AGAR (Hebrew Hägär, “flight”). — An Egyptian slave-girl in the service of Sarai (Sarah), wife of Abraham. According to the custom of the time, she was given by her barren mistress to her husband as a secondary wife.
When A. became pregnant she began to despise Sarah, who, to punish her, reduced her again to servitude (Gen. 16). Such cases, with their penalties, are foreseen in the Code of Hammurabi (§§ 144–47) and in the contemporary oriental legislation of Abraham’s day. Punished by her mistress, A. fled into the Arabian desert, but, warned by an angel, she returned, submitted herself, and became the mother of Ishmael. Sarah, after giving birth to Isaac through divine intervention, one day saw Ishmael mocking his half-brother; she obtained from her husband the expulsion of the mocker and his mother. In the desert of Beersheba, when their water supply was exhausted and the expelled woman was about to abandon her son so as not to see him die of thirst, she again had the vision of an angel who showed her a well with refreshing water. A. and her son dwelt in the wilderness of Paran and she gave him an Egyptian wife (Gen. 21:9–21).
According to legendary traditions preserved by the Arabs, partly drawn from altered biblical data, A. would have been Abraham’s principal wife, would have dwelt at Mecca, would have given her son water from the well of Zemzem (within the precincts of the Kaaba), and would have been commanded by God to sacrifice Ishmael.
A., the slave, represents the Synagogue enslaved by the Law, while Sarah, the free woman, represents the Church (Gal. 4:23–31).