Genesis 16
About Genesis
Genesis means beginnings. It opens with “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Chapters 1 to 11 tell the story of the whole world: creation, the first sin, the flood and the tower of Babel. From chapter 12 the story narrows to one family, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, and God promises that “all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” The rest of the Bible grows out of that promise.
Before you read Genesis 16Written by AI
Ten years in Canaan and still no child. Sarai gives her servant Hagar to Abram, Hagar conceives, and the household fills with contempt and hurt. Hagar runs away, and in the wilderness the angel of the LORD finds her. She names Him the God who sees her.
Hagar and Ishmael
Now Abram’s wife Sarai had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, “Look now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go to my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family by her.”
And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So after he had lived in Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to Abram to be his wife. And he slept with Hagar, and she conceived. But when Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.
Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be upon you! I delivered my servant into your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant, she has treated me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me.”
“Here,” said Abram, “your servant is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she fled from her.
Now the angel of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur. “Hagar, servant of Sarai,” he said, “where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I am running away from my mistress Sarai,” she replied.
So the angel of the LORD told her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.” Then the angel added, “I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count.”
The angel of the LORD proceeded:
“Behold, you have conceived and will bear a son.
And you shall name him Ishmael,
for the LORD has heard your cry of affliction.
He will be a wild donkey of a man,
and his hand will be against everyone,
and everyone’s hand against him;
he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”
So Hagar gave this name to the LORD who had spoken to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “Here I have seen the One who sees me!” Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi. It is located between Kadesh and Bered.
And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.