the hearing, seeing God

Genesis 16

⁷ The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. ⁸ And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”

   “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.

 ⁹ Then the angel of the LORD told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” ¹⁰ The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”

 ¹¹ The angel of the LORD also said to her:

   “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.
¹² 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.”

 ¹³ She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” ¹⁴ That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.

 ¹⁵ So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

***

IN THE FACE of Sarai's rough treatment, pregnant Hagar runs away.  She is found by the 'angel of Yahweh', by a spring of water in the wilderness - was she heading for Egypt, her homeland?

Yahweh knows who Hagar is, and engages her in conversation.  Where have you come from, and where are you going?

The questions evoke a simple response: I'm running away from Sarai.

And the reaction?  Go back.  And even harder for proud Hagar: Go back and submit.


But he does not leave her merely with this command, but gives her a promise of her own - she too will have numerous descendants; God will multiply her offspring.  He gives her unborn the name 'Ishmael' - God hears.  The child will not have an easy life; he will be a misfit among his family.  An odd kind of reassurance, this, but it shows one thing: God knows.  God knows who this son will be, and what he will be like.  Her son will live and grow and become a man.

After being told the name of her son, Hagar gives Yahweh a name from her own lips: El-roi - the God who sees.  God has seen her, and she him.  She was alone in the wilderness but Yahweh, who she names El-roi.  (Remember this is before Moses' encounter with the burning bush, where El-roi declares himself Yahweh, the great I AM.)

Abram is 86 years old when Ishmael is born.