by Ibn Anwar
This is a particularly teasing problem for Jews and Christians. They
uphold that the true heir of Abraham was Isaac and for Christians that
proposition bears an even greater significance as they trace the lineage
of Jesus through Isaac in order to make legitimate their claim that
Jesus is the true heir of Abraham and the fulfillment of God's promise
in Genesis 17. The only problem with that is the fact that Isaac was not
the firstborn of Abraham. Rather, it was another son named Ishmael who
was Abraham's firstborn. And it is understood in Judaism and recognised
in Christianity that a double portion of a father's inheritance is given
to his firstborn. The firstborn is typically designated the heir to the
father's household. This understanding is stipulated in Deuteronomy
21:17. The significance of Ishma'el's status as the firstborn of Abraham
is confirmed in the Deuteronomic passage:
"Suppose a man has two
wives, but he loves one and not the other, and both have given him
sons. And suppose the firstborn son is the son of the wife he does not
love. When the man divides his inheritance, he may not give the larger
inheritance to his younger son, the son of the wife he loves, as if he
were the firstborn son.He must recognize the rights of his oldest son,
the son of the wife he does not love, by giving him a double portion. He
is the first son of his father’s virility, and the rights of the
firstborn belong to him." (Deuteronomy 21:15-17)
Commenting on
the passage, the Stone Edition of the Chumash describes the right of the
firstborn as "inviolable" even if the produce comes from the spouse
that is disliked or hated:
"15-17. The firstborn's inviolable
right. The Torah teaches that a firstborn son may not be deprived of his
rightful share in his father's inheritance. By implication, this
passage shows that parents must beware not to permit rights and
relationships to be disrupted by the rivalries and even animosities that
are not uncommon in family life. Or HaChaim infers from the last
phrase of verse 15 that the firstborn son will be born to the hated
wife. This, he comments, is an instance of God's compassion, for when he
sees the plight of the neglected wife, He will give her the first
offspring, just as Leah had children before her more favored sister
Rachel. God supports the brokenhearted." [1]
Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel says concerning Deuteronomy 21:15:
"“All firsts are beloved by G‑d.” Just as there is the mitzvah that the
first fruits are brought as an offering to G‑d (bikkurim), as is the
first of the flock (bechor beheimah), so does G‑d have a special love
for the firstborns, and they are given a double portion." [2]
So
how is it that Isaac is regarded as the rightful heir to Abraham when he
was not even the firstborn? The traditional Jewish or Christian way of
wriggling out of this particular conundrum is by accusing Ishmael of
being the illegitimate son of Abraham while designating Isaac as his one
and only legitimate son. The argument behind this accusation lies in
the fact that Abraham's first wife was Sarah while the mother of
Ishma'el, Abraham's second wife, was a bondwoman. Christians argue that
Hagar was not even Abraham's wife but was, in fact, just his mistress or
concubine. Firstly, nowhere does the Bible designate Ishma'el the
illegitimate son of Abraham. Rather, in the Biblical perspective,
Ishma'el was rightly the son of Abraham. The Bible explicitly repudiates
the claim that Hagar was not the legitimate wife of Abraham in Genesis
16:3 where it specifically says that Hagar was given to Abraham to be
his 'wife'. The following are several major translations of the Bible in
which Genesis 16:3 clearly defines Hagar as Abraham's wife:
New American Standard Bible
After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram’s wife
Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband
Abram as his wife.
King James Bible
And Sarai Abram’s wife
took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the
land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.
American King James Version
And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram
had dwelled ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband
Abram to be his wife.
American Standard Version
And Sarai,
Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after Abram had
dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband
to be his wife.
Douay-Rheims Bible
She took Agar the
Egyptian her handmaid, ten years after they first dwelt in the land of
Chanaan, and gave her to her husband to wife.
Darby Bible Translation
And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar, the Egyptian, her maidservant, at
the end of ten years that Abram had dwelt in the land of Canaan, and
gave her to her husband Abram, as his wife.
English Revised Version
And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after
Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram
her husband to be his wife.
Webster’s Bible Translation
And
Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had
dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram
to be his wife.
World English Bible
Sarai, Abram’s wife,
took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after Abram had lived ten years
in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to be his wife.
Young’s Literal Translation
And Sarai, Abram’s wife, taketh Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, at
the end of the tenth year of Abram’s dwelling in the land of Canaan, and
giveth her to Abram her husband, to him for a wife,
But how do
we square the above with Genesis 22:2 which says that Isaac is the
את־בנך את־יחידך (only son) of Abraham? This text must be treated with
caution because at no point in time was Isaac ever the "only son" of
Abraham. As we know by now, Isaac was the second son of Abraham while
Ishma'el was the legitimate first son of Abraham, the elder brother of
Isaac. Only Ishma'el could have been described as the "only son" of
Abraham as he was, in fact, for several years before the birth of Isaac,
the only son of Abraham. The description given to Isaac in Genesis 22:2
as the one "whom you (Abraham) love" is completely irrelevant in light
of Deuteronomy 21:15-17. As we have demonstrated earlier, even if the
offspring, that is literally the firstborn, is produced by the less
favoured (or even hated) spouse, that is no justified cause to deny the
son his right as firstborn and heir to the father.
