Hagar was on the run from Sarai’s harsh treatment. This devotional reading looks at how God revealed Himself to her to comfort and redirect her.
Nuggets
- God saw Hagar’s distress and blessed her.
- God wanted Hagar to go back to her station and rank.
- Okay, we may look at this and say it wasn’t a very good promise from the Israelite’s viewpoint, but it was for Hagar and her son.
- Hagar, a Gentile, responded to Abram’s God.
- Hagar returned to Mamre to have her son.
Sarai had come up with a plan to “help” God fulfill His promise of her having a son. He was taking too long by her estimation, so she came up with a way to get a kid.
Hagar, the slave, would be a surrogate. But things went downhill after they implemented Sarai’s plan.
Sarai started treating Hagar harshly, so the slave girl ran away. (We know where Ishmael got his wildness from!).
Let’s go on with the story
Let's Put It into Context
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Devotions in the Abraham the Patriarch series
Promised Blessings
“The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness, along the road to Shur. The angel said to her, ‘Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?’ ‘I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai,’ she replied. The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Return to your mistress, and submit to her authority.’ Then he added, ‘I will give you more descendants than you can count.” And the angel also said, “You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to name him Ishmael (which means ‘God hears’), for the Lord has heard your cry of distress. This son of yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives’” (Gen. 16: 7-12 NLT)
God saw Hagar’s distress and blessed her.
The Angel of the Lord Found Hagar
Hagar jumped ship before the baby was born. She wasn’t going to put up with Sarai’s abuse.
No, it doesn’t say Sarai kicked Hagar out, just that she treated her harshly. That may have been the ulterior motive, but it was Hagar’s decision to leave on the day she did.
God had other plans.
In this translation, it says God sent an angel to comfort her. This is the first time God sent a messenger on His behalf.
If we go back to the Hebrew, the way I read it is it says God came Himself. “And the Malach Hashem [the Lord is, was, and always will be King] found her by a spring of mayim [water] in the midbar [wilderness], near the spring on the road to Shur” (Gen. 16: 7 OJB).
Yes, Hagar was an Egyptian and, therefore, a Gentile. God still came to her to provide for and comfort her.
It would be logical to think — at a minimum — she knew about Abram’s God. She probably became Sarai’s servant when they were in Egypt. “Then Pharaoh gave Abram many gifts because of her — sheep, goats, cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels” (Gen. 12: 14-16 NLT emphasis added).
We figured that Abram and Sarai went to Egypt between 1885 and 1880. We split the difference and called the year 1882. This would have been 1875 to early 1874.
That means Hagar would have been with Abram and Sarai for five to ten years. No, in the big scheme of things, that wouldn’t be a long time. It may have felt like it, though.
Still, an observant slave would have had some kind of clue as to the God of her master and mistress.
Yes, God did call Hagar Sarai’s slave-girl. He didn’t elevate Hagar’s status, either. “And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s shifchah, from where camest thou? And where wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my gevirah [female head of the household] Sarai” (Gen. 16: 8 OJB emphasis added).
Fuller thought the angel did this to make forbid any marriage that may have taken place. That would be logical as God would want to preserve the sanctity of marriage.
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Gladden asked a great question. If the angel knew Hagar’s name, don’t you think he would know where she was going – especially if it was God Himself.
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Doesn’t God many times ask us questions to which He knows the answer? He wants us to articulate it. He doesn’t just step in and save the day. He doesn’t force Himself on us.
Dykes said something interesting – and true. He said Hagar was probably telling herself it was time to return. The Holy Spirit does have a way of working on us to nudge us in the right direction.
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God was gracious to her. No, He didn’t elevate her, but He didn’t start accusing her, either. God came to her with pity.
This might have been brought on by the desperation she felt. God was going to throw her a lifeline.
Notice Hagar didn’t answer the angel’s second question. She either didn’t know where she was going or didn’t want to say. She may not have thought it was an option to return, even if the Holy Spirit was prompting her.
God had plans for who Hagar’s baby would be. One of those plans was to be raised by Abram.
God knew He wasn’t going to make Hagar’s son the firstborn even though he was born first. (God has a way of usually doing that.) That privilege was saved for Sarai’s firstborn.
But that didn’t mean God left Hagar high and dry. He came to comfort her.
Return and Submit
God wanted Hagar to go back to her station and rank.
We have to remember that Hagar was an escaped slave. As much as we may want to cheer for her freedom, she legally was in the wrong.
Still, God came and found Hagar.
God really didn’t cut Hagar any slack. Some would think she was entitled to a pass because of the harsh treatment of Sarai against her.
Nope, God had specific directions for slaves to follow.
