And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which was opposite to Mamre --
Abraham is dead, and his two sons stand at the same grave — the son of the promise and the son of the slave woman. The verse also names the burial ground with care: a cave, a field, and the man Abraham bought it from.
Ishmael, the son cast out years before, still stands at his father's grave. Kelly sees a shared loss bringing two very different men side by side.
Here we read that "Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah," in the field Abraham had bought from Ephron, where Sarah already lay. The son of the slave woman was in no way forbidden to honour his parent in this way. He had to be "cast out" in the presence of the child of promise, and he was. Yet the natural family tie still has its place. The son of the free woman does not dispute it; he is gracious. Before God their feelings may have been as far apart as spirit and flesh, the two things that marked them out. But at the grave, at least, they stood together in the sorrow of loss. They shared a loving memory of the man who was gathered to his people, "the friend of God."
Kelly finds the same scene later in the family, and draws a rule from it.
Esau and Jacob came to bury their aged father, just as Isaac and Ishmael had buried theirs. Death has a powerful and subduing voice for the heart of man, even where faith is absent. It was not for believers to keep their close relatives away from the grave. They were to welcome them there instead. Many a self-seeking and proud soul has bowed there under the solemn issues of salvation on the one hand and judgment on the other.
Willis weighs what Ishmael had to swallow to stand at that grave.
Ishmael was very likely jealous of the little boy who, instead of him, had become "heir of all things"; it would have been almost unnatural if he had not been. Remembering this, it is a real pleasure to find Ishmael with Isaac burying his father (Gen. 25:9). Surely we may see that God was working in his heart.
The verse names the man Abraham bought the field from. Kelly says that purchase settles what Abraham owned in Canaan.
God's gift is absolute and still future. Buying a burial place from the Hittite confirms this; it does not weaken it or cut into it. For who would think of buying land he already owned? There Abraham lays his dead in land so clearly not his own that he has to buy it. The purchase is the pledge to faith that he will have the land one day… "By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise" (Heb. 11:9).
Burial in Canaan looked forward, not only back.
Abraham was buried with Sarah in the cave he had bought from Ephron (Gen. 23:19-20). The circumstances then pointed to the promise of Sarah's future resurrection. It was the same with Abraham. He believed with all his heart that God was able to raise the dead (Rom. 4:17-21).
His family did the same after him.
In the faith of God's promise he was careful to lay Sarah's body to rest in the Promised Land… Later, in the same faith, the sons of Isaac bury their father at Hebron, in the land of Canaan (Gen. 35:27-29). Jacob dies in Egypt, yet in due time his sons too bury him in faith in the land of Canaan, in the cave of Machpelah (Gen. 50:13).
With the burial, one chapter of the account closes and another opens.
Then the great holder of all promise passes off the scene, however that promise was to be worked out and developed. The account closes as to both flesh and spirit — Isaac and Ishmael bury him. We begin again quite fresh with Isaac, the resurrection heir, walking the path of faith or unbelief (as Abraham did) under that principle. Isaac now takes up the place of blessing and the subject of testimony.
- Grave — One death brings both sons back to the same spot. Deep differences before God did not stop shared sorrow for a father.
- Gathering — Do not shut unbelieving relatives out of a funeral. Death speaks to hard hearts, and Ishmael's coming suggests God was at work in his.
- Ground — Abraham had to buy the field, so he did not yet own the land. That purchase is a pledge that God's gift is still ahead.
- Guarantee — Burial in Canaan was faith speaking. Abraham believed God could raise the dead. Isaac's sons and Jacob's sons buried their fathers there for the same reason.
- Going on — With Abraham buried, the account starts fresh with Isaac. He now carries the blessing and the testimony.
the field that Abraham had purchased of the sons of Heth there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.
Genesis 25:10 closes Abraham's life with the one patch of earth he ever owned — a burial plot he bought from a Hittite neighbour. Why does Scripture record the sale so carefully, and why did Abraham care so much where his body lay?
Abraham lived in Canaan as a guest. The only ground he ever owned there became his grave.
When he reached this land of promise, what did he find there? Nothing he could touch, nothing he owned himself. He did not have so much as a foot of land he could call his own. It is very telling that the only part he ever owned was a tomb, a burial place. It reminded him that in life he had nothing. It also looked forward to a resurrection. His faith laid hold of the God of resurrection, and held that his descendants would have the very land he stood in. He would leave his bones there as the witness that he claimed it for his descendants.
