Genesis 16

The God Who Sees

Ten years into the promise and still childless, Sarai gives her Egyptian maid Hagar to Abram as a wife. Hagar conceives, the household breaks apart, and Hagar runs into the wilderness, where the LORD finds her, calls her by name, promises her a son and a multitude, and is named by her “the God who sees me.”

Genesis chaptersChapter 16 of 50

Ten years after Abram came into Canaan, when he was about eighty-five (verse 3; Gen. 12:4); Ishmael is born when Abram is eighty-six (verse 16). The text gives no year. Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

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Background

Genesis 16 stands between two covenant scenes. In chapter 15 the LORD promised Abram an heir “out of thine own bowels” and seed as many as the stars (Gen. 15:4–5); in chapter 17…

Genesis 16 stands between two covenant scenes. In chapter 15 the LORD promised Abram an heir “out of thine own bowels” and seed as many as the stars (Gen. 15:4–5); in chapter 17 He will name the mother: “Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed” (Gen. 17:19). In between, ten years in Canaan have passed with no child, and Sarai turns to a practice known elsewhere in her region when a wife bore no children.

Hagar's story is told in two parts. Here she runs from Sarai and is sent back; in Gen. 21:9–21, after Isaac is born, she and Ishmael are sent away for good. Both scenes “revolve around the near-death of Hagar and her son Ishmael,” and the second is told much like the offering of Isaac in chapter 22. Latter-day revelation returns to this chapter to say that the marriage was commanded and that Hagar's descendants were part of what God promised Abraham (D&C 132:34–35). Paul uses Hagar and Sarah as an allegory of “the two covenants” (Gal. 4:22–24), “the one a covenant of bondage and the other one of freedom.”

The chapter has four parts: Sarai's plan and its unraveling (verses 1–6), the angel at the spring (7–12), Hagar's name for God (13–14), and Ishmael's birth (15–16). Then Genesis is silent for thirteen years, until the LORD appears to Abram again (Gen. 17:1).

The thread through the chapter

Genesis 16 is a story about seeing and hearing, and about who gets seen.

Genesis 16 is a story about seeing and hearing, and about who gets seen. In the first half everyone acts on what is in their own eyes. Hagar “saw that she had conceived,” and her mistress grew small “in her eyes” (verse 4); the sight words at either end of that verse mark “a shift in Hagar’s perception.” Abram hands the matter back to Sarai with, in Hebrew, “do to her what is good in your eyes” (verse 6). Earlier he “hearkened to the voice of Sarai” (verse 2, shama‘, “hear, listen”). And no one in the household uses Hagar's name: to Sarai she is “my maid,” to Abram “thy maid.”

In the second half God takes over both senses. He finds Hagar, calls her by name, and tells her to name her son Ishmael, “God hears,” “because the LORD hath heard (shama‘) thy affliction” (verse 11). She answers by naming Him “Thou God seest me” (verse 13), and the well where it happened is named for Him.

One Hebrew root runs underneath. Sarai “dealt hardly” with Hagar (‘anah, “afflict,” verse 6); the angel tells Hagar to go back and “submit” (hit‘anni, the same verb, “humble yourself,” verse 9); and the LORD has heard her “affliction” (‘oni, a noun from the same root, verse 11). The affliction is not taken away in this chapter. It is seen and heard.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–6

Sarai's plan

In plain words

Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. Sarai said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Please, go to my maid. Perhaps I can have a family through her.” Abram did what Sarai said. So, ten years after Abram had settled in Canaan, Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife.

Abram went to Hagar, and she conceived. When she saw that she was pregnant, she began to look down on her mistress. Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I put my maid in your arms, and now that she sees she is pregnant, she looks down on me. May the Lord judge between you and me.” Abram answered, “Your maid is in your power. Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai treated her harshly, and Hagar ran away from her.

1 Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.

Context #

Who Hagar was

Hagar was Sarai's slave, and an Egyptian. The Hebrew word for “handmaid,” shiphchah, is a “maid-servant, as belonging to a mistress,” and it stays in use “even where concubine of master.”

