the Galatians interprets it, "the elementary principles of the world." Law tends to leave the place of a servant, and her very name shows it — Hagar means "fugitive." So the angel of the Lord finds her by the well, going down to Egypt. When Abram's house sends her away at last, she is found again with her son, drifting down toward Egypt. Afterwards Ishmael lives in the wilderness on Egypt's borders.
Hagar was not innocent. But she was also a servant with no say in the arrangement that put her here. God's answer meets both facts at once.
At this point the Angel of the Lord intervened. By the customs of that time, it seems Hagar had no choice in the matter. And God is a God of pity, and of judgment. Even if she had been rude to her mistress, she was not to be left in the wilderness in her need. But on her return she was to be subject and submit to her mistress. Looking at her personally, apart from what she pictures, she was as much sinned against as sinning. God's intervention held the scales of justice evenly.
The water source in this verse gets a name from Hagar's own lips, and that name outlives her visit. Years later the son of promise settles at the very spot where the Lord met the runaway.
Notice how beautiful this name Lahai-roi is, which means "the well of Him who lives and sees me." That was Hagar's own word. She realised the wonderful care of the Lord for her — how He had met her in her need, while she was fleeing from her mistress Sarah, to bring her back. He ministers to her by the springing well which He discovers for her. But Isaac lives there. Isaac, the child of the free woman, is our representative — the true child of God in this picture. He is the one who gets the well and controls it.
- Fugitive. Hagar's name means "fugitive." Her route through Shur was the road back to Egypt. She was running away, not toward anything.
- Found. The verb belongs to God. She could say where she had come from but not where she was going; He came to her while she was in distress.
- Divine. Scripture calls the one who found her the angel of the LORD. But He speaks as God Himself and promises what only God can give.
- Just. He neither excused her attitude nor abandoned her. He sent her back to submit, and He did not leave her in the desert.
- Named. The spring where grace found the runaway became "the well of Him who lives and sees me." Later it became the home of Isaac, the child of the free woman.
And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maidservant, whence comest thou? and whither art thou going? And she said, I am fleeing from the face of my mistress Sarai.
Hagar has run into the desert to escape a mistress who made her life unbearable. At a spring of water, a messenger of the Lord stops her with two questions: one about her past, one about her future.
She had no plan and no destination. One writer traces the flight back to the treatment she received once Sarai had been given a free hand with her:
Sarai took advantage of this permission from Abram and made life hard for Hagar. Countless employers have done the same, keeping their workers in misery by cruel oppression. Understandably, Hagar became a runaway, not knowing where she was going, but going anyway.
The second half of the question exposes that emptiness. She can name what she is running from, and nothing more:
But the Lord still had a good and kindly interest in Hagar. The angel of the Lord comes to her in her lonely distress as she is by a spring of water. At least she could find water, but it was a different matter to find food and shelter. The angel asked her where she had come from and where she would go. She could answer the first, but had no answer for the second. She was fleeing from her mistress. But where could a pregnant woman go, with no relatives or friends to turn to?
The messenger does not call her Abram's wife or Ishmael's mother. He calls her Sarai's servant — the very relationship she had grown proud of escaping:
In the Lord's judgment, Hagar was badly out of place in despising her mistress. He meets her in her wanderings, and He knows her only as Sarah's maid. So He sends her back with this instruction: "Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand." She may receive promises about the son she will bear, but she is Sarah's maid still, and submission is her only duty.
Hagar was not simply in the wrong, and God does not treat her as if she were:
By the customs of that time, Hagar clearly had no choice in the matter. And God is a God of pity, and of judgment. Even if she had been rude to her mistress, God would not leave her in the desert in her need. But in returning she was to be subject and submit to her mistress. Looking at her as a person, apart from what she pictures, she was as much sinned against as sinning. God stepped in and held the scales of justice even.
Going back was not merely a change of address. It required the very thing that had caused the trouble to be reversed:
She was not only to return, but to stop despising her mistress, and instead submit to her. A wrong attitude had made it hard for her. To change her attitude into one of submission would of course make Sarai's attitude more favourable toward her.
Her name and her direction both say something. One writer reads her as a picture of the law given at Mount Sinai:
Of Hagar too we have the inspired interpretation. She is the covenant from Mount Sinai, the covenant that produces slavery. It is the only form of religion that man's natural thinking leads him to, and the one we fall back to if grace is let go. Hagar is therefore an Egyptian, a child of nature, or as the letter to the Galatians interprets it, "the elements of the world." … The tendency of law, as it were, to leave this place of service is shown in her very name — Hagar, that is, "fugitive"; and so the angel of the Lord finds her by the well, going down to Egypt.
