Brian Somers A Fresh Interpretation Based on Patterns
From time immemorial, when someone reads the story of Genesis 16 in which Sarai, Abram’s wife, gives her slave maiden, Hagar, to her husband, tongues tut-tut and people offer all kinds of reasons ranging from lack of faith to the proverbial jumping the gun, or some variation thereof. What I have not read nor heard of anywhere is the proposition that YHVH wanted this to happen. It’s not that He didn’t know in His foreknowledge that this would happen and He accommodated it, but what I am saying is that He specifically wanted this situation with the three of them to happen, and I will present my argument below.
I was working on the commentary for the portion Lech L’kha for the Jewish year 5781 (2020-2021) when I saw something that I had not noticed before and it was a pattern that repeated itself multiple times. This pattern is that Abram, later Abraham, would do something, and then YHVH would appear to him with a message.
There are two things to keep in mind as we discuss this topic. First, in Genesis 26:5, YHVH told Isaac that his father had obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws. (Genesis 26:5) The other thing that YHVH said of Abraham is that he was a prophet. (Genesis 20:7). Abraham was not recorded as being a seer or prophet like Isaiah, for example, so his actions are the prophecy.
The first instance happens in Genesis 12. After Abram’s father Terah died, YHVH told Abram to leave Haran and head to Canaan. Once Abram arrived at Shechem, YHVH appeared to Him there, confirming that this was the land that He was giving to Abram and to his descendants and Abram built an altar.
Then Abram goes to Egypt because of a famine. He tells Sarai to lie and say that she was his sister instead of his wife because Abram didn’t want to be killed and Sarai taken. However, Sarai was taken into Pharaoh’s house, which might be a polite word for harem. YHVH struck the Egyptian king’s household until the king realized that Sarai was indeed Abram’s wife. He clearly recognized the impropriety of taking another man’s wife and sent Abram and Sarai away out of Egypt. This episode demonstrates what adultery was (and is) and that the understanding was widespread across the region.
The second instance happened in Genesis 13. The herds of Abram and Lot had greatly increased and quarreling had begun between the herdsmen of Abram and those looking to Lot. In order to avoid an explosion of violence between their men, Abram proposed to Lot that they separate. Lot chose to go down to the plain near Sodom while Abram remained in between Bethel and Ai. After this separation, which undoubtedly was painful for both men, YHVH appeared to Abram and confirmed the land grant in Genesis 13:14-16.
The third instance was the War of the Nine Kings. The story is told in Genesis 14:1-16. After the five kings of the plain ran away, Lot and his family were taken captive and the four victorious kings began the long journey home. A survivor of the battle informed Abram of the present bad state of Lot. Abram gathered his men and those of his Amorite allies and went after the four kings. A surprise night time attack succeeded and Abram was able to recover the captives and booty. Genesis 15 opens with YHVH telling Abram that He was his Shield and Abram’s reward would be great. I understand this to mean that YHVH was rewarding Abram for going after Lot and bringing him home safely.
The reward that Abram wanted was an heir. Note carefully YHVH’s response.
2 Abram said, “O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.” 4 Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.”
Genesis 15:2-4
What YHVH said was that “one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir”; He did not specify who would be the mother. After this, Abram was granted the unconditional covenant to the land.
In chapter sixteen, we meet Hagar. She was an Egyptian slave girl to Sarai. Sarai proposed to her husband that she give Hagar to him as his wife and she would have a child through Hagar.
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. 2 So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 3 After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife.
Genesis 16:1-3
Sarai knew that YHVH was preventing her from having children and she also knew that Abram was promised an heir from his own body. Nothing in what YHVH said specified that Sarai would be the mother. So Sarai proposed to Abram that he take Hagar as a slave wife and lie with her. Abram listened to Sarai because her proposal made sense and fit the circumstances they were in. Thus, Hagar became pregnant by Abram.
Unfortunately, Hagar thought her slave marriage to Abram and subsequent pregnancy elevated her status and she disrespected her mistress (see Proverbs 30:23 for Solomon’s thinking on this). But Sarai appealed to Abram and Abram confirmed that Hagar was still under her authority. Sarai disciplined Hagar and she fled. Now, what makes Hagar’s flight from her deserved discipline interesting was that she encountered the Angel of the Lord in the wilderness.
8 He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?” And she said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.” 9 Then the angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.” 10 Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.” 11 The angel of the Lord said to her further,
“Behold, you are with child,
Genesis 16:8-11
And you will bear a son;
And you shall call his name Ishmael
I am sure that Hagar was not the first runaway slave in the history of the world, but I am not aware of any other runaway female slave that was sought for and found by the angel of the Lord. His presence makes this an important occasion. The first thing He told her was to return to Sarai and submit to her authority. Then He confirmed that her descendants would be numerous. Third, He named her unborn son, Ishmael.
