El Roi

And the angel also said, “You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son. You are to name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your cry of distress.”

Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her. She said, “You are the God who sees me.” She also said, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?”

Genesis 16: 11, 13

Hagar, the Egyptian servant of Sarah and concubine of Abraham was mere property in her day and age. She was a slave. A gift from the King of Egypt to Sarai, wife of Abram whom he thought to make a part of his own harem of wives but was reprimanded by God Himself. He, out of fear, sent Sarah and Abraham away with gifts of wealth and servants. Hagar was a mere portion of that peace offering.

Hagar probably knew her place and accepted her fate without protesting. We aren’t given much information in Genesis about her past. Did her parents sell her into servitude to pay a debt? Was she born into Pharaoh’s household? Did she have siblings? Did she fall in love? We’ll never know this side of heaven. We are given a rare bit of her information in that we even know her name. Hagar, Sarah’s servant, and her name means ‘forsaken.’

This was her identity. Then, she is offered to her mistress’s husband to bear Sarah a child by him. The child of her womb wouldn’t even be hers. It would belong to her master and mistress. Who could blame her for feeling a bit of pride in the only thing she could ever do that would give her value that even her mistress could not; bear a child. Before this, she was no one, only a piece of property to be used to serve and then to warm the bed of her master until she was pregnant.  Now she had value and was noticed and esteemed by all in the community. A woman’s value at this time in history was tied to her ability to bear her husband many children. Some even spoke of her replacing the old barren wife of the master.

What, then, was Hagar to do when her mistress began to treat her harshly? What if she was tossed out after she bore the child? Hagar was desperate and felt alone. So, she ran. And alone in the wilderness, she encountered the One who saw her. The only God she ever heard of who cares for the weak and the lowly. There she named Him, El Roi, The God Who Sees me. This encounter begins Hagar’s new identity; no longer is she ‘forsaken,’ but now her identity is ‘seen.’