ISMAEL. - Son of Abramo and Agar, Sara’s slave. The circumstances of his birth are related in Gen. 16. Sara, Abramo’s wife, having no children and being of very advanced age, offered her own servant Agar to her husband as a concubine (a “second-order” wife, but a legitimate one), so that she might bear children, who by right would have been attributed to the mistress. This practice conformed to Babylonian law (which was the law of Abramo’s country of origin); the code of Hammurapi bears witness to this, expressly contemplating the case (arts. 144–47). As soon as Agar became a mother, she grew proud toward her mistress; and the latter « humbled » her (Gen. 16, 6), that is, restored her to the condition of a simple slave, as provided for in art. 146 of the aforementioned code of Hammurapi. The humiliated servant rebelled and fled into the desert; but, admonished by an angel, she returned to her masters and bore a son, named I.: Abramo was then 86 years old.
I. was the first to be circumcised, together with his father, at the institution of the rite of circumcision (v.): he was then 13 years old (Gen. 17, 23 ff.). The following year Sara gave birth to « the son of the promise », Isacco, and quarrels between the two mothers soon broke out; I. too began to mistreat his brother Isacco, who was younger than he and of a gentler disposition (cf. Gen. 21, 9 ff.). For this reason Abramo was compelled to send Agar and her son I. away; they headed south toward the desert of Bersabee, where they became lost and, because of the lack of water, found themselves in serious danger of death. But an angel saved them, pointing out a spring. As I. grew older, he took up a nomadic life and hunting, dwelling in the desert of Pharan, to the west, between Hevila and Sur (modern Gifar). He took an Egyptian woman as his wife, and became the father of numerous offspring, as God had promised, for the sake of his father Abramo (Gen. 17, 20; 21, 13, 18). Together with his brother Isacco, he buried Abramo (Gen. 25, 9) and died at the age of 137 (ibid. 25, 17).