4. Although their lots were cast apart, it does not.ap- pear that any serious alitiiation existed between Ish- mael and Isaac ; for when Abraham died, Ave read that " his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah." The rival brothers then met, in the vale of Mamre, at their father's tomb (Gen. xxv, 9). B.C. 1989. (The Talmud states {Baha Bathra, 16] that prior to Abraham's death Ishmael had forsaken the no- madic mode of life.) That must have been a strange and deeply interesting scene at the burial of the great patriarch. AU his own old " trained servants," with Isaac, the peaceful shepherd chief, at their head, were assembled there ; while Ishmael, surrounded by the whole body of his wild retainers and allies, as was and still is the custom of Bedawy sheiks, stood there too. As funerals in the East take place almost immediately after death, it is evident that Ishmael must have been called from the desert to the death-bed of his father, which implies that relations of kindness and respect had been kept up, although the brevity of the sacred nar- rative prevents any special notice of this circumstance. Ishmael had, probably, long before received an endow- ment from his father's jiroiierty similar to that which had been bestowed upon the sons of Keturah (Gen. xxv, 6).
5. Of Ishmael's personal history after this event we know nothing. The sacred historian gives us a list of liis twelve sons, tells us that Esau married his daughter JMahalath, the sister of Nebajoth (xxviii, 9), and sums up the brief simple sketch in these words : " These are the years of the Ufe of Ishmael, a hundred and thirty- seven years; and he died, and was gathered to his peo- ple" (xxv, 17). B.C. 1941. Where he died, or where he was buried, we know not.
6. It has been shown, in the article Arabia, that Ishmael had no claim to the honor, which is usually as- signed to him, of being the founder of the Arabian na- tion. That nation existed before he was born. He merely joined it, and adopted its habits of life and char- acter; and the tribes which sprmig from him formed eventually an important section of the tribes o."" which
ISHMAEL
684
ISHMAEL
it was composed. (See also Hottinger, Uisf. Orient, p. 210.) At this period the Arabian desert appears to have been thinly peopled by descendants of Joktan, the son of Eber, " whose dwelling was from Mesha, as thou goest unto Sephar, a mount of the east" (Gen. x, 25-30). The Joktanites, or Bene-Kahtdn, are regarded by Arab historians as the first and most honorable progenitors of the Arab tribes (D'Herbelot, Bihlioth'eque Orienfule, s. v. Arabes). See Joktan.
Ishmael had twelve sons : Nebajoth, Kedar, Abdeel, Wib.sara, Jlishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadar, Tema, Jetur, Naiihisl), and Kedemah. To the list of them, the sa- cred historian appends (Gen.xxv, 16) an important piece of information : " These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, hy their cities (EiT^"sn, "forti- fied towns"), and their camps (Cni"':2) ; twdve. princes according to their nations" (Dn^sb). Every one of the twelve sons of Ishmael, therefore, like the children of Jacob, was the head of a tribe, and the founder of a dis- tinct colony or camp. In this respect the statements in the Bible exactly accord with the ancient traditions and histories of the Arabs themselves. Native historians divide the Arabs into two races : 1. Piire A robs, de- scendants of Joktan ; and, 2. Mixed A rahs, descendants of Ishmael. Abulfeda gives a brief account of the sev- eral tribes and nations which descended from both these original stocks {Ilistoria A nteislamica, ed. Fleischer, p. 180, 191 sq.). Some of the tribes founded hx sons of Ishmael retained the names of their founders, and were well known in history. The Nabathceans, who took pos- session of Idumaja in the 4th century B.C., and con- structed the wonderful monuments of Petra, were the posterity of Nebajoth, Ishmael's eldest son. See Naba- TU/EANS. The descendants of Jetur and Naphish dis- puted with the Israelites possession of the comitrj' east of the Jordan, and the former, described hy Strabo as KaKovgyoi iravTiQ (xvi, 2), gave their name to a small province south of Damascus, which it bears to this day. Sec Itur.ea. The black tents of Kedar were pitched in the heart of the Arabian desert, and from their abun- dant flocks they supplied the marts of TvTe (Jer. ii, 10; Isa. be, 7; Ezek. xxvii, 21). The district of Tema lay south of Edom, and is referred to by both Job and Isai- ah (.Job vi, 19 ; Isa, xxi, 14 ; Forster's Gtofjr. of A rahia, i, 292 ; Heeren"s Historical Researches, ii, io7). Dvmuh has left his name to a small province of Arabia. Since the (lays of Abraham the tents of the Ishmaelites have been studded along tlie wIkiIc eastern confines of Pales- tine, and tlicy liave been scattered over Arabia from the borders of Egypt to the Ijanks of the Euphrates. As friends and foes, as oppressors and oppressed — but ever as freemen — the seed of Ishmael have "dwelt in the presence of their bretliren."
Of this last expression various explanations have been given, but the plainest is the most iirobablc ; which is, that Ishmael and the tribes springing from him should always be located near the kindred tribes de- scended from Abraham. This was a promise of benefit in that age of migration, when Abraham himself had come from beyond the Euphrates, and was a stranger and sojourner in the land of Canaan. There was thus, in fact, a relation of some importance between this promise and the promise of the heritage of Canaan to another branch of Abraham's oifspring. It had seem- ingly some such force as this— The heritage of Canaan isi indeed destined for another son of Abraham ; but still the lot of Ishmael, and of tht)sc that spring from him, shall never be cast far apart from that of his breth- ren. Tliis view is confirmed by the circumstance that the Israelites did, in fact, occupy the country bordering on that in which the various tribes descended from Abraham or Terah had settled— the Israelites, Edom- ites, jSIidianites, Jloabites, Ammonites, etc. Most in- terpreters find in this passage a promise that the de- scendants of Ishmael should never be subdued. But we arc miable to discover this hi the text ; and, more-