In Genesis 15 Abram asks how he can know that the promised land will belong to his descendants. God tells him to prepare animals for a covenant scene. As Abram falls into a deep sleep, a hard message is also given: his descendants will be strangers and will suffer oppression before they return. The promise does not mean there will be no long road or suffering between the word and its fulfilment.

When darkness falls, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp pass between the pieces (Genesis 15:17). Abram does not walk between them himself. In this scene the emphasis falls on God's own pledge. The covenant is presented not primarily as a human achievement, but as God's speaking and acting.

Then Genesis 16 begins. Sarai has still borne no child. After ten years in Canaan she proposes that Abram have a child through Hagar, her Egyptian servant. We need not minimise the human distress behind this choice. Yet Hagar becomes a vulnerable person caught between others who make decisions about her. When conflict follows, she flees.

There, beside a spring in the wilderness, a verb appears that I do not want to pass over: “And the angel of the LORD found her” (Genesis 16:7). Hagar is on the run, but she has not escaped God's sight. The angel asks where she has come from and where she is going. He calls her by name and speaks about her child.

The name Ishmael is connected with hearing: the LORD has heard her affliction (Genesis 16:11). And Hagar speaks of the God who sees her. Hearing and seeing meet in this story. The woman whom others treat as someone to be used is no nameless extra to God.

The instruction given to Hagar in this particular account to return is no general rule that someone must endure danger or abuse. The seriousness of her situation calls us to read without brushing her suffering aside.

Across two chapters, then, we meet the God who confirms His promise to Abram and the God who finds a fleeing servant. The promises to Abram do not make Hagar invisible. I wonder how many people we pass by while God hears their distress and knows them by name.