The Abraham Story Part 11: The Oppression of Hagar

The Oppression of Hagar

I was trying to draw attention to the way that the vocabulary and imagery of the Eden story is permeating chapter Genesis 11:27–25:18.

And so that's, again, setting us up with the melody. So what comes after the great promise and provision of blessing and abundance and seed and well, you know what's gonna happen next.

Genesis 16:1–16 NASB95

1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. 2 So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 3 After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife. 4 He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her sight. 5 And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done me be upon you. I gave my maid into your arms, but when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her sight. May the Lord judge between you and me.” 6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your maid is in your power; do to her what is good in your sight.” So Sarai treated her harshly, and she fled from her presence. 7 Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. 8 He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?” And she said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.” 9 Then the angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.” 10 Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.” 11 The angel of the Lord said to her further, “Behold, you are with child, And you will bear a son; And you shall call his name Ishmael, Because the Lord has given heed to your affliction. 12 “He will be a wild donkey of a man, His hand will be against everyone, And everyone’s hand will be against him; And he will live to the east of all his brothers.” 13 Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God who sees”; for she said, “Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?” 14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. 15 So Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.

Now, verse 1, "Sarai, the wife of Avram had not given birth for him." Do you remember the first time Sarai was brought up all the way in chapter 11? The first thing that you learned about her was she was not able to give birth to a child. So that was brought all the way back up here again and put in the foreground.

So we're not learning anything right now, we're just highlighting something that was brought up earlier. "She had not given birth for him, but here's what she did have, a slave girl, an Egyptian one, and her name was The Immigrant." So Hagar is a transliteration, it's a spelling in English letters of her name in Hebrew. But "Hagar" is the Hebrew word for the, "ha" is the, and then "gar" is immigrant. It's the same word that was used in the previous narrative where God says to Avram, "Your seed will become immigrants in a land not their own." It's the same word.

And let's just remember, you were told the story of how Avram and Sarai ended up with a female Egyptian slave. Do you recall?

It was the last moment that we walked through the melody of Genesis 3, up in the story of Egypt. Do you remember the story of Genesis 12 and going down to Egypt was the Genesis 3 beat in the melody? And here we are again. And lo and behold, so that slave that Avram acquired through deceit and treachery is now, so it's kind of this, it's like this ricochet effect of one bad decision. And then he, they take ownership of this Egyptian girl, and now it's gonna get even worse. It's like a sad thing becomes even more sad.

So her name was Hagar, The Immigrant. "And Sarai said to Avram, 'Look, please, Yahweh has restrained me from giving birth.'" If Yahweh wanted to give us a child, he would, but notice how she is attributing her infertility to Yahweh.

Yahweh hasn't given us seed yet, so I've got a plan. I've got a scheme.

"'Go in to my slave girl. Perhaps I can be built up by means of her.'" Building, it's an architectural word, to be built up.

The only times that that word has been used in the story so far, what have been some of the building projects that we've come across?

So we had Cain's city. Yeah, we had Babylon, Nimrod, but there was one building project before that even. It's actually the first building project in the Bible. It's in Genesis 2.

After God splits the Adam, "he takes from one of the man's ribs." This is what all our English translations do. It's not the word "rib," it's the word "side." "He took from the man's side and the Lord God," NIV says "made," it's the word "build." He built the woman from the man. He built the ’ishah from the ’ish. So the first building project is the ‘ezer, the delivering help.

New American Standard, "the Lord God fashioned." That feels like 75-year-old English.

The ESV has, "he made into a woman." The NRSV, "he made." So our English translations kinda hide the connection, the motif. So when God builds things, he builds Eden gifts. When humans build, they build their own versions of Eden.

And so there's this contrast of the building projects that God gives, the building projects of humans. And so just through one little word, because it's kind of a weird thing to say, like, "Perhaps I can be built up by means of the slave." God is in the habit of building families. So please go into my slave girl 'cause I've got this building project idea. We're gonna build a family, but I'll build it with this idea that I have. Well, it involves the slave, and we're gonna have to do some things to her that she didn't ask us to do.

