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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hagar and Ishmael, 16:1 - 16:16.

THE FACTS!

Sarai had no children.

Sarai had a handmaiden from Egypt named Hagar.

Sarai tells Abram to go unto Hagar and maybe Sarai can somehow have children that way. I'm not sure she knows how the birds fertilize the bees!

Abram hearkens before Sarai changes her mind.

After ten years of living in Canaan, Sarai gives Hagar to Abram as a 2nd wife.

Abram and Hagar do it.

Hagar conceives.

Hagar despises Sarai.

Sarai gets mad at Abram because Hagar now hates her.

Abram tells Sarai not to worry since Hagar is her servant and Sarai should do to her whatever pleaseth her.

Sarai deals harshly with Hagar.

Hagar flees from Sarai's face.

The angel of the Lord finds Hagar by a fountain in Shur.

The angel says, "Hey, Sarai's maid, where are you from? Where are you going?"

Hagar says she is fleeing from Sarai's face.

The angel tells Hagar to return and submit to Sarai for he will make Hagar's seed countless in their countlessness.

He also tells her she is pregnant with a boy named Ishmael.

Ishmael means 'God shall hear'.

He foretells that Ishmael will be a wild man and against everyone and everyone will be against him and he shall dwell in the presence of his brothers.

Hagar decides to name God 'The God That Sees' because he saw her and helped her and she saw him.

The fountain which was a well was now called Beer-lahai-roi which means 'The Well of Him That Liveth and Seeth Me.'

The well is between Kadesh and Bered.

Hagar beshat a son whom Abram named Ishmael.

Abram was 86 years old.

STUDY QUESTIONS!
Question God and Religion!

Why did God set up Abram with a woman who can't have any children and then keep promising Abram countless seeds? Doesn't that seem like a cruel joke? Was it a faith thing? Were they supposed to wait it out? Did they fail by having Ishmael through Hagar? I guess we'll find out in the next episode!

Raise your hand if you're a woman and you'd allow your husband to take a second wife because you were barren. How many of you are raising your hands? None?

To be fair, none of you women not raising your hands actually own any people. If you did own a woman to give to your husband, you might change your mind, wouldn't you? Oh, no? Okay.

Did you know that if you own a person and that person has a child, that child is your child somehow?

Did you notice how quickly Abram knocks up Hagar? Sarai must have really felt like a big fat failure!

Why does Hagar get so uppity? Is it because she's Egyptian? Why does Hagar begin to despise Sarai after Hagar gets pregnant? Could it be the hormones? Does she think she's better than Sarai because Abram's sperm actually managed to fertilize one of her eggs? Big deal!

Why would you name your comic strip Viking after Abram's surrogate wife? Did I use surrogate correctly? I can't wait to find out who Garfield and Marmaduke are named after!

Women can never be happy, can they? Sarai can't have a baby so she's upset and gives her handmaiden to Abram. Abram and Hagar conceive just like Sarai wanted and now she's mad at Abram because Hagar suddenly hates her! And then she wants God to decide who is right and who is wrong?

How come Sarai wants God to decide between her or Abram in this totally nonsensical conflict anyway? There isn't even a conflict, really! Abram had sex with Hagar because Sarai told him to and it all worked out the way Sarai was hoping it would work out. And now Sarai is mad at Abram because of how Hagar reacted? What does that have to do with Abram? She should have called Lovelines and talked to Dr. Drew before letting Abram sleep with Hagar. The Doctor could have told her it was a bad idea and she was only sabotaging her relationship.

Do you think it was right of Abram to allow Sarai to punish Hagar however she wanted? Hagar is full of Abram's seed. And Sarai is crazy! He's lucky God intervenes later or Hagar might have thrown herself (and little Ishmael!) down that well. Then the well would have been called Beer-dead-baby.

Sarai gets so mad that just the sight of her face scares Hagar away. Has that ever happened to you? Possibly after waking up from a night of heavy drinking and turning over in bed to see what you thought was an angel the night before?

Did you like how the Angel of God who came to find Hagar puts her immediately in her place by referring to her as 'Sarai's maid'? I thought that was pretty classy. Who does that escaped property think she is? Especially since she's stealing even more of Abram and Sarai's property in her womb!

If God's angel asked you two questions, wouldn't you at least answer one of them instead of complaining about Sarai's face? I mean, I get it! Sarai can look pretty ugly when she's mad! But the angel wanted to know where you came from and where you're going, lady!

