Genesis 16

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The chapter opens with a jarring contrast to the grand promises of chapter 15. God has promised Abram offspring as numerous as the stars — yet Sarai 'had not borne him children' (lo yaledah lo). The barrenness is stated bluntly, without explanation or softening.
2. 'Maidservant' (shifchah, שִׁפְחָה) — a female servant of lower status than an amah. A shifchah was personal property, often given as part of a dowry. The term will be important throughout the chapter, as Hagar's social status drives the conflict.
3. Hagar is identified as 'Egyptian' (mitsrit). This detail recalls Abram and Sarai's sojourn in Egypt (12:10–20), where Pharaoh gave Abram servants. Hagar may have been acquired during that episode — making her presence in the household a lingering consequence of Abram's earlier failure of faith.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'The LORD has prevented me' (atsarani YHWH) — Sarai attributes her barrenness directly to God's action. The verb atsar means 'to restrain, shut up, close.' Sarai does not blame biology or fate; she names God as the one who has closed her womb. This is theologically honest but also sets the stage for a human solution to what she sees as a divine problem.
2. 'Perhaps I will be built up through her' (ulai ibbaneh mimennah) — the verb ibbaneh is a Niphal (passive/reflexive) form of banah ('to build'). There is a deliberate wordplay: banah ('build') and ben ('son') share the same root (b-n-h / b-n). To 'be built up' through a surrogate is to gain a son — and through a son, a household, a legacy, a future. The wordplay is untranslatable but essential.
3. Sarai's proposal follows well-attested ancient Near Eastern legal custom. Texts from Nuzi and Old Babylonian marriage contracts show that a barren wife could provide her maidservant to her husband as a surrogate. The child born would legally belong to the wife. This is not moral innovation — it is cultural convention.
4. 'Abram listened to the voice of Sarai' (vayyishma Abram leqol Sarai) — the phrasing echoes Adam's failure in 3:17 ('because you listened to the voice of your wife'). The narrator may be drawing a deliberate parallel: just as Adam acquiesced to Eve's initiative with negative consequences, Abram acquiesces to Sarai's plan with similarly complicated results.

Translator Notes

1. The narrator emphasizes the formal, deliberate nature of this act. The verse is heavy with titles and identifiers: 'Sarai, Abram's wife' ... 'Hagar the Egyptian, her maidservant' ... 'Abram her husband.' Every social role is named, as if the narrator is recording a legal transaction — which, in effect, it is.
2. 'After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan' — a chronological note that underscores the length of waiting. Abram arrived in Canaan at age 75 (12:4); he is now 85. Ten years of barrenness since the promise. The duration explains (though does not justify) the turn to a human solution.
3. 'Gave her to him as a wife' (le'ishah, לְאִשָּׁה) — Hagar's status changes. She is not merely used as a surrogate; she is given the formal status of wife (ishah). This mirrors the language of 2:22, where God 'brought her to the man.' The parallel with Eve's presentation is structurally deliberate and theologically loaded.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'He went in to Hagar' (vayyavo el-Hagar) — the act is reported with characteristic Hebrew narrative brevity. No emotional commentary, no description of the relational dynamics. The narrator records the act and moves immediately to its consequence.
2. 'Her mistress became diminished in her eyes' (vatteqal gevirtah be'eineha) — the verb qalal means 'to be light, to be slight, to be of little account.' It is the opposite of kavod ('honor, weight, glory'). Hagar's fertility gives her what Sarai lacks, and the power dynamics shift. The one who can bear children looks down on the one who cannot. This is not abstract theology — it is the raw social reality of the ancient world, where a woman's worth was measured by her womb.
3. The term gevirtah ('mistress') is the feminine counterpart of adon ('lord, master'). It emphasizes the social hierarchy that Hagar's contempt violates.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'The wrong done to me is upon you' (chamasi aleikha) — chamas means 'violence, injustice, wrong.' Sarai holds Abram responsible for the social humiliation she now suffers. The irony is sharp: Sarai initiated the arrangement (v. 2), yet she blames Abram for its consequences. The accusation is legally framed — chamas is a term of covenant violation and social injustice.
2. 'I gave my maidservant into your embrace' (natatti shifchati becheiqekha) — cheiq means 'bosom, embrace, lap.' The intimacy of the language makes Sarai's complaint more pointed: she personally arranged this intimate relationship, and now she feels betrayed by its result.
3. 'May the LORD judge between me and you' (yishpot YHWH beini uveinekha) — Sarai invokes God as arbiter. This legal formula appears in covenant disputes (cf. 31:53; 1 Sam 24:13). Sarai appeals to divine justice, even though the situation arose from her own initiative. The invocation of YHWH as judge between spouses signals the depth of the marital rupture.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. Abram's response is a striking abdication. Having taken Hagar as a wife (v. 3), he now hands her back to Sarai's authority: 'your maidservant is in your hand.' He refuses to intervene, refuses to protect, refuses to adjudicate. The man who has just received the covenant of chapter 15 fails to exercise the justice it implies.
2. 'Sarai afflicted her' (vatte'anneha Sarai) — the verb 'innah (עִנָּה) means 'to afflict, to oppress, to humble.' This is the same root used in 15:13 where God tells Abram that his descendants will be 'afflicted' (ve'innu otam) in a foreign land for four hundred years. The verbal echo is devastating: Sarai, a future matriarch of Israel, treats her Egyptian servant the way Egypt will later treat Israel. The oppressed becomes the oppressor.
3. 'She fled from her presence' (vativrach mippaneha) — Hagar's flight into the wilderness prefigures Israel's flight from Egypt. A Hebrew mistress oppresses an Egyptian servant, who flees into the wilderness — the same pattern, reversed in ethnic terms, that will define the Exodus narrative.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'The angel of the LORD' (mal'akh YHWH, מַלְאַךְ יְהוָה) — this is the first appearance of this figure in the Bible. The mal'akh YHWH is one of the most mysterious figures in the Hebrew Bible: sometimes distinguishable from God, sometimes identified with God (see v. 13, where Hagar names the speaker as God himself). The angel speaks with divine authority, makes promises only God can make (v. 10), yet is described as a messenger (mal'akh means 'messenger, envoy').
2. 'Found her' (vayimtsa'ah) — God seeks out the marginalized. Hagar is a pregnant, foreign, runaway slave in the desert — and God finds her. The verb matsa ('to find') implies purposeful seeking. God does not stumble upon Hagar; he goes to her.
3. 'On the way to Shur' — Shur is on the northeastern border of Egypt. Hagar is heading home — back toward Egypt, away from the promised land. The geography of her flight is theologically significant: she is moving away from the sphere of covenant promise and toward her homeland.

