Answer
In Genesis 16:12, God announces Ishmael’s legacy: “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.” A wild donkey conjures up the image of one who is stubborn and out of control. One might wonder why God would announce such a future for Ishmael.
Earlier in Genesis 16, Sarai and Abram took matters into their own hands to provide the son that God had promised them. Both of them were aging, and God still had not given them children. In a fit of worry and painfully flawed human problem-solving, Sarai suggested to Abraham, “Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her” (Genesis 16:2).
Hagar, the slave, got pregnant, and problems ensued. Having two women living in the same house while also sleeping with the same man always causes problems. Hagar despised Sarai, and Sarai responded by being so mean to Hagar that she fled to the desert, expecting nothing but death for herself and the unborn baby. In the desert the Lord met her in her struggle and blessed her. The Lord told her to name her son Ishmael, meaning “God hears.” It is in this context that God predicts that Ishmael will be “a wild donkey of a man.”
A wild donkey is one of God’s freest and most intractable creatures. One commentary describes the wild donkey as “typically untameable, strong, free, roaming, suspicious, and untrustworthy” (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, note on Genesis 16:12). God Himself describes the wild donkey in Job 39:5–8:
Who sent out the wild donkey free?
And who loosed the bonds of the swift donkey,
To whom I gave the wilderness for a home
And the salt land for his dwelling place?
He scorns the tumult of the city,
The shoutings of the driver he does not hear.
He explores the mountains for his pasture
And searches after every green thing.
God said that Ishmael would have descendants “too numerous to count” (Genesis 16:9). But his nature would lead him and his posterity to strive with others, throw off all yokes, and roam free. Like a wild donkey, Ishmael would live a turbulent lifestyle, fiercely independent and ready to fight.And who loosed the bonds of the swift donkey,
To whom I gave the wilderness for a home
And the salt land for his dwelling place?
He scorns the tumult of the city,
The shoutings of the driver he does not hear.
He explores the mountains for his pasture
And searches after every green thing.
The conflict between Sarai and Hagar was so sharp that Sarai called it cḥāmās, a Hebrew word meaning “violence” or “injustice.” The animosity between Sarai and Hagar ultimately became the way Ishmael treated Sarai’s son, Isaac. He mocked his half-brother so intensely that Abraham sent Hagar away with Ishmael (Genesis 21:8–14).
But the violence continued well past Ishamel. Isaac’s son, Jacob—whose name was eventually changed by the Lord to Israel—grew into a nation. Today, cḥāmās still exists between most Arabs and Jews. The whole world witnesses the anguish, violence, and “wild donkey” nature that God promised would be part of Ishmael’s legacy.
The word cḥāmās first appears in Scripture in the time of Noah and so predates Ishmael. God said the whole world was filled with cḥāmās, so He sent a flood to wipe out the evil. Chāmās is and always has been a heart problem. Society at large suffers as a result. Psalm 58:2 condemns unjust rulers with these words: “In your hearts you devise wrongs; your hands deal out violence [cḥāmās] on earth” (ESV).
In the story of Sarai and Hagar, we see an example of how cḥāmās evolves between two people and then explodes in grand scale between nations. We are all by nature “wild donkeys” connected to sin, and that sin ultimately rails against God. We want to own the world and wish to take it back from God via cḥāmās. That’s the nature of our hearts, and without the redemption of Jesus, without humbly admitting that He is Lord of all, we can’t desire anything else (see Ephesians 2:1–8).