Hagar as Israel

Paul tells the story of Abraham, Hagar, Sarah, Ishmael and Isaac as an allegory (Galatians 4). He’s not reading into the text. He’s reading an allegory out of the text, an allegory that would have been evident to Israelite readers of the exodus generation.

Hagar is the first human being in the Bible to venture into the wilderness, and she does it twice (Genesis 16, 21). The first time, she’s alone. Yahweh finds her by a spring of water (16:7) and sends her back to her mistress Sarai. She is Moses in Midian, the forerunner who left Egypt, found women at a well, saw Yahweh at a burning bush, and returned.

The second time Hagar goes into the wilderness, she has her son with her. She is about to die when Yahweh provides miraculous water in the wilderness. Again this previews the exodus: Moses leaves Egypt the second time at the head of a nation, a nation of sons who have been redeemed at Passover, and Yahweh provides water from a rock to revive His people.

Hagar previews Israel, but the first Israel, specifically the exodus generation. She goes to the wilderness, lives there, and even takes an Egyptian wife for her son (21:21). She is “the Egyptian,” a member of Abraham’s household who remains identified by her place of origin. Though Yahweh blesses Ishmael, he is not the covenant son, the child of the Spirit, the heir of the land of promise. In the exodus, the second generation of Abraham’s seed enters the land, while the first generation falls in the wilderness for refusing to enter and conquer. Of that Hagar is a type.

And in Paul’s day, as one who goes on a first exodus but doesn’t complete it with an exodus across the Jordan into the land, she is a type of the Jews who have come to Sinai but won’t follow Joshua further into Canaan.