Why does Hagar call God "the God Who Sees" (Genesis 16:13)?

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?” Not that she had seen God personally, but recognized Him in the words He had spoken to her, and was evidently subdued. Perhaps we cannot be fully sure if she was born again, but no-one can ever be the same again after having an interview with the Lord of glory. Usually such an experience either draws one nearer to Him or, if resisted, tends to harden the heart toward Him. The latter case does not seem to be true of Hagar.

The well seems to infer that she was in a good place, for typically it speaks of the refreshment of the living word of God, and this one is Beer-Lahai Roi, which means “the well of Him who sees me.” Thus, though Hagar is typical of the legal covenant, it is not necessary to suppose that she was therefore personally without God. No doubt there were many in Old Testament times of whom we can not speak definitely as to their being born again, but we know that this is true even now, when there is fullest reason for a clear, positive knowledge of salvation, since Christ has come and brought eternal redemption through the great sacrifice of Himself. The birth of Ishmael is recorded in verse 15. He is called Abram's son, not Sarai's.

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?" Not that she had seen God personally, but recognized Him in the words He had spoken to her, and was evidently subdued. Perhaps we cannot be fully sure if she was born again, but no-one can ever be the same again after having an interview with the Lord of glory. Usually such an experience either draws one nearer to Him or, if resisted, tends to harden the heart toward Him. The latter case does not seem to be true of Hagar.

The well seems to infer that she was in a good place, for typically it speaks of the refreshment of the living word of God, and this one is Beer-Lahai Roi, which means "the well of Him who sees me." Thus, though Hagar is typical of the legal covenant, it is not necessary to suppose that she was therefore personally without God. No doubt there were many in Old Testament times of whom we can not speak definitely as to their being born again, but we know that this is true even now, when there is fullest reason for a clear, positive knowledge of salvation, since Christ has come and brought eternal redemption through the great sacrifice of Himself The birth of Ishmael is recorded in verse 15 He is called Abram's son, not Sarai's.

At this point the Angel of the Lord intervened. According to the customs of that time Hagar had evidently had no option in the matter, and God is a God of pity, and of judgment. Even if she had been impertinent to her mistress, she was not to be left in the wilderness in her need; only, returning she was to be subject and submit to her mistress. Viewing her personally, apart from her typical significance, she was as much sinned against as sinning, and by God's intervention the scales of justice were evenly held.

And not only this but the future of the coming son was foretold: his name was given, his character indicated. His name means, "God hears." Hagar spoke of God as "Thou God seest me," or "Thou art the God who reveals Himself" (New Trans.) The well by which the angel appeared to her became known as "The well of the Living who was seen." Thus even poor Hagar derived blessing from this trying episode, though the son, when born, became a trial to Abram himself, as well as to Sarai and the future Isaac.

God in condescending grace has been pleased to reveal Himself to His creature in different ways, and on different occasions, and sometimes to the most unlikely people. When Hagar, the Egyptian maid of Sarai, Abraham’s wife, fled from her mistress, “the angel of the Lord found her,” and told her to return to her mistress and be subject to her, but he also made known to her that she would have a son who was to be called Ishmael, for God had heard her, and that He would multiply her seed exceedingly. Then “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” (Gen. 16:13). In Judges 13 the Lord revealed Himself to Manoah and his wife, and when asked by Manoah about His Name He answered, “Why askest thou thus after my Name, seeing it is secret? (or Wonderful)” (verse 18).

If you compare this with an expression in Genesis 16, I think the force of both is made much more distinct. "And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that sees me?" In the one case Moses sees God; in the other, although Hagar looks after Him, it was God that saw her. We are apt in everything to look at the lower end of the truth, to content ourselves with the scantiest portion that can sustain us.

