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The God Who Sees (Genesis 16:1-15)

Bible Commentary / Produced by TOW Project
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Do I stay or do I go?

I was the manager of the research department in Boeing Computer Services, when my boss—the vice president of commercial activities—was replaced. To preserve anonymity, let’s call the new boss “Joe.” I figured working for Joe ought to go well because our department had been instrumental in the recognition he received in his old job, which led to him being promoted.

I was wrong.

Shortly afterwards, Joe told me, rather unceremoniously, that I would now report to the computer center manager instead of him. A demotion, and for what? The manager knew nothing about research, and research was what most of my organization did. It was clear that the new management only cared about the small amount of commercial work that we did. I will never forget walking back to my department and pondering what I could say to the people reporting to me. Morale dipped precipitously. I wanted to quit.

Two weeks later a recruiter called: would I consider becoming president of a software company in Champaign, Illinois? Was this God throwing me a lifeline?

My wife Nancy and I prayed. I interviewed, and they offered me the job — similar salary, freedom to shape a company at the leading edge, and the chance to teach again.

We asked God to guide us, going through pros and cons in prayer together regularly. We told the Lord that if he wanted us to go we would go, and if he wanted us to stay we would stay. But it seemed like only silence from God. The night before the deadline my pastor called and urged me to stay. But I was waiting for the Lord to tell me personally.

Without fully knowing why, the next day we decided to stay. I recommitted to my job and did everything I could for the people in my department. A year later something happened at Boeing that was nothing short of a miracle, for my career and for our family. Staying in my job worked out better than I could have imagined.

Looking back, I have come to four conclusions.

First, I didn’t handle the demotion as well as I should have. I whined too much. I didn’t recognize that God had some things for me to learn by staying in the job I had.

Second, I was too focused on my own career. Nancy told me she was relieved when we made the decision to stay. I wish I could have heard her more clearly in the course of the decision-making process.

Third, I should have seen more clearly the voice of God in the call from my pastor. I was waiting for a thunderclap, but God generally speaks to us in more subtle ways.

Fourth, God wants us to bring our desires to him. Sometimes he lets us choose, and then he will be with us whichever way we decide. That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care. It means that God delegates many decisions to us. Had we decided to take the other job, I believe God would have been with us in that choice also. Or, if staying at Boeing had not worked out so well, God would have been with us in that. In this world we are not promised a joyful outcome in the short term. Jesus went to the cross. We are called to walk faithfully with him, wherever we may work.

- Al Erisman, August 25, 2026

Now in their early 80s, Abraham and Sarah have been blessed with prosperity, a new homeland, and a close relationship with God. But God’s promise that Abraham would be the father of a great nation (Genesis 12:2) seems to be slipping away. Abraham has no children.

So Abraham and Sarah take matters into their own hands, plotting to have a child on their own initiative. Sarah gives her slave Hagar to Abraham “as a wife” (Gen. 16:3), and Hagar becomes pregnant. This scheme depends on three practices that Christians rightly find abhorrent today: slavery, forced marriage, and polygamy. Abraham and Sarah had previously been the first people in the Bible named as participants in two of these practices. Abraham had been given slaves by Pharaoh on account of Sarah (Gen 12:16). And Sarah had been forced as a wife into Pharoah’s household (Gen. 12:15, 19). Maybe Abraham and Sarah thought that by adopting these newly-learned practices they could give God a helping hand. But acting on your own because you are becoming impatient with God is no help to God, yourself, or anyone else.

As we might expect from the inauspicious origin of the scheme, it does not go well. Hagar becomes pregnant. This is just what Sarah was aiming for, but it raises Hagar’s standing in the household. Sarah becomes jealous and blames Abraham. With Abraham’s acquiescence, Sarah deals harshly with Hagar.

As a result Hagar runs away into the wilderness. Pregnant, alone in the desert, waiting to die, Hagar encounters an angel of the Lord who cares about her situation. Yet the angel tells her to “return to your mistress and submit to her” (Genesis 16:9). This seems like a harsh command, yet it comes with two important consolations.

The first consolation is a pair of promises by God. The first promise is “I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude” (Genesis 16:10). Hagar’s son will bring her a large, prosperous family where she can eventually escape Abraham and Sarah’s household. A time is coming when she will no longer face the agonizing choice between suffering as a slave or perishing in the desert. The second promise is that Hagar’s son will be a “wild ass of a man” (Genesis 16:12), that is, a free man. (The wild ass is a metaphor for freedom, see Job 39:5-8.) Freedom is coming.

The second consolation is that Hagar knows she is seen and heard by God. “Hagar named the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are El-roi,’ God who sees’” (Genesis 16:13, NRSV footnote b). This is echoed in her son’s name, Ishmael, which means “God hears” (Genesis 16:15, NRSV footnote a). In Hagar’s case, being seen and heard by God comes with the gift of spiritual insight—she is the only person in the Old Testament to give a name to God.[1] In the Bible, giving a name implies knowing the deep truth about the person or thing being named. Think of Adam naming the animals (Genesis 2:19) or Jesus giving Simon the name “Rock” (Matthew 16:18) or James and John, the “Sons of Thunder”(Mark 3:17).

Hagar finds consolation and redemption of her work through the presence of God-who-sees. If you are suffering at work, you can be assured that God sees you and hears you, and is able to bring redemption for you, as he did for Hagar.

Why then didn’t God fulfill his promise of freedom and prosperity to Hagar and Ishmael right away, instead of sending them back to years of slavery under Abraham and Sarah? The text does not say. Many others in the Bible are sent into, or required to stay in, difficult and unjust workplaces for long periods. Joseph was unfairly imprisoned for years (Gen. 39:20; 41:1). Daniel and his companions were forced to serve the tyrant Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 1:1:7). Esther—another woman in a forced marriage—and her cousin Mordecai suffered under the thumb of an officer intent on destroying them and their people (see the book of Esther). It seems that God does not necessarily promise that his followers will always have enjoyable workplaces.

If you are suffering at work, it may be that God’s will is for you to find a new place of work. Or it may be that God’s will is for you to stay where you are, at least for a time. Or you may not have a choice about your work. Whatever your situation, it may be that God has some lesson or spiritual growth for you by staying in a difficult situation. For example, maybe Hagar’s ability to recognize and name “the God who sees me” was formed by her faithful endurance in Abraham and Sarah’s household. Over a lifetime, the most important question is probably not, “Is this the place where God wants me to work?” but “How can I love God and serve my neighbor in every place where I work?” See the TOW article on Calling & Vocation for more on discerning God’s calling at work.

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