Genesis 16

31 Dec 2025 - Theology

Genesis 16 - Hagar and Ishmael

Abram and Sarai take this information that the Lord God did not want to give in Genesis 15, and they make a plan for Abram to sleep with Hagar his servant.

Surrogacy - an arrangement where one woman carries and gives birth to a child for another individual or couple. This was a common practice in the ancient world as a way to provide an heir when the wife is barren.

Genesis 16:2 - “And Sarai said unto Abram, ‘Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her.” …

It was understood that the children would be considered Abram and Sarai’s.

Code of Hammurabi (§146): “If a man take a wife and she give her husband a maid-servant, and she bear him children, and then this maid assume equality with the wife: because she has borne him children her master shall not sell her for money, but keep her as a slave, reckoning her among the maid-servants.”

The God Who Sees

Sarai dealt hardly with Hagar, so she runs away. The angel of the Lord meets Hagar and tells her to return to Sarai. Hagar does not respond until the angel names and describes the life of her future son, named Ishmael.

Hagar calls the angel of the Lord “the God who sees me” and returns home to Abram and Sarai.

Hagar later gives birth to a son which Abram names Ishmael. Notice the angel of the Lord tells Hagar to name the baby Ishmael (11), but Abram is the one to name the baby in verse 15.

References

1. The Hebrew - Greek Key Study Bible (KJV Version)
2. The BEMA Podcast, Episode 10: Walking the Blood Path
3. The Torah Portion-by-Portion by Rabbi Seymour Rossel (2007)