Remember when Abram was a little daft and basically watched his wife Sarai be taken up into the arms of the Egyptian king? (read my last blog for more…)
The outcome of this little exchange was actually a whole heap of blessings on Abram and his tribe from the very embarrassed King. He couldn’t get Abram out of his country quick enough and to make sure he was effective, he threw in a stack of little extras to sweeten the deal…..animals, money, and male and female servants.
We can most likely make an educated guess that amongst this servitude group was a girl named Hagar. Hagar, in all of the exchange was now a possession of the boss’s wife, Sarai.
I am not sure what the exact role of a servant girl in ancient Hebrew times would look like but I would expect tasks like food preparation, cleaning out the desert sands, sewing and perhaps a bit of personal care to the ‘Mrs”. It would have been a dustier version of Downton Abbey.
Hagar would have been around the main tent pretty often, had an insight perhaps into the inner circle of the show, so to speak but I am not sure baby making vessel was necessarily part of the job description.
Hagar as far as I can tell, was not a concubine. She is clearly described as a servant girl. She was however, at the discretion of her mistress Sarai.
Sarai was getting older and did not look like the being able to conceive the child that would be the inheritance. She had been told all about Gods promises – especially that an heir would be produced. It must have been very difficult watching the years slip by with no result month after month.
It was time to take matters into her own hands!
I have never done this…..ever ever…….(cough!)
Sarai would have heard about the promise God gave Abram in Genesis chapter 15. God was clear – the promised descendent would come from Abram, he would not have to hand it all over to his servant.
As Sarai was not falling pregnant, it was easy perhaps for her to see that the issue in her mind’s eye was herself. She seemed to believe the promise for Abram. He would indeed produce an heir. She just couldn’t see that perhaps the promise would in fact include herself. This was withheld at this stage. Don’t we just love making presumptions when we only have half the information!
So Sarai began a plan for the plan.
At the very beginning of Genesis chapter 16 we see Sarai’s plan unfold.
“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.”
It is all very matter of fact isn’t it! At least from the perspective of Abram and Sarai. I just can’t help but think of how each of the parties involved all really felt about this….
SARAI:
Perhaps she was really close with Hagar at the time. She would have been fairly intimate with her. Seen Hagar’s nature perhaps and thought, yes, this can work. She will have lovely children for Abram? How on earth though do you ever present your husband with another woman and not ever think about the detail? Sarai’s mental state must have been off the charts! Doesn’t seem like there was much argument from old Abe. Did Sarai regret her decision the minute the tent flap closed? Would he fall in love with her? Would he prefer her? What if more than once was required???
ABRAM:
Come on Abram. Did you think about it? Did you hesitate? Did you fight back? No use over thinking this I don’t think. He agreed and did the deed!
I know he was a busy man, but was he prepared for the fallout of all of this?
HAGAR:
How on earth was Hagar feeling? She needed to survive I suppose. She had been sent from her homeland and this family was her means of survival. I wonder if Sarai convinced her over a period of time, or was it just sprung on her?
I don’t feel like Hagar really had a choice here.
Well, the plan worked.
Hagar becomes pregnant.
And this is when things all start going downhill for all concerned.
At the end of verse 4 in chapter 16 of Genesis it simply states that Hagar began to despise her mistress.
All of a sudden Hagar had the upper hand in this family drama, She had managed to do what the mistress couldn’t all these years. She was going to have the much waited for descendent of Abram!
I love the next part….Sarai uses the old ‘I forgot I had a part of this’ behaviour and blames Abram for everything! It reminds me of when Eve took the apple in the garden and the blame game started. “Sarai says to Abram, ‘You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.’”
Hahahaha – sorry…but I just love the human nature of this interchange between husband and wife.
Abram wiped his hands of the whole saga and put the responsibility right back on his Mrs.
This was never ever going to go well. I reckon you must have been able to cut the air with a knife in that campsite.
If Hagar thought she could let the power she thought she had go right to her head, well she was sorely mistaken.
Good old Sarai was about to make her life a living nightmare. Verse 6..”Then Sarai mistreated Hagar.’ She needed Hagar to remember who the boss was and who would in fact most take possession of this unborn baby,
Not a good look Sarai. Especially considering you started all of this. Jealousy has easily been one of Satan’s greatest tools – right back to early biblical days and strife among women is utterly dangerous and effective.
Hagar fled!
