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Genesis
16 describes the distress of the matriarch Sarah over her long-term infertility.
In desperation, she resorts to the device of concubinage, and offers the
maidservant Hagar to her husband. Sarah’s physical and psychological
abuse begins as soon as Hagar becomes pregnant (Genesis 16:6). Sarah is
torn apart with jealousy. She envies Hagar’s femininity, demonstrated
by her pregnancy; she is jealous that Hagar carries her own husband’s
son, perhaps endearing Hagar to Abraham and most certainly entitling her
son to a share of his estate; and she is envious of the higher social
position Hagar has attained in having produced a child.
The moment when Sarah expels Hagar from her home into the wilderness of
Beersheba has been captured by many artists and poets. The utter simplicity
of Edna Aphek's poem belies the complexity of Sarah's emotions, while
hinting that her feelings were quite prosaic, perhaps even natural.
Sarah
by
Edna Aphek,
translated from
Hebrew by Yishai Tobin |
1
Sarah was
a woman
soft and pliant
like a furrowed field
and he with
Hagar.
2
Sarah was
soft and pliant
quiet and kind
a woman
and he with
Hagar.
3
Sarah was
a woman
quiet and kind
crushed and cruel
and he with
Hagar.
4
Sarah was
crushed and cruel
a woman
when her womb
was soft with son
call her the
laughing one. |
"Casting
out Hagar"
Rembrandt, 1637
Click
to view enlarged
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"Sarah
and Hagar"
Sir Robert Strange, 18th c.
Click
to view enlarged
Other
moments of envy in the Bible
depicted in classical art
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"Sarah"
is reprinted from Modern Poems on the Bible: An Anthology,
Jewish Publication Society, 1994 (ed. David Curzon), by permission
of the publisher, the poet and the translator. |
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