Hagar was Sarai's slave, and an Egyptian. The Hebrew word for “handmaid,” shiphchah, is a “maid-servant, as belonging to a mistress,” and it stays in use “even where concubine of master.” She belonged to Sarai before she was Abram's wife, and the chapter keeps saying so: she is “Sarai's maid” even to the angel (verse 8).

How an Egyptian came to serve Sarai “is uncertain.” Abram had been in Egypt during a famine, and Pharaoh had given him “menservants, and maidservants” (Gen. 12:16). Early rabbis guessed that Hagar was one of them, “a gift from the Pharaoh received during Abraham's time in Egypt.” Genesis does not say.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Amy Easton, ““You Are the God Who Sees Me”: God’s Loving-Kindness to Hagar”, In Tender Mercies and Loving-Kindness: The Goodness of God in the Old Testament, ed. David Rolph Seely, Jo Ann H. Seely, Joshua M. Sears, Joshua M. Matson, and Beverly Yellowhorse (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2025), 19–36. Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.

Context #

Built up through her

Sarai's words are, literally, “perhaps I shall be built up from her” (’ulay ’ibbaneh mimmennah).

Sarai's words are, literally, “perhaps I shall be built up from her” (’ulay ’ibbaneh mimmennah). The verb is “build,” used of a childless wife who, through her maid, would “become the mother of a family,” and the Hebrew “sounds like the Hebrew for children.” Rachel uses the same verb when she gives Bilhah to Jacob: “that I may also have children by her” (Gen. 30:3).

Sarai was following the custom of her world. A second wife was known but “not commonly practiced. It was usually under conditions of childlessness, sickness, or misconduct, and with the consent of the first wife.” Here there was childlessness and “not just the consent but the instigation of the first wife.” Texts from Nuzi in Mesopotamia, from the middle of the second millennium BC, show the same practice from the other side: “the barren wife bore the responsibility to choose a second wife for her husband in the event of infertility.”

The plan was also a kind of faith. So far the promise had named only Abram: his heir would come “out of thine own bowels” (Gen. 15:4), and not until chapter 17 does the LORD say that Sarai will be the mother (Gen. 17:16–19). Abraham and Sarah “waited together on the Lord for many, many years,” and what they did “was consistent with the norms in the law codes of the day but were also acts of faith as they tried to fulfill the Lord's promises.”

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. English Standard Version, Crossway, 2016; on BibleGateway. John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78. Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425. Amy Easton, ““You Are the God Who Sees Me”: God’s Loving-Kindness to Hagar”, In Tender Mercies and Loving-Kindness: The Goodness of God in the Old Testament, ed. David Rolph Seely, Jo Ann H. Seely, Joshua M. Sears, Joshua M. Matson, and Beverly Yellowhorse (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2025), 19–36. Scripture Central, “Why Did the Lord Tell Abraham That Neither His Servant Nor Ishmael Would Be His Heir?”, KnoWhy #838, Feb. 10, 2026. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

3 And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.

Latter-day Prophets #

Commanded, says latter-day revelation

Genesis tells the plan as Sarai's idea; latter-day revelation says it was commanded.

Genesis tells the plan as Sarai's idea; latter-day revelation says it was commanded. “God commanded Abraham, and Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to wife. And why did she do it? Because this was the law” (D&C 132:34). “Was Abraham, therefore, under condemnation? Verily I say unto you, Nay; for I, the Lord, commanded it” (D&C 132:35). The same revelation speaks of Sarah, “who administered unto Abraham according to the law when I commanded Abraham to take Hagar to wife” (D&C 132:65). So the idea “was likely not Sarah's alone”; the revelation's wording indicates “that the Lord revealed the plan to Sarah and Abraham.” The Church reads verse 3 as obedience: “this was a commandment from God that Abraham and Sarah obeyed.”

Jacob's marriages to Leah, Rachel, and their maids in chapters 29–30 raise the same question, and the revelation answers it the same way: Isaac and Jacob “did none other things than that which they were commanded” (D&C 132:37). “Latter-day Saints believe that monogamy—the marriage of one man and one woman—is the Lord's standing law of marriage. In biblical times, the Lord commanded some of His people to practice plural marriage.” The Book of Mormon gives the rule and the exception together: one wife is the law (Jacob 2:27), “For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people” (Jacob 2:30).

