'Where Do You Come From, And Where Are You Going?55: Hagar and Encounter God

BY TOBA SPITZER

omen's encounters with broader issue of biblical representation the divine in the are of women's encounters with God. By few and far between. In comparing her experience with that of wcontrast to the wide variety of male Sarah (whose one encounter with the encounters—'s conversa- divine is narratively sandwiched be- tions with God, dreaming and tween those of Hagar), we can begin wrestling with the angel, Moses at the to uncover what the biblical text sug- bush and at Sinai, the many accounts gests about both the limitations on of prophetic call—we are told of few women's experience and the possibili- women who directly experience or ties that lie beyond those limitations. speak with God. Given the paucity of material overall, the fact that there is a In the Wilderness: Hagar female character who has more than one extended encounter with the di- Many meetings with God in the vine marks her as significant. That Bible take place in liminal "in-be- woman is Hagar, the Egyptian hand- tween" places, and this is also true maid of Sarah and second wife of for Hagar. Her first meeting takes Abraham.1 Hagar's experiences pro- place in the wilderness, where she has vide us with an important lens on the fled Sarai's mistreatment. In an echo

Toba Spitzer is a 1997 graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and the rabbi of JRF Congregation Dorshei Tzedek in Newton, Massachusetts.

8 · Fall 1998 The Reconstructionist of Jacob's famous encounter by the Between Subordination Jabbok river, Hagar is met by a divine and Autonomy messenger {malakh YHWH) at a place "on the way," by a body of water in Certainly a messenger of God the wilderness: knows the literal answer to his in- quiry. As a narrative device both the And a malakh YHWH found question and the reply point to some- her by a spring of water in the thing deeper, to a tension which is key wilderness, by the spring on to this encounter. On the one hand, the way to Shur. And he said, both question and reply emphasize "Hagar, Sarai's handmaid, from Hagar's subordinate position in her where have you come, and particular social framework. She is a where are you going?" And she shiflpah, Sarai is her mistress—on this said, "I am fleeing from Sarai both she and the messenger agree. If my mistress." (Gen. 16:7-8) the first part of the malakh's question, "from where have you come?" sug- Hagar is the first person in the gests Hagar's proper place, then the to meet such a divine messenger. But second half—"where are you go- in contrast to Jacob, Hagar is greeted ing?"—implies that Hagar is now out by a question, not an attack. This is to of place. Like a director who has lost be a friendly encounter, not a night- control of one of his characters, the time terror. divine messenger seems to be saying: While the reader is immediately in- "You and I know your proper place— formed that the one meeting Hagar is so what are you doing out here in the of divine origin, Hagar is also given a wilderness?" It is in this context that clue, for this stranger knows her name Hagar answers. Her words—"mipney and station in life: he addresses her as Sarai gevirti anokhi borahat" "I am "Hagar, handmaid (shiflpah) of Sarai." fleeing from Sarai my mistress" (v. It is precisely this emphasis on Hagar's 8)—go beyond a simple, factual re- status that signals the significance of sponse. "Mipney" means "from the what is to come. Through an appar- presence of," but can also mean "be- ently unnecessary repetition—the cause of, for fear of." Hagar acknowl- malaktfs calling her "shiflpah" and edges that her proper place is as a ser- Hagar's mention of "Sarai my mis- vant, yet she justifies the situation by tress" in her response—our attention asserting that it is on her mistress's is focused on Hagar's station in life. account that she is out of place. While Why this repeated identification? And not entirely defiant, Hagar's response what is the meaning of the malakh's suggests a willingness to stand up for question: "From where have you herself, a sense of boldness and deter- come, and where are you going"? If mination. we as readers know of Hagar's plight, There is another aspect to the mes- is it possible that the All-knowing senger's question "where are you go- One does not? ing?" While it does imply that Hagar