Choosing a family grave can be pure sentiment. Kelly says Abraham's choice was not.
Burial in the land began with Sarah. In Abraham it was no mere feeling or fancy, sentiment or superstition, but a fruit of faith. He expected to receive from God's hand the land where he laid her body. The gift of Canaan was far surer than owning a burial place in the meantime.
Buying the cave said something about how Abraham saw death.
I believe that in buying Machpelah as a burial place, Abraham was expressing his faith in resurrection. "He stood up from before his dead." Faith cannot keep death in view for long. It has a higher object — blessed be the "living God" who has given it. Resurrection is what always fills the sight of faith. In its power, faith can rise up from before the dead… Death is the boundary of Satan's power, but where Satan ends, God begins.
What was true when Abraham buried Sarah held when his sons buried him beside her.
Abraham was buried with Sarah in the cave he had bought from Ephron. The circumstances then pointed to the promise of Sarah's future resurrection. It was the same with Abraham, who fully believed that God was able to raise the dead.
The verse stresses that Abraham bought the field. The people of the land had offered it as a gift, and he refused.
The kindness of the world would press upon Abraham a burying place as a gift. True to his pilgrim character, he refuses to take the place of a prince who receives gifts. He is content to be the stranger who pays for what he needs. He refused to use the praise of the world to exalt himself, and he will not let the kindness of the world move him off the path of a stranger. As he had refused the gifts of the king of Sodom before, so now he declines the gifts of the Hittites.
Isaac and Ishmael — the son of promise and the son sent away — stood together at the grave.
The son of the slave woman was in no way forbidden to honour his parent in this way. He had to be cast out, and he was cast out, in the presence of the child of promise. Yet family ties have their place. The son of the free woman does not dispute this, but is gracious. Before God the feelings of the two may have been as different as spirit and flesh, the two things that marked them out. But there at least, around the grave, they were together in the sorrow of loss, and in loving memory of him who was gathered to his people, "the friend of God."
Abraham's hope held to one field. Kelly contrasts the Christian hope, which needs no resting place on earth.
The hope of Christ's coming forms a very different feeling in the Christian. A special resting-place here below vanishes from a mind shaped and fed in this way. We do not look for death, though we may fall asleep in the meantime. We look for Him who is the Resurrection and the Life. He will change us, whether we are awake or asleep, into His glorious image.
- Stranger. Abraham never owned a foot of Canaan while he lived. A tomb was his only holding, and it proved he had nothing here.
- Bought. He turned down the field as a gift and paid for it. Not even his grave left him in debt to the people around him.
- Promise. Burying in that land was no sentiment but faith's claim on ground God had already given by word.
- Resurrection. Faith does not stay bent over the dead. The bought grave expected the God who raises the dead to give the land yet.
- Reunion. Two estranged sons met at that graveside, and the man laid there is remembered as the friend of God.
And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac. And Isaac dwelt at Beer-lahai-roi.
Abraham is dead, and the promise now rests on his son Isaac. Scripture records only two things here: the blessing he receives, and the place he chooses to live.
Abraham's death is not a break in God's purpose but a handover:
Then the great holder of all promise passes off the scene, whatever its fulfilment and development. It closes as to both flesh and spirit — Isaac and Ishmael bury him. We begin again quite fresh with Isaac, the resurrection heir, and the path of faith or unbelief (as it was with Abraham) under that principle. Isaac now takes up the place of blessing and the subject of testimony.
Abraham had other descendants. Isaac's blessing is of a different kind:
Isaac is now the only one left of those who shared the same promise before him. He has this marked distinction — God blessing him. That is a precious reality in a world under curse through sin. And this is not the general form of blessing extended to those who sprang from Abraham. It is his as the heir.
The place where Isaac settles already had a history, and its name records it:
This means "well of the living and seeing one." A well situated between Kadesh and Bered, "in the way to Shur," so in the south. Hagar fled from Sarai, and here the angel of the Lord met her. Her cry then, "You are a God of seeing," gave the well its name.
Hagar was a servant who had run away. The heir of the promise settles at the very spot where God met her.
How different the path that awaited Ishmael and Isaac! Here the Lord heard Hagar's distress; here God blessed Isaac, already blessed on a still higher plane and with better blessings in hope.
