ייִדישער מחשבֿה אויף בראשית 16:7

The whole life story of Abraham reveals that he advanced step by step both morally and spiritually. At the outset he had been a "prophet" among his contemporaries, as defined by them, by virtue of the purity of his lifestyle. This is what the Midrash meant when it referred to Abraham "walking in righteousness." Then he reached the level of being a prophet in the community he lived in, by reason of his superior intelligence (compare Midrash dover meysharim). As such, he instructed the people in wisdom directly, not only by means of his lifestyle. After he had achieved the level of rejecting material wealth acquired through oppression or even gifts from oppressors and had vowed that only G-d Himself should be the One he felt indebted to, he qualified for the first level of prophecy as defined by our standards, and G-d appeared to him in a nocturnal vision (machazeh). As a result of this, Abraham overcame the limitations his belief in astrology had imposed on him. He was raised to a level beyond the "shell of the sky" (see our opening Midrash). For the first time he became privy to visions beyond the realm of the natural. From then on, due to a change in name and his circumcision, he kept advancing so that his conduct secured for his descendants the protection of the heavenly cloud cover, the travelling well, and the supply of bread from the celestial regions. All of this was achieved with the help of the mitzvah of circumcision. The ultimate purpose of Abraham's progress had been described by the Midrash in the words "he was allowed to glimpse the king in his majesty."

Bereshit Rabbah 46 states that the line in Kohelet 3,1 "Everything has its time, there is a season for all things," refers to the day Abraham was circumcised. It says in the Torah, "The very day Abraham was circumcised" (Genesis 17,26). Abraham could just as easily have been circumcised at the age of 48, when he first recognized His Creator. Or, he could have been circumcised at the age of 70, when G-d made the covenant with him. Again, he could have been circumcised at the age of 85, before Ishmael was conceived. However, in order to show that Isaac had been conceived in purity and was therefore a different person, G-d waited with the commandment until Abraham was 99 years old. (9) When the angel found Hagar the first time, though she was not lost but at a well of water on a well marked route leading to Shur (Genesis 16,7), his question seemed to suggest that she was lost. In fact, he meant to ask her, "Are you aware that you are in danger of going from a good place to a bad place, that instead of improving your lot you will worsen it?" Hagar replied, "I cannot help myself; I am forced to flee my mistress, even though I know that I may be heading towards spiritual disaster." A fugitive concerned with what he escapes from, does not pay too much attention to where he may be headed. The angel said to Hagar, "Instead of contemplating what you are running away from, think of what you may be getting into." Therefore, subject yourself to your mistress, since I assure you that the future of the son you carry within you will make it all worthwhile." The Torah relates the entire conversation in order to show that any character weakness of Ishmael was not due to the mother's lack of character, but that Hagar had absorbed enough spiritual values in the home of Abraham to qualify to become the mother of his children. In fact, the emphasis of four times "the angel said to her," is to draw our attention to the fact that Hagar had received as many communications from G-d at this point as had Abraham himself. Surely this is to teach us that she was a suitable vehicle for bearing his child. The contents of the four conversations between the angel and Hagar roughly paralleled those between G-d and Abraham up to that date, i.e. the order to remain apart from her homeland and family, the promise of issue and its development into a nation, the difficulties that would be faced by her descendants at some time. All this resulted in Hagar gaining a deeper understanding of the Providence of G-d, realizing that He was a Personal G-d who was talking to her. When she said, "I had to reach this stage to become aware of someone who sees me," she meant that she had had to go through previous stages of cognition of the existence of G-d, only to have His power and interest demonstrated to her in such personalised fashion. Rabbi Samuel bar Nachman in Bereshit Rabbah 45 comments that the episode can be compared to a king who ordered a lady to walk in front of him. The lady hid her face out of fear of the king, but leaned on a maidservant. In this manner the maidservant beheld the face of the king, though her mistress did not. Hagar's experience was analogous. She now realized that she herself had become worthy to behold the face of the king in her own right, though up to that point her vision of him had only been through her association with her mistress. After all these visions which Hagar experienced, it is obvious that any fault in her son's character did not originate in her, but only in the fact that his father had not yet been circumcised when he sired him.

From the rule laid down by us that prophecy requires preparation, and from our interpretation of the homonym “angel,” you will infer that Hagar, the Egyptian woman, was not a prophetess; also Manoah and his wife were no prophets: for the speech they heard, or imagined they heard, was like the bat-kol (prophetic echo), which is so frequently mentioned by our Sages, and is something that may be experienced by men not prepared for prophecy. The homonymity of the word “angel” misleads in this matter. This is the principal method by which most of the difficult passages in the Bible can be explained.