Beersheba (the Well of Seven or the Well of Zamzam) |
Beersheba (the Well of Seven or the Well of Zamzam)
‘Beersheba’ has been referred to in the body of the book a number of times. It required a detailed study, which could not have been undertaken there. It is discussed in detail in this appendix. The names of persons or places and their spellings have mostly been recorded in accordance with the Bible or the source books. The scheme of the symbols of transliteration of the present work has not been applied in the quotations. Generally, the scheme of the symbols of the source of the quotations has been followed. The salient features of this Appendix are:
1) Abraham had settled his elder son, Ishmā‘el, together with his mother Hagar, at the ‘Wilderness of Beersheba’, ‘Wilderness of Pārān’, or ‘Moriah’ (Zamzam, al-Hijaz, and al-Marwah) under the command of God: and not as a result of some so called jealousy or dispute between Hagar and Sarah.
2) The event of settling Ishmā‘el and Hagar at Beersheba took place in the childhood of Ishmā‘el—when Isaac had not even been born yet—and the story of the weaning feast and the
alleged jealousy of Sarah[1] and her heinous cruelties towards Hagar are mere fables.
3) Hagar and Ishmā‘el were not cast away out of the door to wander helplessly in some wild wilderness without any guidance. Such a ruthless and inconsiderate treatment is unbecoming and inconceivable of a common gentleman rather than of a benign and benevolent Apostle of Abraham’s calibre. Abraham must himself have taken them to the destination appointed by God for their settlement, which he actually did.
4) ‘Beersheba’ is a meaningful word and means (i) ‘the Well of Seven’ and (ii) ‘the Well of an Oath’
5) According to the record of the Bible ‘Beersheba’ can be located at more than one places. It has occurred in the Bible 34 times, but it is only once that it has been preceded by the qualifying word ‘wilderness’.
6) This singular use of the qualifying word ‘wilderness’ before ‘Beersheba’ singles out the ‘Beersheba of the Well of Seven’ from the rest of the ‘Beersheba’s’ and signifies exactly the region of Makkah.
7) In this context it denotes the well given to Hagar as a result of her seven rounds of running between the mounts of ‘al-Safā’ and ‘al-Marwah’ in search of water.
8) As such, this ‘Beersheba’ is the well of ‘Zamzam’ in Makkah.
10) The story of the Bible is a blend of various traditions and has a lot of objectionable and self-contradictory material in it. Therefore any of its statement is to be taken only after due scrutiny, and on its own merit.
The ‘wilderness of Beersheba’, where Hagar ‘wandered’ with her child, Ishmā‘el, after Abraham had left her there, is mentioned in the Bible as below (Most of the points regarding this forthcoming passage have been discussed in a pretty detail, at the spot, in the footnotes. Therefore, no detailed discussion has been undertaken regarding them in the body of the article. These footnotes should be perused side by side with the following text of the Bible.):
And the child [Isaac] grew, and was weaned[3]: and Abraham made a great feast the sameday that Isaac was weaned. And Sarah saw the son of Hagar[4] the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking[5]. Wherefore she said unto Abraham, cast out[6] this bondwoman[7] and her son[8]: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son[9] [stress added], even with Isaac.[10] And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight[11] because of his son[12]. And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad[13], and because of thy bondwoman;[14] in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a [great] nation[15], because he is thy seed[16]. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle[17] of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child to Hagar[18] and sent her away[19]: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba[20] [stress added]. And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs[21] [stress added]. And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bowshot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept. And God heard the voice of the lad[22]; and the angel of God[23] called to Hagar out of heaven[24], and said unto her,
What aileth thee, Hagar?[25] Fear not[26]; for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is[27]. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand[28]; for I will make him a great nation. And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink [stress added][29]. And God was with the lad[30]; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer. And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran[31]: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.[32]
Some important points of, or related to, this ‘wilderness of Beersheba’, are explained below:
a) To ascertain the location of the wilderness of Beersheba it is to be noted that Chapter 21 of the book of Genesis of the Bible, from which this narrative has been taken, is a mixture of the three intricately interwoven traditions (Yahwistic, Priestly, and Elohistic).[33]
b) As to the narrative reproduced above (Gen. 21:8-21), it is solely an Elohist Version.[34] This is mainly a narrative of the story of Hagar and Ishmā‘el and ends with v.21. From v.22 to the end of the chapter, there is another story (regarding a treaty at certain other Beersheba [Well of Oath] between Abraham and Abimelech). It is quite a separate narrative and has nothing to do with the story of Hagar and Ishmā‘el near Beersheba (Well of Seven). Scholars differ as to whether it is Elohistic or Yahwistic.[35]
c) The word Beersheba has been used at 34 places in the Bible. It is only once in the whole of the Bible that it is preceded by the qualifying word wilderness (Gen. 21:14) and Abraham had settled Hagar and her son Ishmā‘el in it. It is for the first time that the wordBeersheba has been introduced in the Bible. At the same time it is the sole place in the whole of the Bible where the word Beersheba is related to Hagar and Ishmā‘el both. The ‘Beersheba’ related to the treaty between Abraham and Abimelech is quite a different place, hundreds of miles away from it, and having nothing to do with it.
d) ‘Wilderness’ means ‘uncultivated, barren, uneven, and mountainous land or desert’. The word has also been used in the Bible figuratively in the sense of ‘uninhabited’, though it is not its literal sense. The original Hebrew word used in the Bible for this ‘wilderness’ is ‘Midbār’. In the English Bible, the Hebrew word ‘Midbār’ has been translated either with the word ‘wilderness’ or with ‘desert’. The use of this word ‘Midbār’ in the Bible in the sense of ‘uncultivated and uninhabited place’is obvious from: ‘Yet the defenced city shall be desolate[36], and left like a wilderness [in Hebrew ‘midbār’]’.[37] It has also been applied to convey other senses or implications in the Bible. Stanley A. Cook explains in Enc. Biblica:
The English word ‘desert’ ordinarily means a sterile sandy plain without vegetation and water–a ‘sea of sand’ such as, e.g., parts of the Sahara. This is not the meaning of the Hebrew word. No desert of this kind was known to Israel either before or after the occupation of Canaan. (…) midbār; AV ‘desert,’ RV ‘wilderness’; (…). It is commonly employed to denote the wilderness of wanderings, which itself is a mountainous region, (…). The most prominent is that which was the scene of the wandering of Israel. It is commonly called ham-Midbār; (…), and with this agrees the circumstance that it is only in the later writings that the horror and lonesomeness of the ‘wilderness’ is referred to (e.g., Dt. 8:15).[38]
In the OT (according to the ‘Authorized’ and ‘Revised’ English Versions), the English word ‘wilderness’ has been used 270 times, out of which it has been used 256 times as the translation of ‘Midbār’. In the Hebrew Bible (OT), there are different words for it (e.g. ‘Midbār’, ‘Sarab’, ‘Arabah’, ‘Yasheemon’, ‘Tohoo’, ‘Kharabah’, etc.). The Heb. word ‘Midbār’, is the most commonly used word for ‘wilderness’ and ‘desert’, and has been used in the OT for 269 times (256 times in the meaning of ‘wilderness’; and 13 times in the meaning of ‘desert’). Another Hebrew word for ‘wilderness’ is ‘Arabah’, which has been used for 59 times in different meanings (e.g. 5 times in the meaning of ‘wilderness’; and 8 times in the meaning of ‘desert’, etc.). This ‘Arabah’ signifies a barren and sterile land, hence ‘Arabia’. Other Hebrew words (e.g. Tohoo, Yasheemon, etc.) have also been used for this ‘wilderness’ for a number of times. The word used here is ‘Midbār’. It has been explained by Shemaryahu Talmon, Professor, Bible Stuidies and Dean, Faculty of Humanities in the Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, in his detailed article ‘Wilderness’ in the Supplementary Volume of the Interpreter’s Dic. of Bible, according to which it refers to:
(…) arid or semiarid areas which are not suited for permanent settlement but in part can be utilized as pasture lands for small stock. (….). In the majority of occurrences, ‘wilderness’ carries negative overtones, referring to parched, inhospitable, and dangerous places. (….). No trees or other vegetation grow in this barren void, and no husbanded animals or civilized men live there. Anyone who ventures into this wilderness suffers hunger and thirst. (…). This wilderness is synonymous with utter distress, a place cut off from life. (…). The Mesopotamian, for which Arabian desert lay to the W, where the sun sets, identified the wilderness as the area which leads to the nether [in a lower place or position] world. This idea appears to be reflected in scriptures in whichmidhbar, `arabha, semama contrast with the Garden of Eden, the source of life and abundant growth[39].
