Hagar

Hagar was an Egyptian servant in Abraham’s household and the mother of Ishmael: “Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s handmaid, bare unto Abraham” (Genesis 25:12). Genesis 25 lists Ishmael’s sons by name, and later a people called the Hagarites appear in Chronicles, where tribes east of Gilead win a battle because “they cried to God in the battle” (1 Chronicles 5:20). Paul, writing to the Galatians, uses Agar, as the KJV spells her, in what he calls “an allegory” of two covenants (Galatians 4:24). Her own story is told in Genesis 16 and 21.

11 verses

Genesis

Genesis 25:12

Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's handmaid, bare unto Abraham:

Genesis 25:13

And these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, according to their generations: the firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth; and Kedar, and Adbeel, and Mibsam,

Genesis 25:14

And Mishma, and Dumah, and Massa,

Genesis 25:15

Hadar, and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah:

1 Chronicles

1 Chronicles 5:10

And in the days of Saul they made war with the Hagarites, who fell by their hand: and they dwelt in their tents throughout all the east land of Gilead.

1 Chronicles 5:19

And they made war with the Hagarites, with Jetur, and Nephish, and Nodab.

1 Chronicles 5:20

And they were helped against them, and the Hagarites were delivered into their hand, and all that were with them: for they cried to God in the battle, and he was intreated of them; because they put their trust in him.

1 Chronicles 5:21

And they took away their cattle; of their camels fifty thousand, and of sheep two hundred and fifty thousand, and of asses two thousand, and of men an hundred thousand.

1 Chronicles 5:22

For there fell down many slain, because the war was of God. And they dwelt in their steads until the captivity.

Galatians

Galatians 4:24

Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

Galatians 4:25

For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

Flight, or, according to others, stranger, an Egyptian, Sarah’s handmaid (Gen. 16:1; 21:9, 10), whom she gave to Abraham (q.v.) as a secondary wife (16:2). When she was about to become a mother she fled from the cruelty of her mistress, intending apparently to return to her relatives in Egypt, through the desert of Shur, which lay between. Wearied and worn she had reached the place she distinguished by the name of Beer-lahai-roi (“the well of the visible God”), where the angel of the Lord appeared to her. In obedience to the heavenly visitor she returned to the tent of Abraham, where her son Ishmael was born, and where she remained (16) till after the birth of Isaac, the space of fourteen years. Sarah after this began to vent her dissatisfaction both on Hagar and her child. Ishmael’s conduct was insulting to Sarah, and she insisted that he and his mother should be dismissed. This was accordingly done, although with reluctance on the part of Abraham (Gen. 21:14). They wandered out into the wilderness, where Ishmael, exhausted with his journey and faint from thirst, seemed about to die. Hagar “lifted up her voice and wept,” and the angel of the Lord, as before, appeared unto her, and she was comforted and delivered out of her distresses (Gen. 21:18, 19).

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Ishmael afterwards established himself in the wilderness of Paran, where he married an Egyptian (Gen. 21:20,21).

“Hagar” allegorically represents the Jewish church (Gal. 4:24), in bondage to the ceremonial law; while “Sarah” represents the Christian church, which is free.

From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

(flight), an Egyptian woman, the handmaid or slave of Sarah, (Genesis 16:1) whom the latter gave as a concubine to Abraham, after he had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan and had no children by Sarah. ch (Genesis 16:2,3) (B.C. 1912.) When Hagar saw that she had conceived, "her mistress was despised in her eyes," v. 4, and Sarah, with the anger, we may suppose, of a free woman rather than of a wife, reproached Abraham for the results of her own act. Hagar fled, turning her steps toward her native land through the great wilderness traversed by the Egyptian road. By the fountain in the way to Shur the angel of the Lord found her, charged her to return and submit herself under the hands of her mistress, and delivered the remarkable prophecy respecting her unborn child recorded in vs. 10-12. On her return she gave birth to Ishmael, and Abraham was then eighty-six years old. When Ishmael was about sixteen years old, he was caught by Sarah making sport of her young son Isaac at the festival of his weaning, and Sarah demanded the expulsion of Hagar and her son. She again fled toward Egypt, and when in despair at the want of water, an angel again appeared to her, pointed out a fountain close by, and renewed the former promises to her. (Genesis 21:9-21) St. Paul, (Galatians 4:25) refers to her as the type of the old covenant of the law.