And he will be a wild man
Living in a wilderness, delighting in hunting and killing wild
beasts, and robbing and plundering all that pass by; and such an
one Ishmael was, see ( Genesis
21:20 Genesis
21:21 ) ; and such the Saracens, his posterity, were, and
such the wild Arabs are to this day, who descended from him; or
"the wild ass of a man" F20; or "a wild ass among men", as
Onkelos; or "like to a wild ass among men", as the Targum of
Jonathan; wild, fierce, untamed, not subject to a yoke, and
impatient of it, see ( Job 11:12 ) ; such was
Ishmael, and such are his posterity, who never could be subdued
or brought into bondage, neither by the Assyrians, nor Medes and
Persians, nor by the Greeks nor Romans, nor any other people
F21; and at this day the Arabs live
independent on the Turks, nay, oblige the Turks to pay a yearly
tribute for the passage of their pilgrims to Mecca, and also to
pay for their caravans that pass through their country, as
travellers into those parts unanimously report; wherefore Aben
Ezra translates the word rendered "wild", or "wild ass", by
(yvpx) , "free", and
refers to the passage in ( Job 39:5 ) . These people
having been always free, and never in bondage, always lived as
free booters upon others:
his hand [will be] against every man, and every man's hand
against
him;
signifying, that he would be of a quarrelsome temper and warlike
disposition, continually engaged in fighting with his neighbours,
and they with him in their own defence; and such the Arabs his
posterity always have been, and still are, given to rapine and
plunder, harassing their neighbours by continual excursions and
robberies, and pillaging passengers of all nations, which they
think they have a right to do; their father Ishmael being turned
out into the plains and deserts, which were given him as his
patrimony, and as they suppose a permission from God to take
whatever he could get. And a late traveller into those parts
observes F23, that they are not to be accused of
plundering strangers only, or whomsoever they may find unarmed or
defenceless; but for those many implacable and hereditary
animosities which continually subsist among themselves, literally
fulfilling to this day the prophecy of the angel to Hagar, (
Genesis
16:12 ) ; the greatest as well as the smallest tribes are
perpetually at variance with one another, frequently occasioned
upon the most trivial account, as if they were from the very days
of their first ancestor naturally prone to discord and
contention.
And he shall dwell in the presence of all his
brethren;
the sons of Abram by Keturah, the Midianites, and others; and the
Edomites that sprung from Esau, the son of his brother Isaac; and
the Israelites, the descendants of Jacob, another son of Isaac;
and his kinsmen the Moabites and Ammonites, upon all which he and
his posterity bordered, see ( Genesis
25:18 ) . It may be rendered, "he shall tabernacle"
F24, or dwell in tents, as he did, and
his posterity afterwards; particularly the Scenite Arabs, so
called from their dwelling in tents, and the Bedouins, such were
the tents of Kedar, one of his sons, ( Song of
Solomon 1:5 ) ; the same with them to this day: according to
Jarchi, the sense of the phrase is, that his seed should be large
and numerous, and spread themselves, and reach to the borders of
all their brethren.
F20 (Mda arp) "onager hominis", Cocceius, Schmidt.
F21 Vid. Diodor. Sicul. Bibliothec. l. 2. p. 131.
F23 Dr. Shaw's Travels, p. 238, 239. Ed. 2.
F24 (Nkvy) "figet tabernacula", V. L. "tabernaculabit", Malvenda.