The next three verses show that a commanded marriage could still be a hard one: “divine approval did not make the actual marriages any easier.”

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425. Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo”, Gospel Topics Essays (2016). Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310.

4 And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.

Language #

Sarai grew small in her eyes

“Despised” translates qalal, “be slight,” used of a person to mean “trifling, i.e.

“Despised” translates qalal, “be slight,” used of a person to mean “trifling, i.e. of little account.” Pregnant with Abram's child, Hagar now had what Sarai lacked, and in Hagar's eyes her mistress became a lightweight. Sarai repeats the words in verse 5: “I was despised in her eyes.”

The law of the time had a rule for exactly this. In the Code of Hammurabi, if a wife gives her husband a maid-servant as wife and she bears him children, “and then this maid assume equality with the wife,” she may not be sold, but she may be kept “as a slave, reckoning her among the maid-servants.” Bearing the child did not make Hagar the senior wife: “Legally, Sarah, as the first wife, takes precedence over the second wife and has power over her.” So Sarai's complaint was about more than hurt feelings; the order of the household was at stake. What she did next may echo the custom, perhaps treating Hagar as an ordinary slave “rather than as part of the family.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. L. W. King (trans.), The Code of Hammurabi, Read in the Avalon Project, Yale Law School. John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78. Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425.

5 And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the LORD judge between me and thee.

Language #

The wrong done to me

Sarai holds Abram answerable for what Hagar has done to her. Her word is chamas, “violence, wrong,” the word for the violence that filled the earth before the Flood (Gen. 6:11);…

Sarai holds Abram answerable for what Hagar has done to her. Her word is chamas, “violence, wrong,” the word for the violence that filled the earth before the Flood (Gen. 6:11); with “my” attached it means the “wrong done to me.” Chamasi ‘aleka, “my wrong upon you”: may the wrong done to me fall on you. The same expression comes in Zion's cry against Babylon, “The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon” (Jer. 51:35). Then she appeals past Abram to God: “the LORD judge between me and thee.”

Her words carry some regret as well. “I have given my maid into thy bosom,” she says: “Sarah seems to feel that she has made a mistake on some level since she responds to being despised with a rejoinder to her husband.”

6 But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.

Language #

Afflicted, as Israel would be in Egypt

“Thy maid is in thy hand” put Hagar back under Sarai: Abram “reasserts Hagar's status as a bondwoman and reinforces Sarah's managerial role in running the household.”

“Thy maid is in thy hand” put Hagar back under Sarai: Abram “reasserts Hagar's status as a bondwoman and reinforces Sarah's managerial role in running the household.” Sarai then “dealt hardly” with her, Hebrew watte‘anneha, from ‘anah, “humble, mishandle, afflict.” What she actually did, whether hard service or something worse, “we do not know.”

The verb is the one the LORD had just used, in chapter 15, for what Abram's own descendants would suffer: “they shall afflict them four hundred years” (Gen. 15:13). It comes back when Egypt enslaves Israel: “the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew” (Ex. 1:12). Here the roles are reversed. “The same word describes the suffering of the Hebrews when they were enslaved by the Egyptians,” and the Bible that will tell of “the flight of the Hebrews from Egypt” first tells of “the flight of Hagar, an Egyptian, from the ancestors of the Hebrews.”

Genesis does not excuse anyone. Hagar's contempt, Sarai's harshness, and Abram's stepping aside “are very human responses.” The Church's reading holds two things together: “Despite their circumstances and imperfections, Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar loved the Lord and were greatly blessed by Him.”

Sources: Amy Easton, ““You Are the God Who Sees Me”: God’s Loving-Kindness to Hagar”, In Tender Mercies and Loving-Kindness: The Goodness of God in the Old Testament, ed. David Rolph Seely, Jo Ann H. Seely, Joshua M. Sears, Joshua M. Matson, and Beverly Yellowhorse (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2025), 19–36. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425. Scripture Central, “Why Might Similarities Between the Expulsion of Hagar and Abraham’s Near-Sacrifice of Isaac Be Meaningful and Significant?”, KnoWhy #839, Feb. 17, 2026. Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310. Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).