Translator Notes

1. The angel's two questions — 'where have you come from?' and 'where are you going?' — echo God's question to Adam in the garden (3:9). The questions are not for God's information; they are for Hagar's self-reflection. She must name her situation: she is running from something, but does she know what she is running toward?
2. The angel addresses her by name and social identity: 'Hagar, maidservant of Sarai.' He does not call her 'wife of Abram' (her newer status from v. 3) but 'maidservant of Sarai' (her original status). The designation is not demeaning — it is clarifying. Her identity and her obligation remain tied to Sarai.
3. Hagar's answer is partial: 'I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.' She answers only the first question (where from?), not the second (where to?). She knows what she is escaping but has no destination, no plan. She is a woman in flight without a future.

Translator Notes

1. 'Return to your mistress' (shuvi el-gevirtekh) — the command to return is difficult. Hagar is being sent back to the very situation from which she fled. Yet the command is coupled with a promise (vv. 10–12) that transforms the meaning of her return: she goes back not as a forgotten slave, but as a woman who has been seen by God and who carries a divinely named child.
2. 'Submit yourself under her authority' (vehit'anni tachat yadeha) — the verb hit'anni is the Hitpael (reflexive) of 'anah, the same root used for Sarai's 'affliction' of Hagar in v. 6. The angel tells Hagar to 'humble yourself' under Sarai's hand — using the very verb that described her mistreatment. This is not an endorsement of abuse; it is a command to endure within a social structure that will, in God's timing, yield blessing. The reflexive form shifts the agency: Hagar is to humble herself, not merely be humbled.

