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The skeptic's confusion:
He was an infant.
“Abraham ... took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and
sent her away.” Genesis 21:14
“And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.” Genesis 21:15
“Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand.” Genesis 21:18
He was a young man.
“And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.” Genesis 17:25
“And Abraham was a hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born.... And the child [Isaac] grew, and was weaned.”
Genesis 21:5, 8
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Explanation:
Ishmael was around 13 years old when Abraham sent him away with his mother. In order to decipher this problem, we have to
look at the meaning of the word “lad”. This word means “a boy or youth”(Random House/Webster). So
according to Genesis 21:18, he was a youth. How could Hagar cast him under a shrub? Probably because he was sick and weak
from the journey, so she helped him lay down. Indeed, Ishmael cried out to God, and He heard him. Because he was extremely
fatigued, God ordered his mother to help him up, “lift[ing] up the lad”-- that is, by holding his hand. That
is what is meant by “hold him in thine hand”. Nowhere in the passage does it imply that Ishmael was an infant
when he left with Hagar.
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