Abraham is the father of many peoples. His name is composed ab/av , “father” and rum “exalt.” He had eight sons by three women, Ishmael by Hagar, Isaac by his half-sister Sarah, and six more by Cheturá.
The firstborn Ishmael (Ishmael, “the Lord hears”) is the father of the nomadic Arabs. His mother's name, Hagar, is Egyptian and is connected with the Hagarites, a local ethnic group. Hagar was cast out by Sarah because, having become pregnant by Abraham, she despised her. The angel of the Lord, however, appeared to Hagar at the fountain of Sur in the desert and persuaded her to return in submission to Sarah, with the promise of great offspring. Eventually, however, Sarah finally had Hagar and Ishmael driven out of Abraham's family.
The second-born Isaac (Yitschaq, “he laughs”), son of Abraham's much-loved and very beautiful bride, Sarah, is famous for the well-known episode of the failed sacrifice, in which he is only a comprimario. He is assigned to marry his relative Rebecca, whose uncle he is. Sarah (“princess”), on the other hand, is one of Israel's “matriarchs” because of several important events: through divine intervention she is the mother of Isaac, from whom Jacob and the twelve tribes of Israel will be born. She is then the protagonist of the novella of the bride-sister, and is sold by Abraham as a bride first to Pharaoh and then as a betrothed to Abimelech. Sarah is in fact Abraham's half-sister.
These episodes, poorly understood in reality, show the different eras in which the various sagas of the Abraham narrative were composed: there is in fact an “archaic” Abraham, who still follows the marriage strategy of endogamy, for himself and his son Isaac; and a “modern man” Abraham who speaks to Pharaoh who has become enraptured with Sarah and tells him, “No, she is not my wife, she is my sister!”
Of the third wife Chethurah (“Keturah”) and the other six sons in Genesis only the names are mentioned. The name Keturah comes from a root meaning thick smoke, vapor.
P.S. Etymologies taken from the Brown-Driver-Briggs
