Do you think Abraham studied the stars, so that when God found him, and said, “Your descendents will be as many as the stars and as the sand of the sea that he was gut punched with the enormity of the promise, as he looked at stars so bright they burned his eyes, and at the Milky Way so clear it looked like a distant front, clouds billowing, pregnant with rain?
It’s Hagar’s story I wonder about, especially since the angel of the Lord appeared to her twice. Questions rolled out in my journal. Here they are along with what my imagination came up with.
Was she one of the gifts Pharoah gave Abram, when he said Sarah was his sister and he almost took her as his wife? Did she serve in Pharoah’s his harem? Was Hagar smitten by Sarai’s beauty when she was brought into the palace as anyone might be. Sarai’s beauty was so stunning, that Abram was terrified he’d be killed if Pharoah knew he was her wife. I wonder if they spoke to each other. Did they become friends in the harem, or was Hagar given to Abraham, as one of Pharoah’s gifts to honor his sister wife’s beauty? Was she stricken with the plague or spared?
What kind of man was Abraham, this scion of faith who was so afraid of Pharoah he disowned his wife, called her his sister? What did that do to their marital relations? What does that say about God’s faithfulness to us when we are so afraid we do stupid and cruel things? Thousands of years later Abraham was commended for setting out to an unknown land, and for trusting his son would be resurrected. Sarah who laughed when the angel said she’d conceive, was commended because writer to the Hebrews said it was her faith that allowed her to conceive when she was well into menopause.1
Were Hagar and Sarai so close that Sarai thought she could trust her with her husband? Wouldn’t you think they were friends despite the mistress, servant relationship? It’s not like they were in a city where they could go to market and socialize with other women. Or did they go to Sodom on occasion and buy goods, visit Lot’s wife? Had companionable silences built up between them as they kneaded bread and prepared animals for meals, or sewed clothing?
What of the deep sleep and smoking fire pot and the promise God made that he would give the land to Abraham’s descendants? He said they would be as many as the stars in the sky. Did Sarai’s ache for a child cry inside her? Did her breasts ache when Abram nuzzled her, aching to nurse a baby? Did she envy the cows and ewes, their tiny babies wobbling, seeking them out, finding nourishment. Every month, Sarai’s womb emptied and her heart broke until it withered into bitter acceptance. God never promised the heir would be her son.
Since Sarah owned her servant Hagar, maybe that’s how God would give Abraham those descendants like the stars in the sky.
How did Hagar feel being sent to Abram’s bed? Did she secretly have a crush on him or was he just a man she had to work around? Did Sarai share intimacies? Did they giggle about them? Was Hagar taken by Abram’s mystical experiences? Did she feel a Presence in the camp? Did it frighten her or did it remind her of the mysteries in her religion back home?
What did Abram think of Sarai’s idea? A good one? Did she badger him and he reluctantly agreed? After all he’d heard God’s promise that his son would be the heir.
Was Abraham a lover or was it wham bam thank you mam? Because his wife would be waiting outside the tent, the next morning, was he careful not to love her? Or did Hager’s younger, fertile body grab his heart?
When she found out she was pregnant, did Hagar exaggerate her morning sickness? Did she flick her hair at Sarah when Sarah asked her to card the wool? Did she make eyes at Abraham? Did he make eyes back? Did she slow walk her tasks, after all she was with child? Did Abram raise his hands, “do as you please”, when Sarai said, it’s either her or me? Was it Sarai’s cold shoulder, the hard tasks she could not complete in the time given that finally drove Hagar to the desert?
Did she recognize the angel of the Lord when he walked up to her from the times he appeared to Abraham? Or was she afraid this strange man might have his way with her? What did she think when he asked, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” How did he know her name?
“I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.”
“Return to your mistress and submit to her.”
Did the authority of the angel’s words give her the quiet backbone she would need to submit to Sarai? Would Sarai’s hurt at having no child simmer into regret that she’d offered Hagar to bear Abraham’s heir? Did it simmer into the slow burn that can rise between women who were close but no longer, a slow burn that never goes out? How would Hagar submit to those continually burning embers?
Or was it the promise? The angel’s words, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude? Was it the words that would vaguely echo thousands of years later, the words he spoke to Mary:
“Behold you are pregnant
and shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael
because the Lord has listened to
your affliction.
He shall be a wild donkey of a man,
his hand against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he shall dwell over against all
his kinsmen.”2
How was it Hagar got to see an angel and give him the name– “You are a God of seeing.” Who gets to name God? Are we seeing how God loves the servant, even the one who slips into contempt, but the one humble enough to say, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”3
How many of us lean into those words: Him who looks after me?
How was it that a woman, a slave girl, came to name the well, Beer-lahai-roi—the well of the living one who sees me. The living one who sees me. The living one who sees us.4
Wells and women—a well where Rebecca drew water for Isaac’s servant’s camels, a well where Jacob fell in love with Rachel, a well, where Moses met his wife, a well where Jesus sat with a woman, promising that he could her “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”5
The second time Sarah, now with a new name, and her own son, kicks Hagar and Ishmael out, because Ishmael** was playing what my generation called “doctor” with Isaac and she will not share Isaac’s inheritance with Ishmael. Abraham is gut punched because he loved his firstborn, when God says do as your wife says. He slings a skin of water and a bag of bread on her shoulder.
The two wander in the wilderness until the water is gone. Did she long for the angel to come again as the water runs out, the bread gets eaten. Hagar’s head throbs from dehydration. Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. Her son keeps repeating, “I’m thirsty” until he goes quiet. She lays him by a bush, not able to bear his death and walks away. She has forgotten the angel’s promise that he will be the father of many. She sobs. She is blind to the well in front of her.
She hears a voice, speaking from the sky. “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Stand up. Pick him up. Hold him with your hand. I will make him a great nation.”6
What was it like for her eyes to be opened? To see the well right in front of her, to bend down, dunk the skin in the cool, clean water, and give it to her son. How did she feel when he revived? Did she feel the Presence when he learned to shoot arrows and feed them both? Â
 One day this week when I walked the dogs, Aiden stopped, looked up. He looked one way and then the next, one way and then the next. I looked up, saw no birds, no bugs. I swear this dog sees the powers. This time it felt like an angel flying overhead.
References
1 Hebrews 11: 9 – 12, ESV
2 Genesis 16: 10 – 12, ESV
3 Genesis 16: 13, ESV
4 Check out Stephen Freeman’s essay To See Him Face to Face to read more on face to face encounters with God looked like through scripture, perhaps beginning with our first gazing into our mothers’ eyes.
5 John 4: 13, ESV
6 Genesis 21: 19, ESV
**I’ve read that some scholars think Ishmael was molesting Issac
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