Genesis 21:16

Genesis 21:16, in plain English

From where she's sitting, Hagar weeps. She's completely broken, unable to do anything but cry out in her grief and powerlessness.

Why it's here

Hagar is a slave woman from Egypt, far from home, with no resources and no allies. Her son is dying of thirst, and she's helpless. Her weeping isn't dignified or controlled—it's the sound of someone who has lost everything and can only lift her voice to heaven. The narrative tells you she sits about a bowshot away, as if even her distance from her son causes her pain. She's weeping for Ishmael, but she's also weeping because she can't save him.

Who's speaking

The narrator shows you Hagar's breaking point.

Where it sits in the story

Hagar's weeping reaches heaven. In Scripture, tears of true anguish are heard by God. He doesn't turn away from human suffering. He hears the cry of the widow, the stranger, the enslaved—and He responds.

The scholarly reading

Hagar withdraws a bowshot away and weeps, unable to endure watching her son's death, giving voice to maternal anguish in the face of apparent abandonment.

Language and setting

The specific distance—'a bowshot away' (kiqesheth-keshem, כִּקְשֶׁת־קֶשֶׁם)—is precise: far enough that she cannot see his face clearly, near enough that she remains in earshot. Her weeping (tevakkeh, תִּבְכֶּה) is not passive despair but active lamentation. The text grants her full humanity: she grieves, she speaks aloud her anguish—'I cannot bear to watch the boy die.'

Voice

The narrator, depicting Hagar's anguish

Significance

Hagar's lament invokes a long biblical tradition of women's grief—later exemplified by Rachel weeping for her children (Jeremiah 31:15) or Hannah's bitter prayer (1 Samuel 1). Her voice—literally and figuratively—becomes the cry that God hears, establishing a pattern wherein God responds to human suffering, particularly the suffering of the marginalized and enslaved.

14Early in the morning, Abraham got up, took bread and a skin of water, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her away with the boy. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.

15When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes.

16Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” And as she sat nearby, she lifted up her voice and wept.

17Then God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, “What is wrong, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he lies.

18Get up, lift up the boy, and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

Read all of Genesis 21 — The promised son arrives — and Sarah laughs again, this time with joy. But the arrival of one son means the departure of another.