The Reconstructionist Fall 1998 · 9 is out of place, it is not a reprimand. identifies with the oppressor Rather, in its open-endedness the and orders a servant to return question points beyond Hagar's ser- not only to bondage but also to vant status towards her agency and au- affliction.3 tonomy. The question suggests that In her desire to emphasize Hagar's op- her fate is in her hands, and that we— pression at the hands of both her mas- reader and malakh—do not really ters and a patriarchal text, Trible know where she is headed. Hagar's misses the subtlety in the narrative. answer, though simple, recapitulates The messenger is telling Hagar that the two aspects of the malakh's ques- she is out of place; in order for the tion. In the first part—"mipney Sarai story to continue she must go back. gevirti"—Hagar has left the place But in the use of the hitpa'el form of which properly defines her role; and the verb "to submit"—that is, in tell- in the second—"anokhi borahat"— ing Hagar to "hitani" to cause herself Hagar is the actor, pro-actively mak- to submit to Sarai's mistreatment—the ing the choice to leave a difficult situ- mahkh implicitly continues to recog- ation. It is in fact through the nize Hagar's agency and personhood. malakh's initial address that Hagar As J. Gerald Janzen notes, Hagar will truly becomes subject in this story.2 In be able to "become subject to Sarai the beginning of chapter 16, while without losing her own subjectivity," Hagar is still in Abram and Sarai's by acting as agent of her own act of home, she is never addressed directly submission. The mahkh seems to ac- by name. The mahkh YHWH is the cept Hagar's version of events, that it first to say "Hagar," and it is in re- is Sarai's fault that she has had to flee, sponse to his question that Hagar first and in asking her to "submit herself" speaks, and names her own situation: he is giving an insistent but not un- "I am fleeing." compassionate command. Yet the tension between servitude and autonomy returns, as the mahkh The Promise of "Seed" now gives Hagar a troubling directive: return, and submit "beneath her As an immediate counter-balance hand"—that is, to Sarai's mistreat- to the order to return to mistreat- ment (v. 9). Feminist Bible scholar ment, the messenger goes on to prom- Phyllis Trible argues that the messen- ise Hagar countless offspring (v. 10), ger's words in a formulation that is reminiscent of the divine promise to Abram in Gen- bring a divine word of terror to esis 15:5. There, Abram is promised an abused, yet courageous, "seed" as impossible to count as the woman . . . Inexplicably, the stars; here, Hagar's "seed" will be God who later, seeing the suf- multiplied to an uncountable degree. fering of a slave people, comes And just as Abram's descendants will down to deliver them out of the have to undergo slavery before God's hand of the Egyptians, here promise can be fulfilled (Gen. 15:13-

10 · Fall 1998 The Reconstructionist 16), verses 9-10 of chapter 16 suggest ers: her flight is turned into his defi- that the divine promise of "seed" to ance.5 The implicit message of this Hagar is similarly contingent upon a verse is that the independence and de- period of enslavement and suffering. fiance Hagar has shown will find full The mahkh's words are remark- expression in the rebellious freedom able, for Hagar is the only woman in of Yishmael's tribe. to receive the divine promise of "seed." She is thus designated the Seeing and Naming matriarch of a tribe, after the model of But this encounter does not end Abraham. The messenger's promise with God's promise to Hagar. In verse expands upon Hagar's agency and au- 13 the focus shifts back from son to tonomy, and marks her as having a , from the mahkh's words to special relationship to the divine. Hagar's. Having just been told that These themes are further developed she will name her son after the God in the announcement of the name of who hears her, Hagar turns and tells her son-to-be in Genesis 16:11. Hagar the messenger his name, after her own is told that she will be the one to experience of seeing/being seen: "And name her son, and that the name— she called the name [YHWH] of the Yishma'el—indicates that God has one who spoke to her 'atah el ro'i' " heard her oni, her affliction. YHWH/ In an act unique to her, Hagar is nam- El is aware of Hagar and has taken her ing God! But what exactly is she say- into his care, if she will play her role ing? El ro'i can be translated "the God and return, fulfilling her destiny by who sees me," "the God of seeing," giving birth to this child. and the "seen God." The precise As the mahkh goes on, in verse 12, meaning of her words is enigmatic, to describe Yishmael's fate, a picture but Hagar is clearly identifying her emerges of a man who will live out a meeting with the mahkh as an en- life of confrontation and indepen- counter with God. Even more power- dence that his mother has experienced fully, she does not displace this act of in a limited, more passive, form. recognition/naming onto an interme- Whereas she has taken temporary ref- diate symbol, as does Jacob in naming uge in the wilderness, he will be a a place—Penu'el—after his wrestle "wild ass," a nomad living in the wil- with the "man" (Gen. 32:31). Hagar derness. Hagar was made to suffer names this deity face to face: "You are "beneath the hand" of Sarai, but Yish- El Ro'i." Hagar has not limped away; mael's "hand" will be against all those her words indicate that she is still in around him: (female) suffering will the presence of the divine even as she be transformed into a kind of (male) calls its name. While traditional schol- audaciousness and self-imposed in- ars have minimized the power of this dependence. Similarly, in contrast act of naming, Phyllis Trible captures to Hagar who had to flee "mipney" the power of the moment: her mistress, her son will dwell "al peney"—"in the face of—his broth- Hagar does not call upon the

