A modern English translation drawn directly from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. Translated word-for-word where possible, by a committee with scholarly oversight.
Uses the same source texts as the ESV, NASB, and most academic Bibles, including the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and the Nestle-Aland critical edition.
Genesis 16
Genesis 16 is the sixteenth chapter of the book of Genesis and the chapter in which Ishmael is born. The 16-verse chapter follows Sarai's effort to build a family through her Egyptian servant Hagar, Hagar's flight, and her encounter with the angel of the LORD in the desert.
The chapter opens with Sarai, still childless, telling Abram, "Look now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go to my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family by her." Abram listens. After ten years in Canaan, Sarai gives her Egyptian servant Hagar to Abram as a wife.
Hagar conceives, and once she realizes she is pregnant she begins to despise Sarai. Sarai complains to Abram. Abram tells her, "Your servant is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her." Sarai treats Hagar harshly, and Hagar flees.
The angel of the LORD finds her by a spring of water in the desert on the road to Shur. He asks her where she has come from and where she is going. Hagar answers that she is running from Sarai. The angel tells her to return and submit to her mistress, and then makes a promise: "I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count." He tells her she is pregnant with a son and that she is to name him Ishmael, "for the LORD has heard your cry of affliction." He adds that the boy will be "a wild donkey of a man," at odds with his brothers.
Hagar gives the LORD a name. She calls him "You are the God who sees me," and the well is afterward called Beer-lahai-roi, between Kadesh and Bered.
The chapter closes with Hagar returning and bearing a son. Abram names the boy Ishmael. Abram is 86 years old.
Verse 1. Now Abram’s wife Sarai had borne him no children, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar.
Verse 2. So Sarai said to Abram, “Look now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go to my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
Verse 3. So after he had lived in Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to Abram to be his wife.
Verse 4. And he slept with Hagar, and she conceived. But when Hagar realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.
Verse 5. Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be upon you! I delivered my servant into your arms, and ever since she saw that she was pregnant, she has treated me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me.”
Verse 6. “Here,” said Abram, “your servant is in your hands. Do whatever you want with her.” Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she fled from her.
Verse 7. Now the angel of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur.
Verse 8. “Hagar, servant of Sarai,” he said, “where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I am running away from my mistress Sarai,” she replied.
Verse 9. So the angel of the LORD told her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.”
Verse 10. Then the angel added, “I will greatly multiply your offspring so that they will be too numerous to count.”
Verse 11. The angel of the LORD proceeded: “Behold, you have conceived and will bear a son. And you shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard your cry of affliction.
Verse 12. He will be a wild donkey of a man, and his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”
Verse 13. So Hagar gave this name to the LORD who had spoken to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “Here I have seen the One who sees me!”
Verse 14. Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi. It is located between Kadesh and Bered.
Verse 15. And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.
Verse 16. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him.
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