Once upon a time there was a couple who couldn’t have kids.

The wife cajoled her husband into having intimate relations with her servant (for she thought, “It may be that I shall obtain children by her.”).

The husband yielded to his wife’s execrable naggings.

The servant conceived a child, and for the first time ever she felt substantively superior to her mistress. Her indignation at being mistreated and degraded by her bosswoman all those years flared up from deep within her, and she looked upon the wife of her child’s father with contempt!

The wife was enraged, and she vehemently cursed and blamed her husband! She screamed at her husband, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May God judge between you and me!”

The husband pusillanimously peeped a reply, “Please don’t be mad at me. Do whatever you want. Just please please please don’t be upset with me.”

So the wife flew into a furious rage and started thrashing and battering the servant woman. And the servant fled.

The angel of the Lord found the servant woman in the wilderness, and He asked her, “Where have you come from and where are you going?”

She said, “I am fleeing from my abusive bosswoman.”

The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her. The Lord has seen your affliction. The child in your womb will be a wild donkey of a man, and his life will be marked by violence and enmity with everyone.”

So the servant woman said, “You are a God of seeing! Truly here I have seen Him who looks after me!”