Arab on camel, Vasily Vereshchagin, 1869 - 1870. Wikiart
Ishmael, King of the Arabs
Throughout the Bible, “Ishmaelite” is a collective term for nomads living in the wilderness, east of Canaan. Why is their eponymous ancestor Ishmael, Abraham’s exiled son, presented as living in the wilderness region near Egypt, west of Canaan? The answer can be found in the political realities of Persian period Yehud.
Published: November 20, 2019
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
The following verse begins the Isaac cycle:
בראשית כה:יט וְאֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת יִצְחָק בֶּן אַבְרָהָם אַבְרָהָם הוֹלִיד אֶת יִצְחָק.
Gen 25:19 This is the story of Isaac, son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac.
Editor’s note: For an example of this kind of reading, see Rachel Adelman, “The Expulsion of Ishmael: Who Is Being Tried?” TheTorah (2017).
Editor’s note: For a discussion of nomadic lifestyles in biblical times, see Oded Borowski, “What Was Life Like in Biblical Times?” TheTorah (2019); Clinton Bailey, “Abraham and Lot’s Bedouin-Style Hospitality,” TheTorah (2019).
The final words of the verse, referring to Assyria, seem out of place, and are likely a late gloss, perhaps attempting to make the two options of Ishmael’s wandering space cohere.
See also the reference in 1 Chronicles 37:30 to an Obil the Ishmaelite in charge of King David’s camels (וְעַל הַגְּמַלִּים אוֹבִיל הַיִּשְׁמְעֵלִי) which again implies that this group was nomadic, and experts with camels.
The final example of the gentilic “Ishmaelite” in the Bible is from 1 Chronicles 2:17, which tells how David’s sister Abigail married Jether the Ishmaelite.
See discussion in Hagit Bartal, “הגר וישמעאל – אתנוס או גיבורי ספרות?” [Hagar and Ishmael – Ethnics or Literary Characters?], Beit Mikra 63 (2018): 207–246.
See Israel Ephal, The Ancient Arabs: Nomads on the Borders of the Fertile Crescent, 9th-5th Centuries B.C (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1982), 200. On these demographic changes see David Graf, “Arab, Arabian, Arabia,” in The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, ed. Katharine D. Sakenfeld (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2006), 1.212–220 [216]; Ernst A. Knauf, “Ancient Arabia,” Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009), 2.579; and recently Dafna Langgut and Oded Lipschits, “Dry Climate during the Early Persian Period and Its Impact on the Establishment of Idumia,” Transeuphratène 49 (2017): 223–224, 231, 241–244, and additional bibliography there.
For a monograph length discussion of Arab tribes in ancient times, see Ephal, The Ancient Arabs.
See discussion in Yairah Amit, "מקומו של ישמעאל במחזור סיפורי אברהם" [The Place of Ishmael in the Abraham Cycle], Beit Mikra 63 (2018): 179–206
Thus most interpreters, and see Amnon Shapira, "והוא יהיה פרא אדם" [And He shall be A Wild Ass of Man], Beit Mikra 41 (1996): 101–127.
The parallel phrase in Genesis 25:18 עַל פְּנֵי כָל אֶחָיו נָפָל should also be translated positively, “he shall dwell alongside all his kinsmen.”
