“During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”
Exodus 2:23-25
One of the saddest situations in the world is to feel unseen and uncared for. For 400 years the Hebrews were in Egypt, away from their land, and for many of those years they were mistreated as slaves. But God heard their cries for help. He saw them. He knew their pain and suffering.
The good news is that He sees your pain and suffering as well. He knows.
Last week (8/24/25) Sam took us through the story of Hagar (Gen. 16). She first appears as a footnote in Abraham’s story. When he arrived in Egypt, fearing for his own safety, Abraham lied that his beautiful wife was his sister and allowed her to be taken into Pharaoh’s harem, exposing her to great danger. When the lie was found out due to God’s gracious intervention to save Sarah, the Egyptians made sure to make up for their nearly fatal sin:
“And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.”
Genesis 12:15-16
How did a Hebrew like Abraham end up with a young Egyptian servant named Hagar? Not through his godly reputation or savvy business dealings, but rather through his flagrant sin and the great mercy of God. Just a few years later, as Abraham’s elderly wife was not able to have children, she hatched a plan that involved this young Egyptian.
“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, ‘Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.’ And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived.”
Genesis 16:1-4
This discussion exactly follows the pattern of Adam and Eve’s conversation in the garden of Eden. Sarai had an idea that seemed good to her, proposed it to her husband who also saw the appeal of the idea. He reached out and took the forbidden fruit from his wife, crunching away. In this case it wasn’t a fruit, but a person named Hagar, stolen away from her homeland and family and placed under the authority of foreigners. So this is the first case of human trafficking and sexual abuse in the Bible.
After the plan succeeded since Hagar became pregnant, Sarai got angry and chose to mistreat her servant, causing Hagar to flee into the desert. She escaped the notice of her slave owners but not the Lord, who sent an angel to find her.
“And the angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael [“heard”] because the Lord has listened to your affliction… So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are a God of seeing,’ for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.’ Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi [“the well of the Living One who sees me].”
Genesis 16:11-14
It’s hard to imagine a more desperate and depressing situation than that of Hagar the Egyptian. Stolen from your family. Kidnapped and carried away to a distant land. Forced to marry and sleep with a super old foreigner with whom you can hardly communicate. Pregnant at a young age. Then beaten and yelled at by your mistress, to the point that you run off into a barren wasteland, knowing you can’t survive there more than a couple of days.
But God saw Hagar. He spoke to her and reassured her that even this terrible evil she had experienced was part of His sovereign plan for the nations. Don’t miss this key point.
“The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Return to your mistress and submit to her.’”
Genesis 16:9
Hagar fled from the one place, the one people, God had promised to bless. So He called her to go back to Abraham and Sarah with a heart of submission, as an act of faith in the covenant promises of God. There she found safety and nourishment, and the fulfillment of God’s promise to multiply her children and make of her a great nation!
This Sunday (8/31/25) we will walk through the experience of another foreign woman about 2,000 years after Hagar: a Samaritan whom every Jew in the first century would have considered well outside of the blessings of God. Cursed. Rightly under God’s judgment for her people’s many compromises and sins.
The Jews always took the long way around Samaria to avoid contact with such unclean sinners. Not Jesus.
“He left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria.”
John 4:3-4
Why did Jesus have to pass through Samaria? Because He had an appointment. A divine appointment with the most unlikely person: a Samaritan woman. She was as surprised as anyone that this Jewish rabbi would interact with her.
“The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?’ (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)”
John 4:9
We know from the other gospel accounts that Jesus almost always spoke in parables to the crowds, only explaining his teachings to his closest disciples. But for this woman, forgotten and invisible to most Jews, Jesus chose to share His true identity with more clarity and directness than to almost anyone else.
“The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things..’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.’
John 4:25-26
This story is in John’s gospel to illustrate the lengths our God will go to prove that He is the God who sees, who knows our deepest pain and comes to meet us there.
Whatever you are going through right now, God sees. He hears you. He knows. And He is coming to meet you there and show you more of His love, grace, goodness and mercy!