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 second story is from the perspective of Sarai/Sarah, Abraham’s first wife.

My husband must have a son. I repeated this to a myself as I approached her tent, a mantra that armored me against the sinking reality that had plagued me all my marriage—YHWH had closed my womb. Every moon, when my blood flowed, it was as if my very life was flowing out of me. I hated the sight of it, the constant reminder that there was no child in my womb. The reminder of what every woman dreads—that she is of no value to her husband. Abram knew I was of no value to him, which is why he had tried to adopt Nahor’s boy, why he had tried to give me away to Pharaoh, and why he has chosen Eliezer as his heir.

My husband must have a son, I thought again, for the thousandth time that morning. The wrinkles on my hands as I pulled back her tent flap were a stark reminder to me that I was old. Abram is even older that I. But he came back from his communion with YHWH—full of strange visions and stranger talk of descendants enslaved, speaking about how the generations after us will inhabit this land in which we are only wanderers. What descendants? I could laugh if I wasn’t so sick from the words. There will be no descendants for Abram! Not unless he has a son. And his time is surely running short.

My husband must have a son. These words were my armor against the indignation I knew she would feel. I thought of how I would not want to be used in such a way, as I had not wanted to be used by Pharaoh, but I did not see another way. I entered her tent and inside my eyes could not see for the darkness. “Hagar,” I called into the stillness.

“Yes?” I heard her voice, soft, sleepy, as if she had already been worked too hard, though it was only just now dawn. The thing I was going to command of her might be more than she could bear. I pitied her, but only because I also pitied myself. But she would be my redemption, just as I had been hers when she was cast away.

I squinted into the darkness of the tent, my eyes adjusting to the dim light. I found her sitting in the corner, looking as if I had awakened her. I had not thought of the hour. I had been up all night, ever since Abram had come back home, telling me of his vision of the smoking pot and the torch passing between the pieces. “Hagar, my husband must have a son,” I said to her.

I could see her face now, and she stared at me blankly, as if she hadn’t heard me, or as if she did not understand. It angered me; she was not a stupid girl. That’s why I had picked her for this task. She would understand the severity of our situation. She would understand, and she would do this for me, since she also knew what it was like to be worthless. I had taken care of her when she had been handed to me, and I had been good to her. Surely, she would know that I asked her this out of desperation. But she looked as if she did not know at all. “Did you hear me?” I said, my voice nearly trembling from my nerves and the unfairness of it all.

“Yes, Sarai, I heard you,” she said. But she did not move from where she sat. She did not even smooth down her mussed-up hair. She only stared at me, not defiantly, but blankly, as if she did not care. I could have chewed on the silence that settled over us, it was so thick. I raised my chin, and straightened my back, trying to appear as tall and proud as I could, even though inside I felt small and weak. She caught the slight gesture of my superiority. She lowered her eyes.

“Look at me, Hagar!” I snapped at her, feeling the age in my bones, and the pressure of the years of my barrenness, as I drifted in my unhappiness. “Does it look like I will be the one who will give Abram a son?!” But Hagar did not raise her eyes to meet mine. Even this girl—enslaved, cast off from her house of birth, discarded from her land for my sake—even she knew that I was nothing.

Hagar clenched her jaw in anger at my outburst, which only angered me more. What did this girl know of anger? What did she know of pain? I knew then that this thing would set a wedge between us, one that would split us apart forever. But my husband must have a son. I told myself this because every other path he had tried had failed. Short of a miracle, this was the only way.

“He will come to you tonight,” I said. Hagar did not acknowledge my words, but I did not berate her for it. There was no point. She did not have a choice. Neither did I. We had been pressed into this predicament by YHWH and Abram. What else was I supposed to do?

I departed from her tent feeling ill, the creeping sickness stymying the few tears I had left.