Hagar Meets the Angels and the Promise of Ishmael

How many angels were paired with her? Rav Chama bar Chanin said: five, for everywhere that 'saying' is mentioned there is an angel. The Rabbis say: four, for everywhere that 'angel' is mentioned. Rabbi Chiya said: come and see how great is the difference between the later generations and the earlier ones. Manoah said to his wife, "We shall surely die, for we have seen God" (Judges 13:22), yet Hagar, Sarai's maidservant, sees five angels one after another and is not afraid of them. Rabbi Chiya said: the fingernail of the patriarchs and not the belly of the children! Rabbi Yitzchak said, "She watches over the ways of her household" (Proverbs 31:27) - the members of Abraham our father's household were watchers, and she was accustomed to seeing them. "And you shall call his name Ishmael" - he was called by his name before he was born, and so on (as is written in remez 45). "And he shall be a wild man" (Genesis 16:12). Rabbi Yochanan said: because all others grow up in a settled place and he grows up in the wilderness. Resh Lakish said: a wild man indeed, for all others plunder money and he plunders souls. "His hand against all and the hand of all against him." [Read it as 'his dog'] - his hand and the hand of his dog are alike: just as his dog eats carcasses, so too he eats carcasses. Rabbi Elazar said: when is 'the hand of all against him'? When that one comes of whom it is written, "and wherever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens He has given into your hand and made you ruler over them all" (Daniel 2:38). This is what is written, "Concerning Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon struck" (Jeremiah 49:28) - for he hemmed them in within the wilderness and killed them. "And he shall dwell before the face of all his brothers." Here it says 'he shall dwell,' yet elsewhere you say "before the face of all his brothers he fell" (Genesis 25:18). Rather, all the days that Abraham our father was alive, 'he shall dwell'; once Abraham died, 'he fell.' Before he stretched out his hand against the Temple, 'he shall dwell'; once he stretched out his hand against the Temple, 'he fell.' In this world, 'he shall dwell'; but in the time to come, 'he fell.'