Who is…
Hagar
Hebrew: הָגָר —transliteration: Hagar —meaning: flight, or, according to others, stranger —occurrences: 12 (all in the book of Genesis)
She is an Egyptian, Sarah’s handmaid (Genesis 16:1; 21:9, 10), whom she gave to Abraham as a secondary wife (16:2) inorder that he would have a child.
When she was about to become a mother she fled from the cruelty of her mistress, intending apparently to return to her relatives in Egypt, through the desert of Shur, which lay between. Wearied and worn she had reached the place she distinguished by the name of Beer-lahai-roi (“the well of the visible God”), where the angel of the Lord appeared to her.
In obedience to the heavenly visitor she returned to the tent of Abraham, where her son Ishmael was born, and where she remained (16) till after the birth of Isaac, the space of 14 years.
Abram was 86 years of age when Ishmael was born, and 99 years old when Isaac was born.
Sarah after this began to vent her dissatisfaction both on Hagar and her child. Ishmael’s conduct was insulting to Sarah, and she insisted that he and his mother should be dismissed. This was accordingly done, although with reluctance on the part of Abraham (Genesis 21:14). They wandered out into the wilderness, where Ishmael, exhausted with his journey and faint from thirst, seemed about to die. Hagar “lifted up her voice and wept,” and the angel of the Lord, as before, appeared unto her, and she was comforted and delivered out of her distresses (Genesis 21:18, 19).
Ishmael afterwards established himself in the wilderness of Paran, where he married an Egyptian (Genesis 21:20—21). He had twelve sons, who became the founders of so many Arab tribes or colonies, the Ishmaelites, who spread over the wide desert spaces of Northern Arabia from the Red Sea to the Euphrates (Genesis 37:25, 27-28; 39:1).
“Hagar” allegorically represents the Jewish church (Galatians 4:24), in bondage to the ceremonial law; while “Sarah” represents the Christian church, which is free.
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