The point is plain. No idol could have heard her or watched over her:
Can idols hear, or can they also look after people? No, the true God of heaven alone could hear and see when Hagar had run away. He is the same today. He hears you and sees you in the way you go. And not only that, but He loves you too.
- Found. God's messenger meets Hagar in her distress by a spring. She had run where no friend could follow, and He was already there.
- Questioned. She can say what she fled; she cannot say where she is going. Running away answers the past and leaves the future blank.
- Named. He addresses her as Sarai's servant. He knows her only in that relationship, and He restores her to it rather than releasing her from it.
- Weighed. She was as much sinned against as sinning. God holds pity and justice even. He will not leave her in the desert, and He will not excuse her contempt.
- Sent back. The cure is not a new place but a new attitude. She must go back and stop despising her mistress.
And the Angel of Jehovah said to her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.
Hagar has run into the desert to escape Sarai's harsh treatment, and the Angel of the LORD finds her there. Why would God send a mistreated woman straight back to the mistress she fled?
The one who gives this command is not simply a heavenly messenger. Writers point to the wording of the chapter itself as proof of who is present.
This expression, "the Angel of the LORD" [Jehovah], occurs over 100 times in the Old Testament. It means messenger or agent. Sometimes it describes an angelic messenger, and sometimes it refers to the Lord Himself. The context makes it clear which is meant. In Genesis 16:7, for instance, the context clearly proves the Angel of the Lord is the Lord Himself.
And of everyone tangled up in this chapter, she is the only one God addresses.
We are not dealing here with the broad principles of moral good and evil, or with God's ordering of the world. We are dealing with man's ways inside the calling of God — man's, or woman's, workings and plannings, and the result left in God's hand. Hagar was the only person here who was in any way right, apart from despising her mistress, for which she suffered. And it is to her that an Angel, a messenger from Jehovah, speaks. He speaks to no one else in the chapter.
The instruction has two halves, and the second is the harder one.
There was only one course open to her, as the angel tells her: "Return to your mistress and submit to her." She was not only to return. She was to stop despising her mistress, and instead submit to her. A wrong attitude had made things hard for her. Changing that attitude into one of submission would of course make Sarai's attitude toward her more favourable.
Hagar was not the author of this mess. She had been handed to Abram, and she was pregnant and alone. God's answer meets both sides of that.
At this point the Angel of the Lord stepped in. By the customs of that time Hagar clearly had no choice in the matter, and God is a God of pity and of judgment. Even if she had been rude to her mistress, she was not to be left in the wilderness in her need. Only, on returning she was to be subject and submit to her mistress. Looking at her personally, apart from what she pictures, she was as much sinned against as sinning. God stepped in, and His intervention held the scales of justice even.
Sarai had tried to solve her own bad idea by force, and Hagar tried to solve hers by running. Neither works. The results of a wrong step have to run their course.
"The bondwoman" cannot be got rid of by harsh treatment. When we make mistakes and find ourselves having to face the results, we cannot undo those results by acting with a high hand. We often try this method, but we are sure to make matters worse by it. If we have done wrong, we should humble ourselves and confess the wrong. And we should wait on God for deliverance… So Hagar had to return, and give birth to her son.
The same writer draws the lesson wider: "Grace forgives the sin and restores the soul, but what is sown must be reaped."
God addresses her by her position — Sarai's maid — and that title governs everything He then says to her. Her place in the house also pictures something larger.
In the Lord's judgment, Hagar's despising of her mistress is very much out of place. When He meets her in her wanderings, He knows her only as Sarah's maid. He sends her back with this command: "Return to your mistress and submit to her." She may receive promises about the son who is to be born to her. But she is Sarah's maid still, and submission is her only duty. The law, too, has its hour. It may fill the house of God for a time, just as Hagar and her son now fill the house of Abraham for fourteen years. But to the heirs of the promise, even the age of the law was only a servant.
after-note: DELETE
- Found. The Angel of the LORD is the LORD Himself. Of everyone in this chapter, He speaks only to the runaway maid.
- Faced. Flight settled nothing. What was sown had to be reaped. Neither Sarai's harsh hand nor Hagar's distance could cancel the cost of one wrong step.
