Genesis 21:8 - Clarke's commentary and critical notes on the Bible

And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. The child grew and was weaned - Anglo-Saxon Version. Now the child waxed and became weaned. We have the verb to wean from the Anglo-Saxon awendan, to convert, transfer, turn from one thing to another, which is the exact import of the Hebrew word גמל gamal in the text. Hence wenan, to wean, to turn the child from the breast to receive another kind of ailment. And hence, probably, the word Wean, a young child, which is still in use in the northern parts of Great Britain and Ireland, and which from its etymology seems to signify a child taken from the breast; surely not from the Scotch wee-ane, a little one, much less from the German wenig, little, as Dr. Johnson and others would derive it. At what time children were weaned among the ancients, is a disputed point. St. Jerome says there were two opinions on this subject. Some hold that children were always weaned at five years of age; others, that they were not weaned till they were twelve. From the speech of the mother to her son, 2 Maccabees 7:27, it seems likely that among the Jews they were weaned when three years old: O my son, have pity upon me that bare thee nine months in my womb, and gave thee Suck Three Years, and nourished thee and brought thee up. And this is farther strengthened by 2 Chronicles 31:16, where Hezekiah, in making provision for the Levites and priests, includes the children from three years old and upwards; which is a presumptive proof that previously to this age they were wholly dependent on the mother for their nourishment. Samuel appears to have been brought to the sanctuary when he was just weaned, and then he was capable of ministering before the Lord, 1 Samuel 1:22-28; and this certainly could not be before he was three years of age. The term among the Mohammedans is fixed by the Koran, chap. 31:14, at two years of age.