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Genesis 16: What the Passage Says

62 claims across 16 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Genesis 16 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Sarai has borne Abram no children, and she gives her Egyptian servant Hagar to Abram as a wife; Hagar becomes pregnant and looks down on Sarai. Sarai speaks against Abram over the wrong done to her, treats Hagar harshly, and Hagar runs away. The angel of the LORD finds Hagar by a spring in the wilderness, tells her to go back and submit to Sarai, promises her descendants too many to count, and tells her she will have a son named Ishmael. Hagar gives a name to the LORD who spoke to her, the well is named, and Ishmael is born when Abram is eighty-six.

Claim by Claim

  1. 16:1
    • Sarai was Abram's wife.
    • Sarai had borne Abram no children.
    • Sarai had a female servant.
    • The servant was Egyptian.
    • The servant's name was Hagar.
  2. 16:2
    • Sarai spoke to Abram.
    • Sarai said the LORD had kept her from bearing children.
    • Sarai asked Abram to go in to her servant.
    • Sarai said that perhaps she would be built up through her servant.
    • Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
  3. 16:3
    • Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant.
    • This happened at the end of ten years of Abram dwelling in the land of Canaan.
    • Sarai gave Hagar to Abram her husband.
    • Sarai gave Hagar to Abram to be his wife.
  4. 16:4
    • Abram went in to Hagar.
    • Hagar conceived.
    • Hagar saw that she had conceived.
    • When Hagar saw she had conceived, her mistress became lightly esteemed in Hagar's eyes.
  5. 16:5
    • Sarai spoke to Abram.
    • Sarai said the wrong done to her was upon Abram.
    • Sarai said she had given her servant into Abram's bosom.
    • Sarai said that when the servant saw she had conceived, Sarai became lightly esteemed in the servant's eyes.
    • Sarai said the LORD should judge between her and Abram.
  6. 16:6
    • Abram spoke to Sarai.
    • Abram said Sarai's servant was in Sarai's hand.
    • Abram told Sarai to do to her what was good in Sarai's eyes.
    • Sarai afflicted Hagar.
    • Hagar fled from Sarai's presence.
  7. 16:7
    • The angel of the LORD found Hagar.
    • He found her by a spring of water in the wilderness.
    • The spring was on the way to Shur.
  8. 16:8
    • The angel spoke.
    • He addressed her as Hagar, Sarai's servant.
    • He asked where she had come from.
    • He asked where she was going.
    • Hagar answered that she was fleeing from the presence of Sarai her mistress.
  9. 16:9
    • The angel of the LORD spoke to Hagar.
    • The angel told her to return to her mistress.
    • The angel told her to submit herself under her mistress's hands.
  10. 16:10
    • The angel of the LORD spoke to Hagar.
    • The angel said he would greatly multiply her offspring.
    • The angel said her offspring would be too many to be counted.
  11. 16:11
    • The angel of the LORD spoke to Hagar.
    • The angel said she was pregnant.
    • The angel said she would bear a son.
    • The angel said she would call his name Ishmael.
    • The angel said the reason was that the LORD had heard her affliction.
  12. 16:12
    • The angel said the son would be a wild-donkey of a man.
    • The angel said his hand would be against everyone.
    • The angel said everyone's hand would be against him.
    • The angel said he would dwell in the presence of all his brothers.
    • The phrase describing where he would dwell is ambiguous between living alongside his brothers and living in opposition to them.
  13. 16:13
    • Hagar called the name of the LORD who spoke to her.
    • She called him: You are a God of seeing.
    • She said this because of what she said next.
    • She said: Have I here indeed seen after the one who sees me?
    • Her statement is ambiguous between having seen the one who sees her and having remained alive after seeing him.
  14. 16:14
    • Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi.
    • The well is between Kadesh and Bered.
  15. 16:15
    • Hagar bore Abram a son.
    • Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bore Ishmael.
  16. 16:16
    • Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

