I consider the prophecy concerning Ishmael, and his descendants the Arabs, as one of the most extraordinary that we meet with in the Old Testament. It was also one of the earliest made, and proceeded upon grounds of private reparation. Hagar had not sinned, though she had fled from Sarah with Ishmael her son into the wilderness. In that desert there were then no inhabitants, and though Ishmael's *[1] succession was incompatible with God's promise to Abraham and his son Isaac, yet neither Hagar nor he having sinned, justice required a reparation for the heritage which he had lost. God gave him that very wilderness which before was the property of no man, in which Ishmael was to erect a kingdom under the most improbable circumstances possible to be imagined. His †[2] hand was to be against every man, and every man's hand against him. By his sword he was to live, and pitch his tent in the face of his brethren.
Never has prophecy been so completely fulfilled. It subsisted from the earliest ages; it was verified before the time of Moses; in the time of David and Solomon; it subsisted in the time of Alexander and that of Augustus Cæsar; it subsisted in the time of Justinian,— all very distant, unconnected periods; and I appeal to the evidence of mankind, if, without apparent support or necessity, but what it has derived from God's promise only, it is not in full vigour at this very day. This prophecy alone, in the truth of which all sorts of
- Gen. xv. 18. ‡ Gen. xvi. 12.
