In answer to the video "Abraham's Only Son- Genesis 22"
Per the Torah, it is Sarah who in the first place got Abraham to marry Hagar in order for him to bear a child Gen16. Upon her pregnancy, it is reported that Hagar started despising Sarah, so she complained to Abraham who replied
Gen16:6"Your servant is in your hands, Do with her whatever you think best".So she was sent away in the wilderness but came back shortly after, when God told her to
Gen16:9"Go back to your mistress and submit to her".After Isaac's birth, the situation became unbearable between the two sons because of Ishmael's misbehavior towards his brother. At that point the Talmudic smearing campaign against Ishmael becomes humorous, he is then not only a "young" idolater but also an adulterer (Rashi on Prov19:26). Seeing this situation, Sarah asked Abraham to
Gen21:10"Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac".Abraham accepted her request and sent Hagar with his firstborn Ishmael, food and water all on her shoulders
"and he took bread and a leather pouch of water, and he gave [them] to Hagar, he placed [them] on her shoulder, and the child, and he sent her away; and she went and wandered in the desert of Beer sheba".As is clear in the wording of the verse and as understood in traditional Jewish interpretation, all elements mentioned are placed upon Hagar. This includes Ishmael who is now around 15years old!
The Jewish traditions state that Hagar's carrying of her child along with her food and water reserves was due to Ishmael being incapacitated by Sarah's evil eye cast upon him Gen. Rabbah 53:13.
Just as with the invented dialogue between Abraham and God regarding which "only son" was meant, this obviously is an attempt at explaining away the absurdity of having a woman wandering in the dry desert heat, carrying her 15year old grown up boy and her meager provisions. When the meager means of subsistence tarried, and because of the debilitating sickness, Hagar
"cast the child under one of the bushes".She couldnt bare to
"see the death of the child".There is obviously no reason to assume that a healthy supposedly 16 year old teenager's life would be threatened by lethal dehydration that fast, faster than his mother. Unable to weave out from the inconsistencies of their corrupt story, the rabbinic commentators painted themselves into a corner, forced to cast even Sarah whom they revere as superior to Abraham in terms of revelational experience (exod. rabb. 1:1 tan. shem. 1) into a bad light. Sarah is the one who invoked some evil occult science that caused Ishmael to become severely ill and unable to walk.
Eventually
"God heard the voice of the lad"and told Hagar to
"Rise, pick up the lad and grasp your hand upon him".All these are obviously not the description of a 15-16 year old teenager but of an INFANT, as attested by the numerous Islamic traditions,
"Narrated Ibn ‘Abbas: The Prophet said, “May Allah bestow His Mercy on the mother of Ishmael! Had she not hastened (to fill her water-skin with water from the Zam-zam well), Zam-zam would have been a stream flowing on the surface of the earth.” Ibn ‘Abbas further added, “(The Prophet) Abraham brought Ishmael and his mother (to Mecca) and she was suckling Ishmael and she had a water-skin with her.’".The Hebrew hay-ye-led used to describe young Ishmael in that passage Gen21:14-19 is the same as the one used for Isaac when he was 2 years old as well as Moses when he was placed upon the river as an infant Ex2:3.
Another interesting observation is that Jewish tradition, firmly based on calculation from the HB, state that Rebecca was married to Isaac when she was 3 and he was 40. Isaac was 37 at the event of the near-sacrifice. Rebecca was born straight after that. Isaac was married to Rebecca when he was 40 Gen25:20 meaning 3 or 4 years after her birth. And yet these calculations, despite their accuracy do not agree with the descriptions that are made of her prior to her marriage, which clearly denotes physical and mental maturity Gen24.
This is the kind of internal inconsistency that happens when tradition is neglected, partially forgotten, inappropriately handled and transmitted, let alone purposefully tampered with.
The whole story is that of Hagar desperately fearing that her infant baby would die. Isaac wouldn't even have been born at the time for the incident that is alleged to have happened in verse 12. If the incident was related to Isaac being born, Ishmael would NOT have been an infant at the time he was cast out. It should also be noted that Beersheba was a place well known to Hagar, Ibrahim having lived there with her for long. Waterwells were dug all throughout the region and even by Ibrahim. All these could not have been unknown to Hagar. She could therefore have obtained further water, after a little search, from any of the many wells in the area, some of them she was very familiar with. And yet she is depicted as desperately wandering in search of water to no avail, to the point she cast the child under one of the shrubs until
"God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water".It is worthwhile noting here yet another attempt at character assassination by the scribes, in their commentaries and oral tradition as quoted by Rashi, in order to minimize to the utmost any positive reference to Ishmael.
In relation to that divine inspiration to Hagar, they quote the angels themselves protesting God's revealing of the well's location to Hagar
Gen.rabbah 53:14"O Lord of the universe, for one who is destined to kill your children with thirst, You are binding up a well?! And He answered them "What is he now, righteous or wicked?" They replied "Righteous" He said according to his present deeds i judge him".This other ridiculous "divine dialogue" also bellies the notion in their own traditions, cited earlier, that Ishmael at the time was an idolatrous adulterer.
Further, the essence of the order to banish Ishmael, per the Torah was to have only Isaac as Abraham's heir, while Ismail and his descendants should settle in and populate another land. How then could they have been settled in Beersheba which was then within the sphere of Ibrahim’s and Sarah’s activities? Hagar and Ismail could only have been, and were indeed consigned to an unknown, far-away and unsettled land.
The Paran mentioned in the Genesis as the place where they finally settled could not simply have been any Paran in and around Beerseba and Sinai.
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