Hagar

Find more lessons like this in 31 Days of Women from Scripture Vol 1

Have you ever been a player in events out of your control?

In a situation where you are part of the story, but the story itself isn’t about you?

In the grand story of Abraham - a story that impacts all of mankind eventually (Rom. 4:16; Gal. 3:16-29) - comes just such a person.

Hagar, the Egyptian.

As Abraham grows in his faith, God shares stories that aren’t always strong moments of faith. One of these moments is in Genesis 12. Sometime after God makes Abraham the land promise, the great nation promise, and all families of the earth being blessed through Abraham promise there is a famine in Canaan. Abram and Sarai go to Egypt until the famine in Canaan is over.

While they are in Egypt, Abram and Sarai lie about their relationship because Abram is afraid the Pharaoh will kill him in order to take Sarai. Through the course of events, which you can revisit in episode 507, Pharaoh gifts Abram “sheep and oxen and donkeys and male and female servants and female donkeys and camels”. (Gen. 12:16). So, it seems logical that this is how Hagar came to be in the household of Abram as a maid for Sarai. After Pharaoh invites Abram to leave Egypt, they all go back to Canaan (Gen. 12:19-20).

Fast forward ten years.

Abram and Sarai have come to the land God has promised. God has added to the “seed” promise, by telling Abram that it will be a son of his own body that will be the promised heir (Gen. 15:4). But after another ten years of being unable to become pregnant, Sarai decides to try another means of making this prophecy come true. This is where Hagar gets brought into a story that wasn’t meant for her. If you want to consider Sarai’s side in all of this, check out episode 508.

OK - so here is Hagar, who is a maid for Sarai. If she’s been with them since the events in Egypt, she’s been with the family for quite a while. Several years at least and nearly ten years at the most. Sarai’s inability to become pregnant is a known quantity.

Sarai decides to use Hagar as a means to gain a child of Abram and Abram goes along.

When the result is Hagar becoming pregnant, something changed in the household dynamic.

Genesis 16:4 says, “He went into Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she conceived, her mistress became despised in her sight.”

I don’t know if our modern usage of “despised” fully embraces the idea here. Hagar didn’t come to greatly dislike her mistress. She came to consider her “be of little account” or as a “trifle”.

In Hagar’s eyes, Sarai has now been demoted. The Mistress of the house is not elevated in her eyes anymore.

Where there may have been sympathy for Sarai before because of her barrenness, now it is seen as full of shame. Hagar sees herself as MORE because she was able to get pregnant by Abram when Sarai was not. In a master-slave relationship, this attitude is going to make things troublesome.

Soon after, Sarai becomes aware of how Hagar feels about her and takes the problem to Abram. Abram doesn’t treat Hagar as a wife, instead he tells Sarai that Hagar is her maid and she can do whatever she determines is right (Gen. 16:5-6).

Sarai decides to deal with her “harshly”. I understand this to mean she punished Hagar in some way. Sarai doesn’t throw her out, but Hagar runs away due to how she is treated.

Hagar in the Wilderness

Hagar runs away and comes to a spring of water in the wilderness on the road to Shur.

God sends a messenger to her. When he inquires about what she is doing, Hagar answers truthfully that she is running away from her mistress (Gen. 16:8).

The messenger tells her to “return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.” (Gen. 16:9).

This sheds more light on the attitude Hagar had toward Sarai. It was more than, “I can do something you can’t.” Hagar no longer respected Sarai as her rightful mistress. God’s messenger tells her to go back and do better. Go back and submit to Sarai. We will come back to that thought in a few minutes.

The messenger doesn’t stop there. He also tells her that the son she is carrying is going to be a problem for everyone around them, but God will make him a great nation. She is to name him “Ishmael” because “the Lord has given heed to your affliction” (Gen. 16:11).

Hagar glorified God and went back home. In the fullness of time she gives birth to a son and Abram names him Ishmael.

Fourteen Years Later

When Abram is 99 years old, the Lord appears to Him again. The Lord repeats the promises given and now gives the timing for the promised heir. One year from now, when Abram is 100 years old, a son will be born Abraham and Sarah!

This changes circumstances drastically for Ishmael.

The young man has been raised in the household and Abraham cares for him.

Isaac is born and when he is weaned (usually around 3 or 4 years old) Abraham has a great feast day to celebrate Isaac (Gen. 21:8).

