AGAR (Hebr. Hāgār “flight”). — An Egyptian slave woman in the service of Sarai (Sara), the wife of Abram. According to the custom of the time, her barren mistress gave her to her husband as a secondary wife.
When A. became pregnant, she began to despise Sara, who, in order to punish her, restored her to her servile condition (Gen. 16). Such cases, with the corresponding penalties, are provided for in the Code of Hammurabi (§§ 144–47) and in the Eastern legislation contemporary with Abram. Punished by her mistress, A. fled into the Arabian desert; but, admonished by an angel, she returned, submitted herself, and became the mother of Ismael. After Sara, through divine intervention, had given birth to Isaac, she one day saw Ismael mocking his half-brother and obtained from her husband the expulsion of the mocker and his mother. In the desert of Bersabea, when the water supply had finally run out, while the expelled woman was preparing to abandon her son so as not to see him die of thirst, she again had an apparition
According to legendary traditions preserved by the Arabs, based in part on altered biblical data, A. would have been Abram’s principal wife, would have lived at Mecca, would have given her son water from the well of Zemzem (within the precinct of the Kaaba), and would have had to sacrifice Ismael at the divine command.
A., the slave woman, represents the Synagogue enslaved to the Law, while Sara, the free woman, represents the Church (Gal. 4:23–31).