Abraham and Sarai, frustrated by the delay in receiving the promised heir, devised a plan in which Sarai gave her Egyptian maidservant Hagar to Abram as a wife after ten years in Canaan. Abram heeded Sarai's voice, and Hagar conceived. Once pregnant, Hagar despised her mistress, prompting Sarai to deal harshly with her. Hagar fled into the wilderness toward Shur. There the Angel of the Lord, identified as Yahweh, instructed her to return and submit to Sarai, promised her innumerable descendants, and foretold that she would bear a son named Ishmael, who would live as a wild man, free yet in conflict with others, dwelling near his brethren. Hagar recognized that she had seen God and named the well Beer Lahai Roi. She returned, bore Abram a son whom he named Ishmael, and Abram was eighty-six years old at the birth. This episode illustrates that human initiative to fulfill divine promises through works of the flesh produces grief, contempt, and bondage rather than the intended blessing. Paul later employs the account as an allegory contrasting two covenants: Hagar represents the covenant from Mount Sinai that brings bondage, corresponding to earthly Jerusalem, while Sarah represents the covenant of promise that brings freedom, corresponding to the Jerusalem above. Ishmael, born according to the flesh, stands for those who seek righteousness through law-keeping and remain in bondage; Isaac, born through promise, stands for those begotten by the Spirit through grace. The allegory demonstrates that only the children of the freewoman inherit the promise, that righteousness is a gift received by faith, and that reliance on works places one in an endless cycle of condemnation from which only grace through faith delivers.