The Wild Ass Man and His Posterity
Introduction: God's Left-Handed Blessings
The book of Genesis is the book of beginnings, and it is structured around a series of genealogies, the Hebrew word being toledoth. These genealogies trace the line of promise, the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent's head. We follow the line from Adam to Seth, from Seth to Noah, from Noah to Shem, and from Shem to Abraham. With Abraham, the focus narrows intensely on Isaac, the son of the promise. But the narrative of Scripture is rigorously honest, and it does not simply discard the other branches of the family tree. After the death and burial of the great patriarch Abraham, the camera pans, for a moment, to the other son, the son of the flesh, Ishmael.
At first glance, this section might seem like a dry, dusty list of unpronounceable names, a genealogical cul-de-sac. We might be tempted to skim over it to get back to the main story, back to Isaac and his family. But to do so would be to miss a profound theological lesson. There are no throwaway lines in Scripture. This genealogy of Ishmael is not just an appendix; it is a sermon on the faithfulness of God. It is a demonstration of what we might call God's left-handed blessings, the blessings of common grace that He pours out on all mankind, even on those outside the covenant of grace.
God made a series of promises to Abraham. The central promise was that through his seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. That promise runs straight through Isaac and finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. But God also made a secondary promise concerning Ishmael. He told Abraham, "Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation" (Gen. 17:20). This passage before us is the divine receipt for that promise. It is God showing us, in black and white, that He keeps His Word. He keeps every word. If God is this faithful to fulfill His promises of earthly blessing to the son of the bondwoman, how much more certain can we be that He will fulfill His promises of eternal blessing to the sons of the free woman, to those who are in Christ?
This passage, then, is a testament to God's sovereign integrity. It also sets the stage for millennia of world history. The story of the world since Abraham cannot be understood apart from the relationship between the sons of Isaac and the sons of Ishmael. And that story begins right here.
The Text
Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s servant-woman, bore to Abraham; and these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, in the order of their birth: Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael, and Kedar and Adbeel and Mibsam and Mishma and Dumah and Massa, Hadad and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. These are the sons of Ishmael and these are their names, by their villages, and by their camps; twelve princes according to their tribes. These are the years of the life of Ishmael, 137 years; and he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people. And they dwelt from Havilah to Shur which is east of Egypt as one goes toward Assyria; he settled in the face of all his brothers.
(Genesis 25:12-18 LSB)
The Son of the Flesh (v. 12)
The genealogy begins by carefully defining Ishmael's place in the story.
"Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s servant-woman, bore to Abraham;" (Genesis 25:12 LSB)
The text is precise. Ishmael is Abraham's son. There is no denying the biology. He is a true, physical descendant of the patriarch. But the rest of the verse qualifies this relationship. He is the son whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's servant-woman, bore. This immediately takes us back to the disastrous unbelief of Genesis 16. This was the human workaround, the fleshly scheme to "help" God fulfill His promise. Sarah, in her impatience, gave her Egyptian maid to her husband. This was not God's plan; it was man's plan.
The Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, uses this very event as a divine allegory in Galatians. He says that Hagar represents the covenant of the Law given on Mount Sinai, a covenant of slavery that produces children for bondage. Sarah represents the covenant of Grace, the new covenant, which produces children of freedom (Galatians 4:24-26). Ishmael is the child born "according to the flesh," while Isaac is the child born "through promise."
So, this opening verse reminds us that we are dealing with the fruit of human effort. And as we will see, God blesses this line, but the blessing is of a particular kind. It is an earthly, physical, and temporal blessing. It is the blessing that comes from being a son of Abraham according to the flesh, but it is not the blessing of being a son of Abraham according to faith.
A Promise Kept (v. 13-16)
The next verses are the direct and explicit fulfillment of God's promise from Genesis 17.
"...and these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, in the order of their birth: Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael, and Kedar and Adbeel and Mibsam and Mishma and Dumah and Massa, Hadad and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. These are the sons of Ishmael and these are their names, by their villages, and by their camps; twelve princes according to their tribes." (Genesis 25:13-16 LSB)
God had said, "He shall beget twelve princes," and here they are, listed by name. This is not mythology. These names are not allegories. These became the heads of real, historical Arab tribes that populated the ancient Near East. Kedar, for example, is mentioned repeatedly by the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah as a powerful and wealthy nomadic people. God's promise resulted in tangible, historical reality.