W.L. Reed explains in the same Dic. of the Bible:
The translation of several different words [he has written here in Heb. script: Midbar, Yasheemon, `arabah, etc.]; often used interchangeably with ‘Desert.’ An accurate translation is difficult, because the so-called wilderness regions included arid and semiarid territory as well as sandy desert, rocky plateaus, pasture lands, and desolate mountain terrain. Such regions existed in Canaan and beyond its E and S borders.[40]
Smith’s Dic. of Bible explains:
Midbar. (…). It is most frequently used for those tracts of waste land which lie beyond the cultivated ground,[41]
Harper’s Bible Dic. explains:
Wilderness, a desolate or deserted area devoid of civilization. One Hebrew word above all others is used for ‘wilderness,’ or ‘desert,’ in the OT: midbar, indicating both ‘that which is desolate and deserted’ and ‘that which is beyond,’ i.e., beyond the limits of settlement and therefore of government control, perceived by both city dwellers and villagers as being essentially disorderly and dangerous, the home of wild beasts and savage wandering tribes. In time of war or repression refugees would flee to the midbar; (….). Midbar was for them, as ‘wilderness’ was originally in English, the wild, alarming wasteland, where men and women find themselves bewildered and disoriented.[42]
It means that the word ‘midbār’ used in the Hebrew Bible for ‘wilderness’ signifies a mountainous, sandy, desolate, inarable place, which is quite similar to the wilderness of Beersheba and Paran.
e) ‘Beersheba’[43] is a meaningful word.[44] It has literally two different meanings which are: (i) ‘a well of seven’[45]; and (ii) ‘a well of an oath or covenant’[46]. The ‘Beersheba’ related to the oath of Abraham and Abimelech, next to this story of Hagar and Ishmā‘el, which starts with v. 22 of this chapter, is ‘the well of the oath’, from which it took its name[47].
f) In this paragraph a study of the ‘Beersheba’ related to the ‘the well of the oath’ is being undertaken. Some important authorities are being quoted here to elaborate these second meanings. Hasting’s Revd. Dic. of Bible explains that it was a place:
where he [Abraham] made a covenant with Abimelech, from which the place is alleged to take its name (‘well of the covenant,’ according to one interpretation).[48]
J. Hasting’s Dic. of the Bible explains:
It (…) received its name (‘Well of the oath’) as having been the place, marked by a well, where Abraham entered into covenant with Abimelech, king of Gerar (Gn 21:31 E).[49]
According to McKenzie, it is:
about 28 mi [miles] S [South; according to Interpreter’s Dic. of Bible ‘SW’ (1:375)] of Hebron.[50]
Hebron (which is now called ‘Al-Khalīl’) lies twenty miles south (SSW) of Jerusalem[51]. This Hebron was the place where Abraham had permanently settled with his first wife Sarah; but he spent most of his own time at Beer-sheba, with his large number of flocks and herds, on his land, which was offered to him by Abimelech (Gen. 20:15); and dictionaries of the Bible have recorded the fact that it was a suitable pasture for the herds and flocks, for example Harper’s B.D. explains:
The Beer-sheba plain with its ample winter pasturage is well suited for seminomadic living; thus it served as the principal homestead of Israel’s patriarchs.[52].
F. F. Bruce asserts that it had been a green grassy valley with human settlements in it, as back as 4th millennium BC:
On both sides of the Beer-sheba valley, in the Negeb, there is evidence of human settlement going back to the Chalcolithic Age (later fourth millennium BC [Gr. Chalkos = copper + lithos + stone]). (….). The Beer-sheba valley and its neighborhood were frequented by pastoralists like Abraham because the water-table was sufficiently high to be tapped by the digging of wells.[53]
E. Hull has described its present condition in similar way in the Hasting’s Dic. of Bible:
The soil in the valleys where there is some moisture is exceedingly rich, and is rudely cultivated by the fellahin, who succeed in producing fine crops of wheat and barley. In the tracts around Beer-sheba the Bedawin find ample pasturage for their flocks and herds, which towards evening assemble in crowds around the wells as they did three thousand years ago.[54]
It was quite a different place from the ‘Wilderness of Beersheba’, where Abraham had settled Hagar and Ishmā‘el.
g) A detailed account of the ‘Wilderness of Beersheba’ which is related to Hagar and Ishmā‘el is being afforded in the next paragraph. This Beersheba of Hagar and Ishmā‘el was, in true sense of word, a ‘wilderness’: being a desolate, mountainous, sandy, sterile, uneven, and uncultivated land; whereas the ‘well of Oath’ was a beautiful valley with thick green pastures where human settlements have been traced by the archaeologists as ancient as the fourth millennium BC, and where the very Bible asserts the existence of a ‘city’ in Isaac’s times (Gen. 26:33). As such it could not have been the place where Abraham had settled Hagar and her son Ishmā‘el, which had been a Midbār, i.e., a desolate, uneven, mountainous, sandy, sterile, and uncultivated ‘wilderness’ in true sense of word.
h) The ‘Beersheba’in the first sense (the ‘well of seven,’[55]), related to Ishmā‘el and Hagar, is being dealt with in this paragraph. In the ancient times a name was given to a place due to the settlement of some tribe there or due to some remarkable event which happened there, or due to some conspicuous qualities of its location or the surroundings etc. The same is the case with both these Beer-sheba’s. Both the places, which were subsequently given the name of ‘Beer-sheba’, previously bore no particular name. So they were named due to the events that took place there. The first was called ‘Beer-sheba’ (the well of an oath or a covenant), because an oath had been carried out there between Abraham and Abīmelech. The second was given the name ‘Beer-sheba’ (the well of seven) after the seven rounds of running between al-Safā and al-Marwah (Moriah of the Bible) by Hagar as a result of which she was made to discover this ‘well of seven’ by God through His angel; and this well had been commonly called by the Arabs as ‘Zamzam’[56], hence the uncultivated and uninhabited area, surrounding this ‘Well of Seven’, was given the name of the ‘Wilderness of Beersheba’. Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islāmexplains:
Hadjar, cast off by Abraham and seeing Ishmā‘el perishing of thirst, ran in despair seven times from one hill to the other;[57]
David Kerr explains:
This [the circumambulation around the Ka’bah] is followed by running seven times between two small hills [al-Safa and al-Marwah], recalling the plight of Hagar and her son Ishmael who, in Islamic, Jewish and Christian tradition, were saved from certain death by a spring of water which God caused to break through the desert sands. This well is named in Islamic tradition as Zamzam,[58]
After a detailed study of Arabic and Biblical accounts, a summary of the event can be stated something like that:
An extraordinary event happened there. Leaving Hagar and her child Ishmā‘el in the mountainous, uncultivated, and sandy wilderness of Beer-sheba (Well of Seven) under the word of God, Abraham returned to his flocks and herds at Beersheba (Well of Oath) and his abode at Hebron. The food and water left by Abraham with her was used up in a few days. She was much perplexed and distressed. Nearby stood the hillocks of al-Safā and al-Marwah (Moriah of the Bible). She ran from one hillock to the other in search of some food or drink, or somebody to help her; but in vain. After seven rounds of running between al-Safā and al-Marwah, a well was provided there for Hagar and her son in a strange manner. So the place was given the name of ‘Beer-sheba’–‘the well of seven’. Close by stood perhaps the remnants of the Sanctuary of the Ka‘bah (or Bayt-Allah, i.e. House of Allah, which, in Hebrew, is Beth-el), on which the building was to be raised by Abraham and Ishmā‘el in the near future.