But what do you say? If you wanna make something, you gotta break some, if you wanna make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs. That's the logic here.

"And Sarai, the wife of Avram, took Hagar, her Egyptian slave girl." This was at the end of 20 years of Avram dwelling in the land of Canaan. "And she gave to Avram, her husband, as a wife." So you have somebody who thinks God's holding out on me. He's withholding blessing.

If God really wanted blessing for me, he would give me the thing that I think he should give me. Well, and he said he was gonna give it to me, so why isn't he giving this thing to me?

You know, I've got this idea. Let's do our own building project, and we'll build the thing that God said he would give, but we'll do it this way.

And she took and she gave.Do you get it? Genesis 3

"And so he went into The Immigrant and she became pregnant.

And she saw that she was pregnant. And so her mistress became cursed in her eyes." So Hagar becomes the object of Avram's pleasure, and she gets pregnant.

Now, if a second wife who was a slave, so we have to imagine ourselves in a different cultural setting. So if you, in polygamous culture, it's patriarchal, it's male-, land-, possession-centered. And so if a man has one wife, he can build a family and wealth and all that through her. But she's one of his possessions. So, but he can acquire other wives as possessions. 

Genesis 2:24 “24 This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh.”

You get this image of God made the one into two so that the two can become one flesh, the male and the female. So that's the Eden ideal as you walk out.

Genesis 4:19 “19 Lamech took two wives for himself, one named Adah and the other named Zillah.”

And then in chapter 4, when you meet seven generations through Cain's line, and you meet that guy, Lemek, one of the first things that you're told about Lemek "Lemek took two wives." Well, hold on, that's not the Eden ideal. That sounds like a guy collecting women like property.

"And one of them was named Jewel, and the other one was named Shelter." He's creating his own little Eden, his own shelter and his own sparkly jewels, but they're women. And then he produces all these children, and then he sings a song about chopping off heads and so on. So the image of collecting wives is already, right here, given a very critical portrait.

Genesis 16:1–6 CSB

1 Abram’s wife, Sarai, had not borne any children for him, but she owned an Egyptian slave named Hagar. 2 Sarai said to Abram, “Since the Lord has prevented me from bearing children, go to my slave; perhaps through her I can build a family.” And Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So Abram’s wife, Sarai, took Hagar, her Egyptian slave, and gave her to her husband, Abram, as a wife for him. This happened after Abram had lived in the land of Canaan ten years. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When she saw that she was pregnant, her mistress became contemptible to her. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for my suffering! I put my slave in your arms, and when she saw that she was pregnant, I became contemptible to her. May the Lord judge between me and you.” 6 Abram replied to Sarai, “Here, your slave is in your power; do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai mistreated her so much that she ran away from her.

It's not the Eden ideal. And so this next picture of polygamy that we get in the Hebrew Bible is this story right here, Sarah and Avram's building project. So they're gonna build their own family. And so this woman, the slave, just got a status increase in that patriarchal system 'cause she became now the wife of the patriarch, and now she's gonna be able to produce seed.

So she sees that she's pregnant and all of a sudden her mistress, which is her female master, Sarai, she's like, "Whoa." All of a sudden she just got a promotion in the ladder, the social ladder. And so now Sarai becomes cursed in the eyes of Hagar.

So what this cashes out to is for Hagar, she's gonna use this new promotion to her own advantage to elevate herself over Sarai. But notice the language. She's treating God's chosen couple, Princess and Exalted Father. And now we have an oppressed immigrant who has been elevated through this twisted plan, but now the oppressed is trying to, is now using that position to gain power and exert a kind of oppression over Sarah. 

So the point is not to say Hagar's bad. This is a portrait of, like, we know this story. What humans want is security. And we want to know that we're taken care of. We want Eden blessing.

