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ISHMAEL

(Heb. yišmāʿēʾl)

1. The offspring of Abraham and Hagar, the Egyptian maidservant of Sarah. In legal terms, Sarah had two first-born sons, though she herself only bore Isaac, the biological half-brother of Ishmael. Hagar was a surrogate mother whom Sarah was obliged by law to give to Abraham to provide an heir.

Though the maternal relationship of the two brothers broke down immediately upon Hagar’s conception (Gen. 16:2-4), the relationship between the two brothers remained surprisingly friendly. Subsequent exegesis has strained to goad the brothers into fierce sibling rivalry along the lines of Cain and Abel or Jacob and Esau, but this was not the case. The story of Ishmael laughing with (playing with?) Isaac at his weaning ceremony (Gen. 21:9) need not be seen negatively, though some translators remain influenced by Sarah’s reaction in translating the phrase as “mocking” Ishmael (NEB, KJV; cf. Gal. 4:29-30). The boys were friends.

The biblical treatment of Ishmael is remarkably congenial and parallels the positive assessment of Isaac. Though Abraham clearly had other sons through surrogacy, only Ishmael and Isaac received the unique designation “sons of Abraham.” In an unusual angelic annunciation, Hagar is promised that the descendants of Ishmael would be without number (Gen. 16:10). Later, Abraham is promised that Ishmael would become the father of 12 princes (tribes) and the founder of a great nation (Gen. 17:20; 25:12-16), reiterated to Hagar in her second banishment (21:13). Ishmael is described as a “wild [i.e., undomesticated] ass,” which in the context of survival skills needed for desert life was a high compliment indeed (Gen. 16:12). Abraham has a special kinship with Ishmael having been circumcised together, father and son, a sure sign of Ishmael’s ongoing attachment to the clan and God of Abraham (Gen. 17:23-27). Even before Isaac’s own rescue by God from the sacrificial knife (Gen. 22), Ishmael is rescued by God at his own point of starvation and dehydration in the desert (21:19). The narrator concludes the rescue story emphasizing that “God was with the boy” as he grew up in the wilderness where he became an expert archer (21:20). Finally, Ishmael’s descendants would share a portion in the inheritance of the land from “the River of Egypt” to the Euphrates (Gen. 25:18).

At Abraham’s death the two brothers, specifically paired as “sons of Abraham” to the exclusion of their half-brothers, reunite to bury their father (Gen. 25:9). The list of Ishmael’s 12 sons leads into the account of Isaac’s extended family, both closely tied to Abraham’s family tree with the tôlĕḏōṯ formula reiterating their sonship to Abraham (Gen. 25:12-15, 19-20). The traditional link between Ishmaelites and Bedouin Arabs is based on this tribal list.

Ishmael’s daughter Mahalath (Basemath) married Esau (Gen. 28:9; 36:3). According to Gen. 25:17 Ishmael died at the age of 137 years.

Paul uses Ishmael allegorically as a cipher for those Jews who maintain allegiance to the Mosaic law, thus being Abraham’s descendants “according to the flesh” (Gal. 4:21-28). Unfortunately, Paul’s allegories have too often been historicized into aggressive rivalry between children of Isaac by flesh and spirit (Jews and Christians) and the children of Ishmael (Muslims).

Bibliography. I. Ephʿal, “ ‘Ishmael’ and ‘Arabs’: A Transformation of Ethnological Terms,” JNES 35 (1976): 225-35; L. R. Scudder, Jr., “Ishmael and Isaac and Muslim-Christian Dialogue, Dialog 29 (1990): 29-32; E. C. Want and P. Tarlo, “Bad Guys, Textual Errors and Word Plays in Genesis 21:9-10,” Journal of Reform Judaism 37/4 (1990): 21-29; C. Westermann, Genesis 12–36 (Minneapolis, 1985).

2. The third son of Azel of Benjamin, a descendant of Saul (1 Chr. 8:38; 9:44).

3. The father of Zebediah, governor of Judah during Jehoshaphat’s reign in the 9th century (2 Chr. 19:11).

4. The son of Johananan; one of the five “commanders of hundreds” involved in the revolt against Queen Athaliah of Judah (2 Chr. 23:1).

5. A son of Passhur named among sons of priests who divorced their foreign wives (Ezra 10:22).

6. The son of Nethaniah, grandson of Elishama, a member “of the royal family,” who became a traitor to Judah (Jer. 40:8–41:18; cf. 2 Kgs. 25:23-25). As one of the captains of the Jewish forces, he plotted and carried out the assassination of Gedaliah, the governor of Judah, and many other faithful supporters. After capturing the inhabitants of Mizpah, including the prophet Jeremiah and the daughters of the Jewish king, he was forced to abandon his plans of deporting the captives and to flee under hot pursuit by the loyal captains of Gedaliah. He managed to escape to refuge among the Ammonites.

James E. Brenneman

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ISHMAEL

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)