Genesis 21:14

And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away: and she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

Abraham rose up early, ... - early, that the wanderers might reach an asylum before noon. Bread includes all sorts of victuals; bottle, a leathern vessel, formed of the entire skin of a lamb or kid sewed up, with the legs for handles, usually carried over the shoulder. Ishmael was a lad of seventeen years; and it is quite customary for Arab chiefs to send out their sons at such an age to do for themselves, often with nothing but a few days' provisions in a bag. There was no guide, no attendant, not even a beast of burden. Calvin ('Commentary on Genesis') suggests that Abraham gave them a small allowance, with the express design of preventing their departure to a great distance; and that he was desirous of retaining them in the neighbourhood of his encampment (cf. Genesis 25:9), in order that he might render whatever kindly offices they might require. Many acts of parental counsel and warm affection, we may be sure, would be rendered, which this concise history does not mention; and Abraham would take every precaution to ensure their safety.

At the same time, it should be borne in mind that their departure had been commanded by a divine oracle, who had assured the patriarch of Ishmael's prosperity, and that Abraham had learned from experience to place such unlimited confidence in the truth and faithfulness of God as to believe that that promise would be performed, even though a miracle must be done to fulfill it.

And gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child. Our translators have followed the Septuagint, which represents Ishmael as but a child carried on his mother's shoulder [kai epetheeken epi ton oomon autees to paidion]. By a slight change in the punctuation, attention to what is added by way of parenthesis, and construing "child" with "took," with which it is properly connected, the meaning is fully brought out, free from all confusion and obscurity, thus:-`And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of water (and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder), and the child, and sent her away.'

And wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. Beer-sheba gave name to a large tract of uninhabited country in the southern border of Palestine. Hagar was evidently intending to travel in a southwestward direction, as on a former occasion, to reach the caravan road which led from central Palestine to Egypt, but had gone out of the common direction, in a wide-extending desert, where they missed the track. This desert is proleptically called "the wilderness of Beer-sheba;" for the name of the town, to the south of which it lay, originated in an incident that did not occur until afterward.