Daily Bread

Hagar and Ishmael

16 Now Sarai,^(A) Abram’s wife, had borne him no children.^(B) But she had an Egyptian slave^(C) named Hagar;^{(D) 2} so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children.^(E) Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”^(F)

Abram agreed to what Sarai said. ³ So after Abram had been living in Canaan^(G) ten years,^(H) Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. ⁴ He slept with Hagar,^(I) and she conceived.

When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.^{(J) 5} Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”^(K)

⁶ “Your slave is in your hands,^(L)” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated^(M) Hagar; so she fled from her.

⁷ The angel of the Lord^(N) found Hagar near a spring^(O) in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur.^{(P) 8} And he said, “Hagar,^(Q) slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”^(R)

“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.”^(S)

¹¹ The angel of the Lord^(T) also said to her:

¹³ She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,^(AA)” for she said, “I have now seen^[c] the One who sees me.”^{(AB) 14} That is why the well^(AC) was called Beer Lahai Roi^[d];^(AD) it is still there, between Kadesh^(AE) and Bered.

¹⁵ So Hagar^(AF) bore Abram a son,^(AG) and Abram gave the name Ishmael^(AH) to the son she had borne. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old^(AI) when Hagar bore him Ishmael.