It had been an established and well-known tradition among the Arabs since remote pre-Islāmic times that while performing the Pilgrimage of Makkah, they ran (performed Sa‘y, according to the terminology of the Islāmic Pilgrimage) between the Mounts of al-Safā and al-Marwah ‘seven times’. Islām has retained this tradition, which came down from the times of Abraham, to remind the believers of Abraham’s firm faith in and his total submission to Allah, and Hagar’s trust in her Master; and to make them follow the spirit of the event. Al-Bukhārī has reported the event in detail:
Narrated Ibn ‘Abbās: ‘Ibrāhīm (Abraham) brought her and her son Ishmā‘el while she used to nurse him at her breast, to a place near the Ka’bah under a tree on the spot of Zamzam, at the highest place in the mosque. During those days there was nobody in Makkah nor was there any water. So he made them sit over there and placed near them a leather bag containing some dates, and a small water-skin containing some water, and set out homeward. Ishmā‘el’s mother followed him saying, ‘O Ibrāhīm! Where are you going, leaving us in this valley where there is no person whose company we may enjoy, nor there is anything?’ She repeated that to him many times, but he did not look back at her. Then she asked him, ‘Has Allah ordered you to do so?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘Then He will not neglect us,’[59] and returned while Ibrahim proceeded onwards, and on reaching the Thaniya where they could not see him, he faced the Ka’bah, and raising both hands, invoked Allah saying the following supplication:
O our Lord! I have made some of my offspring to dwell in an uncultivated valley, by Your Sacred House (…) so that they may give thanks. (v. 14: 37).
Ishmā‘el’s mother went on suckling Ishmā‘el and drinking from the water (she had). When the water in the water-skin had all been used up, she became [felt] thirsty and her child also became [felt] thirsty. She started looking at him (i.e., Ishmā‘el) tossing in agony. She left him, for she could not endure looking at him, and found that the mount of al-Safā was the nearest mountain to her on that land. She stood on it and started looking at the valley keenly so that she might see somebody, but she could not see anybody. Then she descended from al-Safā and when she reached the valley, she tucked up her robe and ran in the valley like a person in distress and trouble, till she crossed the valley and reached al-Marwah mountain, where she stood and started looking, expecting to see somebody, but she could not see anybody. She repeated that (running between al-Safā and al-Marwah) seven times [stress added].
Ibn ‘Abbās told: The Prophet (Pbuh) said, ‘This is the source of the tradition of Sa‘y (the [briskly] walking) of people between them (i.e., al-Safā and Al-Marwah).’
[The Prophet continued] ‘When she reached Al-Marwah (for the last time) she heard a voice and she asked herself to be quite and listened attentively. She heard the voice again and said: ‘O, (whoever you may be)! You have made me hear your voice; have you got something to help me?’ And behold! She saw an angel at the place of Zamzam, digging the earth with his heel (or his wing), till water flowed from that place. She started to make something like a basin around it, using her hands in this way, and started filling her water-skin with water with her hands, and the water was flowing out after she had scooped some of it.’
The Prophet (Pbuh) added, ‘May Allah bestow mercy on Ishmā‘el’s mother! Had she let the Zamzam (flow without trying to control it) (or had she not scooped from that water) (to fill her water skin),Zamzam would have been a stream flowing on the surface of the earth.’
The Prophet [pbuh] further added, ‘Then she drank (water) and suckled her child. The angel said to her, “Don’t be afraid of being neglected, for this is the House of Allah, which will be built by this boy and his father, and Allah never neglects His people.” The House (i.e., Ka‘bah) at that time was on a high place resembling a hillock, and when torrents came, they flowed to its right and left. She lived in that way till some people from the tribe of Jurham or a family from Jurham passed by her and her child, as they (i.e., the Jurham people) were coming through the way of Kada, they landed in the lower part of Makkah where they saw a bird that had the habit of flying around water and not leaving it. They said, “This bird must be flying around water, though we know that there is no water in this valley.” They sent one or two messengers who discovered the source of water, and returned to inform them of the water. So they all came (towards the water).’
The Prophet (Pbuh) added: ‘Ishmā‘el’s mother was sitting near the water. They asked her, “Do you allow us to stay with you?” She replied, “Yes, but you will have no right to possess the water.” They agreed to that.’
The Prophet (Pbuh) further said, ‘Ishmā‘el’s mother was pleased with the whole situation (…). So, they settled there, and later on they sent for their families who came and settled with them so that some families became permanent residents there. The child (i.e., Ishmā‘el) grew up and learnt Arabic from them and (his virtues) caused them to love and admire him as he grew up, and when he reached the age of puberty they made him marry a woman from amongst them.’[60]
It may be appreciated by a construing mind how clear, compact, consistent, spontaneous, flawless, and logical, is the statement of the event in this tradition.
i) It has been recorded above that some well already existed, and was quite visible, at the site of the ‘Beersheba of the Well of Oath’, where the oath was carried out between Abraham and Abimelech; but it was without any name. It was named ‘Beersheba or the Well of Oath’ after the oath which was administered there between Abraham and Abimelech. Whereas prima facie there existed no well at the site of the ‘Wilderness of Beersheba of the Well of Seven’, and the well was subsequently provided there in an unusual way, after Abraham had gone away, leaving Hagar and Ishmā‘el in the ‘Wilderness of Beersheba and Paran’. It shows that the Beersheba of ‘the Well of Seven’ and the Beersheba of ‘the Well of Oath’ are quite different places.
j) There is the mention of a third ‘Beersheba’ as well in the Bible as recorded hereunder:
Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his friend and Phicol the commander of his army. Isaac said to them, ‘Why have you come here? You hate me and you sent me away.’ They answered, ‘We have seen plainly that the Lord is with you, so we thought, Let the two of us put each other to the oath and make a treaty that will bind us. We have not attacked you, we have done you nothing but good, and we let you go away peaceably. Swear that you will do us no harm, now that the Lord has blessed you.’ So Isaac gave a feast and they ate and drank. They rose early in the morning and exchanged oaths. Then Isaac bade them farewell, and they parted from him in peace. The same day Isaac’s slaves came and told him about a well that they had dug: ‘We have found water’, they said. He named the well Shibah [there is a footnote ‘x’ on it: ‘That is Oath’]. This is why the city is called Beersheba [there is a footnote y on it: ‘i.e. Well of an Oath’] to this day.[61]
According to most of the commentators and lexicographers of the Bible, the Beersheba concerning Abraham and the Beersheba concerning Isaac are one and the same place. There are others who believe they are different. There are, again, some others, who observe that it was a mere fabrication of the redactors of the Bible. Whatever the case may be, there is a special point to be noted here. Isaac did not find Hagar or any of the member of Ishmā‘el family there. Had it been the same Beersheba (Well of Seven) related to Hagar and Ishmā‘el story:
(i) It must have already existed there.
(ii) The well genuinely being the property of Hagar and Ishmā‘el, they should have been very much there.
