Abimelech, Isaac and Ishmael

Abraham now moved to Gerar in Palestine, taking Sarah with him as his sister. He used the same pretense as before, and out of fear, for he was afraid of Abimelech, the king of that country. Abimelech did indeed fall in love with Sarah himself and was ready to violate her; but he was kept from satisfying his lust by a dangerous illness that came on him from God. When his physicians had given up hope of curing him, he fell asleep and saw a dream warning him not to abuse the stranger’s wife. When he recovered, he told his friends that God had sent that disease on him as punishment for his wrong to the stranger, and to protect the chastity of his wife — for she had not traveled with him as his sister, but as his lawful wife — and that God had promised to be gracious to him from then on, once this man was assured that his wife’s chastity was safe. [a]

Having said this, on the advice of his friends he sent for Abraham, and told him not to be troubled about his wife or to fear that her chastity had been violated; God was watching over him, and it was by God’s providence that he was receiving his wife back without her suffering any abuse. He called God and the woman’s own conscience to witness, and said that he would never have wished to enjoy her in the first place had he known she was his wife. He added, “But since you led her about as your sister, I did nothing wrong.” He also begged Abraham to be at peace with him and to make God gracious to him. If he chose to stay with him, he would have everything he needed in abundance; but if he chose to leave, he would be escorted with honor and given everything he had come to him in need of. In answer Abraham told him that his claim of kinship with his wife was no lie, because she was his brother’s daughter; that he did not think himself safe traveling abroad without this kind of pretense; and that he had in no way been the cause of the king’s illness, but had been anxious for his recovery. He also said that he was ready to stay with him. Then Abimelech gave him land and money, and they made a covenant to live together without deceit, and swore an oath at a certain well called Beersheba — which may be translated “the Well of the Oath” — and the people of the country still call it so today.

A little while later Abraham had a son by Sarah, as God had foretold to him, and he named him Isaac, which means “laughter”. They called him that because Sarah smiled when God said that she would bear a son; she did not expect any such thing, being past the age of childbearing, for she was ninety years old and Abraham a hundred. So this son was born to each of them in the closing year of a decade. They circumcised him on the eighth day, and from that time the Jews have kept the custom of circumcising their sons after that number of days. But the Arabs circumcise after the thirteenth year, because Ishmael, the founder of their nation, whom the concubine bore to Abraham, was circumcised at that age. Of him I will now give a detailed and careful account. [d]

As for Sarah, at first she loved Ishmael, who was born of her own maidservant Hagar, with an affection no less than she would have had for her own son, for he was being raised to succeed to the leadership. But when she herself had borne Isaac, she did not want Ishmael brought up with him, since he was too old for him and able to do him harm once their father was dead. So she persuaded Abraham to send him and his mother away to some distant country. At first Abraham would not agree to what Sarah was so eager for, and thought it the greatest cruelty to send off a young child and a woman without the necessities of life. But at length he agreed, because God approved of what Sarah had decided. [f]

So he handed Ishmael over to his mother, since he was not yet able to walk by himself, and told her to take a skin of water and a loaf of bread and go, with Necessity for her guide. As soon as her provisions ran out she found herself in a bad way; and when the water was almost gone, she laid the young child, who was near death, under a fir tree, and went on farther, so that he might die while she was away. But a divine angel came to her and told her of a spring nearby, and told her to take care of the child and raise him, because she would be very happy through Ishmael’s survival. She took courage from the promise; and meeting some shepherds, through their care she escaped the distress she had been in.

When the boy had grown up, he married a wife who was Egyptian by birth, the country his mother herself originally came from. By this wife twelve sons were born to Ishmael: Nebaioth, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah. These lived in all the country from the Euphrates to the Red Sea, and called it Nabatene. It is from them that the Arab nation and its tribes take their names, both because of their own merit and because of the honor of Abraham. [h]