Earlier in the week we talked about how getting ahead of God gets us into a mess. Unfortunately, when we make mistakes like this, our actions often affect the lives of those around us. That's what has happened to Sarai's Egyptian maid, Hagar.
Hagar has never been in control of her own life. We don't know when or how she first became a slave. I think she may have been born into slavery on Pharaoh's estate, since she is obviously still a very young woman since being out of Egypt for ten years. But Pharaoh gave her, along with other slaves, to Abram while Abram was in Egypt. Hagar had no say in the matter. Then, when Pharaoh threw Abram and Sarai and everything they owned out of Egypt, Hagar was taken along with them into Canaan. No one asked Hagar if she wanted to go. Life in Canaan was probably not too harsh as the personal maid of Sarai, at least not until Sarai decided to use her as a surrogate mother in order to obtain the child she'd always wanted. Did anyone consult Hagar's feelings? I doubt it. So now she's the second wife of a man she does not love and who does not love her, she's still a slave, and she's expecting a baby that will never be truly her own. But finally she has something that makes her feel special because she's accomplished something the free woman/mistress of the house could never do. This gave Hagar a feeling of pride and superiority, but this didn't sit well with Sarai, so in yesterday's passage she complained to Abram about Hagar's attitude. Sarai was in charge of the household servants, and Abram wasn't in the habit of telling her how to run the home, so he simply replied that she should deal with the problem however she saw fit. Sarai saw fit to go out of her way to be extremely unkind to her maid, which resulted in Hagar running away. This is where we pick up today.
"The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur." (Genesis 16:7) This is what is known as a "Christophany"---an Old Testament appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ. Whenever we find reference to "the angel of the Lord" in the Old Testament, the Bible is speaking of a personal interaction the Lord has with a person before He ever came into the world as a human being. We often find the people who encounter Him in this way bowing at His feet and calling Him "Lord", so if this is not the pre-incarnate Christ, then it must be an angel of such a high order that he has been commissioned to act and speak on behalf of God, with all the authority of God behind him. Even then, it's difficult to imagine an angel allowing a person to bow at his feet in worship. In Revelation we found the Apostle John so overcome with emotion a couple of times that he bowed to the angel speaking with him, and the angel instructed him not to do it. The angel told him to direct his worship toward God alone, so I think if "the angel of the Lord" is not Christ, he would tell people not to bow before him and call him "Lord".
Just think about this: when Hagar is alone and miserable and scared in the desert, the Lord doesn't send a human being to help her. He doesn't send one of the many angels who serve Him. He comes down personally to speak with her! This had to be the last thing she ever expected. She's been treated like a nobody all her life. Her thoughts and feelings have never mattered to anyone. She's not allowed to make any decisions for herself. She's now alone in the desert with no idea how she'll survive long term, and she's probably thinking it doesn't matter because no one cares about her anyway, and then God shows her how much He cares. I love how the Bible says He "found" her. She wasn't looking for Him. For all we know, she was still worshiping the gods of Egypt if she worshiped anything at all. I'm sure that in Abram and Sarai's household she heard about the one true God, but she could hardly have imagined this foreign and unknown God would ever take an interest in her. So she's not looking for Him, but He's looking for her. Isn't that how it is with all of us? I wasn't looking for Jesus. I didn't "find" Jesus. He found me! As the lyrics of an old hymn called "Victory In Jesus" go, "He sought me and He bought me with His redeeming blood. He loved me 'ere I knew Him, and all my love is due Him." The Lord loved Hagar. She didn't even know Him but he loved her anyway. Now He has something to say to her.
"And He said, 'Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?'" (Genesis 16:8a) He knows everything about her already. He doesn't need to ask her any questions, but He wants to engage her in conversation, so He opens with a question about what she intends to do. In a sense, He asked me this same question when I was lost in sin and didn't know Him. When we've made a mess out of things, it's natural He'd ask us to take stock of the situation by questioning, "Where are you going? What are you doing?"
The holy and perfect Son of God knows the name of a poor Egyptian slave girl. He makes this obvious to her right off the bat. No wonder she answers Him! For the first time in her life, someone is interested in knowing her name and in knowing what she's thinking and feeling. "'I'm running away from my mistress Sarai,' she answered." (Genesis 16:8b) To be a runaway slave was a serious thing, but she doesn't try to pretend she's anything but a runaway. She confesses to the Lord what she's doing.
He doesn't rebuke her when she makes her confession. He simply tells her what to do next. "Then the angel of the Lord told her, 'Go back to your mistress and submit to her.' The angel added: 'I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.'" (Genesis 16:9-10) The Lord is not condoning slavery. Slavery, as it was practiced later in Israel, was nothing like the type of slavery we once had here in the United States. In many other cultures it wasn't, either, such as in the Roman Empire of the New Testament. Strict rules and laws were in place regarding the treatment of slaves and regarding how long a person could be expected to serve as a slave (as in the case of working off a debt). The Romans allowed slaves to work for themselves during their free time and they could sometimes earn enough to buy their freedom. The Bible expressly forbids the kidnapping of persons and the selling of them into slavery, which is what was happening during the time slavery was practiced in our own country. I don't believe for a second that Abram and Sarai beat their slaves or mistreated them at all; this is why Sarai's mistreatment of Hagar (which was probably emotional or verbal) threw Hagar into such a panic that she fled the estate. She'd never been talked to this way before and she knew no way of dealing with it other than to run away. The Lord tells her to go back home and perform her duties as she should and in the right attitude. Then He makes her an awesome promise, the same promise He made to Abram. Her descendants will be too numerous for any man to count.
Hagar's descendants will form a different family line than the line that will come from the son Abram later has with his wife Sarai, but the wording of the promise is the same. Living in Abram's household, Hagar is probably aware of the promise the Lord made to Abram. I'm sure Abram talked about it often. And now the Lord makes the same type of promise to a slave girl from Egypt---a young woman who was brought up in pagan idolatry, who does not have a personal relationship with the one true God, and who never imagined the one true God knew her name or cared about her. Her interaction with the angel of the Lord makes such an impression on her that she is the only woman in the Bible who gives God a name. There are several instances in the Bible of men giving God a name, such as "the Lord who provides", or "the Lord my healer", or "the Lord our peace". These are just a few of numerous examples. But Hagar is the only woman who ever gives a name to the God who meets with her.
Join us tomorrow as we talk about the name she gives to the Lord, why she gives it, and what the Lord says to her about the son she will have.
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