Genesis Chapter 16

Weary of waiting, Sarai gives Hagar to Abram; strife drives Hagar into the wilderness, where the LORD finds, hears, and sends her back.

Genesis 16:1-3

Sarai’s Plan for an Heir

Genesis 16:4-6

Contempt, Blame, and Harshness

Genesis 16:7-12

The Angel of the LORD Finds Hagar

Genesis 16:13-14

The God Who Sees

Genesis 16:15-16

Ishmael Born to Abram

Genesis 16:1

The chapter opens on the problem that has hung over Abram’s story since Genesis 11:30. “Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children.” The previous chapter ended with a solemn covenant and the assurance that Abram’s heir would come “out of thine own bowels” (15:4), yet the tent is still silent. Beside Sarai, “Abram’s wife,” the narrator now sets another woman.

“She had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.” The introduction is brief but loaded. Hagar belongs to Sarai, not to Abram; she is a foreigner; and she comes from Egypt, the land where Abram’s fear once put Sarai into Pharaoh’s house (12:10–20). Among the servants Pharaoh gave Abram on that occasion (12:16) there was very likely this young woman. A decision born of fear in Egypt had left behind a quiet consequence that now becomes the occasion of a new failure.

The contrast is deliberate. One woman has status and no child; the other has no status but, as the story will show, conceives at once. Genesis repeatedly lets the promise hang on a barren womb (Rebekah, Rachel) so that the heir will be seen as God’s gift. Sarai’s barrenness is not an accident in the plot but the stage on which God means to display his power. The tragedy of the chapter lies in a couple who misread the delay as a dead end.

Study Links

Cross References

Genesis 11:30Genesis 12:16Genesis 15:4

Word / Phrase Notes

שִׁפְחָה (shiphchah) — handmaid

A female slave or maidservant, usually attached personally to her mistress rather than to the household at large. Leah and Rachel each receive such a servant from their father (Genesis 29:24, 29), and the same word appears when they later give them to Jacob. The term marks Hagar’s dependence; she has no power to refuse what her mistress decides. In Galatians Paul calls her the “bondwoman,” translating the idea with the Greek paidiskē.

Genesis 29:24Genesis 30:3-4