Verses 7–12

The angel at the spring

In plain words

The angel of the Lord found her by a spring in the wilderness, the spring on the road to Shur. He said, “Hagar, maid of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She said, “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the Lord said to her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” He also said, “I will multiply your descendants so greatly that they cannot be counted.” And he said, “You are pregnant and will have a son. You are to name him Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your misery. He will be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live over against all his brothers.”

7 And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.

Witness of Christ #

The angel of the LORD

The Hebrew word for angel, mal’akh, “messenger,” appears here for the first time in the Bible, and the first one sent comes to a runaway slave.

The Hebrew word for angel, mal’akh, “messenger,” appears here for the first time in the Bible, and the first one sent comes to a runaway slave. Yet this messenger speaks as God: “I will multiply thy seed” (verse 10). The narrator then says who it was: Hagar “called the name of the LORD that spake unto her” (verse 13). “Generally speaking, the Angel of the Lord in the Hebrew Bible is another name for the Lord himself,” and so it is again at the offering of Isaac (Gen. 22:11–16). The LORD is Jehovah, and “Jehovah is the premortal Jesus Christ.”

He “found” her by a spring “in the way to Shur,” a region “southwest of Palestine, on east border of Egypt”; later Genesis places Shur “before Egypt” (Gen. 25:18). Hagar was on the road toward her own country. Whether she meant to go home, the text does not say: “We cannot know for sure.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Scripture Central, “Why Might Similarities Between the Expulsion of Hagar and Abraham’s Near-Sacrifice of Isaac Be Meaningful and Significant?”, KnoWhy #839, Feb. 17, 2026. “Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary. Amy Easton, ““You Are the God Who Sees Me”: God’s Loving-Kindness to Hagar”, In Tender Mercies and Loving-Kindness: The Goodness of God in the Old Testament, ed. David Rolph Seely, Jo Ann H. Seely, Joshua M. Sears, Joshua M. Matson, and Beverly Yellowhorse (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2025), 19–36. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.

Language #

Called by name

The angel is the first person in the story to call Hagar by name. The narrator names her (verses 1, 3, 4), but Sarai and Abram never do: she is “my maid” (verses 2, 5) and “thy…

The angel is the first person in the story to call Hagar by name. The narrator names her (verses 1, 3, 4), but Sarai and Abram never do: she is “my maid” (verses 2, 5) and “thy maid” (verse 6). Here, “for the first time in the story, an individual—a divine individual—uses her name and engages her in a dialogue.”

He asks two questions, and she answers only the first. She knows what she is fleeing from, “the face of my mistress Sarai,” but not where she is going. The second question treats her as someone “whose future matters to him,” and the promises that follow speak to that future.

9 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.

Context #

Why send her back?

The angel sends Hagar back into the hardship she ran from, and in the same word.

The angel sends Hagar back into the hardship she ran from, and in the same word. “Submit thyself” is hit‘anni, “humble oneself,” the reflexive form of the verb used for Sarai's harsh treatment in verse 6. What Sarai did to her, Hagar is now asked to accept.

Part of the reason is the law of her world. “Fugitive slaves were a serious matter; harboring them carried the death penalty.” The Code of Hammurabi pays a reward to whoever finds “runaway male or female slaves” and brings “them to their masters,” and puts to death the man who keeps them in his house. “Most likely, Hagar as a bondwoman did not have the legal right to walk away from her mistress. But the angel's intervention likely carried a spiritual reason for her return to Sarah as well.”

The rest of the answer is in what came of it. The command comes with promises (verses 10–12), and the return kept her son inside Abram's house, where at thirteen he was circumcised with the rest of the household (Gen. 17:23–26). “Because Hagar faithfully returned, Ishmael was included in the covenant, as was evidenced by him being circumcised.” In the Church's words, “Hagar's decision to return to Abraham and Sarah allowed her to receive her own covenantal promise concerning her posterity.”

10 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.

Related Scriptures #

Abraham's promise, spoken to Hagar

The promise to Hagar is Abraham's promise, in Abraham's words. “I will multiply thy seed exceedingly” is harbah arbeh et-zar‘ekh, literally “multiplying I will multiply your…

The promise to Hagar is Abraham's promise, in Abraham's words. “I will multiply thy seed exceedingly” is harbah arbeh et-zar‘ekh, literally “multiplying I will multiply your seed,” the same words God will use to Abraham after the offering of Isaac: “I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven” (Gen. 22:17). “It shall not be numbered for multitude” recalls the night Abram was told to “tell the stars, if thou be able to number them” (Gen. 15:5).

“The wording of this promise makes it very clear that Hagar's descendants are part and parcel with the promises of what we call the Abrahamic covenant,” and it “shows that the promises to Abraham go even beyond those which have come through Isaac.” It is spoken to her directly, which makes her “the only woman in the Bible to receive a divine promise of numerous descendants not through her husband but as her own prerogative.”

The promise was kept. Ishmael fathered “twelve princes” and became “a great nation” (Gen. 17:20; Gen. 25:12–16), and latter-day revelation counts Hagar's descendants in the fulfillment of what God promised Abraham: “from Hagar sprang many people. This, therefore, was fulfilling, among other things, the promises” (D&C 132:34).

Sources: Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310. Genesis 12–17: Abraham—Father of the Faithful, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). Amy Easton, ““You Are the God Who Sees Me”: God’s Loving-Kindness to Hagar”, In Tender Mercies and Loving-Kindness: The Goodness of God in the Old Testament, ed. David Rolph Seely, Jo Ann H. Seely, Joshua M. Sears, Joshua M. Matson, and Beverly Yellowhorse (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2025), 19–36. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.

Language #

God hears

Yishma‘el means “El heareth,” “God hears,” and the angel gives the reason in the same verb: shama‘ YHWH el-‘onyekh, “the LORD has heard your affliction.”

Yishma‘el means “El heareth,” “God hears,” and the angel gives the reason in the same verb: shama‘ YHWH el-‘onyekh, “the LORD has heard your affliction.” It is the verb used of Abram in verse 2, when he “hearkened” to Sarai. So the boy “bears the mark of the Lord's care for his mother in his very name.”

The name keeps coming true. When Abraham pleads for him, God answers, “As for Ishmael, I have heard thee” (Gen. 17:20), the verb set right beside the name (ulyishma‘el shema‘tikha). When the boy lies dying of thirst in the wilderness, “God heard the voice of the lad” (Gen. 21:17), “once more… a play upon the name of Ishmael.”

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310. Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

12 And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.

Imagery #

A wild ass of a man

The Hebrew is pere ’adam, “a wild ass of a man,” and the image is freedom.

The Hebrew is pere ’adam, “a wild ass of a man,” and the image is freedom. The wild ass of the desert was the animal no one owned: “Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass? Whose house I have made the wilderness” (Job 39:5–6). The phrase pictures “Ishmael as a free nomad”; the metaphor “implies one who loves freedom” and “could be a prophetic description of the nomadic life of the descendants of Ishmael.” Even “his hand will be against every man” belongs to the picture of a man “who cannot be exploited or subjected by others.” To a slave who had just been told to go back and submit, this was a promise: “it was likely welcome news for Hagar; she was under the control of Abraham and Sarah, but her son would be free.”

“He shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren” is ‘al-pene kol-’echaw, “over against the face of all his brothers.” Used of places, the expression most often means “east of,” and here perhaps also carries an “idea of defiance,” so modern translations divide (“in hostility toward,” with “to the east of” in the margin). Genesis uses the same words at Ishmael's death, when his descendants lived “from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt,” and “he died in the presence of all his brethren” (Gen. 25:18).

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Genesis 12–17: Abraham—Father of the Faithful, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003). Amy Easton, ““You Are the God Who Sees Me”: God’s Loving-Kindness to Hagar”, In Tender Mercies and Loving-Kindness: The Goodness of God in the Old Testament, ed. David Rolph Seely, Jo Ann H. Seely, Joshua M. Sears, Joshua M. Matson, and Beverly Yellowhorse (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2025), 19–36. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway.

