From the Beginning: A Devotional Commentary on Genesis (IX)

In Genesis 16, we find one of the most mysterious and also one of the most encouraging stories in all of Genesis: the story of Abraham's handmaiden, Hagar. As an Egyptian among Hebrews, a woman among men, and a slave girl among the wealthy, Hagar is quite literally at the bottom of the social totem pole (if it doesn't raise a lump in your throat in verse 4, when Sarai and Abram force Hagar into surrogacy, so that Sarai can "build a family through her," you're not reading closely enough).

Anyways, Hagar flees into the wilderness and collapses near a spring of water, alone, abused and abandoned, and that's where YHWH meets her. He comforts her and sends her back to Abram, but not before telling her to name her forth-coming child Ishmael. "Ishmael" in Hebrew means "God has heard", as in, God has heard the cries of this broken-hearted outcast. But then Hagar turns around and actually names God. This is a big deal: not even Abram dared to give God a name; nor will Moses do it later on in the story (Exodus 3:13). It is, actually, the first time in the Bible that any human being makes so bold as to name him.

And what a human being! An abused, abandoned Egyptian slave girl. And what a name she gives him: "El Roi." In Hebrew the name means "The God who sees." YHWH tells Hagar, "I'm the God who hears," and then Hagar ups the ante, "Then you're also the God who sees."

"Now I've seen", she says,"the God who sees me... in my hurt and isolation... in my oppression and need ... in my despair .... You are the God who sees all that."

Amen.

If you're in a place today at all like Hagar was that day, then know that there is one who not only hears, but sees. In that sense, we are all "Ishmael" to him-- "Heard by God"-- and he is our El Roi.