CHAPTER XII.

PROPHECIES RESPECTING ISHMAEL.

WHEN Isaac was promised to Abraham, God still reserved a blessing for Ishmael. Gen. xvii. 20: "Behold I have blessed him, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall be the father of twelve princes; and I will make him a great nation." And afterwards, when Hagar and Ishmael were sent into the wilderness: "God said unto Abraham: And also of the son of the bond woman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed." We shall now see by the course of events, how exactly these particulars have been fulfilled. Ishmael married an Egyptian woman, as his mother also was an Egyptian; and, in a few years, his family was so increased, that in the 37th chapter of Genesis, we read of Ishmaelites trading into Egypt.

Afterward his seed was multiplied exceedingly in the Hagarenes; who probably were so denominated from his mother Hagar; and in the Nabatheans, who had their name from his son

Nebaioth; and in the Itureans, who were so called from his son Jetur, or Itur; and in the Arabs, especially the Scenites, and the Saracens, who over-ran a great part of the world. His descendants the Arabs are a very numerous people unto this day.

"He shall be the father of twelve princes." This was punctually fulfilled; and Moses has given us the names of them, Gen. xxv. 16, Adding: "These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names, by their towns, and their castles, twelve princes according to their nations."

“And I will make him a great nation." This is repeated twice or thrice: and it was accomplished as soon as, in the regular course of nature, it could be fulfilled. His seed, in process of time, grew up into a great nation, and such they continued for several ages; and such they remain to this day.

They might indeed emphatically be styled "a great nation," when the Saracens had made those rapid and extensive conquests, and laid the foundations of one of the largest empires that ever were in the world.

"And he will be a wild man." In the original, it is, a wild ass man. The nature of the creature to which Ishmael is so particularly compared, cannot be described better than in the book

of Job, xxxix. 5: "Who hath sent out the wild ass free, or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass; whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings? He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the driver. The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing." Ishmael, therefore, and his posterity were to be wild, fierce, savage, ranging in the deserts, and not easily softened and tamed to society; and whoever hath read or known any thing of this people, knoweth this to be their true and genuine cha

racter.

And it is said of Ishmael, Gen. xxi. 20. "that he dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer;" and the same is no less true of his descendants than of himself.

"He dwelt in the wilderness; and his sons still inhabit the same wilderness; and many of them neither sow nor plant, according to the best accounts both ancient and modern,

"And he became an archer." And such were the Itureans, whose bows, and arrows, are famous in all authors; such were the mighty men of Kedar, in Isaiah's time; Isaiah xxi. 17; and

Lucan. Lib. vii. page 230.

such the Arabs have been from the beginning, and are at this day. It was late before they admitted the use of fire arms among them; and many of them still continue skilful archers.

"His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him."

The one is the natural, and almost necessary consequence of the other. Ishmael lived by prey and rapine, in the wilderness; and his posterity have all along infested Arabia, and the neighbouring countries, with their robberies and incursions. They live in a state of continual war with the rest of the world, and are both robbers by land, and pirates by sea.

As they have been such enemies to mankind,. it is no wonder that mankind have been enemies to them again; and that several attempts have been made to extirpate them. Even now, as well as formerly, travellers are forced to go with arms, and in caravans, or in large companies; and to march, and keep watch and guard, like a little army, to defend themselves from the assaults of those freebooters; who run about in troops, and rob and plunder all whom they can by any means subdue.

These robberies they also justify, by alleg ing the hard usage of their father Ishmael; who

x Sales, Prelim. Discourse to the Koran, Sect. 1. page 30.