Ishmael
was born to Abraham's mistress.Hagar
at Mamre.(a
place midway between Jerusalem and Beersheba),
when Abraham was eighty six years of age, eleven years after his arrival
in Canaan. Ishmael
was the beginning of the Arab nations.
Abraham had another son,
called.Midian,
his fourth son, this son by Keturah.(1Chronicles
1:32,33):.Genesis
25:1-4. Her sons were the ancestors of many Arabian tribes:.Genesis
15:19-21. Through the offshoots of the.Hagar.and.Keturah.line
came many Arab nations and in this way Abraham became the."father
of many nations":.Genesis
17:4; Romans 4:17. About
the Midianites.
At the age of thirteen Ishmael
was circumcised.
He grew up a true child of the desert, wild and wayward.
On the occasion of the weaning
of Abraham's son Isaac, Ishmael's
rude and wayward spirit broke out in expressions of insult and mockery:.Genesis
21:9,10. He obviously
was one having what's called mankind.(kinda
like man).genes.
Sarah, Abraham's wife, discovering this, said to Abraham "Expel this slave
and her son".
Influenced by a divine admonition,
Abraham dismissed Hagar and her son with no more than a skin of water and
some bread. The narrative describing this act is one of the most touching
incidents of
patriarchal
life:.Genesis
21:1-21.
Ishmael settled in the land
of Paran, a region lying between Canaan and the mountains of Sinai:.Deuteronomy
33:2. He became a great desert chief, but of his history little is
recorded. He was about ninety years of age when his father Abraham died,
in connection with whose burial he once more for a moment reappears.
On this occasion the two
brothers met after being long separated. Isaac with his hundreds of household
servants, Ishmael with his troops of wild retainers and half-savage allies,
in all, the state of a Bedouin prince gathered before the cave of Machpelah,
in the midst of the men of Heth to
pay the last duties to Abraham, the 'father of the faithful':.Romans
4:12. Of the after events of his life but little is known.
Ishmael died at the age of
one hundred and thirty seven years, but where and when are unknown:.Genesis
25:17,18.
He had twelve sons, who became
the founders of so many Arab
tribes and colonies and into full nations.