Verses 13–14

The God who sees

In plain words

She gave a name to the Lord who had spoken to her: “You are a God who sees me.” For she said, “Have I really seen, here, the One who sees me?” That is why the well is called Beer-lahai-roi, “the well of the Living One who sees me.” It is between Kadesh and Bered.

13 And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?

Language #

The God who sees me

Hagar gives God a name, and in this she stands alone: she becomes “the only person in the Old Testament to name God.”

Hagar gives God a name, and in this she stands alone: she becomes “the only person in the Old Testament to name God.” Others name the place where they met Him; “Hagar is the only one who names the Lord himself.” The name is El ro’i, “a God of seeing,” that is, a God “who sees,” and in her words, who sees me.

The second half of the verse is hard, and translators say so (“Meaning of Heb uncertain”). Word for word it reads, “Here have I seen after Him who sees me?”, and the KJV keeps close to that. Some translations make it “I have now seen the One who sees me.” Others take it as wonder at being alive: “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?” On that reading, as with Jacob at Peniel (Gen. 32:30), “Hagar was astonished that she had seen God and remained alive.” Either way, she saw and was seen: “God was clearly seen by her and He clearly also saw her in her distress and came to help her.”

Sources: Amy Easton, ““You Are the God Who Sees Me”: God’s Loving-Kindness to Hagar”, In Tender Mercies and Loving-Kindness: The Goodness of God in the Old Testament, ed. David Rolph Seely, Jo Ann H. Seely, Joshua M. Sears, Joshua M. Matson, and Beverly Yellowhorse (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2025), 19–36. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub. New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Scripture Central, “Why Might Similarities Between the Expulsion of Hagar and Abraham’s Near-Sacrifice of Isaac Be Meaningful and Significant?”, KnoWhy #839, Feb. 17, 2026.

14 Wherefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.

Related Scriptures #

Hagar's well, and Isaac's

Be’er lachai ro’i is “well of the living One that seeth me.” The place takes its name from Hagar's meeting with God, just as Abraham will name the mount of the offering for the…

Be’er lachai ro’i is “well of the living One that seeth me.” The place takes its name from Hagar's meeting with God, just as Abraham will name the mount of the offering for the LORD who sees (Gen. 22:14): in both stories “the protagonist sees God and they name a place with a name that relates to ‘seeing.’” It lay between Kadesh, in the desert south of Judah, where Israel would later camp (Num. 20:1), and Bered, a place near Kadesh.

The well comes back twice more, and both times it belongs to Isaac. He is coming “from the way of the well Lahai-roi” when Rebekah first sees him (Gen. 24:62), and after Abraham's death “Isaac dwelt by the well Lahai-roi” (Gen. 25:11). The son of the promise made his home at the well named for the God who saw Hagar.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Scripture Central, “Why Might Similarities Between the Expulsion of Hagar and Abraham’s Near-Sacrifice of Isaac Be Meaningful and Significant?”, KnoWhy #839, Feb. 17, 2026. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 15–16

Ishmael is born

In plain words

Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram named the son Hagar bore him Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

15 And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son’s name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael.

Context #

Hagar's son, Abram's firstborn

Abram gives the boy the name the angel gave Hagar in the wilderness, so the household now carries a name that says God heard her.

Abram gives the boy the name the angel gave Hagar in the wilderness, so the household now carries a name that says God heard her. Sarai had hoped to be “built up” through her maid, and by the custom of the time “any children that Abraham had by Hagar would legally come from Sarah, at least in theory.” But the closing verses never mention Sarai: “Hagar's name appears three times and Sarah's not at all at the birth of Ishmael.” He is Hagar's son.

He was also “Abraham's firstborn and apparent heir,” and for thirteen years nothing in Genesis says otherwise. Abram is eighty-six here and ninety-nine when the LORD next appears (Gen. 17:1), when Ishmael is thirteen (Gen. 17:25). When God then promises a son by Sarah, Abraham's first words are for the son he has: “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” (Gen. 17:18). The customs of the time already pointed elsewhere; by some of them “the privileges of primogeniture belonged anciently and inherently to Isaac as the firstborn son of a first wife, even if Isaac was actually born after Ishmael.” Chapter 17 makes it the Lord's word: “my covenant will I establish with Isaac” (Gen. 17:21).

