Beer Lahai Roi

Beer Lahai Roi — "the well of the Living One who sees me" — is the Negev spring where Hagar fled when pregnant with Ishmael and encountered the angel of the Lord (Genesis 16:7-14). The angel found her by a fountain "in the way to Shur," promised that her son would become a great nation, and Hagar named God "El Roi" — the first person in Scripture to give God a name. Genesis 16:14 locates the well precisely: "the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered." Isaac would later live near this same well after Sarah's death (Genesis 24:62; 25:11) — the place where the divorced servant's prayer was answered became the home of the heir of promise. The site is generally identified in the western Negev along the ancient road south toward Shur.