7 Things About Hagar That Nobody Talks About

She may only be mentioned in two chapters of Genesis (16; 21), but I wouldn’t let Hagar’s relatively short plot line cause you to underestimate its significance. 

She was an Egyptian slave, a contemptuous surrogate, and a divinely blessed outcast. She was a complex woman who now represents a complex history. And it’s one that uniquely interests me.

Hagar is the matriarch of the Arab people—my people. She bore a son with Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish people—also my people. As the child of a Palestinian father and Jewish mother, I’m acutely aware of the conflict between these two people groups, and uniquely interested in its origin. There is a prophetic tie between my two people, as painful as it has revealed itself to be. 

There is a prophetic tie between my two people, as painful as it has revealed itself to be.

As I look into her life and legacy, I see a cacophony of blessing, suffering, courage, and injustice. It isn’t one that fits easily within a narrative arc we find customary in our modern interpretation of story. Yet, it is rich with meaning and profoundly revealing of who God is. 

Hagar’s story holds wisdom and hope as to how we can respond to the complexities that life brings—something I think we could all use more of right now in the face of ongoing war. In reflecting on her story, I can see more clearly the mysterious and prophetic connection between my peoples. 

1. Hagar was uprooted from her home.

Before Hagar is explicitly mentioned in Scripture, it’s likely she is introduced to Abraham and Sarah (then Abram and Sarai) when they journeyed to Egypt in Genesis 12. It was there that, through a strange act of deception, Abraham pretends Sarah is his sister, and Pharaoh takes her as his wife. After undergoing severe affliction, Pharoah uncovers the scheme and expels Abraham from Egypt with his cattle, slaves, and his wife. It would make sense if Hagar was part of that exiting party.

Some Jewish scholars believe Hagar was actually Pharaoh’s daughter, a princess who was given to Abraham and Sarah as a parting gift. In this transaction, Hagar became Sarah’s handmaiden.¹ There are a couple exegetical traditions about this transition. In one version, Pharaoh gives his daughter Hagar willingly to Sarah as a handmaiden. In another, Pharaoh signs over his property (including Hagar) to Sarah in their marriage contract.²

Even if she didn’t make the transition from royalty to servanthood, moving from her Egyptian homeland to the foreign Canaan must have been an intense adjustment.

2. Hagar was exploited.

Hagar entered this family’s story at a pivotal time. Abraham and Sarah had been promised progeny, but they were aging quickly.³ Sarah found herself to still be barren after over a decade of waiting, so she took the matter into her own hands. She told Abraham, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”⁴

Abraham agreed, and Sarah “took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife” (emphasis added).⁵ The Hebrew word used, לָקַח (laqah), though often used with neutral meaning, here seems to mean to seize, capture, and take possession of. It is the same word used to describe the way Sarah was taken by Pharaoh to be his wife only a few chapters earlier.⁶

In both instances, the word לָקַח demonstrates an imbalance of power. From our vantage point, we see the severe damage that power disparity can cause. Sure enough, it proved to be biblical foreshadowing of the complicated mess that was about to unfold. Sarah took God’s plan into her own hands, Abraham took Hagar, and Hagar conceived.

From our vantage point, we see the severe damage that power disparity can cause.

3. Hagar and Sarah were pitted against each other.

During this period, fertility was deeply intertwined in a woman’s sense of identity and value. So, when the prophetic blessing of an entire people group was bound up in one woman’s ability to bear children, I imagine the pressure increased exponentially.⁷ Sarah likely felt helpless, hopeless, and frustrated, and projected her weighty feelings onto Hagar.

When Hagar conceived, fertility became a comparison trap. It pitted these two women against each other in a dynamic that’s familiar in Scripture—like Rachel and Leah or Hannah and Peninah. Hagar became contemptuous of Sarah, and Sarah mistreated Hagar.⁸

Maybe Hagar was afraid that her child would be taken from her, and she would be cast out once her “job” was finished. Maybe she was angry about being put in this position at all. Or maybe her ability to bear children while Sarah remained barren became a source of ego. Regardless, it’s obvious that the situation created a toxic cycle between the two. Hagar fled into the desert.

4. Hagar received a bittersweet blessing.

The angel of the Lord asks her a seemingly simple question that is steeped in significance: “Where have you come from, and where are you going?”

It is here at a spring beside the road that Hagar has an encounter with the divine. The angel of the Lord finds her and asks her a seemingly simple question that is steeped in significance: “Where have you come from, and where are you going?”⁹ She knew where she had come from, but the angel knew where she would go, prophesying: 

Go back to your mistress and submit to her…. I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count…. You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.¹⁰

The Lord listened to her affliction. Hagar discovers that she, too, is to become the matriarch of a great nation, blessed with descendants too numerous to count. This is a great sweetness. But she would also become the mother of great chaos, conflict, and affliction. How bitter! Her son would become the patriarch of opposition to the Jewish people, “living in hostility toward all his brothers.” 

While the blessing over Ishmael bore resemblance to the blessing given to his father, it contained a marked difference. Connected through Abraham and separated by Hagar and Sarah, Ishamel and Isaac became part of two ongoing prophetically intertwined storylines. The weight and bitterness of this prophecy makes Hagar’s response all the more impressive.

5. Hagar became the first person to name God.

She was on the side of a road, pregnant, bearing a blessing and feeling cursed. When the angel of the Lord spoke to her, she felt seen. So, she did something no one had done before: she named God. “You are the God who sees me,” she said. “I have now seen the One who sees me”¹¹—El Roi, the God Who Sees. Hagar is the only person in the Hebrew Bible, man or woman, who gives God a name.¹²‍

This act of naming historically came from authority. So why does an abused, homeless slave woman have the courage and freedom to name God Himself? In a reflexive moment of feeling fully known, she boldly declares that which is spiritually and metaphysically true: that God sees and cares for us, especially in the bitter parts of our lives. She trusted God, the One who met her where she was and knew her by name. 

6. Hagar saw the prophecy come true.

After returning to Abraham and Sarah, Hagar gave birth to Ishmael. As the boy grew up, Abraham prayed that God would include him in the prophetic blessing he received. But God’s plan for the elderly Sarah wasn’t thwarted or changed. By the time she miraculously conceived, and Isaac was born, Abraham was a century old, and Ishmael was already 14. 

God’s plan for the elderly Sarah wasn’t thwarted or changed.

A few years later, when Isaac was weaned, Abraham held a great feast. But instead of celebrating with his father and half-brother, Ishmael was, according to some translations, mocking the occasion.¹³ At the time, Ishmael was around 16 to 18 years old. But his behavior was likely more than teen angst. As was prophesied to his mother years before, Ishmael was already “living in hostility” towards his brother. Sarah asked Abraham to cast out both Hagar and Ishmael, saying they “will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”¹⁴

In a way, Sarah was right. Ishmael wouldn’t share in the unique calling God had planned for the seed of Abraham through Isaac.¹⁵ But Hagar and her descendants were divinely blessed—something God reminds her of again in the desert.

7. Hagar almost lost her child.

Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness with bread and water. But in the heat of the desert, the resources soon ran out, and they wandered beneath the scorching sun. Ishmael was faint, and Hagar abandoned him in the shade of a bush so as not to have to watch her child die. They each cried in anguish.

And God heard their cries: “The angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, ‘What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.’”¹⁶

God provided a well of water in the desert, and Ishmael drank and regained his strength. Again, Hagar saw the prophetic blessing come true—God sustained Ishmael and was with him as he grew into a man and into a nation.

The more I explore Hagar’s story, the more I come to appreciate her capacity to embrace the bittersweet. She was transplanted, exploited, and expelled, but she was also the matriarch of a great nation, one who was blessed, seen, and heard by God. Even in her flawed humanity and fascinating complexity, I’m inspired by her. 

I, too, must accept the bittersweet. As an Arab and Jewish woman, I live this out every day, often feeling the profundity of the paradox found within both nations’ blessings.

From our vantage point, we’ve seen how the bitterness of Ishmael’s prophecy has played out: his bloodline has been fraught with conflict and hostility, particularly towards his brothers. I’ve also seen the sweetness—God’s blessing to Hagar’s progeny is why I’m alive today.

As a Jewish person, I’ve also seen the bittersweet nature of being a descendant of Isaac. We are a chosen people, set apart, and promised a homeland. But bearing His inheritance has also made us a target for a wildly disproportionate amount of persecution throughout history.

In a way, the experience of bittersweet blessing is the connection between both my ancestors, of Ishmael and of Isaac. Although their blessings are not the same, and God has a specific plan for the Jewish people that He has been and always will be faithful to, the Arab people have a place in God’s heart. One day, God wants to unite these siblings—and all the nations of the world—in peace. The words of the prophet Isaiah remind me of that hope.

In a way, the experience of bittersweet blessing is the connection between both my ancestors, of Ishmael and of Isaac.

The Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day.… Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.” ¹⁷

Just as Hagar trusted in El Roi, I have faith that one day, the descendants of Ishmael and the descendents of Isaac will too. As we trust in the God of our shared patriarch, Abraham, we can embrace the blessings and bear the burden of the bittersweet. He is the God Who Sees and the One with a plan to redeem and reunite not only our family, but the world.