HAGAR (LXX. Agar), Gen. xvi. ff., an Egyptian bondwoman of Sarah. This her Semitic name (the Egyptian is unknown) has been derived front various roots, and has been translated accordingly—" slender," "stranger," and "flight" (in allusion to her after-life). Sarah having remained barren up to a very advanced age, at last gave Hagar to Abraham, ten years after his sojourn in Canaan, as a concubine—according to the eastern custom—in the hope of being "edified through her," i.e.. establishing a family of her own. Hagar bore Abraham a son, whom he called Ishmael (God has heard). and in whom he for a time saw the future father of the progeny promised him. But 16 years later, and when Abraham was (we are told) a 100 years old, Sarah herself bore Isaac; and we find it significantly repeated nine times in seven verses (Gen. xxi. 2-9) that Abraham and Sarah were his parents—in repudiation, according to rabbinical authorities, of certain rumors about Isaac's illegitimacy, spread by Hagar. At last the domestic contentions that naturally arose led Abraham, though reluctantly, to cast out Hagar together with Ishmael. How the two fugitives lost their way in the desert of
Beersheba; how the water in the bottle being spent, the broken-hearted mother set her self at a distance from her child, in order that she might not see his death; how her weeping and the loud voice of the boy were answered by an angel, who pointed out a well (Temzem, in time inclosure of Mecca)—all this forms one of the most touching and well-known narratives of the Bible.
In the New Testament, Hagar is referred to allegorically as Mt. Sinai or " the Jeru salem which now is" (Gal. iv. 22). Some rabbinical traditions (Beg. R. 67 d.) identify her with Keturah, the second wife of Abraham, mentioned Gen. xxv. 1: others ( Her. R. 51 d.) make her the daughter of Pharaoh, who, seeing the miraculous interference on behalf of Abraham in Egypt, said: " Better that my daughter should be the slave of this man than the queen of any other." The Mohammedans look upon Hagar as the legal wife of Abraham, and she is supposed to be buried in Mecca.