Ishmael's mother - Hagar [↑]
The weekly chapter "Lech Lecha" in the book of Bereshit tells how Abraham and Sarah were forced to go down to Egypt due to famine in the land of Canaan.
Sarah, distinguished by her extraordinary beauty, was taken to Pharaoh’s house, but the Almighty struck Pharaoh and his entourage with plagues, and no one could touch her (Genesis 12:14-17
). The Midrash says that Pharaoh, seeing this miracle, gave his daughter Hagar to serve Sarah, saying: “It is better to be a slave in the house of Abraham than the daughter of a king in Egypt.”
The Reason for the Emergence of True Parents
Abraham's family was the first family chosen by God to restore Adam's family, successfully laying the foundation of faith (created by Isaac and inherited by Jacob) and the foundation of substance (created by Jacob and Esau). The moment when Esau and Jacob embraced in love was the most hopeful and joyful moment for God since the fall of Adam and Eve. With this great providential victory, the foundation was finally set for the emergence of True Parents, and God could begin to unfold the providence of restoration on the substantial level, expanding His influence among the fallen people of the world.
However, True Parents could not appear at that time because Jacob's family and descendants first had to atone for Abraham's failure to sacrifice animals and birds. The period of indemnity for restoration was the 400 years that the Israelites had to spend as slaves in Egypt. Moreover, during the time of Abraham, Satan gained dominion over entire countries, while only one family was on God's side. How could one family resist entire countries?
Sarah and Hagar [↑]
Sarah did not have children for a long time, and she decided to give Abraham her maid as a wife. When Hagar became pregnant, she became arrogant towards her mistress.
Sarah tried to persuade her, but it did not help.
Then she loaded her with hard work, and because of this, Hagar lost the child she was carrying. Eventually, Hagar decided to run away to Egypt to live with her father.
On the way, she got lost in the desert.
The Almighty addressed her through the angels and ordered her to return to the house of Abraham and humble herself before Sarah.
Jacob's chosen race
When Jacob and Esau restored the relationship between Cain and Abel, they laid the foundation for the first True Parents in history. God chose the descendants of Jacob who became the 12 tribes of Israel, a people called to create a country in which the Messiah would appear. When Tamar restored the purity of Eve's womb, God chose the race of Judah to be the birthplace of the Messiah. Thus, the family of Abraham, and the line of Jacob in particular, became the starting point for expanding the boundaries of the providence of restoration from the individual to the family, the tribe, and ultimately the country ready to receive True Parents. Thus the children of Israel became the chosen people.
Conversation of angels with Hagar and the birth of Ishmael [↑]
As the Midrash explains, four angels appeared in the desert of Hagar.
The first one announced to her that she would soon become pregnant again and give birth to a son named “Ishmael”
, which means
“God will hear
,” for “God has heard your sorrow”
(Bereishit 16:11
).
The second angel predicted that Ishmael would be a peer of Adam.
- that is,
a “savage man”
who will live in the desert, hunting and plundering; He will raise his hand at everyone, and everyone will attack him back.
The third angel announced that the powerful emperor Nebuchadnezzar would come from Ishmael.
And finally, the fourth angel ordered Hagar to return to Abraham's house.
Shortly after returning, Hagar became pregnant and gave birth to a son, whom Abraham named Ishmael. Abraham gave this name to his son not because he knew about the conversation between the angels and Hagar, but because he had the gift of prophecy.
Ishmael's mockery of Isaac [↑]
Abraham paid great attention to the upbringing of Ishmael - he prayed for him (Genesis 17:18
), taught hospitality
(Genesis 18:7
).
And yet, after Sarah gave birth to the long-awaited son Isaac, Ishmael began to worship idols.
One day Sarah noticed how Ishmael was "mocking"
over two-year-old Isaac. This word, according to commentators, can mean several things: idolatry, which Ishmael taught Isaac; attempted murder (Ishmael allegedly shot Isaac with a bow as a joke) and debauchery.
