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5 Then Sarai said to Abram, "My wrong be upon you! I gave my maid into your embrace; and when she saw that she had conceived, I became despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between you and me." 6 So Abram said to Sarai, "Indeed your maid is in your hand; do to her as you please." And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence. 7 Now the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. 8 And He said, "Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?" She said, "I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai." ~ Genesis 16:5-8
Today, we return to our study of Genesis 16 where we have been witnessing the civil war that goes on in the inside of every true believer in the God of the Bible. This battle is created by the two allegiances we still have in this fallen world. One of the allegiances is to the flesh which we will never rid ourselves of until we are in heaven. The other allegiance is to God which began when the Holy Spirit made our spirit alive to God; this happened when we first believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have just witnessed Abram and Sarai give in to the promptings of the flesh or sin which was yet in them. Those promptings led Sarai to offer her maidservant to her husband so that they could conceive a baby whom they thought would be the heir that God had been promising to Abram. The immediate results of acting in the flesh are always the same. We find ourselves being defined by the self and not by the Spirit. When we are being defined by the flesh all sorts of destruction comes along with it.
In v.5 of today's passage we read, "Then Sarai said to Abram, 'My wrong be upon you! I gave my maid into your embrace; and when she saw that she had conceived, I became despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between you and me.'"
The scene from the Garden of Eden continues to repeat itself. The guilty do not admit guilt and when this is the case, there is no forgiveness. Without forgiveness, guilt and shame take their toll on the lives of those involved. This is the nature of sin; it brings many different expressions of death into our lives.
After failing egregiously, Sarai blamed Abram for what was happening. According to the account, she was the one who initiated the action and set the entire thing up. Hagar was her property and at her disposal. But as soon as things went wrong, she turned around and blamed Abram. In an almost hysterical note, Sarai exclaimed, "The Lord judge between you and me."
When Abram placed Hagar into rivalry with his wife, Sarai, Hagar became insolent and held her mistress in utter contempt, taunting her concerning her barrenness. Hagar forced Sarai to drink the gall of bitterness. This is what the flesh does, it causes guilt and shame that which we do not know what to do with, so we throw it off upon those whom are closest to us.
In v.6 of today's passage we read, "So Abram said to Sarai, 'Indeed your maid is in your hand; do to her as you please.' And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence."
Abram responded by placing Hagar back under the authority of Sarai. Notice that he didn’t even refer to Hagar by name, but only by label, "your maid." Depersonalizing those we harm is our way of trying to escape the truth that we’ve harmed them. Turning people into objects instead of image-bearers of God is our attempt to make our sin more palatable. God desires for us to use things and to love people.
Abram’s heart toward this young girl couldn’t have been colder. His words to Sarai, "do to her as you please" are the words of a man who has been accosted by his guilt and shame. Sarai despised Hagar and Hagar received the full force of Sarai's rage. It got so bad, Hagar’s only hope was to run away.
This scene ends in total disaster for all involved. Hagar loses her home. Sarai loses her servant and her integrity. And Abram loses his second wife, his first child, and his honor. When Abram shoved the problem back at Sarai, she took it to an unnecessary extreme and caused even more trouble. And, as a result, Hagar ran for her life.
Previously, Abram had allowed Sarai to go into the Egyptian Pharaoh’s house in order to preserve his own life and when the ordeal was over, Pharaoh rebuked Abram and kicked him out of Egypt and so he heads home to Canaan. After arriving back at their new home, Sarai asked Abram to go into the Egyptian servant who came from Pharaoh’s house to continue on Abram’s name and she ended up rebuking him and finally the maid runs away from her, heading back towards Egypt. In both instances, Abram and Sarai abandoned the way of faith in God and chose the way of human calculation, which created a chain of events that spiraled out of control, leaving everyone hurt in the process. Abram and Sarai sought to live outside their God-given marital boundaries, leading to familial trouble for generations.
In v.7 of today's passage we read, "Now the Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur."
Into the misery of Hagar came the mercy of God. The road that Hagar was on was a desert on the way to Egypt, indicating that Hagar was returning to Egypt, to her homeland. Hagar was going back to her people and maybe back to their gods. We really can’t blame her. If we’d been treated the way she was, we’d want to go back home too.
Hagar was young, pregnant, and alone in the wilderness. We like Hagar have found ourselves in the desert places of this life. We all have wondered if God sees, if God cares, if God knows, and if God hears our cries. It is always right there where God comes to us, where he finds us. He comes with questions, not accusations. He comes with concern, not condemnation. He comes to us, like He came to Hagar, with questions, not because he doesn’t know the answers, but because He wants us to see the great tragedy of a life lived apart from Him and beauty of a life lived in concert with Him.
If Hagar’s story teaches us anything, it teaches us that the Lord loves to bring His mercy to bear on our misery. God turns His attention to an outsider who’d been pushed out by insiders. This text shows us that God cares for those outside the elect line of promise, that God loves and cares for unbelievers. He doesn’t see them as kindling for the fires of hell. He sees them as people who need His care, so He goes to them. He goes toward troubled ones, and so should we.
Finding this spring in the open like this must have seen miraculous to Hagar; it points to the spiritual side of the account, that the Lord Jesus is our Water of Life and the director of our steps. Having been brought into Abram’s camp, Hagar would have been familiar with their worship of the God of the Bible and this visitation from the Lord would comfort her and assure her that the true life which springs from God would continue to uphold her only if she maintained a receptive heart to Him.
In v.8 of today's passage we read, "And He said, 'Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from, and where are you going?' She said, 'I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.'"
The Lord called her "Hagar, Sarai’s maid." Before He allowed her to speak, he preempted her by stating that she is the property of Sarai. He did this and then asked His questions in order to keep her from saying something untrue. By telling her who she was and who she belonged to, God revealed to her He already was aware of her whole story.
The two questions the Lord asked Hagar are always arresting questions. Hagar answered the first, but not the second. Where could she have gone? The questions drew Hagar to the place of helplessness, a position from which we must always deal with the Lord for ourselves. And when we do this, we grow in our personal relationship with the One who has the best definitions for all things.
