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Genesis 16 describes Sarai oppressing Hagar with the same language used to describe Pharaoh’s oppression of Israel in Exodus. This deliberate echo ironically puts Sarai in the role of Pharaoh, turning the matriarch into a figure of oppression while Hagar represents the experience later described of Israel.
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Genesis 16:6
Hebrew Bible
5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You have brought this wrong on me! I gave my servant into your embrace, but when she realized that she was pregnant, she despised me. May the Lord judge between you and me!” 6 Abram said to Sarai, “Since your servant is under your authority, do to her what is right in your eyes22.” Then Sarai treated Hagar harshly, so she ran away from Sarai. 7 The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring of water in the wilderness—the spring that is along the road to Shur.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Exodus 1:11
Hebrew Bible
10 Come, let’s deal wisely with them. Otherwise they will continue to multiply, and if a war breaks out, they will ally themselves with our enemies and fight against us and leave the country.” 11 So they put foremen over the Israelites to oppress them with hard labor. As a result they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more the Egyptians oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread. As a result the Egyptians loathed the Israelites,
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... When Abram removes himself from the fray, Sarai takes her anger out on Hagar. Sarai brutalizes Hagar. The standard translations do not capture the physical violence that is represented by this verb, ’-n-h. In fact, Sarai’s oppression of Hagar in Genesis 16:6 is the same as Egypt’s oppression of Israel in Exodus 1:11, ultimately leading to God’s liberating intervention. This is one of a series of inverted parallels between the stories of Hagar’s sojourn with Sarai and Abram and Israel’s sojourn in Egypt ..."
Gafney, Wilda
Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne
(p. 42) Westminster John Knox Press, 2017
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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