(iii) Ishmā‘el being a hospitable person, must have entertained his younger brother Isaac there.
But to the utter disappointment of the writer and the readers, nothing of this sort had been witnessed there. The well did not exist there before this event. It was dug out there by the slaves of Isaac. There was neither Hagar nor the Ishmā‘el family on the spot to entertain Isaac. Then it was Isaac who named it the well Shibah according to the Bible. It means that it was a well that came into being through digging it out by the slaves of Isaac and it was not the well that was provided and brought to the sight of Hagar through some extra-ordinary process.
From the above data it has become quite clear that the wilderness of Beersheba mentioned in the relevant passage of the Bible relates to the uncultivated, mountainous, sandy, sterile and desolate land of Makkah and the well of Zamzam. It, in no way, has anything to do with the cultivatable Beersheba of the Well of Oath, which is near the S. boundary of Canaan, where Abraham frequented to look after his herds and flocks which he had kept there.
To recapitulate and sum up the whole of the above theme, some conspicuous points are given below:
1. There are some interpolations, additions, deletions, and alterations in the passage, which render the whole story quite doubtful. Any of its statement should, therefore, be judged on its own merit after examining it critically.
2. The story depicts Sarah as a jealous, revengeful, spiteful, and mean-spirited woman. It is quite unbecoming and unbelievable of a lady of Sarah’s calibre, and as such the whole of this episode looks to be a fabrication.
3. Hagar was the daughter of the king of Egypt and as such a princess. She was given to Abraham and Sarah to be reared up and educated and for learning noble and godly etiquette under the guidance of Abraham and Sarah, and to serve the family, as an acknowledgement of its piety and godliness. She was not a ‘bondwoman’ sold by his father, the king of Egypt. As such all the stories of Sarah’s maltreatment to Hagar are simply fabrications. Even if Hagar had been a slave-girl, it was not proper for Sarah’s grace to injure her feelings by reminding her of her inferior status and to subject her to such ill treatment.
4. When Hagar and Ishmā‘el were settled at Beersheba, Ishmā‘el was a child of very young age which is obvious from the clauses that Abraham: ‘took some bread and a skin of water and, giving them to Hagar, put the child on her shoulder’; and Hagar ‘cast the child under one of the shrubs’; and the angel of God said to Hagar, ‘lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand.’ On the other hand it occurred as a result of the ‘mocking’ of Ishmā‘el to Isaac at the time of the weaning feast of Isaac. The weaning took place when Isaac was either two years old or three. He was younger than Ishmā‘el by fourteen years. It means that Ishmā‘el was a youth of not less than sixteen or seventeen years at that time. Hagar could not have ‘put him on her shoulder’ or ‘cast him under one of the shrubs’ or 'lift up the lad, and hold him in her hand.’ All this makes quite clear that the episode of the weaning feast, in its present form, is inconsistent and incredible; and the noble Sarah stands exonerated of all the charges of jealousy etc., and this episode of the story is also to be rejected on merit.
5. Abraham had abandoned Hagar and Ishmā‘el in the wil-derness of Beersheba to be settled there under the orders of God. He should not have worried, as he was doing it under the command of God, and he had previously witnessed that God was the Sustainer of the family.
6. The word ‘Beersheba’ has been used at 34 places in the Bible. It is only in connection with both Hagar and Ishmā‘el that it has been preceded by the word ‘wilderness’. It is due to the fact that this ‘Beersheba’ is a ‘wilderness’ in true sense of word; whereas the other ‘Beersheba’ is a green and fertile place abounding in water.
7. ‘Beersheba’ is a meaningful word which means the ‘Well of Seven’; or the ‘Well of Seven Rounds of Running between the Mounts of al-Safā and al-Marwah (Moriah of the Bible)’; or the ‘Well which was given to Hagar as a result of her Seven Rounds of Running between the Mounts of al-Safā and al-Marwah’.
8. ‘Beersheba’ also means the ‘Well of Oath’, which relates to the covenant between Abraham and Abimelech, and to the covenant between Isaac and Abimelech, carried out in the SW end of Canaan. It has nothing to do with the former ‘Beersheba’ or the ‘Well of Seven [Rounds of Running between the Mounts of al-Safā and al-Marwah]’.
9. ‘Wilderness’ is the English rendering of the Hebrew word ‘Midbār’ [in Heb. character ‘מדבר’], which means: ‘sandy, barren, uneven, uncultivated, and mountainous land or desert’. These qualities are promptly relevant to the ‘Beersheba’ of the ‘Well of Seven’ i.e., Makkah and its environment. As to the ‘Beersheba’ of the ‘Well of Oath’, they cannot be applied to it.
10.‘Beersheba of the Well of Oath’, already existed at the place where the oath was carried out between Abraham and Abimelech (or, in the case of the oath between Isaac and Abimelech, it was dug out by the slaves of Isaac); Whereas no well was visible or dug out at the site of the ‘Wilderness of Beersheba of the Well of Seven’. It makes clear that the ‘Beersheba of the Well of Oath’ and the ‘Beersheba of the Well of Seven’ are quite different places. The ‘Beersheba of the Well of Seven’ is the ‘Well of Zamzam’, which was given to Hagar as a result of her running seven times between the hillocks of al-Safā and al-Marwah in search of water.
[1] Chambers Biographical Dictionary explains (p.1633):
Sarah, whose name means ‘princess’ in Hebrew, was the wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac. She accompanied Abraham from Ur to Canaan (Gen 12-23) and pretended to be Abraham’s sister before Pharaoh in Egypt and Abimelech in Gerar, since her beauty and their desire for her might have endangered Abraham’s life. Pharaoh took her as his wife, and Abraham prospered, but when the truth was revealed, Pharaoh banished them both [stress added]. Long barren, she eventually gave birth to Isaac in her old age, fulfilling God’s promise that she would be the ancestor of nations (Gen 17.16). She died at the age of 127 in Kiriath-arba.
This account of Sarah has been reproduced to show how shameful a character is depicted of the great patriarch.
[2] New Shorter Oxf. Eng. Dic., 1:325 s.v. ‘Canaan’ explains:
Ancient name of western Palestine, promised in the OT and Hebrew Scriptures to the children of Israel (Exod. 3:17 etc.)
[3] Chambers Essential English Dic., 1998, p. 1115 explains:
A mother weans her baby when she gradually stops feeding it with milk from her breast and gives it increasing amounts of other kinds of food.
R. J. Clifford and R. E. Murphy have noted in their commentary to the book of Genesis in ‘The New Jerome Bible Com.’, ed. R. E. Brown, etc, (Bangalore: T.P.I., 1994), 24:
The age of weaning was three years.
The Soncino Chumash, a Jewish Commentary to the Torah, p.103, has quoted Rabbi Shelomoh Yitschaki (1040-1105) that it took place ‘At the age of two years.’ J. Hastings Dic. of Bible., 2:277 explains:
[In Gen. 21] We are told of the birth of Isaac (vv. 1-7). On the occasion of the festival which was held perhaps two or three years later.
In its Vol. I, it has been told by H. A. White (p.301):
It was not fully weaned for two or three years.
It shows that a child was weaned at the age of two or three years. According to Gen. 16:16:
Abraham was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.
According to Gen. 21:5:
Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
It means that there is a difference of fourteen years in the ages of the two brothers; and when Isaac is said to be weaned, his elder brother, Ishm#a‘el, should have been a teenager of sixteen (14+2) or seventeen (14+3) years. Having grown up in open-air tough life and fed mainly on milk and meat, he would have been a stout, strong, and sturdy youth. But according to the forthcoming verses he looks to be a suckling baby or having just been weaned. These self-contradictory statements make the weaning feast episode incredible. The commentators of the Bible have also noted the discrepancy. Eugene H. Maly, in his commentary on the book of Genesis in The Jerome Bible Com., p. 22, notes:
From 17:25 and 21:8 we can deduce that Ishmael would be about 16 years old, which clashes with the present account (cf. vv. 14-17).
