Hagar: The Only Female Fugitive Hero

Robert C. Culley, Studies in the Structure of Hebrew Narrative (Philadelphia: Fortress / Missoula MT: Scholars Press, 1976), 44–45.

In the narrative sequence, Hagar’s son Ishma’el would be a teenager in the second story, since Ishma’el was previously circumcised at age thirteen (Gen 17:23–26).

See Edward L. Greenstein, “The Fugitive Hero Narrative Pattern in Mesopotamia,” in Worship, Women, and War: A Festschrift for Susan Niditch, ed. Tracy Lemos et al. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2015), 17–35; idem, “Moses and the Fugitive Hero Pattern,” TheTorah.com (2018); idem, “Exile as the Staging Ground for a Comeback,” in “David gavra tava”: Studies in Honor of David Marcus (Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society special supplement, 2022), 45–59. My research on the fugitive hero pattern has been supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation. I am planning to publish a full-length comprehensive book on this subject with Yale University Press.

The full pattern includes these fourteen features:

1. The hero is a younger or youngest son;
2. There occurs a political and/or personal crisis;
3. The hero flees or is exiled;
4. The hero enjoys the support of a female patron (sometimes a goddess);
5. The hero marries the daughter of his host in exile;
6. The hero assumes a position of responsibility in the host’s household;
7. The hero has a divine encounter (often divination or revelation);
8. The hero is joined by kin.
9. There is a seven-year period (usually of exile);
10. The hero repels an attack (or attacks);
11. The hero takes spoil or plunders;
12. The hero returns home;
13. The hero is restored to a position of leadership and/or honor ;
14. The hero establishes or renews a cult (often appointing an immediate relative as priest).

The larger narratives include ten or more of these features. The story of Jacob includes all of them.

See, e.g., Benno Jacob, Das erste Buch der Tora, Genesis: Übersetzt und erklärt (Berlin: Schocken, 1934; repr. Neudruck, 1999), 408; Phyllis Trible, “Ominous Beginnings for a Promise of Blessing,” in Hagar, Sarah, and Their Children: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives, ed. Phyllis Trible and Letty M. Russell (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 39; Philip R. Drey, “The Role of Hagar in Genesis 16,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 40 (2002): 189–190. On this matter I must differ with Joseph Fleishman, Ishmael: Son of Abraham (Rehovot: Megillat Sefer Press, 2024), 136–141 (Hebrew), who contends that Hagar retains a low subservient status and that her abuse by Sarai was justified.

Biblical translations follow NJPS, with modifications. Unless otherwise indicated, all other translations are mine.

See Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 220–222; see also William Kelly Simpson, ed., The Literature of Ancient Egypt (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 15–30, esp. p. 30.

This insightful observation was made by Assnat Bartor, בחדרת מול החלון: רשימות אישיות על המקרא ובהשראתו [In the Room, Facing the Window: Personal Notes about the Bible and Inspired by It] (Haifa: Pardes, 2025), 116–117 (Hebrew). R. David Qimḥi (ca. 1200, Provence) finds fault with Sarai’s immoral, uncompassionate conduct: ולא נהגה שרי בזה לא מדת מוסר ולא מדת חסידות, “And Sarai did not act in this [situation] neither with morality or piety.” R. Moshe ben Naḥman (Spain 13^th c.) goes farther and blames Abram as well: חטאה אמנו בענוי הזה וגם אברהם בהניחו לעשות כן, “Our mother sinned by this abuse, and so did Abraham by allowing it to happen.”

For the etymology, see, e.g., Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, A Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew, popular ed., 17 vols. (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1945–1959), 2.1041. For the connection to Hagar’s name, see, e.g., Jacob, Das erste Buch der Tora, Genesis, 407; Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Commentary Series (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 119–120; Rachel Reich, “הגר, שרה ואברהם” [Hagar, Sarah, and Abraham], in האשה אשר נתתה עמדי: נשים כעילה לסכסוך ולמלחמה במקרא [“The Woman Whom Thou Gavest to Be with Me”: Women as Casus Belli in the Bible] (Tel Aviv: HaKibbutz HaMeuchad, 2005), 45.

She may also be concerned for the welfare of her fetus.

