“Now Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.”
Genesis 16 opens with a problem and a person: Sarai has borne Abram no children, but she has an Egyptian slave named Hagar. The problem — ten years into the promise of offspring (verse 3) — is still unresolved. The person is Hagar, an Egyptian slave, likely acquired during the Egypt episode of Genesis 12. Hagar is introduced as Sarai's possession before she becomes a person in her own right in this chapter. The structural situation mirrors Genesis 2–3 in several ways: a woman with access to what is desired, a man who listens to his wife rather than to God's word, and consequences that outlast the decision. Romans 4:19–21 commends Abraham's faith in the promise despite the deadness of Sarah's womb — but this chapter shows the moment before that faith solidified, the moment when the wait became too long. The application: the servants and circumstances close at hand are often the occasions for the alternatives to faith that we craft when waiting becomes unbearable.