Call Us Ishmael

Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Isaac grew, and on the day of the child’s weaning Abraham held a great feast. Sarah noticed the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing with her son Isaac; so she demanded of Abraham: “Drive out that slave and her son!  No son of that slave is going to share the inheritance with my son Isaac!” Abraham was greatly distressed, especially on account of his son Ishmael.

But God said to Abraham: “Do not be distressed about the boy or about your slave woman. Heed the demands of Sarah, no matter what she is asking of you; for it is through Isaac that descendants shall bear your name. As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a great nation of him also, since he too is your offspring.” 

Early the next morning Abraham got some bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. Then, placing the child on her back, he sent her away. As she roamed aimlessly in the wilderness of Beer-sheba, the water in the skin was used up. So she put the child down under a shrub, and then went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away; for she said to herself, “Let me not watch to see the child die.” 

As she sat opposite Ishmael, he began to cry. God heard the boy’s cry, and God’s messenger called to Hagar from heaven: “What is the matter, Hagar? Don’t be afraid; God has heard the boy’s cry in this plight of his. Arise, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand; for I will make of him a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water, and then let the boy drink. God was with the boy as he grew up. (Genesis 21:5, 8-20)

“Call me Ishmael” is the opening line in Herman Melville's Moby Dick (1851).  He is the first person narrator in much of the book. The biblical name Ishmael has come to symbolize orphans, exiles, and social outcasts. 

Unlike Ishmael in Genesis, who is banished into the desert, Melville's Ishmael wanders upon the sea “in the wilderness of waters.”  The desert or wilderness is a common setting for visions. Melville's Ishmael takes to the sea searching for insights.

Each Ishmael has a miraculous rescue. In the Bible Ishmael is rescued from thirst. Ishmael, perishing in the desert, is saved by the miracle of the sudden appearance of a well of water. In Moby Dick Ishmael is rescued from drowning.  He escapes the sinking of the Pequod “by a margin so narrow as to seem miraculous.”

Many of us feel like Ishmael – like orphans, exiles, and social outcasts.  Like Ishmael’s mother, Hagar, we should listen, and when we do and we cry like Ishmael, God will hear us in our plight and tell us, “Do not be afraid. Do not be distressed. You are great and not banished.  I will always rescue you.”

Deacon David Pierce