Hagar: Ministered to by an Angel

“The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, ‘Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?’ ‘I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,’ she answered. Then the angel of the Lord told her, ‘Go back to your mistress and submit to her.’ The angel added, ‘I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.’ The angel of the Lord also said to her: ‘You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.’ She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’ That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered. So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.” (Genesis 16:7-15. NIV).

The story of Hagar and her son by Abram (later called Abraham) is found in Genesis 16:1-16 and Genesis 21:8-21. In Galatians 4:24-25, Paul the Apostle uses Hagar and Ishmael to reference the difference between the Old Covenant by the law and the New Covenant through Jesus Christ. I tried not to write about Hagar, because this is a difficult biblical account to understand and explain. But the thought of Hagar fleeing to the desert, both before Ishmael was born and when he was a child who almost died from exposure, is a story we should examine for the truths it holds. If it were not important, it would not have been included in God’s Word.

Sarai and Abraham, although they had been married for a long time, did not have children. God had made a covenant with Abraham in which he promised to make his descendants “as the sands on the seashore,” and “as the stars of the heavens,” –too numerous to count. But the couple was childless. How could this promise be?

As so often is the case, rather than patiently awaiting God’s will to be done, Sarai formed a plan. She would give her Egyptian handmaid, Hagar, to Abram. And from that union, Hagar became pregnant. But then trouble arose between the servant and Sarai, jealousy and envy, no doubt. Sarai mistreated Hagar, so the maidservant fled into the desert. It was there the angel of the Lord appeared to and encouraged Hagar. It is there as she was despairing in the desert that this Egyptian slave girl became aware that God was with her, “the God who sees me.” She went back to the dwelling of Abram and Sarai and there she bore a son whom Abram, her master, named Ishmael.

But then in due time, the elderly Abram and Sarai, whose names were by then changed to Abraham and Sarah, had a child in their old age and named him Isaac. Sarah claimed that Ishmael, Hagar’s son, was mocking at the feast prepared on the occasion of Isaac’s weaning. Sarah demanded that Hagar and Ismael be banished. Abraham was troubled and did not want to comply to Sarah’s wishes, but God promised Abraham to bless Ishmael and make a great nation of his descendants. Again Hagar was sent into the desert, this time with her little boy who was almost overcome by thirst and exposure until an angel ministered to them and showed Hagar a well where they could get water. Ishmael became a skilled archer, his mother arranged a marriage for him with an Egyptian, and Ishmael (whose name means “God hears”) became the progenitor of the desert nomads known as the Ishmaelites.

Hagar and Ishmael’s story shows how God can turn the mistakes of people into good. Hagar, a slave, had little to say about how she was treated in the household of her master, Abraham. In the culture of that day, taking a concubine and having children by her was a common practice. This does not make it right, but in God’s providence, Hagar and Ishmael received His mercy and provision. “God sees” and “God hears” are vital to Hagar’s plight. With compassion, God sent an angel to minister to her and Ishmael in their need. Sarai tried to take the situation into her own hands without regard for God’s timing and will. Hagar and Ishmael suffered as a result of Sarai’s wrong choices, but they were rescued by God’s intervention in the desert. And God likewise will visit each of us in the desert experiences of our life. Selah!

c Ethelene Dyer Jones; Thursday, August 19, 2010