Part 1, Part 3

TW polygamy, slavery

In the footnotes for Genesis 20 in the New Oxford Annotated Bible, there is a chart showing the chiastic structure of the text of Genesis 11-22. It puts chapter 16, the story of Hagar and Ishmael, at the center of the narrative. A chiasmus is when the text has words or phrases or themes that follow an ABB’A’ or ABCB’A’ pattern. Hagar’s story being in the middle was both fascinating and puzzling to me. I remember learning in seminary that the center of a chiasmus is usually the most important part. I loved that a story about a woman communing with God was central to this story arc, but why it was chosen as the center point was not obvious to me. It didn’t seem to be connected with the rest of the surrounding story all that well. After all, Hagar’s intensely spiritual experience occurred when she was all alone, away from the “protection” of the deeply patriarchal world described in the surrounding text.

At some point I had a troubling thought: What if it isn’t Hagar speaking with God that is the center of the story, but her polygamous marriage to Abram? This is what our church curriculum focuses on. Actually, we don’t focus on the polygamy part, we focus on the “celestial marriage” part and the “blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant” part (but that’s all code for polygamy). Hagar’s story is treated almost as an endnote in the Come Follow Me curriculum this year. Polygamy isn’t mentioned directly, but Doctrine and Covenants 132 is referenced a few times within the study guide.

I’ve chosen to keep Hagar’s theophany at the center of the chiasmus. Her experience with slavery and covenants contrast with Abraham’s experience and invite us to contemplate the nature of God. Here’s my summary of these chapters:

I will focus on the center three levels (D, E, and F) for the rest of this article. The D level is all about covenants and slavery. With the covenant of the pieces, the God of Abraham seems to think that literal offspring who will be enslaved is preferable to Abram adopting a slave as his heir. Abram was promised that the slavery would be after his own time. Maybe Abram felt okay about this deal, but it sounds awful to me. Hagar’s story (which hasn’t happened yet) is an inverted foreshadowing of the Israelite’s exodus from Egypt. Hagar was an enslaved Egyptian who raised her son as Abram’s heir, but in the end they escaped to Egypt. Abram’s descendants were enslaved in Egypt. Moses was raised in the Egyptian royal family, but lead the Israelites to escape. How Abram treated Hagar is how his descendants were treated by the Egyptians.

The D’ level is about the covenant of circumcision. Abraham caused all the men of his household to be circumcised. Abraham’s household is large: he lead over three hundred men “born in his own house” to rescue Lot. The men that were circumcised included slaves that were born in his household and slaves that he bought. Abraham owned these people. They could not consent to this procedure. They could not choose their own religion. The God of Abraham is a god who changes people’s names like a slave-master changes the names of his slaves. The God of Abraham changed the names of Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah.

The covenant of the pieces and the covenant of circumcision are generally not what church materials are talking about when they mention the “Abrahamic Covenant.” That one is found in Abraham 2:9-11. These verses say that all who believe in the gospel are adopted into Abraham’s family and have the same blessings of priesthood, salvation, and posterity. (I find this ironic, given that Abraham was unwilling to create a family through adoption.) Many church resources connect the “Abrahamic Covenant” with temple ordinances and temple/celestial marriage (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. I’m sure there’s more; that was just a quick search. All of these resources also reference Doctrine and Covenants 132, the section about plural marriage.)

The E level deals with polygamy. Hagar is given to Abram, conceives, and bears Ishmael. She runs away from her harsh mistress/sister wife, but is forced to make an impossible choice: face the danger of the wilderness alone or return to her polygamous marriage. She chooses to return to her marriage, but eventually she and her son are cast out into the wilderness anyway. This is what Abraham’s “celestial marriage” looks like: abusive.

The F level of the chiasmus is a tiny spot of life-sustaining comfort in a desert of abuse and harm. The angel of the Lord speaks with Hagar. She tells the Lord of her current troubles. The Lord prepares her for her future challenges. Hagar named the Lord who spoke to her “El-roi” meaning God of seeing or God who sees. She named the well “Beer-lahai-roi” meaning the Well of the Living One who sees me.

Hagar’s story serves as a literary foil to Abraham’s story. She helps to put Abraham’s actions in context. Abraham’ position grants him power and privilege; Hagar’s position limits her choices. Abraham is the oppressor, Hagar is the oppressed. While both Hagar and Abraham were promised innumerable posterity, Hagar’s covenant gives her hope for her posterity’s freedom, but Abraham’s covenants point to his posterity’s future enslavement. Faith and trust in God are generally seen as admirable traits, but it’s certainly reasonable to question the ethics of worshiping this god: a god who sees how much this form of marriage can hurt women, yet supports it anyway. A god who sees the harm caused by slavery and patriarchy and yet also participates in such things.

The juxtaposition of Hagar’s and Abraham’s stories invites us to question the nature of God and our relationship with deity. The book Sisters in the Wilderness suggested that Hagar (as an Egyptian) may not have worshiped the same god as Abraham. This idea is fascinating and brings up so many questions. Hagar’s conversation with the angel at the well would have been easy for biblical authors to leave out. If her god was a different god, why would the scribes leave it in? I don’t know, but I also don’t know how to reconcile the God of Hagar and the God of Abraham into one being. I don’t want to worship a god who condones slavery. I don’t want to worship a god who may tell me to sacrifice my children. I don’t want to hear church lessons that tell me that unquestioning obedience to a god like that is good and worthy of emulation. D&C 132:32 is one of the scriptures linked to in the Come Follow Me lesson. It reads “Go ye, therefore, and do the works of Abraham”. There are many “works of Abraham” that I don’t want to emulate. I would much rather worship and emulate the God of Hagar, who listened to and witnessed someone’s struggles. This is a holy and helpful thing.