What were Ishmaelites and Israelites in the population scheme of the bible?

When looking at directions given, they are perspective from the point you are located.
If it is stated that the place is before a given location.. if you get to that given secondary location, you have went too far.

* If in Kansas you are telling someone how to get to Texas and they say it is -> before<- Mexico.. If you find yourself in Mexico, you have went to far.

* If you are told go -> toward<-Mexico, that does not mean the destination is in Mexico, just in that general direction.

01~GENESIS 025016. These are the sons of Ishmael....
01~GENESIS 025018` And they lived from Havilah to Shur, that is ->before<- EGYPT, as you goest ->toward<- Assyria
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Using your map reading skills and the identification of the places some of Ishmael's descendants lived, here is a general Idea where they were scattered.

ASSYRIA . The name of the ancient country whose inhabitants were called Assyrians. It lay in the upper Mesopotamian plain, bounded on the W by the Syrian desert, on the S by the Jebel Hamrin and Babylonia, and on the N and E by the Urartian (Armenian) and Persian hills. (NOT Assyria.. but ->Before you go toward Assyria<- or the direction of)

Havilah = modern day Iraq

SHUR . A wilderness-region in the NW part of the Sinai isthmus, S of the Mediterranean coastline and the 'way of the land of the Philistines', between the present line of the Suez Canal on its W and the 'River of *Egypt' (Wadi el-ÐArish) on its E.

Gilead West Jordan ... Bashan (west Jordan) unto Baalhermon and Senir, and unto mount Hermon. (A mountain in the neighborhood of Palestine. It is called also Mt Sirion ).
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Some of these are places.. of course it is people who exist and live in lands where they give names to those places. Here is a short list of people who lived through out the middle east centuries before Ishmael was ever born.

There is NO place where Ishmael's descendants migrated to where there were not already Arab nations, settlements existing for centuries before !

Abimael, Abimelech, Abraham, Abram, Accad, Adah, Admah, Almodad, Amalekites, Ammon, Amorite, Amorites, Amraphel, Anamim, Aner, Aram, Ararat, Arioch, Arkite, Arphaxad, Arvadite, Ashkenaz, Ashteroth, Asshur, Assyria, Beerlahairoi, Beersheba, Bela, Benammi, Bera, Bered, Bethel, Birsha, Cainan, Calah, Calneh, Canaan, Canaanites, Caphtorim, Casluhim, Chaldees, Chedorlaomer, Cush, Dedan, Diklah, Dodanim, Eber, Elam, Eliezer, Elishah, Ellasar, Elparan, Emims, Enmishpat, Enoch, Enos, Erech, Eshcol, Gerar, Gether, Gihon, Girgashites, Girgasite, Gomer, Gomorrah, Hadoram, Hagar, Hai, Hamathite, Haran, Havilah, Hazarmaveth, Hazezontamar, Hebron, Heth, Hiddekel, Hittites, Hivite, Hobah, Horites, Hul, Irad, Iscah, Jabal, Japheth, Javan, Jebusites, Jehovahjireh, Jerah, Jobab, Joktan, Jubal, Kadesh, Kadmonites, Karnaim, Kenites, Kenizzites, Kiriathaim, Kittim, Lamech, Lasha, Lehabim, Lud, Ludim, Madai, Magog, Mahalaleel, Mamre, Mehujael, Melchizedek, Mesha, Meshech, Methusael, Milcah, Mizraim, Moabites, Moreh, Moriah, Naamah, Nahor, Naphtuhim, Nimrod, Nineveh, Obal, Ophir, Paran, Pathrusim, Peleg, Perizzites, Phichol, Philistim, Phut, Pison, Raamah, Rehoboth, Rephaims, Resen, Reu, Riphath, Sabtah, Sabtecha, Salah, Sarai, Seba, Seir, Sephar, Serug, Shaveh, Sheba, Sheleph, Shem, Shemeber, Shinab, Shinar, Shur, Sichem, Siddim, Sidon, Sinite, Tarshish, Terah, Tiras, Togarmah, Tubal, Tubalcain, Ur, Uz, Uzal, Ye, Zeboiim, Zeboim, Zemarite, Zillah, Zoar, Zuzims.

Ishmael was conceived centuries AFTER the descendants of Ham, Shem and Japeth had already existed and scattered through out the middle east. Like the Israelites Ishmael was a descendant of Shem and Ham.

The descendants of Ishmael did not even all migrate to the same places, but hundreds of miles apart (there were only 12 to scatter).

They would have been like a couple families moving to NY in an already existing mass population and lost in a sea of human population.

Of course the Ishmaelites would have mingled and married with the descendants of the

Arab tribes/nations that existed before they were ever conceived... just like the Israelites mingled with and married every Arab tribe/Nation they ever encountered .. and yes some of the Israelites married the Edomites which were a composite of Esau and Ishmael.

The idea of Ishmael being the father of the vast population of the middle east is as goofy as 12 siblings migrating from Kansas to Mexico a thousand years after Mexico exist and claiming the population of Mexico are their descendants.

The Ishmaelites, like the Israelites were nothing but a drop in a ten gallon jug that has been mixed for 6,000 years.
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Depending on which stats you look at, the dynasties may verify but in this particular one: Narmer was an Egyptian Pharaoh who ruled in the 31st century BC ... well over 1000 years before Abraham was ever born.

These people established the first dynasty, whose first pharaoh Menes, ... held that Egypt's first dynasty flourished a thousand years before Abraham .
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Genesis-Israel-Egypt-E-J-Sweeney/dp/1857563506

Abraham, the Israel nor Ishmael had anything to do with creating the mass population of the middle east. Their descendants are but a fraction mingled in the Arabs who existed before them... the Arabs who they themselves were descendants of.