Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #5 of Genesis, chapter 25, and we will be reading Genesis 25:17-18:

And these are the years of the life of Ishmael, an hundred and thirty and seven years: and he gave up the ghost and died; and was gathered unto his people. And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria: and he died in the presence of all his brethren.

We were discussing some interesting time relationships regarding the life and death of Ishmael in relationship to Abraham and also to the year 2033.  And now we will finish this little section here before we move on.

We discussed that Ishmael gave up the ghost and died.  We went to Job 14 which spoke of man giving up the ghost, and then the question was asked, “And where is he?”  That ties into the death of (unsaved) man when he dies physically because his soul is already dead.  You know, there is a difference with the minds of men where they have their feelings, thoughts, dream life and all those kinds of things.  Those things are all part of the body involved with the workings of the mind.  There is the breath of life that animates the physical body.  But when a person dies who is already dead in soul, the soul had been dead for his or her entire life.  They never had a living soul.  And they came from parents whose bodies could only impart them a body that was under the curse to go along with a soul that was already dead.  God never saved that person and that individual’s soul was never restored and brought to life.  The mind of man is part of the breath of life that God gives to man as well as to animals, and it is the reason the Lord says in Ecclesiastes that unsaved man is like a beast.  We read in Ecclesiastes 3:18-19:

I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.

As one dieth, so dieth the other,  Unsaved man is like the beast that perishes in the sense that his soul was already dead.  Of course a beast – a dog, cat or any other animal – does not have a soul.  They were not created in the image of God, but they were given the breath of life.  That is why they can have a personality, and from one dog to another dog, we can see differences.  It is all part of that breath of life.  They have minds, although they are very limited, but some dogs are able to learn more things.  When the animal dies, the things that “animated” them and gave them minds and personalities are gone – it is all gone.  The animal had no soul that could live on.  It is only God’s elect that have restored born-again souls that will live on, but the unsaved people of the earth never had their souls regenerated, so they remain in an unregenerate state.  Therefore, they die and the breath of life that God gave to them (as well as to animals) leaves them.  It returns to God who gave it, in that sense, and the man is completely dead.  He was never alive in his soul.  He was only alive in the body when he had that animating breath of life that was part of the body, as it was packaged in that body.  But now he is dead in that physical body, and he is gone.  His thoughts have perished, and who he was has ceased to be except for the remains of the body.  There is no soul, but only the dead body is left.  In the last day, when God raises up whatever is left of all the unsaved people that ever lived (even if it is only dust), that will be the final shaming.  They will not rise to life, but only to condemnation in destruction as God destroys the whole physical universe, including the sun, moon, stars, galaxies and everything He created in those six days because the curse was on it all.  God will destroy it with the remains of every unregenerate sinner.  That is when total annihilation comes into play when the penalty of the second death is paid completely and in full.  Nothing remains of the cursed creation or the cursed sinner.  So when we read that Ishmael “gave up the ghost” and died and was gathered to his people, this is what happened to him. 

Then it says in Genesis 25:18:

And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria: and he died in the presence of all his brethren.

Havilah is the name of an ancient land.  We find it mentioned even before the fall of man in Genesis 2:10-11:

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

All we are told about Havilah is that the river compassed the whole land of Havilah, where there was gold, and the gold was good.  We have to keep in mind that God likens those He has saved to “gold, silver, precious stones.”  So in Havilah there was gold, and that can point to God’s elect.

Havilah is also found in 1Samuel 15:1-3:

Samuel also said unto Saul, JEHOVAH sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of JEHOVAH. Thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

Then it says in 1Samuel 15:7-9:

And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.

Here, we see in verse 7 that King Saul smote the Amalekites “from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt,” and those are exactly the boundaries we read about in Genesis 25:18:

And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt…

The Ishmaelites dwelt in that area.  The Amalekites were in that area, and we are told in Numbers 24:20:

And when he looked on Amalek, he took up his parable, and said, Amalek was the first of the nations; but his latter end shall be that he perish for ever.

The Amalekites were said to have been “the first of the nations.”  Therefore, they can represent mankind.  Adam was the first man that fell into sin, and it is the reason why God sentenced all the Amalekites to death.  They were not to enter into the house of God.  They were subject to death, and the Lord told Samuel to command Saul to slay them utterly, which is the same command that we find in the Bible when we read about sinners: “For the wages of sin is death.”  So all mankind is sentenced to death, and it is only by the grace of God that there were any that received the gift of life through His salvation and, of course, the only way to receive that was through the death of Christ.

But the name “Havilah” refers to an ancient land, and we can tie it in to mankind before the fall.  Also, since the Amalekites, the first of the nations, dwelt there, it would relate to mankind, and in Havilah there was gold; that is, in the world, God had his elect, typified by “gold, silver, precious stones.”

We also read in 1Samuel 27:8:

And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites: for those nations were of old the inhabitants of the land, as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt.

