[CatherineTorpey]

Hello Bibliophiles!

Rev. Jacqui Lewis is preaching on “A Handmaid’s Tale,” and her text is Genesis 16.

We continue to be in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), and we get to look at towering early leaders of Judaism (and therefore Christianity and Islam as well): Sarah, Abraham and Hagar. Sarah was the mother of Isaac – a patriarch of Judaism – and Hagar the mother of Ishmael – a patriarch of Islam.

This is quite a story, filled with intrigue. Hagar is an Egyptian woman, enslaved and so badly abused that she runs away while pregnant, jeopardizing her own life and that of her son. But, like Moses, she sees God face to face, and even bestows a new name upon him. Her story is an important part of Black Liberation Theology.

For the fans of YouTube videos, here is a lecture about Abram (Abraham) and Sarai (Sarah) and Hagar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCGjY7_KbZI
The lecturer in the YouTube video is Vanderbilt Divinity School professor, Amy-Jill Levine. Her Wikipedia page says this about her: “a self-described Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a predominantly Protestant divinity school in the buckle of the Bible Belt,’ Levine “combines historical-critical rigor, literary-critical sensitivity, and a frequent dash of humor with a commitment to eliminating antisemitic, sexist, and homophobic theologies.”

This video is from about 20 years ago, I believe, and is not primarily focused on the story of Hagar, but goes over it as part of the story of Abraham and Sarah.

If you want to get the beginning of the story of Abram (later called Abraham), begin with Genesis chapter 12.

Here is the Robert Alter translation of Genesis 16 including his notes:

1 Now Sarai Abram’s wife had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian slavegirl1 named Hagar. 2 And Sarai said2 to Abram, “Look, pray, the LORD has kept me from bearing children. Pray, come to bed with my slavegirl. Perhaps I shall be built up through her.” And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.

3 And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar the Egyptian her slavegirl after Abram had dwelled ten years in the land of Canaan, and she gave her to Abram her husband as a wife.3 4 And he came to bed with Hagar and she conceived and she saw that she had conceived and her mistress seemed slight in her eyes.4

5 And Sarai said to Abram, “This outrage against me is because of you! I myself put my slavegirl in your embrace5 and when she saw she had conceived, I became slight in her eyes. Let the LORD judge between you and me!” 6 And Abram said to Sarai, “Look, your slavegirl is in your hands. Do to her whatever you think right.”

And Sarai harassed her and she fled from her. 7 And the LORD’s messenger6 found her by a spring of water in the wilderness,7 by the spring on the way to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, slavegirl of Sarai! Where have you come from and where are you going?” And she said, “From Sarai my mistress I am fleeing.” 9 And the LORD’s messenger said to her, “Return to your mistress and suffer abuse at her hand.” 10 And the LORD’s messenger said to her8, “I will surely multiply9 your seed and it will be beyond all counting.” 11 And the LORD’s messenger said to her: “Look, you have conceived and will bear a son and you will call his name Ishmael10, for the LORD has heeded your suffering11. 12 And he will be a wild ass of a man— his hand against all12, the hand of all against him, he will encamp in despite of13 all his kin.”

13And she called the name of the LORD who had addressed her, “El-Roi,”14 for she said, “Did not I go on seeing here after He saw me?” 14 Therefore is the well called Beer-Lahai-Roi, which is between Kadesh and Bered. 15 And Hagar bore a son to Abram, and Abram called his son whom Hagar had born Ishmael. 16And Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.

1slavegirl. Hebrew shifḥah. The tradition of English versions that render this as “maid” or “handmaiden” imposes a misleading sense of European gentility on the sociology of the story. The point is that Hagar belongs to Sarai as property, and the ensuing complications of their relationship build on that fundamental fact. Later on, Hagar will also be referred to as ʾamah. The two terms designate precisely the same social status. The only evident difference is that ʾamah, the more international of the two terms, is often used in administrative lists whereas shifḥah occurs in contexts that are more narrative and popular in character.

2And Sarai said. Sarai-Sarah’s first reported speech, like that of Rachel later on in the cycle, is a complaint about her childlessness. The institution of surrogate maternity to which she resorts is by no means her invention, being well attested in ancient Near Eastern legal documents. Living with the human consequences of the institution could be quite another matter, as the writer shrewdly understands: Sarai’s first two-sided dialogue with her husband (verses 5–6) vividly represents the first domestic squabble—her bitterness and her resentment against the husband who, after all, has only complied with her request; his willingness to buy conjugal peace at almost any price. be built up through her. The Hebrew ʾibaneh puns on ben, “son,” and so also means, “I will be sonned through her.”

