“But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.”
Abram tells Sarai: 'Your servant is in your hands. Do with her whatever you think best.' Then Sarai mistreats Hagar and she flees. Abram's passivity in this verse is a second failure: having failed to assert the covenant promise against Sarai's plan in verse 2, he now fails to protect the vulnerable person caught in the consequences of that plan. He hands Hagar back to Sarai's power without qualification. The mistreatment that follows — the Hebrew word is the same root used for the oppression of Israel in Egypt (Exodus 1:11–12) — drives Hagar out into the wilderness. The one brought from Egypt to serve in Abraham's household is now oppressed by that household, in a miniature foreshadowing of the Egyptian oppression. The application: when you have used someone for your purposes and the arrangement produces hardship, washing your hands of the situation and handing them back to be mistreated is not neutrality. It is a second form of harm.
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