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 Abraham to expel Ishmael and his mother, saying: "Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac." Her demand was painful for Abraham, who loved Hagar and Ishmael. Abraham agreed only after God told him that "in Isaac your seed shall be called", and that God would "make a nation of the son of the bondwoman" Ishmael, since he was a descendant of Abraham (), God having previously told Abraham "I will establish My covenant with [Isaac]," while also making promises concerning the Ishmaelite nation