The angel promises Hagar: 'I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.' The promise given to Hagar parallels the promise given to Abram in Genesis 13:16 — innumerable offspring. The slave woman receives the same category of promise as the covenant man. The promise is not the Abrahamic covenant; Ishmael will not be the line through which the promise of Genesis 3:15 comes. But it is a genuine, substantial promise — Hagar's son will be the ancestor of a great people. Galatians 4:22–23 distinguishes between the son of the slave and the son of the free woman, but the distinction is about the covenant line, not about whether God cares for Hagar and her descendants. The application: God's promises to the covenant line do not exhaust his care for people outside it. Hagar receives a real promise. The scope of God's care is wider than the narrowing of the covenant line suggests.

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