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The Bible teaches that God chooses people to be saved. Second Thessalonians chapter two makes the statement that God chose you for salvation.

“We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord, because God chose you as first fruits to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth”.

(2 Thes 2: 13)

So, it clearly there, the debate is how do we understand what that means. That’s where Christianity appears to divide into two schools of thought. Christians of all stripes have debated with this for centuries. I’ve been on both sides of this argument as a young Christian, I adopted one and then years later I adopted the 2nd, and since then I allow the tension between the two exist within my faith. Alright, let’s see if we can come to some biblical perspective on this.

So, I’m going to pick it up at verse 12.

 Now this is the genealogy of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maidservant, bore to Abraham. And these were the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, according to their generations: The firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth; then Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadar, Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah. These were the sons of Ishmael and these were their names, by their towns and their settlements, twelve princes according to their nations. These were the years of the life of Ishmael: one hundred and thirty-seven years; and he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people. (They dwelt from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt as you go toward Assyria.) He died in the presence of all his brethren.

(Genesis 25: 12-18)

What I want you to notice is that verse 12 says this is the genealogy of Ishmael, Abraham’s Son, whom Hagar, the Egyptian Sarah’s maidservant bore to Abraham. The next section will begin in verse 19 by saying, this is the genealogy of Isaac. Abraham. Son Abraham begot Isaac.  Let me pause just a second and suggest that in the latter part of this chapter there are two sections, both of which begin with the phrase, “this is the genealogy of”. If you’ve been tracking with me through the Book of Genesis, you know that we have seen this expression before. As a matter of fact, this expression appears 11 times in the book of Genesis. The last time we saw it was back in Chapter 11, where it was the genealogy of Abraham, So, from that point in Ch 11, until we get now in Genesis 25: 12 covers in a sense it covers one era. That is a huge portion of Scripture focusing on the genealogy of Abraham’s and what happened to him. The next division only goes from here in verse 12 to the end of verse 17.Then it introduces another subject. So, what’s going on? 

In this case, in verses 12 to 18, it is telling us about the descendants of Ishmael. He tells us in verse 12 very clearly that Ishmael was Abraham's son, but not through Abraham’s wife. Remember the story? Sarah couldn’t get pregnant, and so she said. take my hand-maid, Hagar, and have a child by her. According to the rules and regulations of that day, that was acceptable. He thought he had a son by Sarah’s, handmaid Hagar, and that son was named Ishmael. This is critical to what’s going on in this passage because what he does in versus 13 through 18 is basically say, these are the names of the sons of Ishmael, and then he lists them by name.

What is the significance of this small passage in the overall book of Genesis?  Sure enough, Ishmael had twelve sons and they all went out and eventually became different nations in what we would call today the Middle East. Therefore, this passage is telling us, what happened in that Ishmaels descendants settle down in the east, in other words, they became the Arab tribes. But this is also telling us is that the Lord fulfilled his promise, and that’s the point. Verses 12-18, God promised that Ishmael would produce sons that would produce nations, and this passage is telling us he had twelve sons. They settled in the east, and later we find out that they became what we call today, the Arabs. 

Now it gets really interesting. Next time we will look at the second part of the passage, and the genealogy of Isaac.