Texts in Conversation
In Genesis 16, Abram obeys Sarai, leading to the oppression of Hagar. This likely echoes Genesis 3 where Adam obeys the voice of Eve and which leads to the curses of the ground and other parts of creation.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 3:17
Hebrew Bible
16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your labor pains; with pain you will give birth to children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you.” 17 But to Adam he said, “Because you obeyed the voice of52 your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ the ground is cursed because of you; in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, but you will eat the grass of the field.
Genesis 16:2
Hebrew Bible
1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not given birth to any children, but she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar. 2 So Sarai said to Abram, “Since the Lord has prevented me from having children, please sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have a family by her.” Abram did what Sarai told him. 3 So after Abram had lived in Canaan for ten years, Sarai, Abram’s wife, gave Hagar, her Egyptian servant, to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. Once Hagar realized she was pregnant, she despised Sarai.
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Notes and References
"... A close look at the narrative intertextuality between the polygamous rela tionship of Abram with Sarai and Hagar and the fall narrative in Gen 3 is instruc tive. There are strong verbal parallels between Genesis 16:2-3 and 3:6, 16. In the garden of Eden, the woman "took" the fruit and "gave" it to her husband (3:6); so Sarai "took" Hagar and "gave" her to her husband (Genesis 16:3). The same Hebrew words are used in the same order. Again, Adam "listened to the voice of" his wife (Genesis 3:17); so Abram "listened to the voice of" his wife, Sarai (Genesis 16:2). Again identical Hebrew ex pressions are employed. These verbal parallels may well constitute intentional intertextual echoes on the part of the narrator to indicate that Abram and Sarai in the Hagar scandal fell even as Adam and Eve fell in Eden ..."
Davidson, Richard M.
Flame of Yahweh: Sexuality in the Old Testament
(p. 185) Hendrickson Publishers, 2007
* 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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