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<\/a><\/p>\nBy Gen.16 Abram and Sarai are already antiques\u2013 very old indeed. And clearly Sarai hears the clock ticking for God\u2019s promise to come true, though it is not her biological clock. So she is handing over her slave girl, Hagar, and telling Abram to lay with her, in the hopes of producing some kind of offspring.\u00a0 In a patrilineal, patrilocal, and patriarchal culture, having children, and in particular having males was everything.\u00a0 One has to remember, the only form of immortality they believed in was one\u2019s name being carried on by one\u2019s descendants. Otherwise, one is just gathered to one\u2019s ancestors in Sheol, the land of the dead.\u00a0 So one can understand Sarai\u2019s sense of desperation, not least because it was believed that women were mainly to blame if there were no children.<\/p>\n
In Gen. 16 we have the first reported speech of Sarai, and as Alter says, the first thing she says is a complaint about being childless, just like the later complaint of Rachel.\u00a0 Literally, since Hagar is basically viewed as property, Sarai is thinking and says \u2018I will be built up through her\u2019 punning on the word for son\u2013\u00a0ben,\u00a0<\/em>so she really means \u2018I will be sonned through her\u2019.\u00a0 We are informed that Abram and Sarai had already lived in Canaan for 10 years when out of desperation Sarai made this request of Abram and he complied.\u00a0 The unintended consequence of this arrangement, when\u00a0 Hagar did indeed become pregnant, is that she felt superior to her mistress Sarai \u2013\u2018and she (Sarai) seemed slight in her eyes\u2019.\u00a0 \u00a0And now Sarai blames Abram!\u00a0 \u2018This outrage against me is because of you!\u2026Let the Lord judge between me and you.\u2019\u00a0 Obviously, Abram was in a no win situation, but maybe Sarai was thinking that Abram had deliberately not impregnated Sarai.\u00a0 Frustrated Abram retorts \u2018This is your slavegirl. Do to her what you think is right\u2019.\u00a0 And so the slave girl is harassed by Sarai and flees.\u00a0 \u00a0But the God of mercy sends \u2018his messenger\u2019, (i.e. one of his angels).\u00a0 The messenger asks where she\u2019s come and where she is going, and she explains. But then the messenger says return to your mistress and put up with the harassment.\u00a0 But at the same time the messenger promises \u2018I will surely multiply your seed and it will be beyond all counting\u2019, the same sort of promises earlier made to Abraham.\u00a0 And then the messenger tells her to give the child the name Ishmael.\u2019\u00a0 The name means \u2018God has heard\u2019, for the Lord has heeded her suffering.\u00a0 \u00a0But we are told Ishmael will be hard to handle\u2013 a wild ass of a man, and he will be belligerent against all and vice versa. \u201che will encamp despite all his kin\u2019.\u00a0 But in addition to hearing according to vs. 13 there is evidence of seeing and Hagar calls God El-roi \u2018God who sees me\u2019, and there ends up being a well, named after this encounter with God somewhere between Kadesh and Bered, which seems to be somewhere in the desert or what is called the wilderness in the Exodus saga.\u00a0 In any case, it is probably not in Canaan.<\/p>\nThe story ends with the reminder that Abram is 86 when Hagar gives birth to Abram\u2019s child.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Gen.16 Abram and Sarai are already antiques\u2013 very old indeed. And clearly Sarai hears the clock ticking for God\u2019s promise to come true, though it is not her biological clock. So she is handing over her slave girl, Hagar, and telling Abram to lay with her, in the hopes of producing some kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":68563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15164],"class_list":["post-69029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-the-problems-of-polygamy"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n