They run amuck in the darkness, slicing everything they touch.
Actually all of these things are signs that God sends us all, to show us that we are evil. There are ample external demonstrations of this, daily. When we see evil demonstrated in the external environment, it is showing us 'deeper' internal matters after the patterns that God Himself has set.
God quite purposefully deemed "Ishmael" to be against every man, and every man against him. And this is a Spiritual Fact that remains a Spiritual Fact to this day.
Genesis 16:
11 And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Behold, thou art with child and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the Lord hath heard thy affliction.
12 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.
13 And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?
The question we should pose in this is who really is Ishmael? It is, in reality, our own flesh.
Gal. 4:
29
But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit,
even so it is now.
It' a hard thing to realize, but
God is really against our own flesh. And this is demonstrated externally to the world, continually.
Galatians 5:
17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and
the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
It is easy to know God as only Love, but I can assure myself that God is NOT the ally of my flesh or the flesh of anyone else. Obviously the intentions of God with the flesh are dramatically different than what we'd like to see. When we see "external Ishmael" it's just another pointer for us.