The post-biblical book of Jubilees omits the embarrassing abuse of Hagar by Sarai from the retold narrative; Erich S. Gruen, Scriptural Tales Retold: The Inventiveness of Second Temple Jerusalem (London: T & T Clark, 2024), 27. One can interpret the affliction of the Hebrews in Egypt as collective punishment for Hebrew Sarai’s mistreatment of Hagar; see, e.g., Martin Buber, “Leitwort Style in Pentateuch Narrative,” in Scripture and Translation, ed. Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, trans. Lawrence Rosenwald with Everett Fox (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994), 125–126; Savina J. Teubal, “Sarah and Hagar: Matriarchs and Visionaries,” in A Feminist Companion to Genesis, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 244–245; Fleishman, Ishmael, 141.

The booty included male and female servants, using for the latter the term, שִׁפְחָה, “maidservant,” that describes Hagar throughout Genesis 16.

Since Hagar is an Egyptian, we can imagine that she is fleeing back to Egypt.

Another meaning of Hebrew עַיִן (ʿayin), “fountain,” is “eye,” and שׁוּר (shur), means “to see.” These both play on the name of the angel. Hagar names the angel El Roʾi, “the Divine of Vision” or “the Divine Who Has Seen Me,” perhaps suggesting the one who has taken notice of her. Compare this with the LORD telling Moses at the Burning Bush: רָאֹה רָאִיתִי אֶת עֳנִי עַמִּי אֲשֶׁר בְּמִצְרָיִם, “I have seen, yes, seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt” (Exod 3:7).

Robert Alter, “How Convention Helps Us Read: The Case of the Bible’s Annunciation Type-Scene,” Prooftexts 3 (1983): 115–130. Alter here follows Robert Culley, Studies in the Structure of Hebrew Narrative, 43–46, in discussing this type-scene. Surprisingly, the scene with Hagar is overlooked in Alter’s discussion. Reich, האשה שנתת עמדי, also delineates this conventional form.

Cf. the similar scene in the Samson story:

^{שׁפטים יג:ג} וַיֵּרָא מַלְאַךְ יְ־הוָה אֶל הָאִשָּׁה וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלֶיהָ הִנֵּה נָא אַתְּ עֲקָרָה וְלֹא יָלַדְתְּ וְהָרִית וְיָלַדְתְּ בֵּן.

^{Judg 13:3} An angel of YHWH appeared to the woman and said to her, “You are barren and have borne no children; but you shall conceive and bear a son.

R. David Qimḥi (ca. 1200, Provence) offers a different resolution of the inconsistency by explaining that the angel informs Hagar that she is having a “son”—something she did not yet know (Gen 16:11).

Sarna, Genesis, 122, comparing Arabic ḥayy, “tribe, tribal community.”

See, e.g., Herbert Chanan Brichto, The Names of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 216; George W. Savran, Encountering the Divine: Theophany in Biblical Narrative (London: T & T Clark International, 2005), 195.

Savran, Encountering the Divine, 155.

As Arnold B. Ehrlich, Miqra Ki-Pheshuto [The Bible According to Its Literal Meaning], 3 vols. (New York: KTAV, 1969), 1.57, points out: in Genesis 16 the angel hears Hagar’s affliction; in Genesis 21 the Deity hears Ishmael’s affliction. Cf., e.g., Thomas B. Dozeman, “The Wilderness and Salvation History in the Hagar Story,” Journal of Biblical Literature 117 (1998): 27–28.

In midrash, Abraham’s wife Qeturah (Gen 25:14) is identified with Hagar; e.g., Genesis Rabbah 61:4; Midrash Tanḥuma (ed. S. Buber), Ḥayyei Sarah, 9:1.

For two sources, see, e.g., John Skinner, Genesis, International Critical Commentary, 2^nd ed. (New York: Scribner’s, 1930), 285. For two variants, see, e.g., Hermann Gunkel, Genesis, 2^nd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1902), 162. For two traditions, see, e.g., Ehrlich, Miqra Ki-Pheshuto, 1.42; JoAnn Hackett, “Rehabilitating Hagar: Fragments of an Epic Pattern,” in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, ed. Peggy Day (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 17.

See, e.g., Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 13; idem, “Ominous Beginnings for a Promise of Blessing,” 40; Dozeman, “The Wilderness,” 28; Tammi J. Schneider, Mothers of Promise: Women in the Book of Genesis (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 30. See Greenstein, “The Fugitive Hero Narrative Pattern,” 35. Editor’s note: See also Shai Held, “Hagar: An Egyptian Maidservant’s Suffering is Seen by YHWH,” TheTorah (2021).

See Greenstein, “The Fugitive Hero Narrative Pattern,” 35.