^^CFP; Divi$ion..3SI 255" Section...>/A.l?«' N.'r {)mcfelcp (Gilbert iHitcbell THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM, According to Genesis I. -XI. With an Introduction to the Penta- teuch. Large crown 8vo, ^1.75, net. AMOS: An Essay in Exegesis. Large crown 8vo, J1.50. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, Boston and New Yokk. THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM ACCORDING TO GENESIS I.-XI. WITH AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PENTATEUCH H. G. MITCHELL Professor in Boston University BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY (Cbe aitoerjside prcpg, CambriDoe IQOI COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY H. G. MITCHF.LL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published October, iqoi PREFACE In a recent issue of a popular religious weekly ap- peared the following : — " Kindly give the name of some book on Genesis which treats it from the view-point of modern scholarship." This item indicates a demand for commentaries on Genesis written in the light of the results of the most recent researches into its age and structure. The de- mand is really widespread, as any one in my position can testify ; but thus far little has been done in England or America to meet it. The editor to whom the above appeal was made, therefore, recommended a translation of Dill- mann's work, which, though very valuable to those who are prepared to appreciate it, is too large, too learned, and too expensive for most students of the Bible. This state of things ought not to continue. A desire to do what I can to remedy it is my excuse for putting into print the following pages. The first part of my book is devoted to the Penta- teuchal question, which I have tried to discuss with per- fect candor, and settle, for myself as well as my reader, in accordance with the evidence in the case. In the comments of the second part my object has been simply to interpret the text of the first eleven chapters of Gene- sis in the light of the theory adopted. The ideas thus iv PREFACE presented are therefore not mine, but those which in a given case the author seemed to me to have intended to convey. If I have missed his meaning, I will cheerfully acknowledge my error and make any necessary correc- tions. There are doubtless those who, at first, will feel that some of my results threaten their faith in the Scriptures. I can assure them that their anxiety is groundless, as they will discover, if they will consider : (/) that the essential element in these chapters is not the things narrated, but, as I have more than once elsewhere inti- mated, the religious ideas underlying them ; and {2) that these ideas derive much of their importance to us from the fact that they represent stages more or less remote in the process by which God prepared bis people, and through them the world, for the supreme revelation of himself in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth. A few words with reference to some of the details of my method. In the matter of proper names it at first seemed to me best to follow the English Version ; but, at the risk of being thought pedantic, I finally decided in the transla- tion and the comments to give them forms that would represent their original pronunciation as nearly as pos- sible with English characters. The scheme adopted is that most in vogue among Semitic scholars. Those who are not acquainted with it will note : that ' represents a letter practically silent, and * one whose pronunciation resembles that of a forcible '>; that //, /, and s (with dots under them) should also be strongly articulated ; that the PREFACE Y pronunciation of s docs not differ from that of s ; and that bJi, dJi, pJi, and tJi have the sounds of v, tJi in thisyf^ and tJi in tliin^ respectively, while the // in gli and kJi calls for a slight aspiration of the preceding letter. The reader should observe that, in this, as in my previous books, where other authors are cited I use see and compare in different senses. Thus See Dillmann is intended to indicate that this author favors the view expressed, but Comp. Dillmanny that he holds a different opinion. In grammatical matters I should have been glad to make use of the last English edition of Kautzsch's Gese- nius ; but, since the book is beyond the means of most students, I felt obliged to cite the second American edition, although it is a very faulty translation. I have undertaken in this volume to discuss only eleven chapters. I may later finish the book of Genesis, unless some one better qualified for the work anticipates me. Meanwhile those who wish to continue their studies in this direction will find help especially in the commen- taries of Dillmann and Delitzsch, and such works as Driver's Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testa- vient and Bacon's Ge7iesis of Genesis or the Oxford Hexatench. Those who read German should also consult the commentaries of Holzinger and Gunkel.* * The introduction to Gunkel's book has recently appeared in English. CONTENTS The Pentateuch i Names and Divisions i Traditional Authorship 4 Structure and Composition 16 Age of Documents and Order of Compilation . . • S*^) Analysis of Gex. I.-XI 68 Translation and Comments 73 Translation 73 Comments 95 Appendix 2S1 Indexes 289 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM THE PENTATEUCH I. Names and Divisions The Pentateuch corresponds to the first of the three parts into which the Jews divide their Scriptures. Its Hebrew title is Law* In the later books of the Old Testament it is called, TJie Book of the Law of Yahiuch (2 Chr. xvii, 9), The Book of the Law of God (Neh. viii. 18), The Book of the Law of Moses (Neh. viii. i), The Book of the Law (2 Chr. xxxiv. 15), TJie Book of Moses (2 Chr. XXV. 4 ; comp. 2 Kgs. xiv. 6), The Law of Yah- weh (2 Chr. xxxi. 3), The Law of God (Neh. x. 29/28), The Law of Moses (2 Chr. xxiii. 18), and finally, as above. The Law (2 Chr. xxxiv. 19).! The names given to it in the New Testament are, The Book of the Law (Gal. iii. 10), The Book of Moses (Mar. xii. 26), The Lazu of the Lord^ i e.y Yahweh (Lu. ii. 23), TJie Law of J\ loses * Tll^n. The title of the other two parts respectively are : D'^S'^33, rrophets, for Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jer- emiah, Ezekiel, and the Minor Prophets; and C^iriD, IVritim^s^ for Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Eccle- siastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. t The later books only are cited because, as will be shown in the proper connection, the " law " to which they refer probably is, while that referred to in the earlier books certainly is not, the Pentateuch, 2 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM (Lu. ii. 22), Tlic Law (Mat. xii. 5), and Moses (Lu. xvi. 29). The modern Hebrew, or, strictly speaking, the Aramaic, names are, TJlc Five Fifths of the Law, The Fifths of the Book of the Law, The Five Fifths, and The Fifths* The name Pentateuch, from the Greek, means five-vol- ume,! and is therefore substantially the equivalent of these Aramaic designations. The five fifths of which the Pentateuch is composed are designated in Hebrew by one or more of the words with which they respectively begin. Thus, the first has for its title the equivalent of In the beginning ; J the sec- ond, of These are the 7iames,\ or simply iV<7w^J ; || the third, of And called ; ^ the fourth, of And said,** or, In the desert ; ff and the fifth, of These are the words, \\ or. Words. §§ The Jews also called these books by names indicating their order or their contents. Thus, the second is sometimes designated as The second fiftJi ; the third, as TJie law of the priests, or. The book of the priests ; the fourth, as The fifth of 7iiimbers ; and the fifth, after Deu. xvii. 18, as The copy of the law\\ The English names are derived from the Greek ; but, except * Furst, KA T, 6. t The original, TiVTir^vxos, is properly an adjective modifying 3i/3A.o5 understood ; hence it is feminine, rarely masculine. See also the Latin Pentateuchus and Pentateuchum. X n^tt7S-i> § r\yaw nbs- II ny^w- If s-ip>v ** nn-r>> tt nsinn- §§ C^nni. The same means are employed by the Jews to desig- nate smaller divisions of the Pentateuch. Thus, the third lesson in Genesis (xii.-xviii.) is referred to as Get thee {-^ -|^), because these words occur in xii. i. See also IVIar. xii. 26. The Baby- lonians and Assyrians used the same method in naming their books. See Boscawen, BM, 40. jlll Furst, A'/^T; 5f. THE PENTATEUCH 3 in the case of that of Exodus, they may easily be traced to Hebrew equivalents. It has become the fashion among Old Testament scholars to follow the lead of Bleek in connecting with the first five books the sixth, thus making the first divi- sion of the Hebrew canon a hexateuch. The reasons given are, that the book of Joshua shares the literary peculiarities of those preceding, but especially that they are incomplete without it.* These reasons, however, are not conclusive. In the first place, if, as some of the critics claim,! the great work beginning with Genesis included not only Joshua, but Judges, Samuel, and Kings, a hexateuch is as little warranted by literary character- istics as a pentateuch. Secondly, the completeness or incompleteness of the Pentateuch is a matter of stand- point ; for, as Bleek himself says, J although, as a histor- ical work, it requires to be supplemented by Joshua, as a Mosaic law-book it has in Deuteronomy an entirely appropriate conclusion. That the Jews emphasized the legal rather than the historical aspect of these books is indicated by the name that they gave to them. In this aspect they were justified in treating them as a separate division of their Scriptures, and the modern scholar, although he admits their literary and historical relation to the book or books that follow, may imitate their example. The book of Joshua may be treated apart from those composing the Pentateuch, but the latter cannot be regarded as distinct entities. They are all closely related parts of a whole which would be marred if either of them * Driver, /ZOT^, 103; Holziiiger, AV/, 4. t Budde, RS, 268 f . ; Moore, Jud ., xxv. ff . ; comp. Cornill, EA 7; 93 f. ; Kittel, HH, ii. 14 ff. ; Wildeboer, LOV, 168 ff. X EAT, i25(Eng. i. 343). 4 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM were wanting. To this whole, Genesis may be consid- ered an introduction, and Deuteronomy a conclusion. The so - called middle books, — Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, — which are more intimately related to one another than either of the others to them, constitute the body of the work. These facts, whatever may be the explanation of them, require that the Pentateuch be re- garded as an isagogical unit, and it will be so treated in the discussion that is to follow. II. Traditional Authorship There are parts of the Hebrew Scriptures to which the names of their real or supposed authors are attached. This is the case with the prophetical, and some of the other books.* The English reader might be led to sup- pose that the books of the Pentateuch belong to this class, since in the Revised, as well as in the Authorized, Version each of them is provided with a title in which it is distinctly attributed to Moses.f This, however, is not the fact. The Hebrew title in each case is the bare name, and this is an addition to the original not found in manuscripts. If, therefore, Moses wrote the Pentateuch, neither he nor any other for him took the usual method of securing credit for his work : in other words, the Pentateuch, like all the rest of the historical books, except Nehemiah, is an anonymous production. What does the Pentateuch itself say with reference to its authorship t All agree that there is nothing in Gene- sis on the subject ; but it has been asserted that the middle books claim to have been written by Moses.f * See Jerenii.ih, Proverbs, Nehemiali, etc. t That of the first, e. i/., reads, The first book of Moses, com- monly called Genesis. X Keil, EAT, 165 ; Harman, IJ/S, 1 1 7 ff. ; Green, HCJ\ 36 ff. THE PENTATEUCH 5 The passages quoted in support of this opinion, however, when closely examined, will be found to have less force than is attributed to them. When, e. g., as is so often the case, especially in Leviticus and Numbers,* Yahweh is said to have spoken to Moses and communicated to him this or that law, such a statement is not proof that Moses himself put into writing even the law in question, much less that he was the author of the entire work in which it has been preserved. There is nothing in the language used forbidding the supposition that laws thus introduced were transmitted orally for centuries and finally incorpo- rated into the Pentateuch by an exilic compiler. There is not much more force in the passages in which Moses is represented as having actually committed certain things to writing. He doubtless made a record of the attack of Amalek upon Israel and the sentence pronounced upon them in consequence, although the command to do so alone appears in the history of the Exodus (Ex. xvii. 14).! He is expressly said to have written "all the words of Yahweh " on the occasion of the covenant at Sinai (Ex. xxiv. 4), and a similar statement is made with refer- ence to the stations at which the Hebrews halted on their march from Egypt to Canaan (Num. xxxiii. 2). The meaning of Ex. xxxiv. 28 is doubtful, but there can be n© doubt that the preceding verse warrants one in supposing that, according to the author, the terms of Yahweh's covenant, just recited (14-26), were preserved ^ * See Lev. i. i ; iv. i, etc. t The original has the definite article before the word for "book"; but this fact does not warrant one in insisting that the book in question was one in which Moses was accustomed to record whatever took place, for in Num. v. 23 the same expression is used of a book provided for a specific occasion. See Ges. § 126, 4, R ; comp. Green, HC1\ 38. 6 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM in writing by the law-giver.* One can, however, grant all that these passages assert or imply and still consis- tently reject the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch ; since they require one to believe only that four or five chapters of Exodus and Numbers reproduce with more or less accuracy documents from the hand of Moses. If they indicate anything with reference to the whole of which they now form a part, it is that the work was com- piled from various sources by some other writer. This is also the natural inference from the use of the third person wherever Moses appears in the narrative, and the irresistible impression produced by the praise bestowed upon him. See Ex. xi. 3 ; Num. xii. 3. Thus far, there- fore, the evidence seems to be in favor of Hobbes' aver- ment,! that the Pentateuch is a book about, rather than by, the hero of the Exodus. There are statements in Deuteronomy which are in- terpreted as teaching that Moses wrote, not only this book, but the whole of the Pentateuch. Among them are xxxi. 9 and 24-26. The former says " Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, and to the * The natural subject of the verb wrote in v. 28 is Moses ; but the fact that the words written are described as " the ten words " seems to indicate that the author had in mind the decalogue of chapter xx. and its inscription on stone by Yahweh himself. See xxxi. 18; xxxii. 16. The difficulty is resolved by supposing that the original author of the chapter intended to represent the words of the covenant in vv. 14-26 as engraved by Moses on tables pr». pared for the purpose, and that the present ambiguity of the text was produced by the addition of the phrase " the ten words " to v. 28 to bring this passage into harmony with preceding statements to the effect that it was the words thundered from Sinai which were inscribed on these tables. See Bacon, TTE, 158. f Leviathan, xxxiii. THE PENTATEUCH 7 elders ; " the latter, " It came to pass when Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book until they were completed, that Moses commanded the Le- vites who bore the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, say- ing, Take this book of the law and place it at the side of the ark of the covenant of Yahweh your God, that it may be there as a witness against thee."* The weight of these passages, of course, depends upon the meaning of the phrases ** this law " and " this book of the law." They are both of comparatively frequent occurrence in Deuter- onomy ; t hence, if they are used with anything like uniformity, it ought to be possible to discover their im- port. Now, the meaning of *' this law " is clear enough in the first case in which it is used, but in iv. 8 it is abso- lutely unmistakable. Moses there describes the law that he has in mind as " this law which I set before you this day," i. e. the code which he is on the point of promulgat- ing. But "the law which Moses set before the children of Israel," according to iv. 44, commences with v. i, although "the statutes and judgments" are first intro- duced by xii. I ; and (according to xxviii. 