3as a wife. Most English versions, following the logic of the context, render this as “concubine.” The word used, however, is not pilegesh but ʾishah, the same term that identifies Sarai at the beginning of the verse. The terminological equation of the two women is surely intended, and sets up an ironic backdrop for Sarai’s abuse of Hagar.

4in her eyes. It is best to leave the Hebrew idiom literally in place in English because Hagar’s sight will again be at issue in her naming of the divinity after the epiphany in the wilderness.

5your embrace. Literally, “your lap,” often a euphemism for the genital area. The emphasis is pointedly sexual.

6the LORD’s messenger. This is the first occurrence of an “angel” (Hebrew, malʾakh, Greek, angelos) in Genesis, though “the sons of God,” the members of the divine entourage, are mentioned in chapter 6. “Messenger,” or one who carries out a designated task, is the primary meaning of the Hebrew term, and there are abundant biblical instances of malʾakhim who are strictly human emissaries. One assumes that the divine messenger in these stories is supposed to look just like a human being, and all postbiblical associations with wings, halos, and glorious raiment must be firmly excluded. One should note that the divine speaker here begins as an angel but ends up (verse 13) being referred to as though he were God Himself. Gerhard von Rad and others have proposed that the angel as intermediary was superimposed on the earliest biblical tradition in order to mitigate what may have seemed an excessively anthropomorphic representation of the deity. But it is anyone’s guess how the Hebrew imagination conceived agents of the LORD three thousand years ago, and it is certainly possible that the original traditions had a blurry notion of differentiation between God’s own interventions in human life and those of His emissaries. Richard Elliott Friedman has actually proposed that the angels are entities split off, or emanated, from God, and that no clear-cut distinction between God and angel is intended.

7in the wilderness, . . . on the way to Shur. Hagar is in the Negeb, headed south, evidently back toward her native Egypt. Shur means “wall” in Hebrew, and scholars have linked the name with the line of fortifications the Egyptians built on their northern border. But the same word could also be construed as a verb that occurs in poetic texts, “to see” (or perhaps, more loftily, “to espy”), and may relate to the thematics of seeing in Hagar’s story.

8And the LORD’s messenger said to her. The formula for introducing speech is repeated as Hagar stands in baffled silence in response to the command that she return to suffer abuse at Sarai’s hand. Even the promise of progeny does not suffice to allay her doubts, so, with still another repetition of the introductory formula, the messenger proceeds (verse 11) to spell out the promise in a poetic oracle.

9surely multiply. The repetition of the verb in an infinitive absolute could refer either to the certainty of multiplication or to the scale of multiplication (“I will mightily multiply”).

10Ishmael. The name means “God has heard,” as the messenger proceeds to explain. The previous occurrence of hearing in the story is Abram’s “heeding” (shamaʿ, the same verb) Sarai’s voice. God’s hearing is then complemented by His and Hagar’s seeing (verse 13).

11your suffering. The noun derives from the same root as the verb of abuse (or, harassment, harsh handling, humiliation) used for Sarai’s mistreatment of Hagar.

12his hand against all. Although this may be a somewhat ambiguous blessing, it does celebrate the untamed power—also intimated in the image of the wild ass or onager—of the future Ishmaelites to thrive under the bellicose conditions of their nomadic existence.

13in despite of. The Hebrew idiom suggests defiance, as E. A. Speiser has persuasively shown.

14El-Roi. The most evident meaning of the Hebrew name would be “God Who sees me.” Hagar’s words in explanation of the name are rather cryptic in the Hebrew. The translation reflects a scholarly consensus that what is at issue is a general Israelite terror that no one can survive having seen God. Hagar, then, would be expressing grateful relief that she has survived her epiphany. Though this might well be a somewhat garbled etiological tale to account for the place-name Beer-Lahai-Roi (understood by the writer to mean “Well of the Living One Who Sees Me”), it is made to serve the larger thematic ends of Hagar’s story: the outcast slavegirl is vouchsafed a revelation which she survives, and is assured that, as Abram’s wife, she will be progenitrix of a great people.

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