Here, I will make him blessed, I will make him bear fruit, I will make him many, exceedingly, exceedingly he will beget twelve leaders, and I will make a great nation of him. One is literary , and explains the verse in the narrow context of the chapter, and in the wider context of the entire Avraham narrative. Most of the commentators who chose the first approach lived in Christian lands. Although there exist differences between the commentaries, all of them seem to be textually-oriented. The second approach was followed by at least four commentators who lived in different times and dwelt in different locales under Islamic rule.
Commentaries composed under Muslim rule and influence take a different track.
Thus he hints at the problematic nature of Abraham's ostensible forfeiture of the additional son just promised him by God. Rabeinu Hannanel, a 10 th resident of Kayrawan, Tunis, is known primarily for his commentary on the Talmud, but he also composed a commentary to the Torah. Fragments of it survived in the commentary of Rabeinu Bahya ben Asher, who lived in Saragossa, Spain, in the 13 th and 14 th centuries. This delay was not due to their sins, and they looked forward to it all these years, and finally it was realized, and then they attained political power. Rabeinu Hannanel, as we noted, lived under Islamic rule, and, like many Jews of his time, he identified Yishmael with Islamic dominion.