Elements of covenant:
1. God promises something to a person and their descendants.
2. God asks something of a person (and often their descendants).
And I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
And you shall be a blessing. (3) I will bless those who bless you
And curse him that curses you;
And all the families of the earth
Shall bless themselves by you.”
A very superficial reading of Genesis 16:1–16 and 21:9–21 in the Hebrew testament revealed that Hagar's predicament involved slavery, poverty, ethnicity, sexual and economic exploitation, surrogacy, rape, domestic violence, homelessness, motherhood, single-parenting and radical encounters with God.
(Delores Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness)
“I will greatly increase your offspring,
And they shall be too many to count.” (11) The angel of the LORD said to her further,
“Behold, you are with child
And shall bear a son;
You shall call him Ishmael,
For the LORD has paid heed to your suffering. (12) He shall be a wild ass of a man;
His hand against everyone,
And everyone’s hand against him;
He shall dwell alongside of all his kinsmen.” (13) And she called the LORD who spoke to her, “You Are El-roi,” by which she meant, “Have I not gone on seeing after He saw me!”-d (14) Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it is between Kadesh and Bered.— (15) Hagar bore a son to Abram, and Abram gave the son that Hagar bore him the name Ishmael. (16) Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram.
אֲמַר לְהוֹן כְּמָה דְתֵימָא מְלוֹג מְלוֹג. אָמַר רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן יוֹחָאי הָגָר בִּתּוֹ שֶׁל פַּרְעֹה הָיְתָה, וְכֵיוָן שֶׁרָאָה פַּרְעֹה מַעֲשִׂים שֶׁנַּעֲשׂוּ לְשָׂרָה בְּבֵיתוֹ, נָטַל בִּתּוֹ וּנְתָנָהּ לוֹ, אָמַר מוּטָב שֶׁתְּהֵא בִּתִּי שִׁפְחָה בְּבַיִת זֶה וְלֹא גְבִירָה בְּבַיִת אַחֵר, הֲדָא הוּא דִכְתִיב: וְלָהּ שִׁפְחָה מִצְרִית וּשְׁמָהּ הָגָר, הָא אַגְרִיךְ.
(1) ...Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai said Hagar was Pharaoh's daughter. When he saw the deeds on behalf of Sarah in his house, he took his daughter and gave her to him, saying, 'better that my daughter by a maidservant in this house than a mistress in another house.' This is what is written: "She had an Egyptian handmaid whose name was Hagar." [In other words:] ha agrikh: 'This is your reward.'
וּשְׁמָהּ קְטוּרָה (בראשית כה, א), רַב אָמַר זוֹ הָגָר, אֲמַר לֵיהּ רַבִּי נְחֶמְיָה וְהָכְתִיב (בראשית כה, א): וַיֹּסֶף, אֲמַר לֵיהּ עַל פִּי הַדִּבּוּר נְשָׂאָהּ, הֵיךְ מָה דְאַתְּ אָמַר (ישעיה ח, ה): וַיֹּסֶף ה' דַּבֵּר אֵלַי עוֹד. אֲמַר לֵיהּ וְהָכְתִיב: וּשְׁמָהּ קְטוּרָה. אֲמַר לֵיהּ שֶׁמְקֻטֶּרֶת מִצְווֹת וּמַעֲשִׂים טוֹבִים. אֲמַר לֵיהּ וְהָכְתִיב (בראשית כה, ו): וְלִבְנֵי הַפִּילַגְשִׁים אֲשֶׁר לְאַבְרָהָם, אֲמַר לֵיהּ פִּלַגְשָׁם כְּתִיב. (בראשית כה, ו): בְּעוֹדֶנּוּ חַי, אוֹתָהּ שֶׁיָּשְׁבָה עַל הַבְּאֵר וְאָמְרָה לְחַי הָעוֹלָמִים רְאֵה בְּעֶלְבּוֹנִי.
And her name was Keturah: Rav said, "She is Hagar." Rabbi Nechemiah said to him, "And is it not written, 'he added.'" He said to him, "[That signifies that] he [now] married her according to the [Divine] word; like that which you say (Isaiah 8), 'And the Lord added to speak to me more.'" He said to him, "And is it not written, 'And her name was Keturah?'" He said to him, "[It is] since she was fragrant (mekuteret) with commandments and good deeds." He said to him, "And is it not written, 'And to the sons of the concubines that Avraham had?'" He said, "It is [actually] written, 'concubine' (in the singular, such that there only be one concubine - Hagar)." "While he was still alive (chai)" - [this is a reference to] the one that sat by the well and said to the Life (chai) of the worlds, "Look at my embarrassment!"
... Hagar's new insight, expressed by her saying אתה א-ל ראי, meant that whereas up until now she had assumed that revelations from G'd are confined to the house of Avram, she had now learned that G'd may reveal Himself in any location. This is in line with Baba Metzia 59 כל השערים ננעלו חוץ משערי דמעות, that although the gates of prayer have largely remained shut since the destruction of the Temple, the prayer of people complaining (shedding tears) of being dealt with unfairly by their fellow human beings have not been closed.
