Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem
Meditating Upon The Names and Attributes of God
(Old Testament)
Genesis 16
Hagar and Ishmael
16 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
6 “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
7 The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
9 Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”
11 The angel of the Lord also said to her:
“You are now pregnant
and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,[a]
for the Lord has heard of your misery.
12 He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward[b] all his brothers.”
13 She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen[c] the One who sees me.” 14 That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi[d]; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
15 So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.
Footnotes:
1. Genesis 16:11 Ishmael means God hears.
2. Genesis 16:12 Or live to the east / of
3. Genesis 16:13 Or seen the back of
4. Genesis 16:14 Beer Lahai Roi means well of the Living One who sees me.
(End of Scripture Passage)
Sometimes the amount of loss we suffer during a period of time seems too much to bear. Hagar finds herself in such a situation! The name she gives to the God of Abraham is very telling. She calls Him "The God Who Sees Me". This intensely personal connection with the Almighty was practically non-existent in the Ancient World, and "the gods" were unfeeling entities that had no compassion for humans.
Psalm 139 is a good cross reference for El Roi, as it sings of God's watching over us in every aspect of our lives. This "Seeing" is NOT "Surveillance", but rather, "Empathy and Compassion". Hagar was hungry, thirsty, pregnant by a man who did not love her, outcast, and homeless. Yet she named the place where she was rescued "The Place Where God Sees Me".
New International Version (NIV)
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