Descendants of Abraham Part III: IshmaelPage 1
Christian Churches of God
No. 212C
Descendants of Abraham
Part III: Ishmael
(Edition 1.1 20070203-20070203-20070417)
Abram and Lot were a tribe, but as yet Abram had no children of his own. They decided not to wait for Sarai to bear a child so Hagar, her handmaiden, was given to Abraham and he had Ishmael by Hagar.
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(Copyright 2007 Wade Cox)
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Ishmael
Descendants of Abraham Part III: IshmaelPage 1
Background
Ishmael was Abraham’s first son; his mother was Hagar, an Egyptian who was the servant of Sarai (later named Sarah).
As Sarai had not been able to have children and was then over childbearing age, she gave Hagar to Abraham for the purpose of giving him a child. Sarai had been given Hagar whilst in Egypt and it is alleged by Arabs that the Pharaoh gave Hagar to Sarai from the Royal household in recompense for his sin.
The King James Version at Genesis 16:3 states that Hagar was given to Abraham by Sarai to be his wife.
Genesis 16:1-10 Now Sar'ai, Abram's wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar; 2and Sar'ai said to Abram, "Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my maid; it may be that I shall obtain children by her." And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sar'ai. 3 So, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, Sar'ai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. 4 And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. 5 And Sar'ai said to Abram, "May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my maid to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the LORD judge between you and me!" 6 But Abram said to Sar'ai, "Behold, your maid is in your power; do to her as you please." Then Sar'ai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. 7 The angel of the LORD found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. 8 And he said, "Hagar, maid of Sar'ai, where have you come from and where are you going?" She said, "I am fleeing from my mistress Sar'ai." 9 The angel of the LORD said to her, "Return to your mistress, and submit to her." 10 The angel of the LORD also said to her, "I will so greatly multiply your descendants that they cannot be numbered for multitude." (RSV)
Sarai did not wait for the promise of God but tried to pre-empt the birth of a male heir through her servant Hagar, which was customary in those days. However, Sarai was held in contempt by Hagar when she did conceive and bear a child.
It is important to note here that God, through the Angel of the Lord, made a covenant at this time to greatly multiply Hagar’s descendants. However, Ishmael, while being the firstborn, was not given the same promise as given to Isaac later. This was not the only occasion where the greater blessings were given to the younger son.
Genesis 16:11-16 And the angel of the LORD said to her, "Behold, you are with child, and shall bear a son; you shall call his name Ish'mael; because the LORD has given heed to your affliction. 12 He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against every man and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen."
Yishma’el (SHD 3458) means God will hear. God blessed the lad and he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran and became an archer. Hagar took a wife from Egypt for him (Gen. 21:20). He was prophesied to become a wild man (or wild ass of a man) with his hand against all men. The wild ass of a man refers to the fact of his dwelling in the wilderness of a fiercely independent spirit over against his brethren. This is even more so today and he will not be truly free until Messiah comes (cf. also Isa. 21:13; Jer. 3:2; Ezra 8:31; Ps. 10:8-9).
13 So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, "Thou art a God of seeing"; for she said, "Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?"14 Therefore the well was called Beer-la'hai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered. 15 And Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ish'mael. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ish'mael to Abram.
The traditional explanation of this event based on the text in Galatians 3:19 was that he was born through the weakness of Sarah’s faith and thus the Law came to represent the transgression, and the Levitical priesthood also became the precursor to the Messiah and the Church (e.g. see Bullinger’s note to v. 15 in The Comp. Bible).
God’s Promise to Abraham
When Abraham was ninety-nine years old, the Angel of the Lord appeared to him. Note at this stage he is still called Abram, and it is at this time that he is given the promise that he would become the father of many nations and his name is changed to Abraham. This promise was not simply to point to a genetic inheritance but also to the fact that through his son Isaac he would be the ancestor of the Messiah and salvation would be extended to the nations. The name Abram (SHD 87) means high father and points to the very fact of God extending Himself to become the Father of many nations (or a multitude (SHD 85) as the Ha Elohim, the prince of the Elohim. It was in this act and promise that God revealed His Plan to the world.
Genesis 17:1-16 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. 2 And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly." 3 Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, 4 "Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you. 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. 8 And I will give to you, and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God." 9 And God said to Abraham, "As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 He that is eight days old among you shall be circumcised; every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house, or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, 13 both he that is born in your house and he that is bought with your money, shall be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant." 15 And God said to Abraham, "As for Sar'ai your wife, you shall not call her name Sar'ai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her; I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall come from her."
Circumcision was a sign of God’s Covenant with the sons of Abraham and the elect.
The names given to God’s servants are very important. Just as Abram means high father and Abraham means father of a great multitude, we saw that change of name was also a change of status. In the same way Sarai means my lady or my princess, while Sarah means lady or princess and princess of the multitude, again showing the change of status and the extension of this covenant between God and His people and the extension of salvation to the Gentiles through His Church.
Abraham was concerned for Ishmael and asked God that Ishmael might live in His sight. However, the covenant was with Isaac. Nevertheless, God also promised that Ishmael would also be the father of many. He would be the father of twelve princes and he would be a great nation. Thus there exists a covenant with Ishmael as an extension of Isaac under the Messiah.
Genesis 17:17-27 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, "Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?" 18 And Abraham said to God, "O that Ish'mael might live in thy sight!" 19 God said, "No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. 20 As for Ish'mael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him and make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. 21 But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year." 22 When he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. 23 Then Abraham took Ish'mael his son and all the slaves born in his house or bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him. 24 Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 25 And Ish'mael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 26 That very day Abraham and his son Ish'mael were circumcised; 27 and all the men of his house, those born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.
