Were You Paying Attention?
God heard the lad crying; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Genesis 21:17 NASB
The lad – You know the story. Sarah can’t stand the fact that her husband has feelings for Hagar and, especially, Hagar’s son, Ishmael. As far as Sarah is concerned, this is a personal insult (never mind that she proposed it) so intolerable that she uses all her emotional leverage to get rid of the competition. Hagar is sent away with the expectation that she and her son will die. But God intervenes. She is rescued. Her son is given divine promises of a future. It is not inconsequential that later Hagar and Ishmael play a role in the lives of Jacob and Esau. In the Bible, family ties are deep and twisted.
So, you know the story. But I’m guessing that the subtleties have escaped you, due mostly to what Robert Alter terms, “translation heresy.” “The unacknowledged heresy underlying most modern English versions of the Bible is the use of translation as a vehicle for explaining the Bible instead of representing it in another language, and in the most egregious instances this amounts to explaining away the Bible. This impulse may be attributed not only to a rather reduced sense of the philological enterprise but also to a feeling that the Bible, because of its canonical status, has to be made accessible—indeed, transparent—to all.”[1]
Alter makes the point that the Hebrew Bible has a very limited vocabulary; that repetition rather than synonym is the warp and woof of the text. When the translation substitutes “good” English synonyms instead of repeating the same Hebrew word again and again because modern English stylistic conventions resist monotonous repetition, our sensitivity to the nuances of the text are dulled. As a result, when the text suddenly shifts vocabulary, we often miss the crucial change, not only because it has been rendered invisible due to translation but also because we don’t notice the change. We think in terms of synonyms rather than disruptions.
Hagar’s story turns on this disruptive Hebrew. Until we reach God’s intervention in the story, Ishmael is constantly referred to as yeled, that is, “child.” This is, of course, entirely appropriate. He is a child. The Hebrew word ties him directly to the act of birth. It is an infant word, even when applied to a boy of twelve. But it is not the word God uses. God calls Ishmael naʿar. The shift is crucial. Hagar sees him as her yeled, a little boy, still a child. God sees him as “servant,” even “soldier,” extended meanings of the word naʿar that are not paralleled by yeled. In effect, God’s shift in vocabulary means that Ishmael has a future. He will not die. God has use for him.
Alters’ brilliant elucidation of this difference shows us that even if we read the English text as “boy” versus “lad,” we would think in terms of synonyms instead of the essential Hebrew disconnection. We don’t recognize that God’s intervention changes Ishmael’s status. We missed the point. Too bad.
Topical Index: lad, naʿar, boy, child, yeled, synonym, Ishmael, Genesis 21:17
[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, Volume 2, Prophets, Nevi’im: A Translation with Commentary (W. W. Norton & Company, New York: 2019), p. xv.