- Sent back. God returns her to the exact place she fled — not because the treatment was right, but because the way forward for her ran through it.
- Submitted. The command has two parts: return, and stop despising. Changing her attitude was the one thing in her power, and the thing most likely to change Sarai's.
- Held even. She was as much sinned against as sinning. God does not excuse her contempt, and He does not abandon her in the desert — pity and justice arrive in the same sentence.
And the Angel of Jehovah said to her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.
Hagar has run into the desert, pregnant and with nowhere to go, and the first words spoken to her there are a promise, not a rebuke. Two questions follow: who is this "angel of the LORD," and why does the chapter's greatest promise fall on a runaway servant?
The title "angel of the LORD" does not always point to the same person. Writers say the context decides it.
This expression, THE ANGEL OF THE LORD [Jehovah] occurs over 100 times in the Old Testament, meaning messenger or agent. Sometimes it describes an angelic messenger, and sometimes it refers to the Lord Himself. The context makes it clear which one is meant. The context of Genesis 16:7, for instance, clearly proves The Angel of the Lord is the Lord Himself. None but a Divine Person could speak such words.
The same writer notes how long the world waited for a moment like this.
Two thousand years of human history had rolled by before we have any record of angelic ministry. The first time, the angel of the Lord met Hagar — in truth the Lord Himself. Her child Ishmael was to be the father of a multitude that should not be numbered. This lifts the scene out of what is purely personal.
Genesis 16 is full of people making plans. God addresses only one of them, and it is not Abram or Sarai.
We are not dealing here with the large principles of moral good and evil, or with God's ordering of the world. We are dealing with man's ways inside the calling of God — man's, or woman's, workings and plans, and the result left in God's hand. The only person who was in any way right was Hagar, apart from despising her mistress, for which she suffered. To her an Angel — a messenger from Jehovah — speaks; not to anyone else in the chapter.
Others had used Hagar, and she had answered her mistress with contempt. One writer weighs both sides of her case.
At this point the Angel of the Lord intervened. By the customs of that time, Hagar had no say in the matter, and God is a God of pity and of judgment. Looking at her as a person, apart from what she pictures, she was as much sinned against as sinning. By stepping in, God held the scales of justice even.
A great promise does not release Hagar from the duty she ran from. The promise and the command travel together.
In the Lord's judgment, Hagar's contempt for her mistress is badly out of place. When He meets her in her wanderings, He knows her only as Sarah's maid. He sends her back with this instruction: "return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hand." She may receive promises about the son who was to be born to her. But she is Sarah's maid still, and submission is her only duty.
The promise was not poetry. Commentators trace it in visible history, and note that it began at once.
Flesh has its privileges quickly. Already was the beginning of what Jehovah's angel prepared Hagar to expect, "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude." Jehovah listened to her affliction, and could not forget Abraham. Ishmael was to be a wild-donkey of a man. His hand would be against every man, and every man's hand against him, and he would live facing all his brothers (Gen. 16:10-12). As we may easily see, this too has come true exactly, from that time until now.
A countless family is not the same as the promised line. Writers link this to how God later sorts Abraham's descendants.
From Romans 9:6-9, it would seem that Ishmael sets forth the unbelieving mass of Israel. There we read, "For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but 'Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.'" The unbelieving mass of the nation are children of Abraham according to the flesh. Only the believing remnant are the true seed according to promise. Still, even the children according to the flesh would be great on the earth.
- Who speaks. No created messenger could say "I will multiply." Commentators hold that here the angel of the LORD is the Lord Himself — the first such meeting on record.
- Who is heard. The promise falls on the one person God addresses in the chapter: a used, resentful runaway who was, as one writer puts it, as much sinned against as sinning.
- What she is given. A future she could never have arranged: descendants beyond counting, promised to a woman who owned nothing.
- How far it reached. The words came true in plain history. No one has ever counted the family of Ishmael, and the character named in verse 12 has held ever since.
- What it does not give. Multiplied is not the same as heir. God promised the child of the flesh greatness on earth. But the line of promise ran through Isaac, and He sent Hagar back a servant still.
And the Angel of Jehovah said to her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael, because Jehovah hath hearkened to thy affliction.
Hagar is a runaway slave, pregnant and alone in the desert, when a voice stops her and names her unborn son. The name carries a message — God had listened to her suffering — and it raises a question: who was speaking to her?
