Unfortunately, when evangelical Christians view the hostility between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East, many fatalistically shrug their shoulders and say, “The situation is hopeless. The Bible says that the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac will always hate each other.”
The Bible does not support this despairing and fatalistic perspective regarding the hostility between Arabs and Jews. Those who take this fatalistic view might be inadvertently supporting the continuation of Middle East conflict.
It is true that there is a genuine sense in which we can compare the hostility of modern Israel and the Arab/Muslim world as a “conflict between Isaac and Ishmael.” However, the basis of this hostility of Arabs and Jews towards each other isn’t genetic, but religious. Passages that are misunderstood to imply physical/genetic basis for their hostility are Genesis 16:12 and Genesis 25:18.
“He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers” (Genesis 16:12 NIV).
“His descendants settled in the area from Havilah to Shur, near the border of Egypt, as you go toward Asshur. And they lived in hostility toward all their brothers” (Genesis 25:18).
But there are serious problems involved with identifying today’s Arabic-speaking people as “descendants of Ishmael,” or today’s Jews with “all their brothers.”
First, there is considerable confusion regarding the meaning of the term “Arab.” Arabs are generally considered to be people who speak Arabic as their native tongue. But the vast majority of Arabic-speaking people today speak Arabic as the result of the Islamic conquests of the seventh century. This vast group of Arabs comes from a wide variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. Consequently, the ancient hostility that existed between the physical descendants of Ishmael and Isaac (approximately 1900 BC) has been diluted by centuries of intermarriage, exile, migration, and conquest.
Obviously, only a tiny portion of Arabs are physically descended from Ishmael. There is no physical basis for referring to the conflict between modern Israel and the modern Arab/Muslim world as a conflict between Isaac and Ishmael. However, while there is no physical basis for viewing it as a conflict between Isaac and Ishmael, there is a symbolic basis.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews tend to describe their modern opponents in biblical terms. They refer to them as “Amalek,” and they have referred to other enemies/competitors in other places with the same term.
Arabic-speaking Muslims, for their part, often claim to be the spiritual sons of Abraham through Ishmael by way of Mohammed. The Quran differs from the Bible in its description of the relationship of Abraham to Ishmael, claiming that the Hebrew Bible was corrupted to conceal the fact that Moses and key patriarchs were actually Muslims.1 This view of themselves as the genuine spiritual descendants of Abraham through Ishmael and Mohammed reinforces other passages in the Quran that are hostile toward Jews, thus nurturing the stereotypes.
Most likely, had the Quran never been written by Mohammed and the Islamic conquest never occurred, this stereotype of a struggle between the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac would never have developed to the degree it has.
However, this symbolism of hostility between Arabs and Jews is based on the misapplication or denial of scriptural authority. Fundamentalist Israelis who view modern-day adversaries as “Ishmael” or “Amalek” are applying the names of another age to people who are opposing them because of political conflicts rather than the mere fact that they are Jews. Similarly, Muslims that view themselves as the spiritual descendants of Ishmael are basing it on the Quran rather than the Bible.
From a Christian perspective, in a spiritual sense Ishmael (the Muslims) and Isaac (the Jews) are carrying on a conflict with each other in the same destructive spirit of competition, jealously, and hostility as did Ishmael and Isaac in the Bible. Ironically, although both groups claim to be the rightful heirs of Abraham on religious grounds, they both have rejected the true Seed of Abraham. In fact, Paul makes it clear that Jews who reject Jesus Christ are spiritually the sons of Hagar.