What's the real sin here?
Welcome back to 'The Life of H: Sarah, Reimagined.' Today we consider how our ancestors missed the mark, and how we can improve our aim.
This week we continue our investigation into Hagar and Ishmael’s crisis in the desert through my poetic translation (and translator’s notes) of Genesis Chapter 21, verses 19-21. In the process we discover this story’s feminine power, humanity, and its potential to point us back towards wholeness.
Missing the mark
In Genesis 21, Hagar and Ishmael, mother and son, are sent into the desert wilderness with a supply of bread and water and little hope of survival.
Sarah and Abraham, with God’s blessing, orchestrated this exile. As a result, with their son Isaac, they become the first matriarch and patriarch of the Jewish people. And Hagar’s son Ishmael goes on to become a prophet of Islam.
This origin story for two peoples and two religions has become a story of — if not original sin — an originating sin; ground zero for tensions and bitterness between Muslims and Jews.
Puzzling over the Hebrew text, I found something more — and more hopeful. I discovered both complexity and compassion hidden in the words. To start to unpack that …
Let’s start with a word that’s not in this story.
If sin is to be found here, it’s implied, not stated. So, let’s go straight to the heart of the matter, and define what sin even is:
In both Hebrew and Greek, the origins of the word sin are associated with archery. Hamartia, in Greek, and chatah חָטָא in Hebrew, are both translated as sin, and both mean to fall short of one’s goal, or to miss the mark.
So, while the word sin is not used in this story, the theme of archery, pointedly, is:
🏹 When Hagar puts Ishmael, who is dying of thirst, beneath a bush to perish, the text says she leaves him the distance of a bow-shot away.
🏹 Ishmael grows up to become a great warrior, an archer.
🏹 There are also hints in these verses of the Egyptian goddess Neith, who ruled over war and the hunt, and whose symbol contains crossed arrows. (As I explore here.)
🏹 All of which makes sense, because Hagar’s homeland, Egypt, was the birthplace of archery and was famous for its skillful warriors.
Is it a sin?
Surely missing the mark is a more compassionate way of looking at sin, rather than as a grave moral error or a soul-shattering transgression.
And that’s what I see when I look more deeply into what Sarah asks Abraham to do, when she says that Hagar and Ishmael must go. As I described in more depth here, Sarah’s actions were an attempt to resolve a cruel and complex situation created by a mix of circumstance, law, and custom of the time. She succeeded in creating a new set of possibilities for Hagar and Ishmael, but not without the resulting trauma and pain of exile.
In this sense, Sarah surely missed her mark.
Or perhaps the sin isn’t so much in what Sarah and Abraham did, but instead it lies with those who’ve used this story in the centuries since to justify and inflame resentments between the descendants of this extended family.
What if the real sin is in how we choose to read and interpret this tale. After all, there are other lessons that would be more productive, rather than destructive, within it.
According to some interpretations, Abraham marries Hagar after Sarah’s death. And after Abraham dies, Ishmael and Yitzhak mourn the loss of their father together. Whatever conflict there was, seems to have been resolved, or at least moving in that direction.
So why not view this challenging family saga as the story of people who endured squabbles and discord, and who attempted outside-the-box solutions to vexing problems. We can look to Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar’s example as one of ultimate healing from situations that caused deep wounding and pain.
Is it a sin to choose to promote an inflaming interpretation of a narrative when the opportunity for a unifying one is also available? I would say yes; that is where the enduring harm lies. That is where we have truly missed the mark.
I posted my translations of the final verses of this part of Sarah and Hagar’s story, as told in Genesis Chapter 21 in this post👇🏼:
Listen in to hear my translation of 3 verses from Hagar and Ishmael’s story here:
To access more verses, and to get the big picture, visit the Table of (Evolving) Contents with links to the completed verses and notes on what’s to come.
About that paywall
Some of the best stuff, including the translations and poems, are behind a paywall. That’s because while this is a labor of love it’s also hard work and valuable work. If you believe in this project and want to support it (in any amount!) choose one of these options:
OPTION ONE: Pay the standard price of $50/year
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If you want to get the paid content, but the standard price prevents you, use this link to pay-what-you-choose (no questions asked).
Stay tuned! Next time we’ll start a whole new chapter of my translation of Sarah’s story.
