Every Enemy and Exile Came to Abraham's Funeral

Genesis 25:9 contains one of the most quietly significant verses in the entire patriarchal narrative: "And Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him in the Cave of Machpelah." Isaac and Ishmael. Together. The two half-brothers — one the heir who had remained, one the exile who had been sent away decades before — standing side by side at their father's grave.

The rabbis noticed the order: Isaac is named first. The Midrash Rabbah on Genesis (Bereshit Rabbah 62:3, c. 400-500 CE) used this to argue that Ishmael had done teshuvah — repentance, return — and had deferred to Isaac. The exile came back. And he came back changed.

What Happened to Ishmael After the Expulsion?

After Hagar and Ishmael were sent into the wilderness in Genesis 21, the Torah's narrative focus moves away from them. Ishmael appears only once more before the death of Abraham — in Genesis 25:12-18, where his genealogy is listed: twelve princes, the sons of twelve daughters of Canaan. He lived to 137 years and "settled in the presence of all his brothers" (Genesis 25:18), which mirrors almost exactly what the angel had predicted at his birth: he would live in defiance of all his kin.

But the traditions preserved in the Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (published 1909-1938) are more specific. Ishmael lived in the wilderness of Paran with his mother Hagar, and later married an Egyptian woman. He learned archery and became a great hunter. He married twice — the first wife was named Adisha or Aisha, the second was Fatima or Meribah — and his first wife was dismissed by Abraham himself, in the famous story of Abraham's visit to Ishmael's tent (preserved in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, c. 8th century CE, chapter 30). Abraham arrived when Ishmael was away, met the first wife, and told her to give Ishmael a message: change the threshold of the tent. Ishmael understood — his father was telling him to divorce the inhospitable wife. He did.

Did Abraham and Ishmael Stay in Contact?

The visit to Ishmael's tent suggests they did. The same tradition in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer records a second visit, when Abraham again found Ishmael away and met the second wife, Fatima. This time, when Abraham asked for food and drink, she brought it promptly and graciously. Abraham blessed her, and told her to give Ishmael a message: the threshold of the tent is good. Keep it. This second wife — the hospitable one — was the one Abraham approved.

The Midrash Aggadah tradition treats these visits as evidence that Abraham never fully cut off contact with his exiled son, even if the formal inheritance had been settled in Isaac's favor. The emotional relationship between father and firstborn son persisted across the decades of separation.

What Was Ishmael's State of Mind at the Funeral?

The Babylonian Talmud (compiled c. 500 CE), Tractate Bava Batra 16b, records a debate about the order of names at the funeral — Isaac before Ishmael — and concludes that this represented Ishmael's deference to Isaac, which itself represented his recognition that Isaac was the heir of the covenant. The rabbis read this deference as a meaningful act of spiritual humility: Ishmael, who had every reason for bitterness, who had been displaced as firstborn, whose mother had been twice expelled, who had been sent into the wilderness as a child, came to his father's funeral and stood behind his half-brother.

The Midrash Rabbah (Bereshit Rabbah 62:3) presents this as one of the signs of Ishmael's teshuvah — his return to right relationship. He was at peace with who he was in the story. He was not the heir. He was the firstborn. Both things were true, and he could hold both. The rabbis gave him great credit for this.

What the Cave of Machpelah Contained

Abraham was buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron alongside Sarah, whom he had buried there years before (Genesis 23). The purchase of this cave — Abraham's only real estate transaction in the entire Torah — is described in extraordinary legal detail in Genesis 23, with the Hittite landowner Ephron first offering it as a gift and then, at Abraham's insistence, selling it for four hundred shekels of silver at the going merchant rate.

The Zohar (first published c. 1290 CE in Castile, Spain, Zohar I:127a-b) describes the Cave of Machpelah as the earthly gateway to the Garden of Eden — beneath the cave, the kabbalistic tradition teaches, lies the original Garden, and the patriarchs and matriarchs buried there stand at the threshold between the living world and paradise. The cave that Abraham paid for in silver became, in the kabbalistic imagination, the most sacred piece of real estate in the entire cosmos.

The Reunion the Torah Shows and the Reconciliation It Implies

Abraham's death scene is the only moment in Genesis when Isaac and Ishmael appear together in the same verse, doing the same action, for the same purpose. The expulsion of Ishmael had seemed final. The separation had lasted decades. Yet here they are: two old men burying their father together.

The Midrash Tanchuma (c. 9th century CE, Chayei Sarah 9) reads this reunion as a deliberate gift from Abraham, who had lived long enough to see his two exiled sons — the one sent to the wilderness and the one briefly bound on a mountain — arrive at the same grave together. Abraham's death did not split what remained of his family. It gathered it. The midrash notes that God blessed Isaac after Abraham's death (Genesis 25:11), and interprets this as a direct continuation: the father who could have died in a house divided died instead in one where the sons had made peace. And the blessing passed to Isaac in that atmosphere of reconciliation, not in spite of Ishmael's presence, but because of it.

Explore the full Abraham narrative and its rabbinic elaborations across thousands of ancient texts at jewishmythology.com.