Ishmael

(Genesis 16:16 and 21:5)

The problem here (if problem it can be called) relates to the fact that in Genesis 16:16 Abraham was said to be 86 years old when Ishmael was born, and in Genesis 21:5 Abraham was said to be 100 years old at the time of the birth of Isaac. This would make Ishmael about 14 years of age at the birth of Isaac. Clearly Ishmael was not a baby at the time of the weaning of Isaac for he was said to be mocking (Genesis 21:9). However, in verse 14 Ishmael is called a child and in verse 15 Hagar is said to have cast the child under one of the shrubs. Also in verse 16 he is again called a child. In verses 12 and 17 to 20 Ishmael is called a lad. Hagar is told to hold him in her hand. How does this all tie in with the fact that Ishmael must have been at least 14 ? The answer is probably that in the days of Abraham people matured slower than they do today and also aged slower. Ishmael lived to be 137 years old (Genesis 25:17). This is unlikely to mean that he was a wizened old man, say, from the time he was 90. Similarly with Abraham: he lived to be 175 years old (Genesis 25:7). Would he have been a wizened old man for circa 85 years ?

Then there is the case of Sarah. She was about 90 years of age when Isaac was born (Genesis 17:17). This verse shows that she was past childbearing age, but then so normally is a woman of 50. However at 90 she was still probably not an unattractive woman, else why should Abimelech have been interested in her sexually as chapter 20 clearly shows that he was. What this indicates is that though Sarah was past childbearing age she had not aged as a person at the present time would have done by the time she had reached the age of 90.

A quick perusal of the ages of the pre flood patriarchs shows that what was probably in most cases the firstborn son was not born until the father was much older than we would expect today (see Appendix 1). Further, these patriarchs lived to such great ages that we cannot reasonably assume that they were decrepit old men for hundreds of years. The only reasonable conclusion we can come to is that they aged much more slowly than we do.

The only other conceivable reason for the great ages of the pre flood patriarchs and to the early post flood ones is that the earth was travelling more quickly round the Sun and therefore the years were shorter. However, scaling down the ages at the birth of the first child and the age at death proportionately does not give reasonable results (see Appendix 2).

What all this shows is that what is said as to Sarah and Ishmael, far from showing Scripture to be unreliable, indicates that the great ages that the patriarchs lived were consistent with a slower development and ageing process when compared with what we experience today.

November 2000