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But Sarai, Abram’s wife, had no children. So Sarai took her servant, an Egyptian woman named Hagar, and gave her to Abram so she could bear his children. “The Lord has kept me from having any children,” Sarai said to Abram. “Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed. So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian servant and gave her to Abram as wife. (This happened ten years after Abram first arrived in the land of Canaan.)
-- Genesis 16: 1-3 (NLT)
I imagine that the closing parenthetical is key to understanding why this awkward sexual combination comes about. I take it that the ten years is the time since God reaffirmed his promise to Abraham as covered in the last chapter. God promised that Abraham would have his own son, but that was ten long years ago and Sarah and Abraham are not getting younger. One can appreciate the pressure to be more creative, and as Alter relates, “The institution of surrogate maternity to which she resorts is by no means her invention, being well attested in ancient Near Eastern legal documents.”
However, this arrangement can create its own domestic problems, but we will save that for the next post, in which we will also get to see some interesting stuff about angels. So, don’t say I never gave you anything!
-- Genesis 16: 1-3 (NLT)
I imagine that the closing parenthetical is key to understanding why this awkward sexual combination comes about. I take it that the ten years is the time since God reaffirmed his promise to Abraham as covered in the last chapter. God promised that Abraham would have his own son, but that was ten long years ago and Sarah and Abraham are not getting younger. One can appreciate the pressure to be more creative, and as Alter relates, “The institution of surrogate maternity to which she resorts is by no means her invention, being well attested in ancient Near Eastern legal documents.”
However, this arrangement can create its own domestic problems, but we will save that for the next post, in which we will also get to see some interesting stuff about angels. So, don’t say I never gave you anything!
