The Angel and Hagar

Also known as: Hagar and the Angel, The Angel of the Lord Appears to Hagar, The Angel of God Calls to Hagar, Hagar in the Wilderness, The Angel at the Spring of Shur, The God Who Sees, Beer-lahai-roi

The two wilderness episodes in which the Angel of the Lord comes to the aid of Hagar, the Egyptian servant of Sarah. In Genesis 16 the Angel finds her fleeing beside a spring, sends her back, and announces the birth of Ishmael; in Genesis 21 the Angel of God calls to her from heaven as her child lies dying of thirst and opens her eyes to a well. Hagar names the Lord “the God who sees” — one of Scripture’s most striking scenes of divine care for a vulnerable outsider. The figure is an appearance of the Angel of the Lord, whom the Church reads either as a created messenger speaking in God’s name or, in the great theophanies, as the pre-incarnate Word.