Abraham's Seed & God's Promise - Genesis 15-17 Read In Sequence - Sarah And Her Rivalry With Hagar

This translation is primarily from the Masoretic Torah but is supplemented with variant readings from the Samaritan and Dead Sea Scroll Torah sources, and minor excerpts from the Qur'an (S), and Islamic hadith literature. Round brackets are for words which may be read in other ways according to vowelisation, or explanatory purposes. Square brackets indicate an interpolation.

(1) Shortly-after these things, something of YHWH came to be in a blissful vision, saying unto Ab-raam, “Fear not Ab-raam, I, to you, [am] your shield, multiplying recompense very greatly.”

(2) And Ab-raam said, “(A) Adonay, YHWH, what shall you give to me? And I walk robbed of a successor. (C) And-to a son, an administrator to-my-house; that be Eliezer of Dam'aseq.”

(3) (And Ab-raam said,) “(B) Although to me You did not bestow seed. (D) So behold, a son as to my house, be-my inheritor.”

(4) And behold, YHWH's word unto him said, “This is not your inheritor, for it shall be the one who is brought out from within, he shall be your inheritor.”

(5) So He brought him outside and said, “Look then, to the sky, and number the stars, if you have the power to number them.”

And He said to him, “Hence it is to be [so] for thy seed.”

(6) So he believed in YHWH, and He weighed it unto him as righteousness.

(7) And Shar-ree, Ab-raam's woman, had not brought forth (yielded) unto him. Then to her was an 'Egyptian' female slave, and her name; Hargar.

(8) So Shar-ree said to Ab-raam, “Please see [how] YHWH has restrained my bringing forth. Please enter unto my female slave. Perhaps I may build on her account.”

And Ab-raam heard the voice of Shar-ree. (9) Then Shar-ree, Ab-raam's woman, fetched Hargar, the Egyptian female slave from-the-lapse-of ten years of Ab-raam having dwelt in the region of Cana'an. And she bestowed her unto Ab-raam, her higher man, as his woman.

(10) And he said, (11) “Adonay, grant [unto] me from the righteous.”

(12) And he went into [the tent of] Hargar, and she conceived. And gazing-upon that conception, she also came to look on her strong lady in derision.

(13) And Shar-ree said to Ab-raam, “My anger be on thee. I, I gave my female slave into your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived I came to be despised in her eyes also. May YHWH judge between you, and between me!”

(14) So Ab-raam said to Shar-ree, “Behold, your female slave is in your hands! Do to her what is befitting in your eyes!”

And Shar-ree dealt to her, so she fled from her presence. (15) The first lady to use a girdle was Ishmael's mother. She used it, [dragging it in the sand,] to hide her tracks from Shar-ree. (16) And the angel of YHWH encountered her by a spring of water in the barren lands by that spring, on [the] way to Shur.

(17) And he said, “Hargar, female slave of Shar-ree, you came from there, so where are you going?”

And she said, “I am fleeing from the face of my strong lady, Shar-ree.”

(18) So an angel of YHWH said to her, “[To thee] I would greatly multiply your seed, greatly, [then will you not] turn back to your strong lady, (19) so they cannot be counted for the-enormity, and endure-affliction under her hands?”

(20) And an angel of YHWH said to her, “Behold, a pregnancy, and you shall bring forth a son, so call his name Yishmael (God will pay heed), for YHWH has heard concerning your affliction.

(21) And he will be a (fruitful) man(, or of stubbornness); his hand being with(, or in opposition to,) everyone, and the hand of everyone shall be with(, or in opposition to,) him. So he shall dwell in the face of all his kin.”

(22) And she called unto-the-name-of YHWH, who had spoken to her, “You are a Visionary-God.”

For she had said, “Even though I was awed, (I still-see) (what I saw), long-after my vision.”

(23) On this account the well was thereafter called by (Ab-raam) Bore Lah'Ee Raee (Vision-Spring-Visage). Behold, between Qadesh, and between Baaraad [it stands].

Sources & purports.

(1) Gen.15:1, (2) Gen.15:2, (3) Gen.15:3, (4) Gen.15:4, (5) Gen.15:5, (6) Gen.15:6, (7) Gen.16:1, (8) Gen.16:2, (9) Gen.16:3, (10) S37:99a, (11) S37:100, (12) Gen.16:4, (13) Gen.16:5, (14) Gen.16:6, (15) Sahih Al-Bukhari, Vol.4,#583a, (16) Gen.16:7, (17) DSS/Sam. Gen.16:8, (18) Gen.16:9a/10a-10b, 9b (19) Gen.16:10c, 9c, (20) Gen.16:11, (21) Gen.Mas./Sam. Gen.16:12, (22) Gen.16:13, (23) Gen.16:14.

Gen.16:5: For it seems as though Shar-ree determined a resentment from Ab-raam through her infertile period.

Gen.16:13: The term is applied to the angel in the Samaritan tradition as El Raa'Ee

(Benyamin Tsedaka et al, The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah, First English Translation Compared With The Masoretic Version, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.A., 2013, p.34).