These desert tribes were the Amalekites, the Kenites, and the Ishmaelites. Of the Kenites and their relations with the Amalekites and Midianites we have already spoken. The Amalekites seem to have lived in a state of open hostility to the Israelites, and to have harassed them by predatory raids. Saul and David both fought against them. One body of the Amalekites appears afterwards to have joined itself to Edom; another to have been absorbed in Ephraim (Judges v. 14). The Ishmaelites and Israelites may, on the other hand, have been on friendly terms, although the divergence of their respective interests would naturally make the ungovernable nomads, who acknowledged a political authority, troublesome neighbours to husbandmen. Thus the admirable description of her future son given by the angel of the Lord to Hagar at the well of Lahai-roi in Genesis xvi. 12, “He will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren,” is drawn straight from the life. The more friendly relations in which Ishmael and Israel stand with one another finds expression in the mythical genealogy which makes Ishmael half brother to Isaac and traces his descent from Hagar, the Egyptian, Abraham’s concubine. Hagar is, of course, the name of an Ishmaelite clan. We meet with another expression of the same relation when Keturah is given to Abraham as a concubine. This must likewise be understood as the name of an Ishmaelite clan. This mode of expression took its rise in the holy places of Beersheba, Beer-lahai-roi, and Hebron, which were probably visited by Israelites and Ishmaelites alike. One proof that the _connubium_ existed between Israelites and Ishmaelites is the fact that Abigail, a sister of David, had an Ishmaelite husband, Ithra by name. The name of Ishmaelite speedily disappears from history. We hear nothing of any catastrophe that overwhelmed the nation, and consequently it seems possible that Ishmael, like Israel, was in historic times merely the name of a confederation of distinct tribes. The confederation dissolved, and the name of Ishmael vanished with it, as the name of Israel would have vanished after the catastrophe of 722 had it not acquired a spiritual significance which rendered its transference to Judah possible. The post-Exilic Jews acquired the habit of calling all Arabs by the name of Ishmael. From the Jews the name and the idea passed over to the Arabs themselves. This explains why the name of Ishmael has been made by Arab genealogists the basis of every kind of speculation. The application of the term Ishmaelites to the Mohammedans is also to be referred to Jewish usage.[e] THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN