So the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking her son, and she said to Abraham, "Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac!" Now this matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son Ishmael. But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to everything that Sarah tells you, for through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned. But I will also make a nation of the slave woman’s son, because he is your offspring.” Early in the morning, Abraham got up, took bread and a skin of water, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her away with the boy. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” And as she sat nearby, she lifted up her voice and wept. Then God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, “What is wrong, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he lies. Get up, lift up the boy, and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy, and he grew up and settled in the wilderness and became a great archer. And while he was dwelling in the Wilderness of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
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.
Significance
Genesis 16 and 21 present two parallel episodes involving Hagar and her son, forming a deliberate narrative parallel with escalating consequences. In Genesis 16, Sarai's harsh treatment (וַתְּעַנֶּהָ, vatte'anneha, "afflicted her") drives Hagar to flee voluntarily, but the angel of the LORD sends her back with a promise of innumerable offspring. In Genesis 21:10, Sarah demands permanent expulsion (גָּרֵשׁ, garesh, "drive out"), and God confirms the separation as divinely intended, directing Abraham to comply. The contrast between the two episodes is theologically decisive: the first offers restoration and return, while the second enacts an irrevocable division between the child of the flesh (Ishmael) and the child of promise (Isaac). Both episodes feature divine provision for Hagar in the wilderness, but the narrative arc moves from temporary flight to permanent separation, establishing the principle that covenant inheritance runs through divine promise rather than human effort.
Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Narrative Continuity (with verbal recall within one narrative cycle, not one text interpreting another — Genesis 21, which never names Ishmael in the Hebrew, identifies him at 21:9 as "the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham" in the wording of 16:1 and 16:15, and 21:17's "God has heard the voice of the boy" answers the naming oracle of 16:11; the wilderness scene of 21:14-21 retraces 16:6-14 in largely the same order; the slave-woman noun shifts from שִׁפְחָה in Genesis 16 to אָמָה in Genesis 21)
