Genesis 16:7: A pregnant slave running for Egypt, and how far she got
Read it →Commentary on Genesis 16:7
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."
Who found her
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.
Found, not seeking
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?
The road she was on
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.
Why He stepped in
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 spring He chose
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.
Summary
- 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.
