The Desert. Hot, dry. Empty.
Hagar walked on, occasionally turning back to see if anyone was following. She couldn’t see anyone. She was thirsty already but she didn’t dare drink from the single water-skin that was all she had been able to take with her. It was only an hour past dawn, and it would get much hotter later on. She didn’t know where the next well might be. She didn’t know where she was going, except away.
She had left in the night, slipped out of her tent carrying the water skin and a bundle of her belongings and disappeared into the darkness. Far above the stars had sparkled in the clear, cold air.
Her master believed his god had promised that he would have as many descendents as there were stars in the sky. But Sarai, his wife, couldn’t have children. At first Hagar had felt sorry for her mistress but then Sarai had come up with a plan- Abram, her husband, would sleep with Hagar and get her pregnant instead. If Sarai couldn’t have children herself, she would have them through Hagar.
Hagar, of course, had no say in the matter. But once the tell-tale signs of pregnancy had made themselves known, something changed. For the first time in her life, she was important. She had something to bargain with, some power. And...well, now she thought about it, maybe it would have been better to keep that knowledge to herself, to hold it in reserve, waiting. But she had never had power before, and the temptation to use it, to improve her position, had been too great.
Sarai had resented Hagar's improved status. Perhaps she had felt her own position as wife and as part of her husband's future slipping. She had reasserted her power over Hagar, reminding her slave of her own superiority in a hundred small humiliations and cutting words. Hagar was stubborn. So was Sarai. Abram did not seem to care, even though his longed-for child-to-be was the cause of the trouble. Matters got worse.
In the end it was too much. To leave was defeat, in a way, but her mistress and master would never see their precious baby, and that would be some recompense, Hagar had thought, for what they had done to her. Anything, she had thought, was better than staying. Now, out in the desert in the unprotected glare of the full sun, she wasn't so sure.
By late afternoon the water in the skin was all gone. She nibbled at the food she had brought, saved from her meals and from what she could take from the cooking pans without being noticed. It would not last long, but that would not matter if she could not find water. Even if she did, it would be dark soon and the desert that seemed so empty now would fill with the howls of wild animals, using the cool of evening to search for their prey. Hagar shivered, despite the heat.
She wandered, unsure which way to go or even what she hoped to find. The desert felt so empty. Her master Abram had left his homeland to live a nomad's life, wandering from water hole to well in this land, following a promise and a call. Hagar had had no choice, given to Sarai as a slave in Egypt, forced to leave her own land and wander, with no choice when or where to go. Now, alone and free to make her own decisions, she was afraid to choose any direction in case it was the wrong one.
It was nearly evening when she saw the dark smudge of vegetation that hinted at water. By the time she reached it the light had almost gone, but there was just enough to see the spring by. She sank down thankfully and drank deeply. She had been walking for almost twenty-four hours with few rests, afraid that every moment some of her master's servants would appear on a ridge behind her and drag her back to Sarai. Now she wondered if going back would be the right thing to do- not for herself, but for the child-to-be within her.
She lay down on the sand. The child moved inside her, and she felt a rush of love. It may not have been her choice, but the child was hers, not Sarai's, however much the older woman wanted it. As many descendents as there were grains of sand, Abram's god had promised him. Well, good luck with that.
Tired out, Hagar slept until the first light of dawn was in the sky. She woke with the strange feeling that someone was nearby, but at first she could see no one. Then, suddenly, and yet as if they had always been there, she saw a person standing beside the spring. No ordinary person, either. There was something different about them.
The person spoke.
“Hagar, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
Hagar started in surprise and terror. How did this person know who she was?
“I’m running away from my mistress,” she said. There seemed little point in lying to a stranger who somehow knew the identity of someone they met in the heart of the desert. Besides, she had the strangest feeling that the stranger already knew the truth.
Afterwards, she found it difficult to remember what the stranger had looked like, or how their voice sounded, or even the exact words they used. But the meaning of those words was clear, and stayed with her ever after.
The stranger told her to go back to Sarai and Abram. Hagar opened her mouth, ready to argue, but no words came. She knew the stranger was right. One woman, pregnant, unprotected, alone- how long would she last in the desert? She did not know how to find food, she had no livestock, nothing to exchange for food even if she met other people. The best she could hope would be to become someone else’s slave- would that be any better than what she had left? And what about her child? What would happen if she were to die in bearing it? Better for the child to be born where there were people who would love and care for it, a rich man’s heir, than to be born alone in the desert.
The stranger spoke again, and this time it was a promise, to her and her unborn child. Her child would be a boy, and would be called Ishmael, ‘God hears’. Now she knew who the stranger was- the God who had made promises to Abram. But this time it was her descendants who would be too many to count.
Then the stranger was gone. Hagar looked around at the barren desert, still seemingly empty of all but rocks and wild creatures. But she no longer felt alone.
“You are the God who sees me,” she said. “I have seen and heard the One who sees and hears me.”
She filled the water skin at the spring. She would need it on the journey back.
Based on Genesis 16: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2016&version=NIV