And we got a couple who are willing to treat somebody as expendable to get, to do their little Eden thing. But Hagar's like any person. She wants security, and she wants blessing. And so now she's got this thing. 

And so this is a powerful story. And because there's issues of patriarchy and slavery at work, it's a sensitive story in our cultural context.

But at the same time, I don't wanna lessen the ugly nature of this portrait. This is an ugly picture of very predictable patterns in human behavior.

And Hagar contributes to the mess. She's not the purely innocent victim as it were. She's is both a victim and then uses this opportunity to become a victimizer.

But at the same time, I wanna honor the fact that she didn't start the situation. She's responding in a way that's totally understandable.

So I just wanna honor that dynamic of the story. 

"So Sarai said to Avram, 'Look at this violence being done to me. Look at this violence happening in our family.'" I might've had something to do with it, but I'm gonna pretend like none of it's my fault. "'Look at this violence that's being done to me. May the violence done to me be upon you, Avram. This is your fault. I gave my slave girl into your lap, and she saw that she became pregnant, and I became cursed in her eyes. May Yahweh play judge between me and between you.'

" So now she's bringing Yahweh into this as if she's using Yahweh to underwrite her twisted building plan that treated Hagar like she's expendable. And she thinks, "Well, for sure Yahweh's on our side. We're the blessed ones. So, you know, you wanna make an omelet, you crack some eggs, and Yahweh's for us, you know?"

And here's Avram's response. "'Look, your slave girl is in your hand.'" Think, she took and she gave. The slave girl is this object that is in your hand. "'Do what is good in your eyes.' And Sarai oppressed her and she," that is The Immigrant, like anyone would, "she fled from before her face."

There are times when the biblical story wants us to give a really raw and honest look into human nature. And that's not a bad thing, it's just an uncomfortable thing.

Hyperlinks to Genesis 2-3

Can you see the Genesis 3 stuff going on here? 

Analogies with Genesis 3 are dynamic in this story.

Sarai and Eve: She doesn’t trust the divine promise, so she comes up with an alternative plan to secure seed ( ערז ) for herself. 

Hagar and the tree of knowing good and bad: Hagar, through no fault of her own, was given to this family by Pharaoh, and now finds herself the object of desire for both Sarai (as a surrogate womb) and Avram (for sexual pleasure). Hagar’s existence presents Avram and Sarai with a test of faith: Will they trust God to provide a child from their bodies or will they come up with their own plan to secure blessing and seed on their own?

Avram and Adam: A passive, complicit figure who gets to benefit from the difficult situation of both women in this story. 

It is hard to see this picture of Avram who, just before, got accounted to him as righteousness. And then in the very next scene, he's Adam again, you know, and failing in the garden. 

Hyperlinks to Genesis 4

Easy to see links between Genesis 4 as well instead of having a rivalry between two brothers we have this rivalry between two wives.

While Avram and Sarai’s abuse of Hagar is portrayed on analogy to the folly of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, this story also portrays the division of Sarai and Hagar (rival wives) on analogy with the division of Cain and Abel (rival brothers). Notice how both sets of hyperlinks are overlaid and overlapping in the exact same story. 

The story of the sibling rivalry in Genesis 4 is here developed into a story of rival wives.

Hyperlinks to Genesis 6

And then you also, in Genesis 6, have this thing about the sons of elohim. They see the daughters of humanity, that they are good, and they take them for themselves.

And so do you notice we've got vocabulary of all three failure narratives right here? 

The violence, "may the violence done to me," that's exactly the word from what God sees in the land because of the Nephilim, the violence and bloodshed in the land.

This little word "mistress" here, this is the female, the feminine word of the mighty warrior, the "gibbor," and this is the "gevirah." So Sarai has become the violent oppressor who's spreading violence in the land here. So we're building up to the flood real quick.

