8. gathered to his kindred (see on 1714)] Originally, this and similar phrases (1515 4730, Dt. 3116 etc.) denoted burial in the family sepulchre; but the popular conception of Sheôl as a vast aggregate of graves in the under world enabled the language to be applied to men who (like Abraham) were buried far from their ancestors.—Isaac and Ishmael] The expulsion of Ishmael is consistently ignored by P.—11a. Transition to the history of Isaac (2519ff.).
11b (like v.5) has been torn from its context in J, where it may have
stood after 241 255, or (more probably) after the notice of Abraham's
death (cf. 2462). Meyer (INS, 253, 323) makes the improbable conjecture
that the statement referred originally to Ishmael, and formed, along with
v.18, the conclusion of ch. 16.
XXV. 12-18.—The Genealogy and Death of Ishmael (P).
With the exception of v.18, which is another isolated
fragment of J, the passage is an excerpt from the Tôledôth
of the Priestly Code.—The names of the genealogy (13-16)
represent at once 'princes' ((
Hebrew characters): cf. the promise of 1720)
and 'peoples' ((Hebrew characters), 16); that is to say, they are the assumed
eponymous ancestors of 12 tribes which are here treated as
forming a political confederacy under the name of Ishmael.
In the geography of P the Ishmaelites occupy a territory intermediate
between the Arabian Cushites on the S (107), the Edomites, Moabites,
etc., on the W, and the Aramæans on the N (1022f.); i.e., roughly speaking,
the Syro-Arabian desert north of Ǧebel Shammar. In J they extend
W to the border of Egypt (v.18).—The Ishmaelites have left very little
mark in history. From the fact that they are not mentioned in Eg. or
Ass. records, Meyer infers that their flourishing period was from the
12th to the 9th cent. B.C. (INS, 324). In OT the latest possible traces
of Ishmael as a people are in the time of David (cf. 2 Sa. 1725, 1 Ch. 217
2730), though the name occurs sporadically as that of an individual or
clan in much later times (Jer. 408ff., 2 Ki. 2523, 1 Ch. 838 944, 2 Ch. 1911 231,
Ezr. 1023). In Gn. 3725ff., Ju. 824, it is possible that 'Ishmaelites' is synonymous
with Bedouin in general (see Mey. 326).
13. (Hebrew characters)] are the Nabayati and Ḳidri of Ass. monuments (Asshurbanipal:
KIB, ii. 215ff.; cf. Del. Par. 297, 299; KAT3, 151), and
possibly the Nabatæi and Cedrei of Pliny, v. 65 (cf. vi. 157, etc.). The
references do not enable us to locate them with precision, but they must
8. (Hebrew characters)] v.17 3529; see on 617.—(Hebrew characters)] [E]G better (Hebrew characters), as 3529.—(Hebrew characters)]
so 2517 3529 4929. 33, Nu. 2024. 26 2713 312, Dt. 3250† (all P).—10.
(Hebrew characters)] G + (Greek characters).—11. (Hebrew characters)] see on 2462.
