Genesis 16
16
Hagar and Ishmael
1Now Abram’s wife Sarai had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. 2So 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. 3So 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. 4And he slept with Hagar, and she conceived. But when Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.#16:4 Or her mistress became despised in her sight
5Then 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.”
6“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.
7Now the angel #16:7 Or Angel; also in verses 9, 10, and 11; corresponding pronouns may also be capitalized. of the Lord found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur. 8“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.
9So the angel of the Lord told her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.” 10Then the angel added, “I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count.”
11The angel of the Lord proceeded:
“Behold, you have conceived and will bear a son.
And you shall name him Ishmael,#16:11 Ishmael means God hears.
for the Lord has heard your cry of affliction.
12He 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.”
13So Hagar gave this name to the Lord who had spoken to her: “You are the God who sees me,#16:13 Hebrew El-Roi” for she said, “Here I have seen the One who sees me!” 14Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi.#16:14 Beer-lahai-roi means well of the Living One who sees me. It is located between Kadesh and Bered.
15And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. 16Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.
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The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible, BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee. This text of God's Word has been dedicated to the public domain.
Genesis 16
16
The story about Hagar and Ishmael
1-3Abram and Sarai lived in that Canaan country, and after they were there for 10 years, they still had no kids. Sarai had a woman from Egypt working for her, called Hagar. She was Sarai’s slave. That means Sarai owned Hagar, and Hagar had to do everything that Sarai told her to do.
Sarai was sad because she had no kids, but she got an idea about how to get a baby for herself. So she said to Abram, “God has stopped me from having my own kids. But listen. I want you to sleep with Hagar, like she is your wife. You see, she belongs to me, so if she has a baby, that baby will really belong to me.” So Abram did that, just like Sarai said. 4He slept with Hagar like she was his wife.
Then Hagar found out that she was going to have a baby, so she started rubbishing Sarai all the time, because Sarai didn’t have any kids. 5So Sarai said to Abram, “I blame you for this trouble. I gave Hagar to you, and now she is going to have a baby, and she is rubbishing me all the time. I reckon God knows that I am right, and you are wrong.”
6But Abram said to Sarai, “Hagar belongs to you. You are her boss, so do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai started to treat Hagar in a really bad way. So Hagar left Abram and Sarai’s camp and ran away.
7Hagar started walking through the desert, along the road that went to a town called Shur, near Egypt. She sat down next to a water-hole there in the desert. God’s angel messenger went to her there. 8He said, “Hagar, you belong to Sarai, so why are you sitting out here in the desert? Where are you going?”
Hagar said, “I’m running away from my boss, Sarai. She is too hard on me.”
9God’s angel messenger said to her, “Don’t do that. Go back to your boss, and do what she says.” 10And the angel also said, “God is going to give you a really big family. You will have a son, and later on lots of people will be born into his family, and they will be a real big family, so that nobody will be able to count all those people.” 11The angel said, “You are going to have a baby boy, and you will name him Ishmael, because that name means God listens. You see, God listened to you. He heard about your trouble, and he will help you. 12And Ishmael, your son, he will live like a wild donkey. He will go anywhere he wants to, and he will fight against everybody, and everybody will fight against him. He will not live close to his relatives.”
13Then Hagar said to herself, “I have seen the God that sees me, and he looks after me.” So she gave God a name, she called him the God that sees me. 14So that’s why people call that water-hole the water-hole that belongs to the one that is alive and sees me. That water-hole is between a place called Kadesh and a place called Bered.
15Soon after that, Hagar had a baby boy, and Abram named him Ishmael.#Galatians 4:22 16Abram was 86 years old at the time when Ishmael was born.
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