These are their genealogies: Nebaioth the firstborn of Ishmael, then Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam,
Israel was the chosen nation, elect in type; no other people in their national capacity held the covenant privilege the Jews held. The Lord knows His own by name, and many good souls outside Abraham's seed surely found favor with Him, but this genealogy traces the one nation incorporated into His peculiar bond. The Ishmaelites get scant notice because they were cast out as children of the bondwoman, and their rejection foreshadowed the unbelieving Jews rejected after.
AI summary
Commenting on 1 Chronicles 1:28-54
SONS OF ISHMAEL. (Ch1 1:29-31) These are their generations--the heads of his twelve tribes. The great northern desert of Arabia, including the entire neck, was colonized by these tribes; and if we can recover, in the modern geography of this part of the country, Arab tribes bearing the names of those patriarchs, that is, names corresponding with those preserved in the original catalogue of Scripture...
1Ch 1:29-33 The names of the generations (תּולדות) of Ishmael (Hebr. Yishma'el) correspond to those in Gen 25:12-15, and have been there explained. In 1Ch 1:32. also, the names of the thirteen descendants of Abraham by Keturah, six sons and seven grandsons, agree with Gen 25:1-4 (see commentary on that passage); only the tribes mentioned in Gen 25:3, which were descended from Dedan the grandson of Keturah, are omitted.
Commenting on 1 Chronicles 1:29-33