Abram marries Agar, who brings forth Ismael.

¹ Now Sarai, the wife of Abram, had not conceived children. But, having an Egyptian handmaid named Hagar,

² she said to her husband: “Behold, the Lord has closed me, lest I give birth. Enter to my handmaid, so that perhaps I may receive sons of her at least.” And when he agreed to her supplication,

³ she took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, ten years after they began to live in the land of Canaan, and she gave her to her husband as a wife.¹

1. 16:3To wife: Plurality of wives, though contrary to the primitive institution of marriage, Gen. 2.24, was by divine dispensation allowed to the patriarchs: which allowance seems to have continued during the time of the law of Moses. But Christ our Lord reduced marriage to its primitive institution. Matt. 19.(Challoner)

⁴ And he entered to her. But when she saw that she had conceived, she despised her mistress.

⁵ And Sarai said to Abram: “You have acted unfairly against me. I gave my handmaid into your bosom, who, when she saw that she had conceived, held me in contempt. May the Lord judge between me and you.”

⁶ Abram responded to her by saying, “Behold, your handmaid is in your hand to treat as it pleases you.” And so, when Sarai afflicted her, she took flight.

⁷ And when the Angel of the Lord had found her, near the fountain of water in the wilderness, which is on the way to Shur in the desert,

⁸ he said to her: “Hagar, handmaid of Sarai, where have you come from? And where will you go?” And she answered, “I flee from the face of Sarai, my mistress.”¹

1. 16:8The dangling participle at the end of the Angel’s question is grammatically incorrect, but is left in that form because that is the way that people speak in conversation.(Conte)

⁹ And the Angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and humble yourself under her hand.”

¹⁰ And again he said, “I will multiply your offspring continuously, and they will not be numbered because of their multitude.”¹

1. 16:10The repetition of using multiplicans with multiplicabo does not merely indicate intensity, but in this case also indicates that the multiplying of her offspring continues through subsequent generations, and does not merely refer to her immediate offspring.(Conte)

¹¹ But thereafter he said: “Behold, you have conceived, and you will give birth to a son. And you shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction.

¹² He will be a wild man. His hand will be against all, and all hands will be against him. And he will pitch his tents away from the region of all his brothers.”

¹³ Then she called upon the name of the Lord who had spoken to her: “You are the God who has seen me.” For she said, “Certainly, here I have seen the back of the one who sees me.”¹

1. 16:13She saw His back, in other words, not His face, which would connotate a greater knowledge of God than she had. She met God, but did not know him well, seeing as it were His back, not His face.(Conte)

¹⁴ Because of this, she called that well: ‘The well of the one who lives and who sees me.’ The same is between Kadesh and Bered.

¹⁵ And Hagar gave birth to a son for Abram, who called his name Ishmael.

¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael for him.