Again, the Amalekites are mentioned, along with the land of Shur and Egypt.  And in the Bible, Egypt can be a picture of the world.  It can be a picture of the apostate, fallen church when the Lord wants to illustrate that the churches returned to bondage, as Egypt was called “the house of bondage.”  So we find in Revelation 11 that when the two witnesses were slain, their bodies were lying in the street which was spiritually called Sodom and Egypt.  For the most part, in the Bible Egypt represents the world, and the reference to Havilah and Shur ties in with the world, spiritually.  And this is where Ishmael and his people dwelt, according to Genesis 25:18:

And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that is before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria: and he died in the presence of all his brethren.

This is the second time we read the English word “died.”  It was in verse 17: “and he gave up the ghost and died; and was gathered unto his people.”  But it is from two different words.  In verse 17, it is Strong’s #4191 in the Hebrew concordance, and that is the typical word used when someone has died.  Back in verse 8, we read that Abraham gave up the ghost and died.  That is #4191 and, again, it is the same word used in verse 17.  But in Genesis 25:18, it is a different word.  It is #5307 in Strong’s Concordance, and I believe it is only translated as “died” here in this verse.  How is it normally translated?  It is translated as “fall” or “fall down.”  It is used in relationship to death, as in those that “fall” by the sword.  It is also translated as “fail” or “divide” or translated in some other ways, but it is only translated as “died” one time (in Genesis 25:18), so this is curious.  Why is God using this word?  We could read it this way: “…and he fell in the presence of all his brethren.”   We know this was at the point of his death because the previous verse told us in Genesis 25:17:

…the years of the life of Ishmael, an hundred and thirty and seven years: and he gave up the ghost and died; and was gathered unto his people.

He did, indeed, die.  But he also “fell” at the time of his death.  Again, we wonder what is the point of using this word for “fell,” and what is God trying to show us by using this word?  I struggled with this because it is very difficult.  If we go back to Genesis 16, we read in Genesis 16:11-12:

And the angel of JEHOVAH said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because JEHOVAH hath heard thy affliction. And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.

Again, it had said in Genesis 25:18 that he “died” or “fell” in the presence of all his brethren.  Remember, at the point he was driven out (by Abraham), he was 16 or 17 years old, and then he died at age 137, which was 120 or 121 years later.  And, yet, he had lived in the presence of all his brethren and he died or fell in the presence of all his brethren, so the Lord is making the point that he lived a life that was the same.  There was no change, really, as far as living and dying in the presence of his brethren.  Everything was done in the presence of his brethren.  So that is the first thing we wonder about all this talk about it being in the presence of his brethren.  We can turn to Psalm 116 and we will see that the Lord uses a similar type of language when speaking of Himself.  It says in Psalm 116:14:

I will pay my vows unto JEHOVAH now in the presence of all his people.

This refers to JEHOVAH’S people, so it is in the presence of all God’s people that HE will pay His vows.  Then it is repeated in Psalm 116:18:

I will pay my vows unto JEHOVAH now in the presence of all his people,

So we see, on one hand, it is doing something in the presence of God’s people.  And, on the other hand, we see Ishmael living and dying and falling in the presence of all his brethren – not God or God’s people, but his brethren.  We can see the difference there, but now let us go to a parable in the New Testament that the Lord Jesus gave in Luke 14.  And this parable has to do with the judgment of God.  We read in Luke 14:7-9:

And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.

I will stop here for a second.  The person went up “high,” and when the honorable man came, what happened?  The one who bade him said, “Give this man place,” and the person was shamed and had to take the lowest room.  When you have gone up high and you have to take the lowest room, what are you doing?  You are “falling” or “coming down” in position.  You were in a high place of honor, but you are having to come down to a lower place of shame.  Keep in mind that it said in Genesis 25:18 that Ishmael “fell” in the presence of all his brethren.  Here, we are reading of someone that was falling or coming down.  The Hebrew word translated as “fall” can also indicate falling by the edge of the sword.  Or, it says in Leviticus 26:7:

And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

Also, in the same chapter, it says in Leviticus 26:36:

And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.

You see, it does relate to being “brought low,” especially regarding this parable in Luke 14.  It is similar to Obadiah regarding Esau’s (Edom’s) situation, where the Lord says in Obadiah 1:3-4:

The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith JEHOVAH.

That is the “fall” that Ishmael experienced.  And, again, he was the son of Hagar who identified with mount Sinai or the Law.  He was the son of the covenant who expected to enter into heaven based on the performance of his own good works, but he would be terribly disappointed.  When do those that trust in their works gospel or works religion experience their fall?  That is, when will they know? They may not know intellectually and when they die, their thoughts will perish, but they will “know” through the experience of having died at the end of their lives or, finally, at the end of the world, and they will not be lifted up and exalted into the heavens to be taken into the kingdom of God.  They are “cast down” and shamed when they must take the lowest room. 

I will keep reading in Luke 14:10:

But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.

There is the reference to “in the presence” that we saw in Psalm 116 where it referred to being in the presence of God’s people.  When God has lifted you up and when you have been received by the grace of God through the faith of Christ, then you will have true worship in the presence of those that sit at meat with you.  Then it says in Luke 14:11:

For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

I think that would be the main point or focus in Genesis 25.  At the point of Ishmael’s death, he “fell” in the presence of all his brethren.  He was not taken up.  He was not brought into the presence of God and His people, all the saints in glory.  He went to nothing, except that his body remains and will be utterly destroyed on the last day.