69/xxix. i), concludes with the twenty-eighth chapter. This is the law to which external or internal reference is made throughout Deuteronomy. "This book of the law," therefore, must be the copy of this legislation deposited with the ark of the covenant. In addition to this " book " Moses is said (xxxi. 22) to have left in writing the * Keil {JOT i. 160) claims that in these passages the composition of the entire law,/, e. the Pentateuch, is so clearly attributed to Moses that this doctrine must prevail. See also Green, HCF, 37 • Harm an, IHS, 1 19. t "This law" occurs i. 5 ; iv. 8 (44, " this is the law "); xvii. 18, 19; xxvii. 3, 8, 26; xxviii. 58; xxix. 26/29; xxxi. 9, 11, 12, 24; xxxii. 46: "this book of the law," xxix. 20/21 ; xxx, 10; x.xxi. 26. The latter in xxviii. 61 becomes '*the book of this law." 8 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM "song" that he was inspired to sing just before he was taken from his people. These two writings are all that Deuteronomy ascribes to him. There remain several discourses concerning which it is stated only that he delivered them. Moreover there are fifty-one verses and parts of sixteen others, which, being purely editorial, could hardly be attributed to the lawgiver. In the case of Deuteronomy, therefore, as in that of the three pre- ceding books, the internal evidence warrants one in affirm- ing, at the most, only that the author of it, whoever he was, incorporated into his work documents, independent, be it observed, of those in Exodus and Numbers, which he believed to be of Mosaic origin. The testimony of the books called by the Jews " For- mer Prophets," Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, agrees with that of Deuteronomy. Joshua refers to a law given by Moses,* and by him put into the form of a book for the benefit of Israel, f Still, there is no reason to suppose that this book was the Pentateuch, for all the references to it are in Deuteronomic language, and viii. 30 ff., where the ceremony at Ebal is described, proves conclusively that it contained only " the law " of Deuteronomy, f The only passage in Judges bearing on the question at issue (iii. 4) refers to commandments given by Yahweh "through Moses," but neglects to in- form the reader whether they were oral or written. § * i. 7; xxii. 5. f i. 8; viii. 31 f., 34; xxiii. 6. X See Deu. xxvii. 2 ff. Jos. xxiv. 26 cannot be cited agafnst this conclusion ; for if, as is doubtless the case, " the book of the law of God" there mentioned was not the kernel of Deuteronomy, there is as little reason for believing it to have been the Penta- teuch ; and, whatever it was, it is not attributed to Moses. § The English version has "by the hand of Moses," which is literal but misleading; since, as appears from Ex. ix. 35, the Hebrew expression thus translated simply denotes agency. THE PENTATEUCH 9 The phraseology used, however, makes it evident that, as in Joshua, the Deuteronomic law was in the mind of the writer. In the books of Samuel there are no refer- ences to Moses as a lawgiver,* but in the books of Kings there are several. All of them, like those that have preceded, point to Deuteronomy as the law that their author (or authors) had in view. This is clearly enough the case in i Kgs. viii. 53 and 56 and 2 Kgs. xviii. 6 and 12 ; but more so in i Kgs. ii. 3 and 2 Kgs. xxi. 8.f In 2 Kgs. xiv. 6, Deu. xxiv. 16 is quoted as a statute from " the book of the law of Moses." Finally, the book found by Hilkiah the priest, and called " the law of Moses " (2 Kgs. xxiii. 25), betrays its identity with some form of Deuteronomy, not only in the names given to it, but by its influence on the language of the historian, and especially on the policy of King Josiah.J * The only passage that one would be tempted to quote in this connection is i Sam. x. 25 ; but here, as in Ex. xvii. 14, to write in a, literally thc^ book means neither more nor less than to put into writing. t On I Kgs. viii. 53, see Deu. iv. 19 f. ; on v. 56, Deu. xii. 9 ; on 2 Kgs. xviii. 6, Deu. xiii. 5/4; on v. 12, Deu. xxix. 24/25; on i Kgs. ii. 3, Deu. x. 12 f., xi. i, and xxix. 8/9; and on 2 Kgs. xxi. 8, Deu. xxviii, i, etc. X The book is also called " the book of the covenant " (2 Kgs. xxiii. 2, 21), like Deuteronomy (xxviii. 69/xxix. i). The account of it contains various other Deuteronomic expressions : c. i:;.^ " hearken ... to do," xxii. 13 (Deu. xv. 5; xxviii. i, 15); "other gods," xxii. 17 (Deu. xiii. 3/2; xxviii. 14, etc.); "commands, testimonies, and statutes," xxiii. 3 (Deu. vi. 17); ''with all the heart," etc., xxiii. 3, 25 (Deu. iv. 29; vi. 5; etc.). Finally, the effects produced by the book were such as Deuteronomy would naturally produce. It filled Josiah with terror and anxiety (2 Kgs. xxii. 11), as one would expect Deuteronomy, especially chapter xxviii., to do under the circumstances. It furnished the program for a reform such as would be required by Deuteronomy : the destruction of idolatry (2 Kgs. xxiii. 4 f., 10-15, 19 f.: see Deu. iv. 15 ff., 23, 25 ff. ; vii. 5, lo THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM In view of these facts it is evident that there is no support for the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch in the historical books written before the Exile. Moses is twice (Jer. xv. i ; Mic. vi. 4) mentioned by the prophets who wrote before the Exile ; but in both cases, as in Hos. xii. 14/13, where he is not named, he appears in the character of a deliverer only. The same is the case in Isa. Ixiii. 11 and 12 ; but in Mai. iii. 22/iv. 4 and Dan. ix. 11 and 13 he figures as the national lawgiver. The law to which Malachi refers, however, as the use of the name Horeb for the sacred mountain would indicate, is probably Deuteronomy.* The extent of the one referred to in Daniel is uncertain.! The name of Moses occurs nearly twice as often in the later as it does in the earlier histories, exclusive of Joshua. J In the first place, most of the references to him in the books of Kings are repeated. § It would be natural to expect their significance to be the same in both con- nections. This, however, is not the case. It is clear, 25 f. ; xii. 2f.; xvi. 21 f . ; xxvii. 15); the suppression of soothsayers, etc. (2 Kgs. xxiii. 24; see Deu. xviii. 10 f.); the abolition of high places (2 Kgs. xxiii. 8 ; see Deu. xii. 4, 13 ; xvi. 5) ; the concentra- tion of worship at Jerusalem (2 Kgs. xxiii. 8 f., 23 ; see Deu. xii. 5 ff., 26 f. ; xiv. 23 ff. ; xv. 19 f , ; xvi. 2, 6, 11, 15 f. ; xxvi, 2; xxxi. 11). * See Deu. i. 2, 6; etc. Wellhausen {SV, V. 202) calls attention to the fact that in Malachi (ii. i ff.), as in Deuteronomy, there is no distinction between priests and Levites. t Bevan connects the verses cited with v. 2 of the same chapter, and all with Lev. xxvi, 18 ff. Comp. Behrmann. X He is mentioned only sixteen times in Judges, Samuel, and Kings; but thirty-one times in Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. § With 1 Kgs. ii. 3 compare i Chr. xxii. 13 ; with 2 Kgs. xiv. 6, 2 Chr. xxv. 4 ; with 2 Kgs. xxi. 8, 2 Chr. xxxiii. 8; with 2 Kgs. xxii. 8, 2 Chr. xxxiv. 14; and with 2 Kgs. xxiii. 21, 2 Chr. xxxv. 6, 12. For I Kgs. viii. 53 and 56, and 2 Kgs. xviii. 6 and 12 there are no parallels in the books of Chronicles. THE PENTATEUCH 1 1 c. g., as has already been noted, that in i Kgs. ii. 3 the author has in mind Deuteronomy ; but the introduc- tion of the matter of the temple into the jDarallcl narra- tive makes it probable that, in i Chr. xxii. 13, what is meant by "the statutes and judgments which Yahweh commanded Moses " is a more extensive collection. But the most interesting and instructive of these parallel pas- sages is the Chronicler's account of the reformation under Josiah (2 Chr. xxxiv. i ff.) The author of the books of Kings constantly reminds one of Deuteronomy ; but in Chronicles the details which produce this impres- sion are either omitted or transposed,* while the brief notice of Josiah's passover is expanded into an elaborate report betraying an acquaintance with the legislation of the middle books as well as with that of Deuteronomy. f This means that, although, according to the earlier writer, the book found was Deuteronomy, according to the later it was the completed Pentateuch. It is this larger *'law" to which the Chronicler refers in the additional cases (except Neh. be. 14) in which Moses is mentioned. The most important are three in which the book made the basis of the covenant of 444 b. c. is attributed to Moses. The first (Neh. viii. i) simply describes it as "the book of the law of Moses : " but, of the other two, one (Neh. viii. 14.), expressly cites Lev. xxiii. 42 and the other (Neh. xiii. I f.), Deu. xxiii. 4/3 f. See also Neh. x. 30/29 f., and Deu. vii. 3 and viii. 11. Add to the evidence of these passages the fact that the first half of the prayer * In Chronicles the purgation of the land is described in much briefer terms than in Kings, and represented as begun in Josiah's twelfth year (2 Chr. xxxiv. 3) and completed before the discovery of the law by Hilkiah {v. 8). t Notice especially 2 Chr. xxxv. 13; which seems to have been dictated by a desire to harmonize Ex. xii. 8 f. with Deu. xvi. 7. 12 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM of the Lcvitcs in Nch. ix. is a r<^sum(f of the contents of the Pentateuch, and the identity of the two books seems estabUshed.* It is possible that the authors of some of the remaining books of the Hebrew canon shared the opinion of that (or those) of the great work now divided into the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah ; but, since none of them found occasion to connect the name of Moses with the Pentateuch or anything that can be mistaken for it, their attitude on the subject cannot be determined. On the other hand, there is no doubt what the later Jews thought about it. In the Talmud the only question is, whether the words of the Mishna, "Moses wrote his book," f are to be taken absolutely, or with such latitude that the last eight verses of Deuteronomy, describing the death and burial of the lawgiver, may be regarded as an addition made by his successor. J The extreme view * There are other passages which it may be worth while to men- tion in this connection. Some of them refer to certain of the con- tents of the Pentateuch as parts of the law of Moses. See i Chr. vi. 33/48 f. (Num. iii. f . ; Lev. viii. f.); i Chr. xv. 15 (Num. iv. 15); 2 Chr. viii. 13 (Num. xxviii. f.); 2 Chr. xxiv. 6, 9 (Ex. xxx. 11 ff.) ; 2 Chr. xxx. 16 (Num. xviii. i ff.); and Neh. i. 7 ff. (Deu. xxx. i ff.). The rest represent this law as in the form of a book. See 2 Chr. xxiii. 18; Ezr. iii. 2 (Num. xxviii. f.); and Ezr. vi. 18 (Lev. viii. f. ; Num. iii. f.). See also Ezr. vii. 6. t Baba Bathra, 14b. X The discussion of the question is an excellent example of rab- binical dialectics and, as such, well worth quoting. It runs as follows : "It is said that Joshua wrote his book and eight verses in the law. On what authority is it said, Eight verses of the law Joshua wrote? On the authority of. And Moses the servant of Yhwh died there [Deu. xxxiv. 5]. Is it possible that Moses, while yet alive, wrote, And he died there ? Nay ; but thus far Moses wrote, and from this point onward Joshua wrote. — Tiiesc arc the words of THE PENTATEUCH 13 seems to have been the more popular. At any rate, this is the one adopted by both Philo and Josephus. The former declares that " while still alive he [Moses] pro- phesied admirably what should happen to himself after his death,"* and the latter uses similar language.! The Jews were so jealous for the glory of Moses that they would not let even Ezra share with him the authorship of the law. The latter, therefore, was represented, not R. Judah, or, some say, R. Nehemiah. R. Simeon said to him, Is it possible that the book of the law wanted a single character, since it is written [Deu. xxxi. 26], Take this book of the law? Nay ; but thus far the Holy One, blessed be he, spoke and Moses wrote, and from that point onward the Holy One, blessed be he, spoke and Moses wrote with tears ; as is further said [Jer. xxxvi. 18], And Barukh said to them, With his mouth he pronounced, etc." * He calls attention to the minuteness with which Moses writes, '* relating how he had died, when he was not yet dead ; and how he was buried without any one present to know of his tomb ; — be- cause, in fact, he was entombed, not by mortal hands, but by im- mortal powers ; so that he was not placed in the tomb of his forefathers, having met with particular grace which no man ever saw; — and mentioning, further, how the whole nation mourned for him with tears a whole month, displaying the individual and general sorrow on account of his unspeakable benevolence toward each individual and toward the collective host, and of the wisdom with which he had ruled them." Works, iii. 135 ; see also 83 f., 1 13 f. t He clearly intends to attribute all the legislation of the Penta- teuch to Moses {AJy iii. 12, 3 ; iv. 8, 3 ; 44, 46). He also regards Moses as the author of the books in which this legislation is pre- served {A J, X. 4, 2). He calls them " the holy books of Moses laid up in the temple." Comp. v. i, 17. In his work Contra Apion he is more definite: for he says (i. i, S) that, of the twenty-two books composing the Scriptures of his people, " five belong to Moses ; which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind until his death." Finally, he asserts {AJ^ iv. 8, 48) that Moses " wrote in the holy books that he died ; which was done out of fear lest they should venture to say that because of his extraordinary virtue he went to God." 14 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM as the compiler, but as the inspired restorer, after its destruction, of this as well as the other portions of their Scriptures.* Jesus and his early disciples were Jews, and, as such, shared to a greater or less extent the traditional opinions of their countrymen. They would naturally, therefore, think and speak of the Pentateuch as the work of Moses. That they actually did thus think and speak, it is very easy to show. The evangelists, e. g., themselves use the same terms in referring to the Pentateuch as other Jews, and they represent their Master also as employing them.f He uses the terms " law of Moses " (Lu. xxiv. 44) and * The legend is found in 4 Esd. xiv. Ezra says : '* Thy law is burnt ; therefore no man knoweth the things that are done of thee, and the works that shall begin. But, if I have found grace before thee, send the Holy Spirit unto me, and I will write all that hath been done in the world since the beginning, the things that were written in thy law, that men may find thy path, and that they which live in the latter days may live " {vv. 21 f.). God answers : " Take with thee Sarea, Dabria, Selemia, Ecanus, and Asiel, these five, which are ready to write swiftly, and come hither ; and I will light a candle of understanding in thine heart, which shall not be put out till the things be performed which thou shalt begin to write." {vv. 24 f.). When, after forty days, the work has been completed, God commands: "The first twenty-four that thou hast written publish openly, that the worthy and the unworthy may read them ; but keep the last seventy, that thou mayest deliver them only to such as be wise among the people " {v7k 45 f.). ■f The evangelists themselves connect the name of Moses with the Pentateuch as a whole, Lu. xxiv. 27; Jno. i. 17, 45 ; with a par- ticular passage, Lu. ii. 23. Other Jews are represented as attribut- ing to Moses the Pentateuch as a whole, Jno. ix. 28 f. ; particular passages, Mat. xix. 7 (Mar. x. 4); xxii. 24 (Mar. xii. 19; Lu. xx. 28); Jno. viii. 5. Jesus is represented as connecting the name of Moses with the Pentateuch as a whole. Mat. xxiii. 2; Lu. xvi. 29, 31 ; xxiv. 44 ; Jno. v. 45 f. ; vii. 19; with particular passages, Mat. viii. 4 (Mar. i. 44; Lu. v. 14); xix. 8 (Mar. x. 3); Mar. vii. 10; xii. 26 (Lu. xx. 37); Jno. vii. 22 f. THE PENTATEUCH 15 " book of Moses " (Mar. xii. 26), but generally, when he refers to the Pentateuch he employs the briefer " Moses," and that in such a way as to indicate that the book and the man are associated in his mind in the relation of the work to its author.* When the gospel spread among the gentiles, they received with it the Old Testament and the traditions then current respecting its origin. Thus the Jewish doctrine of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch became the doctrine of the Christian church,! in which, for fifteen centuries, it was trans- mitted almost unquestioned.