The Reconstructionist Fall 1998 · 11 name of the deity. Instead, she power to see and name. This is the calls the name, a power attrib- power of the word aharey ("after") in uted to no one else in all the verse 13: her ability to see comes "af- Bible . . . Hagar is a theolo- ter" she has been seen by God. gian. Her naming unites the It is true that, in contrast to Abram divine and human encounter: who is passive (that is, a non-actor in the God who sees and the God the narrative) until he receives the call who is seen."7 and command from God, Hagar's own agency has in fact preceded this This sense of seeing and being seen divine encounter. She "sees" that she is further developed in the second half is pregnant in verse 4, thus precipitat- of verse 13, although the exact mean- ing the conflict with Sarai, and takes ing of the words is unclear. The matters into her own hands by flee- phrase hagam halom ra'iti aharey ro'i ing.9 Yet it is only in the wilderness, has been variously translated "Did I away from the confines of her life as not go on seeing here after he had seen maid to Sarai and wife to Abram, that me?" "Have I really seen the back of Hagar can be seen and known, and the One who sees me?" "I have seen thus come into her own power as seer God after he saw me," and "Would I and namer.10 Here Hagar is anything have gone here indeed looking for but an abject, downtrodden slave him that looks after me?"8 Yet de- woman. Her naming of God is a spite the differences, every translation simple, direct, yet audacious act. And shares the sense of reciprocity that again in contrast to Jacob, Hagar has Trible points to—the God who sees not had to wrest a name away from and is seen, who is aware of the pro- the angel—she has provided it on her tagonist and is, in turn, recognized. own. The messenger calls her name, This is not amazement on the part but in this story it is the human pro- of Hagar, who makes her statement in tagonist who gives a new name. an utterly matter-of-fact way, but an Despair and Defiance acknowledgment of intimate and mu- tual encounter. Naming in the Bible At the end of chapter 16 we are carries with it the sense of knowing told that Hagar has indeed returned to and expressing one's essence. In nam- her masters, and has borne a child to ing God and explaining that name, Abram. In chapter 21 her story picks Hagar is making a statement about up again, leading to a second encoun- the power of being seen, and thus be- ter in the wilderness. Yet where ing known. This mahkh saw her and Hagar's first experience is marked by called her name, and in his greeting defiance and agency, this episode be- proved that he knew her (in stark con- gins as a tragic inversion of that earlier trast to Hagar's status as nameless encounter. Hagar does not flee of her pawn in the machinations between own initiative but is cast out, wander- Abram and Sarai). In being seen and ing without direction. This time she named, Hagar achieves her own does not find a spring of water, and