The Genesis 3 stuff is pretty obvious, but then this is about rival, not brothers, but now rival wives. And rivaling over their status. And one, but it's an inversion because now it's the one who has seniority and favor is acting like she's now the underdog when in fact she has all the power. And that's why her speech is so hypocritical.

And so it's actually, it's the whole sequence of Genesis 3 and 4 and 6 all bound into one story. 

Something, this crisis has got to be resolved in some way. And it's just in the span of six verses we've replayed the melody.

Look how passive Abram is here, similar to Adam where the prior situations you just brought up, God and Abraham talking, this is what's gonna happen. Then Sarah comes in, "Hey, here's our problem. Here's the bright idea, let's go." And Abraham should have been like, "No, God has a plan already."

God Hears the Cry

Genesis 16:7–16 CSB

7 The angel of the Lord found her by a spring in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 8 He said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She replied, “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai.” 9 The angel of the Lord said to her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her authority.” 10 The angel of the Lord said to her, “I will greatly multiply your offspring, and they will be too many to count.” 11 The angel of the Lord said to her, “You have conceived and will have a son. You will name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your cry of affliction. 12 This man will be like a wild donkey. His hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him; he will settle near all his relatives.” 13 So she named the Lord who spoke to her: “You are El-roi,” for she said, “In this place, have I actually seen the one who sees me?” 14 That is why the well is called Beer-lahai-roi. It is between Kadesh and Bered. 15 So Hagar gave birth to Abram’s son, and Abram named his son (whom Hagar bore) Ishmael. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.

But just back to this conversation we were just having about the melody, we've packed all of the failure narratives in Genesis 1 through 9 into one short sequence here, which leads me to think that this conflict is gonna come to some crisis and that God's gonna get involved. And so, lo and behold, the next scene is about this oppressed immigrant being led out to the desert.

And she's crying and weeping and wondering if anybody hears me. And her cry is heard. Think Cain and Abel. The cry, God hears the cry of the innocent blood. And so God is going to meet the oppressed one.

And in opposite of the flood, what he's going to do is provide water and a promise of seed in a place where there was no water and where there was no seed. And so this becomes our, not our flood moment, but it's the de-creation of Hagar and also her re-creation of the promise of a family and life out the other side of this tragedy.

Because this whole scene in the wilderness represents a de-creation and re-creation of this poor woman.

God meets her and, out of this death and very painful situation, he's gonna give a promise of new life. And then on the flip side, the next chapter, which is 17, is also gonna involve a de-creation and re-creation of Avram and Sarai.

The transformation is gonna be so profound, they're gonna receive new names. And so these two scenes, actually, they're next to each other for a reason. 

All the main characters that just hurt each other in the previous story are gonna go through their own transformations right here. 

"And the messenger of Yahweh found her." All of our English translations say "the angel of Yahweh." That's fine. What's interesting is that the English word "angel" is spelling, in English letters, the Greek word that was used to translate the Hebrew word. In other words, when Jewish scholars who translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek saw this Hebrew word for "messenger," they translated it with "angelos," which means messenger. It can be human or spiritual, in this case a spiritual being, but you lose the concept of messenger, which is the, this is a title for these beings and their function. So it's a messenger of Yahweh. "The messenger of Yahweh found her by a spring of water," which are usually in gardens, but in this case, "in the wilderness." And you know that spring, it's "on the way to Shur," which you learned in Genesis 10 is basically halfway to Egypt.

She's running home.

"And he said, 'Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where are you coming from?

Where are you going?' And she said, 'From before the face of Sarai, my mistress, I am fleeing.'

And the messenger of Yahweh said to her, 'Return to your mistress and oppress yourself,'" or it could be translated, "allow yourself to be oppressed under her hand."

