Free Bible Commentary
“Genesis 16:7-12”
Categories: Genesis“Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. 8 He said, 'Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?' And she said, 'I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.' 9 Then the angel of the Lord said to her, 'Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.' 10 Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, 'I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.' 11 The angel of the Lord said to her further, 'Behold, you are with child, and you will bear a son; and you shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has given heed to your affliction. He will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him; and he will live to the east of all his brothers.”
---End of Scripture verses---
“Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness” (verse 7), after “Sarai treated her harshly, and she fled from her presence” (verse 6). The text does reveal to us in what form the angel appeared to her and how he spoke to her. Nahum Sarna made the following observations about angels in the Bible: “From several texts it is clear that the demarcation between God and His angel is often blurred. Hagar is addressed by the angel (16:7-8,9,11) but she responds directly to God (v. 13). The same interchange of speakers occurs in Genesis 22:11-12,15-18 and at the incident at the burning bush in Exodus 3:2,4. At the Exodus from Egypt it is now God (Exod. 13:21), now His angel (14:9) who goes ahead of the Israelite camp. In the story of Gideon (Judg. 6:11-23) God and His angel speak interchangeably. On the other hand, angels most frequently assume human form so that the individuals to whom they appear are at first unaware of their angelic nature. Such is the case, for instance, in Genesis 18-19. The three who visit Abraham are variously described as 'men' (18:1,16,22; 19:5,10,12,16) and as 'angels' (19:1,15), and the Sodomites certainly perceive them to be humans (19:5,9). In the case of the mother of Samson (Judg. 13), the one who appears to her is 'an angel of the Lord' (v. 3) whom she describes as 'a man of God' who 'looked like an angel of God, very frightening' (v. 6) When the angel reappears to her husband, Manoah does not recognize him as such (v. 16) until he disappears in the flames of the altar (vv. 20f.).” He goes on to suggest that the angel is regarded “as the personified extension of God's will, or the personification of His self-manifestation. A third theory sees the angel as a conceptual device to avoid anthropomorphism. He serves as a mediator between the transcendent God and His mundane world.”
“By the spring on the way to Shur” (verse 7) “This was evidently a well-known watering place on the way back to Egypt, toward which Hagar was evidently going. The word `Shur' means `wall' and was probably applied to the chain of fortresses on the northeast frontier of Egypt. Hagar could flee from Sarai, but not from the presence of God. The angel of the Lord questioned her as God had questioned Adam in Eden, not for the purpose of procuring information but with a design of appealing to Hagar's conscience. She was engaged in an illegal flight, which, according to the laws of that age, could have been punished severely, even with death. Furthermore, there were terrible dangers and hardships on the way, as she had already discovered. 'Whence camest thou? and whither goest thou?'... Everyone needs to ask such questions of himself when confronting any crisis in life.” (James Burton Coffman) “In the Hebrew, the 'spring on the road to Shur' contains a play on words: 'ayin may mean 'an eye' as well as 'a spring,' and shur can mean 'to see' and also 'a wall'... The place where Hagar takes refuge thus suggests 'a seeing eye.' She calls God El-roi, 'God of seeing,' and the well after the 'Living One Who sees me' (verse 13). (Nahum Sarna)
“Then the angel of the Lord said to her, 'Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.'” (verse 9) Returning to certain hostility would not have been an easy pill for Hagar to swallow, but under the circumstances it was the best medicine she could take to remedy her ills. But she was not just to return and maintain her same atrocious attitude and behavior. She was to abandon her hatefulness (verse 4), and return in full submission to Sarai's authority as family matriarch. “Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, 'I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.'” (verse 10) There was something in the deal for Hagar. She and her son would have likely faded into obscurity had she not returned to her appropriate place in the household of this very distinguished and consecrated family. But under the care of a legitimate father such as Abram, Ishmael would lead a dignified life (at least for enough time to build a firm foundation), and he would produce a renowned (yet infamous) posterity and legacy. (Genesis 17:20; 25:16)
“You will bear a son, and you shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has given heed to your affliction.” (verse 11) This is amazingly similar to what the Angel Gabriel spoke to Mary: “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.” (Luke 1:31) Only the all-seeing and all-knowing God can know and name a child before he is formed in his mother's womb (Jeremiah 1:5). Unlike Mary's blessed and holy offspring, Hagar's son “will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him” (verse 12) “Like the wild ass among the beasts, so are the Ishmaelites among men. In their nature and destiny they call to mind the sturdy, fearless, and fleet-footed Syrian onager...who inhabits the wilderness and is almost impossible to domesticate. Jeremiah describes the wild ass of the desert: 'snuffing the wind in her eagerness, whose passion none can restrain.' Hagar, the abused slave woman subjected to the harsh discipline of her mistress, will produce people free and undisciplined.” (Nahum Sarna) “The antagonistic and war-like disposition of the Arab nations has continued until the present time. Only God could have uttered a prophecy so circumstantially fulfilled over such a long period of time... And thus it came to pass that the child of Abram and Sarai's unbelief became the progenitor of the Arabs, Israel's bitterest foes throughout history, and, as Unger noted, 'And from this line also came Muhammad and Islam, one of the most demonic of religions and a foe of Christianity.'” (James Burton Coffman)
Please read Genesis 16:13-16 for tomorrow.
Have a blessed day!
- Louie Taylor