12 · Fall 1998 The Reconstructionist the insufficient supplies given to her neged' subtly hints at Hagar's "oppo- by Abraham run out. At the peak of sition" to this turn of events. After the Hagar's despair, as she completes second mention of her sitting down Abraham's act of sending her and "opposite," she "raises up her voice Yishmael into the desert by casting her and cries." Is Hagar praying? Pleading child under a bush to die (w. 14- for divine intercession? We are not 15),1 1 the very act of seeing turns told. What is significant is that Hagar from life to death. has not given in passively or silently. In chapter 16, Hagar's encounter Hagar remains an actor in these with the God of seeing is associated verses, albeit a tragic one, pointedly with be'er hhay ro'i, a well of life and setting her son under a bush, sitting sight (v. 14). Here in chapter 21 there down "in opposition," and raising her is no water, and Hagar repudiates the voice. Hagar then takes away the only power of seeing: "And she went and thing left to her—her own sight—as if sat herself opposite, at the distance of to say: if God no longer sees me, then a bowshot, for she said: ∫ shall not I too will no longer see. This is look upon the death of the child' " (v. Hagar's final act of defiance. 16). If seeing is associated with life, then not-seeing is associated with Return of Sight and Life death. Everything has come undone, and Hagar seems to have reached the It is at this point that God does end—losing the son whom she was respond, fulfilling the prediction from promised, losing the power of sight chapter 16 that "God will hear." We and life. are reminded of the intertwined na- Yet even here Hagar has not com- ture of Hagar's fate and that of her pletely lost her agency, her power to son. In chapter 16 the boy's name, act: Yishmael, was given as a sign of God hearing Hagar's affliction. Here, in And she went and sat herself op- 21:17, we are told that God hears the posite, at the distance of a bow- boy's voice—when it has just been shot, for she said: "I shall not mentioned that it is Hagar who is cry- look upon the death of the ing out! Whether or not the text pre- child." So she sat opposite, and serves some kind of error or confusion she raised up her voice, and she between different traditions of the cried (Gen. 21:16). story, the effect is one of allusion be- The phrase "she sat opposite," tween Hagar and Yishmael. Each one "vateshev mineged," appears twice, reflects the other, as we saw previously bracketing her statement "I shall not in the announcement of Yishmael's look upon (see) the death of the destiny. If Yishmael's life is to be an child." The repetition serves to set off amplified version of Hagar's experi- Hagar's words—the only ones she ence, then here his voice too is ampli- speaks in this chapter—and to high- fied—it is his cry that reaches to light the action itself. The word "mi- heaven. Yet it is his mother's agency,

The Reconstructionist Fall 1998 · 13 the power of her voice "lifting up," occurs as Hagar reasserts herself as an that initiates the divine response. actor in the story. Her passivity in be- The mahkh's call from the heavens ing cast out by Abraham, and her in- in verse 17—an almost conversational ability to sustain her child after Abra- "what's the matter, Hagar?"—belies ham's flask is emptied, are inverted the anguished mother's desperation. after the encounter with the mahkh. Judging from the messenger's re- Now it is Hagar who fills the flask, sponse, it seems that Hagar has been and who sustains her child where overreacting, or at least misperceiving Abraham could not. the situation. And in an alliterative By the end of this episode, Hagar's word-play on the theme of sight, the agency is fully restored, and in fact messenger tells her "al tiri," "do not extended beyond her role as assertive fear"—the similar sounding roots of handmaid. The final mention of "fear" and "see" making his negation Hagar in the Bible has her taking the of fear a negation of her negation of first step toward the divine promise of sight. And perhaps it has been only countless "seed." Not only does the her fear that has kept Hagar from see- destiny announced by the mahkh in ing, for the next thing that happens is chapter 16 begin to be fulfilled, but that "God opened her eyes and she Hagar's act—finding a wife for her saw a well of water" (v. 19). Sight has son from her own homeland (Gen. returned, and with it, life-giving wa- 21:21)—is an exact parallel of Abra- ter. ham's search for a wife for (Gen. Looked at schematically, the turn- 24:4). In a few dramatic verses, Hagar ing point in this story is its structural has been transformed from victim- center—the emphasis on the word ized and endangered slavewoman to voice, both Hagar's and the child's: autonomous matriarch of a nascent people. A. Water runs out/the child is It is significant that both of Hagar's sent to die (Gen. 21:15). encounters with the divine occur in B. Negation of sight ("I won't the wilderness. Many of her male see the child's death") (v. 16a). counterparts in the Bible—Abraham, C. Hagar lifts up her voice (v. Jacob, Moses, Elijah—also find God 16b). in the wilderness, or in a place which CI. God hears the child's voice is no-place. Yet Hagar not only finds (v. 17). God, she finds herself. We do not Bl. Return of sight (Hagar hear Hagar's voice in the confines of sees the well) (v. 19a). Abraham and Sarah's camp, and no Al. Return of water/child is mahkh speaks to her there. To a far sustained (v. 19b). greater extent than the men, Hagar The return of sight and of life— must leave her defined place and her embodied here by water—pivots defined role in order to encounter the around Hagar's act of raising her divine presence, to hear her name and voice, and God's hearing. Salvation find the power to name. The mahkh's

