Nothing more is related of Iliigar until the 21st ehapter, where we are told of tlie birth of Isaac )vv '■'). On the occo-sion of the festival which was
hi-ld perliaiis two or three years later (see Del Izsch and Dillmann, inlui-.], S.irali .saw Hagar'^<.son 'play- ing (p-jc, not 'mocking' or 'persecuting,' iis no ol'ject is ex]ires.sed) ; and her maternal jealousy took fire. She was seized pjobably with a dieail lest the inheritance should jiass to the son of the concubine. She demanded from Abraham the expulsion of Hagar and her boy. The demand, to Abraham's creilit, disple.'ised huu sorely. But God spake to him, apparently at night ; bade him sacrifice his fatherly feelings, and obey Sarah's word. Abraham the next morning took oread and a skin of water, and gave them over, with the lad, to Hagar, who was thus sent forth a homeless wanderer into the wilderness of Deerslieba, in the neighliuurhood of which Abraham presumably was encamped (21 '■'•'■-' 22'''). According to this tradition Ishmael was still a child, and was soon worn out. The water-skin «as quickly emptied ; Hagar laid the child down under a bush (v.'') ; she saw there was no hojie for his life unless she could find water ; in despair, and so that she might not witness his dying agonies, she retired a bowshot's distance. It was then that God heard the voice of the lad (not of his mother) ; and the angel of God called to Hagar, and encour.iged her. The boy was not to die, but to live. 'Arise, lift up the buy, take fast hold of him by thy hand ; for I will make of him a great nation.' Then God opened her eyes ; she saw, what before she had not perceived, a well of water close at hand ; she tilled the empty skin with water, and gave her boy to drink. He re- vived, and giew to be a strong man, a famous archer. He dwelt in the desert of Paran ; and his mother, her.self an Egyjitian, took for him an Egyptian wife (v.'-').
i'lie purpose which was served by the preser- vatinn of these two narratives was jirobably a dillerent one in each ca.se. In ch. ItS we have a tradition the preservation of which in the Book of Genesis seems to be due to the fact that (1) it illustrated the varied trials to which Abraham's faith and patience were subjected before the fulfil- ment of tlie divine promise was granted ; (2) it proclaimed the futility of the human endeavours to compass by human means that which could only be accomplislied in accordance with the divine purpose. To every Lsraelite it also emphjisized the fact that the chosen family had been providentially watclied over from its very beginnings; the humblest members of the hou.sehold received the blessing of the divine Vision. In ch. 21 we have a similar thought; but here i\v separation of Hagar from the t^nt of Abraham is due, not to a voluntary flight, but to an express divine oracle. Undoubtedly, too, this story reflects the pride of the people in the purit. of their descent. The nations around Palestine were, according to the jiopular Hebrew belief, all of them ollshoots from the family of Abraham : but the stock of typical patriarchal Israel had no contamination from Can.aan or from Egypt.
There was, however, another side to the narra- tives. It cannot but have struck the Israelite leader that the first mention of 'the Angel of J"" (It)') is in connexion with the manifestation to Hagar, this des|)i.sed Egj-ptian concubine. The light 'ad rcvelationem gentium' had begun to shine : and the story of Hagar is the first of a remarkable series in which aiipear Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Naanian. Thus the storj- of Hagar is a striking instance, on the very threshold of the history of the Covenant Peojile, of that wider and more generous view of divine mercy which wius ordinarily ignored by popular Hebrew particu- larism.
The name Hnrinr in Arabic denotes a 'fugitive.' The word is familiar to us in Ilcgira, the 'epoch-
278
HAGAR
IIAGAR
making ' flight of MohainmeJ. Some have thought that the bibliciil uanatives of Hagar ('flight') and Ishiiiuel ('tiod heaieth') have been expanded out of a mere play upuu the words ; others have tliought tliat the original names may have been adapted so as to correspond with the distiiiitive incidents of well-known primitive narratives, and that thus the tradition of actual facts has been made to serve the additional purpose of accounting for the origin of neighbouring tribes. It cannot be doubted that the narratives represent an early Israelite belief that the mountain tribes and clans on the south and south-east frontier of Palestine were descended from the same Hebrew stock, from the same Semitic group, as Israel. The IsliTnaelite Bedawln were regarded as sons of Abraham, but as of inferior caste ; and Hagar supplied the recol- lection of a tradition tliat they were also connected with Egypt, llenan (Hist, of Isr. i. 81 n., Eng. tr.) would derive the name Hngar from the Arabic haijar ( = a rock), ' l)y the primitive equivalence of a and n ' ; he regards Hagar as tlie personification of tlie tribes of Arabia Petraea, anii apparently derives the story of Hagar from the resemblance of the two words meaning ' rock ' and ' fugitive.'