Home Master Index
←Prev   Genesis 16 as rendered by/in  Next→ 



16:1  Now Sarai Avram’s wife had not borne him a child. But she had an Egyptian slave-girl named Hagar;
16:2  so Sarai said to Avram, “Here now, Adonai has kept me from having children; so go in and sleep with my slave-girl. Maybe I’ll be able to have children through her.” Avram listened to what Sarai said.
16:3  It was after Avram had lived ten years in the land of Kena‘an that Sarai Avram’s wife took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to Avram her husband to be his wife.
16:4  Avram had sexual relations with Hagar, and she conceived. But when she became aware that she was pregnant, she looked on her mistress with contempt.
16:5  Sarai said to Avram, “This outrage being done to me is your fault! True, I gave my slave-girl to you to sleep with; but when she saw that she was pregnant, she began holding me in contempt. May Adonai decide who is right — I or you!”
16:6  However, Avram answered Sarai, “Look, she’s your slave-girl. Deal with her as you think fit.” Then Sarai treated her so harshly that she ran away from her.
16:7  The angel of Adonai found her by a spring in the desert, the spring on the road to Shur,
16:8  and said, “Hagar! Sarai’s slave-girl! Where have you come from, and where are you going?” She answered, “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai.”
16:9  The angel of Adonai said to her, “Go back to your mistress, and submit to her authority.”
16:10  The angel of Adonai said to her, “I will greatly increase your descendants; there will be so many that it will be impossible to count them.”
16:11  The angel of Adonai said to her, “Look, you are pregnant, and you will give birth to a son. You are to call him Yishma‘el [God pays attention] because Adonai has paid attention to your misery.
16:12  He will be a wild donkey of a man, with his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, living his life at odds with all his kinsmen.”
16:13  So she named Adonai who had spoken with her El Ro’i [God of seeing], because she said, “Have I really seen the One who sees me [and stayed alive]?”
16:14  This is why the well has been called Be’er-Lachai-Ro’i [well of the one who lives and sees]; it lies between Kadesh and Bered.
16:15  Hagar bore Avram a son, and Avram called the son whom Hagar had borne Yishma‘el.
16:16  Avram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Yishma‘el to Avram.