Isaac's home was a tent beside a well. That pairing carries a lesson:
A well was a natural and fitting companion for the tent of a pilgrim. Water is the first necessity for keeping life going. So for us is the "living water" — the Spirit acting through the Word.
The same writer will not let the Word and the Spirit come apart:
Where do you find the Spirit without the water, without the Word? Nowhere! The Word is the direct instrument of the Spirit… The Spirit without the Word is mere fanaticism. In fact there is no such thing. The Word without the Spirit is mere rationalism. It is as empty and useless as it can be. The living water is God's thought for us — the living water, such as we find in the well here.
The name of the well points to what refreshed Isaac:
Isaac takes the place of Abraham as a vessel of God's testimony, and God blesses him. He lives by Beer Lahai Roi, "the well of Him who sees me." There is true spiritual refreshment (the well) in being conscious that we live under the eye of God.
Where Isaac lived also marked what he had turned his back on:
"See to it that you do not take my son back there," was Abraham's chief instruction to his servant. Isaac must not return to the country his father had been called out of. So at his father's death we find him living by the well Lahai-roi. It is the well of Him who lives and sees me — the secret of the presence of God.
This chapter says two plain things about Isaac, and one writer traces both to Christ:
In the beginning of Genesis 25 we read, "Abraham gave all he had to Isaac," and "God blessed Isaac his son." These are very simple statements. But how important they are as pictures, and how far-reaching in their spiritual meaning! They suggest that all blessing and every promise is made good in Him who is the true Isaac. He is the One now out of death. He waits for the Spirit's mission to be finished — the forming of the bride, according to the Father's counsels.
- Death, then blessing. Abraham passes off the scene. The account begins fresh with Isaac, the resurrection heir, who takes up the place of blessing and testimony.
- Blessed as heir. Abraham had other descendants. Isaac receives God's blessing itself — not the general form, but the heir's portion in a world under curse.
- A well with a name. Beer-lahai-roi means the well of the living and seeing One, named by Hagar when God met her in her distress.
- A well to live by. Water keeps a pilgrim alive. For us the living water is the Spirit acting through the Word. The Spirit without the Word is fanaticism; the Word without the Spirit is rationalism.
- The true Isaac. Isaac never goes back to the old country; he stays under the eye of God. And all he pictures is made good in Christ, the true Isaac, who is now out of death.
And these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's bondwoman, bore to Abraham.
Genesis 25:12 opens a short record of its own. Eight verses list the sons of Abraham's first son. Then Scripture turns to Isaac. The wording is careful. It calls Ishmael Abraham's son, but it also names his mother as the Egyptian servant. Commentators find the whole point of the passage in that double description.
The verse begins a new section in Genesis. One writer points out a pattern in the order these family lines come in.
What we may call the rejected line is always mentioned first; then the accepted line. Adam before Noah. The sons of Noah before Shem. Ishmael before Isaac. Esau before Jacob. So from the very start we see what the New Testament makes so clear. Hebrews 10:9 states it plainly: "He does away with the first in order to establish the second."
Another writer traces the same order to a rule the apostle states.
In Scripture the Holy Spirit notices family connection by the well known principle the apostle states (1 Cor. 15:46): it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural. We have already had the family that came from Keturah, and Isaac in his own distinct place. So now we have the sons of Ishmael before the line of promise.
The verse also names the mother and her position. The word it uses of her has a range of meaning.
These words often refer in Scripture to a female slave, as applied to Hagar the Egyptian, Gen. 25:12; but they were also used by women themselves as a term of humility, as when Hannah spoke to Jehovah and to Eli, 1 Sam. 1:11, 16, 18; and by Mary and Elizabeth as handmaids of the Lord. Luke 1:38, 48.
This genealogy became an argument in the New Testament. If physical descent from Abraham were the ground of blessing, this list would prove too much.
The apostle appeals first to the history of Abraham. If the Jew insists on natural descent, he must let the Arabians into blessing too. They also came from Abraham, through Ishmael (Gen. 25:12-18). Natural descent is then shut out. With Isaac we see the blessing secured on the principle of sovereign electing grace. The word is, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." Ishmael was the child of flesh, but Isaac was the child of promise.
The names that follow are not filler. God had already told Abraham what would come of this son.
