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.