Genesis 16
Seen at the Well by the Cast-Out
← Genesis 15 · Genesis: all chapters · Genesis 17 →
Read this chapter with the Hebrew and Greek compared →
The Account of Hagar
16:1Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had an Egyptian slave woman named Hagar.
16:2Sarai said to Abram, “Look, the Lord has shut me off from bearing children. Go in to my slave woman, so that you may have children through her.” Abram obeyed Sarai's voice.
16:3After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took her Egyptian slave woman Hagar and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife.
16:4He went in to Hagar, and she conceived. She saw that she was pregnant, and her mistress was dishonored before her.
16:5Sarai said to Abram, “I am wronged because of you! I gave my slave woman into your embrace, but when I saw that she was pregnant, I was dishonored before her. May God judge between me and you!”
16:6Abram said to Sarai, “Your slave woman is in your hands. Treat her as you please.” Sarai mistreated her, and she ran away from her.
Hagar at the Spring
16:7An angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur.
16:8The angel of the Lord said to her, “Hagar, Sarai's slave woman, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She said, “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.”
16:9The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and be humbled under her hands.”
16:10The angel of the Lord said to her, “I will greatly multiply your offspring, so that they cannot be counted because of their multitude.”
16:11The angel of the Lord said to her, “Behold, you are pregnant and will bear a son. You shall name him Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your humiliation.
16:12He shall be a wild man, his hands against everyone and everyone's hands against him; he shall dwell opposite all his brothers.”
16:13Hagar called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are God who looked upon me,” for she said, “For I also saw before me the one who appeared to me.”
16:14Therefore she called the well, “Well where I saw before me.” It is between Kadesh and Bered.
The Birth of Ishmael
16:15Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram named his son whom Hagar bore him Ishmael.
16:16Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.
← Genesis 15 · Genesis: all chapters · Genesis 17 →
Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.