AGAR (Hebrew Hāgār "Flight"). - Egyptian slave 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.
A., having conceived, began to despise Sarah, who, to punish her, returned her to servile condition (Gen. 16). Such cases, with the relative sanctions, are provided for by the code of Hammurabi (§§ 144-47) and by the Oriental legislation contemporary with Abraham. Punished by her mistress, A. fled into the Arabian desert, but, warned by an angel, returned, submitted, and became the mother of Ishmael. Sarah, after having, through divine intervention, given birth to Isaac, seeing one day that Ishmael was mocking his half-brother, obtained from her husband the expulsion of the mocker and of his mother. In the desert of Beersheba, when the supply of water had run out, while the expelled woman was preparing to abandon her son so as not to see him die of thirst, she again had the apparition of an angel who showed her a well with refreshing water. A. dwelt with her son in the steppe of Pharan and gave him an Egyptian woman as wife (Gen. 21, 9-21).
According to legendary traditions preserved by the Arabs, taken in part from altered biblical data, A. would have been Abraham's principal wife, would have dwelt at Mecca, would have slaked her son's thirst at the well of Zemzem (within the enclosure of the Kaaba), and would have had, by divine command, to sacrifice Ishmael.
A., a slave, represents the Synagogue enslaved to the Law, while Sarah, free, represents the Church (Gal. 4, 23-31).
Bibliography2 works
Pietro De Ambroggi