Sarah demanded that Abraham drive out Ishmael and Hagar.
Abraham could not decide on this, but the Almighty told him that Sarah was right.
Substantial basis
According to the principles of creation, humans occupy a central position in creation, and all other creatures are created as objects for humans. Therefore, the Servant, created before Adam, had to obey Adam and receive God's blessings through Adam. As a result of the Fall, the Servant received unrighteous power over Adam through Eve. Because of this change of position in creation, God could not bless either Adam or the Servant. To bless them when they violated the principles of creation would be to recognize the unprincipled relationship as being in accordance with the Principle and to endow it with eternal value.
According to the principles of restoration, the relationship between Adam and the Servant must be restored to its original state, which is possible if the representative of the Servant voluntarily submits to the representative of Adam. According to the model of restoration established in Adam's family, the eldest son is chosen as the representative of the Servant, and the younger son is chosen as the representative of Adam. Once the relationship between Adam and the Servant is corrected by Cain submitting to Abel's love, a substantial foundation will be created and Cain and Abel will be able to receive God's blessing.
If Abraham himself had created the foundation of faith, then his sons, Ishmael and Isaac, would have been responsible for restoring the relationship between Cain and Abel and would have created the substantial foundation. If successful, both sons would have received God's blessing, but because of Abraham's mistake in the first sacrifice, Isaac took over from Abraham the position of the father of faith, and his two sons, Esau and Jacob, took over the position of Ishmael and Isaac (Cain and Abel) .
The exile of Hagar with Ishmael [↑]
By order of G-d, Abraham did not give Ishmael and Hagar anything with them except bread and a flask of water, although Ishmael was sick and Hagar had to carry him on her shoulder.
The Midrash says that while Hagar continued to serve the Almighty, the flask of water was never empty. But when Hagar found herself in the Beersheba desert, far from the house of Abraham, her thoughts again turned to idols. At the same moment, the blessing disappeared and the water in the flask ran dry.
Ishmael was thirsty. Hagar put it next to the bush and walked away, thinking: “May I not see my child die.”
But then Ishmael prayed to the Almighty. Hagar did the same. An angel immediately appeared and reassured her: “Don’t be afraid, Hagar. The Almighty answered Ishmael’s prayer. Arise and help your son to rise, for from him will come a great nation.”
At that same second, Hagar discovered a well, which was very close to her.
After this, they moved on and came to the Paran desert, where there were many sources of water. There they settled. Ishmael decided to feed himself by archery. Over time, he acquired the habit of robbing travelers, so that the prophecy given by the angel was completely fulfilled: “his hand is against everyone ” (Genesis 16:12
).
Wives of Ishmael [↑]
When Ishmael grew up, he married a woman from Moab. The midrash tells how Abraham went to visit Ishmael three years later.
Having traveled a long way, he found only his wife at home. - Where is your husband? - asked Abraham. “He went with his mother to collect fruit,” answered the daughter-in-law. — I'm tired and thirsty. Do you have some bread and water? - There is nothing in the house - no bread, no water. - When your husband returns home, tell him: “An old man from the land of Canaan came to visit you and noticed: the peg in your tent is not good, change it urgently.” When Ishmael returned, his wife told him about the old man. “This is my father,” said Ishmael, “and I will act according to his word.”
He divorced his wife, and Hagar found him a new wife - from Egypt.
Three years passed, and Abraham again came to visit his son, but again he found only his daughter-in-law. - Where is your husband? - he asked. — Together with his mother, he went to herd camels. “I’m hungry and tired, do you have any bread and water?” The woman gave him bread and water. “When your husband returns, tell him that the peg in his tent is now good,” said Abraham and left.
This story shows that even though Abraham himself expelled Ishmael, he continued to care about the moral well-being of his son.
Iconography
The image of Abraham is used in five iconographic storylines taken from biblical stories. On icons the righteous man is depicted as a gray-haired old man. One of the most common images is dedicated to the Old Testament Trinity. The icon depicts three angels, symbolizing the three hypostases of God, and Abraham. The basis of the plot is the appearance of the Lord to the righteous in the form of three travelers, in whom he recognized God.
