Hagar and the Birth of Ishmael

The event

Ten years into the promise with still no son of their own, Sarai proposes a culturally common but spiritually costly shortcut: her servant Hagar, an Egyptian, would bear a child on Sarai's behalf. Abram agrees, and Hagar conceives — and immediately the household fractures. Hagar begins to look on her mistress with contempt, Sarai deals harshly with her in return, and Hagar flees into the wilderness.

What happens next is one of Genesis's most tender surprises: the angel of the LORD finds Hagar at a spring and speaks to her directly, by name, as no other woman in Genesis is addressed by God. He tells her to return and submit to Sarai, and promises that her son, too, will become too numerous to count. Hagar responds by naming God "El Roi" — "the God who sees me" — one of the only places in Scripture where a human being names God rather than the reverse.

Ishmael is born when Abram is 86. He is genuinely loved by his father (Genesis 17:18, "Oh that Ishmael might live before you!") and genuinely blessed by God, even though he is not the child of promise. The tension set up here — a father with two sons, one by promise and one by human effort — will keep echoing through the family for the rest of Genesis, and Paul later uses Hagar and Sarah as a picture of law versus promise in Galatians 4.

Dating

Abram was 86 when Ishmael was born (Genesis 16:16), against a birth year of c. 2166 BC. Hagar was given to Abram after ten years in Canaan (Genesis 16:3), c. 2081 BC, so the episode and the birth fall in consecutive years.

Scripture references

• Genesis 16:1-16
• Genesis 17:18-20
• Galatians 4:21-31