He Saw Her Too
This is Part 5 in a 5-part Series on the Bible and the Me Too Movement.
TRIGGER WARNING:
This 5-part series on the Me Too movement contains biblical descriptions of rape, sexual assault, and violence, which may be triggering for survivors.
Before Dinah, Tamar, Lot, or Joseph, there was Hagar.
Hagar was the young, Egyptian slave of Sarah, Abraham's wife. Abraham and Sarah had been married for a very long time, and they had been very successful and had everything you could hope for - except children. Abraham has an encounter with God through a vision, and he complains to God that, although God has blessed them greatly, what will it matter if he has no heir to receive all of it after he has died? So God promises to give Abraham descendants -- too many to count. Years go by, but the promise to Abraham goes unfulfilled, so Sarah decides that God must need some help. She suggests to Abraham that he take her servant, Hagar, as his wife, so that Hagar can provide children (and heirs) for them. While this may sound like a crazy proposition by today's standards, this was actually quite common for the time period; polygamous marriages were the norm, and without the aid of science, this was the biblical equivalent of hiring a surrogate. It actually happened pretty frequently.
Abraham agrees (and, presumably so does Hagar), they marry, and she becomes pregnant.
I have heard many Christian women describe this as "rape", but I think that the situation is far more complicated than that. Abraham married Hagar, affording her and her children legal rights as his wife and his heirs. Although she was a slave, everything implies that this was a consensual agreement on her part, and, truthfully, at that time in history, she had nothing to lose and everything to gain by agreeing to it - status, power, wealth.
Having said that, though, Hagar was a slave, and, indeed, there was certainly an imbalance of power and control, although in this story, it is primarily an imbalance of power and control between two women; Sarah and Hagar. As Sarah's slave, it's very possible Hagar felt intimidated - or even coerced - into agreeing to the arrangement. In addition, it's pretty clear throughout the story that Sarah is using Hagar merely for her ability to provide children. And even if those power dynamics didn't come into play, I can't imagine that choosing between slavery or a respected position as a wife would be much of a decision.
Once Hagar realizes she is pregnant, she begins to treat Sarah "with contempt" (Genesis 16:4).
According to dictionary.com, "contempt" is:
"the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn."
"disregard for something that should be taken into account."
As Abraham's first and only wife, Sarah would have had a position of authority, especially over one of her slaves. But she and Abraham had made Hagar a wife, and although Hagar was a second wife, she had been able to do for Abraham what Sarah had not been able to do: produce an heir. The power dynamic between the two women had shifted, and Hagar begins to see herself as superior to Sarah and starts treating Sarah disrespectfully. So Sarah retaliates, treating Hagar very harshly, and Hagar decides to run away. This is the point at which there is no question as to Hagar's willingness (or rather, unwillingness) to participate; the relationship between Sarah and Hagar had become abusive, and Hagar decides to leave.
In the wilderness, Hagar encounters an angel of the Lord. The angel tells her to return to Abraham and Sarah and to "submit to her (Sarah's) authority" (Genesis 16:9), but the request came with a promise.
"I will give you more descendants than you can count." ... "You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to name him Ishmael (which means 'God hears'), for the Lord has heard your cry of distress." (Genesis 16:10-11)
This divine encounter really made an impression on Hagar, and from that point on, she refers to the Lord as "El Roi" - "The God Who Sees Me". (Genesis 16:13-14)
And, indeed, He does see her and hears her cries; He provides for her and watches over her at every turn, although not always in the way we might think.
While we may struggle to understand how God could ask Hagar to return, it seems that once she returns and affords Sarah some respect as Abraham's first wife, the situation improves, and once she gives birth to Ishmael, it seems that both she and Ishmael are afforded a position of honor and respect.
However, years later, after Sarah has miraculously given birth to a son herself (as God had promised), Sarah overhears Hagar and Ishmael (who is probably somewhere around 16 years old by now) making fun of her son, Isaac, and she is furious. At this point, Hagar and Ishmael are no longer an asset to Sarah, but a liability, and Sarah doesn't want her son, Isaac, to have to share the inheritance with Ishmael, so she demands that Abraham send them both away.
The interesting thing at this point is that, although Abraham is heartbroken, God tells Abraham to let them go. ... And, through another supernatural encounter with another angel of the Lord, He tells Hagar it's okay to leave; He supernaturally provides for her and promises to build a great nation from Ishmael's descendants - just like He had promised Abraham that He would do through Isaac's descendants.
Traditionally, the focus of this story has always been on Abraham and Sarah, but the timing of Hagar's encounter is very significant to me. Hagar is the first person in scripture to encounter an angel of the Lord. She is the first person in scripture to assign a name to God. In addition, her story runs parallel to Abraham's; they both had supernatural encounters with God and they were both promised God's protection and "too many descendants to count" (Genesis 15:5/Genesis 21:18) which would become a "great nation" (Genesis 12:2/Genesis 21:18). However, unlike Abraham, in that culture, especially at that time in history, Hagar would have had the least amount of power and influence.
She was a woman. She was a foreigner. She was a slave.
But God is no misogynist. He doesn't discriminate on the basis of sex, race, nationality, money, or status. And - long before Dinah, Tamar, Lot, or Joseph - God wanted to clearly establish that He had heard Hagar's cries and "He saw her too".
© I Lift My Voice, 2022.
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