NOTES for Gen 16:1-16

The story with Hagar cannot help appearing, at the very least, strange to a modern reader. Meanwhile, in the age of the Patriarchs people often acted this way, since a child, even one born from a slave woman, could still inherit from the master of the house if the master of the house was his father. And among ancient people, childlessness was considered a grave misfortune and a sign of the gods' anger.

In Abraham's case the situation was made even heavier by Sarah's impatient expectation: after all, she knew about the covenant and about the promises God had given no worse than her husband did. Meanwhile, ten years had already passed (v. 3), and Sarah naturally grew more and more anxious: she was aging, her husband was aging too, and the heir promised by God still had not appeared (vv. 1-2). Everything for which Abraham had once left the land of his fathers and moved to a foreign, unknown country was collapsing. And in Sarah's mind a thought arose by itself: why not speed up the course of events? Is this what God is waiting for from her? Of course, the child of a slave woman is not one's own, but at least he would still be considered an heir, and God's work would continue.

So Ishmael came into the world, and with him contempt and jealousy (v. 4). It would appear, what rivalry can there be between a mistress and a slave woman? But slavery among the Hebrews was never what it was among the ancient Greeks and Romans, or among the ancient Egyptians, where slaves at times were not counted as people. Slavery among the Hebrews was mild and patriarchal, and slaves were looked upon essentially as younger, not fully entitled members of the tribe, who of course had no voice in the tribal council but otherwise were like everyone else. It is no accident that in antiquity the Hebrews used one and the same word for an adolescent and a slave. And if a slave woman became the mother of an heir and the master's concubine, the wife's position in the house became ambiguous (v. 5).

Abraham, for his part, appears to have regarded all the complaints and reproaches from Sarah as not entirely fair: after all, Sarah herself, on her own initiative, had created the situation from which she now suffered. And he gave her the opportunity to resolve this situation at her own discretion (v. 6). The decision was quick, though hardly just: Hagar, together with her child, was in effect driven out of the house. By all appearances, a woman's jealousy outweighed all the considerations that had earlier led Sarah to approach Hagar with the proposal that she bear an heir for the master.

After everything that happened, it became clear to both Abraham and his wife that God's plans cannot be carried out by human efforts alone. At times, as it turned out, the best help one can give God in the fulfillment of His plan is patient waiting. Still, God does not abandon the fugitives (vv. 7-12): in the end, He is the one who has to solve the problems created by people who want to serve Him but do not know how. Everything is resolved well, and another people appears in the Middle East with its own future and its own history. God finds a place under the sun for everyone. And yet, while reading today's passage, a question arises involuntarily: is it worth creating needless problems both for God and for ourselves?