^ * See especially the expressions " Moses showed in the Bush " (Lu. XX. 37) and " Moses and the Prophets " (Lu. xvi. 29). These and other passages of the same sort from the Old or the New Testament are sometimes given a different interpretation, certain who feel forced to admit that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses asserting that the terms found in them may have been sug- gested by the prominence of Moses in the work: and the use of "Esther" in such expressions as "Esther teaches," etc., is cited in support of this position (Briggs, HCH, 20 ff.). The answer is, that the names of persons when connected with books do not always have the same significance ; that the significance in any given case must be determined by the circumstances under which the name is employed ; and that, in the case of Moses, the universal prevalence, about the beginning of the Christian era, of the belief that he wrote the Pentateuch, is good ground for assuming that, when his name was connected with the book by the writers of the period, espe- cially if the book was cited as an authority, the terms used ex- pressed, and were intended to ejtpress, the current doctrine. t The passages from the remaining books of the New Testament bearing on this subject are the following: The Pentateuch as a whole is attributed to Moses, Acts vi. 11, 14; xiii. 39; xxi. 21; xxvi. 22; xxviii. 23; i Cor. ix. 9; Heb. vii. 14; x. 28; particular passages. Acts iii, 22; xv. i ; Rom. x. 5, 19. X Origen (C Ccls. ii. 54) adopted the stricter Jewish doctrine. l6 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM III. Structure and Composition The discussion just concluded has shown that, although the Pentateuch itself does not claim to have been written by Moses, and earlier authorities persistently ignore its existence, the New Testament, as well as the later books of the Old, attribute it to him, and this is the traditional doctrine of both the Jewish and the Christian church. The question now arises whether the testimony of the last two authorities is to be accepted as decisive. There are those who reply without hesitation in the affirmative ; arguing that even the latest of the sacred writers were so much nearer the Mosaic age than modern scholars that it is impertinence in the latter to question the statements or implications of the former, that this impertinence becomes presumption in view of the inspiration of the writers quoted, and that the offense amounts to impiety when Jesus' relation to the subject is considered.* These arguments are as weak as they are unfair. In reply to the first it is only necessary to say that, if, as is generally admitted, the value of testimony depends upon the distance of the witness from the event to which he testifies, it certainly is not favorable to the traditional doctrine that the support for it comes from witnesses none of whom lived within a thousand years of the time of Moses. The second argument takes for granted that inspiration insures infallibility ; a doctrine for which there is no ground in reason or experience, and of which there is no example in the history of revelation. The third is as good an example of the argiivicnUim ad vcreanidiam as could be cited. It should neither deceive nor terrify anybody. The truth is, that Jesus never claimed to be * (irecn, HC1\ 33; Ilarinan, ///^', 258 f. ; Lex Mosaka (Ci. Kawliuson), 44 ff. THE PENTATEUCH 17 omniscient, but, on the other hand, on at least one occa- sion (Mar. xiii. 32), confessed that his knowledge was limited.* There is, therefore, no impiety in facing the possibility of discovering another example of such limita- tion, and asking in all humility and reverence, whether the Pentateuch caji have been written by Moses ; a ques- tion the answer to which involves a careful study of the structure and composition of the work. One cannot proceed far with the examination proposed without suspecting that the Pentateuch is not the pro- duct of a single pen. In fact this idea suggests itself to the unprejudiced mind at the outset ; for there is nothing clearer than that the first two chapters of Genesis con- tain two accounts of creation, i. i-ii. 4a and ii. 4b-2 5, dif- fering from each other in almost every respect in which they may be compared. In the first place, there is a de- cided difference in their vocabularies. The most striking example under this head is found in the names given to the Creator, God being the one used in the first, and Yahwch {God) that employed in the second account ; f but there are several others of almost equal importance. J * See also Lu. ii. 52. Some prefer to meet this point by appeal- ing to Jno. xvi. 12, where Jesus is reported to have told his disci- ples that there were many things which he wished to tell his disci- ples but could not, because they were not prepared to understand or appreciate them ; and explaining that the authorship of the Pentateuch may well have been one of the things reserved for future revelation, the discussion of which he avoided by adopting the language, but not the opinion, of the day (Briggs, HCH, 29). t This difference was noticed by some of the Christian fathers, ' €. g.^ TcrtulUzn (Adv. //en/iogeuem, c. 3) and Augustine {De Ge7icsi ad litteram, iii. 2); but its significance was misunderstood. X Thus, e. g.^ in the first account the word that describes God's creative activity is either the generic term nii?^, make (i. 7, 16, 25, 26,31 ; ii. 2, 3), or the more specific S~I3, create (i. i, 21, 27 ; ii. 3, 4); while in the second, although rm737 is found (ii. 4, iS), the i8 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM Secondly, not only are the words used in the two ac- counts largely different, but those of the first are differ- ent in kind from those of the second. Indeed, the style of the one varies throughout from that of the other ; the first being literal and prosaic, while the second is as no- ticeably picturesque and poetical.* Thirdly, while these narratives agree in certain fundamental matters, e. g.y in tracing the origin of the world to an intelligent God, and placing man first among his creatures, it must be acknow- ledged that, in the details of creation, they are clearly and irreconcilably divergent.! Finally, these narratives more characteristic term is ")!5% form (ii. 7, 8, 19), or n33, build (ii. 22). In the former S2% go forth, is used of both plants and animals (i. 12, 24), in the latter the corresponding words are TTCi2, sprout (ii. 5, 9), and '1!^'^ (ii. 19). Finally, the first account generally has yns, earth (i. 11, 12, 24, 26, 28, 30), and ynSH H^U, beast of the earth (i. 25, 30), where the second has TTCT^^, ground (\\. 5, 6, 7, 9, 19), and nTtZ7n VK^T^, beast of the f eld (n. 19, 20). * The peculiarities of the style of the first account are seen in the logical character of the narrative, the uniform structure of the sections of which it is composed, and the recurrence of cognates in such expressions as StJ?"! S"^^7"Tn, lit. green greenness (i. 11), r"lT r^'HTn, lit. seed seed (i. 12), ynt£> \^-:tt7, lit. swarm a swarm (i. 20), etc. There is none of this formality in the second account. It produces the impression of a series of dissolving views. One of the most vivid and delightful of these pictures is that in which Yahweh is described as first moulding man into shape, as a potter would fashion a dish, and then breathing into his ?iostrils, thus transforming the hitherto lifeless clay into a living creature. The description of the creation of the animals is equally vivid, while the last words, " but for man there was not found a help meet for him," gives it an element of pathos. t The second is not so comj^lete an account of God's work as the first; but this is not so remarkable as the fact that they do not agree in the details common to them. In the first God is repre- sented as creating vegetation (i. 11 If.), animals (i. 20 ff.), man (i. 26 ff.), one after another. The second begins where the first ends THE PENTATEUCH 19 give evidence that they were written from different stand- points and with different objects in view ; the first being the work of some one, doubtless a priest, devoted to the study of Hebrew institutions, the second, that of a pro- phet, or some one else whose interests were predomi- nantly ethical and religious.* The example cited is not a solitary instance. One after another the reader discovers a succession of dupli- cates, whose existence cannot be explained on the suppo- sition that the Pentateuch is the work of Moses or any other single author, f If he is at all critical he also dis- covers places in which parallel passages have been inter- (ii. 7), but postpones the creation of woman (ii. 21 ff.) until after that of vegetation (ii. 8 ff.) and animals (ii. 19 ff.) ; and this order is intentional, for the author evidently thought that vegetation was originally dependent on the care of man and that woman was, in a sense, an afterthought. * Note that the interest of the first account culminates in the sanctification of the sabbath, while the most significant thing about the second is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. t The following are among the most noticeable : The story of the covenant of God with Noah has two forms, Gen. viii. 20-22 and ix. 8-17; so, also, that with Abraham, Gen. xv. and xvii. Gen. XX. and xxvi. i-ii are clearly but two versions of one tradi- tion. The same is just as evidently the case with xxi. 22-32, and xxvi. 12-31. The origin of the name " Bethel " is described in two different passages, xxviii. 10-22 and xxxv. 9-15; Jacob twice re- ceives the name '* Israel," Gen. xxxii. 22-32 and xxxv. 9-13 ; and there are two lists of the dukes of Edom, Gen. xxxvi. 15-19 and 40-43. Nor are these repetitions confined to Genesis. In Exodus the revelation of the name Yaliweh is narrated in iii. 13-15, and again in vi. 2-7. In chapters xii. f. there are duplicate directions concerning the passover, xii. 1-13 and 21-27; the feast of unleav- ened bread, xii. 14-20 and xiii. 3-10; and the first-born, xiii. i f. and 11-16. Inxxxiii. 7-1 1 there is a fragment of a second account of the tabernacle. Finally, Deuteronomy is largely a repetition of the history and legislation of the three preceding books. 20 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM woven into more or less consistent composite narratives. A good example is the story of the Flood, Gen. vi. 5- viii. 14. The substance of it is, that, the earth having become corrupt, God determined to destroy it, and actu- ally caused a deluge, in which every living thing, except- ing Noah and his family and a few animals, perished ; and so long as one reads it in outline only, it seems perfectly clear and coherent. Not so when one asks how many animals were preserved, or how long the deluge lasted ; for on these points its statements are so divergent that one is forced to attribute them to different authors.* The incongruity of parts of the Pentateuch appears most clearly when one undertakes to trace its chronology. The story that Abimelech, attracted by the beauty of Sarah, took her from her supposed brother (Gen. xx.), is not in itself improbable. The difficulty in believing it arises from the fact that it is so placed as to make the woman ninety years of age when she was kidnapped. See xvii. 17. But the most convincing illustration of this sort is found in a series of references to Judah, the son of Jacob (Gen. xxxviii.) He is said to have married a daughter of the Canaanite Shua, by whom he had three sons {vv. 2 ff.). After the youngest of these was grown {v. 14.), Tamar bore him two sons {vv. 29 f.) ; one of whom, Perez, had two sons when the Hebrews migrated to Egypt (xlvi. 12). Yet, according to xxxvii. 2, xxxviii. I, xli. 46, 53, and xlv. 6, the time within which all this occurred was only twejity-two years.^ These facts can * There are many other examples of this sort. The most in- structive are the story of the banishment of Jacob, Gen. xxvi. 34- xxviii. 9 ; of the sale of Joseph, Gen. xxxvii. ; of the mission of the spies, Num. xiii. f. ; and of the rebellion of Korah and others. Num. xvi. 1-35. f An attempt to fix the ages of Dinah and her brothers when the THE PENTATEUCH 21 only be explained on the theory of diversity of author- ship. It must therefore be admitted that the Pentateuch is a compilation. The only question concerns the num- ber of writers represented and the process by which their contributions were united into a single work. The first effect of the discoveries described is to con- fuse the student, and incline him to conclude that the Pentateuch is a mass of fragments, whose authorship it is useless to discuss, thrown into its present form at a comparatively late date by a careless or incompetent com- piler. This is the conclusion actually reached by Spinoza (1670), the father of the so-called Fragmentary Hypothe- sis,* first proposed, as such, by Geddes (1800), t and fully incident narrated in Gen. xxxiv. occurred will disclose other similar difficulties. * Spinoza {TTP, ix.) thus expresses himself: "Any one who but observes that in these five books precept and narrative are jumbled together without order, that there is no regard to time, and that one and the same story is often met with again and again, and occasionally with very important differences in the incidents, — whoever observes these things, I say, will certainly come to the conclusion, that in the Pentateuch we have merely notes and col- lections to be examined at leisure, materials for history rather than digested history itself." t Geddes' statement, found in the preface to his (unfinished) translation of the Bible (xix.), runs as follows: " Moses, who had been taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians^ most probably was the first Hebrew writer, or the first who applied writing to historical composition. From his journals a great part of the Pentateuch seems to have been compiled. Whether he were also the original author of the Hebrew cosmogony and of the history prior to his own days, I would neither confidently affirm nor positively deny. He certainly may have been the original author or compiler; and may have drawn the whole or a part of his cosmogony and general history, both before and after the Deluge, from the archives of Egypt ; and these original materials, collected first by Moses, may have been worked up into their present form by the compiler of 22 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM developed by Vater (1805), who states it as follows : " The books of the Pentateuch consist of a multitude of sepa- rate pieces, large and small, some very small, concerning v^hich it is clear, not that they were composed with reference to one another, and for the purpose of being attached to one another, but the contrary. Further, among these separate pieces many are evidently, and most at least probably, by different authors. . . . The more prob- able opinion ... is, that a considerable part of Deuter- onomy existed from, at the latest, the age of Solomon or David, that separate pieces which we now find in the Pentateuch were gradually composed, and that the col- lection had a later origin, perhaps toward the time of the Exile."* These supposed fragments, however, when examined, are found to have affinities in accordance with which they arrange themselves in series with well defined char- acteristics. Thus, e. g.y one version of the covenant with Noah (Gen. ix. 8 ff.) calls the Deity God, and otherwise reminds one of the first account of creation ; while the other (viii. 20 ff.) uses the name Yahweh, and, in general, follows the style of thought as well as language of the second account. Indeed, almost the entire contents of the first nineteen chapters of Genesis can be classed as either Elohistic or Yahwistic. The same is true of the remainder of the first four books of the Pentateuch ; but from the twentieth chapter of Genesis onward there are two kinds of Elohistic materials, only one of which can have been supplied by the source of Gen. i. and Ex. vi. 3, the Pentateuch in the reign of Solomon. But it is also possible, and, I think, more probable, that the latter was the first collector, and collected from such documents as he could find either among his own people or among the neighboring nations." * Ci", iii. 504, 680. See also Hartmann, IIKF, 584. THE PENTATEUCH 23 the Other being furnished by the writer (or writers) whose preference for the name " God " is explained in Ex. iii. 14. On the other hand, nearly the whole of Deuteronomy is written in a style, and characterized by a tone, of which there is hardly a trace in any of the preceding books.