Hagar

Alarm goes off in 3 hours. I'm teaching a bunch of women about Hagar at Sunday school in 5-6 (depending on when people show up). CAN'T SLEEP. Earlier tonight I could blame it on my idiot neighbors setting off fireworks at 3:45AM, but they've stopped now. Unfortunately, my brain hasn't and I can't make my eyes stay closed, even though I'm *EXHAUSTED*. Who wants to learn about Hagar so I can sort of prepare for my lesson this morning and not be *too* affected by the lack of sleep?


First thing's first, let's remind everybody who Hagar is. Before she enters the story, Abram and Sarai (later Abraham and Sarah) had gone to Egypt, where Abram lied to the Pharaoh and introduced Sarai as his sister. She was therefore taken as Pharaoh's wife, but Pharaoh realized there was a problem and confronted Abram, sending the two of them away with the payment he had already given Abram for Sarai, presumably as a way of making up for his accidental theft of his wife and avoiding some sort of cosmic retribution. Some time after this Abram is promised a child, but Sarai is barren and therefore suggests he take her Egyptian slave (often translated servant, though all the scholarship I'm reading uses "slave") and have a child with her instead. Enter Hagar, who gives birth to Abram's son Ishmael.


It's important to note that neither woman is completely free here. Because of the norms of the time and place, both women are oppressed in some way, both derive their value only from their relationships to others and more specifically to men. And in both cases, it can be taken away. Sarai starts as Abram's wife and therefore a "free" woman, but in Egypt he easily gives her away and she becomes a slave wife in Pharaoh's household. Not so long ago, she was traded and used as a body rather than a person, and now that she is free she does the same to Hagar. Tikva Frymer-Kensky in Reading the Women of the Bible points out that instead of supporting each other in their mutual oppression, the two women wind up opposing each other, fighting for dominance and power. Both want to be the first wife, someone treasured and granted as much power and freedom as a woman could expect to hold under those circumstances.


In modern interpretation, Hagar is often maligned for looking on Sarai with contempt. But I learned this week that the Hebrew verb in this sentence is not "to look" but "to lower," and the subject is not Hagar but Sarai. Hagar is noted as seeing things several times throughout her story. She sees God, and God sees her. This seeing gives her a freedom other women of the time don't have, the option of naming God in relation to her own experience. So here it is not that she is being resentful or disrespectful of Sarai, but more likely that she is seeing another aspect of this situation. She's smart and observant, and she realizes what has happened - in making Hagar a slave wife and giving her to Abram instead of keeping her as Sarai's own property, she has placed Hagar as something more an equal to her. Wife or slave, both are Abram's property. When Hagar becomes pregnant, she is now placed potentially above Sarai. In a situation where both are held in oppression and there is limited freedom for the first/most important wife, Sarai has risked losing her place of power and becoming lower than Hagar. How often in the work force today do we see women competing with and sabotaging each other instead of working together, afraid that if they are not the best and strongest women they will not be respected by men? I know I've seen it many, many times in my mom's job, and even a few times at school. How much worse it must have been, then, in ancient times where women were not only discriminated against but actually treated as property.

The second major shift I had in researching this was looking at the promise of Ishmael's wildness. God's words to Hagar are often interpreted as saying that Ishmael was hostile, without digging further into the promise God is making and its context. It specifically says that God has seen her oppression, implying that as his act of freeing her he will give her a son who is wild and hostile. So is this a curse or a blessing? For a woman who is being told to voluntarily go back to being oppressed (note: the only woman who makes that choice - Sarai isn't mentioned as having any response or agreement to Abram's command to say she's his sister), a promise of a son who would not be oppressed, would not obey or be tamed sounds like quite a promise! She is given the choice to go back to be oppressed for the time being so that she and her son can be kept safe until they are able to leave, when Ishmael is old enough to care for himself and take that freedom. What do you think would have happened if she had refused to go back and kept wandering through the desert? It's speculation of course, but I doubt she would have survived - at the very least, I doubt Ishmael would have. Going back kept her safe, while at the same time letting Ishmael be raised for awhile as Abram's son, to be claimed and to inherit that legacy. One of the scholars I read (I can't remember for certain at the moment, though it's most likely Frymer-Kensky) also points out that while Israel later had laws requiring people to protect runaway slaves, this law was obviously not in place then. The laws that did exist in the neighboring areas called for slaves to be returned and likely punished. If she kept running, Hagar would risk being caught and losing her freedom for good.

Hagar's story is one of overcoming oppression. She in some ways foreshadows Israel's story, and the references to her being Egyptian and a slave are likely not coincidence or accident. It is meant to bring to the reader's mind images of the Israelites being slaves in Egypt, wandering through the desert tired and thirsty, requiring and receiving God's help in overcoming their oppression. Hagar may be a foreigner in Abram's family and land, but Israel also has the experience of being foreign, enslaved in a strange land. At times everyone is in a position to be oppressor, and at times everyone is in a position to be oppressed. Sarai was given to the Pharaoh as a slave, an Egyptian was given to her as a slave and oppressed, and in time some of Hagar's descendants sold Israelites as slaves in Egypt. Israel knows what it's like to be oppressed, and this is a reminder that they have also oppressed others. When given the opportunity to rule over others, it's important to remember this and respond with kindness and justice instead of self-interest and jealousy. Early liberation theology - God sides with the oppressed, even when the oppressed is not one of "His people."

Edit: Oh yeah. Shout-out to Susanne, who mentioned Hagar on Facebook awhile back and therefore sparked my interest so that when I saw that's who we were studying this week, I was excited by the coincidence and motivated to do some serious study. Thanks!