God's response to Hagar's story in the Hebrew testament is not liberation. Rather, God participates in Hagar's and her child's survival on two occasions. When she was a run-away slave, God met her in the wilderness and told her to resubmit herself to her oppressor Sarah, that is, to return to bondage. Latin American biblical scholar Elsa Tamez may be correct when she interprets God's action here to be on behalf of the survival of Hagar and child. Hagar could not give birth in the wilderness. Perhaps neither she nor the child could survive such an ordeal. Perhaps the best resources for assuring the life of mother and child were in the home of Abraham and Sarah. Then, when Hagar and her child were finally cast out of the home of their oppressors and were not given proper resources for survival, God provided Hagar with a resource. God gave her new vision to see survival resources where she had seen none before. Liberation in the Hagar stories is not given by God; it finds its source in human initiative. Finally, in Hagar's story there is the suggestion that God will be instrumental in the development of Ishmael's and Hagar's quality of life, for “God was with the boy. He grew up and made his home in the desert [wilderness], and he became an archer” (Genesis 21:20).
Thus it seemed to me that God's response to Hagar's (and her child's) situation was survival and involvement in their development of an appropriate quality of life, that is, appropriate to their situation and their heritage. Because they would finally live in the wilderness without the protection of a larger social unit, it was perhaps to their advantage that Ishmael be skillful with the bow. He could protect himself and his mother. The fact that Hagar took a wife for Ishmael “from the land of Egypt” suggests that Hagar wanted to perpetuate her own cultural heritage, which was Egyptian, and not that of her oppressors Abraham and Sarah.
Even today, most of Hagar's situation is congruent with many African-American women's predicament of poverty, sexual and economic exploitation, surrogacy, domestic violence, homelessness, rape, motherhood, single-parenting, ethnicity and meetings with God. Many black women have testified that “God helped them make a way out of no way.” They believe God is involved not only in their survival struggle, but that God also supports their struggle for quality of life, which “making a way” suggests. I concluded, then, that the female-centered tradition of African-American biblical appropriation could be named the survival/quality-of-life tradition of African-American biblical appropriation. This naming was consistent with the black American community's way of appropriating the Bible so that emphasis is put upon God's response to black people's situation rather than upon what would appear to be hopeless aspects of African-American people's existence in North America. In black consciousness, God's response of survival and quality of life to Hagar is God's response of survival and quality of life to African-American women and mothers of slave descent struggling to sustain their families with God's help.
וַיִּֽהְי֥וּ בְנֵֽי־יַעֲקֹ֖ב שְׁנֵ֥ים עָשָֽׂר׃
Now the sons of Jacob were twelve in number.
Sons of Bilhah: Dan, Naftali (Joseph? Benjamin???)
Sons of Zilpah: Gad, Asher
At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers, as a helper to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Joseph brought bad reports of them to their father.
A cry is heard in Ramah-e—
Wailing, bitter weeping—
Rachel weeping for her children.
She refuses to be comforted
For her children, who are gone. (16) Thus said the LORD:
Restrain your voice from weeping,
Your eyes from shedding tears;
For there is a reward for your labor
—declares the LORD:
They shall return from the enemy’s land. (17) And there is hope for your future
—declares the LORD:
Your children shall return to their country.
(כח) קוֹל בְּכִי לֵאָה מְתוֹפֶפֶת עַל לְבָבֶהָ
(כט) רָחֵל אֲחוֹתָהּ מְבַכָּה עַל בָּנֶיהָ זִלְפָּה מַכָּה פָּנֶיהָ
(ל) בִּלְהָה מְקוֹנֶנֶת בִּשְׁתֵּי יָדֶיהָ:
The voice of Leah's cries as she beats her heart
Rachel her sister crying over her children
Zilpah strikes her face
Bilhah mourns with both hands.
Through the wombs of Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah, Israel’s people were birthed by choice and by force. The text says nothing to suggest that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of Bilhah and Zilpah. They are casualties of nation building. But their children, their grandchildren, and their descendants will claim and be claimed by the God of their patriarchs, and some of us who claim the God of Israel, including through the life and teachings of Yeshua ben Miryam, Mary’s child, Jesus, also claim Zilpah, Bilhah, Hagar, and all of the unnamed womb-slaves in what has become our spiritual ancestry. Mother Zilpah, womb-slave of Israel, we call your name. Ashé!
(Wilda C. Gafney, Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne)
שֵׁשׁ כְּנֶגֶד שִׁשָּׁה עֶרְכֵי מִשְׁנָה. שֵׁשׁ כְּנֶגֶד שֵׁשֶׁת יְמֵי בְרֵאשִׁית. שֵׁשׁ כְּנֶגֶד שֵׁשׁ אִמָּהוֹת, שָׂרָה, רִבְקָה, רָחֵל, לֵאָה, זִלְפָּה, בִּלְהָה.