Yishmael (יִשְׁמָעֵאל) is named before he is born. When Hagar flees Sarai's harshness into the wilderness, the angel of God finds her at a spring on the road to Shur and commands: "Call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has listened to your affliction." The name means "God will hear" — and the child's name is already a covenant promise before he draws breath. He is Avraham's first son, born when Avraham is eighty-six years old.
Yishmael grows up in Avraham's household, is circumcised at thirteen when the covenant of circumcision is established, and lives alongside Yitzchak until the feast of Yitzchak's weaning. Sarah sees Yishmael "mocking" (or "playing" — the Hebrew metzachek is ambiguous) and demands that Avraham send him and Hagar away. God tells Avraham to listen to Sarah: "Through Yitzchak your seed will be called" — but also: "The son of the maidservant I will also make into a great nation, because he is your seed." God's promise to Yishmael is explicit and unconditional.
In the wilderness of Beer-sheba, when the water runs out, God hears the boy's cry and opens Hagar's eyes to a well. Yishmael grows up as an archer in the wilderness of Paran, marries an Egyptian woman his mother arranges, and fathers twelve sons who become twelve princes over twelve tribes — a direct parallel to Yaakov's twelve sons. Genesis 25:12–18 lists all twelve by name and closes: "He settled from Havilah to Shur... he settled in the presence of all his brothers." At Avraham's death, Yishmael and Yitzchak bury him together at Machpelah.