The one who meets Hagar carries the title "the angel of the LORD." Yet the promises He makes are God's own to make:
In these verses that speak of the angel of the Lord (vv. 7, 9, 10), the angel is clearly the Lord Himself. It is He who multiplies Abram's descendants. The term "angel" means a messenger, and Malachi 3:1 speaks of "the Lord whom you seek" as "the messenger of the covenant."
Hagar's mistress had treated her harshly. God's answer neither excuses her nor abandons her:
At this point the Angel of the Lord stepped in. By the customs of that time, Hagar plainly had no choice in the matter. And God is a God of pity, and of judgment. Even if she had been rude to her mistress, she should not be left in the wilderness in her need. Only, on returning, she was to be subject and submit to her mistress. Looking at her as a person, apart from what she stands for, she had sinned, but she had been sinned against just as much. God stepped in and held the scales of justice even.
This sets the true God apart from the idols people trust:
Can idols hear, or can they also look after people? No, the true God of heaven alone could hear and see when Hagar had run away. He is the same today. He hears you and sees you in the way you go.
The name points back to what God has just done. Hagar answers it by giving God a name of her own:
And not only this: God foretold the future of the coming son. He gave the boy his name and marked out his character. His name means "God hears." Hagar spoke of God as "You are the God who sees me," or "You are the God who reveals Himself" (New Trans.). The well where the angel appeared to her became known as "The well of the Living who was seen." So even poor Hagar gained blessing from this painful episode.
Besides Jesus, only a handful of people in Scripture were named before they were born, and Ishmael is one of them:
Five other people in the Bible were named before their birth: Isaac, Genesis 17:19; Ishmael, Genesis 16:11; Josiah, 1 Kings 13:2; Cyrus, Isaiah 44:28, and John the Baptist.
Years later Hagar is in the wilderness again, this time with a dying son. The name given here becomes the ground of her rescue:
The mother gave in to despair. She laid her son down to die at a distance from her. But "God heard the boy's voice," and His angel tells Hagar to hold him by the hand. Had not Jehovah called his name Ishmael, because He had heard her affliction? ... She may have forgotten God's promise that a countless multitude would spring from her, and that Ishmael would live in the presence of all his brothers. But God remembered him, and declares that He will make him a great nation.
Being heard is not the same as being chosen. Ishmael receives a promise and a future, but not the covenant line:
Before he was born, Hagar ran away because her mistress treated her harshly. The angel of the Lord appeared to her and told her to return to her mistress. Her descendants should be countless, and she was to call her son's name Ishmael, which means 'El shall hear.' ... Abraham prayed that Ishmael might live before God. But Ishmael pictures the seed of Abraham according to the flesh. So although God answered that He would bless Ishmael, and multiply him greatly ... yet the covenant should be established with Isaac.
- Heard. The name Ishmael records what God did before the boy was born. He listened to the affliction of a slave woman nobody else heard.
- Seen. The One who heard is the Lord Himself, under the title "the angel of the LORD." Hagar answers by naming Him the God who sees her.
- Sent back. Being heard did not lift Hagar out of her situation. God sent her back to submit to her mistress, and held the scales of justice even.
- Proved. Years later Hagar forgot the promise. In the desert God heard her son's cry — the name held even when her faith did not.
- Not the heir. God heard Ishmael and made him a great nation. Yet the covenant went to Isaac. To be heard by God is real mercy, but it is not the same as being the child of promise.
And he will be a wild-ass of a man, his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell before the face of all his brethren.
Hagar has run from Sarai into the desert. There the angel of the LORD promises her a son — and then describes the man that son will become, in words that sound like a warning. What does it mean to call a man a wild donkey? And how has that word held up over the centuries since?
The same message gives the boy a comforting name and tells Hagar what he will become.
Hagar was not to be the mother of God's promised child to Abram. Yet the Lord cares about her and about her expected child. He tells her to name the child "Ishmael," which means "God will hear" (v. 11). But the boy's character would match the fact that he was born from a union of opposite parents — the father a free man, the mother a slave. He would be contentious, his hand against all other men, and of course they would therefore be against him. This has been one of the characteristics of the Arabs from that time... Abram learned by experience, and all this history teaches us that a wrong union leads to trouble and sorrow.
The phrase is not a general insult. The Hebrew names a specific animal, and the New Testament later explains why that animal fits this child.
He was to be a "wild man." The word really means a "wild donkey." In the light of Galatians 4, this is significant, since "the son of the slave was born according to the flesh." Romans 8:7 tells us that the mind of the flesh "is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot." Man after the flesh has lawlessness stamped upon him, and the wild donkey is a fitting picture of him.