Sources: Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310. Amy Easton, ““You Are the God Who Sees Me”: God’s Loving-Kindness to Hagar”, In Tender Mercies and Loving-Kindness: The Goodness of God in the Old Testament, ed. David Rolph Seely, Jo Ann H. Seely, Joshua M. Sears, Joshua M. Matson, and Beverly Yellowhorse (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2025), 19–36. Scripture Central, “Why Did the Lord Tell Abraham That Neither His Servant Nor Ishmael Would Be His Heir?”, KnoWhy #838, Feb. 10, 2026. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

16 And Abram was fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram.

Seeing Christ in Genesis 16

The one who finds Hagar is the LORD, Jehovah, who “came to earth being born of Mary.” In this chapter He seeks out a fugitive, calls a slave by her name, hears her affliction, and lets Himself be seen.

His words to her have the shape of later announcements. “Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael” (verse 11) is the form Isaiah's sign takes: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14); “in its form the prophecy reminds one of Genesis 16:11.” Matthew reads Isaiah's sign as fulfilled in Jesus (Matt. 1:22–23), and the angel says to Mary, “thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS” (Luke 1:31). Hagar is “one of only a handful of women in scripture who received a divine annunciation of the birth of her own child,” and “only Hagar and Mary were told what to name their sons.”

The whole family in this chapter needed what that Son came to give. Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar are real people, and “they are people in need of redemption.”

Worth exploring next

Hagar's second wilderness. Read Gen. 21:9–21 beside this chapter and beside Gen. 22:1–14; KnoWhy #839 (Scripture Central) sets the stories side by side.
Built up through a maid. Rachel and Leah follow the same custom with Bilhah and Zilpah: Gen. 30:1–13.
Plural marriage in scripture. D&C 132:29–37; Jacob 2:23–30.
Paul's allegory. Gal. 4:21–31.
A fuller study. “You Are the God Who Sees Me: God's Loving-Kindness to Hagar,” in the Religious Studies Center's Tender Mercies and Loving-Kindness (2025), follows Hagar through Genesis 16 and 21.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
English Standard Version, Crossway, 2016; on BibleGateway.
New International Version, Biblica, 2011; on BibleGateway.
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, National Council of Churches, 2021; on BibleGateway.
“Jehovah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Hagar”, Bible Dictionary.
Genesis 12–17; Abraham 1–2, Scripture Helps: Old Testament (2025).
Genesis 12–17: Abraham—Father of the Faithful, Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis–2 Samuel (Church Educational System, 2003).
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo”, Gospel Topics Essays (2016).
Scripture Central, “Why Did the Lord Tell Abraham That Neither His Servant Nor Ishmael Would Be His Heir?”, KnoWhy #838, Feb. 10, 2026.
Scripture Central, “Why Might Similarities Between the Expulsion of Hagar and Abraham’s Near-Sacrifice of Isaac Be Meaningful and Significant?”, KnoWhy #839, Feb. 17, 2026.
Camille Fronk Olson, “The Matriarchs: Administrators of God’s Covenantal Blessings”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), 385–425.
Avram R. Shannon, “Abraham: A Man of Relationships”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 279–310.
John Gee, “The Wanderings of Abraham”, In From Creation to Sinai: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration, ed. Daniel L. Belnap and Aaron P. Schade (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 251–78.
Amy Easton, ““You Are the God Who Sees Me”: God’s Loving-Kindness to Hagar”, In Tender Mercies and Loving-Kindness: The Goodness of God in the Old Testament, ed. David Rolph Seely, Jo Ann H. Seely, Joshua M. Sears, Joshua M. Matson, and Beverly Yellowhorse (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2025), 19–36.
L. W. King (trans.), The Code of Hammurabi, Read in the Avalon Project, Yale Law School.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis, In Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Herbert E. Ryle, The Book of Genesis in the Revised Version, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: University Press, 1921); read on Bible Hub.
Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah, Trans. James Martin. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

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