So [Hagar] named the
Lord who spoke to her, "You are El-roi"; for she said, "Have I
really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?" (Gen 16:13 NRSV)
Commenting on “El-roi” and how it should
be interpreted as both God seeing (favouring) Hagar and Hagar
seeing God (in a non-lethal way), and not “either-or,” Theodore Lewis wrote the
following in his The Origin and Character of God:
. . . most scholars
assert that El Roi designates El “seeing” Hagar in the sense of seeing one’s
needs and rescuing one from a predicament. Many interpreters have deferred to Klaus
Koenen, who concludes his analysis by translating the original text of Genesis
16:13 as follows: “You are ‘the God who has seen/delivered me.’ . . . Truly
here have I seen [in the sense of met] the one who sees/delivers me.” This analysis
is in accord with traditional commentaries, dating back at least as early as
the medieval, who have rationalized that there is little difference between the
rŏ’î that occurs in the middle of the verse and the rŏ’î that is
at the end of the verse.
Yet there is the possibility
that rŏ’î could have referred to an older tradition wherein Hagar save
the deity (Hagar is clearly the subject of rā’îtî). This is the
understanding behind the RSV’s rather free translation “Have I really see God
and remained alive after seeing him?” (See too NRSV, NEB). Such translations show
the lasting impact of Wellhausen on the field. It was Wellhausen who without
textual warrant read ‘ĕlōhîm for hălōm and inserted wā’eḥî,
“and I lived,” prior to ‘aḥărê (see the BHS apparatus). Suffice it to
say that the corrupt state of the text will prevent us from resolving the
passage. That seeing the deity can be lethal is a motif well attested in biblical
lore (cf. kî lō’ yir’anî hā’ādām wāḥāy, “a person cannot see me and
live,” in Exod 33:20). At the same time, in special instances a favored person
is allowed to see the divine without dying . . . In our passage, we clearly have
God seeing (favoring) Hagar and Hagar seeing God in some sense of the word,
whether it be physical sight (a non-lethal God sighting) or an experience of God’s
protection. Nahum Sarna argues that the vocalization El-rŏ’î demonstrates
“a marvelous ambiguity” where “the several meanings are intended to be
apprehended simultaneously.” (Theodore J. Lewis, The Origin and
Character of God: Ancient Israelite Religion Through the Lens of Divinity [New
York: Oxford University Press, 2020], 96-97, emphasis added)
