Sarai, Hagar, and the God Who Sees

Text: Genesis 16:1-16

Introduction

Genesis 16 is chiefly the story of two women and their struggles to believe God, to wait on God, to obey God in the hard times and hard places of life.

Interestingly, this chapter deals with some common struggles of even faithful, godly women still today: infertility, impatient marriage unions, inactive husbands, fear of not being provided for… and the converse temptation of trying to take control of one’s situation through one’s own strength or ingenuity.

Yet this chapter is imminently relevant to every man as well, as we see Abram failing to practice the godly, active servant-leadership to which he is called by God. His very absence in this chapter is a lesson!

Above all these concerns, however, this passage is relevant to every person—believer or unbeliever, professing Christian or not—who is looking to our own strength or wisdom to save ourselves. Ultimately, we are all either trying to find blessing through our own actions, or resting in God’s grace to bless us in his time, and in his own way.

As Paul will later point out in Galatians, drawing from this very episode in Genesis 16, there are really only two religions in the world: the religion of salvation through works, or the Christian religion of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

I. Sarai Seeks a Solution (vv.1-6)

1. v.1 We are meant to feel the tension between the way Gen 15 closed, with God’s promise in v.18 to Abram, and the way Gen 16 opens with this matter-of-fact description of reality: Sarai had borne him no children.
2. Abram had wrestled with whether his personal servant Eliezer might end up being his heir since Abram had no children.
   1. Now Sarai looks to her personal servant Hagar and sees in her a possible solution.
   2. Some commentators are quick to point out that giving one’s handmaid to the husband for children was a common practice of the day… and that is true.
      1. Just because society smiles on a particular idea does not mean it is pleasing to God!
3. v.2 The Lord has prevented me—In that day, childlessness was perceived as a sign of God’s cursing.
   1. But it is hard not to hear some degree of grumbling in these words. ‘It is God’s fault that I don’t have children.’ So she seeks her own solution to her problem, since God doesn’t seem inclined to help.
4. v.3 We are specifically told that it is after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan that Sarai took Hagar and gave her to Abram as a wife.
   1. This is mentioned not in order to excuse Abram’s sin but perhaps in order to hint at the temptations which led up to it: Abram was feeling impatient after a decade of waiting.
   2. In v.3 Hagar becomes Abram’s second wife. It is sometimes supposed that polygamy was common/even condoned in the OT, but this account is not at all positive.
      1. Likewise, later examples of polygamy will prove equally disastrous and difficult for everyone involved.
5. v.4 Hagar’s ability to conceive allows her to look down on Sarai.
   1. No human in this whole chapter is acting or thinking right at first.
      1. It was wrong for Sarai to think that she was somehow under God’s curse for her infertility, and it was wrong of Hagar to think she was better than Sarai because God allowed her to conceive!
   2. We dare not ever presume to know the mind of God behind his providences. Do not try to ‘reverse engineer’ God’s purposes by reasoning backward from what circumstances He is allowing in your life. >>
6. v.5 Sarai suddenly turns on Abram when she sees things have gone wrong.
   1. How quickly we all tend to go from trying to fix a situation to blaming others if our solution doesn’t work.
7. v.6 Abram takes no leadership in the situation, from beginning to end.
   1. Sarai’s dealing harshly with Hagar is an understatement. Hagar is thinks her chances are better all by herself, pregnant, in the desert than with Sarai.

