Women of Scripture
The God Who Sees: Hagar in the Wilderness
Genesis 16:7–14
Genesis 16 introduces us to Hagar — a woman without power or status who becomes the first person in scripture to name God. Her encounter in the wilderness reveals a God who finds the ones no one else is looking for.
Key passages
- Genesis 16:13
- Psalm 139:7–8
- Luke 15:4
Her Situation (vv. 1–6)
Hagar is Egyptian, a slave, and entirely without agency in her own story. She has been given to Abram by Sarai as a means of producing an heir — a common cultural practice that does not make it any less dehumanising. When she conceives, the dynamic between the women becomes unbearable, and Hagar flees into the wilderness.
She has nothing. No protection, no plan, no community. She is pregnant and running.
The Angel Finds Her (vv. 7–9)
The angel of the Lord finds her by a spring of water in the wilderness. The question asked is gentle: Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?
He uses her name. He sees her. In a story where she has been treated primarily as a instrument, this is not a small thing.
A Promise in the Wilderness (vv. 10–12)
God makes a covenant-style promise to Hagar: her offspring will be multiplied beyond counting. He names the child she carries and describes what he will be. This is the language of the Abrahamic blessing — extended here to a slave woman who is not part of any covenant arrangement.
God does this unrequested, unearned, unexplained. He gives her a future in the wilderness.
The Name She Gives God (vv. 13–14)
Hagar's response is extraordinary. She names God: El Roi — the God who sees me. She says: Have I truly seen God and remained alive after seeing him? She is astonished, not because God appeared, but because He saw her. Being seen, for Hagar, is not a given. It is a miracle.
No one else in scripture names God first. This woman — a slave, a foreigner, a runaway — gives God a name that has stayed in the text for millennia.
What This Text Gives Us
God finds the ones who have been overlooked, discarded, or fled. He uses their names. He makes promises to them that they did not earn. And He allows them — invites them — to encounter Him personally.
You are seen. That is the word this text carries across thousands of years.
For reflection
- Why do you think Hagar's act of naming God — 'El Roi' — is significant? What does it tell us about how God's encounter with her changed her?
- Have you ever felt overlooked in your own story, as Hagar was in hers? What does this text say to that experience?
- God makes a promise to Hagar in the wilderness — before resolution, before safety. What does it mean to receive a promise from God in the middle of a hard situation rather than after it?