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
Ishmael son of Nethaniah earlier treatment of the royal household (Jeremiah 39:6). Robert Carroll describes the assassination as ‘armed revolt against Babylonian authority and the execution of a collaborationist’, noting also, however, that the tale hints at a residual factionalism that had bedevilled Judah in the period before the Babylonian invasion. However, wider political machinations also seem to have played a part. Jeremiah (though not II Kings) makes clear that Ishmael has been sent by king Baalis of the neighbouring kingdom of Ammon to kill Gedaliah. The full name of the Ammonite king Baalis (Ba‘alyiša‘, ‘Baal is salvation’) has been attested for the first