Ishmael

Ishmael (meaning God hears) was Abraham's firstborn son, born of Hagar the Egyptian maidservant when Sarah was still barren (Genesis 16:1–15). The name was given by God before his birth, in response to Hagar's cry of affliction in the wilderness, and commemorates the divine hearing of human distress. Ishmael was circumcised at age thirteen when Abraham received the covenant of circumcision (Genesis 17:23–26), and for thirteen years he was Abraham's only son and presumed heir.

The birth of Isaac displaced Ishmael from the covenant inheritance, and tension between Sarah and Hagar led to Ishmael's expulsion with his mother into the wilderness of Beersheba (Genesis 21:9–21). God appeared to Hagar there and renewed his promise that Ishmael would become a great nation — a promise fulfilled in the twelve princes who descended from him (Genesis 25:12–18), generally associated with the nomadic peoples of northern Arabia. In Galatians 4:21–31 Paul reads Ishmael as an allegory of the Mosaic covenant and fleshly religion (born "according to the flesh") in contrast to Isaac as the child of the promise and type of spiritual freedom. Ishmael appears at Abraham's burial alongside Isaac (Genesis 25:9), suggesting a final reconciliation between the two lines.