Hagar is abused

Genesis 16

Genesis 16:3-4, NIV So after Abram had been living in Canaan for 10 years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. (emphasis added)

It seems to be a reflection of the culture of the times that the women in the Bible were always barren, never the men. Of course, ancient Israelites had little knowledge of the scientific aspects of reproduction!

Now, along with the fact that I don’t like Abram, I’m not really a big fan of Sarai either. She seems like a spoiled elite. Since Hagar was a slave, there is a good chance she had no choice in the matter of suddenly becoming Abram’s wife. Of course she is going to be disgruntled about it. What does Sarai do? She “mistreats” a pregnant women, forcing her to flee into the desert. God comes upon her, and strikes up a bargain. Not only does he command her to go back to Sarai and submit to her, God apparently curses her unborn child by setting “everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers”. What did Hagar and her unborn son do to deserve that?

This chapter makes it very difficult to find a moral lesson, and is another example of God’s fickleness in the early chapters of the Old Testament. His actions in Genesis 16 do not show God’s supposed almighty power and goodness. A just God would not send a pregnant slave back to an abusive household.

Genesis 16 is a disturbing story that reeks of “hysterical woman” syndrome, gives us our first detailed biblical perspective of slavery—which is very a much a product of the time it was written—and is an interesting lesson in ancient Israelite fertility treatments. It was a custom in the ancient Near East for a woman to give her husband her maidservant if they were unsuccessful with conceiving children. In fact, it wasn’t considered adultery!

New words:

Shur (The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur) – a wall or place, likely in the Arabian desert, on the northeastern border of Egypt. The Egyptians built walls to defend their kingdom on the northeast from desert tribes.