"And the messenger of Yahweh said to her, 'Multiplying, I will multiply your seed.'" It's terrible English, it's wonderful Hebrew. In English, when you want to emphasize the intensity or meaning of a verb, you put just two of them next to each other. So our translations mostly say, "I will certainly multiply," which is a good interpretation. "'I will certainly multiply your seed so that it cannot be counted because of its multiplication.'

And the messenger of Yahweh said to her," notice the three speech introductions. It's like he never stops talking. So that's a structuring device. "And the messenger of Yahweh said to her, 'Look, you're pregnant and will give birth to a son. And you will call his name Yishmael,'" which means ’El yishma‘, will listen or will hear.

"Because Yahweh has shama‘-ed." Call him Shama‘ Yishmael, because Yahweh has shama‘-ed of your oppression. "

'As for him, your son, he will be a donkey of a human. His hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand will be against him, and against the face of all his brothers. He will reside.'

And so she called the name of Yahweh who spoke to her, 'You are El Roi.'" Roi means one who sees me. (Beautiful Expression of God)

"She said this because she said, 'Have I also seen here the back of the one who sees me?' Therefore, she called the well, Beer Lakhai Roi," which is Hebrew for Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.

And, oh, look, "it's between Kadesh and Bered." Again, go read Genesis 10, and you'll know that it's halfway to Egypt.

"And Hagar gave birth to a son for Avram, and Avram called the name of his son, the one whom Hagar birthed, Yishmael. And Avram was a son of 86 years when Hagar birthed Yishmael for Avram."

You can read this story and you get some basic ideas very, pretty easily. God meets Hagar in her pain, in her exile, self-imposed exile.

God's meeting her in the person of the messenger in the desert. When you go to the desert, there's no water. And so the idea of God meeting, because of the violence done to her, think Genesis 3, 4, and 6, you have this exile of Hagar into the wilderness.

And God meets her with water, listening and hearing with a promise of blessing.

"Multiplying, I will multiply.

Your seed won't even be able to be counted." I feel like I have heard that before. I heard it in the last chapter. 

In the last chapter, God's promise to Avram was, "I will multiply your seed like, numerous like the stars." So what wasn't specified in that chapter was, well, what if you produce a lot of seed? Will all of them be multiplied? Is it just the chosen line is multiplied? But that wasn't really specified. It didn't need to be specified. What we're gonna find out is that Yishmael won't be the chosen line to produce the snake-crushing seed of the woman, but he's Avram's seed.

And so he's in on the blessing.

We're watching Avram begin to become the father of many nations, which doesn't mean all the nations are the line that will produce the snake-crushing seed of the woman, but all of them will experience the blessing because they're his seed.

Yahweh Hears the Cry

Notice that God meets Hagar in the wilderness by a spring, and they have this conversation, and God comes looking.

"Hagar, where are you going?" Does that ring any bells? Remember when God came to Adam and Eve? "Where are you? Where are you?" When God came to Cain after killing his brother. "Where's your brother?" So, Where are you going?" This is dialogue. It's like God comes in these moments after something terrible has happened, and he comes just so gently and inviting. It's just an interesting portrait.

The story of Yahweh hearing the cry of the oppressed and intervening to deliver and judge violent evil is an important template at work in Genesis 16. The hyperlinks to Genesis 4 and 6 portray Hagar among the righteous sufferers whose outcry reaches up to God. 

At the spring (ןיע) , Yahweh hears of the oppression (ינע) of Hagar, and sends his messenger to deliver the righteous ( Gen. 16:7, 11).

Genesis 4:10 CSB

10 Then he said, “What have you done? Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!

What have you done? The voice of the shed-blood of your brother is crying out (קעצ) to me from the ground

Genesis 6:13 CSB

13 Then God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to every creature, for the earth is filled with wickedness because of them; therefore I am going to destroy them along with the earth.

An end of all flesh has come (אב … ץק) up before me

Genesis 18:20–21 CSB

20 Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is immense, and their sin is extremely serious. 21 I will go down to see if what they have done justifies the cry that has come up to me. If not, I will find out.”