- “You who are slaves must submit to your masters with all respect. Do what they tell you — not only if they are kind and reasonable, but even if they are cruel” (I Pet. 2: 18 NLT).
- “Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God” (Rom. 13: 1 NLT).
- “Slaves must always obey their masters and do their best to please them. They must not talk back” (Ti. 2: 9 NLT).
- “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ” (Eph. 6: 5 NLT).
- “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord” (Col. 3: 22 NLT).
I know. We generally hate the word submit. God doesn’t.
God expects submission from all of us.
If we can’t obey our earthly leaders, how are we going to obey God, Whom we can’t see and Who has much more authority over us?
We are to perform our duties. Hagar’s duty as a slave in that culture was to submit to her master and mistress.
We talked a little about what Dykes said in the last devotion. Here is a more complete quote of what he wrote.
“The other [peculiarities of society in Abram’s day] was the complete surrender of a serf’s legal and social rights into the hand of his master, which in the East characterized domestic servitude. Every home slave stood at the disposal of his lord for whatever service the lord might require. His very children were not his own, but his master’s.”
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It was Hagar’s duty to go back. Yes, that grates on our sensibilities in today’s society, but we cannot judge ancient society. We have to learn from it.
Most of all, we need to see what God says about it. He worked Hagar’s plan out just as He did Abram’s and Sarai’s.
The difference here is that Hagar got a definite push. Thankfully, she followed God’s directions.
Remember what God told Abram? “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt …” (Gen. 12: 3 NLT).
What Hagar’s descendants forgot was something else God said. “… Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, And whoever curses Israel will be cursed” (Num. 24: 9).
God’s Promise
Okay, we may look at this and say it wasn’t a very good promise from the Israelite’s viewpoint, but it was for Hagar and her son.
Regardless of her status in life, God had plans for Hagar and her son. He laid out who he would become.
Because of this, Hagar knew that God saw her and had showed mercy to her. Think about it.
- Hagar was upset and probably angry. She had been forced out of, if not what she considered her home, the place she was living. She was forced out of her job. At least where she was, food, clothing, and shelter would have been provided to her.
- No where does it say where her intended destination was. It says she ran away and was found at a well.
- Hagar had to be feeling all kinds of emotions — anger, hurt, despair, loneliness, unworthiness.
Hagar must have been wandering how things worked out the way it did. But in a way, didn’t she bring it on herself.
No, Hagar probably didn’t have any say in the matter about becoming Abram’s secondary wife. She did have a say about the contempt and disrespect she felt for Sarai.
Circumstances do not condone our disobedience. We have to remain faithful regardless of the situation.
Hagar’s offspring are now called Arabs. Ishmael with the interesting personality description would be a ruler. They have been at odds with the Israelites since Day 1.
God could have removed the conflict. He didn’t.
But we’ll talk about them later.
For now, let’s just say that God gave Hagar a promise that was not dependent on any contingencies. Aldis reminded us that was the way it was going to be. He wrote that it was “A bare announcement of what would be the physical, moral, and social condition of the person or persons to whom the passage refers.”
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The description of Ishmael – and therefore, his descendants – is interesting. “This son of yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives” (Gen. 16: 12 NLT).
Ishmael would be a free man, but he would have a hostile disposition. But is that what it really says?
Let’s look at this in the Hebrew. “And he will be a pere adam [wild man]; his yad [hand] will be against kol [all], and kol yad against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren” (Gen. 16: 12 OJB).
- Nothing is said about a donkey.
- It doesn’t reiterate the part about open hostility.
- Instead, it says they will live in proximity to each other.
God wants us to be a family, but He knows there will be black sheep within the family. We’ve got to love them and help draw them back to Him.
God could have made it so Sarai didn’t get the wild hair to give Hagar to Abram in the first place. He didn’t.
God does not remove our trials and tribulations. He guides us through them.
The God Who Sees
“Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her. She said, ‘You are the God who sees me.’ She also said, ‘Have I truly seen the One who sees me?’ So that well was named Beer-lahai-roi (which means ‘well of the Living One who sees me’). It can still be found between Kadesh and Bered” (Gen. 16: 13-14 NLT)
Hagar, a Gentile, responded to Abram’s God.
I have always wondered what Hagar was feeling at this point. God had found her in her wandering and spoke to her.
If she had known anything about Abram’s God, she would have known he had never seen Him. He was always up in Heaven.
But here God was — on earth — talking to Hagar — a Gentile.
Well, God is all-seeing. “The Lord is watching everywhere, keeping his eye on both the evil and the good” (Prov. 15: 3 NLT).
Not only does God see us, but He also sees the real us. He knows our thoughts and motives. He knows what our actions will be before we do them.
