Expert: Thurman C. Petty, Jr. - 1/31/2010

Question
Was Hagar and Keturah the same person

Answer
Dear ,

Thank you for your question about Hagar and Keturah. I’ll print the relevant texts:

Gen 16:1  Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar;
Gen 16:2  so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said.
Gen 16:3  So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.
Gen 16:4  He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. . . .
Gen 16:15  So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.
Gen 16:16  Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

13 years later the scene changes. Abraham is 100, and Sarah is 90.

Gen 21:2  Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.
Gen 21:3  Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him.
Gen 21:4  When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him.
Gen 21:5  Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
Gen 21:6  Sarah said, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me."
Gen 21:7  And she added, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."
Gen 21:8  The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast.
Gen 21:9  But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking,
Gen 21:10  and she said to Abraham, "Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac."
Gen 21:11  The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son.
Gen 21:12  But God said to him, "Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.
Gen 21:13  I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring."
Gen 21:14  Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way. . . .

So we see that Abraham was 86 when Hagar bore Ishmael, and 100 when Sarah bore Isaac. Then sometime later, Abraham had to send Hagar and Ishmael away.

Sarah died at the age of 127.

Gen 23:1  Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty-seven years old.

Abraham was 10 years older than Sarah, so He would have been 137 at this time. Isaac, born in Sarah’s 90th year, would have been 37. (Abraham arranged for a wife for him, and he married at the age of 40. The story is in chapter 24.)

Now what about Keturah? Here are some relevant texts about her:

Gen 25:1  Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah.
Gen 25:2  She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. . . .
Gen 25:5  Abraham left everything he owned to Isaac.
Gen 25:6  But while he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east.
Gen 25:7  Altogether, Abraham lived a hundred and seventy-five years.

At the time of Sarah’s death, Ishmael would have been 50 years old, and Hagar probably 15-20 years older. And since Abraham sent her away 37 years before, it’s highly unlikely that she would have been anywhere nearby. And since Sarah was considered to be out of childbearing age at 76 (the time of Ishmael’s birth), then it would also be unlikely, that she could, at 65 or 70, bear 6 more children to Abraham.

I think we can safely say that Hagar and Keturah were not the same person.

Stay close to Jesus.

Thurman C. Petty, Jr.
PettyPress@gmail.com
www.PettyPress.com (20 e-books; 42 Bible Study Guides; more)