After living in Canaan for ten years, Abram and Sarai still do not have a child. Sarai plans to make her Egyptian servant Hagar sleep with her husband in order to obtain one. Abram agrees and Hagar gets pregnant. It’s almost the perfect solution. 

Hagar looks at Sarai with contempt and Sarai complains to Abram. He tells her that she should treat the servant as she pleases. So, Sarai is harsh with Hagar, so she runs away heading towards Egypt. 

An angel finds Hagar in the wilderness by a spring and asks her where she is going? She tells him of her plight. He tells her to go back, and that her offspring will be multiplied. Also, she is to name her son Ishmael, meaning God hears, because God has heard her suffering. Unfortunately, he will grow up with his “hand against everyone.”

Hagar responds saying God is one who sees, and after that the well was named the Beer-lahai-rou, meaning Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.

Hagar goes back and gives birth to Ishmael when Abram was eighty-six years old. Within Islamic beliefs, Ishmael is regarded as a crucial ancestor. If that is the case, then the angels’ forecasts of both multiplication and conflict continue on until this day. 

The lesson here is to not cut corners. The fallout of a faithless, unkind act is suffering and conflict, yet God’s grace is present. Even though Abram and Sarai treat Hagar as an object, God sees her as a person and gives her a blessing, and a promise. In response, she is the first in the Bible to name God.