The outcry (הקעז) against Sodom and Gomorrah is great ... the outcry (הקעצ) has come up (האב) before me.

Genesis 19:1 CSB

1 The two angels entered Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in Sodom’s gateway. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them. He bowed with his face to the ground

And in Genesis 19:1, Yahweh sends his messengers to deliver the righteous.

This theme of the outcry of the oppressed rising up to God is at work in this story as well. Avraham and Sarai are portrayed as “doing violence” and “oppression” to their Egyptian slave. In each case of this design pattern, Yahweh enacts some kind of judgment against human evil. 

And then you get this threefold speech. It's rather troubling. On one level, it's go allow yourself to keep being oppressed. And know that in the midst of your oppression, I'm going to provide blessing for you.

And that blessing will take the form of Yishmael. And ultimately, he will separate from his brothers.

we replayed the sins of Genesis 3, 4, and 6. And now we're replaying, as it were, the consequences of, or the aftermath of Genesis 3, 4, and 6. God comes looking, asking questions. It was a prediction of both blessing but separation of the family.

And then the story concludes with her calling the name of Yahweh.

God meeting people in the wilderness, and them saying, "I've seen the back of the one who sees me?"

Who else sees God. Moses. “Show me your glory." And God's like, "You'll die. But you can see my back because that's pretty cool too."

I personally am still wrestling with things in this passage. Things I won’t get into. but you can feel like there's something really important going on. 

So she names the well. Notice the well is brought up at the beginning and then right here near the end. And it's the well of life.

God provides life in this moment of tragedy and in a place of desolation and death.

And she gives birth to a son. 

If you remember, it was a number of sessions ago, from Genesis 1 and 2, there's two modes that God uses to create. He can create by controlling the waters. And he can also de-create by providing too much water.

But then God can also create by providing water where there was no water and creating plants and seed and life where there was no life. And then de-creation would be withdrawing that and then providing it. 

And so it's as if Avram and Sarah's violence and evil has killed her, killed the relationship. It's brought about death and tragedy. And so we're watching Yahweh re-create Hagar here in the wilderness through this blessing. 

It's a very creative use of the melody here, and it's really beautiful. 

One thing I don’t understand yet if I ever do is why did YAHWEH say to Hagar go back to oppression. And that oppression is gonna culminate in chapter 21, when she finally is free to leave. In a since I know that is my modern morality reading back into the passage. But I don’t understand it.

I think it's okay to let stuff in the Bible bother you.

I don't think we're being honest, actually, if we don't. 

There are some things I do know

1. God Sees and Hears Hagar

Before commanding her to return, the Angel of the Lord speaks kindly to her. He calls her by name (something significant in itself — it's rare for someone in her position to be named), and He listens to her pain. Hagar becomes the first person in Scripture to name God, calling Him El Roi, meaning "the God who sees me" (Genesis 16:13). She’s also the first person in the Bible to receive an annunciation — a promise of a child — much like Mary in the New Testament.

This shows us that God deeply cares for Hagar. He isn’t dismissing her pain — He’s meeting her in it, affirming her worth and giving her a promise about her son, Ishmael (which means "God hears").

2. A Bigger Story Is Unfolding

God's command to return isn't a blanket endorsement of abuse or oppression — it’s part of a larger narrative. God promises to make Ishmael a great nation (Genesis 16:10), and that promise requires her to go back for a time. Hagar's return isn't the end of her story — it's part of the formation of two peoples (Israel and Ishmael's descendants), and God's hand is on both.

Later in Genesis 21, after Isaac is born, Hagar and Ishmael are sent away again — this time by Sarah. But again, God provides for them, reaffirms His promise, and protects them in the wilderness.

3. Application and Careful Reading

This passage doesn’t suggest that all suffering should be endured or that abuse should be tolerated — and it’s vital to say that clearly, especially when dealing with real-world situations. God's encounter with Hagar is unique, specific, and part of His unfolding redemption plan.

