Sarah, Hagar, & the Hurrian Contract

A commentary of Genesis 16

photo by Elijah Hiett, on Unsplash

Sometimes when we read the stories in the Bible, the things people do seem quite inexplicable to us. It’s good to remember just how different their world was from ours.

Consider this:

We are roughly as far away from the time of Abraham and Sarah as people in the year 6,021 will be from us.

The story of Sarah, her slave Hagar, and Abraham might be easier to navigate if we bear this in mind.

Summary: A complicated relational text is made more accessible by understanding the historical context of an ancient marital contract which Sarah and Hagar seem to be explicitly following.

Genesis 16 — Background on Sarah and Hagar

Sarah and Abraham have entered a covenantal relationship with their God, Yahweh. With this covenant are two specific promises meant to aid their purpose of blessing the entire world:

1. Abraham’s tribe will multiply.
2. Abraham’s tribe will inherit land.

Abraham and Sarah — who, we’re told, are getting a bit on in age (in their 90’s, to be exact) — must therefore have children so that the tribe can not only continue, but increase.

There is only one snag in this — Sarah is barren.

However, she has a slave girl, Hagar.

In an attempt to keep this covenant moving forward, she decides to give Hagar to Abraham, and Hagar becomes pregnant.

Hagar begins to see herself as an equal to Sarah and looks down on Sarah because Sarah can’t have children. Infertility was considered a sign of divine disfavor, or even that you were cursed. Sarah is understandably angered by this, so she makes Hagar’s life miserable until Hagar runs away.

All of which makes complete sense when you know about ancient marital contracts from a little-known tribe called the Hurrians.

Hurrian Marital Contracts — Why Did Sarah Give Hagar to Abraham

Common contemporary interpretations of Genesis 16 struggle to make sense of this confusing scenario often because we are not paying attention to important historical context — information that the original audience probably assumed.

• Sarah should have been more patient. We need to “wait upon the Lord.”
• Hagar stands in as a symbol of oppression. God will bring aid to those who are marginalized.
• The story highlights a patriarchal world, where the power of women to bear children is controlled by a male god and Abraham.

I can sympathize with all these ideas, and see their point. These are examples of a reader-oriented approach; an interpretive method that is absolutely fine, but isn’t capable of attending to authorial intent. You can read more about these differing approaches here:

Five Criteria for Making Biblical Claims

If we took an author-oriented approach, we would need to inquire as to whether or not there are cultural norms that may be implicit in the text, but not to our modern ears.

This action of Sarah, in the face of her infertility, was not just an idea she came up with on her own. It’s true that polygamy and concubinage were practiced back then, but this went beyond that into an actual legal contract that was sometimes arranged.

An Ancient Marital Contract for Child-Bearing & Heirs

Excavations at an archaeological site of an ancient Hurrian town called Nuzi uncovered a rich trove of city documents, family legal contracts, and other administrative material that has enlightened what we know about the legal and political structures of the ancient Near East.

One such document was a marital contract in which a clause is included to protect the husband’s right to heirs. If the wife proves to be infertile, she must choose a slave to bear a child for her husband. However, there are protections embedded in the agreement for the wife, and the slave, as well.

• The wife gets to choose the slave.
• Any resulting child will be considered hers, but the slave then is elevated to a position of second wife, or concubine, which gave her more legal rights.
• The wife does not have the right to dismiss the slave, so that the slave will always be under the legal protection of being a second wife.
• However, the slave must not attempt to usurp the first wife’s position. This could lead to her being demoted to a lower status again.

Sarah appears to be making such a contract with Abraham and Hagar.

Hagar, therefore, overstepped the contract when she began looking down on her mistress. Sarah couldn’t legally dismiss Hagar, so her course of action (and I’m not saying this was right, just the way the story goes) is to begin harassing her and making her life so miserable that Hagar runs away.

Conclusion

Why did the writer or redactor of Genesis include this episode in the narrative of the covenant between God and Abraham and Sarah?

Multiple interpretations can follow from this information, but there appears to be both etiological and theological significance to this story — especially concerning the future of Israel, the future of the Ishmaelites, and the character of God.

Genesis & Etiology

Much of the book of Genesis serves etiological purposes. This is becauase — although based on earlier oral and written sources — the final version of the Pentateuch (which of course, includes Genesis) was written while Judah was in exile to Babylon. It was important to the writers to establish a written record of their history and explain how the world came to exist as it does.

Telling the stories of their first ancestors, and the promises given to them by God, were essential to maintaining their identity as a people, even under oppression, and in preserving hope for their collective future.

The Character of God in Genesis 16

The God of Israel is always portrayed in scripture as the God of the oppressed, the slave, and the marginalized. Hagar is “seen” by Yahweh in the wilderness, and a covenant of her own is instituted by which her child will also become a father to a mighty nation.

Hagar receives promises from God, the same as Abraham and Sarah do.

Even a slave, and a woman at that, can expect God to uphold a covenant made with her.

Hagar’s experience is quite noteworthy as the chapter concludes because a female slave purports to be seen and heard by the God of Israel.

Three Interpretations:

1. To explain the origins of other peoples and tribes that Israel interacted with.
2. To uphold the idea that the effect of the Abrahamic covenant was that his descendants would become a blessing to the whole world, and since Ishmael was also Abraham’s son, the stories allow for the inclusion of the descendants of Hagar and Ishmael. The relationship with this tribe becomes increasingly important later in Israel’s history.
3. The character of Israel’s God, Yahweh, is as a God who is eternal and therefore can reliably offer far-reaching promises to his people, even when those people are enduring exile. Further, it can include peoples who are apparently outside of the boundaries of Israel.

Israel’s God is responsive (seeing and hearing) to the cry of the maltreated even if those people don’t fall under the name of Israel.

The Hurrian Contract becomes an enlightening piece of historical context which allows us to read Genesis 16 with more clarity and hermeneutical prowess.