Ishmael (Moby-Dick) Biblical in origin: in Genesis 16:1-16; 17:18-25; 21:6-21; 25:9-17, Ishmael was the son of Abraham by the servant Hagar. In 16:11-12, the most significant verses for Melville's allegory, Hagar was cast off after the birth of Isaac, who inherited the covenant of the Lord instead of his older half-brother. Melville shapes his allegory to the Biblical Ishmael as follows: And so the name points to a Biblical analogy that marks Ishmael as the prototype of "wanderer and outcast," the man set at odds with his fellows. Wright says that all Melville's heroes—with the exception of Benito Cereno and Billy Budd—are
Abraham's family tree Abraham's family tree Abraham is known as the patriarch of the Jewish people through Isaac, the son born to him and Sarah in their old age and the patriarch of Arabs through his son Ishmael, born to Abraham and his wife’s servant Hagar. Although Abraham's forefathers were from southern Mesopotamia (in present-day Iraq) according to the biblical narrative, Yahweh led Abraham on a journey to the land of Canaan, which he promised to his descendants. The genealogy of Abraham appears in Genesis 5, Genesis 10:1-7, 20, 22-23, 31-32, and Genesis 11. The documentary hypothesis attributes these genealogies to the Priestly