Hagar Flees and Ishmael Is Born

Hagar Flees and Ishmael Is Born recounts how Sarai’s childlessness leads her to give her Egyptian handmaid Hagar to Abram as a wife, and how the resulting household conflict sends Hagar into the wilderness. There the angel of the LORD finds her, promises a son and innumerable descendants, and directs her to return; Hagar bears Ishmael when Abram is eighty-six. The episode makes Hagar’s affliction and the future of her son part of the family’s expanding story of promised descendants, even as the later covenant is established with Abraham and Sarah.

Background and Household Conflict

The episode follows a promise that Abram’s heir would come from his own offspring, despite his concern that he had no child. Sarai, who had borne him no children, had an Egyptian handmaid named Hagar. After Abram had lived ten years in Canaan, Sarai gave Hagar to him as a wife, hoping to have a family through her.

Hagar conceived, and the changed household dynamic brought conflict. Sarai said that she felt despised by Hagar and appealed to Abram to judge between them. Abram left Hagar in Sarai’s hands, and Sarai dealt harshly with her. Hagar then fled.

Hagar in the Wilderness

The angel of the LORD found Hagar by a spring in the wilderness, on the way to Shur. Asked where she had come from and where she was going, Hagar said that she was fleeing from Sarai. The angel told her to return and submit herself to her mistress, joining that instruction to a promise about her future.

The angel promised to multiply Hagar’s descendants until they could not be numbered and announced that she would bear a son, whom she was to name Ishmael because the LORD had heard her affliction. He described the son’s future in terms of conflict and independence among his kin. Hagar named the LORD who spoke to her as a God who sees; the spring was thereafter associated with Beer-lahai-roi, between Kadesh and Bered.

Ishmael’s Birth and the Covenant Story

Hagar returned and bore a son to Abram, who named him Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Ishmael was born. The account thus establishes Hagar’s son as Abram’s child and connects his future to the promise of numerous descendants.

The subsequent covenant scene distinguishes the promise concerning Ishmael from the covenant’s line through Sarah: God changes Abram’s and Sarai’s names to Abraham and Sarah and promises Sarah a son. The episode therefore holds together two developments—the assurance given to Hagar in her affliction and the later covenantal promise centered on Abraham and Sarah—without treating them as identical.