Hagar

Hagar (meaning a stranger or one that fears) was an Egyptian slave woman, the handmaid of Sarah, who became the mother of Ishmael by Abraham. When Sarah remained childless after many years, she gave Hagar to Abraham as a concubine according to the custom of the time. After Hagar conceived and began to despise her mistress, conflict arose; Hagar fled but was sent back by an angel with the promise that her son would be the father of a great nation (Gen. 16:1–14). The divine messenger named the child Ishmael (God hears) and promised that Ishmael would be a wild and contentious man.

After the birth of Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael were expelled from Abraham's household at Sarah's insistence (Gen. 21:9–21). In the wilderness of Beersheba, when their water was exhausted, God again appeared to Hagar, opened her eyes to a well, and renewed the promise concerning Ishmael's descendants. Paul later uses Hagar allegorically in Galatians 4:24–31 as a symbol of the covenant of law given at Sinai, contrasted with Sarah as a symbol of the covenant of promise.