Genesis 16:14 She therefore named the oasis, 'Oasis to Live my Vision' (Be'er LaChai Ro'i. It is between Kadesh and Bered.

Birth of Ishmael, father of the Arabian tribes.

Genesis

16:1 Abram's wife Sarai had not borne him any children. She had an Egyptian slave-girl by the name of Hagar.

16:2 Sarai said to Abram, 'God has kept me from having children. Come to my slave, and hopefully I will have sons through her.' Abram heeded Sarai.

16:3 After Abram had lived in Canaan for ten years, his wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian her slave, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife.

16:4 [Abram] came to her, and she conceived. When she realized that she was pregnant, she looked at her mistress with contempt.

16:5 Sarai said to Abram, 'It's all your fault! I myself placed my slave in your arms! Now that she sees herself pregnant, she looks at me with disrespect. Let God judge between me and you!'

16:6 Abram replied to Sarai, 'Your slave is in your hands. Do with her as you see fit.' Sarai abused her, and [Hagar] ran away from her.

16:7 An angel of God encountered her by a spring in the desert, in the oasis on the road to Shur.

16:8 [The angel] said, 'Hagar, maid of Sarai! From where are you coming, and where are you going?' 'I am running away from my mistress, Sarai,' she replied.

16:9 The angel of God said to her, 'Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her.'

16:10 [Another] angel said in God's name, 'I will grant you many descendants. They will be so many that they will be uncountable.'

16:11 [Still another] angel of God said to her, 'You are pregnant, and will give birth to a son. You must name him Ishmael, for God has heard your prayer.

16:12 He will be a rebel. His hand will be against everyone, and everyone's hand will be against him. Still, he will dwell undisturbed near all his brothers.'

16:13 [Hagar] gave a name to God who had spoken to her, [saying], 'You are a Vision God,' for she said, 'Didn't I [still] see here after my vision?'

16:14 She therefore named the oasis, 'Oasis to Life my Vision' (Be'er LaChai Ro'i). It is between KADESH (Mecca) and Bered.

16:15 Hagar bore Abram's son. Abram gave the name Ishmael to his son, who had been born to Hagar.

16:16 He was 86 years old when Hagar bore his son Ishmael.

Ibn Ezra identifies this with Zimum (or in other versions, Zimzum), where the Arabs hold an annual festival. This is Zemzem near Mecca. According to this, however, Hagar headed in to the Arabian Peninsula rather than toward Egypt.

Further, in a paper on Kadesh Barnea published in the Palestinian Exploration Quarterly in 1964/65 H. Bar-Deroma used the identification of Kadesh as a way that the Bible defined the borders of "Israel" in Numbers 34:3 to extend those borders almost a quarter of the way down the Arabian peninsular.

8/26/02 - Addendum JEWS IN ARABIA -- The Jewish Rabbi Binyamin of Tudela did an extensive census of Jews in the world in approximately 1175 AD. 47.7% - FORTY SEVEN PERCENT - lived in Arabia/Yemen that is 465,000 of the 975,000 that he counted. Other manuscript and source documents of Mecca mentioned in ancient literature By Michael S. Sanders