Hagar Encounters the God Who Sees
By Amanda White
When I watch a movie with my grandchildren, I give them the backstory (if there is one) so they will understand better what they are about to see. Context is important. And so it is with the question God asks Hagar in Genesis 16: “…where have you come from and where are you going?” (v 8). Can you imagine being asked this question by the God who sees and hears me and you?
Abram was 75 years old when God called him out of Haran to the land of Canaan. It was here that God made promises to Abram (Gen. 12:1). Each of those three promises were to find fulfillment, not in Abram, but in his descendants. Yet he is childless. In Genesis 16, eleven years have passed and Abram’s wife Sarai, now around 75, is still barren. Thus, she takes matters into her own hands. She was tired of waiting and wanted to take a shortcut. Have you been there? Has your course of action ever been driven by fear or impatience rather than faith? Sarai offers her Egyptian slave, Hagar, to Abram to obtain children that she could call her own. In this ancient culture, anything a slave owned was considered property of the master. Sarai, using this logic, wanted Hagar to conceive by her husband…and like Adam, Abram listened to his wife. He is complicit in her scheme.
Hagar does conceive and her social status immediately changes. Verse 4 says Hagar despised (“looked with contempt upon”) Sarai, like Peninnah did to Hannah in 1 Samuel 1. Sarai began treating Hagar “harshly.” Whatever form of abuse Sarai inflicted on Hagar, it was such that Hagar fled from her presence. And this is where the Lord finds Hagar, alone and pregnant, by a spring of water in the wilderness.
Have you had moments when it feels like life is handing you way more than you can handle? Or perhaps your actions—possibly even well-intentioned ones—have brought consequences that trouble or perplex you?
The first time in scripture, that Hagar is addressed by name, it is God who is speaking (v 7-8):
“The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, ‘Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?’”
I find it noteworthy to acknowledge the wording in verse 7, “The Angel of the LORD,” not an angel of the Lord. In 16:10, there is a promise made: “I will surely multiply your offspring”—angels can’t do that, only God can. And in 16:13 it says it was the LORD who had spoken to Hagar. Could this be a theophany, or more specifically, a Christophany? Could this angel be the preincarnate Jesus? Regardless of what we understand, Hagar understands that God is appearing here in the person of this messenger.
Any time God (or Jesus) asks a question, it is never for His benefit. He. Knows. Everything. To Adam He said, “Where are you?” (Gen 3:9). To Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” (Gen 4:9). To Peter, Jesus asked three times, “Do you love me?” (John 21:15-17). God always knows the answer. So the answers given are never for Him, but always for the one being asked. God is inviting confession and reflection, and such questions offer those who feel separated or distanced from God an opportunity to connect with Him. What a thought!
Hagar answers the first question, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai” (v 8). She was found “on the way to Shur” which happens to be the way to Egypt. Home. But what awaits her there? Would she even make it? Most likely not. Have you ever found yourself in circumstances that may or may not be of your own doing, and fleeing is your first reaction? She is a runaway slave, property of Abram and Sarai. Just as Paul admonishes the slave Onesimus to return to Philemon (his owner), the angel immediately tells Hagar to return to Sarai and submit to her. What?! Can you imagine what Hagar must have felt about this command? Return to the abuse of Sarai? Face Abram, whose child she carries? Accept whatever punishment might await, whatever criticism or shame, not to mention the ridicule of fellow slaves? How can she be expected to submit to that?
But then God…God connects with and assures Hagar, “I will multiply your offspring” (v 10), and He tells her to name her son Ishmael – “God will hear.” She is to return because “the Lord has listened to [her] affliction.” That’s her answer. She can go back knowing that the God of the people she was serving, by whom she was hurt, this God knows what she is going through. And He cares! Not only is He the God of Abram and Sarai, but He is her God, too. I would have loved to have seen her face as this realization set in. Clearly, she understands this message as she becomes the first person recorded in the Bible to give a name to God – El Roi, “the God who sees.” What a consideration—that the first person recorded giving a name to God is a slave woman who was mistreated by God’s chosen ones, a woman who declares of God “He sees me” because what God declares of Himself is “I have heard you.”
So, where are you? Where have you come from and more importantly, where are you going? Notice Hagar didn’t answer the second part of the question. God did that for her, and He does that for you and me: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (Mtt. 16: 24). When you consider your past, present, and future, know that God has been and will be with you every step of the way. Because He is “El Roi”--The God who sees.