Ishi'ah (Hebrew Yishshiyuh', nvi'"', once ^Tt,^'^'!, 1 Chron.xii,6; kiit hy Jehovah), the name of several men, difl'erently Anglicized.
1. (Sept. 'Itaia, Vulg. Jeda, Author. Vers. " Ishiah.") The fifth son of Uzzi (grandson of Issachar), a valiant chieftain of his tribe (1 Chron. vii, 3). B.C. cir. 1618 ; but in ver. 2 he is apparently made nearly contemporary with David. See Uzzi.
2. (Sejjt. 'Iiffcna v. r. 'laid, 'lain ; Yulg. Jmn ,• Auth. Vers. "Jesiah," "Isshiah.") The second son of Uzziel (grandson of Levi), and father of Zechariali (1 Chron. xxiii, 20; xxiv, 25). B.C. cir. KilS; altliough the con- text seems to place this one also in the time of David.
3. (Sept. 'Ii(T(ac,Vulg. /«■««.«, Auth. Vers. "Isshiah.") The first of the sons of Rehabiah, and great-grandson of Moses (1 Chron. xxiv, 21; compare xxiii, 17; xxvi, 25, where he is called Jeshaiaii). B.C. post 1618. See Rkhabiah.
4. (Se|)t. 'lema, Vidg. Jesia, Author. Vers. " Jesiah.") A Korhite, and one of the braves that joined David at Ziklag (1 Chron. xii, G). B.C. 1055.
5. (Sept. 'l£(7(T(«,Vulg.Jos«c, Auth. Vers. "Ishijah.") One of the " sons" of Harim, who renounced liis Gentile wife after the captivity (Ezra x, 81). B.C. 459.
Ishi'jah (Ezra x, 31). See Isiiiaii, 5.
Ish'ma (Heb. Yvihma', X'SO"', iksnlation, otherwise hif/h ; Sept. 'Ifir/jrt), a descendant of Judah, apparently named (with two brothers and a sister) as a son of the founder ("father") of Etam (1 Chron. iv, 3). B.C. prob. cir. 1612.
Ish'mael (Heb. Yishmael', b'i<-J-Z-::^.hc<ird\)y God; Sept. 'laiiaijK, Joseph. 'lafuhjXoc), the name of several men.
1. Abraham's eldest son, born to him by the concu- bine Hagar (Cen. xvi, 15; xvii, 23). See Abraham; llA(iAK. It may here be remarked that the age attrib- uted to him in Gen. xxi, 14 is not inconsistent with (ien. xvii, 25 (see Tuch, Comm. p. 382). The story of his birtli, as recorded in Gen. xvi, is in every respect characteristic of Eastern life and morals in the present age. The intense desire of both Abraham and Sarah for children ; Sarah's gift of llagar to Aiiraliam as wife ; the insolence of the slave when suddenly raised to a place of importance; the jealcdisy and consequent tyr- anny of her high-spirited mistress; Hagar's flight, re- turn, and submission to Sarah— for all those incidents we could easily find parallels in the modern history of every tribe in the desert of Arabia. The origin of the name Ishmael is thus explained. Wlien Hagar Hed from Sarah, the angel of the Lord found her l)y a foun- tain of water in the wilderness in the wav of Shur . . . and ho said, " Behold, thou art with cliild.'and shall bear
a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael (' God hears'), because the Lord hath heard thy affliction" (Gen. xvi, 11). Hagar had evidently intended, when she fled, to return to her native countrj'. But when the angal told her of the dignity in store for her as a mother, and the power to which her child, as the son of the great patri- arch, would attain, she resolved to obey his voice, and to submit herself to Sarah (xvi, 10-13).
1. Ishmael was born at Mamre, in the eighty-sixth year of Abraham's age, eleven years after his arrival in Canaan, and fourteen before the birth of Isaac (xvi, 3, 16 ; xxi, 5). B.C. 2078. No particidars of his early life are recorded, except his circumcision when thirteen years of age (xvii, 25). B.C. 2065. His father was evi- dently strongly attached to him ; for when an heir was promised through Sarah, he said, "Oh that Ishmael might live before thee !" (xvii. 18). Then were renewed to Abraham in more definite terms the promises made to Hagar regarding Ishmael: "As for Ishmael, I have heard thee; behold. I have lilessed him, and will make him fruitfid, and will multiply liim exceedingly: twelve princes shall he beget : and I will make him a great na- tion" (ver. 20). Before this time Abraham seems to have regarded his first-born child as the heir of the promise, his belief in which was counted unto him for righteousness (xv, 6) ; and although that faith shone yet more brightly after his passing weakness when Isaac was first promised, his love for Ishmael is recorded in the narrative of Sarah's expulsion of the latter: "And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight be- cause of his son" (xxi, 11).
Ishmael seems to have remained in a great measure under the charge of his mother, who, knowing his des- tiny, would doubtless have him trained in such exer- cises as would fit him for successfully acting the part of a desert prince. Indulged in every whim and wish by a fond father, encouraged to darmg and adventure by the hardy nomads who fed and defended his father's flocks, and having a fitting field on that southem bor- der-land for the play of his natural propensities, Ishmael grew up a true child of the desert — a wild and wayward boy. The perfect freedom of desert life, and his con- stant intercourse with those who looked up to him with mingled feelings of pride and affection as the son and heir-apparent of their great chief, tended to make him impatient of restraint, and overbearing in his tcmi)£r. The excitement of the chase— speeding across the plains of Beersheba after the gazelles, and through the luggcd mountains of Engedi after wild goats, and bears, and leopards, inured him to danger, and trained him for war. Ishmael must also have been accustomed from child- hood to those feuds which raged almost incessantly be- tween the " trained ser^'ants" of Abraham and their war- like neighbors of Philistia, as well as to the more seri- ous incursions of roving bands of freebooters from the distant East. Such was the school in which the great desert chief was trained. Subsequent events served to fill up and fashion the remaining features of Ishmael's character. He had evidently been treated by Abra- ham's dependents as their master's heir, and Abraham himself had apparently encouraged the belief. The un- expected birth of Isaac, therefore, must have been to him a sad and bitter disappointment. And when he was af- terwards driven forth, with his poor mother, a homeless wanderer in a pathless wilderness ; when, in consequence of such unnatural harshness, he was brought to the very brink of the grave, and was only saved from a painful death by a miracle ; when, after having been reared in luxury, and taught to look forvvard to the possession of wealth and iiower, he was suddenlj^ left to win a scanty and uncertain subsistence by his sword and bow — we need scarcely wonder that his proud .spirit, revolting against injustice and cruelty, should make him what the angel had predicted, "a wild-ass man; his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him" (xvi, 32).