Translator Notes

1. 'I will greatly multiply' (harbah arbeh) — the infinitive absolute construction (harbah + finite verb arbeh) intensifies the promise. This is the same grammatical structure used in God's promises to Abram (cf. 22:17). The angel speaks with divine authority — making a promise that only God can fulfill. This further blurs the line between the angel and God himself.
2. The promise to Hagar parallels the promise to Abram: innumerable offspring (cf. 13:16; 15:5). Hagar, a foreign slave woman, receives a version of the patriarchal blessing. God's care extends beyond the covenant line. The promise is remarkable: an Egyptian runaway slave receives from God's own messenger an assurance of countless descendants.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. This is an annunciation — a divine announcement of a birth with a divinely assigned name. It is the first birth annunciation in the Bible, establishing a pattern that will recur for Isaac (17:19), Samson (Judg 13:3–5), and ultimately for Jesus (Luke 1:31). Remarkably, this foundational pattern is first given not to a matriarch of Israel but to an Egyptian slave woman.
2. 'You shall call his name Ishmael' (veqara't shemo Yishma'el) — the name Yishma'el (יִשְׁמָעֵאל) means 'God hears' or 'God will hear.' It is composed of yishma ('he hears') + El ('God'). The child's very name is a permanent testimony that God heard the cry of a marginalized woman.
3. 'The LORD has heard your affliction' (ki-shama YHWH el-onyekh) — the word 'affliction' (oni, עֳנִי) is from the same root as the verb 'anah used in vv. 6 and 9. God heard the very affliction that Sarai inflicted. The name Ishmael encodes both the suffering and the divine response to it.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'A wild donkey of a man' (pere adam, פֶּרֶא אָדָם) — the pere is the wild donkey (onager), an animal celebrated in the ancient world for its untamable freedom. It roams the desert steppe, refuses domestication, and answers to no master (cf. Job 39:5–8). The description is not derogatory but characterizes fierce independence and desert survival. Ishmael's descendants will be Bedouin peoples of the wilderness — free, resilient, and ungovernable.
2. 'His hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him' — this describes a life of perpetual conflict and self-assertion. The characterization fits the semi-nomadic, raiding lifestyle of desert peoples. It is descriptive prophecy, not moral judgment.
3. 'He will live in defiance of all his brothers' (al-penei khol-echav yishkon) — the phrase al-penei can mean 'in the presence of,' 'before the face of,' 'opposite to,' or 'in defiance of.' The ambiguity is productive. Ishmael will dwell alongside his kinsmen — Isaac's line — but in a posture of independence, perhaps confrontation. The prophecy anticipates the complex, enduring relationship between the Ishmaelite and Israelite peoples.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'She called the name of the LORD' (vatiqra shem-YHWH) — Hagar is the only person in Genesis who gives God a name. Not Abraham, not Isaac, not Jacob — but Hagar, the Egyptian slave woman. She names God based on her experience of him: the God who sees.
2. 'El Roi' (אֵל רֳאִי) — 'God of seeing' or 'God who sees me.' The name captures Hagar's astonishment: God saw her. In a world where she was invisible — a foreign slave, a disposable surrogate — God saw her. The name is a theological revolution compressed into two words.
3. 'Have I truly seen the one who sees me, even here?' — the Hebrew of this phrase (halom ra'iti acharei ro'i) is notoriously difficult. The general sense is Hagar's amazement that she has had a direct encounter with God and survived (cf. 32:30; Exod 33:20). The word halom ('here') emphasizes the location — even here, in the wilderness, far from any sanctuary or sacred site, God appeared.
4. The interplay of 'seeing' (r-'-h) runs throughout: God sees Hagar (El Roi), Hagar sees God (ra'iti), and she is astonished by the mutual vision. The theme of seeing will recur at key moments in Genesis (22:14, 'The LORD will see/provide').

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. 'Beer-lahai-roi' (בְּאֵר לַחַי רֹאִי) — the name means 'the well of the living one who sees me' or 'the well of the living one of my seeing.' It combines be'er ('well'), lachai ('of the living one'), and ro'i ('who sees me' or 'my seeing'). The well becomes a permanent geographic marker of Hagar's encounter with God — a place where the living God saw a desperate woman and she lived to tell of it.
2. The narrator adds a geographical note: 'between Kadesh and Bered.' This places the well in the Negev desert, in the region south of Canaan on the road toward Egypt. The location will reappear — Isaac will later settle near Beer-lahai-roi (24:62; 25:11), suggesting that the well becomes significant for both lines of Abraham's family.
3. Place-naming in Genesis serves as theological testimony: a location receives a name that permanently encodes a divine encounter. Bethel ('house of God'), Peniel ('face of God'), and Beer-lahai-roi all function as stone witnesses embedded in the landscape.

Translator Notes

1. The narrative comes full circle: the barrenness introduced in v. 1 is partially resolved. Hagar bears a son — but it is not the son of the promise. The chapter opened with Sarai's inability to bear; it closes with Hagar's successful childbirth. The tension between these two women, and between human initiative and divine promise, remains unresolved.
2. 'Abram called the name of his son ... Ishmael' — Abram, not Hagar, names the child. This implies that Hagar told Abram about her encounter with the angel and the divinely assigned name. Abram accepts the angel's instruction and names his son 'God hears.' In doing so, Abram acknowledges both God's involvement and his own paternity.
3. The narrator carefully specifies: 'his son whom Hagar bore' (beno asher-yaledah Hagar). The maternal identity is noted — this is Hagar's son, not Sarai's. Despite the surrogate arrangement of v. 2, the narrative does not erase Hagar's motherhood.

Translator Notes

1. The chapter closes with a chronological note: Abram is eighty-six. He was seventy-five when called (12:4), making it eleven years since the original promise. The son of promise (Isaac) will not arrive until Abram is one hundred (21:5) — fourteen more years of waiting. Ishmael's birth does not resolve the narrative tension; it deepens it.
2. The repetition of 'to Abram' (le'Avram) at the end of the verse emphasizes paternity. This is Abram's son — a fact that will have lasting significance when the question arises of who is Abraham's true heir (chapters 17 and 21).