But what it does show is that God sees the unseen, hears the unheard, and works even in the darkest places. He meets people on the margins and weaves their stories into His promises. Hagar, a slave and foreigner, becomes a profound example of how God shows up in the wilderness.

What we're watching is now within the family of Avram, and Sarai, the same thing that happened in the family of Adam and Eve and of Noah, and it's this division.

It's the sin of misdirected desire, bad building plans, and just all, this thing starts to crack apart. And so what we're gonna watch God do is, you know, do, give the blessing that he can, but now with a very compromised people and situation. It's sort of like triage. God's on, in triage mode, trying to insert blessing.

But he's not gonna undo what these people did. They're his partners, and he's gonna let their choices create the consequences that they do because God's got a thing about letting humans rule the world together. And if we make a mess of it, he lets us. And so he won't undo, but what he will do is meet people where they're at and plan for what evil has been done to transform it into blessing. And I think that's what this scene is about here. 

Future Egyptian Enslavement

This is the first time the Genesis 2 melody of the water in the dry land as a new creation beat, this is the first time that happens. Oh, okay. That's good. So you have the oppressed Egyptian who flees their oppressors into the wilderness, and God meets the oppressed one in the wilderness, providing surprise water. So this is all gonna be inverted in the book of Exodus, where the Egyptians are the oppressors. And all these springs in the wilderness, right, in Exodus and Numbers, they're all actually inversions of this little scene right here, which is pretty cool.

This story is remarkable because it follows the first mention of the future Egyptian enslavement of Israel in Genesis. The wordplay linkages are significant. 

Genesis 15:13–14 CSB

13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be resident aliens for four hundred years in a land that does not belong to them and will be enslaved and oppressed. 14 However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions.

13 Know for certain that your seed will be immigrants (Heb. ger / רג ) in a land that is not theirs, and they will be enslaved to them, and they will oppress (Heb. ‘anah / הנע ) them four hundred years. 14 But also that I myself will judge the nation whom to which they are slaves, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.

Genesis 16:1,6

Genesis 16:1 CSB

1 Abram’s wife, Sarai, had not borne any children for him, but she owned an Egyptian slave named Hagar.

1 Now, Sarai ... had a slave-girl ... named Hagar (Heb. ha-gar / רגה = “The Immigrant”)

Genesis 16:6 CSB

6 Abram replied to Sarai, “Here, your slave is in your power; do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai mistreated her so much that she ran away from her.

And Sarai oppressed (Heb. ‘anah / הנע ) her, and she fled.

Exodus 1:11 CSB

11 So the Egyptians assigned taskmasters over the Israelites to oppress them with forced labor. They built Pithom and Rameses as supply cities for Pharaoh.

And [the Egyptians] set over [the Israelites] captains of slave-labor, in order to oppress (הנע) them.

Long before the Egyptians deceived the Israelites and oppressed them, Avraham deceived Pharaoh and Sarai oppressed an Egyptian. The fact that this story precedes the exodus story means that the Egyptian slavery of Avraham’s descendants becomes a tragically ironic reversal: Egypt does to Israel what Israel first did to Egypt. 

There is some connection here to the laws about the treatment of immigrants in the covenant code, and the relationship to the Cain story (see Exod. 22:21-23).

Exodus 22:21–23 CSB

21 “You must not exploit a resident alien or oppress him, since you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt. 22 “You must not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. 23 If you do mistreat them, they will no doubt cry to me, and I will certainly hear their cry.

21 You shall not wrong an immigrant (רג) or oppress him, for you were immigrants in the land of Egypt. 22 You shall not oppress (הנע) any widow or orphan. 23 If you intensely oppress (הנעת הנע) him, and if he does cry out (קעצ) to me, I will surely hear his outcry (הקעצ) ; 24 and my anger will be hot (יפא הרח) , and I will kill you (גרה) with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless

Here are more links to the divided brothers pattern.