Scripture describes this animal elsewhere. The description matches how Ishmael's descendants lived.
No one ever drew a sharper picture than the one Scripture gives of Ishmael's descendants in the words quoted here. "Who has let the wild donkey go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey, to whom I have given the arid plain for his home and the salt land for his dwelling place? He scorns the tumult of the city; he hears not the shouts of the driver. He ranges the mountains as his pasture, and he searches after every green thing" (Job 39:5-8). Such exactly are the Bedouins. No sober Christian supposes a perpetual miracle as to Ishmael, but that what God said of that race is as sure as what He said of Israel.
The verse did not just come true once. It stayed true while other nations changed beyond recognition.
The meaning of Genesis 16:12 is as plain as it is striking, and as applicable today as for thousands of years past. This is not true of any other notable people. Compare the Egyptians, the Assyrians, or the Israelites. Every one of them has gone through change after change. How little, if at all, has the Bedouin changed?
The last line of the verse settles something. Nobody would be able to remove this troublesome presence.
Man in the flesh is not only lawless in regard to God but antagonistic in regard to his fellows. The one characteristic springs out of the other. There could be no peace where Ishmael was. Worse still, there was to be no shutting him out and no getting rid of him. The decree was, "he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen." Hagar was a picture of the covenant of the law, given at Sinai. Now that did not abolish the man after the flesh. It only laid restraint upon him.
Ishmael had his father's love and the outward mark of God's covenant. Neither one changed him.
Abraham's heart yearned over Ishmael. His cry was, "Oh that Ishmael might live before you!" More than that, Ishmael was circumcised, so he outwardly carried the mark of the Covenant (Gen. 17:18, 25). Yet none of it worked... He remained wild, stubborn and quarrelsome — a fitting picture of the flesh.
The verse describes a temper, not only a tribe. One writer turns it into a warning for anyone quick to quarrel.
Do not be fault-finding or quick to criticize. Do not quarrel with unscriptural expressions from others, but be extremely accurate in your own statements and quotations from Scripture. Do not be an Ishmaelite (Gen. 16:12) among the people of God, for "the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness" (2 Tim. 2:24-25).
- Cause. Ishmael was born to a free man and a slave. The writers trace his character back to that "wrong union," which "leads to trouble and sorrow."
- Character. "Wild man" means "wild donkey of a man." He is untamed, deaf to the driver's shout, a picture of the flesh with "lawlessness stamped upon him."
- Conflict. He is lawless toward God and hostile toward people. "The one characteristic springs out of the other," so "there could be no peace where Ishmael was."
- Continuance. Abraham's prayer did not change him, and neither did circumcision. The law "did not abolish the man after the flesh. It only laid restraint upon him."
- Confirmation. The verse is still "as applicable today as for thousands of years past." Egypt, Assyria and Israel all changed. And the Bedouin? Hardly changed at all.
And she called the name of Jehovah who spoke to her, Thou art the God who reveals himself, for she said, Also here have I seen after he has revealed himself.
Hagar is a pregnant runaway slave in the desert, mistreated and heading nowhere, when God finds her and speaks. She answers by giving Him a name, which raises two questions: who was the "angel of the LORD" she met, and how much did she come to know of Him?
The title "angel of the LORD" does not always mean a created being.
This expression, THE ANGEL OF THE LORD [Jehovah] occurs over 100 times in the Old Testament, meaning messenger or agent. Sometimes it describes an angelic messenger, and sometimes it refers to the Lord Himself. The context makes clear which one is meant. Genesis 16:7 is one example: the context there proves that The Angel of the Lord is the Lord Himself.
So the verse says she named "the LORD who spoke to her." She was naming God Himself.
Translators have rendered her words in more than one way. One writer sets the options side by side, with the meanings of the son's name and of the well:
The angel also foretold the future of the coming son, giving his name and describing his character. His name means, "God hears." Hagar spoke of God as "You God see me," or "You are the God who reveals Himself" (New Trans.). The well where the angel appeared to her became known as "The well of the Living who was seen." So even poor Hagar gained blessing from this painful episode.
