Bible Strands
Genesis 16:13
So Hagar gave this name to the LORD who had spoken to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “Here I have seen the One who sees me!”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Hagar, a pregnant Egyptian slave fleeing Sarah, names the LORD who spoke to her beside a wilderness spring. The moment follows the angel's pronouncement on her son's fate (v.12) and precedes the well's naming (v.14).
The words — רֳאִי (ro'i), "seeing," is a present participle from רָאָה (ra'ah, "to see"), rendering the act continuous rather than one-time. It is the root of the well's name in v.14, Beer-lahai-roi, "Well of the Living One who sees me."
The thread — The same divine seeing appears in Psalms 139:1 ("You have searched me and known me") and Proverbs 15:3 ("The eyes of the LORD are in every place"). Jacob's "I have seen God face to face" (Genesis 32:30) echoes the personal, mutual quality of the encounter.
Why it lands — Hagar is the one no one in the narrative sees: a slave, pregnant, cast out into the wilderness. The verse asks the reader to reckon with who is unseen in their own world, and whether God's seeing is something they can only claim for themselves or something they are called to extend.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?
Cross-references
- Psalms 139:1 For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
- Genesis 32:30 So Jacob named the place Peniel, saying, “Indeed, I have seen God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
- Proverbs 15:3 The eyes of the LORD are in every place, observing the evil and the good.
- Proverbs 5:21 For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines all his paths.
- Genesis 16:7 Now the angel of the LORD found Hagar by a spring of water in the desert—the spring along the road to Shur.
- Genesis 31:42 If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, surely by now you would have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands, and last night He rendered judgment.”
- Genesis 22:14 And Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. So to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”
- Exodus 34:5 And the LORD descended in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed His name, the LORD.
- Genesis 28:17 And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven!”
- Genesis 16:9 So the angel of the LORD told her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.”