It shows that the statements of the Bible about the age of Ishmā‘el at the time of his being settled in the wilderness of Beersheba/Paran are self-contradictory. One should, therefore, judge every part of the story analytically on its own merit.
[4] This phrase explicitly signifies that Ishmā‘el was the son of Hagar, whom she had born unto Abraham, and Sarah had no right to claim him her son. Whereas it is noted:
Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. 2 So Sarai said to Abram, ‘See now, the LORD has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.’ [How queer that a lady can ‘obtain children by’ some other lady for herself!] And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai. 3 Then Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abramto be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan. (Gen. 16:1-3 NKJV). So he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. (…). And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence. [So Sarai ill-treated her and she ran away (Gen. 16:6 NEB)]. (…). And the Angel of the Lord said to her: ‘Behold, you are with child. And you shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has heard your affliction [‘ill-treatment’ (Gen. 16:11 NEB)].’ (…). So Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. (Nelson Study Bible, Gen. 16:1,3,4,6,11,15; p. 33f).
This statement does not seem to be true. As is explained in a later footnote (302) on ‘bondwoman’ of v 10, Hagar was not Sarah’s maidservant. She was a princess and was offered to Abraham by her father, the king of Egypt, to be his wife. [see Chapter II, footnote No. 19 above] Even if she was a maidservant of Sarah, she had ceased to be so when Sarah gave her to Abraham as his wife. It is a matter of natural Justice that the status of motherhood should go only to that lady, who actually gives birth to the child in question. No woman, who is not the actual mother of the child, should be allowed to usurp the motherhood of this child from the woman who physically gave birth to it. No lady, irrespective of her social status, should be allowed to exploit another lady, who happens to be poor, weak or helpless. Whosoever commits this heinous act is a cruel criminal. Had there been any such unjust local tradition contrary to this natural justice, it was not desirable and becoming of the patriarch prophet Abraham to follow it. He ought to have amended it according to the canons of divine and natural justice. A prophet of Abraham’s status is not meant to follow the prevailing inequities of the society. He is sent to root out all the inequities and establish and maintain divinely natural justice in the whole of his jurisdiction, not to say of his own family. So the above story cannot be treated as correct; and, by all canons of justice and equity, Ishma`el was the genuine and legitimate first-born son of Abraham from his legitimate wife Hagar, enjoying full rights of a first-born son. On the Biblical clause ‘Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children’ Nelson Study Bible (p. 33) remarks:
In the world of the OT, infertility caused great distress (see 25:21). At that time, the woman was always blamed. When a woman was not able to conceive a child, her husband might divorce her.
Had Abraham observed the customs of the time, he would have unjustly punished Sarah by divorcing her on the charge of infertility, for which she was not to blame according to natural justice. It shows that (i) Ishmā‘el was Abraham’s legitimate son from Hagar for all purposes; (ii) Hagar was Abraham’s legitimate wife when she gave birth to Ishmā‘el; and it can only bemala fide asserted that she did not enjoy the full status of a wife. (iii) It is baseless to claim that Ishmā‘el did not hold the full status of being Abraham’s son. As a Prophet of the Lord, Abraham was not bound to; and did not observe; and was not supposed to observe; the unjust customs of the prevailing pagan societies. It was rather mandatory for him to change all such oppressive customs.
[5] The New Jerome Bible Com., 24 here observes:
with her son Isaac: This phrase seems to have dropped out of the MT by haplography [the inadvertent writing once, of what should have been written twice (The Chambers Dic., 1995, s.v. ‘haplography’ p.762)]; the phrase is preserved by the LXX and the Vg [Vulgate, i.e. the Latin Version].
It shows a form of ‘omission’ in the text of the Bible by its redactors. Such errors are not an uncommon phenomenon in the Bible.
Another point to be noted under the word translated here as ‘mocking’ is that in Hebrew it is i.e., in Arabic characters, s+h+q = ‘sahaqa’ or ‘zahaqa’, or exactly transliterated ‘dahaka’. There does not exist the letter ‘d’in the Hebrew alphabet; and it uses the letter ‘s’in lieu of it. According to the Strong’s Dic. of Heb. Bible entry. 6711, p. 99, it means, as a prim. root:
to laugh outright (in merriment or scorn); by impl. to sport:¾ laugh, mock, play, make sport.
That’s why Gunther Plaut’s ‘The Torah, A Modern Com.’ p.139 translates it:
Sarah saw the son, whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham, playing.
Some of the other translations of the Bible have also used here the word ‘playing’ instead of ‘mocking’, e.g., New Jerusalem Bible, NOAB [it writes here ‘playing with her son Isaac’ and gives in note ‘g’ below ‘Gk Vg: Heb lacks with her son Isaac.’], The Torah MT, NAB, RSV (Catholic edn.), TEV, GNB, New Catholic Com. on Holy Scripture, Soncino Chumash [making sport], etc. The Wycliffe Bible Com., (1987), p.26, has explained the episode as follows:
It has been translated ‘mocking’, ‘sporting’, ‘playing’, and ‘making sport.’ There is no good reason here to introduce the idea of mocking. What Ishmael was doing does not matter so much as the fact that it infuriated Sarah. Perhaps she simply could not bear to see her son playing with Ishmael as with an equal. Or it may be that green-eyed [‘green-eyed’ was used by Shakespeare in Othello 3:3 to mean ‘very jealous’] jealousy took full control. Sarah may have feared that Abraham, out of love for Ishmael, would give the older lad the prominent place in the inheritance.
How grimly the character of noble Sarah has been depicted. It is quite unbecoming of the lady, who has left her homeland and her family; and who has undertaken the troublesome journeys of thousands of miles for the sake of her faith and her loyalty to her husband; and for whose protection God had done miracles: that she would treat so ruthlessly to the second wife of her husband and the mother of her husband’s son. And, moreover, that she would so indifferently injure the feelings of her godly husband at his such an old age. It is quite unbelievable and renders this part of the story as fabricated.
[6] Eugene H. Maly has noted here in the Jerome Bible Com., 22:
Ancient law ordinarily forbade the expulsion of a slave wife and her child, and no justification for it is indicated here as in 16:4; Abraham accordingly hesitates (v.11).
But the redactor of the Bible does not hesitate to smear Abraham with the innocent blood of this so-called ‘slave wife and her child’ by throwing them out of his door helplessly, possibly to fall a victim to any quite foreseeable misfortune. It means that Abraham not only violates the natural and religious duties towards his child and his wife and acts ruthlessly and inhumanely, but also disregards the prevailing ancient laws, which were genuinely good to be observed to the letter, as the may be formulated by some prohet. Can a man on earth believe it?
[7] It looks not to be true that Hagar was a maid, or a slave-girl, or a bond-woman of Sarah. She was a princess, being the daughter of the Egyptian king, who offered her to Abraham to serve him and his wife Sarah, and to be brought and reared up in a pious atmosphere. She had been purposely described by the redactors of the Bible as a slave girl, as can be appreciated from the following excerpts:
That Hagar appears as a slave-woman is a necessary consequence of the theory on which the Hebrew myth is based, the notion being that Ishma‘el was of inferior origin. (Enc. Biblica, p. 1933).
