The God Who Sees: Genesis 16:1-16

Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children.

Ten years in Canaan. Ten years since the promise. Ten years of waiting for a child who never came. Sarai's hope had curdled into strategy.

But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her."

The custom was ancient and accepted. A barren wife could give her slave to her husband, and any child born would be legally hers. Sarai was not abandoning the promise—she was trying to help it along.