And the Angel of the Lord said to her: “Behold, you are with child, and you shall bear a son.
You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction. He shall be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. (Gen 16,11-12)

Unable to cut himself off from Hagar and the child, Abram chose a somewhat alibi solution to Sarah's insistence - he left Hagar to her own devices. Sarah bullied her until Hagar ran away from her. During a stop at the spring, a messenger of God visited her and told her to humble herself and return. A lonely pregnant woman had little chance of survival.

After Hagar's departure, Abram was overwhelmed with tremendous pain, for in doing so he had lost his only child. When Hagar returned shortly with a changed attitude that seemed to allow her to stay, and Sarah's tough attitude was softened, his lost joy returned. He thanked God for it, his world had brighter colors again, hope returned, the expectation of good things, and the future was given a bright name: ISMAEL.

Abram felt that he now needed some time to rest, to calm his turbulent emotions, to get his life back to normal. He had been through one of the most difficult periods of his life and he felt that the worst was finally behind him. In the end, the solution that came about due to Hagar's inner change was actually the best possible. Hagar can stay and Sarah will then accept her and Abram's child as her own.

Clearly, Abram still did not fully know God's ways. Had he known the fruit that would come from his act, he probably would never have done it. It is as if the conflict, that accompanied his expectation, was permanently imprinted on Ishmael's character, "he shall be an untamable man... his hand shall be against all, and the hand of all against him." Where Abram and Sarah had been looking forward to a lovely time with the nice boy, a rough man of rugged manners, of a wild, unbridled nature, began to emerge. The child brought joy briefly, but as he grew, coexistence with him became increasingly difficult and conflict was an everyday occurence. He was not yet twelve years old, and Abram again began to bow under the weight of gloomy thoughts: how only will things go on if Ishmael does not change? He could feel his strength ebbing away as the years went by, he would have liked to be sure that he had secured the future of his family and farm, but the question kept creeping into his mind: how will everything turns out when Ishmael becomes the head of the house?