"... Why would the messenger of YHWH encounter Hagar on her flight from intolerable abuse, speak to her, validate her dignity, only to tell her to return to the injustices of her enslavement? To understand the messenger’s seemingly cruel instructions, it is necessary for us to hear the messenger’s directive in the context of the rest of the message. Firstly, the messenger assures Hagar she will have a hopeful future, by promising to greatly multiply her descendants that they will be too numerous to count (Genesis 16:10). This divine assurance to Hagar echoes the promise YHWH made with Abraham, concerning his descendants (compare Genesis 12:2, 7; 13:15, 16; 15:5). Notably, Hagar is the only woman to receive the divine promise of innumerable descendants. Furthermore, what makes this promise so salient, is that it is given to a ‘non-Hebrew’ slave woman. Secondly, the messenger reveals that Hagar is pregnant with a son (Genesis 16:11). Thirdly, the messenger instructs Hagar to name her son יִשְׁמָעֵאל (Ishmael), ‘because YHWH has heard your affliction’ (Genesis 16:11). Under Abraham and Sarah, we never hear Hagar’s woeful laments. Such silence signals the sustained and torturous abuse Hagar endured at the hands of Sarah and Abraham. Nevertheless, the meaning of ‘Ishmael’ indicates Hagar did cry out and, while there is nothing in the text that indicates Hagar’s cries are directed to God, God hears her cries, ‘is affected by’ her cries ..."

"... The promise to grant Hagar offspring too numerous to count in verse 9 is an obvious allusion to the promise of progeny that is now the principal concern in the story of Abram. The point is unmistakable: Hagar does have a positive role in the providential drama centered on Abram, and her offspring will indeed fall within the bounds of the promise to the Patriarch, Sarai's wishes notwithstanding. But Hagar's conceiving plays an even more crucial pan within the larger symbolic structure of the Book of Genesis ..."