* There are two ways of explaining these facts : In the first place, one might suppose that the original work was a homogeneous document in the style of the Elohist or the Yahwist, and that the remaining contents of the Pentateuch were added by successive revisers. This was, in fact, at one time the prevalent theory. It is the Supplementary Hypothesis, broached by Kellef (18 12), of which Bleek is perhaps the best representative. His state- ment of it (abridged) is as follows : % " The first contin- uous historical work, distinct traces of which appear in the works remaining to us, dealt connectedly with the his- tory from the creation up to the death of Joshua, or up to the occupation and partition of the land of Canaan ; and its composition took place, in all probability, in the time of Saul. . . . This work is that of the so-called Elohist. ... It contained the bulk of the contents of the first four books of our Pentateuch, also the account of the death of Moses (substantially Deu. xxxiv. 1-8), and the greater part of the book of Joshua. . . . This work was enlarged and revised by a somewhat later author, probably in the time of David, and in not quite * There is difference of opinion with reference to the amount of Deuteronomic material in the first four books, but Gen. xxvi. 5, Ex. X. 2, XV. 26, xix. 4-6, XX. 3b-6, xxiii. 24 and 32 f., and xxxiv. 12 f. and 15 f., at least, seem to be of this character. t VWMS, iii. He asked, *' Could not Genesis be represented as a book, originally well arranged, whose plan has been disturbed by a large number of interpolations due to the successive crystal- lization of oral traditions current among the people ? " X EAT, 141 ff. (Eng. i. 362 £f.). 24 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM the last of his reign. The older document remained the basis ; but it was enlarged by many new sections, a part of which the author found already written, a part also being oral traditions which he himself put into writing. The narratives of the earlier document were also, to some extent, revised, additions and alterations, or abridg- ments and omissions, being made where thQjchovist used further sources respecting the same circumstances and events. . . . Next came the last revision of the work by the autJior of Dctiteroiioiny,* from whom it received the form and extent which it now presents in the Penta- teuch, and the book of Joshua. . . . The composition of Deuteronomy and the last revision of the Pentateuch, in all probability, are to be referred to the reign of King Manasseh, in the first half of the seventh century b. c." Colenso, the former bishop of Natal, also, was an advocate of this hypothesis.! * De Wette (1805) was the first to recognize in Deuteronomy an independent document of the seventh century B. c. f This is his form of it : " The Elohistic story in Gen. i.-Ex. vi. 5 was written in the latter part of Samuel's time, perhaps by Sam- uel himself after the rupture with Saul. . . . The writer . . . left it now to be filled up and continued by younger hands. Accord- ingly, this was done by the Jehovistic writer or writers of the fol- lowing age, trained, no doubt, in the same school and under the very eye of Samuel. . . . From the time when the O. S. was completed, ... in the early years of Solomon, with the addition of the older portions of Judges and Ruth, . . . i and 2 Samuel, and i Kings, the work . . . remained untouched . . . till the days of Jeremiah (the Deuteronomist), who . . . retouched and enlarged it in his own prophetical style, and ultimately inserted the law in Deu. v. ff., ... the discovery of which gave rise to Josiah's reformation (2 Kgs. xxiii.). To this he added, some time afterwards, the intro- duction, Deu. i.-iv., and the later chapters xxix. f., as well as the history of the kings from Solomon downwards, contained in the two books of Kings. . . . Finally, during the first years of Jehoachin's THE PENTATEUCH 25 The Supplementary Hypothesis was widely accepted ; but it finally had to be abandoned because it did not take into account that the so-called supplemental portions of the Pentateuch are more closely connected with one another than with the context in which they are found, and that, when taken by themselves, they form as complete a narrative as one could hope to recover from a composite production. These, however, are the facts. Thus, the second account of creation, as is shown by its form and content, is not a supplement to the first, but an introduc- tion to the story of the Fall (iii.), the first genealogy (iv. I, i6b-24), a notice of Noah (v. 29; ix. 20-27), etc. But these facts require one to suppose that the Jehovis- tic as well as the Elohistic portions of the Pentateuch originally constituted an independent document. When, therefore, in the progress of research and discussion they had been established, the Supplementary gave place to the Documentary Hypothesis. The Documentary Hypothesis logically comes last in the list of theories passed in review ; nor did it obtain the favor that it now enjoys until the other two had been tried and found wanting ; but, as a matter of fact, it is the oldest of the three, for it was proposed by Astruc, its inventor, in 1753. This is its original form : "Moses had, I believe, collected twelve different memoirs, or fragments of memoirs, which concerned the creation of the world, the universal deluge, the history of the patri- captivity, Ezekiel followed the example of Jeremiah by writing Lev. xviii., XX., and xxvi. . . . His work was taken up, during the Cap- tivity and after it, by a series of priestly writers. . . . Very prob- ably Ezra, and the priests his companions, had a lar^e share in this work, and it seems to have been brought very nearly to a close in his days, so far as the Hebrew text is concerned ; though it may have received some touches even after that time " {PBJ^ Part VI. 616 ff.). See also Tuch, Genesis. 26 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM archs, and especially that of Abraham and his posterity. For his purpose he arranged these, either entire or in extracts, in twelve different columns, and placed each part of a memoir or fragment in the place appropriate for it over against other corresponding parts or fragments, thus compiling a work in twelve columns. Perhaps, however, to avoid the confusion of so many columns, he arranged all his memoirs in only four columns. . . . We should be happy, and much pains would be spared, if Genesis had come down to us in this form. But the copyists long ago disarranged it in transcribing it."* These suggestions were at first received with ridicule, and an attempt by Ilgen (1798) to improve upon them f was * CG, 432 ff. This hypothesis, be it observed, was originally intended to serve as a defence of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. t Ilgen's work is entitled Die Urkunde dcs jericsalemischen Te?npelarchivs in ihrer Urgestalt, I. In it (425) he states his theory as follows : " After a careful examination of the text of Genesis, in which T have faithfully followed the clues furnished by the headings, the frequent repetitions, the divergence in language and tone, and the varying and entirely contradictory contents, I have found that the documents which the collector had before him and combined belong to three different authors, of whom two use the name EloJmn^ and the \\i\xdi Jahveh. I call those who use the name Elohiin, or the Elohists, Sopher Eliel {God is 7ny God), to indicate that they are characterized by the use of the name Elohimj but the one who uses the name Jahveh I call Sopher Elijah {My God is Jah\ because the portions that belong to him are distin- guished hy Jahveh. To distinguish them from each other, I give to one Eliel the epithet Harishon {the first), and to the other the epithet Hashsheni {the second); Elijali, also, has the epithet Harishon. In the latter case it may seem superfluous, since he stands alone, and therefore does not need to be distinguished from any other ; but it is possible that, in the future, he may not remain the only one, that another may make his appearance, when the distinction will be necessary." THE PENTATEUCH 27 ignored ; but a form of Astruc's theory championed by Eichhorn (1780), who extended his researches through the Pentateuch, for a time enjoyed considerable favor.* This, however, was finally superseded by the Supple- mentary Hypothesis, whose prevalence even Kwald, with his elaborate and ingenious modifications (1843), was not able to prevent.! It was Hupfeld (1853) who, having independently, as he claims, reached the result published fifty years before by Ilgen,f gave the deathblow to the Supplementary * The following is the form in which he put it in the fourth (1823) edition of his Einleitujig : "The first book of Moses was compiled of fragments from two works by different authors. ... It seems to me probable that the two documents were brought into the form in which we now have them at the end, or soon after the end, of the Mosaic period. . . . The contents of the last four books of Moses prove that, with the exception of late additions, they are derived entirely from documents contemporaneous with the Mosaic legis- lation. Not that all these documents were written by Moses him- self, but a great part of them by some of his contemporaries. . . . The Mosaic books seem to have received their present division and form between Joshua and Samuel." (iii. 64, 93, 334, 350.) t The following is Ewald's view in its final (1864) form: He finds in the Pentateuch and Joshua the work of seven hands : (i) the Book of Covenants, by a Judaite who wrote about the beginning of Samson's judgeship ; (2) the Book of Origins, by a Levite who wrote soon after the dedication of Solomon's temple ; (3) a third version of the primitive history, by an Israelite of the tenth or the ninth century b. c; (4) a fourth element, by a Jew of the ninth or the eighth century ; (5) a fifth, by the compiler of the preceding sources, a Jew of the second half of the eighth century ; (6) Deu- teronomy, by an Egyptian Jew of the latter half of the reign of Manasseh ; (7) the editorial additions of the final compiler, who completed the work about 700 B. c. (///, i. 64 ff.) X He says in the preface (viii. ff.) to Die Quellen der Genesis that, although he had read Ilgen's book, he had entirely forgotten it until his own was nearly finished ; then he came upon it and found in it much of which he had supposed himself the discoverer. 28 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM Hypothesis and revived its neglected rival. He epito- mizes the contents of his book as follows : " There lie at the foundation of Genesis (and of the Pentateuch in gen- eral) two distinct cycles of legends or forms of national tradition : ... an older, simpler, . . . and a younger, en- riched and adorned. . . . The former we have in the so- called Elohim document, the latter chiefly in the Jahwistic portions of the Pentateuch ; along with which, however, a younger Elohist appears in connection with the princi- pal characters in the theocratic history. . . . Both [of these last] forms of legend must have been independent of each other, and independently recorded. . . . The combination of the three documents in the present whole must be simply the work of a later editor." * The pub- lication of these results marked the beginning of a new period in the history of Pentateuchal criticism ; for, from that date, the Documentary Hypothesis has grown in favor, and it is now, in some form, accepted by nearly all recognized authorities in biblical criticism.! The prevalent hypothesis makes the Pentateuch a compilation from at least four documents. These docu- ments, being the work of as many different authors, when intact presented linguistic and other peculiarities by which they were readily distinguishable. The excerpts from them have, in some cases, been handled so freely in the process of compilation that it is difficult, if not im- possible, to separate them ; but as a rule they have been preserved in so nearly their original form that there is little room for doubt with reference to their authorship. In fact, the Pentateuch has been analyzed, and the greater * QG. 98 f., 193, 195. t Klostermann {Der Pentateuch, 1893), who still prefers a form of the Supplementary Hypothesis, is one of the few exceptions. THE PENTATEUCH 29 part of its contents more or less satisfactorily referred to one or another of the documents in question.* The work from which the first account of creation is an extract, whose author (or authors) was formerly known as the Elohist because at first he calls the Deity God (ciohiin)y and the first Elohist, to distinguish him from the one discovered by Ilgen, is now generally called the Priests' Code, or the Priestly document, and more briefly designated as PC or simply P, f because it was evidently written from the sacerdotal standpoint. In one view it is the most important of the sources of the Pentateuch ; for it furnished, not only the framework of the whole, but the largest share of the materials of which it is composed, including, according to the best authorities, about a fifth of Genesis, nearly a half of Exodus, the whole of Leviti- cus, nearly three-fourths of Numbers, and a few verses in Deuteronomy. It began with an account of the origin of the race, and traced the history of the Hebrews and their institutions as far as the occupation of Palestine. The style of the extracts from it, even after Ex. vi. 2, where the name Yahwch is introduced, \ is unmistakable. It is logical and orderly beyond that of either of the other documents. § It is also very precise, abounding in literal * For a complete analysis of the Pentateuch, see Driver, /LOT; for a comparative view of the results reached by the leading; critics, Holzinger, EH. The composition of the Pentateuch is indicated by Bacon (GG ; TTE) by various sorts of type ; by W2M^\.{SB0T^ by different colors. See also Oxford Hex. f Dillmann, who has a system of his own, designates it as A. X On the significance of this passage, compare Green, HCP, 100 f. § The form of the first account of creation has already been noticed. The same peculiarity is illustrated by the division of the Priestly portions of Genesis into books of "generations." See ii. 4 (displaced); v. i ; vi. 9; etc. 30 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM and technical terms/ and in circumstantial definitions.f The contents of the document were largely legal, chrono- logical, and genealogical ; at any rate, this is the character of most of the portions of it that have been preserved.^ They are also characterized by comparatively devel- oped theological ideas, with an evident avoidance of the marvellous features of Hebrew tradition, as well as the anthropomorphic and anthropopathic language found in other parts of the Pentateuch.§ One does not look for literary effect in a work of this sort ; yet there are pas- * There are no better illustrations of the literal tendency of P than those found in the vocabulary of the first extract from it, Gen. i. I ff. ; c. g., God, create, i. i ; <^t'=become, i. 2; appear, \. 9; bring, cause to go, forth, i. 12 ; etc. ; the word brood {A V, move) being a noticeable exception. Compare also the word for beget in Gen. v. 3, for destroy in vi. 13, for make, of a covenant, in xvii. 7, for offer- ing in Lev. i. 2, etc., with those used in Gen. iv. 18, vi. 7, xv. 17, iv. 4, etc. For a list of the Unguistic peculiarities of this document see Driver, I LOT, 131 ff. : Holzinger, EH, 338 ff. ; Oxford Hex. i. 208 ff. t See the phrases, "and it was so," Gen. i. 7; "after its kind," i. 1 1 ; " and he died," v. 5 ; " on the same day," vii. 11;" after their families," x. 20, etc. Note also the fulness of mere detail in such passages as Gen. vi. 14-22, ix. 8-17, and xvii. 10-14. X It is this document which explains the origin of the sabbath and circumcision in Genesis (ii. i ff . ; xvii.), and records the com- plete development of the Hebrew religion in the legislation of Ex. xxxv.-Num. X. It is also the document to which we are indebted for the genealogies of Gen. v. and xi., containing the only biblical data for a chronology of the early history of the race. § The point here made may be illustrated by citing at random almost any passage from this document for which there is a parallel in the first four lx)oks of the Pentateuch. Compare, with especial reference to the use of anthropomorphisms, the first and second accounts of creation ; and with reference to the introduction of the marvellous. Gen. xvii. with xv. (the covenant with Abraham), xxxv. 9 ff. with xxviii. 10 IT. (the name Bethel), and Ex. vi. 2 ff. with iii. i ff. (Moses' commission). THE PENTATEUCH 31 sages taken from it in which certain subjects are 'treated with a dignity that makes them deeply impressive.