[a Hebrew name meaning God hears]. In the Bible, the son of Abraham by his Egyptian concubine Hagar, and the eponym of a number of (probably) nomadic tribes living outside Palestine. Hagar in turn personifies a people found to the east of Gilead (1 Chron. v. 10) and Petra (Strabo). 1 Through the jealousy of Sarah, Abrahams wife, mother and son were driven away, and they wandered in the district south of Beersheba and Kadesh (Gen. xvi. J, xxi. E); see Abraham. It had been foretold to his mother before his birth that he should be a wild ass among men, and that he should dwell before the face of (that is, to the eastward of) his brethren. It is subsequently stated that after leaving his fathers roof he became an archer, 2 and dwelt in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt. But the genealogical relations were rather with the Edomites, Midianites and other peoples of North Arabia and the eastern desert than with Egypt proper, and this is indicated by the expressions that they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur that is east of Egypt, and he settled to the eastward of his brethren. Like Jacob, the ancestor of the Israelites, he had twelve sons (xxv. 1218, P), of which only a few have historical associations apart from the biblical records. Nebaioth and Kedar suggest the Nabataei and Cedrei of Pliny (v. 12), the first-mentioned of whom were an important Arab people after the time of Alexander. The names correspond to the Nabaitu and Kidru of the Assyrian inscriptions occupying the desert east of the Jordan and Dead Sea, whilst the Massa and Tema lay probably farther south. Dumah may perhaps be the same as the Domata of Pliny (vi. 32) and the Δούμεθα or Δουμαίθα of Ptolemy (v. 19, 7, viii. 22, 3)Sennacherib conquered a fortress of Aribi named Adumu,and Jetur is obviously the Ituraea of classical geographers. 3
Ishmael, therefore, is used in a wide sense of the wilder, roving peoples encircling Canaan from the northeast to the south, related to but on a lower rank than the sons of Isaac. It is practically identical with the term Arabia as used by the Assyrians. Nothing certain is known of the history of these mixed populations. They are represented as warlike nomads and with a certain reputation for wisdom (Baruch iii. 23). Not improbably they spoke a dialect (or dialects) akin to Arabic or Aramaic. 4 According to the Mahommedans, Ishmael, who is recognized as their ancestor, lies buried with his mother in the Kaaba in Mecca. See further, T. Nöldeke, Ency. Bib., s.v.