The Voice of Hagar

God is close to the broken-hearted, and those bowed down in spirit He saves (Psalm 34:18).

Chapter 16 of Genesis describes the dynamics of Abram's household:  Sarai, the wealthy wife of a powerful man, and Hagar, the Egyptian slave-girl, whose name in Hebrew could mean something like "the foreign girl."  She is essentially a nameless piece of property. 

For ten years, Abram has been living in the Promised Land with no sign of an heir.  He and Sarai are growing beyond the child-bearing years, and he needs a son to inherit his wealth.  Frustrated and childless, Sarai gives "her," the nameless one, to Abraham to bear a son.

When Hagar conceives, she begins to flaunt her fertility before Sarai, who cannot bear the burden of her own infertility.  Sarai deals with Hagar harshly, so the slave girl flees into the desert.  [Many years afterwards, Israel will be expressly forbidden by God to "deal harshly" with the foreigner:  You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.  You shall not abuse any widow or orphan.  If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry (Ex. 22:21-23).]

But for now, Hagar, a pregnant woman is in the desert when "the angel of the Lord" finds her beside a spring.  He calls her by name and by station:  Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?

The woman and her son, the son of Abram, though not by God's design, are not abandoned by Yahweh.  He could not leave her to die in the desert with her unborn child.  He sends her back to the protected tents of Abram (presumably having somewhat softened Sarai's heart), where she can safely give birth to her child. 

Hagar, having been given hope and a future by Yahweh, names Him:  You are a God of seeing.  No one up to this point has ever really seen her; the text refers to her as "the foreign woman," the "slave girl."  She has not been a person with a hope and a future.  She said, I have seen the One who sees me, and she named the well Beer Lahai Roi, meaning Well of the Living One who sees me.

The angel, speaking in the voice of Yahweh, tells Hagar that she will have a son and name him Ishmael---God hears. 

Paradoxically, in this chapter, in what appears to be the story of Abraham and Sarai, Hagar is the principal character.  God is the only one who "saw" her.  Like Abraham, she too receives the promise of many descendents.  Like Israel later on, she too goes on an Exodus towards freedom because of harsh treatment and in the desert encounters Yahweh.  Like Moses, she sees God. 

The naming of the well and its exact location roots this story in the real world, not the world of fantasy.  Even today, Muslims hold sacred the spot where Hagar encountered the living God who sees and hears.  In Genesis 21, when once again, she and her son are cast out into the desert, God "hears the boy crying," as Hagai is also "sobbing."  The angel says, "God has heard the boy crying as he lies there."

In this story of Abraham and Sarai, power and abuse occur but are not central.  Central to the story is the hearing and seeing of God toward the poor and needy, a lesson that Abraham will only gradually come to learn as he walks with God.  In the meantime, Hagar is the one who encounters "the living God who sees me" and who is told to name her son God hears.  Later in the story, Sarai too will encounter the living God who sees and hears the cry of the poor; she will be given "laughter" (Isaac) for all her years of sorrow.

Many years earlier, God had heard the "blood of Abel" crying from the gound, and now he hears the cry of a slave-woman, whom he lifts up from the ground.  Psalm 34 is full of verses about God hearing the cry of the poor; in the New Testament, Jesus will say Blessed are the poor in spirit; the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

Once we have encountered the "Living One who sees / knows" us, we are convinced, like Hagar, that He does indeed incline his ears to our cry, and that our future is in His hands.  We have courage, not because we are strong, but because we are seen and heard.

Thanks be to the Jews for preserving this (minor) story of Hagar within the major story of their own journey and history!  Someone must have been impressed by the story of a nameless slave girl!