* The second account of creation is from J, /. c, the Jahvistic (more exactly Yahwistic) document, so named because it generally calls God Ja/iveh, or, better, YaJiwcli. To this document is referred about a half of Genesis, a sixth of Exodus, a fifteenth of Numbers, and a few verses in Deuteronomy. The Yahwistic portions of Genesis are recognizable by the divine name employed.! In the other books this criterion is of less service. There are, however, other marks by which they can generally be distinguished, especially from extracts from the Priestly document. The remains of the Yahwistic work show that the interests of its author (or authors) were predom- inantly religious, and that he wrote the history of his people for the purpose of imparting instruction in the truths that bear upon national and individual life and character. The materials, gleaned from the records and traditions of the Hebrews, therefore, are not regarded as a body of statements whose authenticity is to be guaran- teed, but as a collection of illustrations, which may be expanded and embellished, and thus made to teach more clearly and eloquently than they otherwise would the lessons to be learned from them. The style is free and * The first account of creation is generally considered a fine example of the sublime, and Gen. xxiii, an almost equally good one of the pathetic, in literature. It should, however, be observed that the impression made was evidently not intended on the part of the author; that, in fact, it is produced in spite of peculiarities that would spoil the effect of less impressive subjects. t The name " God " occurs, also, without doubt as the original reading; e. g.^ Gen. iii. i ; xxxii. 28; xliii. 29. In other cases it has been inserted, either with Yahweh, as in Gen. ii. f., or instead of it, as in Gen. vii. 9. See the Vulgate. 32 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM flowing, picturesque and poetical ; * therefore always in- teresting, and sometimes highly dramatic. f The theo- logy is naive and primitive, God, e. g., being sometimes represented, not only as possessing tangible parts and displaying human passions, but as associating familiarly with men. J The third source used in the compilation of the Penta- teuch is E, the Elohistic document, so named because its author (or authors), like that of P, at first calls God Elohini. It has certain points of contact with J, — a fact which, with the added circumstance that the extracts from these two are more closely interwoven with one another than with those from other sources, sometimes makes it difficult to decide to which of them a given pas- sage of the Pentateuch originally belonged. There are, however, criteria — as far as Ex. iii. 14, the divine name — by which some, at least, of the critics claim in most * The picturesqueness of the second account of creation has already been noticed (p. 18 f.). For a list of the linguistic peculiari- ties of this document, see Holzinger, EH, 93 ff. or Oxford Hex, i. 185 ff. ; for additional illustrations of vivid description, Gen. ix. 20 ff. ; xi. I ff. ; XV. 10 f., 17 f.; etc. Note also that the strictly poetical portions of the Pentateuch are largely from J ; e. g.. Gen. iv. 23 f. ; ix. 25 ff. ; xxv. 23 ; xlix. 2 £f. t The majority of the passages in the Pentateuch most inter- esting from the literary standpoint are from the Yahwistic docu- ment. See the story of the Fall (Gen. iii.), of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. xix.), of the mission of Eliezer (Gen. xxiv.), etc. Perhaps the prettiest picture from this source is that of the meeting betvireen Jacob and Rachel (Gen. xxix. 2 ff.); the most dramatic, and one of the most effective in any language, is Judah's plea for Benjamin (Gen. xliv. 18 ff.). X He makes a sound as he walks in the garden in Eden (Gen. iii. 8 £.); repents of having made man (Gen. vi. 6) ; comes down to see the city and tower of Babel (Gen. xi. 5); visits Abraham and accepts his hospitality (Gen. xviii. i ff.); etc. THE PENTATEUCH 33 cases to have settled the question. The result of the analysis is, that the THohist is credited with having fur- nished more than a fourth of Genesis and l^lxodus, about a ninth of Numbers, and, like the rest, a few verses of Deuteronomy.* These parts of the Pentateuch betray the prophet's zeal for religion and morality, but it is min- gled with an interest in theology and archaeology. In other words, they abound, on the one hand, in traces of reflection on the things of God, and on the other, in details that no one but an antiquary would have inserted into his narrative.f It is probably an interest in antiqui- ties, rather than a taste for poetry, that accounts for the fragments of ancient songs preserved in this document. :|: At any rate, although there are fine passages, the style of the work is less picturesque, and in general less attrac- tive, than that of J.§ * For a complete analysis, which Driver does not attempt, see Bacon {GG ; TTE) or Oxford Hex.; for a comparison of the views of the various critics, Holzing^r {EH, ii.). The latter gives a list of the linguistic characteristics of E (181 ff.) ; so also Ox- ford Hex. i. 190 ff. t The theological bent manifests itself in the use of the name Elohim, in the character of the theophanies described (Gen. xv. i ; XX. 3 ; etc.), in the instances of providential interference narrated (Gen. xxii. 13 ; xxxi. 9; xlv. 7 ; etc.), etc.; the architological, in the preservation of the names of Eliez.er (Gen. xv. 2), Deborah (Gen. XXXV. S), Potiphar (Gen. xxxvii. 36), etc.; also of Mahanaim (Gen. xxxii. 21 f.), Dothan (Gen. xxxvii. 17), Pithom(Kx. i. 11), etc. No- tice, finally, in this connection the allusions to idolatry among the early Hebrews (Gen. xxxi. 19 ff.; xxxv. 2 ff.). X It is E in which is found the quotation from the " Book of the Wars of Yahweh" (Num. xxi. 14 f.). See also Ex. xv. 21 ; xvii. 16; etc. § The best Elohistic passages in the Pentateuch are Abraham's sacrifice (Gen. xxii. r ff.), Joseph's first inter\-icw with his brethren (Gen. xlii. 8 ff.), and the finding of Moses (Ex. ii. i ff.). 34 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM The fourth element in the composition of the Penta- teuch is D, the Deuteronomic. The document so desig- nated is found incorporated in the book of Deuteronomy. Its individuality is even more marked than that of either of the others. It is distinctly a prophetic production, aiming directly at the accomplishment of certain results, chief among which are the suppression of idolatry, the centralization of the worship of Yahweh, and the devel- opment of the moral and religious life. The ideas that underlie these aims, the unity and spirituality of God and the supreme duty of loving him (iv. 15 ff. ; vi. 4 f.), are an advance upon the teachings of either J or E, but the style of this document, though fervid and lucid, is often diffuse, discursive, and repetitious.* The decomposition of the Pentateuch on the lines in- dicated explains many of the peculiar phenomena ob- served, and removes many of the immemorial difficulties encountered, in it ; but there are other phenomena that are not explained, and other difficulties that are not re- moved by so simple an analysis. Thus, e. g.y Gen. iii. and iv. are assigned to J, and they certainly display through- * The tendency to diffuseness shows itself especially in the enumeration of particulars. See iv. 6, 9 ; vi. 7, 10 f . ; vii. 13 f. ; viii. 7 ff. ; xii. 6, 18; etc. The second fault is well illustrated by the way in which the statutes and judgments, which first iv. i, and then vi. i, leads the reader to expect without further preparation, are postponed until the twelfth and the succeeding chapters. In- stances of repetition are numerous. Thus the promise of restora- tion from captivity in iv. 29 ff. recurs in xxx. I ff. ; the injunction concerning the remembrance of the law, found in vi. 6 ff., appears aji;ain in xi. 18 ff.; etc. Certain phrases peculiar to the document, such as " that it may be well with thee," etc. ; " that thy days may be long," etc. ; "the place which Yahweh shall choose," etc.; " with all thy heart," etc., arc many times repeated. On the fur- ther j)eculiarities, see Holzini^^er, EH, 282 ff. ; Driver, I LOT, 98 ff. ; Kuenen, OCH, no ff. ; Oxford Hex. i. 200 ff. THE PENTATEUCH 35 out some of the leading characteristics of that document ; but the tree of life in iii. is a disturbing as well as an un- necessary feature in the story of the Fall, and in iv. the representation of Cain, or his son, as the founder of the first city, is hardly in harmony with the curse pronounced upon the murderer. These and other more or less appar- ent discrepancies indicate that the work in question, when it was incorporated with one or more of the others com- posing the Pentateuch, was not in its original form, but had been enriched with materials some of which may have been derived from other writings ; * and similar indications in the other documents justify the conclusion that they, too, were the products of a process of develop- ment. The original work may be designated as J\ etc., and later forms or additions as J^, J*^, etc. There are two distinct processes by which one can im- agine the Pentateuch as having been compiled from the documents that compose it. In the first place, they might all have circulated as separate works until the last had reached its final form, and then have been put to- gether by a single editor. The other process would be the gradual one, by which two of the documents would first be united, and this compilation aftenvard enlarged by the addition, one after the other, by the same or dif- ferent editors, of the remaining two. Now it is agreed that the editorial additions discoverable in the Pentateuch are not all by one hand, and that, therefore, the former of these processes is not the one by which the compila- tion was actually produced. There remains, however, the question, whether this editorial work may not have been done by two compilers. Dillmann and others claim that * Vox details concerninii; the composition of this document, see Budde, DU; liruston, DJ : Holzin.crer, EH, 142 ff. ; Kucnen, OCH, 250 ff. ; Oxford Hex. i. 108 ff., 117 ff., 141 ff. 36 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM it was, three of the documents being put together by the first, and the one remaining united with the work thus produced by the second ; * but the majority of critics in- sist that the phenomena presented can only be explained on the supposition of a threefold redaction. The order of compilation, and the reasons for the theory adopted with reference to it, will be discussed in the next chapter. IV. Age of Documents and Order of Compilation The Documentary Hypothesis seems established. At any rate, it has been adopted by the leading Old Testa- ment scholars of the day as the most satisfactory solution of the question of the origin of the Pentateuch yet sug- gested.! There is some divergence of opinion with re- ference to the analysis of its contents ; but it mostly touches minor matters concerning which perfect harmony is not important. J It is the final question respecting the dates of the several documents and of the stages in the process of compilation to which the most divergent an- swers have been given. On this critics divide themselves * See Dillmann, NDJ, 671 ff. ; Kittel, HH, i. 132. Note, how- ever, that they do not agree in their answers to the question, which three entered into the original compilation ; Dillmann's formula for the Pentateuch being PEJ -f D, and Kittel's EJD -{- P. t Its sturdiest American opponent was the late Professor Green of Princeton, whose The Hii^her Criticism of the Pentateuch has already been cited. See also his Moses and the Prophets^ The Hebrew Feasts^ The Unity of Genesis^ and a discussion with President Harper in Hebraica for 1888-91. The leading English conservatives have presented their case in a joint production under the title Lex Afosaica, edited by R. V. French. X The following table, based on Holzinger's comparative anal- ysis, exhibits both the degree and the character of the divergence among live acknowledged authorities concerning the Yahwistic THE PENTATEUCH yj into two schools, one of which places J before E and P after the Exile, while the other insists that E is older than J and that P originated before the overthrow of Judah.* Of course, it is impossible, in this connection, to present all the evidence on which the adherents of element in Gen. xxi.-xxx., the first ten chapters following the first extended extract from the Elohistic document : Dillmann. Wellhauseii. Kuenen. Cornill. Bacon. xxi la, 2a, 7, 32b*, 33, 34*- la, 2a, 6b, 7, 33(?)- ^ la, 2a, 6b, 7, 31-33- •! 20-24 (JE).... i4-.8*(J^),2<>- 24. 20-24 (J') 2oa/3-24. xxiii XXIV XXV 1-67 1-67 1-67. 1-5, 'lb, 18, 5, 6* (?), lib, i^(JE?), lib, i-^, lib, 18, 1-6, lib, 18, i8a, 2i-26a, 18, 21-23, 24- 21-263,27-34. 2i-26a, 27-34. 2i-26a, 27-34. .7-34. 26a (JE),27- 29 (JE), 30- xxvi lb, 2aa, 3a, 7- 14, 16 f., 19- 1-5*. 6-14, 16 f., 19-33. 1-5*, 6-14,16 f., 19-33- I xx* I, 2aa, 3a, 6- 14, 16 r, 19- 33- 32. XXVll 15, 24-27, 30a, 35-38- 1-45 (JE) I-4S (mostly).. 1-45 (mostly).. I a, 3*, 4ba, 5b, 6, 7 (partly), 15, .8b)3-2o, 24-27, 2gaa, 29b, 3oaa, 30b, 3ib-33. 36a, 41a, 4Saa- xxvin 10, 13-16, 19a*, 13-16, 19a 13-16 (J'), 17- 10, i3-i6», 19a. 10, 13 f., 16, 2.b(?). 22 (J2, partly). 19a. XXIX 2-14, 15a (?), 26*, 31-35 1-30 (partly), 2-14, 19-23,25- 2- 14a, 26, 31- 26. 31-35- 31-35- 28a, 30-35- 35;- XXX 3b-5, 7, q-i6. 3b/3, 7*, 9-16, 14-16, 24, 28- laa, 3b^-5, 7, 3b/3, 4, 7*. 9- 20b, 21*, 22b/3, 20b, 24 f., 27, 43- 9-i6, 20b, 21, 16 , 20a^-2I, 24 f., 27, 29- 29-3 «, 3 5-43- 22b/3, 23a, 22*, 24b, 25, 43- 24 f., 27 (?), 29-43- 27. 29-31, 34- 3Sa, 39, 4oaa, 4ob-43- * The former of these schools is often called by the name of Graf, because he was the first {GBAT^ 1866) to secure a hearing for the idea that P, or a part of it, was later than the other docu- ments; but Reuss. his teacher, was the first (1S34) to suggest this hypothesis, and Wellhausen has become its most prominent repre- sentative. The view of the last mentioned (CH) is substantially as follows : J belongs mostly to the golden period of Hebrew litera- ture, the period preceding the destructive invasions of Palestine by the Assyrians ; E is somewhat later. They both passed through 3^ THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM these schools base their conclusions ; it would only con- fuse any one but an expert ; but perhaps enough can be two revisions before they were united. D appeared just before Josiah's reforms, and, after circulating for some time in two editions, produced after the fall of the Jewish monarchy, and finally taking a form combining the peculiarities of both, was combined with JE into a single work. The rest of the Pentateuch is later than Ezekiel. The nucleus of it is Q (the four, quatuor^ covenants), about which was formed a conglomerate, the product of a school of writers, during and after the Exile. In 444 b. c. this Priests' code had been completed by the addition of Lev. xvii.-xxvi., wrought into JED, and divided into six books, the first five of which were the law promulgated by Ezra. Kuenen's statement of Graf's theory {OCH) is more elaborate, varying, also, in some respects from that of Wellhausen. J, he thinks, was composed in the northern kingdom before, or about, 800 B. c. ; E in the same country about 750. In the second half of the seventh century there had appeared Judean editions of both of them, which were united into a single work about 600. D, v^rhich was written in the reign of Josiah, after various additions, was combined with JE during the Captivity. Finally, P, itself a compilation made during, or after, the Exile, was brought to Judea by Ezra in 458 B. c, promulgated in 444, and, before 400, wrought into the preceding work to form the Hexateuch in substantially its present dimensions. The most prominent representative of the second of the two schools above described is Dillmann, who states his view (NDJ, 593 ff.) about as follows : P (his A), though not the oldest of the sources of the Hexateuch, is only less ancient than E (his B), which is to be assigned to the first half of the ninth century b. c, while J (his C) dates from the middle of the eighth. About 600 these three were wrought into a continuous whole, to which D, written in the reign of Josiah, was added during the Exile. Finally, by the insertion of parts of Lev. xvii.