Sarai, Abram’s wife, had no children. She proposed obtaining a child through Hagar, her Egyptian servant. After Abram had lived in Canaan for ten years, Sarai gave Hagar to him as a wife, and Hagar became pregnant.
Once Hagar knew she was pregnant, she looked down on her mistress. Sarai complained to Abram, and he replied that Hagar was in her power. Sarai treated Hagar harshly, and Hagar fled into the wilderness.
God’s messenger found Hagar beside a spring on the road to Shur. Asked where she had come from and where she was going, Hagar said she was running away from Sarai. The messenger told her to return and submit to her mistress, then promised descendants too numerous to count.
Hagar would bear a son and name him Ishmael because God had heard her suffering. The messenger also described the son’s fierce independence and troubled relations with his kin. Hagar called the God who spoke to her the God who sees her. The well became known as Beer-lahai-roi.
Hagar was found on the road toward Shur, in the direction of Egypt, though the passage does not state her final destination. When asked where she had come from and where she was going, she could name only the household she had fled. The messenger knew both her name and her place in Sarai’s household before Hagar explained them.
The promised name Ishmael preserved the declaration that God had heard her affliction. Hagar’s own name for God expressed her astonishment that she had been seen in the wilderness and remained alive. She returned not because her hardship had been denied, but carrying a direct promise concerning herself and her unborn son.
Hagar returned and bore Abram a son. Abram named the boy Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Ishmael was born.