Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Journey to Canaan | Part 3: Settlement | Part 4: Establishment | Part 5: Covenant
Now established in the land, and thus largely at peace with the neighboring Canaanites, Abram, with the encouragement of his wife, decides to take this whole Covenant thing into his own hands. Genesis 16 is the next chapter in our saga.
The couple has their reasons (Ge 16.1-3). It’s been ten years, and Sarai Abram’s wife still has not had a child. She, too, feels the pressure of the relentlessly ticking clock. She notes that she has a young female servant, named Hagar, for whom bearing a child would be a natural function (Ge 16.1). She recommends that Abram have the promised son by her (Ge 16.2-3).
This strikes us as, well, odd. What wife would recommend that her husband sleep with an employee?
As it happens, this practice, too, is mentioned in the Nuzi texts, as well as in Hammurabi’s law code (145-46). Having children, a posterity, was viewed as a necessary thing. It was also viewed as the sole responsibility of the wife–their knowledge of biology being incomplete. If a wife could not bear a child, she was obligated–obligated–to find a woman who could bear in her place. That child would then be the wife’s legal offspring.
So Sarai does what’s expected, though, as we shall see, she’s not completely at peace with the idea. And Abram goes along with this culturally “normal” plan (Ge 16.4). After all, the Covenant had not specified that Sarai would be the mother of the child (Ge 12.2; 13.16; 15.18). This solution seems obvious.
Hagar conceives, and as an Egyptian, steeped in the culture of the Middle East, she “despises” Sarai, the culturally disgraced barren woman (Ge 16.4). Sarai, of course, finds that outcome doubly humiliating (Ge 16.5).
What happens next displays the inherent irrationality of polygamy. Of course the two women aren’t going to get along. Sarai mistreats Hagar, who takes off (Ge 16.6). She is found “on the way to Shur” (Ge 16.7), which indicates that she’s headed for her home in Egypt.
And here we have the first biblical mention of “the angel of the LORD” (Ge 16.7), a key figure in the theology of the Old Testament. He greets her by name and calls into question her decision to flee (Ge 16.8). In so doing he calls her “Sarai’s servant.” This is significant. Hammurabi’s code would have made her Abram’s primary wife, as the one with a child. The angel reverses that: “You’re still a servant. You have no right to leave.” Hagar admits as much by calling Sarai “my mistress.”
So the angel orders her to return (Ge 16.9). And then it becomes clear that this is no mere angel (“messenger”) of God. He now speaks as God: “I will multiply thy seed” (Ge 16.10). Yet he immediately speaks of God in the third person: “The LORD has heard your affliction” (Ge 16.11).
How can this person be God, yet distinct from God?
We’ll have to wait for the New Testament to give us the information we need to answer this question.
Note that the angel names the child: Ishmael (Ge 16.11): “God hears.” He will not be the promised child of the Covenant (Ge 16.12).
Hagar responds rightly, demonstrating that she is grateful for God’s seeing her quandary; she names the well “the well of the one who lives and sees me” (Ge 16.14). I find it interesting that the angel’s emphasis is on God’s “hearing,” while Hagar’s is on his “seeing.” In this case, they’re essentially the same thing.
Hagar clearly communicated the angel’s message to Abram when she returned; he names the boy as she was instructed by the angel (Ge 16.15).
Hagar has acted rightly in all this–other than “despising” Sarai after her conception.
Given what we’ve seen, I think it’s a mistake to see Abram’s action here as faithless. He is acting on what he knows–that he’s going to have a son (by whom is so far not specified). His ten-year wait indicates that he has reason to believe that his wife is not going to be the mother; perhaps the Lord is expecting him to take responsibility and act to bring the promise to pass.
He’s a wealthy man, with a large (mobile) estate to administer; it’s reasonable to assume that he’s a man who takes responsibility and acts to accomplish his ends.
So he does.
Next time: God corrects his thinking.
Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
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