Other scenes with the image of the righteous:
- son sacrifice;
- as the forefather of nations;
- with a scroll in his hands.
Early Christian icons show Abraham up to his waist or chest. In later iconography there are images depicting the two main Old Testament prophets: Moses and Abraham.
Teshuva (repentance) of Ishmael [↑]
There are several indications in the Torah that Ishmael repented and returned to a righteous lifestyle.
Thus, in the chapter “Vaera” it is reported that Ishmael, together with Abraham’s servant Eliezer, accompanied Abraham and Isaac when they went to Mount Moriah to carry out the order of the Almighty to sacrifice Isaac (“akaedat Isaac”) (see Bereshit 22: 5.19
). Participation in this mission required a high spiritual level.
Elsewhere, when the funeral of Abraham is spoken of, the first person to be mentioned who accompanied his body was Isaac (Bereishit 25:9
). As commentators point out, this is further evidence that Ishmael repented and conceded primacy to Isaac, considering him the main spiritual heir of Abraham.
Finally, mentioning that Ishmael died at the age of 137 (Bereishit 25:17
), the Torah uses the word
“passed away
,” which is done only when talking about the righteous.
Mentions of the descendants of Ishmael in the Torah [↑]
Ishmael had twelve sons who became the founders of the Arab peoples. They settled “from Havilah to Shur, which is before Egypt, on the way to Ashur” (Bereishit 25:18
) - that is, over a vast territory from Egypt to northwestern Arabia.
Esau, the son of Isaac, married Ishmael's daughter Basmat when he saw that his two wives, taken from among the Canaanite peoples, were grieving his parents (Genesis 27:46, 28:9, 36:2-3
).
In another episode we learn that the brothers sold Yosef to Ishmaelite
, heading from Gilead (on the eastern bank of the Jordan River) to Egypt with a cargo of incense
(Bereishit, 37:25
). As Rashi explains, the Almighty wanted to console the righteous Yosef: if usually the Arab caravans transported unpleasant-smelling oil and turpentine, this time they carried incense.
Although Ishmael himself did teshuva
(repented), his descendants were far from righteous. The Midrash tells of an episode that occurred after the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem. When Nebuchadnezzar led the Jews into exile, they passed by the villages of Ishmael. The prisoners began to beg the Ishmaelites to give them water, but they said: “First eat, and then we will give you something to drink,” and they brought salted meat and fish to the Jews. And when they had eaten, they brought them massive leather waterskins. Many Jews greedily leaned into these wineskins and died immediately, for the Ishmaelites filled them not with water, but with air.
Foundation of Jacob's family
Jacob's family became the center of God's providence. Jacob had 12 sons, the first ten born from three women - Leah, Leah's maid and Rachel's maid. The two youngest sons, Benjamin and Joseph, were born from Rachel. These 12 sons formed the 12 tribes of Israel - the people chosen by God to become the country that would receive the True Parents.
The spiritual, “Abelian” attitude to life was adopted from Jacob by his penultimate son Joseph. Joseph's brothers were jealous of his position as the favorite son and sold him into slavery in Egypt. There Joseph achieved prosperity and became the chief nobleman of Pharaoh. Having overcome the temptations of the fallen world of Egypt, especially the temptations of women, Joseph established himself as Abel in the second generation of Jacob's family.
When famine began in his homeland, Joseph's brothers arrived in Egypt to buy grain. Joseph recognized them and, despite the cruelty they had shown him earlier, received them with love, gave them grain and returned the money they had paid for that grain. The brothers could not understand such generosity, but when they arrived again in Egypt to buy grain, Joseph revealed himself to them. The brothers, reunited, cried with joy.
Joseph acted wisely to win over his brothers and father, much as his father had done to win the love of Esau. By giving gifts to his brothers, he showed them that he loved them, despite the harm they had caused him in the past. They, for their part, were ready to repent and ask for forgiveness for what they had done. As a result of the restoration of the relationship between Cain and Abel in Jacob's family, the personal basis for the emergence of True Parents created by Jacob reached the family level through his sons.