Those renderings come from older translations; the ESV has "You are a God of seeing." Hagar had not seen a form or a face. One writer weighs what her words actually claim:
Hagar was so impressed by this intervention of God that she called Him "the God who sees." "For," she adds, "Have I also here seen Him who sees me?" She had not seen God in person. But she recognized Him in the words He had spoken to her, and she was clearly subdued. We cannot be certain whether she was born again. Yet no one is ever the same after meeting the Lord of glory.
Hagar is no hero here. Her trouble was partly her own doing, and she was not looking for God when He came.
In her own story Hagar is an example or picture — hardly a type — of how divine grace deals with a helpless and despairing sinner. She ends up in the worst misery and danger, partly by her own fault and partly through injustice and misfortune. Yet a God of compassion remembers her and sees her. She is dying of thirst, though a well of springing water stands at her side (Gen. 21:19). She does not seem to remember God or seek Him. But He sends His angel with the gracious question, "What ails you, Hagar? Arise."
Commentators differ on how much Hagar grasped. One writer weighs her words and finds them limited:
She was the slave woman, and knew nothing of the freedom of grace. She might look after God, but all she reached was this: "You God see me." The simple awareness that God sees us never goes further than this: that He is a Judge who notices our ways in order to deal with them, or, at most, a guardian who protects us in the hour of difficulty and danger. But love, liberty, rest, joy in God are never known through the bare truth that God sees us.
Another finds more in the name of the well:
How blessed to learn that God heard Hagar's cry! For her refreshment He provided the well Beer-lahai-roi, "Well of the living who was seen." God not only sees me. He has revealed Himself in grace so that I may see Him.
Readers take this verse two ways. First, as a restraint, when nobody else would know:
He can slip off to questionable places of amusement, and nobody be any the wiser. Nobody the wiser? "YOU GOD SEE ME" (Gen. 16:13) was a great deterrent and safeguard to the writer in his youthful days. God sees, God knows, God notes.
And as comfort, because the God who sees is not indifferent:
Can idols hear, or can they also look after men? No, the true God of heaven alone could hear and see when Hagar had run away. He is the same today. He hears you and sees you in the way you go. And not only that, but He loves you too.
- Sought — Hagar was not looking for God; He found her, "a helpless and despairing sinner" who "does not seem to remember God nor seek Him."
- Spoke — the "angel of the LORD" who met her was the Lord Himself, not a created messenger.
- Seen — she knew Him by His words, not by sight. Her son's name means "God hears"; the name she gave God says that He sees.
- Stored — the meeting left a landmark: the well "of the Living who was seen," where God revealed Himself in grace.
- Settled — God's seeing restrains us when no one else is watching. It also comforts us, because the God who sees hears and loves.
Therefore the well was named Beer-lahai-roi behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.
God met a runaway slave woman alone in the desert. The well where it happened took its name from what she said about Him, and that name stayed on the map long after her.
Most English Bibles leave the Hebrew name untranslated. One reference work places the well and gives its meaning:
This means "well of the living and seeing one." The well lay between Kadesh and Bered, "on the way to Shur," and so in the south. It was here that the angel of the LORD met Hagar, when she fled from Sarai. Her cry at that moment, "You, God, see me," gave the well its name. Isaac lived near the same well Lahai-roi (Gen. 24:62; Gen. 25:11).
(The ESV renders her words in verse 13 as "You are a God of seeing.")
Commentators differ over which side of the name to stress — God seeing her, or her seeing God. One writer gives both readings, and notes that this hard episode still ended in gain for her:
Hagar spoke of God as "You, God, see me," or "You are the God who reveals Himself." The well by which the angel appeared to her became known as "The well of the Living who was seen." So even poor Hagar drew blessing from this trying episode.
One writer thought earlier English Bibles handled names like this better:
Some of the early versions wisely and correctly translated the Hebrew words that our present Bibles leave untranslated. It is true that many Bibles put the translation in the margin. But then the reader asks: is the margin correct? And if so, why is it not in the text? The well of "Beer-lahai-roi" (Gen. 16:14) is rendered in the old versions the well of Him that "lives and sees me."
One writer links the well to God's answer to her cry, and to what she could then see of Him:
How wonderful to learn that God heard Hagar's cry! For her refreshment He provided the well Beer-lahai-roi, "Well of the living who was seen." God not only sees me, but has revealed Himself in grace so that I may see Him.
