Something that came up in our class discussion today was the dynamic relationship between Hagar and Sarai, Abraham’s servant (or slave) and his wife. Sarai didn’t give birth to Isaac until Abraham was said to be 100 years old in Genesis 17:17-19: long after Hagar gave birth to Ishmael. Since Hagar had a child long before Sarai, Sarai worried that Hagar would gain favor with Abraham. In Genesis 16-20, we don’t see much evidence that Abraham’s wife was treated any different than his servant, Hagar. Sarai demanded to Abraham that he send Hagar and Ishmael way, to which Abraham only did because the Lord told him to do so. When God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, Abraham plans to do so, but we have no account of him speaking or telling Sarai about this encounter with God, implying that her two-cents is of now concern on major issues. The role of women in the Genesis stories seems to be of little concern for people like Abraham. I wonder if the treatment women will be consistent in the rest of the Bible as it is in Genesis.
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