Lives of Scripture

Hagar was Sarai's Egyptian servant, given to Abram as a wife so the barren Sarai could obtain a family through her — a solution Scripture frames as a lack of trust in God's promise (Genesis 16:1-3). Once pregnant, Hagar looked on her mistress with contempt, and Sarai treated her so harshly that Hagar fled (Genesis 16:4-6). At a spring, the angel of the LORD found her — Scripture's first angelic appearance — telling her to return to Sarai, while promising her son would father a multitude (Genesis 16:7-12). Hagar responded by naming God 'El Roi,' the God who sees — Scripture's first instance of a person naming God (Genesis 16:13-14). She returned and bore Ishmael. After Isaac's weaning, Sarah demanded Hagar and her son be cast out; Abraham was distressed, but God told him to listen to Sarah, again promising Ishmael would become a great nation (Genesis 21:8-13). Sent away with only bread and water, Hagar wandered until the water ran out; unable to watch her son die, she wept at a distance until God heard his cry and opened her eyes to a well she had not seen (Genesis 21:14-19). Ishmael grew up in Paran, became an archer, and Hagar arranged an Egyptian wife for him (Genesis 21:20-21). Paul later uses Hagar and Sarah allegorically to contrast slavery under law with freedom under promise — a theological application, not a claim about Hagar's own standing before God, whom Genesis shows caring for her directly, by name, twice (Galatians 4:21-31).