The flesh gets its privileges quickly. Jehovah's angel had already prepared Hagar to expect this: "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude." God spoke more exactly still in Genesis 17. What He said there was an immediate fact and the pledge of all that would follow: "As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him and make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation." So it was now.
That blessing was real, but of one kind only. God answered what Abraham asked for this son on the level of nature, not covenant.
The covenant of promise was to run in the line of Isaac, yet God answered the request about Ishmael and promised to bless him in natural things, making him a great nation under twelve princes. The fulfilment of this is recorded in Genesis 25:12-16.
A list of desert chieftains may look like the least spiritual page in Genesis. One writer says it shows something many readers miss.
Scripture shows us the government of God in providence, outside His covenant. It shows this in the same books that reveal the dealings of His electing grace. Nor are the Jews the only ones prone to overlook it. … No more vivid sketch was ever drawn than the one given of Ishmael's descendants in these words: "Who has let the wild donkey go free? … to whom I have given the arid plain for his home and the salt land for his dwelling place. He scorns the tumult of the city; he hears not the shouts of the driver" (Job 39:5-8). Such exactly are the Bedouins.
One writer reads Ishmael through the picture drawn in Galatians.
Being the son of a slave woman, Ishmael pictures those under the bondage of law (Gal. 4:22-25), wild and rebellious. Living in the desert, he reminds us that the law is not a fruitful way to live. It is barren and produces no fruit for God. Yet he has many descendants, and this is true spiritually today also. Many prefer the bondage of law to the liberty of the pure grace of God.
- Order. Scripture writes the rejected line first and the chosen line second — Ishmael before Isaac, Esau before Jacob. God removes the first to establish the second.
- Origin. The verse names the mother as the Egyptian servant. Scripture uses that word of a female slave. Birth fixed this son's standing.
- Gift. God promised twelve princes and a great nation. This list is the proof — real blessing, but in natural things, not the covenant.
- Reach. The same books that show electing grace also record how God governs outside the covenant. A desert genealogy is still His word.
- Result. Descent from Abraham secures nothing, or the Arabian tribes would inherit too. Blessing runs through promise. Yet a barren, law-bound line still draws many.
And these are the names of the sons of Ishmael by their names according to their generations Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael; and Kedar, and Adbeel, and Mibsam,
These names are the roll-call of a promise: God had said Ishmael would father twelve princes, and here they stand in order. So why does Scripture pause over this line at all, and what became of Nebaioth, Kedar and the rest?
Ishmael's line comes first, before the line of promise. That order follows a pattern found right through the Bible.
In Scripture the Holy Spirit notes family connection by the well-known principle the apostle states in 1 Corinthians 15:46: not the spiritual first, but the natural. We have already had the children born to Keturah, and Isaac in his own distinct place. Now we have the sons of Ishmael before the line of promise.
Years earlier God had answered Abraham about Ishmael with a number. This list is that answer arriving.
Flesh gets its privileges quickly. Here was the start of what the angel of the Lord prepared Hagar to expect: "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude." … But God spoke more exactly still. In Genesis 17 He said, as an immediate fact and the pledge of all that would follow, "As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation" (v. 20). So it was now. They stand here in their order. Later, in Genesis 28:9, we read of Ishmael's daughter Mahalath, Nebaioth's sister, whom Esau took as a wife, besides his wives from Canaan.
Kedar, the second son, turns up again and again in later Scripture. What we read there shows the life this family led.
Kedar was a son of Ishmael. He founded an important tribe living in the north-west of Arabia, though the name probably also stands for Arabs in general. Genesis 25:13; 1 Chronicles 1:29. The Psalmist longed for peace, for he had been living in the tents of Kedar, among those who "hated peace." Psalm 120:5-6. The bride in Song of Songs 1:5 was dark, like the black tents of Kedar. The references to lambs, rams, goats, flocks, camels, tents and tent-curtains show a wandering people, though Scripture also mentions their "villages."
A genealogy of an excluded line raises the question of why God bothers with it at all. One answer given is that His rule over nations is as real as His electing grace, and just as reliable.
Scripture shows us plainly how God governs the world in providence, outside His covenant. It does so in the same books that reveal the dealings of His electing grace. And it is not only the Jews who tend to overlook it. Unbelief rises up against God in this as in everything else. Yet His Word stays worthy of all trust, whatever it applies to. … No sober Christian supposes a perpetual miracle in Ishmael's case. But what God said of that race is as sure as what He said of Israel — or of Babylon, Medo-Persia, the Greek power, or Rome.
