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16
1 Sarai, Abram's wife, hadn't been able to have any children for him. However, she owned a female Egyptian slave named Hagar, 2 so Sarai said to Abram, “Please listen to me. The Lord hasn't let me have any children. So please go and sleep with my slave. Maybe I can have a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai had suggested. 3 So Sarai, Abram's wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband as his wife. Abram had been living in the land of Canaan for ten years when this happened.
4 Abram slept with Hagar and she became pregnant. When she realized she was pregnant, she treated her mistress with contempt.*“She looked at her mistress with contempt,” literally, “her mistress looked small in her eyes.” Another translation would be “she looked down on her mistress.”
5 Then Sarai complained to Abram, “What I'm suffering is all your doing! I gave you my servant to sleep with, and now that she knows she's pregnant, she treats me with contempt. May the Lord decide who's at fault—you or me!”
6 “Listen, she's your slave!” Abram replied. “You can do whatever you want to her.” Sarai treated Hagar so badly that she ran away.†“Ran away”: the Hebrew says, “ran away from her,” but Hagar ran away from the camp rather than just avoid Sarai.
7 The angel of the Lord met Hagar at a spring in the desert—the spring on the road to Shur.
8 He asked her, “Hagar, Sarai's slave—where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I'm running away from my mistress Sarai,” she replied.
9 “Go back to your mistress and do what she tells you,” the angel of the Lord told her. 10 Then he continued, “I will give you many, many descendants—in fact they'll be so many they can't be counted.” 11 The angel of the Lord went on to tell her: “Listen! You're pregnant, and you will have a son. You are to name him Ishmael,‡Ishmael means “God hears.” for the Lord has heard how you've suffered. 12 He'll be a wild donkey kind of man—he will fight with everyone, and everyone will fight with him. He will forever be fighting with his relatives.”
13 From then on Hagar called the Lord who spoke to her, “You are the God who sees me,” because she said, “Here I saw the one who sees me.” 14 That's why the well§This well is the same water source that is called a spring in verse 7. is called “the Well of the Living One who Sees Me.” It's still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
15 Hagar gave birth to a son for Abram. Abram named his son Ishmael. 16 Abram was 86 when Hagar had Ishmael.

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*16:4 “She looked at her mistress with contempt,” literally, “her mistress looked small in her eyes.” Another translation would be “she looked down on her mistress.”

†16:6 “Ran away”: the Hebrew says, “ran away from her,” but Hagar ran away from the camp rather than just avoid Sarai.

‡16:11 Ishmael means “God hears.”

§16:14 This well is the same water source that is called a spring in verse 7.

© 2018 Dr. Jonathan Gallagher