The angel of the Lord did not rebuke her for her slave marriage to Abram. He expected her to abide within her circumstances and not seek to change them (see I Corinthians 7:17-24). Nor were Abram and Sarai rebuked. When Hagar gave birth, her son was indeed named Ishmael as the angel of the Lord directed.
If anything, Abram and Sarai were rewarded thirteen years later by YHVH. Abram was given a name change to Abraham, and Sarai became Sarah.
YHVH clearly said that now was the time for his blessing to Sarah. There is no rebuke here.
15 Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”
17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” 18 And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before You!” 19 But God said, “No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. 20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. 21 But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year.”
Genesis 17:15-21
Because Abraham was laughing for sheer joy, his laughter was the source for the naming of his son with Sarai as Isaac. YHVH also confirmed to Abraham what He had years earlier told Hagar. But Ishmael would not inherit the covenant, as that was going to Isaac.
The previously observed pattern of Abram performing an action followed by YHVH’s response is also observed with Abram’s action with respect to Sarai and Hagar. In chapter sixteen, Abram followed Sarai’s suggestion to take Hagar as a slave wife. In chapter seventeen, YHVH confirmed His covenant would be with Abram. In addition, YHVH said that He had made Abram the father of a multitude of nations. This action on His part led Him to change Abram’s name to Abraham, and Sarai’s name to Sarah. After He instituted circumcision as the sign of His covenant with Abraham, He said He would bless her by giving her a son. Her son with Abram would inherit the covenant.
Since YHVH took responsibility for making Ishmael a great nation, the implication is that He wanted Abram to take Sarai’s suggestion, which in turn means Sarai was acting in faith when she made her suggestion to her husband. That suggestion was rewarded by her being renamed to Sarah and blessed with her own baby.
Leah said something two generations later that buttresses this point of view. She said “God has given me my wages because I gave my maid to my husband.” So she named him Issachar. (Genesis 30:18)
Stepping back a bit and looking at the families of the three patriarchs, several things become apparent. Abraham had a free wife (Sarai) and a slave wife (Hagar) while Sarah was alive. After her death, Abram took other concubines (slave wives). But for the present purpose, I want to focus on this dyad of a free wife and a slave wife. Who else had this dyad? Jacob who became Israel. The two sisters that he married both had slave girls. Both sisters gave their slave girls to their husbands as slave wives. Jacob apparently only wanted one wife (Rachel), but he found himself with four wives, two free and two concubines. Then he covenanted with Laban to not marry any more women, and he didn’t.
It is almost as if YHVH was doubling down and wanting two dyads of free and slave wives for Jacob where for Abraham there was only one dyad of free and slave wives.
Before we consider Isaac and Rebekah, YHVH directly named both Ishmael and Isaac. Even though Ishmael became a wild man, he never became an enemy of YHVH. He mocked baby Isaac but never wanted to kill him or developed an everlasting hatred. While the sisters named all of the children of Jacob, none of their children became enemies of YHVH. Certainly there were issues within Jacob’s family, but at the end of Jacob’s life, his sons were at peace with one another.
Turning now to Isaac and Rebekah, we note that there is no mention of a slave girl going with her to Isaac. We also note that while Rebekah could pray and get an answer to her prayer about the twin boys fighting in her womb, she also was willing to lie and deceive her husband Isaac. Rebekah accepted the curse of deceiving her husband and died before Jacob returned home from exile. One of Rebekah’s sons became an enemy to God and developed an everlasting hatred for his twin brother, Jacob/Israel.
Sarah didn’t manipulate Abraham. Leah and the slave girls Bilhah and Zilpah never deceived their husband, though one of the slave girls slept with Reuben, which caused him to forfeit the blessing of the firstborn. Rachel deceived both her father and husband about the stolen teraphim, and died early on as a result of Jacob’s curse.
Another point to consider is that Abram and Jacob both earned new names of Abraham and Israel, respectively. Sarai was given a new name of Sarah. Isaac did not earn a new name. Rebekah, Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah were not renamed. We don’t know who Keturah really was, whether she was Hagar under a different name or an otherwise unknown woman. Abraham and Jacob both were married to free and slave women, and both were renamed after their plural marriages.
If one is going to talk about trials and tribulations of these three generations of men with whom YHVH covenanted, there certainly was plenty. But the worst of it seems to have been in the monogamous family of Isaac where one son went on to inherit the covenant, and the other became the great enemy of YHVH. YHVH seems to prefer the plural marriage form for His people, based on the fact that He rewarded Sarah for giving Hagar to Abraham, and that Leah acknowledged she was rewarded with Issachar for giving her maid to Jacob as a slave wife.