Genesis 16:7-8

"And the angel of Jehovah found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way of Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai's handmaid, whence camest thou and whither goest thou? And she said, I am fleeing from the face of my mistress Sarai."

"The angel of Jehovah ..." This being can hardly be thought of as a creature, despite the usual meaning of the word "angel." This is one of those O.T. "intimations of personal distinctions with God Himself"[8] and is definitely a hint of the "Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," revealed in the N.T. Those who find here a Christophany, therefore, are not necessarily wrong. The words "refer to the Lord himself."[9] "The Biblical writers constantly speak of the angel of the Lord as Divine, calling him Jehovah without the least reserve."[10] The teaching here implied of there being a plurality of Persons in the Godhead is in perfect harmony with Genesis 1:26; 11:7, etc. We shall encounter other examples of the same thing in the O.T. This is the very first occurrence in the Bible of this phraseology. "This angel was God Himself, that is, another pre-incarnate appearance of the Messiah."[11]

"By the fountain in the way to Shur ..." This was evidently a well-known watering place on the way back to Egypt, toward which Hagar was evidently going. "The word `Shur' means `wall' and was probably applied to the chain of fortresses on the northeast frontier of Egypt."[12] Hagar could flee from Sarai, but not from the presence of God. The angel of the Lord questioned her as God had questioned Adam in Eden, not for the purpose of procuring information but with a design of appealing to Hagar's conscience. She was engaged in an illegal flight, which, according to the laws of that age, could have been punished severely, even with death. Furthermore, there were terrible dangers and hardships on the way, as she had already discovered. "Whence camest thou? and whither goest thou? ..." Everyone needs to ask such questions of himself when confronting any crisis in life.