SARAH’S DESPERATION

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.”

Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.

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ADRIAEN VAN DER WERFF
"Sarah Presenting Hagar to Abraham"

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CASPER NETSCHER
"Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham"

		SARAH’S REVENGE

When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.”

“Your servant is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

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JAMES TISSOT
"Abraham's Counsel to Sarah"

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PETER PAUL RUBENS
"Hagar Leaves the House of Abraham"

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Source

		HAGAR’S REVELATION

The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert. And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”

“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.

Then the angel of the LORD told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel added, “I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.”

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 the One who sees me.”

So 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 him Ishmael.

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CAREL FABRITIUS
"Hagar and the Angel"

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FERDINAND BOL
"Hagar Meeting the Angel in the Desert"

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GIOVANNI LANFRANCO
"Hagar in the Wilderness"

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JAMES TISSOT
"Hagar and the Angel in the Desert"

		SARAH’S LAUGHTER

The LORD appeared to Abraham while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him.

“There, in the tent,” he said.

Then the LORD said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.”

Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?”

Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.”

Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”

But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

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JAMES TISSOT
"Abraham and the Three Angels"

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GUSTAVE DORÉ
"Abraham and the Three Angels"

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GIOVANNI BATTISTA TIEPOLO
"Abraham and the Three Angels"

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REMBRANDT
"Abraham and the Three Angels"

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JAN VICTORS
"Abraham Entertaining the Three Angels"

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JAMES TISSOT
"Sarah Hears and Laughs"

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VERONICA SOSA MCDONALD
"Sarah Laughed"

		HAGAR’S EXPULSION

Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him.

Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”

But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”

Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba.

When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there nearby, she began to sob.

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GUERCINO
"Abraham Casting Out Hagar and Ishmael"

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GIOVANNI DOMENICO CERRINI
"Abraham Dismissing Hagar and Ishmael"

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JOSEF DANHAUSER
"Abraham Verstößt Hagar und Ismael"

		HAGAR’S RESCUE

God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up 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.

God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.

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LUIGI ALOIS GILLARDUZZI
"Hagar und Ismael in der Wüste"

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GIUSEPPE BOTTANI
"Agar et l'ange"

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ROBERT LEINWEBER
"Hagar und Ismael in der Wüste"

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SIMONE CANTARINI
"Archangel Michael with Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert"

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PIETER LASTMAN
"Hagar and the Angel"

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NICOLAS COLOMBEL
"The Angel of the Lord Appearing to Hagar in the Wilderness"

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FRANCESCO COZZA
"Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness"

GALATIANS 4:

It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise.

These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.

Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

New International Version ©1984, Abrgd, EMPHASES added
Masthead Painting: “GUEST” by Andrey Mironov