Ishmael's line ends in twelve princes, and Israel has twelve tribes. One writer draws out what that likeness means for Israel's future.
Verses 12-16 give Ishmael's family line. As we saw in verses 1-4, God does not forget the Gentile nations because of His interest in the church (Rebekah). Now Ishmael's line tells us God does not forget Israel either, for Ishmael pictures Israel under law (Galatians 4:22-25). That nation is yet to receive blessing from God in His own time. Verse 16 mentions twelve princes, a reminder of Israel's twelve tribes.
Nebaioth and Kedar, the first two names here, appear again in a prophecy of Israel's coming glory. The list is not only a record of the past.
The names we find here can be traced in other Scriptures. For instance, Isaiah 60 is the great chapter of the millennial kingdom, and it names Nebaioth and Kedar (verse 7). The number twelve, twelve princes, links Ishmael closely with Israel. In the future God will bless Israel and give him the promised land as his glorious possession. Then the descendants of Ishmael will not be forgotten.
- Order — the natural line comes first, then the line of promise. Scripture keeps that order everywhere.
- Promise — God had said twelve princes. Here are twelve sons, counted out by name.
- Reach — Kedar's line became a wandering tribe of north-west Arabia, with tents and flocks. The Psalms, the Song of Songs and Isaiah still name them.
- Government — the same books that show His electing grace also show God ruling nations outside His covenant. His word about Ishmael's race is as sure as His word about Israel or Rome.
- Future — twelve princes echo Israel's twelve tribes. Nebaioth and Kedar appear again in Isaiah 60, so this line is not forgotten in the day of blessing.
and Mishma, and Dumah, and Massa,
Genesis 25:14 sits inside a short family list: the twelve sons of Ishmael, Abraham's son by Hagar. God had promised these twelve, and here they are, named one by one. Mishma, Dumah and Massa are three names most readers pass over. Yet Scripture keeps them on record, and one of them turns up again centuries later in a prophecy.
God made a specific promise about this son. This list of twelve names is that promise kept.
Ishmael was to be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he would live in the presence of all his brothers (Genesis 16:10-12). Anyone can check this: it has been fulfilled exactly, from the beginning until now. But God had said something still more exact in Genesis 17. It was an immediate fact, and the pledge of all that would follow: "As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation." So it was now.
The number twelve is not a small detail here.
The names we find here may be traced in other Scriptures. For instance in Isaiah 60, the great chapter of the millennial kingdom, we have Nebaioth and Kedar mentioned (verse 7). The number twelve, twelve princes, links Ishmael closely with Israel. In the future God will bless Israel and give him the promised land as his glorious possession. Then the descendants of Ishmael will not be forgotten.
Dumah appears again in Isaiah 21 as the title of a prophecy. This family list is what tells us who he was.
The burden of Dumah is compressed into very few words. He was, as Genesis 25:14 shows, of the stock of Ishmael, and Seir was a dwelling-place of the sons of Esau. These "burdens" on the various peoples were bringing upon them a "night" of divine displeasure. What lay ahead of them? A morning was surely coming, but a night was coming also. The morning will be for those who fear God and are subject to Him: the night for those who are His foes.
Dumah answers the warning with mockery. One writer hears the same voice today.
In Isaiah 21:11-12 we see God's attitude to a people who mocked the message of coming judgment. Ishmael is found to be a mocker in Genesis 21:9. When God's warning came to Dumah, his reply was to pour scorn on it. In mockery he said, "Watchman, what time of the night? Watchman, what time of the night?" It was as much as to say: we have heard about the coming judgment for a long time now, and it still has not come. What have you to say about it now? In the Old Testament, Dumah stood for the people Peter writes about in the New Testament: "scoffers will come in the last days… They will say, 'Where is the promise of His coming?'" For such people the delay hardens their unbelief. Yet the delay is God's mercy, giving them time to repent.
Two ways of living stand side by side here, and only one of them looks impressive.
His twelve sons were princes, and each one headed a leading Arab tribe. They show us what the "religious world" was in those far-off ages. Isaac and the true descendants of Abraham were living in tents, while these grand lords had their towns and castles.
Scripture gives this whole family only eight verses.
