Genesis 25:16 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

By their towns, and by their castles. — Towns and castles in the wilderness of Paran there were none, but we know for certain that the first of these words signified an unwalled village. (See Leviticus 25:31, where it is exactly described; also Psalms 10:8·, Isaiah 42:11.) It was, however, a settled and permanent place of dwelling. The other word rendered here castle, but used as the equivalent of tent in Psalms 69:25, is really a cluster of tents, the encampment of a tribe, and movable. It occurs in Numbers 31:10; 1 Chronicles 6:54; Ezekiel 25:4. As is well known, the Arabs are divided into two classes — the dwellers in tents, who are ever moving from station to station, within certain limits, nevertheless, which they seldom pass over; and the agricultural class, who have fixed habitations, are looked upon as inferiors, and probably are the remains of a conquered race. To this day they pay a sort of rent, or black-mail, to the nobler Arabs. We find, then, this distinction already existing when this Tôldôth was drawn up; the agricultural Arabs dwelling in unwalled villages, while the nomad tribes pitched now here, and now there, their clusters of black camels’-hair tents. And thus we have in these words proof that Ishmael and his subjects were not all upon the same level; for while he, his sons, and his noblest retainers would dwell in tents, the inhabitants of the villages would be men of inferior origin, compelled to submit themselves to him.