The God Who Sees

The God Who Sees

Hagar was an Egyptian slave — doubly marginal: a woman and a foreigner, enslaved and now fleeing after mistreatment by Sarah. She is in the desert, without resources, without a plan, without anyone who knows or cares where she is. And God appears. To a slave woman in the desert. Not to Abraham. Not to a patriarch or a prophet. To Hagar. She receives the first birth announcement in the Bible (verse 11), the first angelic appearance to a woman, and she names God: El Roi — 'the God who sees me.' This name appears only once in all of Scripture. It was given to God by a slave woman whom no one else saw.

Genesis 16:13 is one of the most remarkable texts in the Old Testament for its declaration about who God pays attention to. Hagar is a nobody by every social measure of her world. And she encounters the living God personally, receives a divine message, and gives God a name. El Roi — the God who sees — is the name that comes from the experience of the overlooked person. The theological implication is stunning: God's vision is not preferentially directed toward the powerful and the prominent. It is attentive to the slave in the desert, the overlooked person, the one running from mistreatment. Do you feel unseen today? El Roi is His name. He sees.