Genesis 16

Genesis 16 is structured as a problem and two resolutions, neither of them clean. The problem: Sarai is barren, ten years have passed since the promise, and nothing has happened. Sarai proposes that Abram take her Egyptian servant Hagar as a wife so that Sarai may obtain children through her — a practice attested in Mesopotamian legal texts such as the Code of Hammurabi, where a barren wife could give her slave to her husband as a secondary wife. Abram agrees. Hagar conceives. When Hagar sees she has conceived, her mistress is diminished in her eyes — the Hebrew is pointed: the woman who has the baby looks down on the woman who arranged it. Sarai complains to Abram; Abram tells her to do as she sees fit; Sarai afflicts Hagar and Hagar flees.

The angel of the LORD finds Hagar beside a spring in the wilderness on the way to Shur and addresses her directly: Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going? Hagar answers. The angel instructs her to return and submit to her mistress, and makes a promise: I will multiply your offspring so that they cannot be counted for multitude. Her son's name shall be Ishmael — God hears — because the LORD has heard your affliction. Ishmael will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen. Hagar calls the name of the LORD who spoke to her: You are El-roi, which the text glosses as the God of seeing. The spring is named Beer-lahai-roi, the well of the Living One who sees me. Ishmael is born when Abram is eighty-six years old.