Commentary - Genesis 16:1-6

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, we come to a classic biblical account of what happens when saints get tired of waiting on God. The promise of a son has been given, but the fulfillment of that promise is, from a human point of view, taking its sweet time. So Sarai, in her barrenness, cooks up a plan. It is a plan that is culturally acceptable, legally plausible, and spiritually disastrous. This is the story of the birth of Ishmael, but more than that, it is a foundational illustration of the conflict between faith and works, between promise and presumption, between the Spirit and the flesh. The Apostle Paul will later pick up this very story in Galatians and tell us that these two women, Sarai and Hagar, represent two covenants. One is a covenant of grace, received by faith. The other is a covenant of works, born of slavery. This is not just a domestic squabble in an ancient patriarch's tent; this is a living parable of salvation history being worked out in real time.

Abram and Sarai, the recipients of a staggering promise from the Almighty, decide to take matters into their own hands. They resort to a fleshly solution to a spiritual problem. The result is not the promised son, but rather a son of the flesh, and with him comes immediate strife, jealousy, and affliction. This is what always happens when we try to "help God out." We manufacture an Ishmael, and then we are surprised when he mocks Isaac. This passage is a stark warning against the kind of faith that says it believes God but then acts as though everything depends on our own clever arrangements.

Outline

Context In Genesis

This chapter follows directly on the heels of one of the high points in Abram's walk with God. In Genesis 15, God cuts a covenant with Abram, promising him descendants as numerous as the stars and solemnly taking the curse of the covenant upon Himself. Abram believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness (Gen 15:6). This is the very heart of the gospel. But as is so often the case, a high point of faith is followed by a severe test. The promise has been ratified by God Himself, but the fulfillment is still in the future. The intervening time is the trial. Will Abram and Sarai walk by faith in the promise they have heard, or will they walk by sight, looking at Sarai's barren womb and concluding that God needs some assistance?

The ten years mentioned in verse 3 are significant. A decade is a long time to wait. It is long enough for faith to curdle into impatience. This story, then, serves as a crucial hinge in the Abrahamic narrative. It introduces Ishmael, who will become the progenitor of a people in conflict with the line of promise. And it sets up the stark contrast that will be resolved in Genesis 17 with the covenant of circumcision and the renaming of Abram and Sarai, and finally in Genesis 21 with the birth of Isaac, the true son of promise.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian servant-woman whose name was Hagar.

The narrative opens with the raw facts of the situation. First, the problem: Sarai's barrenness. This is not new information, but it is the central tension of the story. God has promised a seed, an heir, but the designated mother is unable to conceive. This is God's ordinary way of working. He brings His people to a place of utter inability so that when the deliverance comes, there is no question as to who gets the glory. Second, the apparent solution: Hagar. Notice her nationality. She is an Egyptian. She represents a foreign, worldly solution to a covenantal problem. Egypt, in Scripture, is often a type of the world, a place of bondage from which God's people must be redeemed. So right from the outset, we have the covenant woman who is barren, and the worldly woman who is fertile. The stage is set for a choice between waiting on God's supernatural intervention or resorting to the world's natural resources.

v. 2a So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, Yahweh has shut my womb from bearing children. Please go in to my servant-woman; perhaps I will obtain children through her.”

Here is the genesis of the carnal plan. And it begins, as so many carnal plans do, with a mixture of correct theology and faulty application. Sarai correctly identifies Yahweh as the one who has ultimate control over the womb. She is not a naturalist; she knows God is sovereign. But she draws precisely the wrong conclusion from this truth. Instead of concluding, "Therefore, let us cry out to Yahweh to open my womb," she concludes, "Therefore, Yahweh must want us to try another way." She interprets her trial not as a test of faith, but as a divine course correction. She proposes to "obtain children" through Hagar. The Hebrew literally says, "perhaps I will be built up through her." Sarai is seeking to build her house, the house of the covenant, through the flesh. This is the very essence of a works-based religion. It is an attempt to secure the blessings of the covenant through human effort and ingenuity, rather than by simple faith in the promise of God.

v. 2b And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.

This is one of the most tragic and understated lines in the entire story. Abram, the man who had just believed God unto righteousness, the man who had been called the friend of God, now listens to the voice of his wife instead of the voice of God. This is a direct echo of the Fall in Genesis 3, where Adam listened to the voice of his wife and ate the forbidden fruit. In both cases, the man, the head of the covenant household, abdicates his responsibility to guard the word of God. He allows the pragmatism of the moment to overrule the promise of God. Abram's sin here is not primarily sexual; it is a sin of unbelief. He takes his eyes off the promise and puts them on the plan. He exchanges the waiting of faith for the work of the flesh.

v. 3 And after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant-woman, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife.