Now Hagar did not really go beyond this. She was the bondwoman: she knew nothing of the liberty of grace. She might look after God, but what she reached was this, "Thou God seest me." Now the simple consciousness that God sees us, never goes beyond the knowledge either that He is a Judge noticing our ways to deal with them, or, at most, that 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 it to be a truth; but what I must maintain is that, as believers, we are entitled to the further and more precious privilege of seeing God, of seeing Him who is invisible. This was, in the principle of it, what sustained the heart of Moses. Hagar did not endure. She ran away; she was protected, she was brought back, she was finally expelled from the house of Abraham and Sarah, and the child of flesh along with her. It was the bondage of the law that was set forth by her. Now the law does bring out this — that is to say, God seeing man, God occupying Himself with man, God dealing with man, God judging man, yet God, it may be, showing mercy to man, as we see in Exodus 34. But communion with God there never is nor can be, till there is the consciousness that grace reigns. Not that the law is weakened, dissolved, or destroyed; not that its authority is touched. It is not so that God brings us into the place of liberty; that would be to set the ways of God against His sovereign grace. But the believer is brought out of the region where law applies — out of the scene of death, and darkness, and bondage, into the place of light: he is brought to God. There is no law in the presence of God. Law deals with flesh in the world. If I am in the place of flesh and of the world, I must be under law or I shall be lawless. The Christian is neither the one nor the other; but he is brought in peace, by the grace of God, unto God. He endures, not because God sees him, but because he sees God. He endures "as seeing Him who is invisible." He endures, he knows God in Christ, he has rest in His presence, for he knows Him whom He has sent, and "herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." This is what He has done and what law could not do, for it has no propitiation to give. It may demand, but it has nothing to give: it waits to receive, and it receives the deeds, alas! of darkness, of fear, of feebleness; it can only receive whatever poor man's conscience may offer, trying to make his peace with God. But grace makes the peace by a gift of His own love, gives the peace that it has made through the blood of Christ's cross, and brings into the consciousness of the love of Him who has suffered all for us. And therefore, instead of our being afraid of Him and avoiding Him, instead of its being a sort of guess-like way of wondering, doubting where it may end, fearing what it may bring, endurance is the word for us.

Now, you can see the sad result in Abram's household. When Hagar, the maid, saw that she would have a child, she did not honour Sarai. Sarai hated Hagar and was hard with her, so Hagar ran away from her mistress Sarai, and went to the desert by a fountain of water. Then God's angel said unto her, "Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go?" Hagar said, "I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai." The angel said, "Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands." And he said, "Thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name, 'Ishmael'," which means 'God has heard'. And Hagar called the name of the LORD 'Thou God seest me'. 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. Can idols of wood and stone love you? No. Does the devil love you? No! The devil wants to harm you, but the true God never forgets to love you.

Who but Jehovah Himself could have spoken thus? Hagar recognised this, for “she called the name of the LORD that spake to her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after Him that sees me?” (Gen. 16:13).

It is a real peril. The young Christian, it may be, is away from the atmosphere of a Christian home. He can slip off to questionable places of amusement, and nobody be any the wiser. Nobody the wiser? “THOU GOD SEEST ME” (Gen. 16:13) was a great deterrent and safeguard to the writer in his youthful days. God sees, God knows, God notes. Is nobody after all the wiser? God is reality! “Everyone of us shall give account of himself to God! (Rom. 14:12).

How necessary is it therefore that the bondwoman and her son should be cast out; the spirit of grace cannot tolerate what is legal, and what gives man a standing in the flesh. But though Hagar is cast out, she and her son become the objects of divine care in the grace of God. It is like the elder brother who would not come in to the feast: he had the same proud spirit as Ishmael; yet the father went out and entreated him. What a striking picture of the nation of Israel: all the testings of the wilderness only provided the complete justification of God's pronouncements as to their moral condition — a disobedient and opposing people — "a wild ass of a man," unsubdued. Like Ishmael, whose hand was against every man, and every man's hand against him, the Apostle says of Israel, "They please not God, and are contrary to all men." Yet, as having come from Abram, they are beloved for the fathers' sake. In this connection, how blessed to learn that God heard Hagar's cry, and provided for her refreshment the well Beer-lahai-roi, "Well of the living who was seen." God not only sees me, but has revealed Himself in grace that I may see Him.

Notice how beautiful this name Lahai-roi is, which means "the well of Him that liveth and seeth me." That was Hagar's term, as she realized the wonderful care of the Lord for her, how He had met her in her need when 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 dwells there. Isaac, the child of the free woman, Isaac, our representative - the one who is the true child of God according to the type, the one who has really the spirit of adoption, the one who has the full title, as it were, to the inheritance. He is the one who gets the well, the one who controls it.