14 · Fall 1998 The Reconstructionist first question to Hagar implicitly ac- "The moment of laughter ruptures knowledges the importance of place: the principles of authority, whatever from where are you coming, and they may be . . . Comedy teaches that where are you going? Hagar's place in you can transgress and get away with this moment of encounter is ambigu- it." Lori Lefkovitz pursues the mean- ous: she is in-between places ("on the ing of Sarah's eavesdropping and way to Shur," between Egypt and laughter on a deeper level, and sees in ) and in-between roles, not it "an alternative discursive possibility quite a handmaid yet not quite free. It to woman as Other. Instead we see is in this out-of-her-place place that Woman as outsider looking in, with Hagar is able to fully meet God. powers and privileges that accrue from distance." Lefkovitz goes on to argue In the Tent: Sarah that the reason for Sarah's laughter re- The importance of place for women mains mysterious, to the reader and and divine encounter is approached— to God, yet this story "represents from the opposite angle—in the story God in relation to her as deferential of Sarah's laugh. Bounded by the two to her psychic complexity, as if accounts of Hagar in the wilderness, God . . . speaks with clarity, and Sarah's one conversation with God Woman responds with ambiguity. He reveals the limiting power of place, in inquires, receives no satisfying re- contrast to Hagar's redemptive expe- sponse, and He shrugs."12 While Sa- rience. rah's laugh does represent a kind of As with Hagar, Sarah's encounter defiance or transgression of bound- begins with a question of place. After aries, I would argue that ultimately enjoying an afternoon meal, a contin- her challenge is a failure, and her own gent of divine messengers ask Abra- subjectivity denied. ham, "Where is Sarah your wife?" If Hagar pushed against the bound- (Gen. 18:9). As in Hagar's case, we aries of her "place" as servant by flee- have to assume that the questioner ing into the wilderness, Sarah pushes knows the literal answer to his in- the boundaries by reacting derisively quiry. The question and its answer— from her place in the tent (a quite lit- "here in the tent"—establish the con- eral representation, in this story, of text for Sarah's eavesdropping, but woman's place within the private they also affirm that (in contrast to realm). The divine promise of "seed" Hagar) Sarah is clearly in her place. to Abraham is the engine driving this The messengers have come to an- entire narrative, and Sarah dares to nounce to Abraham that he and Sarah laugh! And beyond laughing (which will soon have a child, to which Sarah after all Abraham has done as well), reacts by laughing. she derisively mocks both her own re- Feminist readers have emphasized productive capacity and her husband's the transgressive nature of Sarah's sexual ability: "After I am worn out, laughing response to the divine prom- shall I have [sexual] pleasure, as my ise of a son. Alicia Ostriker writes that lord is old?" (Gen. 18:12). The narra-

