After Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan: in Hebrew this clause is in a position between Sarai … her maid and gave her … a wife. Note that Good News Translation places this clause in parentheses at the end of verse 3 as the narrator’s comment. The sense conveyed here is that Abram had already been living in Canaan ten years when Sarai made this proposal and Abram accepted it. The text refers only to Abram as living in Canaan, but the reader should not get the impression that Sarai (and perhaps Hagar) were somewhere else.

Took Hagar … and gave her is a Hebrew way of expressing what is really a single event. It means Sarai gave Hagar to Abram for him to sleep with her.

In many languages it will be more natural to begin verse 3 with the main events, which are: Sarai, Abram’s wife, gave Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, to Abram her husband as a wife. The translation of this clause may require more verb-like words than the Hebrew or English. For example, “Abram’s wife Sarai gave her Egyptian maid, whose name was Hagar, to her husband Abram. He made Hagar his wife. When this happened they had been living ten years in Canaan.”

In Revised Standard Version Sarai is identified as Abram’s wife, and by the same Hebrew term Hagar is said to have been given to Abram as a wife. Good News Translation translates “wife” with reference to Hagar as “concubine.” New English Bible has in its footnote “or concubine.” There is no equivalent note in Revised English Bible. The Hebrew word can be used in the sense of “wife” as well as “concubine.” In the Old Testament a concubine is a wife whose legal rights were limited, but who was cared for. See Exo 21.7-11. The children of a concubine could not inherit equally with the children of the main wife or wives. To have sexual relations with another man’s concubine was considered an act of rebellion against that man in Gen 35.22; 49.4; 2 Sam 3.7; 16.21-22; 1 Kgs 2.13-25.

In cultures in which the custom of taking a woman as a concubine is not known, it may be best not to attempt to make the distinction between “wife” and “concubine.” However, in some societies it is common for a man to take a second or third wife, and in this case there is often a linguistic distinction between the first woman a man marries and other wives he may acquire while still living with the first wife. In a situation where the first wife fails to have children, she is often looked down upon by the husband and by the later wives who bear children. In some other societies it is the custom for a first wife to ask her husband to take a second (younger) wife when she has passed the childbearing age herself. Examples of the way some translations describe the relationship between Abram and Hagar are “Sarai gave her servant girl to Abram to be a second wife for him” and “Sarai sent Hagar to stay with Abram as another wife.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .