Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her. She said, “You are the God who sees me.” [Genesis 16:13a (NLT)]
Although our Bibles call Hagar a servant, she had no choice in the matter. Along with sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys, and camels, the Egyptian woman probably was given to Abraham as part of the bride-price Pharaoh paid for Sarah in Genesis 12:16. As his property, Hagar couldn’t refuse when Sarah decided to use her servant’s womb and Abraham impregnated her. Once pregnant, the powerless victim of Sarah’s scheme taunted her mistress with her fertility and Sarah retaliated by treating her harshly. Abraham washed his hands of the women’s conflict by telling Sarah the way she treated (or mistreated) the woman was her business, not his! Hagar meant nothing to Abraham; she was little more than a brood mare who served her purpose.
Rather than submit to Sarah’s continued mistreatment, the pregnant Hagar ran away. Alone and unaided, she headed south toward Egypt. While following the road to Shur, the exhausted woman stopped by a spring of water. As Hagar sat there, an angel of the Lord called her by name and asked from where she had come and where was she going.
When Hagar admitted she was running away, God’s messenger told her to return to Sarah and revealed that that her unborn child was a boy. Describing her son as a wild donkey, the angel explained he would be free, live as a nomad, have many descendants, and be hostile to his kinsmen. The child was to be named Ishmael (meaning “God hears”) because God heard her cry. Realizing that she was speaking with God, Hagar named Him El Roi, meaning “the God who sees me.” Not only is Hagar—a pagan slave woman with no power or status—the first person in Scripture to be visited by an angel but she is the only person in Scripture to give God a name!
Trusting El Roi, the God who saw her, Hagar obediently returned to Sarah and Abraham and gave birth to Ishmael. Fourteen years later, Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Animosity and jealousy between the women and sibling rivalry between the boys made a bad situation even worse. When Sarah demanded that Abraham “get rid of that slave woman and her son,” he strapped some food and water on Hagar’s back and sent the two of them off into the wilderness. Their water supply was soon depleted and, at death’s door, Ishmael lay under a bush and cried. Once again, God saw and heard the two of them in the wilderness. He reassured the distraught woman of her son’s future and then opened her eyes so she saw a well and a means of survival.
We don’t know if Hagar knew God before encountering Him in the wilderness, but we do know that He knew her! Throughout their story Abraham and Sarah never address Hagar by name; she was just “my servant” or “that slave woman.” To them, Hagar was a piece of property—nameless, unappreciated, unloved, and disposable. But to the God who called her by name, Hagar was a valued person! Her story tells us that we have a God who both sees and hears us wherever and whoever we are!
Just as God didn’t abandon Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness, He won’t abandon us in the wilderness and badlands of our lives. Just as he saw an unloved slave woman and heard her unwanted son’s cries, He sees and hears us. Just as He knows when a sparrow falls to the ground, He knows when we need Him. It may seem that we’re invisible and ignored by those around us, but we are never unseen or unheard by God. He will open our eyes to possibilities and give us hope and a future. He is El Roi!
Things went downhill for Israel in the centuries following their arrival in Egypt. Life turned bad when Pharaoh’s once welcome guests became Pharaoh’s oppressed slaves who labored in his fields or made bricks for his building projects. Hearing their cry for relief, God called Moses to lead His children out of captivity. Although He warned Moses that Pharaoh would not let his labor force depart easily, God didn’t tell him that Israel’s life would go from bad to worse before they left Egypt.
Jesus told two parables about persistence. In the first, a man went to his neighbor’s home at midnight. Waking him, he asked for three loaves of bread because a traveler just arrived and he had no food for his hungry guest. Initially, the neighbor refused to open the door but, after tiring of the man’s persistent knocking, he finally gave him the bread. In the second parable, a widow kept badgering a corrupt judge with her appeals for justice against a man who has harmed her. Finally, worn down by her persistent pleas, the exasperated judge granted her request.
It’s been said that Leonardo da Vinci’s last words were, “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.” A scientist, painter, architect, mathematician, musician, sculptor, geologist, botanist, historian, cartographer, and inventor, da Vinci was a true Renaissance man and it’s difficult to understand how he could feel he failed God or anyone else.
When I learned about people like Abraham, David, Moses, and Samson as a girl, they were the Bible’s version of super-heroes like Batman or Superman. The Bible’s heroes were larger than life, obedient, invincible, and seemed to overcome their obstacles effortlessly. Appearing perfect in their faith and actions, they weren’t people to whom I could relate. In reality, they were as flawed as the rest of us but, for the most part, their imperfections and failures were redacted from the stories we learned in Sunday school.
Having quoted from Isaiah when proclaiming the Messiah’s arrival, we know John knew Isaiah’s prophecies. The Messiah would “bind up the brokenhearted [and] proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners,” [61:1] but, after spending more than a year confined to a dark cell, John had neither liberty nor freedom. It’s no wonder he doubted.
