Women, Wells, and Springs: Water Rights and Hagar’s Tribulations

Abstract

The theological problem underlying environmental and gender injustice is the pathological assumption that “the rest of” creation is available for use and commodification by a select group of privileged image bearers. An adequate response to this assumption requires re-examining appropriate relationships between creatures. The story of Hagar’s relationship to water provides the foundation for such a response. An ecomimetic interpretation of Genesis 16:1–16 and 21:8–21, focused on the character of water in these passages, uncovers the basis for an appropriate human relationship to water that challenges the ways in which both water and women have been commodified.