Another writer sets a limit on how far Hagar herself got. He warns that the bare truth that God sees us brings no rest by itself:
She was the bondwoman: she knew nothing of the liberty of grace. She might look after God, but what she reached was this: "You, God, see me." The simple awareness that God sees us never goes beyond two thoughts. Either He is a Judge noticing our ways to deal with them, or, at most, He is a guardian to protect in the hour of difficulty and danger. But love, liberty, rest, joy in God are never known through the bare truth that God sees us. No one denies that it is true. But as believers we are entitled to something further and more precious: seeing God — seeing Him who is invisible.
Isaac later came from this well and settled by it. One writer draws out what that says about the One waiting at the end of a journey:
In all these wilderness scenes Isaac has taken no active part. Yet he kept in mind all that was happening. He comes from the well Lahairoi — a word of deep meaning, for it means "the well of Him that lives and sees" (Genesis 16:14). How good to know, as we travel on our way, that at the end of the journey we shall find One who has kept His people in mind. He sees and He lives — indeed the word is "He always lives" (Heb. 7:25).
One writer turns the name into a question about where we live:
Don't you think it would do us good if we as Christians dwelt more by Lahai-roi? If we knew a little better what our God has given us, and so knew better the blessing in it? Hagar called it "the well of Him that lives and sees"! That is what it is. It is the "well of Him that lives and sees" us, the well of God, the living water.
- Named — a runaway woman's words about God named the well between Kadesh and Bered: "well of the living and seeing one."
- Seen — Hagar found that God saw her in the desert. One writer adds that God also revealed Himself, so that she could see Him.
- Limited — the bare truth that God sees you gives you a Judge or a guardian. Love, liberty and rest come from seeing Him.
- Lasting — Isaac later came from this well and settled by it, so the name became a home address, not just a memory.
- Ours — the call is to live where Isaac lived: beside the well of the One who sees us and always lives.
And Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.
Genesis 16 opens with a plan to help God's promise along, and it closes with a baby boy. The plan worked — so why do the commentators read this birth as a warning?
Abram had God's promise of a son, but no son. Instead of waiting for God's time, he took Sarai's advice.
At Sarah's urging, Abram tried to get ahead of God's will and to bring about the promise before its time. So we have the covenant of the law pictured in Hagar, the source of distress and unrest. God, however, still takes care of the child born in the natural way. The application of this as a figure is clear from Galatians 4. The pride of man under the law is marked in Hagar's spirit, yet her son cannot be heir. The haste of man, who will not wait for God's time and will not wait on Him as to the means of fulfilment, is full of moral warning to us. It is always the source of unrest and sorrow. Hagar, too, was an Egyptian — a reminder of Abram's lack of faith. Law and flesh, and indeed sin, always go together.
Sarai's plan had been to build her own family through her servant. The verse gives her no such credit.
Verse 15 records the birth of Ishmael. It calls him Abram's son, not Sarai's.
Abram gives the name, but the name is not about Abram. It looks back to God's answer for the mother, and forward with a warning about the child.
The name of the son, Ishmael, was to mark that God heard Hagar in her affliction. It pointed to her, not to him. He was to be a "wild man" (ESV: "a wild donkey of a man"); the word really means a wild donkey. In the light of Galatians 4 this matters, since "the son of the slave was born according to the flesh." Romans 8:7 tells us that the mind set on the flesh "is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot." Man after the flesh has lawlessness stamped on him, and the wild donkey is a fitting picture of him.
The plan produced a son. That is the trap: it appeared to work.
But we can read even more into this. Ishmael was not the child of Hagar only, but of Abraham also. The man of faith had taken the bondservant to his heart, and Ishmael was the fruit of it. Though Abraham's seed, Ishmael is cast out. Is it not easy to see here that even the man of faith, if he uses law as a way to produce fruit, will find that the law is the "power of sin", not of holiness? The wild donkey nature will show itself in the fruit which God cannot own, instead of the fruit He has promised!
Scripture itself interprets this birth. The letter to the Galatians takes Abraham's two sons as a picture of two natures at war.
In Galatians, just as the apostle uses Isaac to set forth all that we are as born of the Spirit, so he uses Ishmael to set forth our old man — all that we are as born after the flesh. He shows, too, that the man who is after the flesh is entirely opposed to the man who is after the Spirit. "Just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now" (Gal. 4:28-31).
Scripture dates this birth, and then dates God's next word to Abram. The gap between the numbers tells its own story.
Abram was eighty-six years old when Ishmael was born. The next chapter tells us that Abram was ninety-nine years old when the Lord spoke to him again. So for thirteen years Abram's life seems to have been barren of communications from the Lord. What a harvest of the flesh.
