Kelly Ogden queries, Could not the Lord have arranged somehow for Ishmael’s family to accompany the others into the wilderness on one of the two prior journeys? We have to repeat also the answer: Yet another test!
We might also wonder how another family, without direct revelation from the Lord, would be so willing to abandon their home and all they had known to join these refugees in the wilderness. We can only surmise from the record of Nephi that Ishmael believed the words of the Lord that Jerusalem would soon be destroyed by the enemy armies who already occupied the city. [D. Kelly Ogden, “Answering the Lord’s Call,” in Studies in Scripture: Book of Mormon, Part 1, p. 30]
Note* I would still ask the question, Why were three journeys into the wilderness required? [Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes]
“Ishmael”
Bruce Sutton writes that the Prophet Joseph Smith said the following:
You will recollect that when Lehi and his family had gone from Jerusalem out into the wilderness … he also brought out Ishmael and his family which were mostly daughters. This Ishmael and his family were of the lineage of Ephraim, and Lehi‘s sons took Ishmael’s daughters for wives, and this is how they have grown together, a multitude of nations in the midst of the earth! If we had those 116 pages of manuscript which Martin Harris got away with, you would know all about it, for Ishmael’s ancestry is made very plain therein … That is how it came about that Ishmael’s lineage, as well as Lehi’s was not given in the The Book of Mormon. (Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, Salt Lake City, Genealogical Society, Vol. 23, p. 66)
The main portion of the Book of Mormon was translated from the abridgment written by Mormon of the Large Plates of Nephi (Words of Mormon 1:1-9), which contained the more detailed history of the Nephites. (1 Nephi 9:2-4). According to Sutton and the above statement, the Large Plates apparently contained the genealogy of Lehi at least back to Manasseh (and Joseph) and also the genealogy of Ishmael at least back to Ephraim (and Joseph). The Bible contains the genealogy from Ephraim and Manasseh back to Adam. Thus when the genealogies of the Large Plates of Nephi and the Bible come together, we have the genealogy of Lehi and Ishmael back to father Adam. [Bruce S. Sutton, Lehi, Father of Polynesia: Polynesians Are Nephites, p. 159]
“Ishmael”
According to Hugh Nibley, the proverbial ancestor of the Arabs is Ishmael. His name is one of the few Old Testament names which is also at home in ancient Arabia… . [Thus] in Lehi’s friend “Ishmael” (1 Nephi 7:2) we surely have a man of the desert. The interesting thing is that Nephi takes Ishmael (unlike Zoram) completely for granted, never explaining who he is or how he fits into the picture--the act of sending for him seems to be the most natural thing in the world, as does the marriage of his daughters with Lehi’s sons. Since it has ever been the custom among the desert people for a man to marry the daughter of his paternal uncle (bint ’ammi), it is hard to avoid the impression that Lehi and Ishmael were related. There is a remarkable association between the names of Lehi and Ishmael which ties them both to the southern desert, where the legendary birthplace and central shrine of Ishmael was at a place called Be’er Lehai-ro’i. [Hugh Nibley, Lehi In The Desert, F.A.R.M.S., p. 40]
John Tvedtnes comments on Nibley’s claim that the name Ishmael as well as the names Lehi, Lemuel, Alma and Sam are Arabic in origin (An Approach to the Book of Mormon 58-60; Lehi in the Desert 44-46). Tvedtnes contends that although Ishmael is indeed the name of the son of Abraham who settled that part of Arabia, Ishmael is also the name of a member of the royal family of Judah from the time of Lehi (Jeremiah 40). Thus the name of Ishmael might have been used by more than one people. [John Tvedtnes, “Was Lehi a Caravaneer?,” F.A.R.M.S., p. 8]