Okay, maybe her answer was acceptable to the question 'whence camest thou?' but I still think she's dumb. Don't you?

Some of the stuff that happens toward the end of this Stanza makes me think Hagar was a little bit crazy. And it's not because she was talking to an angel, either! Why did she have to give the angel a name? It probably had one of its own already. Also, what kind of a stupid name is 'Thou God Seest me'?

Do you think if God had visited her in person, he wouldn't have been so nice? He's cursed and killed people for far less than stealing his Chosen One's baby! God's angel practically bribes her to come back with more of the multitude of multitude seed reward.

Is that the only thing God has to give? Lots and lots of seeds? I mean besides plagues and curses. Has he made any other blessings that weren't just vague good feelings? Does being Abram's shield count or is that just a job?

Did "submit thyself under her hands" sound dirty to you too? And super, super sexy?

God has heard how upset Hagar is so her baby is going to be called Ishmael (God shall hear). Do you think Abram should have been called Ishmael since God has to hear him ask question after question about goods and services promised to him? Is God just Abram's Customer Service Associate?

The angel tells her Ishmael is going to be a wild man and everyone is going to be against him. What kind of crappy fortune is that for a kid?

Do you think the comic was called Hagar the Horrible because it was so horrifically bad? Be sure to read Hagar with an umlaut on the first 'a'. The second one also, if you want.

Did you get excited when you heard the well was called Beer-lahai-roi? Who wouldn't rush off to a well full of beer when they've had a big fight with their owner? Is Lahai Roi Hawaiian?

The Bible never says Hagar goes back to Abram but then she's suddenly there having the boy and Abram is naming it. Do you wonder what sort of adventures she had leaving Shur to head back to Canaan? I do!

After Hagar gives birth to her son, Abram calls it Ishmael. How did he know?

I was doing some math. Abram leaves Haran at 75. He's been in Canaan 10 years before he gets his son, Ishmael. He's 86 when his son is born. So he spent 1 year in Egypt. Does that mean I was right about his army of servant children? I guess his army could have been composed of his Pokemon he collected while in Haran. That probably makes the most sense. But the army of children makes for a better movie!

The name Abram means 'exalted father'. That's a pretty strange name to give to a baby!

The Shawnee name Tecumseh means 'Space Panther'! If he could have united more tribes, he might have created Voltron and defeated the Americans!

To get a comic strip syndicated in the mid-to-late twentieth century, all you had to be capable of drawing was the same character sketch in three different boxes with three slightly different poses and an old joke that is retold in a slightly different way than you've heard it told or told it before in an earlier strip.

Hagar really thought she was something special because she became pregnant when Sarai couldn't and by Sarai's man even! That makes Hagar the biggest role model for modern teenage girls.

Preachers and Evangelists read Verses from The Bible and somehow extract messages that are supposed to teach lessons and give wisdom and make people want to give up their money. After 16 Verses of The Bible, the only things I could preach are "Don't let snakes talk you into eating fruit," "Don't forget to be chosen by God when he destroys everybody else in the world," "Don't marry a barren chick," "Don't make God's Chosen People and their butlers angry," "Don't offer God vegetables since he apparently hates them," "Don't offer God meat because your brother will kill you," "Offer God meat and he'll promise not to kill everyone," "Don't build a tower to heaven unless you want to learn another language fast," "Don't look at your father when he's drunk and naked," and "Don't take any money from any wicked or sleazy kings." I probably learned some more lessons but I'd have to be reminded of them by a preacher.

A. Everybody thinks they know psychology so use your sefl-granted Psychology Degree to explain why Sarai goes from thoughtful wife to mistrustful bitch.
B. Compare and contrast Hagar, Sarai's maid, to Hagar the Horrible, Viking.
C. Explain why the narrator in Moby Dick is named Ishmael.

DRAWING TIME!

Draw this entire Chapter in the style of Hagar the Horrible, including bad puns and sexist jokes.

WHAT DID CHRISTIAN LITERALISTS LEARN?

Trust that God's Word will come about in God's time instead of doing something stupid like having sex with your wife's slave in the hopes to make God's Word come true. Unless they learned it the other way where you get to have sex with your wife's slave if your wife is barren! I guess it depends which debate you're trying to win at the time.