Genesis 16:3

So Abram ◄slept with/had sex with► Hagar, his wife Sarai’s slave from Egypt. This happened ten years after they went to live in Canaan land. Sarai gave Hagar to her husband to be his secondary wife.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.

In Context

2So one day Sarai said to Abram, “Listen to me! Yahweh has not allowed me to become pregnant. So ◄sleep with/have sex with► [EUP] my slave Hagar. Perhaps she will bear children whom I can consider to be mine.” Abram agreed to do what Sarai said.

4He ◄slept with/had sex with► [EUP] Hagar and she became pregnant. When she realized that she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress Sarai.

Read all of Genesis 16

Cross References

Genesis 16:5Then Sarai said to Abram, “It is your fault! I put my servant into your arms, so that you could sleep with her [EUP]. Now she realizes that she is pregnant, and she despises me. I think Yahweh will punish you for doing this to me!”

Genesis 25:6But while Abraham was still living, he gave gifts to the sons of his ◄concubines/slaves that he had taken to be his secondary wives►, and then he sent them away to live in a land to the east, to keep them far from his son Isaac.

Genesis 30:4So she gave him her slave, Bilhah, to be another wife for him, and Jacob had sex [EUP] with her.

Genesis 32:22Some time during that night, Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female slaves, and his eleven sons and his daughter, and he sent them across the ford at the Jabbok River.

Judges 19:1At that time the Israeli people had no king. There was a man from the tribe of Levi who lived in a remote place in the hilly area where the tribe of Ephraim lives. He had previously taken as a wife a woman who was a slave. She was from Bethlehem, in the area where the tribe of Judah lives.

1 Kings 11:3Solomon married 700 women who were kings’ daughters. He also had 300 wives who were his slaves/servants. And his wives caused him to turn away from worshiping God.

Matthew Henry on Genesis 16:2-4

Abram, Sarai, and Hagar. ( b. c. 1911.) 1 Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. 2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. 3 And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife. We… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Genesis 16:3