“There they lived in open hostility toward all their relatives.”

Journeys Through the Word

“There they lived in open hostility toward all their relatives.”

Verse(s) considered:

Genesis 25:11-18

(11)  After Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac, who settled near Beer-lahai-roi in the Negev.

(12)  This is the account of the family of Ishmael, the son of Abraham through Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian servant.

(13)  Here is a list, by their names and clans, of Ishmael’s descendants: The oldest was Nebaioth, followed by Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam,

(14)  Mishma, Dumah, Massa,

(15)  Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah.

(16)  These twelve sons of Ishmael became the founders of twelve tribes named after them, listed according to the places they settled and camped.

(17)  Ishmael lived for 137 years. Then he breathed his last and joined his ancestors in death.

(18)  Ishmael’s descendants occupied the region from Havilah to Shur, which is east of Egypt in the direction of Asshur. There they lived in open hostility toward all their relatives.

Thoughts along the road:

I have always considered the life of Ishmael to be one of the great tragedies in Biblical history. He was born out of Abraham and Sarah’s desire to help God keep his promise to them. A difficult beginning to say the least. We have covered his life in some detail with the little we know about him, but here we will consider the balance of his life and his end. We still know precious little about him but, what is told here may be enough.

We are first told that God blessed his brother Isaac. We are not told that God did the same for Ishmael except in that he is promised twelve sons that will become princes and that they would become a great nation (Gen 17:20). We are also told that he would be a “wild man” (Gen 16:12). His sons became the founders of twelve tribes (like Jacob), but they different in that they lived their lives in open hostility toward their relatives. We can assume that meant each other, but I think that it also points toward the hostility that we see today between the Arab states and Israel.

Where to go from here:

What can we take away from this section that we can apply in our own lives? The first thing that crosses my mind is that trying to help God fulfill his promises always messes things up. It seems from this passage that Ishmael got stuck with a bad road from the beginning, but then again we choose our roads, don’t we? I get the sense from the scripture that as the son of a slave, his life was no easy road. It didn’t seem to matter that he was Abraham’s son. He was still the son of a slave, and that was a bad lot. Hagar’s bad attitude rubbed off on him. When she was pregnant with him she started mouthing off to Sarah, and that got her driven out of the camp where she thought she was going to die, but God sent her back and told her to submit to Sarah. She did go back, but I think she still harbored a rebellious spirit that was inherited by Ishmael because he started up with the same bad attitude his mother had when Sarah was weaning Isaac. That got them finally kicked out of the camp for good. God still took care of them because he had promised to make him a great nation as well (Gen 21:13), and he sent an angel to watch over them in the desert.

God takes care of the details even when things seem to be going all wrong. So, even if we have made some bad choices (trying to help God with his promises), God will bring some good out of it (Romans 8:28). That is something we need to hang onto. God keeps his promises no matter what. He made promises to Abraham, and he made promises to Hagar. In spite of how twisted things became God kept his promises.

Ishmael inherited his mother’s bad attitude, and it seems that he also passed it on to his descendants and that they carry that load even today. Watch yourself and your attitudes. Your children will pick up on them and mimic them. They always seem to mimic the worst parts of us. If you have a problem attitude today, ask God to change that in you and begin modeling a good attitude for your children. Pass that on instead.