A God who sees and hears: reflecting on Hagar with Rembrandt

For the last few months I've been thinking about Hagar, who shows up in many of Rembrandt’s sketches and etchings. In the artist’s repeated and tender treatment of her story, it seems that he was moved by it, the human pathos and also what it shows us about God. This story has drawn me once more to the God who sees and hears, makes himself known, and continues to do so graciously and faithfully.

We read of Hagar fleeing in two accounts, with continuities in the naming of God and Ishmael, in marking God’s presence and provision. In Genesis 16.3-15, Hagar runs away from a very fraught domestic situation and Sarah’s harshness. The angel of the Lord finds Hagar and tells her to return, promising fruitfulness, innumerable descendants. Her son will be named Ishmael, “God hears,” reminding her of God heeding her affliction. In turn, Hagar responds by naming God “El roi,” which can be rendered “God of seeing” or “God who sees.”

Hagar marvels that she has seen the God who has taken notice of her, that she has beheld God and lived to recount it. Rembrandt may be capturing this moment of awe, as Hagar drops to her knees and braces herself as she looks toward the One who looks on her. Her characterization of God carries on in the name of this place, “the Well of the Living One who sees me” (v.14).

The second flight occurs in Genesis 21.8-21, when Sarah tells Abraham to send Hagar away. God comforts Abraham reiterating the promise that a nation will come from Ishmael. After Hagar and her son have left and their water has run out, she casts the boy under a bush and sits far off, not wanting to witness his death. But God hears the boy whose very name declares this attentiveness. Once again, the angel of the Lord comforts Hagar.

It seems that Rembrandt depicts Hagar obeying the angel’s encouragement, “Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand,” adding once more “I will make a great nation of him.” (21.18b, NRSV) Then, the God who sees opens her eyes to see a well, an echo of that first spring where she met God. It is curious that God doesn’t immediately reveal the well but allows Hagar and Ishmael to reach the point of crying out, while also bringing them through their despair.

I’m touched by these accounts of God’s intimate care and intervention, his patient reminders of his promises, his presence. As we approach Easter, a very singular reminder of God’s care, I hope that like Hagar we may glimpse the Living One, who still lives and sees us.

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Sources:

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn and Ernst Wilhelm Bredt, Die Rembrandt-Bibel : Altes und Neues Testament mit 246 Abbildungen und 34 Gravüren, München: H. Schmidt, 1922.