The Reconstructionist Fall 1998 · 15 tor, in the preceding verse, mentions Bl. Repetition of annuncia- both Sarah and Abraham's age but tion of birth of a son (v. 14). emphasizes that Sarah is menopausal; CI. Sarah fearfully reacts to similarly YHWH, in his response after God's rebuke and denies her Sarah's laugh, mentions only Sarah's own response, saying "I did age. By bracketing Sarah's own ap- not laugh." (v. 15a). praisal of the situation with these two D. "He" (a messenger/YHWH) contrasting accounts, the text high- refutes her: "No, you laughed." lights her mocking of Abraham. Sarah (v. 15b). appears to be saying, in effect, that the old man can no longer perform sexu- What immediately emerges from ally. But for all their audacity, Sarah's the text is that, in stark contrast to words come across as less defiant than Hagar's encounters in the wilderness, sadly bitter. Mockery is a weapon of Sarah has little direct contact with the the powerless, and here Sarah is re- divine. Until the final verse, the mes- duced to making fun of her hus- sengers/YHWH talk about, not to, Sa- band's—and by extension, God's— rah, directing their words to Abra- potency, to express her disbelief. ham. Both of Sarah's statements are, in turn, reactions to something said The Last Word about her. Enclosed in her tent, Sarah is placed in an essentially passive po- The divine response to these mock- sition, with only the power to deny. ing words is neither deferential nor Her reactions may be audacious, but approving. This is a passage in which her words lack any positive or creative God literally has the last word(s)— power. words which are, quite pointedly, an Where Hagar is given the last word ironic inversion of Sarah's own. A in her encounter with the mahkh, closer look at the structure of the pas- naming God and her own experience, sage is useful in capturing the ulti- Sarah's words are repeatedly taken mately tragic tone of this encounter. away from her, their meaning trans- There is a repeated pattern of Divine formed. When she mocks Abraham's Question—Divine Announcement— potency, YHWH (mis) q u o t e s her as Sarah's Denial, with an added closing disbelieving her own. When she de- statement by God: nies laughing, "he" (presumably God) A. Messengers ask Abraham, refutes her denial. "where is Sarah?" (v. 9). This last exchange—Sarah's only B. It is announced that Sarah direct conversation with the divine— will have a son (v. 10a). encapsulates her experience with a C. Sarah reacts to this announce- breathtaking economy of words. ment, denying the possibility Structurally the passage as a whole of giving birth (v. 12). builds to God's final words, the divine Al. God asks Abraham about response (D) added on to the repeated Sarah's response (v. 13). A-B-C pattern. In verse 15 Sarah says

16 · Fall 1998 The Reconstructionist "h tzaìpakti" ("I didn't laugh"); God women must flee the place of social replies "lo ki tzahakt" ("No, you constriction in order to fully meet the laughed"). One little word, ki, is divine.1 Herein lies the dilemma, for added to Sarah's denial, but the trans- if the woman remains "in the tent," in formation in meaning is large. The her place, meeting cannot fully occur. untranslatable shift from h tzaìpakti to Yet if she is able, like Hagar, to have lo ki tzahakt is the final refutation of direct encounter, then she must leave Sarah's power to defy authority or a significant part of who she is (in that name her own experience. Her own social context) behind. Perhaps that is words are used against her. An ex- why only a secondary character—one change that may first read as comedie who is not necessary for the fulfill- farce reveals a deeper, more tragic ment of the promise to Abraham—is view of Sarah's lack of agency and allowed such a full encounter. She subjectivity. Her servant is able to leaves her place and ultimately leaves overcome fear in the wilderness and in the story. so doing reclaim her sight and the Yet beyond this comment on the power of life, but Sarah is left fearful situation of women in biblical society in her tent, denying her own experi- and text, there is a deeper teaching ence, her words literally taken out of here about what it means to be able to her mouth. encounter God's Presence. The mah- On the Way kh's question to Hagar in Genesis 16 points to the power of moving beyond The contrast of Hagar's and Sarah's one's "place" in order to achieve such experiences teaches the all-important a moment of meeting. When he asks role of phce in the Torah's depiction her "where are you going?" we know of women's encounters with the di- that Hagar's fate is open-ended, still a vine. For each, the encounter begins question. We learn here that it is the with a question about place: Where one on her way, the one whose future has Hagar come from? Where is Sa- is open, who is also open to meeting. rah? Questions suggest ambiguity, and There is, as well, an element of risk the biblical text seems to implicitly and danger in this openness. The sig- recognize the dilemma posed by wom- nificant, sacred moment is the one an's place in a patriarchal society. The in-between, the moment of not- women in these stories are confined to knowing. For Hagar, it is the moment the domestic realm, defined by their between slavery and freedom, the mo- relationship to husbands and sons. Yet ment between life and death. one who is so confined and limited From Hagar we learn that meeting cannot fully experience God. Sarah's God is about reclaiming oneself, encounter reveals the bounds placed about being seen and called by one's on one who remains "in the tent": she name. Encounter with the divine is at cannot emerge as a whole person to the same time about agency, about the meet her God. Hagar's experience power to see and to give a name. It is shows, from the opposite side, that this mutuality which is at the heart of