The plan is formalized and executed. The ten-year wait has done its work. Patience has run out. Sarai is the prime mover here. She "took" Hagar and "gave" her to Abram. The language is active and deliberate. This was not a momentary lapse but a considered course of action. Hagar is given to Abram "as his wife." This was a recognized legal custom of the day, a form of surrogacy, but legality does not equal righteousness. God's law for marriage was established in the beginning: one man, one woman, for life. This arrangement, while culturally sanctioned, was a deviation from the created order and, more importantly, a deviation from the path of faith.

v. 4a So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived.

The plan "works." From a purely biological standpoint, the scheme is a success. Hagar conceives. And this is the deceptive nature of all works-based righteousness. It often produces results. You can build a very large and impressive ministry through carnal means. You can create something that looks like the real thing. The flesh is not inert; it is productive. But it cannot produce the fruit of the Spirit. It can only produce after its own kind. Hagar's womb can produce a son, but it cannot produce the son of promise.

v. 4b Then she saw that she had conceived, so her mistress became contemptible in her sight.

The bitter fruit appears almost immediately. The first result of this fleshly plan is not joy and relief, but pride and contempt. Hagar, the servant, now fertile, looks down on Sarai, the mistress, who is barren. The success of the fleshly endeavor leads directly to arrogance. Hagar forgets her place. She sees her pregnancy as a mark of personal superiority, rather than the result of her mistress's desperate plan. This is what happens when we operate in the flesh. Relationships are immediately thrown into disarray. The created order is subverted. The servant despises the mistress. The very thing that was supposed to "build up" Sarai's house begins to tear it down from within.

v. 5 And Sarai said to Abram, “May the violence done to me be upon you. I gave my servant-woman into your embrace, but she saw that she had conceived, so I became contemptible in her sight. May Yahweh judge between you and me.”

The architect of the plan is the first to complain about the results. Sarai, having gotten exactly what she schemed for, now finds the consequences intolerable. And so she does what we all do when our sinful plans go sideways: she blames someone else. "May the violence done to me be upon you." She accuses Abram. It was her idea, her proposal, her initiative, but now it is his fault. She even invokes the name of Yahweh, calling on Him to judge the very situation her unbelief created. This is a classic case of what the Puritans called "sore eyes." We sin, and then we are offended by the entirely predictable consequences of our sin.

v. 6a But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant-woman is in your hand; do to her what is good in your sight.”

Abram's failure continues. Having failed to lead by faith, he now fails to lead with justice. He completely abdicates his responsibility as the head of the household. Hagar is now his wife, carrying his child, yet he hands her over entirely to the wrath of his other wife. "She is in your hand." This is a cowardly and passive response. He refuses to adjudicate the conflict that his own sin of acquiescence helped to create. He is trying to wash his hands of the whole messy affair, but it is his affair. A man who will not stand on the Word of God will eventually be unable to stand for anything.

v. 6b So Sarai afflicted her, and she fled from her presence.

The sad story comes to its logical conclusion. The fleshly plan, born of unbelief, has produced contempt, blame, and now, affliction. Sarai deals harshly with Hagar. The sin that began with Sarai's impatience now bears fruit in Sarai's cruelty. The one who was to be the mother of the promised seed, the matriarch of the people of God, is acting like a petty tyrant. And Hagar, the victim of this whole sorry scheme, flees. The attempt to build the family through the flesh results in the family being broken and scattered. This is a microcosm of the history of Israel. Whenever they turned from faith in God's promise and resorted to fleshly, worldly means, the result was always affliction and exile.

Application

The story of Abram, Sarai, and Hagar is our story. We are all tempted, every day, to grow impatient with God's timing and to take matters into our own hands. God has given us promises in His Word, promises of forgiveness, sanctification, and ultimate glory. But the fulfillment often seems a long way off. And so, like Sarai, we look at our own "barrenness", our weaknesses, our struggles, our lack of visible progress, and we conclude that we must need to "do something."

We cook up a "Hagar plan." This might be a new technique for spiritual growth that relies on our own discipline rather than the Spirit's power. It might be a compromise in our business or relationships to achieve a desired outcome more quickly. It might be an attempt to build the church through worldly marketing schemes rather than the simple preaching of the gospel. These plans often seem to "work" for a time. They produce results. But the fruit is always of the flesh: pride, contempt, strife, blame, and affliction.

The lesson of this passage is the lesson of the entire Bible: "The just shall live by faith" (Rom 1:17). We are called to rest in the promises of God, even when, and especially when, our circumstances seem to contradict them. We are to trust that the God who promised is faithful to perform it. Our job is not to figure out the "how" but to trust the "Who." When we are tempted to manufacture an Ishmael, we must repent and return to the simplicity of faith in Christ, the true seed of the promise. It is only by faith in His finished work that our house will be built, and not by any of our own fleshly striving.