Ishmael, now an older child around age 16 or 17, is seen mocking young Isaac (Gen. 21:9). Sarah won’t have it. She is ready for them to go. Ishmael is not to be allowed to take anything away from Isaac as heir.

Abraham is distressed, but God tells him to listen to Sarah this time (Gen. 21:12-13). God promises to take care of Ishmael, but Isaac is to be Abraham’s focus.

So, Ishmael and Hagar are given food and water and sent away.

After over 20 years of service and Ishmael being treated as Abraham’s son his whole life, their circumstances completely change.

When they run out of water, Hagar, fearful of watching her son die, steps away and cries out in her fear. The messenger of God calls out from heaven - He doesn’t even appear to her this time! He calls out and reminds her of his promise to make Ishmael a great nation. Then God opens her eyes so she can see a well of water nearby to fill her waterskin.

Hagar and Ishmael go on to live in the wilderness and he becomes an archer. Eventually, Hagar finds him a wife from Egypt.

That is all we are told about Hagar.

Lessons to Learn from Hagar

We have the benefit of hindsight when we read these stories. We struggle to imagine FORGETTING God has promised you something as big as your child growing to become a great nation and all that implies.

But Abraham forgot -

• he forgot in the early years when he maybe didn’t understand God’s faithfulness fully.

• He forgot again, in his old age, not long before Isaac was to be born.

Hagar forgetting the promise made over 14 years before maybe isn’t that surprising. Especially if she was prone to the same ideas as Sarah, that the promise to Ishmael would somehow come about by being in Abraham’s sphere.Being sent away from that seemingly sure future might make anyone doubt something they remember from 14 or more years ago.

But God uses her story to reinforce the same message He had for Abraham.

God is faithful.

God keeps His promises.

He doesn’t ONLY keep them great men like Abraham. He also keeps His promises to maids, like Hagar.

When God says He will do something, you can take that to the bank. This is why the hope of Salvation is not a wish, it is a certainty - because God is the One Who promises it by His grace.

So, that is lesson number one.

Lesson number two is applicable more in the day to day reality of life.

All of us have “masters” or “mistresses” in our lives.

Children have parents.

Adults have employers.

In some places, true slavery is still functioning. Slaves have masters.

Citizens have varying levels of governmental authority over them.

Christians have elders over their local congregation.

While there are separate conversations to have about the rightness of slavery, the lesson from Hagar is about how one handles themselves when they are in a situation where there is authority over them.

God told Hagar to go home and submit to her mistress Sarah.

In that moment, this was the relationship that existed and Hagar had failed to behave herself properly.

She stopped being willing to submit to the authority that had been given to Sarah.

1 Peter 2 and 3 gives a lesson on submission in any situation. The attitude that is taught is that it is better for you to behave correctly, even when others do not. The poor behavior of someone in authority is not permission for you to fail in your own responsibilities.

The ultimate example of Jesus Christ suffering unjustly while in the form of a man because He had submitted Himself to God and God’s purposes while He was here (1 Peter 2:20-25).

Whether you are a slave, an employee, a wife, a member of a congregation, or a citizen, it is never your right to elevate yourself over those in authority over you simply because they aren’t behaving the way God would have them to behave.

“But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.” 1 Peter 2:20

Hagar hadn’t been punished to the point of physical harm - she was capable of walking far away and there is nothing that indicates her pregnancy was ever in danger. She returns home and there is no indication of Sarah dealing with things the same way again. In fact, Sarah just determines they need to move on rather than dealing “harshly” with them.

When your boss is rude to you, don’t puff yourself up thinking how much better you are than him. Just keep doing your job and doing it well. Don’t allow his poor behavior to make you start slacking in your job.

This is about keeping a clean conscience before God. Not allowing struggles to make you behave like the world. Choosing to stand strong without having to respond - “well but, so and so did such and such” as an excuse (remember Cain, Samuel, and Daniel).

Hagar may be a small player in a grander story, but my friend, so are each one of us. You may not be an Abraham - called to show a great nation how to have faith in the One True God. But you are a person of influence in your own sphere able to glorify God in all that you do (Col. 3:17).

Hagar obeyed the voice of God and accessed salvation for herself and her son.

Her story is one of many that show God cares for ALL of us, not just the “big” players.

Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from Your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear, you are more valuable than many sparrows.”

Matthew 10:28-31

How does Hagar’s story speak to you?

Can you find ways to learn from her today?