Hagar

KNOWN AS THE MOTHER
TO THE ARAB NATIONS
Genesis 16; 21; 25 & Galatians 4:21-31

IMAGINE: Running from your circumstances only to run into the God of the Universe who sees you.

There was a famine in the land
so Abram went down to Egypt.
Genesis 12:10

Nowhere does it indicate that God told Abraham to leave Canaan and go into Egypt. It appears he headed that way on his own with his wife Sarah and nephew Lot, in tow. This was a turn of events that changed the world forever.
A second bad decision is made when Abraham gives his wife Sarah to Pharaoh, claiming her to be his sister, out of fear for his own life. In all fairness to Abraham, there was no divorce in Egypt, only death. In enemy territory a man could be killed for his wife and we are told Sarah was very beautiful, even at sixty-five years of age.
Pharaoh does indeed find out this is Abraham’s wife and gives to him flocks and herds, male and female donkeys, male and female slaves, and camels because of wrongly taking Sarah into his household. This is thought to be how Abraham and Sarah acquired Hagar as she was most likely one of the female salves. Having worked in Pharaoh’s court, more than likely, made her a very talented, accomplished servant. Hagar has now been given, not only to strangers, but foreigners with customs and cultures she would not know or understand.
Approximately ten years after being back in the land promised to Abraham, once again this couple comes up with yet another bad idea without consulting God. Sarah is actually the scheme maker this time, but Abraham goes along to get along apparently.
Sarah is still barren with no heir of the land on the horizon. God’s original covenant was with Abraham concerning the land and was promised he would make him a great nation. Sarah was not brought into the covenant promise until twenty-five years later. With her continued barrenness there was some confusion as to how this was going to occur.
She determines to run on ahead of God and gives her handmaiden, Hagar, a Gentile, from a pagan country, to her husband as a wife. As this was an acceptable arrangement in that culture, Sarah deduces her handmaiden will bear the “promised seed”, giving Abraham an heir to the land.
Hagar does indeed conceive and become pregnant. If, as suspected, Hagar came from Pharaoh’s household, becoming the servant to a Nomadic tribeswoman may have been a step down socially for her. Living in the palace of the Pharaoh, even as a slave, would have been a way of luxurious living. Hagar may have found living conditions surrounding Abraham and Sarah as quite primitive by comparison.
Hagar was now in a more revered place than “slave” or “handmaiden.” She now was considered a second wife and apparently did not bother to hide her pleasure of this step up the social ladder. We are not told what, if any, the relationship was really like between Sarah and Hagar before this bad plan was hatched. For her to suggest Hagar be surrogate mother with Abraham there must have been a somewhat favorable relationship.
We do know strife and jealously quickly followed this human arrangement with Hagar constantly chiding the childless Sarah. Even though Sarah was the planner of this ill-conceived idea, once Hagar became pregnant the perception was Sarah was the reason for no child, not Abraham.
It appears the blame game moved from the Garden of Eden to the tents of Abraham. Sarah blames Abraham for Hagar’s contemptuous attitude towards her. Abraham in turn tells Sarah to do what she chooses with her own handmaiden.
Sarah mistreats Hagar so pitifully that she flees into the desert to get away from Sarah. Her desperate attempt to leave was probably her desire to go back to her home in Egypt. Back to her family and familiar surroundings of which she has been away from for a long time now. Amazingly, it was ok for a slave to bear a child by her mistress’ husband, but it was forbidden for that same handmaiden to flee from her mistress.
Hagar is met in the wilderness by the Angel of the Lord and told to return to her mistress. The angel of the Lord tells her “I will greatly multiply your offspring, and they will be too many to count.” (Gen. 16:10).  She had left her position without notice and without permission, so she must humble herself and return to this Hebrew couple and this difficult situation. But, she now has purpose as God has promised her descendants so numerous they will be impossible to count them all.
Hagar returns to Sarah and bears Abraham’s son. Abraham was eighty-six years old when Ishmael was born. It would be another fourteen years before Sarah would conceive and bear Isaac.
In those fourteen years Sarah would have been forced to look upon Hagar with her son, and her still with no children, and all but no hope by now of having one. In that fourteen-year time frame, Ishmael is Abraham’s only son and presumed heir. Because of these circumstances, Hagar and Ishmael would have been held in high regard.
This all changed abruptly when, at ninety years of age, Sarah gives birth to Isaac who is the true heir of the promise. Sarah’s last recorded words are:

So she said to Abraham, “Drive
out this slave with her son,
for the son of this slave will
not be a co-heir with my son Isaac!”
Genesis 21:10

It appears Sarah had acquired a great dislike for Hagar as she never once speaks directly to Hagar or ever says her name. She nor Abraham ever calls Hagar by name. Only the Angel of the Lord says her name.
Hagar teaches us to be careful not to fall into the temptation of exalting ourselves if given a new position. We are not to act hastily in times of trials and difficulties. Even at our lowest points God sees us and gives us the power needed to get through our troubles. What is special about Hagar’s two different occasions with the Angel of the Lord in the wilderness is she does not appear to be looking or seeking Him. “The Angel of the Lord found her.” (Gen. 16:7).
Hagar was found by God, seen by God, and heard by God. She was not anyone special being a slave, an Egyptian, a woman. She was not a master, a Hebrew, or a man. She was in a situation less than desirable and rather mistreated.
No matter the circumstances, we do not go unnoticed by God. Because of God’s mercy He sees us, hears us, and meets us right where we are. Hagar, as with everyone, had not earned God’s favor because of good behavior, or because of something she had done or did not do. 
When we think no one sees our pain, our struggles we need to remember Hagar. She is the first person in the Bible to whom the Angel of the Lord appears. (Gen. 16:7-12).  She is also the first woman in the Bible to whom God directly makes a promise. (Gen. 16:10). She is the only person in the Old Testament to give God a new name, “the God who sees”, El Roi. (Gen. 16:13).
Her meeting with the Angel is the only encounter between God and a woman that results in the naming of an actual location. The spring of water in the wilderness where the Angel of the Lord spoke to her she named “a well of the living One who sees me”, Beer Lahai Roi. It is located between Kadesh and Bered also known as Kadesh-Barnea.
Hagar shows courage in doing what God tells her to do, plus endurance in circumstances that are not necessarily of her own making. Hagar, by all appearances, is a lonely woman with few, if any, resources. She is taken from her homeland, away from all she knew and all that knew her, to a foreign land where she is mistreated for many years.
One would think Sarah would have been a little more empathetic toward Hagar since she also had left her comfort zone of Ur of the Chaldeans placing her in the same position of being away from all she knew and all who knew her.
When it came time for Ishmael to marry, Hagar finds him a wife from her own people, not from the people of his father. According to the Koran, Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael are the ancestors of the Arab Nations and of the prophet Mohammed.
Muslim ritual reflects the story of Hagar, and every year for thirteen centuries, Muslims performing the Hajj (hodge) have retraced Hagar’s steps as she desperately searched for water in the wilderness.
However unfair and difficult life seems to be, sometimes we are given a course in life that only God understands the purpose. Of all the women in the Bible, Hagar’s life seems to have more questions than answers.
Hagar does show we should not judge or question the life God has given to us, or to someone else for that matter. His plan might not be recognizable or seem to make sense but none-the-less it is His plan and that makes it the perfect plan.

            Something to consider:
Running away from your problems
is a race you’ll never win.
Unknown