Genesis 21:12-14
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
12 But God said to Abraham: Do not be distressed about the boy or about your slave woman. Obey Sarah, no matter what she asks of you; for it is through Isaac that descendants will bear your name.(A) 13 As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also,[a] since he too is your offspring.
14 Early the next morning Abraham got some bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. Then, placing the child on her back,[b] he sent her away. As she roamed aimlessly in the wilderness of Beer-sheba,
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- 21:13 I will make a nation of him also: Ishmael’s descendants are named in 25:12–18.
- 21:14 Placing the child on her back: a reading based on an emendation of the traditional Hebrew text. In the traditional Hebrew text, Abraham put the bread and the waterskin on Hagar’s back, while her son apparently walked beside her. In this way the traditional Hebrew text harmonizes the data of the Priestly source, in which Ishmael would have been at least fourteen years old when Isaac was born; compare 16:16 with 21:5; cf. 17:25. But in the present Elohist (?) story, Ishmael is obviously a little boy, not much older than Isaac; cf. vv. 15, 18.
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