I have been spending a lot of my time reading and re-reading the text of Genesis 12-25 as I work on writing my master’s thesis. In the project, I am exploring the family of Abraham, and the many systems within the narrative that create conflict between the characters. As part of my analysis, I have written some midrash for each of the key characters, based on the research I have done and the pieces of the text I want to pull to the forefront. This week I share my thoughts on Hagar.

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The midwife who had attended me was packing the diaper-like undergarment with old bits of cloth when Sarai came to see the baby. I was exhausted and wanted no visitors, but I could not refuse my mistress. She came into the tent without asking, nearly frantic. Her eyes shimmered with tears as she came, leaning her aged face over me to see my son. My son. I felt the stirring anger grow hotter as she cooed over the infant laying on my chest. The only reason she was here was to see the boy. I was nothing to her. She hadn’t considered what I wanted at all.

            The midwife finished adjusting and jostling me, working around Sarai’s imposing frame without comment. I gritted my teeth as she pushed down on my belly once again, feeling for my womb, making slightly approving mutterings as she palpated me. I felt another gush of blood between my legs. Sarai didn’t notice my discomfort or my indecency. She didn’t seem to notice me at all. She was weeping openly now, eyeing the baby. My baby.  

            When she reached for my son, I did something I knew I should not do, something that I could never take back once it had been done. When she reached for my son, I clutched him to myself, so she could not take him. When she reached for my son, I turned my body away from her, so she could not even see him.

            I peered over my shoulder at her. The joy melted from her face, replaced with surprise, sternness following on its heels. “Let me hold my son, Hagar,” she instructed me.

            I did not think. I did not know how the next words I spoke would impact my future, and the future of my boy. I could not do anything but defend myself and my baby from Sarai’s overreaching, indifferent dismissal. I did not think. I spoke only the truth in my heart. “He’s my son.” I could feel my scowl deepening as Sarai pulled back from me. I saw it reflected in her own expression back to me.

            “Hagar,” she began, perhaps thinking to chastise me for my insolence. But she did not have the chance before we were interrupted by a commotion outside.

            Abram came into the tent, much to the surprise of everyone present. Such a thing was not done. It was a defiance of custom, an unraveling of the sacred space of birth. But Abram, bursting through the tent flap with a joyous sound looked as if custom and norms were the last things on his mind. “My son!” he called out I could hear men outside the tent, calling for Abram to come out. “Let me see him!” he said to me, as he rushed to where I reclined.

            Too shocked to disobey him, as I had moments before disobeyed my mistress, I offered the boy to his father, who snatched him up into his arms, as he was crying and praying aloud and praising his god. As I watched him, my own eyes stung with tears because of what I knew to be true. The boy was not mine. This boy belonged to Abram. No one would care who the mother was. No one would care that it was me who finally gave Abram what he desired most. All they would see is that Abram now had a son.

            My eyes slid to Sarai, whose joy was now gone as she studied her husband with the baby. Though she didn’t speak to me, didn’t so much as look at me, I could tell that her thoughts were similar to my own. This baby did not belong to either of us. This baby was Abram’s.

            And I saw her displeasure as clearly as I felt my own.