It purports that slavery was attributed to Hagar to prove Ishmā‘el inferior to Isaac. Whereas the fact is that she was an Egyptian princess; as is clear from the following quotation of the Jewish Encyclopedia:
According to the Midrash (Gen. R. xiv.), Hagar was the daughter of Pharaoh, who, seeing what great miracles God had done for Sarah’s sake (Gen. xii, 17), said: ‘It is better for Hagar to be a slave in Sarah’s house than mistress in her own.’ In this sense Hagar’s name is interpreted as ‘reward’ (‘Ha-Agar’ = ‘this is reward’). (…). Hagar is held up as an example of the high degree of godliness prevalent in Abraham’s time, (…). Her fidelity is praised, for even after Abraham sent her away she kept her marriage vow, (…). Another explanation of the same name is ‘to adorn,’ because she was adorned with piety and good deeds (l.c.). (Jewish Enc., 6:138).
H. E. Ryle has also reproduced the same opinion in his article on ‘Hagar’:
Rashi, in his commentary on 6:1, records the belief that Hagar was a daughter of Pharaoh, who, after seeing the wonders that had been done for Sarah, declared that it was better for his daughter to be a bondservant in the house of Abraham than a mistress in the palace of another. (J. Hastings, Dic. of Bible, 2:278.)
[8] The New Jerome Bible Com., here observes:
Sarah in her anger brands her rival ‘that slave woman and her son,’ not even mentioning their names (p. 24).
It depicts Sarah so spiteful a woman, as cannot be believed and the story based on it cannot be treated as credible one. The following excerpt shows what natural but shameful and unbelievable conclusions the scholars of the Bible draw from these verses. Jewish Enc. explains:
Sarah took revenge (Gen. xvi) by preventing her intercourse with Abraham, by whipping her with her slipper, and by exacting humiliating services, such as carrying her bathing-materials to the bath (l.c.); she further caused Hagar by an evil eye to miscarry, and Ishma‘el, therefore, was her second child. (Jewish Enc., 6: 138).
What an ugly fabrication! Only a devil can believe it! It shows the unbelievable mean-spiritedness of Sarah towards Hagar and her son Ishmā‘el; of which, even some learned Christian scholars are forced to blame her (see next footnote).
[9] The Collegeville Bible Com., OT, ed. Dianne Bergant, 1992, observes:
It is Sarah’s jealousy, not Hagar’s arrogance, that leads her to demand that Abraham expel the two. She fears that Isaac’s future inheritance is threatened by Ishmael’s presence in the home. (p.60).
This is obviously unjust and cannot be expected from noble Sarah. It renders the story unbelievable. Some heart-rending excerpts are afforded here from theExpositor’s Bible, which pose a serious question mark to the credibility of the story:
The act of expulsion was itself unaccountably harsh. (…). There may have been some law giving Sarah absolute power over her maid; but if any law gave her power to do what was now done, it was a thoroughly barbarous one, and she was a barbarous woman who used it. It was one of those painful cases in which one poor creature, clothed with a little brief authority, stretches it to the utmost in vindictive maltreatment of another. Sarah happened to be mistress, and, instead of using her position to make those under her happy, she used it for her own convenience, for the gratification of her own spite, and to make those beneath her conscious of her power by their suffering. (…). She breathed freely when Hagar and Ishmael were fairly out of sight. A smile of satisfied malice betrayed her bitter spirit. No thought of the sufferings to which she had committed a woman who had served her well for years, who had yielded everything to her will, and who had no other natural protector but her, no glimpses of Abraham’s saddened face, visited her with any relentings. It mattered not to her what came of the woman and the boy to whom she really owed a more loving and careful regard than to any except Abraham and Isaac. It is a story often repeated. One who has been a member of the household for many years is at last dismissed at the dictate of some petty pique [i.e. ‘a feeling of annoyance and displeasure, esp. caused by the hurting of one’s pride.’ (Longman’s Dic. of Eng. Language and Culture, 1992, p. 999)] or spite [i.e. to deliberately annoy or upset someone] as remorselessly and inhumanly as a piece of old furniture might be parted with. Some thoroughly good servant, who has made sacrifices to forward his employer’s interest, is at last, through no offence of his own, found to be in his employer’s way, and at once all old services are forgotten, all old ties broken, and the authority of the employer, legal but inhuman, is exercised. It is often those who can least defend themselves who are thus treated; no resistance is possible, and also, alas! the party is too weak to face the wilderness on which she is thrown out, and if any [i.e. any one] cares to follow her history, we may find her at the last gasp under a bush. Still, both for Abraham and for Ishmael it was better this severance should take place. (….). For Ishmael himself, too, wronged as he was in the mode of his expulsion, it was yet far better that he should go. (…). All he required to call out his latent powers was to be thrown thus on his own resources. (…). But the two fugitives are soon reminded that, though expelled from Abraham’s tents and protection, they are not expelled from his God. Ishmael finds it true that when father and mother forsake him, the Lord takes him up. At the very outset of his desert life he is made conscious that God is still his God, mindful of his wants, responsive to his cry of distress. (…). God still ‘heard the voice of the lad, and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven.’ It is this voice of God to Hagar that so speedily, and apparently once for all, lifts her out of despair to cheerful hope. It would appear as if her despair had been needless; at least from the words addressed to her, ‘What aileth thee, Hagar?’ (….). When Ishmael turned his back on the familiar tents, and flung his last gibe at Sarah, he was really setting out to a far richer inheritance, so far as this world goes, than ever fell to Isaac and his sons. [The Expositor’s Bible {a Com. in 25 Volumes}, ed. W. Robertson Nicoll (NY: A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1903), 1: 214-15, 17-19].
Of course this account of the mistreatment of a lady and the misfortunes of the other is a beautifully composed, well-worded, heart-rending piece of literature; but on the other hand, this is all unbelievable. It depicts Sarah as a cruel, jealous, short tempered, ill mannered and a mean-spirited woman; which is unbecoming to a lady for whom God had done so great miracles, and who remained extremely faithful towards her husband during all the years of his troublesome migratory journeys. It also depicts Abraham to be unjustly neglectful to his responsibilities towards his firstborn son and the mother of this son, playing in the hands of the stepmother of this boy. Thus there remains no doubt that this is unbelievable and a fabrication of some redactor. Being the noble ‘life partner’ (an eastern version of ‘wife’, as the marriage was considered as a life long bondage there) of the patriarch Abraham, Sarah must have been a generous and kind-hearted lady. Having been established that the story is quite incredible, it can be safely concluded that Ishmā‘el was not an outcast due to the jealousy of his stepmother. It was rather the design of the Lord to plant a center and a mission of monotheism in the heart of Arabia. At the same time it was a trial of the devotion of Abraham and a sort of trial and training for Hagar and Ishmā‘el to inculcate in them the trust and faith in God. God consoled Abraham that He shall not leave the child and his mother uncared-for or let them perish in the wilderness. Rather, as ‘Allen P. Ross’ puts it in ‘The Bible Knowledge Com.’, (Illinois: Victor Books, 1985), p. 63:
God assured Abraham that Ishmael would have a future because he too was Abraham’s offspring (vv. 11-13).
[10] The New Jerome Bible Com. here observes (p. 24):
The peaceful playing of the two boys stirs in Sarah deep feelings of anxiety about her own son’s inheritance, since both boys are sons of Abraham. (…), she wants Isaac alone to be the heir of the grand promises.
It is unbelievable that Sarah may be so malicious, envious, unjust, and selfish. In fact, Isaac was not even born as yet, and Sarah was still to be considered as a barren old woman. This statement of the Bible is full of inconsistencies and ambiguities.
But even in that culture it was reprehensible to send Ishmael away. When a surrogate wife had borne a son to one’s husband, that mother and child could not be dismissed even if the first wife subsequently gave birth to a son. This partly explains Abraham’s reluctance to do what Sarah demanded.
B. Vawter has also expressed similar observations in ‘A New Catholic Com. on Holy Scripture’, p. 193:
Sarai did not have the right to send Hagar away, since Ishmael was Abraham’s heir.
