Hagar

For the List of "Women of the Bible", click Blog Archive, 2008 December

10 Questions & Answers
Scripture Reference: Gen 16; 21:8-21; Gal 4:22-31
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#1. Who was Hagar?

#1. Hagar was Sarah's servant(handmaid), an Egyptian slave who, following the marital customs of the times, was given by Sarai to Abram (Gen 16:1-16). When Hagar saw that she had conceived, she despised her mistress, causing trouble in the household.
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#2. How old was Abraham when Ishmael was born?

#2. 86 years
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#3. When Hagar showed contempt for her mistress, what did Sarah do?

#3. Hagar's actions were self-defeating. Sarah with anger mistreated Hagar, so that the pregnant slave girl fled in terror towards Egypt through the great wilderness.
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#4. True or False. Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, Abraham's heir, in the wilderness.

#4. False. By the fountain in the way to Shur, the angel of Lord found Hagar and instructed her to return and submit to her mistress. Angel delivered a remarkable prophecy respecting her unborn child, that her son would prosper(Gen 16:10-12). On her return, she gave birth to Ishmael. Sarah later had a son, Isaac whom the Lord decreed would be Abraham's heir, and not Ishmael.
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#5. Why Sarah insisted Hagar be sent away?

#5. When Ishmael was about 16 years old, at a great feast held in connection with Isaac's weaning, Ishmael cruelly teased his younger half brother, so Sarah demanded the expulsion of Hagar and her son. This violated the custom, which assigned definite rights to the offspring of a secondary wife(concubine). Abraham unwillingly complied to send his son and Hagar into the desert, only when God intervened and promised to care personally for Ishmael. God told Abraham
that Ishmael's descendants would become a nation.

(Concubine: a slave woman in ancient Near Eastern society who could have legitimate sexual relations with her master but still did not have the rights of a free wife).
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#6. What happened to Hagar and Ishmael after they were cast out the second time?

#6. She again fled to Egypt. When both seemed about to die of thirst, an angel appeared and reaffirmed God's promise to Hagar, and pointed out a fountain close by. Thus her son lived and grew up to be a hunter in the wilderness of Paran. Hagar took a wife for her son out of Egypt, her own land(Gen 21:1-21). Ishmael fathered a mighty nation, fulfilling God's promise to Abraham and Hagar.
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#7. What does Hagar's experience of mistreatments illustrate?

#7. Hagar's powerless state at mistreatment and injustice brought frustration and hostility. But hostility stimulates more severe mistreatment and it appears there is no way out for the cycle of injustice, hostility, and more injustice. Check out what Bible says about this situation in 1 Peter 2:13-25.

Paul made Hagar's experience an allegory of the difference between law and grace (Gal 4:24-25).Sarah pictures the covenant of grace, and Hagar represents the covenant of the law which "bearing children unto bondage".

Gal 4:24-25 24These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.
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#8. What was the prophecy concerning Ishmael in Gen 16:12?

#8. "He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone
and every one's hand against him, and he will live in hostility
towards all his brothers."
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#9. Can this attitude of living in hostility infect the future generations?

#9. The birth of Ishmael probably is a memorial of doubt and a tampering with the covenant given by God. Through this child of unbelief, future generations were handed down full of animosity, which might have promoted the current international tension.
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#10. Where in the Bible we see about Hagar's descendants?

#10. Gen 25:12-15; 1 Chron 5:10, 19-22; Psalm 83:6