The God Who Sees = The God of Sympathy

This is simply several excerpts from bible scholars writings on  El Roi = The God who sees me / The God of sympathy 

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“Now the angel of the Lord found her” (Ge 16:7). 

What a beautiful picture of our compassionate God, who is concerned even for this poor, confused servant girl! The angel tells her what to do and then promises that he will multiply her descendants through the child she is carrying. Hagar, encouraged and awed by this experience, gives a new name to God-- ”El Roi,” “the God who sees.” She then returns to Abram and Sarai and Ishmael is born.

There are two dominant themes in these verses:

 

First, God sees Hagar (Ge 16:7-12); and 

second, Hagar sees God (Ge 16:13-16).

 

God saw Hagar’s affliction; as a result, Hagar saw God’s mercy and submitted to Him. Applying it to us, we can put it: Because God sees our affliction, we can see His mercy and submit to Him. This story is encouraging if you are suffering and feel that God has abandoned you. He has not forgotten; He sees your affliction. Because He sees, you can see His mercy, and submit to Him.

Excerpt from

Genesis 16:7-16

The God Who Sees 

by Steven Cole

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"El Roi - He is the God of sympathy. He sees. He knows. God sees you. You don't have any heartache, you don't have any pain, you don't have any trouble that He doesn't know of. In Psalm 33:18, 19, "Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, and upon them that hope in His mercy." Did you know that God sees you right now? God knows your very thoughts. God knows your heartache. God knows your imaginations right now. God is there and Jesus is our El Roi, because what does the Bible teach us in the Book of Hebrews? We have a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He knows. He cares. His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me."

~Adrian Rodgers

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Hagar, Sarah's handmaid, was being treated unkindly by Sarah, so she fled into the wilderness. As Hagar stood beside a spring in that desolate and lonely place, the Angel of the Lord visited her. He assured her that God Himself was aware of her situation. Hagar responded, "You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees" (Genesis 16:13). She found great comfort in knowing that the Lord God saw her and knew about her distress.

You and I can have that same confidence in God's watchcare. We can be sure that the Lord God is with us wherever we go, and He knows everything that happens to us. As the all-powerful One, He is able to solve every problem, no matter how overwhelming or perplexing it may be. We are never alone, never forgotten, and never beyond hope.

Whatever your troubling circumstances are, whether you're afflicted by illness or injury, brokenhearted over the loss of a loved one, or disillusioned because your dearest friend has betrayed or rejected you, God knows and cares. You may be deeply depressed, or perhaps you're plagued by loneliness and discouragement. But you can be confident that you are under God's watchful eye. Yes, like Hagar, you can know that God sees you. — Richard De Haan

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God who seeth,—that is His name! He regards our sorrow, our cross, our humiliation at the hand of high-minded people. He also beholds our shortcomings and sins, and He does not justify them, but He punishes us concerning them in our conscience. He prefers to meet with us in loneliness, and He does not even wait till we go with our soul to Him, but He is the first One in everything. In this way He met us in our misery in the Son of His love, of whom the Angel of the Lord was a type. Whoever has met once in grace with that Messenger of God, will understand the scope of the words of blessed surprise: Thou God seest me," because in Jesus Christ He is not only a God who beholds, but He is also seen by us in Him in the riches of His compassion. (The Loins Girded)