Ishmael represents the rejected line. His generations come first, and very briefly, because the generations of Isaac start with verse 19. His years were 137, and his sons became princes of some renown, since some of their names became notable and occur again in Scripture. Yet eight verses are enough for his story. He is a picture of the first man, who must be removed to make room for the Second.
Commentators differ on what Ishmael pictures — one reads him as the religious world, another as the nation of Israel held under law.
Ishmael's genealogy tells us God does not forget Israel either, for Ishmael is a picture of Israel under law (Galatians 4:22-25)… Ishmael both lived and died in the presence of his brothers (v. 18). Such is the legal principle. Legality lives before the eyes of others; faith lives in the presence of God.
- Promise. God promised Ishmael twelve princes before any of them were born. This list counts that promise out, name by name.
- Record. God keeps a record of the line He did not choose. It is short, because the story moves on to Isaac, but it is exact.
- Reach. The twelve echo Israel's twelve tribes. Nebaioth and Kedar turn up again in Isaiah 60, where this family is still in view when Israel is blessed.
- Warning. Dumah, named in this verse, becomes the subject of a prophecy. A night is coming, and a morning too. The door to repentance still stands open.
- Contrast. Ishmael's sons had towns and castles; Isaac lived in tents. Visible greatness is not the promise. Faith lives before God, not before watching eyes.
Hadad and Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedmah.
God's word to Abraham about Ishmael ended with a number: twelve princes. These last five names complete that count. They also raise a question: why does a list of desert chiefs belong in the book of promise?
The names are not filler. They close a pledge God made when Abraham asked Him to remember Ishmael.
Flesh has its privileges quickly. Already there was the beginning of what the angel of the Lord had prepared Hagar to expect: "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude." … But God had said something still more exact in Genesis 17. It was an immediate fact and a pledge of all that would follow: "As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve chiefs, and I will make him into a great nation" (v. 20). So it was now. They are listed in their order.
(Older translations read "twelve princes" in Genesis 17:20.)
Two family records stand side by side in this chapter. The order, and the space given to each, is deliberate.
In Scripture the Holy Spirit notices family connection by the well-known principle the apostle states in 1 Corinthians 15:46: not first the spiritual, but the natural. We have already had the descendants of Keturah, and Isaac in his own distinct place. So now we have the sons of Ishmael before the line of promise.
The brevity says something too. Ishmael's sons became men of real standing, yet the account is over almost as soon as it starts.
Ishmael represents the rejected line. Scripture tells his generations first, and very briefly, because the generations of Isaac start at verse 19. His years were 137. His sons became princes of some renown, since some of their names became notable and appear again in Scripture. Yet eight verses are enough for his story, because he pictures the first man, who has to be removed so that the Second can be brought in.
These are not forgotten syllables. We can still put Tema and its neighbours on a map.
Some of the other sons of Ishmael may be more or less obscure. Dumah is not, and neither is Tema, written large and deep in the northern part of the Negd — the name the people there give to the interior highlands of Arabia.
Jetur left his name on a whole province, one that shows up again in the New Testament.
A province east of the upper Jordan. Herod Philip was made its ruler (Luke 3:1). No one can define its boundaries well, but it reached toward Damascus and included the southern slopes of Anti-Lebanon. Its name comes from JETUR, son of Ishmael. Genesis 25:15.
These names sit outside the covenant line. Kelly does not read them as outside God's reach.
Scripture shows us the government of God in providence, outside His covenant. It does so in the very books that reveal the dealings of His electing grace… No one ever drew a more vivid sketch than these words give of Ishmael's descendants: "Who has let the wild donkey go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey, to whom I have given the arid plain for his home and the salt land for his dwelling place? He scorns the tumult of the city; he hears not the shouts of the driver. He ranges the mountains as his pasture, and he searches after every green thing" (Job 39:5-8). That is exactly the Bedouin. No sober Christian imagines a perpetual miracle about Ishmael. But what God said of that race is as certain as what He said of Israel.
Two of these names return much later, as enemies of Israel's tribes east of the Jordan.
These two and a half tribes "made war with the Hagrites, Jetur, Naphish, and Nodab… for they cried out to God in the battle, and He granted their urgent plea because they trusted in Him" (vv. 19-20)… "They trusted in Him"; the God of grace owed it to His own character to answer them, however guilty they might be about the unity of the people of God. So, in spite of the ruin, grace always answers faith.
The five names close a count of twelve. That total points ahead.
The number twelve, twelve princes, links Ishmael closely with Israel. When Israel is blessed in the future and receives the promised land as a glorious possession, Ishmael's descendants will not be forgotten.
- Kept promise. The twelve names match God's pledge to Abraham: twelve princes and a great nation.
- Kept order. The natural line comes first, in eight verses. Then the line of promise begins.
- Kept on the map. Tema sits in northern Arabia, and Jetur named a province east of the Jordan. The promise landed in real places.
- Kept under God. God governs peoples outside His covenant. What He said of Ishmael's line holds as surely as what He said of Israel.
- Kept for blessing. Twelve princes echo Israel's twelve tribes. Ishmael's line is not forgotten in the blessing still to come.
These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, in their hamlets and their encampments -- twelve princes of their peoples.
Genesis 25:16 ends the short record of Ishmael's line with a list of settlements and a title: twelve princes. It raises a question that runs through Genesis. Why does Scripture stop to count the greatness of the son who was not the heir?
Long before this, God had answered Abraham's plea for Ishmael with an exact pledge. One commentator traces the wording of that pledge straight into this verse.
The flesh gets its privileges quickly. This was already the start of what the angel of the Lord had prepared Hagar to expect: "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude." The Lord listened to her affliction, and could not forget Abraham... But God had spoken more exactly still in Genesis 17. What He said there was an immediate fact and a pledge of all that would follow: "As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation" (v. 20). So it was now.
Hebrew has several words for a group of people. A study of those words picks out the one behind "tribes" here.
The two settings named — "villages" and "encampments" — are rendered elsewhere as fixed dwellings alongside movable camps:
These are Ishmael's sons, and these their names in their villages and in their encampments, twelve princes according to their peoples.
The contrast with Isaac is the point of placing this list here. Ishmael's line rises fast and visibly; the line of promise does not.
Scripture gives us his rapid growth and rise to power in a few verses. His sons, the twelve princes, were all heads of the leading Arab tribes. With their towns and castles, they show us what the "religious world" was in those far-off ages. While Isaac and the true offspring of Abraham were living in tents, these grand lords had their towns and castles.
Scripture's own order makes the same point by how little space it gives him:
As we have had reason to notice in Scripture, the Spirit records the claim of the flesh briefly, before giving us what is of grace. Not first the spiritual but the natural; the spiritual comes afterward. We have had Ishmael's generations, with their large and rapid show; now we hear of Isaac's.
Twelve princes is no small gift. Yet commentators are careful to say what this blessing is not.
But no: the child of promise and of the free woman is the one with whom God establishes His covenant, though Ishmael, for Abraham's sake, does not go without His blessing, fathers twelve princes, and becomes a great nation... So the reasonings of a saint fall to the ground, and God's will alone stands, even in blessing outside the covenant of promise. Even there no flesh shall boast in His presence.
The number is not accidental, and writers read it in two connected ways. One takes it as a pointer to Israel's own twelve tribes and to a people God has not dropped:
Ishmael's genealogy tells us that God does not forget Israel either. This is because Ishmael is a picture of Israel under law (Gal. 4:22-25). That nation is yet to receive blessing from God in His own time. Verse 16 mentions twelve princes, a reminder of Israel's twelve tribes.
Another traces the names forward to Isaiah 60, a prophecy of Israel's future kingdom:
We can trace the names we find here in other Scriptures. For instance, Isaiah 60 is the great chapter of the millennial kingdom, and it mentions Nebaioth and Kedar (verse 7). The number twelve, twelve princes, links Ishmael closely with Israel. One day Israel will be blessed and will receive the promised land as his glorious possession. Then the descendants of Ishmael will not be forgotten.
A list of tribes and territories can be checked. That is part of its value.
Scripture clearly shows us how God governs the world, outside His covenant, in the very same books that reveal the dealings of His electing grace... No sober Christian supposes a perpetual miracle in Ishmael's case. But what God said of that race is as sure as what He said of Israel, and no less sure than what He said of Babylon, Medo-Persia, the Greek power, or the Roman.
- Promised — The twelve princes match God's pledge in Genesis 17:20 exactly. He said "twelve," and twelve are counted here.
