ISMAEL. — Son of Abraham and of Hagar, Sarah’s slave. The circumstances of his birth are read in Gen. 16. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, having no children and being very advanced in years, offered her husband as a concubine (a wife of second rank but legitimate) her own maidservant Hagar (perhaps given by the Pharaoh, cf. Gen. 12:16), so that she might bear children, who by right would be attributed to the mistress. This was in conformity with Babylonian law (which was the law of the country from which Abraham came); the Code of Hammurabi bears witness to it, expressly contemplating the case (arts. 144–47). Hagar, once she had become a mother, grew proud against her mistress; and the latter “humiliated” her (Gen. 16:6), that is, reduced her again to the condition of a simple slave, as is provided for in art. 146 of the said Code of Hammurabi. The humiliated maidservant rebelled and fled into the desert; but, admonished by an angel, she returned to her masters and gave birth to a son, named I. Abraham was then eighty-six years old.
I. was the first to be circumcised, together with his father, in the institution of the rite of circumcision (v.): he was then thirteen years old (Gen. 17:23 ff.). When the promised son Isaac was born to Sarah the following year, soon discord arose between the two mothers; and I. too began to molest his younger brother Isaac, who was of a more gentle disposition (cf. Gen. 21:9 ff.). For this reason Abraham was forced to send away Hagar and her son I., who made their way southward into the desert of Beersheba, where they became lost and, for lack of water, faced serious danger of death. But an angel saved them, pointing out a spring. I., as he grew in years, took to a nomadic life and to hunting, dwelling in the desert of Paran, to the west, between Havilah and Shur (modern Jifar). He took as his wife an Egyptian woman, and became the father of a numerous progeny, as God had promised, in favor of his father Abraham (Gen. 17:20; 21:13, 18). With his brother Isaac he buried Abraham (Gen. 25:9) and died at the age of one hundred and thirty-seven years (ibid. 25:17).