What Does Genesis 16:15 Mean?
And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son’s name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael.THE KEY
Ishmael is a sentence held inside a name: God hears.
THE MEANING
The name Ishmael carries the truth that God hears. Hagar’s affliction remains audible in the family story through the name her son bears. The verse speaks to you now: being overlooked by people does not mean your distress is unheard by God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that if no one around you acknowledges your distress, it has gone unheard altogether.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁמָעֵאל
Yishmaʿel
GROWS FROM
שמע
š-m-ʿ
Hear, listen, heed
“Ishmael” in this verse is Yishmaʿel. The name joins יִשְׁמַע (yishmaʿ, “he hears”) with אֵל (El, “God”): “God hears.” English presents a proper name where Hebrew leaves a whole sentence audible, so Hagar’s affliction stays carried in her son’s identity.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear; listen and respond
שְׁמַע
This is the root made audible in Ishmael’s name and echoed by “hath heard” in the explanation of the name.
shemuʿah: Report, tidings; something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
The root can name what is heard as well as the act of hearing; Ishmael’s name becomes a lasting report that Hagar’s distress is heard.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents God’s hearing as an active response that can become a lasting witness in a name.
And the LORD said, I have surely seen the bending low of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their drivers. For I know their pains.The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.But the messenger said to him, Do not be seized by awe, Zacharias, for your need has been heard and answered; and your wife Elisabeth will bring forth a son for you, and you will call his name John.THE THREAD
And the messenger of the LORD said to her, Behold, you are with child, and you will bear a son, and you will call his name Ishmael, God-hears; for the LORD has heard and responded to your bending low.This verse explains Ishmael’s name through Hagar’s affliction: the LORD has heard it. The shared root שמע (shamaʿ, hear and listen) joins the explanation to the name, carrying the hearing of her distress forward.
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