-xxvi. and other related legisla- tion (his S), also various legal fragments, and the separation of Joshua from the rest of the compilation, the law of Ezra, and the Pentateuch in substantially its present form, was completed. Kittel, who is also a conservative, but differs on some points from Dillmann, thus states his conclusions : E was written near the be- ginning, J toward the end, of the ninth century b. c. The original THE PENTATEUCIT 39 adduced to indicate what is likely to be the outcome of the discussion in progress. The inquiry into the age of the Pentateuch may best begin with D ; since it has been preserved more nearly complete than any of the other documents, and has cer- tainly left more distinct traces of its influence than they in the history and the literature of the Hebrews. This document, as has already been shown, is the book on which were based the reforms of the eighteenth year of King Josiah. There is no doubt of its subsequent exist- ence. From that time it was known and recognized as the law of Yahweh. The later prophets, especially Jere- miah,* repeatedly betray their acquaintance with, and their indebtedness to it, while the author (or authors) who put into their present form the books of Kings con- stantly gives evidence that it was not only his literary model, but the standard by which he decided how he of Deuteronomy was a product of the reign of Manasseh. This last, after various additions, was united with the two preceding, hitherto distinct, documents during, or just before, the Captivity. Meanwhile P, the oldest parts of which, perhaps, date from the time of Solomon, had grown to its final proportions. It was car- ried by the Jews to Babylon, where it was worked into the previous compilation. The whole thus produced, minus the book of Joshua, was the law promulgated by Ezra. * Vox a list of passages (86) from his prophecies, in which the influence of Deuteronomy is most apparent, see Zunz, ZDATG, 1873,671 ff. ; for a less complete one, Driver, Deu. xciii. or Oxford Hex. i. 87 ff. Jeremiah not only uses a large part of the vocabu- lary of the earlier book ; he appropriates whole phrases and sen- tences. The following are good examples : vii. 23 (Deu. v. 30/33); xi. 4 (Deu. iv. 20); xvi. 13 (Deu.xxviii. 36); xxii. 8 (Deu. xxix. 23/ 24). The instances of this sort are so frequent and noticeable that several distinguished scholars, Gesenius (G//S, 32) and Colenso (PB/, Part VII. 225 ff.) among their number, formerly held that the prophet was the author of both books. 40 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM should regard the men and the events of Hebrew history.* It is therefore impossible to deny that D, in some form, is as early, at the latest, as the date of Josiah's reforms. In 2 Kgs. xxii. 8, Hilkiah is represented as saying that he had found the book sent to the king. The natural implication is, that it had previously been known and lost, and that, therefore, the author of this passage be- lieved that it was not a recent production. That this really was his opinion, and the opinion of the school to which he belonged, is clear from xxiii. 25, where he calls the book discovered "the law of Moses," and a series of related passages, cited in another connection, which teach that it existed at various dates subsequent to that of the Exodus, and that it was always recognized as the work of the law-giver, f The evidence thus far adduced is explicit and seem- ingly conclusive ; but, before the case is closed, it should be subjected to a closer examination. If D really was written by Moses, and was known as his work at certain dates, it ought to bear marks of its Mosaic origin, and the other works written before it was lost, if it was lost, ought to bear traces of its influence. If the authors * The Deuteronomic character of 2 Kgs. xxii. f. has already been discussed. For an earlier example in the same style, see i Kgs. ix. 1-9. The influence of the Deuteronomic idea of the centraliza- tion of worship at Jerusalem appears in the latter; but it is more apparent in i Kgs. xiv. 21, and the passages in which the commen- dation bestowed upon the good kings before Josiah is modified by the significant statement, "but the high places were not taken away," i Kgs. xv. 14; xxii. 43; etc. t The passages in question are those cited (pp. 8 ff.) in proof of the claim that " the law of Moses " in the P^ormer Prophets is Deuteronomy. They are Jos. i. 7 f. ; viii. 31 f., 34; xxii. 5; xxiii. 6; Jud. iii. 4; i Kgs. ii. 3; viii. 53, 56; 2 Kgs. xiv. 6; xviii. 6, 12; xxi. 8. THE PENTATEUCH 41 who arc known to have written before, according; to the Dcuteronomic historian, it caii have been lost betray no knowledge of it, the testimony of the same historian to its Mosaic origin will justly be questioned ; and if the internal "evidence clearly contradicts him, while he is not to be rashly condemned as a falsifier, his statements on the point under discussion must be ignored. The first question is easily disposed of. Scholars are generally agreed that, while Jeremiah constantly reminds one of Deuteronomy, and most of the later writers to a greater or less degree betray its influence,* the genuine prophe- cies of 'Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah leave no such impression.! Hence, 2 Kgs. xviii. 6 to the contrary not- withstanding, it is not probable that it was in existence when these prophets flourished. The second question requires more extended treatment. The evidence derivable from Deuteronomy itself is of various kinds. In the first place, the book may be ex- amined from the linguistic standpoint. The result of such an examination is unfavorable to the opinion that it belongs to the earliest period of Hebrew literature. The use of the word prophet is significant in this connec- tion. It occurs nine times ; yet i Sam. ix. 9 says that it is a comparatively late term, that the man of God was called a seer until after the establishment of the mon- archy. The general style of the book should also be considered. It has not the freshness and picturesqueness of early Hebrew, but an oratorical breadth and diffuse- * See Eze. xx.; Mai. iv. 4/iii. 22; Neh. i. 5 ff. ; Dan. ix. 4 ff. ; etc. t On the passages by these prophets usually cited as evidence of their acquaintance with Deuteronomy, sec Driver, Deu. Ixii. f. ; Riehm, EA T, i. 332 ff. ; comp. Keil, EAT, i. 171 ff.; Green, HCP, 54 f. 42 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM ness, already noticed, which belongs to an advanced stage of literary development.* The local and historical indications agree with the linguistic. The phrase " be- yond Jordan," in the use made of it, implies that the book, or the part of it in which this phrase occurs, was written, not in Moab, but in Canaan, f and the comparison "as Israel did to the land of his possession " (ii. 12), that it was penned after the Conquest. f If it be objected that ii. 10-12 and 20-22, and iii. 11 and 14-17, the last of which is later than the period of the Judges, § are glosses, the same cannot be said of xvii. 14 ff. This law * See Dillmann, NDJ, 611; Kittel, HH, i. 61 f. t The expression beyond (Heb. 123?^), where it is supplemented by an explanatory clause denoting direction, may mean either side with reference to the speaker or writer. Thus supplemented, it is used of the same side, Jos. i. 15 ; v. i ; xii. 7; of the opposite, Deu. xi. 30 ; Jos. xii. i ; xiii. 8. When not modified by such a clause, in all cases, save one, in which its meaning can be ascertained from the context, it denotes the side opposite that, actual or assumed, of the speaker or writer. The examples of this sort are Deu. iii. 20, 25; Jos. ii. 10; vii. 7; ix. 10; xxii. 4; xxiv. 2, 8, 14; Jud. v. 17; xi. i8;Jer. xxv. 22. This being the case, while one can infer nothing with reference to the standpoint of the writer from Deu. iv. 41 ff. or Jos. ix. I, it is fair to conclude from Deu. i. i and 5 that the author of the introduction of Deuteronomy, at least, wrote in western Palestine. See also Jud. x. 8 and i Sam. xxxi. 7. The exception above mentioned, Deu. iii. 8, without doubt a slip of the pen, confirms this conclusion. See farther, Ezr. viii. 36; Neh. ii. 9; iii. 7; i Kgs. v. 4/iv. 24; Isa. viii. 23/ix. i; the last two of which were written in Babylonia. X The interpretation which makes this passage refer to the con- quest of the kingdoms of Sihon and Og (Keil) is, to say the least, unwarranted. § It embodies a tradition found in one form in Num. xxxii. 41, and in another in Jud. x. 3 ff. See also Jos. xiii. 30; i Kgs. iv. 13; I Chr. ii. 22 f. On the relation of these various passages, see Driver on Deu. iii. 14 ff., and Moore on Jud. x. 3 ff. THE PENTATFMCH 43 concerning the king is a part of the body of the book, and evidently Deuteronomic. But it is plain from i Sam. viii. f. that neither Samuel, nor the author (or authors) of these chapters, was acquainted with any such provision.* Hence it must be later than the account of Saul's election, which the most conservative scholars do not think of placing before the date of the division of the kingdom, about 930 B. c.f The law providing for a court of ap- peals at Jerusalem (xvii. 8 ff.) has been supposed to indi- cate that it is later than the reign of Jehoshaphat ; but it is hardly fair, in view of the estimate now put upon the testimony of the Chronicler, to quote 2 Chr. xix. 5 ff. in support of this position. The passage should rather be explained as an echo of Deuteronomy. Of greater sig- nificance are iv. 19 and xvii. 3 ; for they seem to point to the time of Manasseh, by whom the worship of "the host of heaven " was revived, if not introduced. See 2 Kgs. xxi. 3. Compare, however, 2 Kgs. xvii. 16, where this is among the sins for which Israel was destroyed. Better evidence that the book is a product of the seventh century b. c. is found in its teachings. The doctrine concerning the prophet seems to require such a conclu- sion. The earliest prophets were men, not of words, but of deeds ; and so great was their influence in the affairs of their times, that even kings (i Sam. xvi. 4; I Kgs. xxi. 27) dreaded their displeasure. Amos and those who followed him were preachers. They threat- ened, indeed, but they did not undertake to insure the fulfilment of their own prophecies. Finally there arose a class of prophets who merely reflected the wishes of * On the relation between this passage and Deuteronomy, see Driver, /LOT, 175 ff. ; Den. 212 f.; Budde, RSy 183 f . ; comp. Wellhausen, (7//, 243 ff. ; GI, 259 ff. t See Keil, EA T, i. 245 ff. 44 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM their more or less powerful patrons, and who, by thus encouraging the wicked in their offences, hastened the day of retribution. Now the prophet of Deuteronomy (xviii.) is a preacher. Moreover, he is expressly con- trasted with the false prophet, and a test is suggested {yv. 21 f.) by which the one may be distinguished from the other. Hence this passage, and the document to which it belonged, is probably to be referred to the seventh century, when, as is known from the prophe- cies of Jeremiah, the distinction between the true and the false prophet needed emphasis.* The same result is reached if the doctrine of the centralization of wor- ship be considered. The earlier prophets, although they speak of Jerusalem as the abode of Yahweh (Am. i. 2 ; Isa. viii. 18), do not require that all his worshippers shall pay homage to him in the temple erected by Solo- mon. They could not have done so ; for, since the king- dom had been divided at the instigation of the prophet Ahijah (i Kgs. xi. 30 f.), and the erection of a separate government implied the establishment of a distinct wor- ship, the doctrine that Yahweh could be approached acceptably only at Jerusalem would have been an attack upon the divinely guaranteed independence of Israel, and, if taught within the kingdom, would justly have been punished as treason. When, however, the northern kingdom had been overthrown, and it had become pos- sible to make Jerusalem the sole shrine of the Hebrew religion, Hezekiah, doubtless under Isaiah's direction, * The earlier references to false prophets are Mic. iii. 5 ff. and Zph. iii. 4. Isa. ix. 15/14 is an interpolation. Jeremiah repeatedly refers to them, sometimes devoting long passages to polemics against them. See especially xiv. 13 ff . ; xxiii. 15 ff.; xxvi.4ff. ; xxvii. 9 ff. ; and xxviii. 9 ff. In the last case the test suggested in Deuteronomy is applied. THE PENTATEUCH 45 took the first steps toward this end;* and seventy-five years later Josiah, in accordance with a book, in which meanwhile an unknown prophet (or prophets) had given to old material a form and setting adapted to the needs of his generation, succeeded for the time being in con- centrating worship in the place which Jehovah had evi- dently chosen for his sanctuary. Thus, all the internal evidence obtainable points to the conclusion that the Deuteronomic document had its origin in the seventh century b. c, before the restoration of the temple by Josiah. It is possible that this work is the one found by Hil- kiah, but it cannot be identified with the book of Deuter- onomy ; for this latter is not the work of a single author. In the first place, as already noted, it contains various fragments from the other documents ; f and secondly, in its more characteristic portions it gives evidence of having passed through the hands of at least one editor. The fewest changes and additions are found in chapters xii.-xxvi. These chapters, therefore, in their earliest form, have sometimes been identified with the original Deuteronomic document. J But the last verse of xxviii. * See 2 Kgs. xviii. 4, 22. 2 Chr. xxx. 5 says tliat he sent his invitation to the passover with which he celebrated the reopening of the temple "from Beersheba even unto Dan." t According to Driver {/LOT, 72) traces of the other documents are found only in chapters i,, xxvii., and xxxi.-xxxiv. ; but Bacon {TTEj 262) refers to E x. 6 f. and parts of xxv. 17-19. See also Holzin<^er, EH, ii. 10; Oxford Hex. ii. 246 ff. X See VVellhausen, C//, 195. According to Cornill {EAT, 25), D consisted of xii. i-xiii. i (in a shorter form); xiii. 2-19; xiv. 3, 21 aa*, 2ib (?) ; xiv. 22-xv. 3; xv. 7-23; xvi. i-8*, 9-20; xvi. 21- xvii. 7 (in a different connection) ; xvii. 8-13*; xviii. 1-13; xix. 1-15, 16-20*, 21 ; XX. (except 2-4 and 15-18) ; parts, no longer determin- able, of xxi.-xxv. ; xxvi. 1-15. See, farther, Holzinger, EH^ 263 ff. 46 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM {6c)l xxix. i) was evidently meant to connect this chapter with them ; and, in fact, they seem incomplete without it There are similar reasons for believing that chapters v.-xi., in some form, belonged to the first edition. The title prefixed to them was undoubtedly intended to con- nect them with xii.-xxvi., and the points of likeness be- tween the two parts seem to show that they belong together.* The relation between i.-iv. and the two fol- lowing parts of the book is not so close as theirs to each other. These chapters, therefore, with the exception of the first verses of i. and the last of iv., are by many attri- buted to an editor or reviser. Driver, however {Deu.j Ixvii.), defends the genuineness of i.-iii., and finds little diffi- culty in believing that iv. also is the work of the author of V. ff. The truth probably lies between these opposing views ; for, while a good part of the chapters under con- sideration falls below the higher Deuteronomic standard, it is not true that the style and content are throughout inferior. In other words there is a mixture in them of two elements. The inferior passages are generally marked by the use of the plural of the second person, when Israel is addressed. Nor is this their only lin- guistic peculiarity.! Moreover, where the plural pronoun * For a detailed discussion of the language and contents of v.- xi. as compared with xii.-xxvi., see Kuenen, OCH^ 112 ff. ; also Westphal, SP, ii. 105 ff.; Driver, De7i., Ixv. ff . ; Mitchell, /i?Z:, 1899, rxjf. t Various words and expressions characteristic of the Deuter- onomic style are either not used where they were to be expected, or used in senses more or less different from those in which they appear in other connections. On the other hand, these passages have some words and phrases rarely or never found except in them or in similar ])assages in other parts of the hook. Thus, while the "covenant " of these passages is the one made at Horeb (iv, 13, 23 ; see also v. 2, 3, etc.), that of those in which the singular is used THE PENTATFMCH 47 prevails peculiar prominence is usually given to the events that transpired at Horeb, and peculiar hostility toward idolatry manifested.* These passages constitute the greater part of the first four chapters. Among them are interspersed others with the singular of the second person, in which both the style and the standpoint are genuinely Deuteronomicf The latter, or most of them, is the covenant with the fathers (iv. 31 ; see also vii. 9, 12, ftc). Compare, farther, " which . . . eyes have seen " (iv. 9; see also vii. 19; X. 21 ; etc.) with the singular, and "eyes have seen" (iii. 21; iv. 3 ; see also xi. 7), with the plural. Finally, four of the seven words and phrases quoted by Kuenen {OCH^ 121) to prove that these chapters are not by the same author as v.-xxvi. are peculiar, not to these chapters as a whole, but only to the portions of them under consideration. (See especially the name Amorite, i. 7, 19, etc.); and the same is true of six of the eight terms supposed to betray the influence of P (Driver, Deti., Ixxi.). See farther, /^Z, 1899, 71 ff. * When merely alluding to the theophany, iv. 10, Moses uses the singular pronoun; so also vv. 33 and 36; but when he under- takes to describe it, vv. 11-14, the plural. This fact, however, might be overlooked, if, on returning to the subject in the ninth chapter, he did not again change numbers {v. 8), and use the plural to the end of his long (ix. 8-x. 5) account of the tables of the covenant. See also the framework of chapter v. ; but comp. X. ID. The same is the case with the subject of idolatry. In iv. 19 the worship of the heavenly bodies is forbidden in the singular ; but the four preceding verses, with their detailed prohibition of the use of images, have the plural. See also iv. 23, 25, 28; vi. 14; vii. 4 f., 25; ix. 12-21 ; xi. 16; xii. 2-4; xx. 18; xxviii. 14; xxix. 16/17 f., 24/25 f . ; and note that the verses cited, or the longer passages to which they belong, p:enerally have the marks of inter- polations. Comp. viii. 19; xiii. 3/2, 7/6, 14/13 (.'); xxviii. 36; XXX. I 7. t For examples of the literary character of this element, see ii. 7 and 25, but especially iv. 37-40. The tone and purpose of the latter passao^e are also to be noted, bein<,^ precisely those found in vi. 4-13, and the other most characteristic portions of the book. The 48 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM are probably remnants of the original introduction to D, and the parts of xxvii., xxix., xxx., and xxxi. in the same style the remains of the conclusion of the document.* The dimensions of the original document having thus been indicated, the question recurs, whether it was the book discovered by Hilkiah the priest ; in other words, whether the changes which it finally underwent, or any of them, were made before its recognition as the law of Moses. The account of the reforms instituted upon its discovery indicates that it required, not only the central- ization of the worship of Yahweh at the capital, on which other passages in which the singular is used are only less strikingly Deuteronomic. * Dillmann {NDJ, 378) objects to the genuineness of chapters xxix. and xxx. on the ground that they contain certain words and phrases not found elsewhere in Deuteronomy. The objection, how- ever, holds against parts of xxix. only ; for all but two of the twenty expressions cited are in this chapter, and, in fact, with one further exception, in the parts of it in which the second person is plural. Moreover, of the exceptions, one, n*T3, is really Deuteronomic, occurring with the meaning impel — which it has in xxx. 17 — in xiii. 6/5, I i/io, and i4/i3a, and in the sense expel — which it has in xxx. I and 4 — in xxii. i ; while the other, nbs, oath, curse^ although it occurs six times in both chapters (xxix. 11/12, 13/14, 18/19, 19/20, 20/21; xxx. 7), is so variously used that it can hardly be pronounced characteristic. The further objections (Driver, Dcii.^ Ixxiii. f.), that the connection in these chapters is sometimes imper- fect, and that the standpoint in parts of them is different from that of the undoubted portions of the book, are likewise relieved by referring the disturbing element to a second author. Of course, no one who admits the genuineness of xxviii., or the substance of it, can reject xxx. i-io because, like iv. 30 f., it presents a prospect of return from captivity- A promise of this sort is the natural expression of faith in a future for the chosen people at any time after the overthrow of the kingdom of Israel. See Jer. xvi. 14. On the language of these final chapters see further JBL^ 1899, 74 ff. THE PENTATEUCH 49 Deuteronomy is a unit, but also the utter extinction of the rival cults against which those parts of the present book where the plural of the second person is used were evidently directed.* It seems necessary, therefore, to conclude that the two elements of which Deuteronomy is mainly composed were united before the year 621 b. c. How long before ? is the next question. Many hold that the book reported found had its origin just before the date of its discovery (Reuss, GAT, 350 ff. ; Kuenen, OCH, 2 14 ff. ; Dillmann, NDJ, 613 ; etc.), and some that, in fact, Hilkiah had a hand in its preparation, or was in col- lusion with its author or authors. See especially Cornill, EA 7*, 30. But, in the first place, there is no proof that Hilkiah was playing a part in the matter, and, second, as W. R. Smith maintains {OTJC, 363), the fact that, ac- cording to 2 Kgs. xxiii. 9, " the priests of the high places came not up to the altar of Yahweh in Jerusalem " shows that neither he nor any of his colleagues could have dic- tated or indorsed Deu. xviii. 6-S, where express provision is made that the rural Levite, who comes to the central sanctuary for the purpose, " shall minister in the name of Yahweh his God." If, however, the book was actu- ally found, the probabilities are that it was lost before Josiah came to the throne, and that, therefore, it had attained its actual dimensions in the reign of the wicked and idolatrous Manasseh. The process by which it had become what it was when discovered, according to the latest theory, was that of compilation ; a document, itself composite, whose au- thor (670 B. c), when freely writing, naturally used the * On the first point, see 2 Kgs. xxiii. 21-23, where the first cele- bration of the passover at Jerusalem is described; and on the second, the passages already cited (pp. 9 f.) to show that the book found was some form of Deuteronomy. so THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM plural of the second person in addresses to Israel, being wrought into an earlier compilation, whose author (690 B. c.) always employed the singular, by a redactor (650 B. c), who added more or less as he proceeded.* But the general similarity of style and tone in the laws, in spite of the variety of their content, indicates that, with some exceptions, they were brought together by a single collector ; while, on the other hand, the affinity between the additions attributed to the redactor and the supposed contributions of the author of the later of the documents used seem to justify the inference that the two writers were oncf In other words, it is probable that the book found by Hilkiah was a revised and enlarged edition, if one may use the term, of the work of the original Deu- teronomist. Those portions of the present book which cannot be referred to one of these two sources must be attributed to later editors, compilers, or transcribers. * This is the view of Steuernagel {DJ, vi. ff.), who thus dis- tributes the material used by the redactor {Deii.^ iv. fF.): — Sg. — vi. 4 f., 10-13, 15 ; vii. i-4a, 6, 9, i.2b-i6a, 17-21, 23 f.j viii. 2-5, 7-14, 17 f. ; ix. i-4a, 5-7a; x. 12, 14 f. 21, (22?) ; xi. 10- 12, 14 f.; xii. 13 £., i6-2oa, 21, 26 f . ; xiv. 23aa, 24-27a, 28-29a ; XV. 19 f.; xvi. I £., 5-7, 9-1 1, 13-15, 18*; xvii. 8*, lob ; xviii. i f.*, 3 f., 6, 8; xix. 2, 3b, 4-8a, 9b, 10*, 15-19 a*; xiii. 2/i-4/3a, 6/5- io/9aa* ii/iob, 13/12 f., 16/15-18/17; XX. io-i7aa, 19 f. ; xxii. i- 4, 6-7a, 8; xxiii. 16 f.*, 20, 25 f. ; xxiv. (6), 10-22; (xxv. 4); xv. I £., 7-15, 18; xxv. 1-3, ii-i2a; xxvi. 2*, 5-1 5a; xxviii. i-8a, I2-I3a, 15-20*, 23-25a, 43-46; xxx. 14, i9b-2o; xxxi. 9aa, 10, lib. PL — iv. 45 ; v. 1-4, 20/23-28/31 ; ix. 9, 11, 13-17, 21, 25-29; x. 1-5, II, i6f. ; xi. 2-5, 7, 16 f., 22-28; xii. i* (?), 8, 9*, 10 f., 12*; xvi. 2i-xvii. 7, 8a*, 9*, 11-13*; xviii. io-i2a; xix. 3a, (3-7*), iif., (14); xxi. 1-4,6-8, 10-23; xxii. 5, 9-29; xxiii. 1-4, 8-15, 18 f., 22-24; xxiv. 1-5, 7; xxv. 5-10, i3-i6a. t On the first point see, e. g., the use of the phrase " put away evil from thy midst," xiii. 6/5 (Stcucrnagel's Sg.): xvii. 7 (Steuer- nngel's PI.); etc. : on the second, the condemnation of idolatry, vii. 5 and 25 (Steucrnagcrs R); ix. 13-17 (IM.); etc. THE PENTATEUCH 51 There is no doubt about the relative age of D and the other prophetic documents. It is certainly, even in its original form, later than cither of them ; for it is largely a reproduction of their contents. This indebtedness of D to J and E is most apparent in the legal portions of Deuteronomy ; some of its statutes being copied almost verbatim from the other documents,* while others are laws from J or E varied or expanded as they would nat- urally be by a fluent writer,! or modified to suit the conditions under which the Deuteronomic document originated. J The historical portions of Deuteronomy also betray the acquaintance of its authors with both the Yahwistic and the Elohistic narrative. It appears in various incidental allusions scattered through the book,§ * Examples: xiv. 21b (Ex. xxiii. 19b; xxxiv. 26b); xvi. 19b (Ex. xxiii. 8). See further Oxford Hex. i. 73 f. t Examples: xvi. 9-15 (Ex. xxiii. 16; xxxiv. 22); xvii. 2-7 (Ex. xxii. 19/20); xxiii. 19/20 f. (Ex. xxii. 24/25). X Deu. XV. 12-18 is a reproduction of Ex. xxi. 2-6, the object of which at first sight seems to be the inculcation of generosity toward released slaves; but the careful reader will notice that, according to Ex. xxi. 6, the ceremony prescribed is to take place at a sanctuary, while, according to Deu. xv. 7, the door at which the slave's ear is to be pierced is that of his master's dwelHng; in other words, that the latter ignores the local sanctuaries recognized by the former. The hostility of the Deuteronomist to these old sanc- tuaries is still more apparent in xvi. 1-17, but especially in xix. 1-13. Comp. Ex. xxiii. 14-18; xxxiv. 18, 22 f. ; xxi. 12-14. In the last passage 13b has been changed to prepare the reader for the Deuteronomic form of the law. See v. 14 and i Kgs. ii. 28. Thus, in one form or another, almost all the statutes of Ex. xxi.- xxiii., except those relating to damages, xxi. iS-xxii. 14/13, reap- pear in Deuteronomy. See Driver, H^OT, 73 if.; also Oxford Hex. i. 75 f. § The following are some of them: i. S (Gen. xv. 18); iv. 3. (Num. XXV. 3); vi. 16 (Ex. xvii. 7); vii. 20 (Ex. xxiii. 28); viii. 3 (Ex. xvi. 15); viii. 15 (Num. xxi. 6; Ex. xvii. 6); ix. 22 (Num. xi. 3, 34) ; 52 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM but more clearly in the extended passages in which cer- tain series of events are reviewed.* In these last the order of the events mentioned, as well as the phraseology of the references to them, is proof of dependence upon the parallel passages, partly Yahwistic and partly Elo- histic, in the books of Exodus and Numbers.! The dependence of D upon J and E, and therefore the priority of the last two to the first, is universally admitted. There is also general agreement to the effect that both J and E, in some form, are as early as, if not earlier than, the earliest of the prophets whose works have been pre- served ; this conclusion being based, not so much on un- mistakable references to these documents,;]: as upon the relation of the ideas of their authors to those of Amos and his immediate successors. The relative date of J and E, on the other hand, is a question on which scholars are still divided. Dillmann and others, as has already been stated, hold to the priority of E ; § but the majority main- tain that J is the earlier, and this, on the whole, is the more defensible position. In its favor is the fact that, in cases like Gen. xx. and xxvi. 7-1 1, in which the same xi. 6 (Num. xvi. i, 32) ; xiii. 4 (Ex. xiii. 4) ; xxiii. 4 (Num. xxii. 5) ; xxiv. 9 (Num. xii. 10); xxv. 17 (Ex. xvii. 8 ff.). * Compare especially i. 19-45 with Num. xiii. f. ; ii. 8b-iii. 7 with Num. xxi. iib-35; and ix. 9-x. 10 with Ex. xxxii.-xxxiv. f For a fuller discussion of this subject, see Oxford Hex. i. 70 ff. X Kittel (////, i. 82) cites the following passages from the writ- ings of Amos and Hosea as proof that these prophets were ac- quainted with both J and E : Am. i. 11 (Gen. xxvii. 40, JE); ii. 9 (Num. xiii. 27 ff., JE); ii. 10 [Gen. xlviii. 22, E] ; iv. 1 1 (Gen. xix. 25, J); Hos. ix. 10 (Num. xxv. 3, E) ; xii. 4/3a (Gen. xxv. 26a, E); xii. 4/3b, 5/4 (Gen. xxxii. 25 ff, J); xii. 13/12 (Gen. xxxi. 41, E ; xxvii. 43, JE ; xxix. 18 £f., E) ; xii. 14/13 [Deu. xxxiv. 10, E] : comp. Driver, I LOT, 123. § See Dillmann, NDJ, 628 ff. ; Kittel, ////, i. 76. THE PENTATEUCH 53 Story appears in different versions, J is generally simpler and more original than the other. A further indication that J in its primitive form is the earlier is found in the naiveti^ of the author's conceptions of God and his rela- tions with men, as compared with those of the L^lohistic narrator.* Thirdly, the code of Ex. xxi.-xxiii., which furnished the basis of D and probably originally came toward the end of E's account of the Exodus, marks a stage of progress in the production of a history of the Hebrews beyond that which had been reached when the Yahwistic document was written, f Finally, when these documents are examined separately with reference to their age, the evidence, as will presently appear, seems to make it necessary to conclude that J antedates E by at least half a century. J is earlier than E, but J dates from a period consider- ably later than that of Moses. It furnished parts of the account of the death and burial of the law-giver in Deu. xxxiv. In Gen. xxxvi. 31 a list of the early kings of Edom, probably taken from it,J is introduced by the words : " These are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before a king of the children of Israel ruled," sc. over that country. It is plain that these words could not have been written before the reign of David (2 Sam. viii. * The doctrine, common to E with P, that the name Yahiueh was unknown until the Exodus, is unmistakable evidence of a com- paratively advanced stage of theoloi^ical development. Compare, also, Gen. xxi. 17 f. with xvi. 7 f . ; xxii. 11 f. with xviii. 13 f.; xxxi. 7-9 with XXX. 41 ff. ; etc. t Cornill {EA 7", 37) compares the terms of the covenant in Ex. xxxiv. (J) with the ten commandments in xx. (E); but they are not parallels, the Elohistic analogue, as Bacon has shown (7'7"£', 1 12 f. ; JBL, xii. 29 f.), being found in the fragments of another covenant in XX. 22-26, xxii. 28/29-30/31, and xxiii. 10-33. X See Wellhausen, C//, 52; Bacon, GG^ 1S4; etc. 54 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM 14). Gen. Lx. 25, xii. 6, and xiii. 7 are supposed to indi- cate a somewhat later date, since the Canaanites, etc., were not subdued until the reign of Solomon (i Kgs. ix. 20 f.). These passages alone would hardly be a sufficient foundation for a statement concerning the date of the work in question ; but there is further evidence. The fact, recognized by scholars of the most divergent views on other points, that the document was one of the sources, not only of the Pentateuch, but also of the book of Joshua,* if not of Judges, Samuel, and Kings,f proves that it cannot have been written before the Conquest ; and the further circumstance that the author of it in Jos. X. 1 3 quotes from the " Book of Jashar " — a work to which belonged David's lament for Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. i. 18 ff.) and, according to the Septuagint (i Kgs. viii. 5 3 J), a tetrastich by Solomon on the occasion of the dedi- cation of the temple, — indicates that it originated some time after the beginning of the regal period. Nor is this all. This document, as well as E, expressly prohibits the use of symbols for the Deity (Ex. xxxiv. 17). If, how- ever, such a prohibition was promulgated by Moses, is it * The intimate relation of Joshua to the Pentateuch was first observed by Geddes {HB^ i. xxi.). For characteristic passages from J, see XV. 14-19 and xvii. 14-18. t Bleek {Beitrdge\ as has already been noted, was the first (1822) to clearly define the connection between Joshua and the Pen- tateuch. Later Stahelin {KU^ 1843) applied the Supplementary Hypothesis to the other three books, and concluded that his Jeho- vist was the author, not only of the Hexateuch, but of the greater part of Judges and i Samuel. See also £"^4 7", 93. Schrader (in de Wette's Einleitung, 359) asserts that the hand of the Yahwist (his " Prophetic Narrator ") can be traced as far as i Kgs. x. liudde (A'.S') makes J one of the sources of Judges and Samuel, and Cornill formerly held that it entered into the composition even of i Kings. The latter, however, has abandoned this position {EAT, 93 f., 106). J See Klostermann on i Kgs. viii. 12 f. THE PENTATEUCH 55 not strange that not only Micah and the Danitcs, in the unsettled period of the Judges, when "every man did that which was right in his own eyes " (Jud. xvii. 5 f., 13 ; xviii. 5, 31), but David, the chosen of Yahweh, used the ephod — an image of some sort, and not a garment — and teraphim in their approaches to God unrebuked (i Sam. xix. 13 ; xxi. 9; xxiii. 6, 9 ff. ; xxx. 7 f.) ? See also the case of Gideon (Jud. viii. 27att).* These early records are best explained by supposing that the use of images was not absolutely prohibited until after the revolt of the northern tribes and the establishment of the sanctuary with a golden calf at Bethel (i Kgs. xii. 28). There is therefore good ground for believing, with most scholars, that the Yahwistic document was written toward the middle of the ninth century b. c. The evident partiality of its author for the tribe and kingdom of Judah indicates that it had its origin in southern Palestine.! E, on the other hand, was probably written in northern Palestine. At any rate, the author seems to have been particularly interested in the persons and places that would naturally appeal to a native of that region.J Its * The rest of this verse is an addition to the text much later than the original story. See Moore, /. /. f Instances of such partiality are: the association of Abraham especially with Hebron (Gen. xiii. 18; xviii. i); the prominence given to Judah in the story of Joseph (Gen. xxxvii. 