When the kids were younger, we spent a year studying the names of God. It’s an amazing thing to consider: There is so much depth to who God is in his character, in his works, and in his ways, it takes numerous names just to describe him. One of my favorites that we studied was El Roi, the God Who Sees.

Hagar and the God Who Sees

El Roi is found in the story of Hagar, Sarai’s Egyptian servant. Abram and Sarai had no children. They were advanced in years, and though God promised Abram he would have an heir and that his descendants would be as many as the stars in the night sky, it seems as though they thought God needed some help to make it happen. So, at Sarai’s arrangement, Abram slept with Hagar in the hopes that she would conceive and bear him a child. When Hagar became pregnant by Abram, she treated Sarai with contempt. “And Sarai said to Abram, May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me!’ But Abram said to Sarai, ‘Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.’ Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her” (Genesis 16:5-6).

Hagar ran off into the wilderness and the angel of the Lord met her there. She confessed to running away from her mistress and he instructed her to return. He then promised her a son, Ishmael. “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude” (v. 10). Hagar responded, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me” (v.13). The “God of seeing” is El Roi in Hebrew.

Commentators point out that she literally says, “Have I here also looked after him that sees me? Have I here seen the back parts of him that sees me?" This reminds us of when God told Moses he could only see his back as he walked by in Exodus 33. Hagar marvels at the grace of God who sees her even while far away from Abram and Sarai, even when she left her mistress, even as she is running back home to Egypt. She didn’t look for him; God sought her out. He met her where she was. He corrected her. He blessed and provided for her. (And he did so again in Genesis 21).

In the New Testament, we read numerous accounts of Christ “seeing” those who are unseen. Women in those days were the most unseen (except for children). Yet over and over we read accounts of our Savior breaking societal norms by speaking to women. He interacted with those whom society had ignored and cast out. He showered them with his grace and their lives were forever changed.

Like Hagar, we are undeserving of such favor. We are all runaways, in one way or another. Yet Christ looks at us and sees our sin. He sees our failures. He sees our wayward wanderings. He also sees our shame and the horrific things we have endured in this fallen world. He sees our sorrows and our fears. And he gives us his grace, meeting us where we are, redeeming us, and sanctifying us by his Spirit.

Like Hagar, we should pause in wonder at El Roi, the God who sees. Like the woman at the well, we should marvel at the One who knows all we’ve ever done, and yet he saw us. Like the woman with the alabaster jar, we should weep at the feet of our Savior. For he loved us and he saved us.