Genesis 16:12 "He will be a donkey of a man (םדא ארפ) " which recalls the “divided” (דרפ) motif of Noah’s sons from Genesis 10:5, 32.

Genesis 16:12b “He will dwell against the face of all his brothers” is recalled in Genesis 25:18, when Yishmael (Ishmael) settles in the east. 

There is an important foundation being laid here for the “righteous non-elect” of the covenant family who dwells in the east. Just as many of the non-elect peoples in Genesis 10 will later turn up as righteous gentiles or wicked gentiles, the same is true here with Yishmael. He and Hagar are the recipients of divine blessing ( Gen. 16:10 inverts Gen. 3:16 and restates Gen. 15:5, but now applied to Yishmael!). And while future conflict between Yishmael’s descendants and Avraham’s other future sons is anticipated, the oracle isn’t entirely negative. Yishmael is included in the blessing of Avraham nonetheless.

Genesis 15-16 Replays Genesis 2-11 and 12-14

The story has portrayed both Avram and Sarai as humans who repeat their folly. Now, as the sequence of Genesis 15-16 replays the key elements of Genesis 12-13, both Avram and Sarai replay the folly of humanity from Genesis 1-11. And so, for the second time, we expect there to be some kind of divine judgment that confronts the sin of foolish, violent humans and stems the tide of their destructive choices. This is precisely the theme of Genesis 17. 

Ishmael in Islamic Tradition

Ishmael is the son of Abram (Abraham) and Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian servant (Genesis 16). God makes a promise to Hagar that Ishmael would become the father of a great nation (Genesis 16:10; 17:20). He is seen as the ancestor of many Arab tribes, and he lives apart from Isaac (Genesis 25:12–18), fulfilling God’s word.

The Bible does not directly connect Ishmael to the founding of Islam — the religion doesn’t emerge until many centuries later.

☪️ Islamic Tradition

In Islamic tradition, Ishmael (Isma'il) is highly honored. Muslims believe:

Ishmael and Abraham together built the Kaaba in Mecca (Qur'an 2:125–127).

Ishmael is considered a prophet and an ancestor of Muhammad, the final prophet in Islam.

The story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice (Eid al-Adha) is believed by many Muslims to have involved Ishmael, not Isaac, though the Qur'an doesn’t name the son explicitly.

So, from an Islamic perspective, Ishmael is viewed as the forefather of many Arab peoples and the spiritual ancestor of Islam through Muhammad.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17SB37ZABqJYTxdiZSXiSgboUl4E_0c0fgYoTlF-c6nA/edit?usp=sharing

Bibliography

https://bibleproject.com/classroom/abraham

Middleton, J. Richard. Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2021.

Cotter, David W. Genesis. Edited by Jerome T. Walsh, Chris Franke, and David W. Cotter. Berit Olam Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2003.

Josephus, Flavius, and William Whiston. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987.

Richard N. Longenecker, “The Melchizedek Argument of Hebrews: A Study in the Development and Circumstantial Expression of New Testament Thought,” in Unity and Diversity in New Testament Theology: Essays in Honor of George E. Ladd (ed. Robert Guelich, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 161.

https://bible.org/article/melchizedek-covenantal-figure-biblical-theology-eschatological-royal-priesthood#P8_421

Anders Aschim, “Melchizedek and Jesus: 11QMelchizedek and the Epistle to the Hebrews,” in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St. Andrews Conferences on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus (eds. Carey Newman, James Davila, and Gladys Lewis, JSJSup. 63; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 130.

Paul J. Kobelski, Melchizedek and Melchiresa (CBQMS 10; Washington DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1981), 126-7.

https://bible.ca/manuscripts/Septuagint-LXX-Shem-was-Melchizedek-Masoretic-chronology-Messiah-Jesus-Christ-priesthood.htm

https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/history-circumcision-0010398