It further observes on p.195:
However, for a jealous mother, it sufficed to see her son together with the slave-girl’s on a position of equality for her to demand the expulsion of Hagar and her child. If the situation presupposed is that which seems to underlie ch 16, then Sarah did not have the right to drive Hagar away; see on 16:1-6. As contrary to established social custom.
How can one believe that a pious lady of Sarah’s calibre and the life partner of the great prophet, Abraham, could have committed so heinous an offence! Should anybody take it as a fact or a fable?
[12] The New Jerome Bible Com., has genuinely felt:
To Abraham, the natural father of Ishma‘el, Sarah’s ultimatum causes great pain. (p.24).
A pious and Godfearing lady cannot injure her husband’s feelings in this manner. It again weakens the credibility of the incident.
[13] It means that God appreciates the natural affectionate grievance of Abraham towards his son Ishmā‘el, and consoles him that there is no reason to be worried. When you are doing it under My command, you should rest assured that I will not forsake him to get perished. It also shows that Abraham loved his ‘firstborn’ and the ‘only son’ very much.
[14] It shows that Abraham had all the natural and due concern and regard towards Hagar. Then how could he have put her at the mercy of her ruthless rival?
[15] LXX, Vulgate, Samaritan Pentateuch, and Syriac Bible record the word ‘great’ before the word ‘nation’, which has been omitted here. It is one of the examples of the intentional alterations of the redactors of the Bible. New Jerome Bible Com. Records:
Besides, from Ishmael ‘a great (LXX, Vg, Sam, Syr) people’ will come forth. (p.24).
The wording of the New Jerusalem Bible is:
But the slave-girl’s son I shall also make into a great nation, for he too is your child. (p.40).
Some of the other translations of the Bible have also inserted the word ‘great’ with the word ‘nation’, e.g., The Wycliffe Bible Com., CEV, Knox, New Jerusalem Bible, NEB, NAB, Collegeville Bible Com., etc. The omission of ‘great’ by some redactors is to be noted.
[16] The following sentences of the Bible be carefully noted:
(…) for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a [great] nation, because he is thy seed.
What do the words ‘for in Isaac shall thy seed be called’ signify?
What the difference is between this and the next sentence, i.e.
And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a [great] nation, because he is thy seed.
If someone says that it is only Isaac in whom Abraham’s seed is to be called and not in Ishmā‘el, then it can be asked whether Ishmā‘el was not a legitimate seed of Abraham. How can two similar sentences like these signify different meanings?
[17] The Hebrew word for this ‘bottle’ is ‘chemeth’ which means ‘a skin’, as translated by New Jerusalem Bible etc. Strong’s Concise Heb. Bible Dic. (entry 2573, p.41) says: ‘a skin bottle’. While explaining the word ‘bottle’, Smith’s Dic. of Bible (p. 95) writes:
The Arabs keep their water, milk and other liquids in leathern bottles. These are made of goatskins. When the animal is killed they cut off its feet and its head, and draw it in this manner out of the skin without opening its belly.
[18] Some of the other Translations:
(i) and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child–RSV Catholic edn., 16;
(ii) gave bread and a skin bag of water. He put the child on her back–CCB, 72;
(iii) took some bread and a skin of water and, giving them to Hagar, put the child on her shoulder–New Jeru. Bible, 40;
(iv) and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, –NOAB, 26;
(v) took some bread and a skin of water, and gave them to Hagar. He placed them over her shoulder, together with the child,—The Torah (A new trans. of the Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic text, Philadelphia: 1967), p. 34.
How could it be that poor Hagar could carry the load of a bag of bread, a water-skin full of water, and, in addition to it, a boy of seventeen (If the statement of the Bible, that this incident took place after the weaning feast of Isaac, be taken as true, Ishmā‘el would have been seventeen at that time)! And how could it be that Abraham, that pious, God-fearing, hospitable, and kind-hearted old patriarch and prophet, became so cruel towards his own second wife and the mother of his firstborn son! And how could it be that the son, a young man of seventeen years’ age, instead of extending a helping hand to his kind mother, added insult to her injuries; and plunged onto her shoulder! Isn’t it all a scandal for character assassination of the pious and noble personalities of Sarah, Abraham, and Ishmā‘el? Just incredible! A footnote of The New American Bible (Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1987, p. 20) on these verses would show how freely the corrections (or corruptions) and interpolations had been made in the text of the Bible by its redactors to make it agreeable to their whims:
Placing the child on her back: the phrase is translated from an emended form of the Hebrew text. In the current faulty Hebrew text, Abraham put the bread and the waterskin on Hagar’s back, while her son apparently walked beside her. This reading seems to be a scribal attempt at harmonizing the present passage with the data of the Priestly source,[stress added] in which Ishmael would have been at least fourteen years old when Isaac was born; (…). But in the present Elohist story Ishmael is obviously a little boy, not much older than Isaac.
[19] It is quite unnatural that Abraham would have ‘cast out’ his beloved son, Ishmā‘el, and his mother, Hagar, so helplessly to wander in the wilderness on the orders of his wife, Sarah, the rival of Hagar. He was rather supposed to maintain justice between his wives, being the herald of justice and clemency from the Lord. Noble Sarah could also not have been so cruel as to ask his husband to perform such an inhumane act. In fact it was under the command of God that Abraham had accordingly planted a ‘would be’ center of monotheism in the heart of Arabia. And it was predetermined that Ishmā‘el should be brought up independently in an open and destitute atmosphere to observe of himself the protections and provisions of God: that may inculcate in him the will to surrender himself before God, even if He requires him to offer himself for sacrifice. Since Abraham had done all this under the command of God, and, of course, with His Blessings, he had not to worry about the future of the lad and his mother. God consoled Abraham that He shall not leave the child and his mother uncared-for or let them perish in the wilderness. Rather, as Allen P. Ross puts it in The Bible Knowledge Com., p. 63:
God assured Abraham that Ishmael would have a future because he too was Abraham’s offspring (vv. 11-13).
Abraham had earlier unhesitatingly plunged himself into the pyre (that otherwise was tantamount to suicide, which is not permissible in any religion or code of life) and had abandoned his homeland for his divine cause unflinchingly; and had observed great wonders of God therein. So he should not have been worried about the future of his beloved ‘only son’ and his mother when he was doing it under the unequivocal command of his Lord. It figures this part of the story as nothing more than a fable.
[20] i.e. bewildering, dreadful, desolate, barren, and mountainous land around Beer-sheba (the Well of Seven).
[21] Had Ishmā‘el been a grown up youth of 16 or 17 years, how Hagar could have ‘cast the child under one of the shrubs’. It makes it decisively clear that the event of settling Ishmā‘el and Hagar at Beersheba took place in the childhood of Ishmā‘el and the story of the weaning feast and the alleged jealousy of Sarah has no ground.
[22] It means that Ishmā‘el was not left alone and ‘uncared-for’. If his father had left him there, and that too under the command of God, God Himself was very much there as his Protector and Sustainer.
[23] It might not have been the angel of God, but God Himself who called to Hagar. It is a sort of alteration made by the redactors of the Bible. A New Catholic Com. on Holy Scripture, p.193, has pointed out:
Here and in 9f reference is made to the ‘angel of Yahweh’, while in 13 the Person who speaks to Hagar is identified with Yahweh himself. By some this is explained by assuming that in the most primitive form of the story the speaker was Yahweh himself, and only later out of reverence the word ‘angel’ was inserted in some places (…). However, it is doubtful in these ancient times whether the Israelites thought of the ‘angel of Yahweh’ as personage distinct from Yahweh himself. The ‘angel’ (malak), lit. ‘messenger’ was rather Yahweh himself made manifest to man.