- Granted — The blessing is real but lies outside the covenant, given for Abraham's sake, not by covenant right.
- Quick — Towns, castles and princes come fast to Ishmael while Isaac still lives in tents. The natural comes before the spiritual.
- Brief — Scripture spends only a handful of verses on the line it sets aside, then turns to the line of promise.
- Remembered — Twelve echoes Israel's twelve tribes. Names like Nebaioth and Kedar reappear in Isaiah 60. Commentators read this as a people God will not forget.
And these are the years of the life of Ishmael a hundred and thirty-seven years; and he expired and died, and was gathered to his peoples.
Genesis 25 closes the account of Abraham's elder son with a short obituary. Two questions press. Why does Scripture stop to count the years of a man outside the line of promise? And what does it mean that he was "gathered to his people"?
It closes a paragraph that lists twelve sons, each one a prince. One commentator reads that list as the keeping of a word God spoke years earlier, first to Hagar and then to Abraham:
The flesh has its privileges quickly. The angel of the Lord had prepared Hagar to expect this: "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude." Here was the beginning of it. The Lord listened to her affliction, and He could not forget Abraham... God spoke even more exactly in Genesis 17. That word was a fact close at hand, and the pledge of all that would follow: "As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation." So it was now.
The same writer presses further. A man can stand outside the covenant God made with Isaac and still be under God's rule:
Scripture clearly shows us how God governs in providence, and outside His covenant. It shows this in the very same books that reveal the dealings of His electing grace. And it is not only the Jews who tend to overlook it. Unbelief rises up against God in this as in everything else. Yet His Word stays worthy of all trust, whatever it touches... No sensible Christian supposes an ongoing miracle in Ishmael's case. He holds rather that what God said of that race is as sure as what He said of Israel, or of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, or Rome.
Scripture records Ishmael's death before the family history of Isaac begins. That order follows a pattern found elsewhere in the Bible:
In Scripture the Holy Spirit notices family connection. He follows the well-known principle the apostle states in 1 Corinthians 15:46: not first what is spiritual, but what is natural. We have already had the descendants of Keturah, and Isaac in his own distinct place. So now we have the sons of Ishmael before the line of promise.
The phrase is rare. One writer names each person Scripture says it of:
Scripture uses the phrase "gathered to his people" of only six people: Abraham (25:8); Ishmael (verse 17); Isaac (35:29); Jacob (49:29-33); Aaron (Num. 20:24); and Moses (Deut. 32:50).
Another writer sets the phrase apart from the common words for sleep and burial. He leaves the difference open rather than settled:
Read the Scriptures without prejudice and you will see that the word "sleep" always goes with the body, never with the soul... The Old Testament often says that someone "slept with his fathers" and "was buried with his fathers". Both expressions refer to the body only, and they follow one another in natural order. The sleeping body was buried. The expression "gathered to his people" may have a larger meaning. It may suggest that the one who had departed had joined his forefathers in the unseen world.
One writer sets Ishmael's years beside his brother's, and his way of living beside the life of faith:
Ishmael then died at the age of 137 years (v. 17). His brother Isaac outlived him by 33 years (Gen. 35:28). Ishmael both lived and died in the presence of his brothers (v. 18). Such is the legal principle. Legality lives as before the eyes of others: faith lives as in the presence of God.
With this verse the rejected son leaves the story, and the heir of promise holds the ground alone. One writer sees here a picture of something still ahead:
It seems that Ishmael and his brothers picture Israel after the flesh, and it is not without meaning that twelve princes are mentioned here. Ishmael had been rejected and cast out. Now he passes from the scene, where Isaac and Israel have their place according to the promise of God. And so it will be in the coming day. Israel after the flesh, under the old covenant, will pass away. Instead, Israel under the new covenant will remain, to enter into all that God has promised.
- Promised — The twelve princes here are exactly what God told Hagar and Abraham He would give Ishmael.
- Governed — God rules and blesses outside His covenant line too. His Word about such nations is as sure as His Word about Israel.
- Ordered — Scripture puts the natural line first and the line of promise after it: not the spiritual first, but the natural.
- Gathered — Scripture says this of only six men. Sleep and burial speak of the body; this phrase may point past the grave to the unseen world.
- Passed — He lived and died before the eyes of others, not in the presence of God where faith lives. Then he leaves the scene to the heir of promise.