This was no small thing. She was younger, not of this land, a servant – so likely had little or no possessions, and to top it all off, pregnant without a husband.
Hagar headed for what is described in one biblical text as the desert, in another the wilderness. Perhaps she was attempting to head home to Egypt.
Well, as God tends to do, when Hagar was in the wilderness He shows up! An angel finds Hagar, This means to me that he was actively looking for her. How wonderful. I bet Hagar genuinely thought that she didn’t matter to anyone. That she wouldn’t even be missed. How wrong she was.
Genesis 16: 7, an angel shows up. The text says the angel was ‘from the Lord’. He knows her name and even though I am pretty sure he knows the answer to both of his questions, he asks anyway.
“Hagar, slave of Sarai where have you come from and where are you going?” Hagar is given the opportunity (perhaps her first in a long time), to speak. To tell her side of things. She admits to everything, “I am running away….”
How often we wish to be heard validated and have someone pat us on the back, tell us it will all be ok and that yes, we were in fact done very badly against and they will go and fight the good fight for us.
We love that don’t we!?
We are always right, all the time. Our version of events is the only one to hear.
Well…..
I 100% believe that our version of our life is 100% valid. That God 100% cares and knows and loves.
However, sometimes we need the kind of response that Hagar was given.
“Go back…..submit!”
Go back and hand yourself fully over to the situation. Humble yourself and seek the lower position in the situation.
Be like Jesus!
Its lovely when we say that we want to be more like Jesus, but this is truly where the rubber hits the road!
Submission means surrender. Quieting yourself to the life you are thrown in to. This is definitely not a natural response for most of us! Our natural response is to do what Hagar had tried to do….take control and get the heck out of Dodge (or the desert, in her case!)
Thankfully, the instruction from the angel was followed up with a compassionate explanation of what Hagar’s future would hold. She will have more descendants than just this bub. Almost the same promise given to Abram. So many descendants that she wouldn’t be able to count them.
The reality though of who this baby that she was carrying was quite clear. He would be wild. He would be against everyone. He would be hostile.
Tough words to hear, especially in her fragile state. I wonder if she ever tried in the raising of Ishmael to change his nature?
Hagar acknowledges that God sees her. That she felt seen by the God of heaven. The Egyptian culture that she came from would not, I believe, acknowledge the God of Israel, but Hagar with her first hand encounter certainly did.
The next time we see Hagar mentioned is well after Abram and Sarai have had a name change and the long awaited son for them has been born. A celebration was being held in Isaac’s honour, because he had been weaned! This was an important celebration in the Jewish culture. It basically meant the baby had survived the most difficult part of his life and could perhaps now survive without the constant care of his mother. Isaac could have been anywhere between 18 months to 5 years old. What a celebration!
Sarah, who I am sure was the ancient version of a helicopter mum, noticed that Ishmael was mocking her son. The bible text doesn’t say exactly what the mocking was for, or why, but I read from this that the angels words to Hagar those many years ago were indeed true. Ishmael was already showing tendencies of being wild and against others.
Sarah was just not going to put up with it. She asks Abraham in verse 10 to ‘get rid of that slave woman and her son.”
Sarah did not acknowledge in her words that Ishmael was also a son of Abraham, however we see in the following verses that Abraham was distressed by the whole situation.
God and Abraham obviously continued a close relationship because we see in verse 12 that God yet again speaks directly to Abraham, almost like he is right there.
God offers the alternative, supporting both women and their sons in this scenario.
I don’t for a minute think though that Abraham found this an easy situation. He obviously had a connection with Hagar and Ishmael. He was not cruel. He made sure they had supplies for the journey.
When God tells us no, He always provides an alternative. He always supplies our needs for the situation and He was not going to allow Hagar to be abandoned completely.
Hagar yet again sat down once her supplies got low and sobbed her heart out. Ishmael was not a baby, he would have been a teenager at this point, but her heart broke regardless. He was her son. The love of her life and she felt utterly helpless to protect and provide for him.
How often do we feel like this with our kids?
Our resources all but gone.
Our parenting tactics all used to no avail.
Feeling helpless and alone.
Watching our kid’s hearts break and having absolutely no clue how to fix things.
Well – this time God HEARD!
Again an angel was dispatched!
How incredible is this.
God sees and God hears.
He pays attention and is already sending a loving solution before we have even asked for it. We are still in the depths of our despair and have no clue that we have been seen and heard and planned for.
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