The story of Isaac and that of the sons of Keturah are dealt with in paper Numbers 212E, 212F, and 212C respectively. At the end of his life, Abraham was buried by his two elder sons, which is indicative of a continuing relationship between him and the brothers. He was 175 years old.
Genesis 25:7-10 These are the days of the years of Abraham's life, a hundred and seventy-five years. 8 Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. 9 Isaac and Ish'mael his sons buried him in the cave of Mach-pe'lah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, east of Mamre, 10 the field which Abraham purchased from the Hittites. There Abraham was buried, with Sarah his wife.
The Bible does not give a great deal of information regarding Ishmael, however his descendants are listed at Genesis 25:12-18. He lived to 137 years of age and indeed had 12 sons as was prophesied. He also had a daughter, Bas'emath, who was the sister of Neba'ioth. Bas'emath later married Esau (Gen. 36:2-3).
Hagar
We will deal firstly with Hagar. We know little from the Bible apart from the basic details of the birth of Ishmael. She was an Egyptian, a slave to Sarai, a concubine of Abram and the mother of Ishmael. The meaning of her name is a stranger; one that fears.
1Chronicles 5:10-20 deals with wars against the Hagarites during the time of Saul. The descendants of Isaac went to war against the descendants of Hagar. These descendants were known as Hagrites, Hagarites or Hagarenes.
Psalm 83:6 indicates that the Ishmaelites and the Hagarites were two separate peoples. This appears to indicate that Hagar went on to have other children later who became a ‘people’ or nation in their own right. Here Ishmael and the Hagrites are denoted separately.
Psalm 83:5-8Yea, they conspire with one accord; against thee they make a covenant -- 6 the tents of Edom and the Ish'maelites, Moab and the Hagrites, 7Gebal and Ammon and Am'alek, Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre; 8 Assyria also has joined them; they are the strong arm of the children of Lot. [Selah]
The online Jewish Encylopedia at JewishEncyclopedia.com, in its article on Hagar (by Solomon Schechter,Gotthard DeutschExecutive Committee of the Editorial Board.Emil G. HirschHartwig Hirschfeld), states:
There are in various passages in Chronicles, however, references to the tribe of Hagarites, who were neighbors of the transJordanic tribes of Israel and were driven from their homes by them (I Chron. v. 10, 18-22; xi. 38; xxvii. 31). The Hagarites have been identified with the Agraioi mentioned by Strabo (xvi. 4, 2), and though Arabians, they do not belong to the Ishmaelites.
It is generally assumed that the Ishmaelites became the Arabs of the Middle East. The Hagarites lived east of Gilead, which is in the hills near Amman Jordan, but later moved to present day Iraq.
TheHistorians’ History of the World makes the Hagarites an Ishmaelite clan but mythologises their ancestry along with that of Ishmael in the first reference, but seems to treat it as genuine in the second regarding Ezra (ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 66,129).
Nabataea.net has an article on the subject of Hagar. It notes that W.W. Muller held the view that a city of the people of Hagar would have been written as han-Hagar in Aramaic and possibly Hagara. Thus it is argued that when this name is Hellenised it would have become Gerrha.
It is also noted that H. von Wissmann proposed that the term Hagar could be used to describe a walled city with towers and bastions.
Using these theories archaeologists have speculated that the east Arabian Kingdom of the Gerrhaeans can be attributed to the descendants of Hagar. History tells us much more of the people known as Gerrhaeans in the Greek world.
Nicander of Colophon, writing in the third century BCE, mentions in a poem the “nomads of Gerrha and those who plough their fields by the Euphrates” (A.S.F. Gow and A.F. Scholfield, Nicander, The Poems and Poetical Fragments, Cambridge, 1952, p. 111). There are thus two groups, one being the nomads of Gerrha and the other a sedentary farming community on the Euphrates nearby.
There is little mention of them in either Assyrian or Chaldean records. However, many historians have put forward theories about them.
Movers suggested that it might have been Nebuchadnezzar who exiled the nomadic Gerrhaeans as part of a policy to protect his country from menacing Arab tribes (F. C. Movers, Das phonizische Alterthum, Berlin 1856, iii. 308).
Newman says that whether there is a connection between the Hagrites of 1Chronicles 5:10, 19-20; Psalm 83:6-H83:7 is not certain but seems likely since two of the sons of Ishmael (Gen. 25:15) are Hagrites (1Chr. 5:19) (The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, art. ‘Hagar’, Vol. 2, pp. 508-9).
The biblical account tells us in 1Chronicles 5 that:
1Chronicles 5:19-22 And they made war with the Hagarites, with Jetur, and Naphish and Nodab. 20 And they were helped against them, and the Hagarites were delivered into their hand, and all who were with them; for they cried to God in the battle, and he was entreated by them because they put their trust in him. 21 And they took away their cattle, of their camels fifty thousand, and of sheep two hundred and fifty thousand, and of asses, two thousand, and of men a hundred thousand. 22 For there fell down many slain, because the war was of God. And they dwelt in their stead until the captivity. (KJV)
This might be read two ways but the text in Psalm 83:6-8 says plainly:
The temples of Edom, the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagarenes, Gebal, Ammon, Amalek, the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assyria also is joined with them, they have the children of Lot