And 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.
A wild man - literally, a wild ass man, expressing how the disposition of Ishmael and his descendants resembles that of the wild donkey.
His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him - descriptive of the rude, turbulent, and plundering character of the Arabs.
Dwell in the presence of all his brethren - dwell, i:e., pitch tents; and the meaning is, that they maintain their independence in spite of all attempts to extirpate or subdue them. Some render the words, "in presence of all his brethren," 'against all his brethren' - i:e., even in dwelling with his brethren he would maintain his characteristic hostility; and others (Rosenmuller and Gesenius) take the words, in a geographical sense, as signifying before - i:e., to the east, eastward (Genesis 25:18); he shall "dwell in the presence of all his brethen," namely, in Arabia. There is truth in each of these versions; but that adopted by our translators is literal and correct, meaning that, though the wild and lawless character of Ishmael's posterity would provoke a host of enemies against them on every side, they would successfully withstand all assaults, and remain established in their land.
In all other countries where the inhabitants have existed in a national capacity, they have gradually acquired the character and habits of a settled community; their pursuits, pastimes, and general mode of life have been moulded by the climate and conditions of the soil, by changes of government, and the progress of society. But no external influences have been able to affect the Arabs: they have continued unaltered in the same social state, and addicted to the same roaming propensities, animated by the same unconquerable love of liberty and independence, bent on the same favourite objects of feud and plunder, since the days of Ishmael, whose wild and irregular features are to this day indelibly impressed upon the marauding tribes of the desert. 'On the smallest computation,' says Sir R.K. Porter, in describing the characteristics of an Arab tribe, 'such must have been the manners of these people for more than three thousand years: thus in all things verifying the prediction given of Ishmael at his birth, that he, in his posterity, should be a wild man, and always continue to be so, though they shall dwell forever in the presence of all their brethren. And that an acute and active people, surrounded for centuries by polished and luxurious nations, should, from their earliest ages to their latest times, be found still a wild people, dwelling in the presence of all their brethren (as we may call these nations), unsubdued and unchangeable, is indeed a standing miracle-one of those mysteries and incontrovertible facts which establish the truth of prophecy.'