The Reconstructionist Fall 1998 · 17 Hagar's meeting with the Living One. rupts the flow of the text. See for example, Hagar is seen and sees, she hears her N. Wyatt, "The Meaning of El Rot and the Mythological Dimension in Genesis 16," name and gives a name. Meeting her Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 8 God outside the confines of her role as no. 1 (1994), 143. handmaid and second wife, Hagar re- 7. Trible, 18. ceives a taste of her own destiny, a 8. These translations are taken from, respec- tively: Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, Far More promise of where her own power to Precious than feweh: Perspectives on Biblical defy and name will take her. Women (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Hagar teaches us the power of be- Press, 1991), 159; Janzen, 13; Westermann, 248; and Th. Booij, "Hagar's Words in ing on-the-way, of being open to the Genesis XVI 13B," in Vetus Testamentum 30 possibility of encounter. It is in this (January 1980), 6. open, in-between moment that the 9. Trible eloquently makes the point about power and mystery of mutual encoun- the power of this initial "seeing" on Hagar's part (page 12). ter is realized. This is the moment in 10. This suggests one answer to the question which we are given the opportunity to of why the mahkh announces to Hagar that hear our name, and to name the di- she is pregnant, when she (and the reader) vine for ourselves. are already aware of that fact. Hagar's initial recognition of her pregnancy occurs in a state of bondage; the re-annunciation by the mahkh in the wilderness proclaims the free 1. The only other women to have more than destiny of the child, to some extent negating one exchange with God or a divine messen- his conception in slavery. ger are Eve in Genesis 3, and the wife of Manoah, in Judges 13. 11. There is an aural play on words here, with Hagar's act (vatashleh, in Gen. 21:15) 2. For an elaboration of this point, see J. echoing Abraham's (vayishalhekha, in verse Gerald Janzen, "Hagar in Paul's Eyes and in 14). the Eyes of Yahweh (Genesis 16): A Study in 12. Alicia Suskin Ostriker, Feminist Revision Horizons," Horizons in Biblical Theology 13 and the Bible, (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell (June 1991): 8. Publishers, 1993), 125; Lori Hope Lefkovitz, 3. Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary- "Eavesdropping on Angels and Laughing at Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives God: Theorizing a Subversive Matriarchy," (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 16. in Gender and Judaism: The Transformation 4. Janzen, 12. He gives an interesting and of Tradition, ed. T.M. Rudavsky (New York: extensive interpretation of the hitpa 'el verb as New York University Press, 1995), 160-161. symbolic of a "middle power" that is neither 13. This is the reading of J.C. Exum and passive nor active; see pages 9-12. J.W. Whedbee, "Isaac, Samson, and : 5. In this I am following the reading of Reflections on the Comic and Tragic Vi- Claus Westermann, Genesis 12-36: À Com- sions," in On Humour and the Comic in the mentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing , ed. Yehuda T. Radday and House, 1985), 234; he translates verse 12b, Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: The Almond "he shall camp in confrontation with all his Press, 1990), 124. kinsmen," as against Janzen, who sees only 14. There is an interesting parallel here be- freedom, without the element of conflict, in tween Sarah and Hagar's position and that Yishmael's destiny (translating 12b as "he of the Hebrew slaves in the , will dwell in the presence of his peers"—see who similarly could not meet their God un- page 13). til they had fled the "narrow place" of bond- 6. Commentators seem to agree that age in Egypt for the on-the-way place of "YHWH" is an editorial insertion that dis- Sinai, in the wilderness.

18 · Fall 1998 The Reconstructionist ^ s

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