The African Presence in the Text, Booklet 5: Hagar — The Egyptian Woman God Saw
Hagar, the Egyptian Woman God Saw: When Heaven Called Her by Name
A Sunday Sermon and Wednesday Companion Bible Study on Genesis 16:1–16 and 21:8–21
This booklet offers a close exegetical treatment of Hagar's two wilderness encounters with God, tracing her from an unnamed possession in her own household's speech ("Sarai's handmaid") to the first individual in the biblical text personally addressed by the angel of Jehovah — a phrase occurring here for the first time anywhere in Scripture. The study attends carefully to the Hebrew text: the terminological shift from shiphchah to amah marking her declining status between Genesis 16 and 21, the singular theological weight of Hagar's naming of God as El Roi ("the God who sees"), and the fulfillment of her son's name, Ishmael ("God hears"), in the narrative's second wilderness crisis.
Historical-background claims — the likely origin of Hagar's presence in Abram's household during the Egyptian sojourn (Genesis 12:16), the extrabiblical rabbinic tradition identifying her as Pharaoh's daughter, and the ancient Near Eastern practice of handmaid surrogacy — are drawn from and verified against primary and secondary sources, with tradition clearly distinguished from the biblical text itself throughout.
The exposition maintains deliberate doctrinal care at one contested point: Paul's allegorical use of Hagar and Sarah in Galatians 4:21–31 is treated strictly as covenant typology (law versus promise), explicitly bounded off from any implication regarding the personal standing, worth, or destiny of Hagar, Ishmael, or their descendants — a distinction the Genesis narrative itself, read on its own terms, requires.
Structured in the standard format of the Dr. John W. Edmerson Teaching Series, the booklet pairs a three-point expository sermon (Her Sorrow / Her Sight / Her Sustaining) with a full companion Bible study apparatus — passage context, historical-cultural background, four Hebrew word studies with Strong's references, cross-references, theological themes, a Christ Connection section, and discussion questions with a teacher's answer key — set in the American Standard Version (1901) and prepared to Amazon KDP interior specifications.
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