An atheist riffs on the Bible (New International Version): Genesis 16

Regular paragraphs are the verses as written in the Bible.
Indented italicized paragraphs feature my comments on the previous paragraph.
Note that I might appear especially nitpicky and I know that some of these verses are not taken literally by everybody; I'm just having some fun basically.
Why the New International Version or NIV? Why not? The Bible has already been translated countless times before and I can't read or speak the original languages in which it was written, which is why it is stupid in the first place to assume that a divine being would communicate with us through a book.

New International Version

Genesis 16

Hagar and Ishmael

¹ Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; 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. 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. ⁴ He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. ⁵ Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me."

So many things to say here. First of all, is God keeping his promise or not? Well I guess he is if Abram can have a child, even if it's with another woman. Secondly, not only do they have slaves, but she's also a sex slave, only used for the fact that she can produce children. God seems to have no problems with that (especially considering that Abram is a man of God). Then when that slave finds out she's pregnant, she despises Sarai, as if to say "You don't produce children, you're no good!" Damn, a lowlife slave can despise a woman because she's infertile, that's the Bible telling you how immoral not conceiving children is (but telling you that having slaves is OK). Now Sarai wants to punish her husband and even invoke the LORD's judgment in this case, but that was her idea and Abram had nothing to do with it other than accept her proposition. I don't know what more I can say to make you realize that this passage is wrong in every way possible if you hadn't already thought of it.

⁶ "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

Wow, Abram takes no interest in the woman who will give him a child. But other than that, I realize she's just a slave. Sarai is really insane on the other hand. She's mistreating a pregnant woman.

⁷ The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. ⁸ And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?"
"I'm running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered.

I'm going to go on a tangent here, but is there only one angel? (I thought there were supposed to be tons of them.) And also, if I didn't already know how my culture represent angels, note that the Bible hasn't explained what that particular creature is (just like it didn't really explain God, the Nephilim and what exactly was the serpent when he could talk).

⁹ Then the angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." ¹⁰ The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count."

Here we have a sentence that tells us that God wants her to be a submissive slave (even if her mistress is insane) in promise of a reward. Yeah, having lots of descendants is so much fun in exchange for a bad life.

¹¹ The angel of the LORD also said to her:
"You are now with child
and you will have a son.
You shall name him Ishmael, ^[a]
for the LORD has heard of your misery.

Damn, she doesn't even get to choose his name? Lots of instances of that in the Bible, that's weird. Why do people always have to be named, in Hebrew, in accordance to what they lived or will live in this book? And cut the crap with the LORD hearing of her misery, because he could stop it as far as I know from the extent of his powers. This is what justifies some people (martyrs) to love pain and misery, because they think they will be rewarded later or in the afterlife. Basically, suffering means you're more connected to the LORD. That's bullshit.

¹² He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone's hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward ^[b] all his brothers."

So I'm confused. Is the LORD rewarding her by giving her such a son or is she being punished?

¹³ She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen ^[c] the One who sees me." ¹⁴ That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi ^[d] ; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.

"'You are the God who sees me,' for she said, 'I have now seen the One who sees me.': that's basically one of my points. People in the Bible clearly speak directly to their God. They see him right in front of them or at least they see a miracle the likes of which we don't see now. How can I believe with no evidence? Faith, blind dumb faith.

¹⁵ So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. ¹⁶ Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

So the angel tells Hagar to name her son Ishmael, which made some sense since she was the one God heard (Ishmael meaning God hears), but it is Abram who names him so in the end. Well, women in the Bible have no power, so what did you expect. (OK, you can say I'm playing on words, being nitpicky or maybe she told him her story and that's why he did that, but anyway tons of other contradictions and immoral things are coming in the next chapters, so stay tuned or whatever.)

Footnotes:

a. Genesis 16:11 Ishmael means God hears .
b. Genesis 16:12 Or live to the east / of
c. Genesis 16:13 Or seen the back of
d. Genesis 16:14 Beer Lahai Roi means well of the Living One who sees me .