Hagar

Hagar is an Egyptian handmaid in Sarah’s household who becomes Abraham’s wife and Ishmael’s mother. Her story moves from a household arrangement intended to secure an heir, through flight and divine encounter in the wilderness, to a second expulsion in which God hears her son and ensures their survival.

Identity and Household Position

Sarah, Abraham’s wife, had borne him no children and had an Egyptian handmaid named Hagar. After Abraham had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarah gave Hagar to him as a wife, hoping to build a family through her. Hagar conceived, and the change in her status became a source of conflict: Sarah felt despised by her handmaid and appealed to Abraham over the grievance.

Abraham left Hagar’s treatment to Sarah, who dealt harshly with her. Hagar fled from Sarah, becoming a vulnerable figure moving beyond the household that had arranged her marriage and pregnancy.

Flight and the Wilderness Encounter

The Angel of the LORD found Hagar beside a fountain in the wilderness, on the way to Shur, and addressed her by name and by her household position. Hagar explained that she was fleeing from Sarah. The angel told her to return and submit to her mistress, while also promising that her descendants would become too numerous to count.

The angel told Hagar she was pregnant with a son and instructed her to name him Ishmael, because the LORD had heard her affliction. The prophecy described a life of conflict for the boy and promised that he would dwell in the face of his brothers. Hagar in turn named the LORD as the God who sees her. The well was called Beer-lahai-roi, and Hagar returned and gave birth to Ishmael; Abraham was eighty-six years old.

Motherhood and Expulsion

Years later, Sarah bore Isaac, Abraham’s son, and the household’s succession became contested. At the feast held when Isaac was weaned, Sarah saw Hagar’s son making sport and demanded that Abraham send Hagar and the boy away, insisting that Ishmael should not inherit alongside Isaac. Abraham was distressed because Ishmael was his son.

God told Abraham to heed Sarah concerning the succession, while also promising to make a nation of Ishmael because he was Abraham’s offspring. Abraham rose early, gave Hagar bread and a bottle of water, placed the child on her shoulder, and sent them away. Hagar wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

Rescue and Narrative Significance

When the water was gone, Hagar placed the child under a shrub and sat at a distance, unwilling to watch him die; she wept. God heard the boy, and an angel called to Hagar from heaven, telling her not to fear and directing her to lift and hold the child. God opened her eyes to a well, and she filled the bottle and gave Ishmael water.

God was with Ishmael as he grew in the wilderness, where he became an archer and lived in the wilderness of Paran. Hagar took a wife for him from the land of Egypt. Across both wilderness episodes, Hagar’s story links her precarious place in Abraham’s household to a promise that extends beyond it: she and her son are seen and preserved, while Ishmael’s future is affirmed even though the principal covenant is established with Isaac.