Today is the first installment in the Names of God series. The names of God used in the Bible give us deeper insight into His character and attributes.
If you aren’t familiar with Abram, Sarai, and Hagar and how their story unfolds in Genesis chapters 15 and 16, you can read about it here.
Long story short…
God promised Abram (soon to be Abraham) that he would be the father of innumerable descendants. There was just one small problem. Abram’s wife, Sarai (soon to be Sarah) was barren. God had said that Abram’s heir would be his own flesh and blood, but didn’t say anything about how that would come about. Sarai, rather than waiting on God to fulfill His promise, decides to help things along. She gives Abram her Egyptian servant, Hagar, to have children with. Hagar quickly becomes pregnant, and unsurprisingly this creates some tension between her and Sarai. Sarai begins to mistreat Hagar, so she flees into the desert.
Alone in the desert, Hagar has a personal encounter with God. He instructs her on what to name the son growing in her womb: Ishmael, which means God Hears. God promises that her offspring will be innumerable, just as He promised Abram. Obediently, Hagar returns to Abram and Sarai and gives birth to Ishmael. But not before she does something incredible. She becomes the only person in the Old Testament to give God a name.
El Roi, God who sees.
Hagar had no social standing as a foreign slave. She was all alone and fleeing an abusive situation. Pregnant and with no protection or provision from her former masters… her future was grim.
But then God shows up. He has a plan and a promise for her, the slave woman, that is equal in value to the promise He made to Abram, the chosen Israelite. She will have innumerable descendants through her son. He will be “a wild donkey of a man”, escaping slavery and abuse and living free and undisciplined.
To the rest of the world, Hagar may as well have been invisible, but God saw her. He gave her hope when hope seemed lost. He blessed her when she was at her lowest. He saw her and revealed Himself to her. He is a personal God who sees us, knows us, and shows Himself to us. No matter our situation or suffering God will not forsake us.
Genesis 16:13 She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”
For more on Hagar’s story, Jackie Hill Perry has an awesome teaching about her on YouTube.