Catholic Commentary on Genesis 16

"You are the God who sees me." (Genesis 16:13)

Hagar and Ishmael

Sarai has borne Abram no children. She gives her Egyptian slave Hagar to Abram as a wife, following the ancient Near Eastern custom of surrogate motherhood. When Hagar conceives, she begins to despise her mistress. Sarai treats her harshly and Hagar flees into the wilderness. The angel of the LORD finds her by a spring and asks: where have you come from and where are you going? She is told to return and submit, with the promise that her offspring will be too numerous to count. Her son will be named Ishmael, God hears, because the LORD has heard her misery. She is also told that Ishmael will be a wild donkey of a man, living in hostility toward all his brothers. The prophecy is not a curse but a description of the fierce independence of the desert people who will descend from him.

What is most striking about this account is Hagar's response. She is a slave, a foreigner, used and then mistreated. Yet she is the first person in the Bible to give God a name based on her personal experience: You are the God who sees me. The Catechism notes that God's revelation comes to the marginalised and the excluded as fully as to the patriarchs: the God who calls Abram also sees Hagar in her wilderness (CCC 63). The well is named Beer Lahai Roi, well of the Living One who sees me. Hagar returns and bears Ishmael. Abram is eighty-six years old.

Living the Word

Brothers and sisters, you are the God who sees me. Hagar gave God this name in the wilderness, fleeing from mistreatment, pregnant and alone. This is the name that belongs to the God of the abandoned, the used, the invisible. Whatever wilderness you are in today, whatever has driven you out, the God who found Hagar by the spring is looking for you by the same road. He sees you. He knows where you have come from and where you are going.

Prayer

You are the God who sees me. You saw Hagar in the wilderness and sent your angel to find her. See us in our own wildernesses. Hear our misery as you heard hers. Give us a name for the well where you found us. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

16
Hagar and Ishmael
1 Now Abram’s wife Sarai had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. 2 So Sarai said to Abram, “Look now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go to my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family by her.”
 
And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 3 So after he had lived in Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to Abram to be his wife. 4 And he slept with Hagar, and she conceived. But when Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.* 16:4 Or her mistress became despised in her sight
 
5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be upon you! I delivered my servant into your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant, she has treated me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me.”
 
6 “Here,” said Abram, “your servant is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she fled from her.
 
7 Now the angel † 16:7 Or Angel; also in verses 9, 10, and 11; corresponding pronouns may also be capitalized. of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur. 8 “Hagar, servant of Sarai,” he said, “where have you come from, and where are you going?”
 
“I am running away from my mistress Sarai,” she replied.
 
9 So the angel of the LORD told her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.” 10 Then the angel added, “I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count.”
 
11 The angel of the LORD proceeded:
 
“Behold, you have conceived and will bear a son.
And you shall name him Ishmael,‡ 16:11 Ishmael means God hears.
for the LORD has heard your cry of affliction.
12 He will be a wild donkey of a man,
and his hand will be against everyone,
and everyone’s hand against him;
he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”
 
13 So Hagar gave this name to the LORD who had spoken to her: “You are the God who sees me,§ 16:13 Hebrew El-Roi” for she said, “Here I have seen the One who sees me!” 14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi.* 16:14 Beer-lahai-roi means well of the Living One who sees me. It is located between Kadesh and Bered.
 
15 And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.

*16:4 16:4 Or her mistress became despised in her sight

†16:7 16:7 Or Angel; also in verses 9, 10, and 11; corresponding pronouns may also be capitalized.

‡16:11 16:11 Ishmael means God hears.

§16:13 16:13 Hebrew El-Roi

*16:14 16:14 Beer-lahai-roi means well of the Living One who sees me.

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