The Birth of Ishmael
Childless Sarah gives Abraham her maidservant Hagar, and Ishmael is born — the ancestor of many nations.
Ten years have passed since the arrival in Canaan and there is still no son. Sarah, childless, does what her world considered normal and generous: she gives Abraham her Egyptian maidservant Hagar, hoping to be "built up" through her. Hagar conceives and at once looks down on her mistress; Sarah deals harshly with her and she flees into the wilderness. By a spring on the road to Shur an angel finds her: "Hagar, Sarah's maid, where have you come from and where are you going?" He tells her to return and endure, promises numerous offspring, and names the child Ishmael, "God has heard." Of him it is said, "he shall be a wild man, his hand against all and every hand against him." Abraham is eighty-six when his first son is born. For thirteen years Ishmael will grow up as the only heir. The Torah does not make him a villain — he receives his own blessing and fathers twelve princes — but the covenant will pass through another son.