Sunday, August 11, 2024

Jonathan Grossman on the Age of Ishmael

  

How Old is Ishmael?

 

According to the chronological sequence of the Abraham cycle, Ishmael should be 16 or 17 at the time of his expulsion. Ishmael was born when Abraham was 86 (16:16); he was circumcised at 13 (17:25), and Isaac was born one year later, when he was 14. Ishmael was expelled when Isaac was weaned, presumably two or three years later. However, the narrative seems to portray Ishmael as a young child. When Abraham sent Hagar away, he “took some bread and a skin of water… He placed them over her shoulder, together with the child, and sent her away” (14). A boy of sixteen would not be placed on his mother’s shoulder. Some linked “the boy” to the phrase “Abraham took [some bread and a skin of water]” instead of linking “the boy” to Hagar’s shoulder; in other words, Abraham put the bread and water on Hagar’s shoulder, and gave her the boy. The main motive for this interpretation is Ishmael’s age, as Weinfeld wrote:

 

“The boy” is linked back to “he took.” There is therefore no reason to wonder how she could have carried Ishmael on her shoulders, since he was sixteen or seventeen years of age. A similar grammatical structure can be found in the verse “So the men took that gift, and they took with them double the money, and Benjamin” (43:15). “They took” also refers to “Benjamin.” (Weinfeld 1992, 136)

 

This reading supports Wenham’s assertion that delaying the phrase “the boy” to the end of the sentence is part of a deliberate delay, intended to indicate Abraham’s difficulty. Abraham places the bread and the skin of water on Hagar, and only when there was nothing else left for him to do, he reluctantly gave her the child. However, even if this interpretation is possible in the context of v. 14, it is challenged throughout the narrative. In addition to certain specific details, such as the angel’s instructions to Hagar to lift up her son, which is unfathomable if Ishmael is 16, the general atmosphere of the chapter portrays Ishmael as a small child: the heat and lack of water affect him sooner than they do his mother; he requires his mother’s assistance, instead of helping her; and the conclusion of the story is followed by God’s accompaniment of Ishmael’s maturation: “God was with the boy and he grew up,” indicating that Ishmael had not yet reached maturity.

 

This tension is simplified by the documentary hypothesis, which attributes all chronological data in the Abraham cycle to P, while the expulsion of Ishmael was authored by E, a source uncommitted to the chronological details found in other narratives. But it is hard to imagine that the story cycle was edited while omitting a chronological detail that is so crucial to the narrative. Moreover, presenting Ishmael as מצחק (according to the sexual interpretation mentioned above) is also appropriate to his age (16–17) rather than to his portrayal as an infant in the continuation of the story. Therefore, one must assume that there is a purpose to describing Ishmael as a young child, even if the chronological sequence indicates that he is a young adult. The design is linked with the overall purpose of the narrative. (Jonathan Grossman, Abram to Abraham: A Literary Analysis of the Abraham Narrative [Das Alte Testament Im Dialog 11; New York: Peter Lang, 2016], 419-21)

 

   


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