An Alternative Plan: Hagar

Hagar and Ishmael

Hagar- Abram and Sarai's maid, who they decide would be the concubine (a marriage-like relationship with a man the woman cannot marry for a specific reason) and beget a child by her since Sarai cannot bear children

Ishmael- born of Hagar, but legally Sarai's son

• Tensions rose between Sarai and Hagar.


• God convinces hagar to go back to Sarai in promise to Hagar that Ishmael will grow into a manhood wild and free.


• God still has a plan for Sarai to bear child.

VOCABULARY

polygamy- the practice of taking more than one wife

monogamy- taking only one wife

Factoids...
Polygamy was an early biblical custom.
If a wife was barren, a servant might become a surrogate child bearer, a concubine to a husband. Or the husband may take a 2nd wife to give the family children.

These practices ensure the survival of a tribe.

The story of Adam and Eve, however, says that monogamy was the biblical idea.

Biblical reading for this section: Genesis 16: 1-16

Hagar and Ishmael

¹ Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; ² so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”

Abram agreed to what Sarai said. ³ So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. ⁴ He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.

When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. ⁵ Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.”

⁶ “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

⁷ The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. ⁸ And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”

“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.

⁹ Then the angel of the LORD told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” ¹⁰ The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”

¹¹ The angel of the LORD also said to her:

“You are now pregnant
and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,^[a]
for the LORD has heard of your misery.
¹² He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward^[b] all his brothers.”

¹³ She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen^[c] the One who sees me.” ¹⁴ That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi^[d]; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.

¹⁵ So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

*** We chose this verse, the words bold and in red, because it shows who Ishmael is destined to be. This also convinces Hagar to give up Ishmael to Abram and Sarai.