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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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Genesis 21:5
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Now, with a view to what's coming, we remember that we were explicitly told that Abraham was 86 when Ishmael was born. So Ishmael is now 14. It is important to know this because of what follows in the chapter. It has often been forgotten. In some circles, for instance mediaeval and Catholic tradition, Ishmael is seen in this chapter as an infant, as a little boy, but that is ridiculous, because he was 14 when Isaac was born. A further piece of information: we are told in this chapter that this all happened after the great celebration when Isaac was weaned. Now it does not say this here, but elsewhere in the Bible it is said and hinted at, and it is quite a commonly known, that the age of weaning among the Jews in olden times was three years of age, or even older. So if you take it at its youngest, then it means that Ishmael was 14 + 3. This boy is 16, 17, when the events of the rest of the chapter take place, and we need to bear that in mind as we go through the rest of the chapter.
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Before the flood Scripture records that it was not impossible for men to conceive when they were much older than this: ‘And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch’ (Genesis 5:18), but in those days, for whatever reason, human lifespan was much greater, and after the flood the reduction in lifespan went hand in hand with a reduction in the age of fruitfulness.
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