Old Testament · Law

Genesis 16

Hagar

Sarai grows impatient with God's timing and takes matters into her own hands. The consequences ripple across centuries — but God sees the woman everyone else overlooks.

Berean Standard Bible BSB KJV

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1Now Abram’s wife Sarai had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar.

2So Sarai said to Abram, “Look now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go to my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family by her.”

3So after he had lived in Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to Abram to be his wife.

4And he slept with Hagar, and she conceived. But when Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.

5Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be upon you! I delivered my servant into your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant, she has treated me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me.”

6“Here,” said Abram, “your servant is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she fled from her.

7Now the angel of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur.

8“Hagar, servant of Sarai,” he said, “where have you come from, and where are you going?”

9So the angel of the LORD told her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.”

10Then the angel added, “I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count.”

11The angel of the LORD proceeded: “Behold, you have conceived and will bear a son. And you shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard your cry of affliction.

12He will be a wild donkey of a man, and his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”

13So Hagar gave this name to the LORD who had spoken to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “Here I have seen the One who sees me!”

14Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi. It is located between Kadesh and Bered.

15And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.

16Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.

Understand This

Genesis 16, explained

What Genesis 16 is saying

Sarai, unable to conceive, offers her servant Hagar to Abram as a surrogate, following accepted Mesopotamian custom. Hagar conceives and tensions escalate; Sarai afflicts Hagar, who flees into the wilderness. The angel of the Lord finds Hagar at a spring, commands her to return, and promises that her son Ishmael will become a great nation. Hagar names God El Roi, the God who sees.

The background behind it

The surrogate arrangement reflects legal norms found in the Code of Hammurabi and Nuzi tablets, where barren wives could provide slave women to produce heirs. The angel of the Lord's appearance to Hagar is the first theophany recorded to a woman and notably to a non-Israelite, Egyptian slave.

Themes running underneath

Human attempts to fulfill divine promises through cultural expedience create relational chaos. Yet God's care for the marginalized Hagar, a foreign slave woman, reveals that divine compassion extends beyond covenant boundaries. El Roi establishes that God sees and dignifies the invisible and exploited.

Why it still matters

Running ahead of God's timing, even with culturally acceptable methods, produces consequences that persist for generations. Yet Hagar's story assures the overlooked and mistreated that God sees them even when no one else does.

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Scripture text: Berean Standard Bible — used by permission, Bible Hub.