"Galut Ishmael" - period of Jewish exile associated with Ishmael [↑]
The Book of Daniel tells about the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar, interpreted by the seer Daniel as a vision of four kingdoms.
The king saw in a dream a huge idol, the head of which was made of gold, the upper part of the body was made of silver, the lower part was made of copper, the legs were made of iron, the feet were “partly made of iron and partly of clay” (Daniel, 2, 42
). In Malbim's commentary, the last words are interpreted as follows: the kingdom will be divided between Edom (Esau) and Ishmael - galut Edom and galut Ishmael exist simultaneously.
The book "Zohar" contains a prediction of the future of the country of Israel after the expulsion of the Jews from it. This land will be given to the descendants of Ishmael and will belong to them until the mercy of G‑d is exhausted for them as a merit for their circumcision. And they will prevent the Jews from returning to their country. The sons of Edom - the European nations - will repeatedly try to take it away from the Ishmaelites, but will not succeed (this happened, for example, during the Crusades).
Excerpt about Ishmael and Hagar in prayer for Rosh Hashanah [↑]
On Rosh Hashanah, the Almighty pronounces judgment and determines the fate of every person (and not only the Jew). By sincerely repenting and turning to the Creator in prayer, we can change the sentence for the better - no matter what spiritual level we are at.
A striking example of this is the fate of Ishmael and Hagar, who found themselves in the desert and were supposed to die, but they called on the Almighty and received help: “the Creator heard the voice of the young man (Ishmael) from the place where he is” (Genesis 21:17
).
Therefore, the sages decided to read this passage in the prayer of the first day of Rosh Hashanah.
Understanding the Abrahamic Covenant
Philosophers of modern and contemporary times are constantly struggling with the riddle of correspondence, the correct relationship between morality and religion. The history of revelation and the covenant of Abraham is in this regard extremely difficult to comprehend. After all, in it divine instructions actually conflict with the moral aspects of actions and motives. The German thinker and philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that the prophet acted unethically towards his own son, but also towards God. According to his reasoning, Abraham had to indicate to the “voice from heaven” that he would not take the life of his own son, because there was no certainty that it was God who was telling him, and there could not be.
The Dane Søren Óbut Kierkegaard (a nineteenth-century philosopher) fundamentally disagrees with Kant. He expressed a different view on this instructive and difficult story. Having followed God's instructions and intending to kill his own son, Abraham seems to step over ethics, throwing away moral torment for the sake of a higher absolute goal. He writes that there is a “highest duty to God”, in comparison with which the petty murder of a person plays no role at all. In itself, it does not affect anything, and refusal to perform it becomes disobedience. The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre shared and developed Kierkegaard's views.
In memory of Abraham, the father of modern religions
The biblical story of Abraham, as well as his sons, Ishmael and Isaac, is contradictory and multifaceted. However, people’s memory of devotion to God, for which one can receive a reward and become the “father of many nations,” preserves the prophet from ancient texts and makes him a popular character, especially in a religious environment. That’s why people of art often turn to this story, which personifies the difficult choice between one’s own and the common good, between obedience and sin, between God and the devil, fall and exaltation.
Great artists of antiquity depicted the torment of the patriarch. The seventeenth-century painter, Peter Lastman, painted several paintings on this topic: “Abraham on the Road to the Land of Canaan”, “The Expulsion of Hagar”, “Sarah Expecting the Groom”, “Abraham and the Three Angels”. All these works can be seen these days in St. Petersburg: they are exhibited in the Hermitage, and anyone can look at them. The French engraver and artist Paul Gustave Doré also turned to such subjects. His work “Three Angels Visit Abraham” is impressive and even somewhat frightening in its realism. In the ninety-fourth year of the last century, a feature film directed by Joseph Sargent called “Abraham” was released, telling the story of his life.
