The tact of the narrator leaves us in doubt whether the well was now miraculously opened, or had been there all along though unseen. In any case it is henceforth a sacred well.
20, 21. Ishmael's career.—Here we expect the naming
of the child, based on v.17: this has been omitted by R in
favour of J (1611).—20. The boy grew up, amidst the perils
and hardships of the desert,—a proof that God was with him.—he became a bowman] (pt. (
Hebrew characters): v.i.), the bow being
the weapon of his descendants (Is. 2117).—21. The wilderness of Pārān is et-Tīh, bounding the Negeb on the S.—His
mother took him a wife from the land of Egypt] her own
country (v.9): see p. 285 above.
Comparison of ch. 16 with 211-21.—That these two narratives are
variations of a common legendary theme is obvious from the identity of
the leading motives they embody: viz. the significance of the name
Ishmael (1611 2117); the mode of life characteristic of his descendants
(1612 2120); their relation to Israel; and the sacredness of a certain well,
consecrated by a theophany (167. 14 2119).[1] Each tale is an exhaustive
expression of these motives, and does not tolerate a supplementary
anecdote alongside of it. Ch. 21, however, represents a conception of
the incident further removed from primitive conditions than 16: contrast
the sympathetic picture of nomadic life in 1612 with the colourless notice
of 2120; in 16, moreover, Hagar is a high-spirited Bedawi woman who
will not brook insult, and is at home in the desert; while in 21 she is a
household slave who speedily succumbs to the hardships of the wilderness.
In E the appeal is to universal human sympathies rather than to
the peculiar susceptibilities of the nomad nature; his narrative has a
touch of pathos which is absent from J; it is marked by a greater
refinement of moral feeling, and by a less anthropomorphic idea of God.—See
the admirable characterisation of Gu. p. 203 f.
20. (Hebrew characters)] 'and he became, growing up, an archer'; V
juvenis sagittarius (so TO). But (Hebrew characters) is (Greek characters)., the syntax is peculiar,
and, besides, the growing up has been already mentioned. The
true text is doubtless that given above and implied by G (Greek characters).
S (Syriac characters) also implies (Hebrew characters); but there are further
divergences in that Vn. (Hebrew characters) = 'shoot' (not so elsewhere), might be a
by-form of (Hebrew characters) (see on 4923; and cf. (Hebrew characters) = 'shooter,' in Jer. 5029, Jb. 1613);
but it may be a question whether in these three cases we should not
substitute (Hebrew characters) for (Hebrew characters), or whether in this pass. we should not read (Hebrew characters)
with Ba. (see esp. Jer. 429, Ps. 789). The rendering 'a shooter, an
archer' (De.), is clumsy; and the idea that (Hebrew characters) is an explanatory gloss
on (Hebrew characters) (KS.) is not probable.
- ↑ The well is not identified in E. Gu.'s view, that it was Beersheba, has little to commend it.