Most of all, God sees our response to Him. Are we His child or just one of His creation? Does our faith produce obedience and fruit, or do we even believe He is God?
God knows where we have been without asking. He knows where we are going, even if we don’t. He knows if we are walking on the Sanctification Road.
God sees the good, bad, and the ugly in us — and loves us anyway.
Denham reminded us that God is no spectator. He is a hands-on Father.
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Because God came to Hagar and ministered to her in her time of need, she obeyed Him and returned to Mamre.
I like what Redford said. He wrote, “The faith which initiates practical obedience is a progressive blessedness.”
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Faith that provides obedience leads to ongoing blessings. Remember, blessings are in the obedience, which is the product of faith.
Hagar responded to God. In the same way, we are to respond to Him.
How many times so we ask why God has come to us? We may think we are irredeemable. We may not feel like we are a normal disciple He would choose.
But choose us He does. If He had His way, all would choose Him.
The Firstborn but not the Chosen One
“So Hagar gave Abram a son, and Abram named him Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Ishmael was born” (Gen. 16: 15-16 NLT)
Hagar returned to Mamre to have her son.
Remember, Hagar was Egyptian. We are not told how much she believed in Abram’s God before this encounter.
What we do know is that Hagar listened. She went back and had her baby.
We question why God didn’t make Isaac the firstborn if so much was put on being firstborn. This has to go in the UNR book — understanding not required.
Making the Connections #1
Why was Sarai’s plan and Abram’s acceptance of her plan so detrimental to ancient marriage? Dykes told us. He wrote,
“For a mistress, therefore, to seek by means of a female slave and favourite attendant what Providence had denied to herself, was regarded under such a state of feeling as neither immoral nor revolting. It was not even held to be any real departure from the law of monogamy, or any infraction of conjugal fidelity. There is no doubt, however, that it did involve a certain lowering of the original conception of marriage. It paved the way for concubinage of a less excusable description. And in the majority of cases, as in the present instance, it could scarcely fail to turn out ill.”
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This is the first of Shem’s line to even have some semblance of going outside of their wedding vows. As with other sins, this snowballed.
Making the Connections #2
Murphy gave us a quick Angels 101 class.
- They are spiritual beings as God is. “Therefore, angels are only servants — spirits sent to care for people who will inherit salvation” (Heb. 1: 14 NLT).
- They are moral, intelligent, and strong.
- They carry out God’s commands through the abilities God gave them. “Praise the LORD, you angels, you mighty ones who carry out his plans, listening for each of his commands” (Ps. 103: 20 NLT).
- They are ageless and eternal.
- They worship God. “And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living beings. And they fell before the throne with their faces to the ground and worshiped God” (Rev. 7: 11 NLT).
- They minister to believers. “Therefore, angels are only servants—spirits sent to care for people who will inherit salvation” (Heb. 1: 14 NLT).
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Making the Connections #3
This is a great reminder of just how loving God is. Hagar wasn’t a Hebrew — she was a Gentile Egyptian. She wasn’t sinless — God reminded her that she walked away from her duty.
Yet, there God was, hearing her affliction and coming to her.
This is becoming SOP — God comes to us. He comes to us because He sees us. He know exactly what we have done and what we are going through.
I like what Leale said. He wrote, “God not only sees us, but sees through us, and knows us altogether.”
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God can see and see through worldview people. It isn’t just His children in which He can do that. He can do it in all His creation.
Making the Connections #4
We aren’t told about Hagar’s reception from Sarai on her return. We don’t know if she continued to treat her harshly or not.
We do know that Hagar and Ishmael stayed with Abram and Sarai for over a decade. We know God did eventually tell Abram to cut them loose.
Making the Connections #5
How many times would we rather God not see us? We want to hide our sins from Him, but we can’t. He sees us.
But look at it this way. When we, too, were in sin and running away from Him, God came to us and called us to salvation.
Yes, we continue to sin, but we need to continue to repent.
How Do We Apply This?
- Don’t blame those we see as responsible for the problem for our response to the problem.
- Remain meekly submissive to God and His promises.
- Remember that God see our misery and distress.
- Know that God hears our prayers.
- Guard against the sins of distrust and presumption.
- Be grateful that God is patient, tender, and compassionate toward us.
- Strive to be honest and sincere.
- Never forget that God sees us 24/7/365/eternity.
- Worship God with all our hearts.
- Don’t think we have to understand and comprehend God.
- Truly worship God.
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Father God. It was in Your plan that Abram have a son by Hagar. It is Your plan that Ishmael and his descendants would be at odds with Isaac and his descendants. We praise You that You brought that plan to fruition. Amen.
What do you think?
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