16:1
"Servant woman" translates a word for a female slave, part of a household's property. In the ancient Near East a wife who could not conceive could give her own slave to her husband; any child born counted legally as the wife's, and Hagar remains Sarai's property throughout. Hagar is Egyptian, i.e. a foreigner in Canaan and far from home.
16:2
"The LORD" printed in capitals stands for the personal name of God in the Hebrew text, four letters usually written Yahweh, which Jewish tradition avoided pronouncing and read as "the Lord" instead. Wherever you see LORD in capitals, the name is behind it. "Maybe I can have children through her" is literally "maybe I will be built up from her", a play on the Hebrew words for "son" (ben) and "build" (banah). Legal texts from the period record exactly this arrangement, sometimes as a written clause in a marriage contract.
16:3
"To be his wife" marks a change in Hagar's status: a slave given for this purpose became a secondary wife, ranked below Sarai but no longer merely property to be sold. The ten-year note dates the events, Abram was seventy-five when he entered Canaan, so a decade has passed since he was told he would have descendants.
16:4
"Look down on" translates a verb meaning to treat as light or of small account. Because a slave's worth in that society was largely measured by childbearing, Hagar's pregnancy inverted the two women's standing in the household.
16:5
"The wrong done to me is your fault" is close to a legal accusation: literally "my wrong be upon you," i.e. you bear the liability for it. "Let the LORD decide between me and you" is the formal wording for calling on God as judge when there is no human court to settle a dispute, the same formula appears in other quarrels and treaties in these books.
16:6
"In your hands" means under your legal authority; Abram is confirming that Hagar remains Sarai's slave rather than his wife's equal, whatever verse 3 said. The verb translated "treated her harshly" is the same one later used for what the Egyptians did to the Israelites when they were slaves in Egypt.
16:7
"Angel" means messenger. The Hebrew word covers both human envoys and God's; here the messenger speaks in verses 10–12 as if he were God himself, and verse 13 has Hagar name God as the one who spoke to her. The text does not resolve the ambiguity, and neither do translations. Shur was the arid region on the northeastern edge of Egypt; the road there ran from Canaan toward Hagar's homeland. She is heading home.
16:8
"Whence camest thou" means where have you come from, and "whither wilt thou go" means where are you going. Addressing her as "Sarai's maid" names the status she is running from before asking anything else.
16:9
The Hebrew verb translated "submit thyself" comes from the same root as the verb translated "dealt hardly" in verse 6. In the original wording, Hagar is being told to go back and place herself under the very treatment she fled. The text records the instruction without softening it.
16:10
"Thy seed" means descendants, offspring, the family line running forward from her. The promise of countless descendants is the same promise given to Abram earlier, and here it is spoken directly to a runaway slave woman, the only woman in Genesis to receive such a promise for herself.
16:11
The name Ishmael means "God hears", the reason is given in the same sentence, "the LORD has heard." The word translated "suffering" comes from the same root as "treated her harshly" in verse 6.
16:12
"A wild man" is literally "a wild donkey of a man." The wild donkey, or onager, was a desert animal admired for roaming free and refusing to be broken to harness; the image is of an untamed, independent life outside settled territory rather than simply a savage one. "He will live in the presence of all his relatives" renders a Hebrew phrase that can mean alongside, opposite, or in defiance of, and also, geographically, to the east of. The wording is genuinely open, and different translations pick different senses.
16:13
The name she gives is El-roi, which can be understood as "God who sees me" or "God of my seeing." Her sentence after it is one of the most damaged and obscure lines in Genesis; the Hebrew can be read as "Have I really seen here the one who sees me?", "Have I gone on seeing after being seen?", or "Have I remained alive after seeing him?" Translators differ because the text itself is unclear.
16:14
Beer-lahai-roi means roughly "well of the Living One who sees me," tying the place name to what Hagar said in verse 13. Naming a well or landmark from an event that happened there is a common feature of these narratives. Kadesh was a desert oasis south of Canaan; Bered is otherwise unknown.
16:15
Naming the child is Abram's act here, which in this culture was the formal acknowledgment of the son as his own, even though verse 11 had told Hagar to name him.
16:16
A score is twenty, so "fourscore and six" is eighty-six. The King James uses this older counting system throughout.

Read Genesis 16