The silence was not the end. God spoke again, and He gave a new name for Himself.
When Abram was 99 years old, another great revelation reached him, and God established a further covenant, as we find in Genesis 17. Here for the first time we get "Almighty God" (El-Shaddai) — the God who can raise the dead, and to whom nothing is impossible. God Almighty was the name that belonged to the unconditional covenant made with Abram. That covenant depended altogether upon God, and His almighty power guaranteed its final fulfilment.
- Haste — Abram would not wait for God's time. Impatience with the promise is always a source of unrest and sorrow.
- Flesh — the child was real fruit, but the fruit of human effort. Even a man of faith who works this way gets what God will not own.
- Name — Ishmael means God heard. The name marks His care for Hagar in her affliction, not a promise to her son.
- Silence — then thirteen years pass with no recorded word from God. That is the harvest of the flesh.
- Almighty — God speaks again as El-Shaddai. He rests the covenant on His own power, and only that power could ever fulfil it.
And Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.
Genesis 16 ends like a legal record — a name, a birth, and a number. That number fixes Abram's age at the birth of Ishmael, and the next chapter gives another age before God speaks again.
In the chapter before, Abram believed God. This one closes with a son he arranged for himself. Commentators put the failure not in doubting the promise, but in the wait for it.
The poor heart naturally prefers anything to waiting. It will turn to any device — any scheme — any resource, rather than stay in that place. It is one thing to believe a promise at first. It is quite another thing to wait quietly for it to be fulfilled… Abraham shows faith in Genesis 15, and yet he fails in patience in Genesis 16.
Sarai looked for a way round the delay. She found it in another person.
Had Sarah said, "Nature has failed me, but God is my resource," how different it would have been! This would have been her proper ground, for nature really had failed her. But it was nature in one shape, and so she wished to try nature in another. She had not learned to look away from nature in every shape. In the judgement of God, and of faith, nature in Hagar was no better than nature in Sarah.
Set this verse beside the opening of the next chapter and count the years between.
Abram was eighty-six years old when Ishmael was born. The next chapter tells us that Abram was ninety-nine years old when the Lord spoke to him again. So for thirteen years Abram's life seems to have been barren of communications from the Lord. What a harvest of the flesh.
Those years are not just quiet. The record skips them — a long stretch of a great man's life left uncounted.
Nearly fourteen years had passed since the birth of Ishmael, this son of the slave woman: this effort of man's own energy to carry out the thoughts of God. He was born in Abraham's house and grew up there for twice seven years. For a while everything looked promising. But for those fourteen years Abraham had walked a path he chose himself. His history passes over these years as a blank — completely unrecognised. And oh, how many histories of God's saints will turn out to be a blank one day!
God had a reason for waiting. Writers tie the silence to the moment when Abram's own strength had nothing left to offer.
In the letter to the Hebrews we read of Abraham that "when he had patiently waited, he obtained the promise" (Hebrews 6:12-15). The story of Hagar and Ishmael has shown that under pressure he failed in patience… For thirteen years he patiently endured… God waits until all hope of obtaining the blessing by the efforts of the flesh is over.
Commentators read Ishmael as more than a person. He stands for a way of getting what God had promised.
We have had the seed promised in a general way; and now Abram wants to get it according to his own will in the flesh, and he takes Hagar (chapter 16). Ishmael is "he that is born after the flesh," which is really of the law, an attempt to get the heir on legal ground and take the promises. It was an attempt to get the heir by the flesh, and it all came to misery and confusion.
The son is born and the years are counted. Abram will spend them learning what his shortcut cost him.
An Ishmael was Abram's measure, an Isaac was God's. In the meantime Abraham must learn what the fruit of his impatience is. He learns it through quarrels, strife and sorrow. In the end he must do what was very "grievous in his sight" — send away his son. So our inventions only postpone our real blessings, because we have to see the end of them.
- Promise. Abram truly believed God in the previous chapter; nothing here cancels that. The failure was in the waiting, not in the believing.
- Impatience. Sarai swapped one human resource for another. She never looked away from both to God.
- Ishmael. The child of that shortcut stands for the man born of the flesh. Trying to secure God's promise on human ground ends in confusion.
- Silence. The two ages, here and in the next chapter, frame thirteen years with no word from God. The record leaves that stretch of a great life blank.
- Set time. God spoke again only when every hope from human effort was gone. Our own inventions do not speed the promise up. They delay it.