Notice the contrast with the line of Isaac. Ishmael produces twelve princes in one generation. They appear on the scene almost immediately, fully formed. Jacob, the son of Isaac, will also have twelve sons, and they will become the twelve tribes of Israel. But that process is filled with struggle, deceit, family strife, slavery in Egypt, and centuries of waiting. The blessings of the flesh often appear quickly and look impressive. The kingdom of man builds its towers of Babel with great speed. But the blessings of the promise, the kingdom of God, grow slowly, like a mustard seed. They are forged in the crucible of affliction and patience.
The world looks at the twelve princes of Ishmael, with their villages and camps, and is impressed. This is success. This is strength. This is the kind of blessing that makes sense. But God's economy is different. He chooses the weak things of the world to shame the strong. While Ishmael's sons are building their camps, Isaac's son Jacob is wrestling with God, getting his hip put out of joint, and limping away with a blessing that will last for eternity.
A Common End (v. 17)
Ishmael's life concludes, and his end is described in standard terms.
"These are the years of the life of Ishmael, 137 years; and he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people." (Genesis 25:17 LSB)
He lived a long life, 137 years. This, in the Old Testament economy, is a sign of blessing. God was not cruel to Ishmael. He gave him life, sons, wealth, and power. He received a full measure of common grace. The phrase "he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people" is the same formula used for Abraham (Gen. 25:8) and later for Isaac (Gen. 35:29) and Jacob (Gen. 49:33).
It signifies a natural death at the end of a full life, and a reunion with his ancestors in Sheol, the realm of the dead. He is gathered to his people. He has a people, a lineage, an inheritance. But it is a different people and a different inheritance than that of the line of promise. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were gathered to their people, but they died in faith, "looking for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Hebrews 11:10). The Bible gives us no indication that Ishmael died with this same forward-looking faith. He received his inheritance in this life.
A Prophecy Fulfilled (v. 18)
The final verse of this section describes the geographical location of Ishmael's descendants and gives us the ultimate summary of his legacy, fulfilling another prophecy.
"And they dwelt from Havilah to Shur which is east of Egypt as one goes toward Assyria; he settled in the face of all his brothers." (Genesis 25:18 LSB)
His descendants became a great people, populating the vast stretches of the Arabian peninsula. They were a force to be reckoned with. But it is the last phrase that is the most significant: "he settled in the face of all his brothers." The Hebrew here can be translated as "in the presence of," "over against," or "in defiance of."
This is a direct and intentional echo of the prophecy given to Hagar by the angel of the Lord before Ishmael was even born. "He shall be a wild ass of a man; His hand shall be against every man, And every man's hand against him. And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren" (Genesis 16:12). The legacy of Ishmael is one of blessing mixed with conflict. He is blessed with sons and land, but he lives in perpetual tension with his relatives, particularly the sons of Isaac.
This verse is not just an ancient geographical note. It is a theological foundation for all subsequent history. The friction, the rivalry, and the open conflict that has so often characterized the relationship between the Arab peoples and the nation of Israel is not a historical accident. Its roots are here, in the outworking of these two promises made to these two sons of Abraham. One son received the blessing of the flesh, which leads to pride and conflict. The other received the blessing of the promise, which is received by faith.
Conclusion: The Two Covenants
So what do we do with this genealogy? We see in it a profound illustration of the two ways to approach God: the way of the flesh and the way of the promise. The way of Ishmael is the way of human effort, of self-reliance, of building a kingdom in this world. And God, in His common grace, often allows this to prosper for a time. The world is full of Ishmaels who have their twelve princes and their earthly success.
But the way of Isaac is the way of faith. It is the way of admitting that we are as good as dead, like Abraham's body and Sarah's womb, and that our only hope is a miraculous, gracious intervention from God. It is to trust not in what we can produce, but in what God has promised.
The Apostle Paul tells us to "cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman" (Galatians 4:30). This is not a command to hate any people group. It is a command to cast out the Ishmael principle from our own hearts. It is a command to stop trying to earn our salvation through our own efforts. It is a command to cease from our own works and to rest in the finished work of the true Son of the promise, Jesus Christ.
God was faithful to Ishmael. That is the plain teaching of this text. He gave him everything He promised him. Let that fact be an anchor for your soul. For if God so carefully keeps His promises of common grace to the son of the flesh, how much more will He keep His covenant of saving grace, sealed with the blood of His own Son, for all who are the children of promise by faith in Him?