ISHMAEL 6e
ransom for their lives. The seventy corpses were then thrown into the weU, which (as in the Sepoy massacre at Cavvnpore) was within the precincts of the house, and which was completely filled with the bodies. It was the same thing that had been done by Jehu-a man in some respects a prototype of Ishmael, with the bodies of the forty-two relatives of Ahaziah (2 Kings x, 14). This done, he descended to the town, surprised and carried off the daughters of king Zedekiah, who had been sent there by Nebuchadnezzar for safety, with their eunuchs and their Chaldean guard (Jer. xli, 10, IG), and all the people of the town, and made off with his'prisouers to the country of the Ammonites. Which road he took is not quite clear; the Hebrew text and Sept. say by Gibeon, that is north ; but, Josephus, by Hebron,'round the southern end of the Dead Sea. The news of the massacre had by this time got abroad, and Ishmael was quickly pursued by .Johanan and his com- panions. Whether' north or south, they soon tracked him and his unwieldy booty, and found them reposing by some copious waters (C'^a'^ C^p). He was attack- ed, two of his bravoes slain, the whole of the prey re- covered, and Ishmael himself, with the remaining eight of his people, escaped to the Ammonites, and thence- forward passes into the obscurity from which it would have been well if he had never emerged. Johanan's foreboding was fulfilled. The result of this tragedy was an immediate panic. The small remnants of the Jewish commonwealth— the captains of the forces, the king's daughters, the two prophets Jeremiah and Ba- rucii, and all the men, women, and children — at once took tiight into Egypt (Jer. xli, 17; xliii, 5-7), and all hopes of a settlement were for the time at an end. The remembrance of the calamity was perpetuated bj' a fast — the fast of the seventh month (Zech. vii, 5; viii, 19). which is to this day strictly kept bj^ the Jews on the third of Tisri. (See Reland, A niiq. iv, 10 : Kimchi on Zech. vii, 5). The part taken by Baalis in this trans- action a]>parently brought upon his nation the denun- ciations l»oth of Jeremiah (xlix, 1-6) and the more dis- tant Ezekiel (xxv, 1-7), but we have no record to show how these pretlictions were accomplished. — Smith. See Gedaliah.
6. One of the " sons" of Pashur, who divorced his Gentile wife after the Exile (Ezra x, 22). B.C. 459. Ishmael (as a later name). See Isjiael. Ish'maelite (Heb. YMmeeW, '^hn^^-Q-O'', 1 Chron. ii, 17 ; xxviii. 3, etc., plur. D5'^j.''Gd'^, usually Anglicized '• Ishmeelites," q. v.), a descendant cf Ishmael, the son of Abraham by Hagar. Ishmaelites carried on a trafRc with Egypt (Gen. xxxvii, 25, 27 ; xxxix; 1), and lived a wandering life as nomades at the eastward of the He- brews and of Egypt as far as to the Persian Gulf and AssjTia, i. e. Babylonia (Gen. xxv, 18), which same lim- its are elsewhere assigned to the Amalekites (1 Sam. xv, 7); so also the names "Ishmaelites" and "Midianites" appear to be sometimes applied to the same people (Gen. xxxvii, 25, 27, 28 ; Judg. viii, 22, 24). In (Jen. xxv, 18, it is said, " And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is l)cf(jre Egypt, as thou goest towards Assyria: and he died in the presence of all his brethren." As Ishmael's death had already been mentioned, and as the Hebrew term bs3,««;)/<(7? — rendered '•/«' <//((/." properly he/ell — is seldom used in the Scriptures in rtference to " dying," except in cases of sudden and violent death, as when one "falls" in battle, the probability is that mi- phdl here signifies that his territory or possession,/;// to him in the presence of all his brethren, or immediately contiguous to the borders of the territories in which the various tribes descended from Abraham or Terah had settled — the Israelites, Edomites, Midianites, iVfoabites, Ammonites, etc. This interpretation is countenanced by the Sept. and Targums, which have dioelt, and by the promise in (ien. xvi, 12 (comp. the similar phraseology in Josh, xxiii, 4; Psa. xvi, G). "The twelve sons of
3 ISHPAN
Ishmael, somewhat like the twelve sons of Jacob, be- came so many heads of tribes (Gen. xxv, 13-15), which implies that in the next generation they spread them- selves pretty widely abroad. It appears (Gen. xxv, 18) that the head-quarters of the race lay in the northern parts of the Arabian peninsula ; but in process of time they would naturally stretch more inland, eastward and southward. That they also extended their journeying northwards is evident from the fact that the brethren of Joseph espied " a company of Ishmaelites coming from GiJead, with their camels bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh, to carry it down to Egypt" (Gen. xxxvii, 25). The company has aftenvards the name of IMidian- ites applied to it (ver. 28), probably on account of its consisting of more than one class of people, IMidianites also in part ; but being first called Ishmaelites, we can have no reasonable doubt that these formed a consider- able portion of the caravan partj\ The trade of inland carriers between the coimtries in the north of Africa on the one side, and those in southern and western Asia (India, Persia, Babylonia, etc.) on the other, is one in which sections of the Ishmaelitish race have been known from the remotest times to take a part. It suited their migratory and unsettled habits; and they became so noted for it, that others, who did not belong to the same race, were not unfrequently called Ishmaelites, merely because they followed the Ishmaelitic traffic and man- ners. It is impossible to say how far the descendants of Ishmael penetrated into Arabia, or acquired settle- ments in its southern and more productive regions. As it is certain the Ishmaelitish mode of life has been al- ways less practised there, and a modified civilization is of old standing, the probability is that the population in those regions has little in it of Ishmaelitish blood. But, with all their regard to genealogies, the Arabic races have for thousands of years been so transfused into each other, that all distinct landmarks are wellnigh lost. The circumstance of Mohammed having, for pru- dential reasons, claimed to be a descendant of the son of Abraham, has led to an extension of the Ishmaelitish circle far beyond what the probable facts wiU bear out" (Fairbairn). See Ishjiael, 1.