The key clue
to Ishma'el's rightful claim as Abraham's legitimate firstborn and heir
to his household is in the name 'Ishma'el'! The name 'Ishma'el' in
Hebrew means 'God heard' or 'God answered'. What exactly did God answer
in the person of Ishma'el? Genesis 15:2-3 informs us that Abraham was
petitioning God to for an heir and complaining to God that should he not
have his own offspring to inherit then Elie'zer of Damascus would be
his heir:
"But Abram replied, “O Lord GOD, what can You give me,
since I remain childless, and the heir of my house is Elie'zer of
Damascus?” Abram continued, “Behold, You have given me no offspring, so a
servant in my household will be my heir."
In answer to Abraham's
fear that he would not be able to pass on his heritage to his own flesh
and blood offspring, God assures him that he would, in fact, be given
his own flesh and blood who will inherit from him and become his heir:
"Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your
heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.""
(Genesis 15:4)
God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 15:4 would
make little sense if it is proposed that God did give him a son right
after that promise in the person of Ishma'el but skips him as the son
that was meant in the promise and looks on to the second son, Isaac,
instead. Indeed, almost immediately after God made that promise to
Abraham to give him his own son that he may be made his rightful heir,
Ishma'el comes into the scene in the very next chapter:
"And the
angel of the Lord said to her (Hagar), 'Behold, you are with child, and
shall bear a son; you shall call his name Ishma'el;" (Genesis 16:11)
From Genesis 16:11, a few things should be noted: the birth of
Ishma'el, Abraham's firstborn son, was so important that it had to be
declared by the archangel Gabriel onto Hagar just as the birth of Jesus,
important as it was, had to be declared by the same angel onto Mary,
Jesus' mother. As the birth of Ishma'el was announced by the archangel
Gabriel, it must therefore be seen as a divine revelation. With that in
mind, how can any sound mind disdain Ishma'el's birth and uncouthly
relegate it to the realm of the illegitimate? God takes the trouble to
dispatch the archangel Gabriel to righteously declare the birth of an
illegitimate son? And not only was Ishma'el's birth announced by the
archangel that was directly sent by God to do just that, the child's
very name was divinely revealed and chosen to be that of "Ishma'el". A
person has to suffer some serious eyesight malfunction to not see the
connection between the divinely ordained name "Ishma'el" with the
petition and complaint made by Abraham to God in Genesis 15:2-3.
Ishma'el, whose name means 'God heard,' is without a doubt the answer
that God gave Abraham, an answer that He promised to fulfill as we saw
in Genesis 15:4. The fact of the matter becomes even clearer when one
brings together Genesis 15:5 with Genesis 16:10. In sealing the promise
to Abraham to award him with his own flesh and blood to become his heir,
God said:
"He took him outside and said, "Look up at the sky and
count the stars--if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him,
"So shall your offspring be." (Genesis 15:5)
And the unmistakable
connection is seen in Genesis 16:10 where Gabriel reiterates God's
words in Genesis 15:5 to Hagar regarding her son, Abraham's firstborn:
"The angel added, "I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count."
But let us agree for a moment, just for the sake of argument, that
Ishma'el was indeed a son out of wedlock-- illegitimate and therefore
unfitting heir to Abraham. If that were the case, then Christians must
now submit to the illegitimacy of Jesus and abandon Christianity
altogether. According to Matthew 1:3, Jesus is the direct descendant of
illegitimate ancestors through Perez who was conceived out of wedlock
through the incestrous consummation of Judah and Tamar, a highly
licentious story that we read in Genesis 38. Since the lineage of Jesus
according to Matthew is marred by illegitimacy, Jesus must therefore be
discarded as the rightful heir to God and to Abraham and his alleged
Davidic messiahship is cancelled due to David's own illegitimate lineage
back to Judah and Tamar. The biblical Jesus' illegitimacy becomes even
more evident in light of Deuteronomy 23:2:
"A bastard shall not
enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation
shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord." (Apologies for
the word 'bastard,' but this is exactly the word used in the King James
Bible for the Hebrew ממזר in the Deuteronomy text)
No, in Islam
we do not identify Jesus as illegitimate in any shape or form just as we
do not do so with either Ishma'el or Isaac. All the prophets of God are
legitimate in their own right. But if the Christian argumentation in
disclaiming Ishma'el as heir to Abraham's throne bears any merit, then
in logical implication, Jesus, coming from such a horrendously salacious
lineage as per Matthean testimony in Matthew 1:3, should equally be
discarded as a legitimate heir to the Abrahamic throne.
In their
careless attempts to delegitimise Ishma'el as true heir to Abraham,
Christians (and Jews) have inadvertently delegetimised Jesus as true
heir to both Abraham and David.
Notes:
[1] Scherman, N.
(2000). The Chumash: The Torah, Haftaros and Five Megillos with a
Commentary Anthologized from the Rabbinic Writings. New York: Mesorah
Publications, Ltd. p. 1047
[2] Shurpin, Y. (n.d.). Why (and How) Does the Firstborn Get a Double Inheritance?. Retrieved from
https://www.chabad.org/…/Why-and-How-Does-the-Firstborn-Get…