II. Hagar Makes a Run for It (vv.7-12)

1. v.7 The angel of the Lord appears to Hagar. Is this a theophany/preincarnate appearance of Christ? It was “the Lord” who spoke to her (v.13). This is possible.
   1. Another explanation is that Hagar correctly perceived that hearing from a messenger who is speaking God’s message, is hearing from God! 1 Thess 2:13
   2. Either way, it is clear that God is aware of Hagar’s situation, has mercy on her, and comforts her with divine promises.
2. v.8 God’s gracious-but-firm questioning expresses both truth and mercy: addressing her as ‘Hagar, Sarai’s servant’ reminds Hagar, who had been despising Sarai, of what her place is/where she belongs. Yet asking how she comes to be here reflects concern.
3. v.9 While God cares about Hagar, is concerned for her welfare, he also is concerned for Hagar to honor/obey him by honoring/obeying the authority God has, in his providence, placed over her.
   1. God tells Hagar to return to Abram’s home and to submit to Sarai.
      1. Hagar had been lifted up with pride. Her pride had led to her humiliation, being chased out of the home. Now she is to humble herself, and let God exalt her.
   2.  Here is an example of how God’s ways are above/different than our own solutions. Better to stay and submit to a humiliating marriage than to leave, make our own way?
      1. Yes, because God is glorified and we find our greatest joy as we submit to the authorities he places in our life, and as we look to him, rather than to our own pursuits.
4. v.10 God gives a promise to Hagar, that her descendants will be numerous.
   1. This promise is obviously not of the same nature, duration, or significance as God’s promising Abram a seed thru which the nations will be blessed. But it is clearly meant as blessing/encouragement to Hagar.
   2. v.11 God names the child: his name shall be ‘Ishmael’ which means ‘God hears’.
      1. Why? Because the Lord hears! Specifically, Hagar, the Lord has listened to your affliction, heard your heart’s groaning, and has had mercy on you.
   3. v.12 may seem to be more curse than blessing, but that is not the context in which it comes to Hagar.
      1. The fact that Ishmael will be ‘wild’/lit. ‘like an unbroken donkey’ speaks to the fact that he will not, like Hagar, live a life of subjection to other authorities.
      2. Ishmael will live a life of fierce independence, even combat, yet will live/die among loved ones/kinsmen. Ge 25:18

III. God Sees and Sovereignly Rules (vv.13-16):

1. v.13- Hagar calls Yahweh, the one true God, “El Roi’—the God who sees. Why? Because God sees—everything, everyone. Even a poor, oppressed servant by herself in the desert who is despairing of life.
   1. Hagar says, “I have seen the one who sees me. I have met the One who is always looking after me, even when I don’t see him or realize his care over me.”
   2. Hagar was lost in the desert, and was blind to God’s concern for her. Now she sings, “I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.”
2. v.14- It is for this reason that the well at which the Lord sent his messenger to meet with Hagar was thereafter called Beer-lahai-roi: ‘the well of the Living One who sees me.’
   1. v.15 Clearly Hagar related her encounter to Abram; when she does return to his household, Abram obeys God’s instruction and names the son Ishmael.
      1. Here is a reminder again of Abram’s faith in the midst of his doubts; of his obedience in the midst of his impatience.
   2. v.16 gives us another milepost for Abram’s life. At the time of Ishmael’s birth, Abram is 86 yrs old; it has been 11 yrs since Abram obeyed God and began living in Canaan.

Conclusion:

In the end, we are reminded that it will take nothing less than a miracle to bring about God’s promise to Abram; every human effort to shortcut God’s timing and purpose will end in failure at reaching its goal.

1. We learn that, while God’s timing is usually very different than our own, his good will for his people cannot be thwarted. God is sovereign whether we like it or not; but there is no reason not to like it!
2. We are reminded that seeking our own solutions contrary to God’s revealed will is never profitable; yet God is merciful even to those who are suffering from the result of their own sins/fears/failed attempts at self-salvation.
3. And, most of all, we learn that no effort in all the world can thwart God’s plan of redemption thru his Son Jesus Christ. Gal 3:16; 4:22.
   1. Paul compares this to every effort to save ourselves by our own works, rather than trusting in God’s free grace thru Jesus Christ.
   2. In other words, the temptation Abram and Sarai experienced in waiting for God’s promise, and trusting God to bring about his perfect plan for their good, is a microcosm of the temptation that every human being experiences: to try to make their own way, solve their own problems, trust in their own ingenuity—rather than to trust in God’s promised salvation that is only found by relying entirely on the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, miraculously bringing about what we could never do for ourselves!