Eugene H. Maly has also observed in the Jerome Bible Com., (p. 22):
The versions have the correct reading, as in the CCD [Confraternity of Christian Doctrine Trans. of the Bible]. ‘God heard’ is a play on the child’s name (cf. 16:11), but, to avoid the anthropomorphism, E. has ‘the angel of God’ speak to Hagar.
It shows that it was God Himself who addressed Hagar, but the redactor, out of his personal estimate of Hagar or some other considerations, changed it to ‘angel of Yahweh’.
[24] How lucky this Hagar is as to be addressed directly by God Himself [but according to this corrupted version ‘by the angel of the Lord’] out of heaven!
[25] Doesn’t it reveal the great love and concern of the Lord for Hagar? Is this exile a curse or a blessing for noble Hagar?
[26] For God Himself is there to protect you from all kinds of danger. He is aware of all of your needs, conditions, and impending hardships: and He would provide you and your son everything you require.
[27] It again reveals the love and concern of the Lord towards Ishmā‘el.
[28] Had Ishmā‘el been a grown up youth of 16 or 17 years, how Hagar could have lifted him up and held him in her hand! It shows that the event of settling Ishmā‘el and Hagar at Beersheba took place in the childhood of Ishmā‘el and the story of the weaning feast and the alleged jealousy of God-fearing and noble Sarah has no ground.
[29] Had Ishmā‘el been a young man of 16 or 17 years, it should have been he, not the old lady—his mother Hagar—who should have done all these pieces of work. It too helps the reader to ascertain the age of Ishmā‘el at the time of his being settled at the wilderness of Beersheba and Pārān. It has also some bearing upon the credibility of this part of the story.
[30] God repeatedly shows His concern for Ishmā‘el. How could this boy have been perished and why need Abraham worry about him when God was with him all the time to protect and rear him up (which fact He Himself asserts in unequivocal terms)!
[31] The ‘Paran’ mentioned here is the name of Makkah. It has been discussed in detail by the writer of this book somewhere else (but not in the present book). These verses show that Ishmā‘el would have been a suckling baby or about to be weaned when he was sent away to Paran or Beer-sheba, otherwise Hagar could not have ‘put the child on her shoulder’ or ‘lifted up the lad, and held him in her hand’ or ‘cast the child under one of the shrubs’. It renders the so-called weaning feast of Isaac as a baseless fabrication. As a result of it:
(a) Ishmā‘el could not have been there to allegedly mock his younger brother. It is clearly recorded in the Bible that Ishmā‘el was a child of such a young age that his mother could lift him up. Therefore the question of the presence of Isaac at that place does not arise. Isaac was not even born by that time. He was born when Ishmā‘el had already attained the age of fourteen years.
(b) The noble Sarah stands exonerated from all the blames of jealousy, cruelty, and brutality.
[32] Gen. 21:8-21 KJV.
At this point the three traditions are fused together: vv. 1a, 2a, 7 follow on from 18:15 and are Yahwistic; vv. 2b, 5 follow on from 17:21 and are priestly; vv. 1b, 6 are Elohist.
Pauline A. Viviano, in The Collegeville Bible Com., 59 explains:
All three sources are found in this account of the birth of Isaac.
[34] The Collegeville Bible Com., 60 asserts:
The Elohist narrative of Isaac’s birth (vv. 8-21) is a duplicate of the story of expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael found in the Yehwistic version in chapter 16.
[35] The Collegeville Bible Com., 60.
[36] In English ‘desolate’ means ‘sad and without people, comfort, hope, or friends, etc.’ In the Bible the original Hebrew word for it is ‘badad’, which means ‘alone, desolate, only, solitary’ (Strong’s Heb Dic., Entry 910, p.19).
[37] Isa. 27:10 KJV.
[38] Enc. Biblica, 1:1076,7.
[39] The Interpreter’s Bible Dic., 5:946.
[40] The Interpreter’s Bible Dic., 4:844.
[41] William Smith, A Dic. of Bible (1988), 143.
[42] Harper’s Bible Dic., (1994), 1133.
[43] Beersheba is a compound Hebrew word. Beer means ; a well’; and Sheba means ‘seven’ or ‘oath’. In Hebrew script Beer Sheba is written as‘’
[45] Enc. Biblica (1:518) writes: ‘i.e., “well of seven” ’. Strong’s Dic. of the Heb. Bible., (entry 884; 18) explains:
‘’Beer Sheba. be-ayr’ sheh-bah; from 875 and 7651 (in the sense of 7650); ‘’ be-ayr; from 874; a pit; espec. a well.’
Entry 7651, p.112 reads as:
‘שבע’ shib`ah shib-aw`; from 7650 a prim. cardinal number; seven ,(as the sacred full one); also (adv.) seven times; by impl. a week; seven-fold, seventh.’
[47] A Concise Dic. of The Heb. Bible (entry 875, p.18) explains:
‘’be-ayr; from 874; a pit; espec. a well.
Entry 874, p.18 is:
‘’ ba`ar, baw-ar; a prim. Root; to dig.
Entry 7650, p.112 reads as:
‘שבע’ shaba shaw-bah; a prim. Root; to seven oneself, i.e. swear (as if by repeating a declaration seven times): ¾ adjure, charge (by an oath, with an oath), take an oath.
The Enc. Biblica (1:518) explains:
It is taken as meaning ‘well of the oath’. One of the Simeonite towns in the southern territory of Judah (Josh. 19.2), on the border of the cultivated land, came to be regarded, for the greater part of history, as the remotest point of Canaan in that direction; whence the phrase ‘from Dan to Beersheba’.
It explains in footnote 1 to the same page:
The Hebrew word ‘to swear’ means literally ‘to come under the influence of seven things.’
Gen. 21:31-2, RSV Catholic Trans., p.16:
Therefore that place was called Beer-sheba; because there both of them swore an oath. So they made a covenant at Beer-sheba.
[48] Hastings Dic. of Bible, (Revised one vol. Edn., 1963), 94.
[49] J. Hastings, A Dic. of Bible, 1:265.
[51] See Hastings Dic. of Bible, (Revised one vol. 1963 ed.), 375.
[52] Harper’s Bible Dic., 101.
[53] F. F. Bruce, Places Abraham Knew (London: ECIVZNJ, Scripture Union, 130 City Road, 1984), 53,55,56.
[54] J. Hastings, A Dic. of the Bible, 1:265.
The name is literally ‘well of seven’.
The Interpreter’s Dic. of Bible, 1:375 (col. 2) explains:
It is the ‘well of seven,’ (…); but in [Gen. 21] vs 31 it is apparently the ‘well of the oath.’
7th Day Adventist Bible Dic., ed. Siegfried H. Horn, 131 has noted:
Heb. ‘Be’er Sheba’, ‘well of seven’, or ‘well of an oath’.
‘Where he is’ is an allusion to the site of the ‘well’ mentioned in vs. 19, a sacred spot among the Ishmaelites.
And every knowledgeable person knows that it is the ‘Well of Zamzam’ which is the ‘sacred spot among the Ishmaelites.’
[57] Gibb, H. A. R. and J. H. Kramer, Shorter Enc. of Islam, (Karachi: South Asian Publishers, 1981), 508.
[58] A Lion Handbook: the World’s Religions (Herts, England: The Lion Publishing, 1984), 319,20.
[59] How content and composed she is at Abraham’s reply and what befitting response of the family of the great patriarch!
[60] Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan, Trans. of the Meanings of Sah al-BukhārīhīArb-Eng (Riyadh: Darussalam, S. A., PO Box 22743, 1997), 4:351-53.
[61] Gen. 26:26-33, New English Bible.
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Author: Abdus Sattar Ghauri
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