but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar
Hagar's introduction is significant for several reasons. As an Egyptian, she represents a connection to Abram's earlier journey to Egypt (Genesis 12:10-20), where he acquired wealth and servants. This detail underscores the broader narrative of God's people interacting with surrounding nations. The mention of Hagar as a maidservant indicates her lower social status, yet she becomes a pivotal figure in the story. Her Egyptian origin also foreshadows future interactions between Israel and Egypt, including the eventual enslavement and exodus. Hagar's role in the narrative introduces themes of power dynamics, cultural intersections, and God's care for the marginalized, as later seen in her encounters with the angel of the Lord (Genesis 16:7-13).

• The verse begins by re-centering the narrative on Sarai, reminding us that she is “Abram’s wife.” Her covenantal position matters because God’s promise of offspring (Genesis 12:2; 15:4–5) is tied to the marriage union, not to any alternate arrangement.

• Scripture often pauses to highlight key individuals before a major turning point—compare Genesis 6:9 (“Noah was a righteous man”) or Ruth 1:2 (“The man’s name was Elimelech”). In each case, the spotlight signals that the person’s choices will steer the unfolding events.

• The marriage bond, instituted in Genesis 2:24, frames what follows; whatever Sarai and Abram decide will either align with or push against God’s design.

• The text states the problem plainly: “Sarai had borne him no children.” Barrenness was considered a deep reproach in the ancient world (1 Samuel 1:6–7; Luke 1:24-25).

• This emptiness stands in sharp tension with God’s declared promise that Abram’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars (Genesis 15:5). The gap between promise and experience tests faith—just as later believers like Hannah (1 Samuel 1) and Elizabeth (Luke 1:7, 13) would face similar waiting.

• The silence of the womb, after a decade in Canaan (Genesis 16:3), magnifies the question: Will Abram and Sarai trust God’s timing or seek a human workaround?

• The conjunction “but” introduces an earthly resource: Sarai possesses “an Egyptian maidservant.” This detail ties back to the couple’s earlier detour to Egypt (Genesis 12:10-20); what seemed like a short-term strategy now supplies a potential surrogate.

• Owning servants was common (Genesis 24:35). Yet Scripture also records how relying on Egyptian help often entangles God’s people (Isaiah 31:1). The narrative invites us to weigh the contrast between trusting God and leaning on human arrangements.

• Cultural norms allowed a barren wife to present her servant to her husband for childbearing (cf. Genesis 30:3 with Rachel and Bilhah). The Bible recounts the practice without endorsing it as God’s ideal.

• Her name personalizes the servant: she is not a nameless tool but “Hagar.” She will soon become a pivotal figure, receiving direct revelation from “the Angel of the LORD” (Genesis 16:7-13).

• God’s compassionate dealings with Hagar anticipate His care for outsiders—foreshadowing Rahab (Joshua 2), Ruth (Ruth 2:10), and the centurion Cornelius (Acts 10).

• Galatians 4:22-24 later contrasts Hagar and Sarah to illustrate slavery versus freedom; yet Genesis highlights that the living God sees and values Hagar herself (Genesis 16:13).

Genesis 16:1 sets the stage by juxtaposing God’s promise with Sarai’s barrenness and the availability of Hagar. The verse underscores the tension between walking by faith in the Lord’s covenant word and resorting to culturally acceptable, but spiritually compromising, solutions. The choices made in response will ripple through history, reminding believers that God’s purposes are fulfilled not by human maneuvering, but by steadfast trust in His faithful timing (Hebrews 10:23).

THE SON OF THE BONDWOMAN.

(1) Now Sarai.--The history of Abram is given in a succession of brief narratives, written possibly by the patriarch himself; and though papyrus was known at Ur (Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., i. 343, ii. 430), yet the absence of any convenient writing material for ordinary use would oblige men in those ancient days to content themselves with short inscriptions, like those tablets of clay brought from Ur, many of which now in the British. Museum are said to be considerably older than the time of Abram. The narrator would naturally make but few alterations in such precious-documents, and hence a certain amount of recapitulation, like that which we find in the Books of Samuel, where again we have not a narrative from one pen, but the arrangement of materials already ancient. As, however, the Divine object was the revealing to mankind of the way by which God would raise up man from the fall, the narrator would be guided by inspiration in his choice of materials, and in the omission of such things as did not fall in with this purpose; and the evident reverence with which he deals with these records is a warrant to us of their genuineness. Such additions as the remark that the "Valley of Shaveh" was many centuries later called "the King's Dale" (Genesis 14:17; 2Samuel 18:18) are generally acknowledged to have been the work of Ezra and the men of the Great Synagogue, after the return from the exile.

Hagar.--As this word apparently comes from the Arabic verb to flee, it cannot have been her original name, unless we suppose that she really was an Arab fugitive who had taken refuge in Egypt. More probably she was an Egyptian woman who had escaped to Abram when he was in the Negeb, and had then received this appellation, which virtually means run-away.