Genesis 16:5-6

"And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I gave my handmaid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: Jehovah judge between me and thee. But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her that which is good in thine eyes. And Sarai dealt hardly with her, and she fled from her face."

Abram's house was troubled indeed with this situation; but as Dods said it: "This is the common fate of all who use others to satisfy their own desires and purposes."[5] Abram was at that time powerless to find a solution to the problem; because, in fact, there really was no solution, any more than there is a solution today for the Arab-Israeli conflict that troubles the whole world. As Hagar was Sarai's property, and since the whole situation was due to her initial suggestion, Abram simply turned the problem back to Sarai. She dealt harshly with Hagar, to the point that Hagar decided to run away, and she did so. Speiser summed up the tragedy thus:

"Beyond all the legal niceties, however, were the tangled emotions of the characters in the drama: Sarai, frustrated and enraged; Hagar, spirited but tactless; Abraham, who must have known that, whatever his personal sentiments, he would not have been able to dissuade Sarai from following the letter of the law."[6]

"My wrong be upon thee ..." Scholars render this variously; but Leupold seems to have given the true meaning as, "The wrong done me is your fault."[7] Therefore, we must view this as an inaccurate and unreasonable allegation on Sarai's part, growing out of her anger and wounded pride. She herself had suggested the arrangement!