26; xliii. 3 fT. ; xliv. 18 ff.), and to his descendants in the blessing of Jacob (Gen. xlix. 8 ff.) and the account of the conquest of Palestine (Jud. i. i ff.) ; and the fulness of the treatment of the reign of David (2 Sam.). Compare Kuenen, OCH, 24S ff., who holds that J in its original form was a product of the fuller literary and spiritual life of the northern kingdom. X It is he who describes at length the rise of Joseph to power in Egypt (Gen. xl. f.), and foretells the greatness of his posterity (Deu. xxxiii. 13 ff.) ; who makes Reuben, rather than Judah, the spokes- man among his brethren (Gen. xxxvii. 22; xlii. 22, 37); who S6 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM general features, as has already been shown, are such as to make the impression that it is later than J. It is not surprising, therefore, to meet indications of its real age in the Pentateuch ; * also to discover that it was a more extensive work than was at first suspected, that, in fact, it was a principal source in the compilation of the book of Joshua, t If, however, it is later than J and earlier than D, it seems safe to conclude that it was written about the beginning of the eighth century b. c, when, moreover, the conditions in Israel were peculiarly favor- able to its production. The first step in the compilation of the Pentateuch was the union of J and E into a single work. This, however, was not taken until both documents had undergone con- siderable changes in the way of enlargement and modifi- cation at the hand of more or less sympathetic revisers. The proof of this assertion is found in the slighter vari- ations in style and content of certain passages from the body of the document in which they are now found incor- notices the position and achievements of Joshua (Ex. xvii. 9 ff. ; xxxiii. II ; Deu. xxxi. 14); and who oftenest mentions the shrines dear to Israel, — Shechem (Gen. xxxiii. i8b), Bethel (Gen. xxviii. 17 f. ; XXXV. I ff.), and Beersheba (Gen. xxi. 31; xxii. 19; xlvi. 2-5a). * The phrase "land of the Hebrews" in Gen. xl. 15 could hardly have been used before the occupation of Palestine ; the reference to the " Book of the Wars of Yahweh," Num. xxi. 14, implies that the Conquest was long past ; while the use of the term " prophet" in Gen. xx. 7, if i Sam. ix. 9 has any value, forbids one to place its date earlier than the tenth century b. c. t The most important extract from E in this book is chapter xxiv. The Elohist, as well as the Yahwist, has been supposed to have contributed to the composition of the later histories, espe- cially Judges and Samuel; but in this, as in the other case, the evidence adduced has not proven satisfactory. See the authorities quoted with reference to the extent of the Yahwistic document. THE PENTATEUCH 57 poratcd. These additions were not, in the case of cither document, all made at the same time. The older, which some regard as excerpts from independent narratives, are designated by J ^ or E ^ ; the later, by J ^ or E^ etc.* The date of the union of J and E into the whole usu- ally designated by JE must be fixed with reference to D. There is little doubt that the first two were still separate when the original of the last was written, for U throughout gives evidence that, although its author was acquainted with both, he followed almost exclusively the later. f On the other hand, there is evidence that, when this docu- ment was revised and enlarged, the other two had already been united ; for the author (or authors) of the additions in which the plural of the second person is habitually used follows neither J nor E, but a compilation such as has been preserved in the Pentateuch. J If, therefore, as has been shown, the book found by Hilkiah was D in its revised and enlarged form, and it had its origin before * Among the passages referred to J ^ are Gen. iv. 3-1 6a, and the fragments of the Yahwistic account of the Flood preserved in Gen. vi.-viii.; among those credited to E '-, the story of the golden calf in Ex. xxxii. 1-6 and 15-24, and Num. xi. 16 f. and 245-30. See Cornill, EA T, 39 ff., 43 f. t A distinct trace of the influence of J is seen in the repeated references in D to the promise to the fathers. See vi. 10, etc. (Gen. xxiv. 7 ; etc.). An exception to the rule above stated is the law concerning the annual feasts, Deu. xvi. 1-17, which seems to be- tray dependence on J. See Ex. xiii, 4; xxxiv. 22 f., 25. X See the story of the spies, Deu. i. 19-45, where vv. 24 f., 27, and 40-43 recall the parts of Num. xiii. f. (xiii. 23 f., 29; xiv. 25h, 39b-4o) usually ascribed to E, while vv. 28-30, 32 f., 35 f. and 39 reflect the Yahwistic or editorial features (xiii. 28; xiv. 9b, 14; xiii. 30 ; xiv. 24, 3, 31) of the composite narrative ; also Deu. ix. 9-x. 5 and the parallel passages in Ex. xxxii. (9 f. [J E], 15 [E], 19 [E], 20 [E], ii-i4[JE]), and xxxiv. (1-4 [J]). Compare Ox- ford Hex. i. 1 73 f. 58 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM Josiah began to reign, it follows that the compilation JE also must antedate 639 b. c. ; but how much earlier it was made, there seems to be no means of determining. The next step in the production of the Pentateuch was the insertion into JE of D in its revised and enlarged form. This would naturally follow soon after its pub- lication ; yet it is doubtful if it was accomplished much, if any, before the overthrow of the Jewish monarchy. The work was probably done by a second redactor, who made such changes and additions as seemed to him necessary to adapt it to his purpose.* It is supposed to have been inserted into the place formerly occupied by Ex. xxi.-xxiii., the latter being removed to its present position in the account of the sojourn at Sinai to make room for it. At the same time most of the Deutero- nomic touches in Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers were added t and the book of Joshua recast to furnish a proper conclusion to the resulting Hexateuch.J The date of the Priestly document also, as has been intimated, is in dispute ; one party holding that it is one of the oldest, the other as stoutly maintaining that it is the latest, of the sources from which the Pentateuch was compiled. The former opinion is largely based on cer- tain passages in Deuteronomy which are supposed to betray an acquaintance with P ; but it will be found upon * One cannot otherwise explain the divergences that occur, especially in the first and the last chapters of the present book, where the plural is employed. Some of these passages, however, are douhtless of still later origin. t On the Deuteronomic element in these books, see p. 23. \ Compare Kittel (////, i. 75 f.), who holds that D was united with J and E when the last two were united with each other, and that the compiler of this threefold work was the author of the additions to Deuteronomy and Joshua. Dillmann {NDJ, Gjy fF.), on the other hand, claims that the third document was not D, but P. THE PENTATEUCH 59 investigation that the passages usually cited, if they belong to the original document, have not the signifi- cance attributed to them, and if they really indicate dependence upon P, they are later additions to the work.* The majority of critical scholars, therefore, regard P as a product of Exilic and post-Exilic times. This view is supported by a variety of evidence. In the first place, a comparison of P with J, E, and D shows that it was written by a person (or persons) acquainted with them ; that, in fact, it is the final product of a process of devel- opment of which they mark the previous stages. Its relative lateness is attested by its general features, the maturity displayed in its plan and its ideas. It appears also in a multitude of particulars, especially the legislative parallels between it and E and D. Take, e. g., the law of asylum. It is first found, doubtless in its original form, in Ex. xxi. 12 ff., where it takes but three verses. It is repeated with additions in Num. xxxv. 9 ff., and again in Deu. xix. i ff. ; but the extent and character of the additions in the former of the last two passages show that the order of their origin has been reversed, that the one in Numbers, and not the one in Deuteronomy, is the final form of the law in question. The result of the comparison of P with the other docu- ments is confirmed from other directions ; first by the silence of the history of the pre-Exilic period with refer- ence to it and its peculiar features. The tabernacle,f * Thus, the three passages most frequently cited, i. 23, xiv. 4 ff., and xxiv. 8, are all either wholly or partly of a secondary character. Moreover, i. 23 was not derived from Num. xiii. 2-15, as is shown by the omission of Joshua from v. 36; xiv. 4 ff. is an un-Deutcr- onomic interpolation; and xxiv. 8 betrays a sacerdotal origin or expansion. t In 1 Sam. ii. 22 the latter part of the verse is an interpolation not found in the Greek Version; and in i Kgs. viii. 4 the tent in 6o THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM the high priest, the day of atonement, and other like objects and institutions seem to have been unknown during this whole period.* The testimony of the pre- Exilic prophets is even stronger ; for they express themselves respecting the matters with which this docu- ment is most concerned in such terms as prove that, although the movement which produced it was already under way, the document itself had not yet made its appearance. Thus, Amos (v. 21 ff.) and Isaiah (i. 10 ff.) both disparage feasts and offerings as they would not have done had P already been recognized as the law of God ; and Jeremiah, himself a priest as well as a prophet, says expressly (vii. 22) that God gave the fathers, when he delivered them from Egypt, no command concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. The last passage is doubtless to be interpreted in the light of Jer. viii. 8, where the prophet accuses the scribes of his time of deal- ing falsely with the law of Yahweh. The two seem to show that, when Jeremiah wrote, laws such as now consti- tute a large part of the priestly document were in pro- cess of codification, but that the prophet, at any rate, did not regard them as of divine, or even Mosaic origin. The testimony of Ezekiel is to the same effect. His prophecies, when examined in the light of the contents of P, show that, while there is an element in the latter which apparently antedates the former, there are parts of the document which betray the dependence of their author (or authors) upon Ezekiel, and that, therefore, the document as a whole must be referred to a period question is the tent provided for the ark by David, and not, as it is called, *' the tent of meeting" described in Exodus. * See Wcllhausen, GI, 40 ff., 153 ff., 112 ff.; W. R. Smith, OTJC, 254 ff. ; comp. Green, MP^ 85 ff . ; Lex Mosaica (French), 133 ff. THE PENTATEUCH 6i subsequent to that in which the prophet labored.* Ila;;- gai, also, and the authors of Zch. i.-viii. and Malachi, seem to ignore it ; which indicates that it was unknown in Palestine until some time after the beginning of the fifth century b. c.f The terminus ad qiian is more easily and satisfactorily determined. In the year 458 b. c, according to Ezr. vii., Ezra, "a ready scribe in the law of Moses," came from Babylon to Jerusalem "to teach in Israel statutes and judgments." At first his countrymen received him with favor, even with enthusiasm, but their ardor seems to have been short-lived. At any rate, it was fourteen years before, with the assistance of Nehemiah, he per- suaded them to recognize the divine authority of the law that he had brought with him. Finally, however, in 444 he accomplished his purpose, and " the law of Moses " became the code of the restored community. But this law, according to Neh. viii. 14, contained, among other things, the instructions concerning the celebration of the * The relative age of Ezekiel and the above-mentioned elements of P is indicated by their respective views on the subject of the priests and the Levites. In Lev. xvii.-xxvi. and the other passages of like character no distinction between priests and Levites, unless it has been interpolated, appears. Ezekiel first makes such a dis- tinction (xliv.) ; but he has no high priest. In the body of P the priesthood is the exclusive possession of the sons of Aaron (Num. xviii. I ff.), with Aaron himself, and his eldest son after him, in a princely position at their head (Num. xvii.; xx. 22 ff.). See Well- hausen, GI, 126 ff. ; Kuenen, OCH, 293 ff . ; W. R. Smith, OTJC, 374 f . ; Oxford Hex. i. 127 f. ; comp. Green, MI\ 127 ff . ; Lex Mosaica (Spencer), 510 ff. f Kuenen ((9C//, 179 ff.) agrees with the above statement so far as it concerns Haggai and Zechariah, but he finds references to Lev. xxii. 20 ff. and Num. xviii. 21 ff. in Mai. i. 8 and iii. 10. See also Holzinger, EH, 428; comp. Cornill, EAT, 52 f. ; Nowack, on Mai. iii. 22/iv. 4. 62 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM feast of tabernacles found in Lev. xxiii. 39 ff. ; * hence it must either have been, or contained, some form of P. In either case this document cannot be later than the date just mentioned. It is difficult to decide whether the law promulgated by Ezra and Nehemiah was P alone or the completed Pentateuch. In favor of the former view is its harmony with the accepted theory with reference to the history of D. It seems natural that this document, like the other, should have become a part of the growing compilation only after having been solemnly recognized as divinely authoritative. Moreover, there seems to be a discrepancy between the law of Ex. xxx. 1 1 ff. and the rule which, according to Neh. x. 32, was adopted by the restored community. It is objected, however, that, if the law in question had been P, the account of the conquest of Canaan preserved in the book of Joshua, with which it originally ended, would not afterward have been detached from it, as it has been, and classed with the less sacred books that follow it.f Moreover, some of the require- ments of Neh. X. 28 ff. betray regard for J or D rather than for P, J and the author (or authors) of the Chronicles, of which the books of Ezra and Nehemiah were originally parts, throughout takes for granted the identity of the law of Moses with the Pentateuch. Hence, it seems safest to conclude that, if there is any foundation for Neh. viii. i ff., P had been incorporated with JED, and the book of Joshua detached from the resulting Hexa- * See also x. 34/33 (Lev. xxiv. 5 ff. ; Num. xxviii. f-X 35/34 (Num. iii. 5 ff. ; Lev. vi. 12 f.), 36/35 (Lev. xix. 23 f.), 38/37 (Num. XV. 20 f. ; xviii. 24), 39/38 (Num. xviii. 25 ff.). t See Wcllhausen, JJG, 136. % See Neh. x. 31/30 (Ex. xxxiv. 16; Deu. vii. 3), 32/31 (Ex. xxiii. 10 f. ; Deu. xv. i f.) ; note, also the Deuteronomic phrase- ology of V. 30/29. THE PENTATEUCH 63 teuch, before 458, or, at the latest, 444 ; * in other words, that it was the Pentateuch in its fourfold composition to which the Jews in their assembly pledged obedience, the occasional passages betraying a later date being interpo- lations by more or less competent readers or copyists. Comp. Oxford Hex. i. 138 ff.f The conclusion reached with respect to the age of the Pentateuch, then, is, that J originated about 850, and IC about 8cx3 li. c. ; that the two, having been more or less revised and enlarged, were united into a composite docu- ment before 639 b. c. ; that D, which was discovered in 621 B. c, but must have been written some time be- fore and revised in the reign of Manasseh, was incorpo- rated with JE early in the Captivity ; and that the Pen- tateuch was practically completed by the addition of P, a product of the first half of the fifth century b. c, before 444, if not before 458, the date of Ezra's appearance in Palestine. J * According lo Kosters {HIPT), who removes Neh. vii. 6-viii. 18 to the end of the book, the promulgation of the Law did not take place until Nehemiah's second visit to Jerusalem about 432 B. c. Comp. Torrey, EN^ 2 f., 49 f. t In reply to the objection (Holzinger, EH, 430 f.) that, if the book had been the Pentateuch, the reader would not have reached Lev. xxiii. on the second day (Neh. viii. 13 f.), one might retort that, if it had been P, the reading of it would not have required ten days (Neh. ix. 3). One might add that there is nothing in the account of the matter to make it necessary to insist that the book in question was read in course. X It has sometimes been pronounced "a thing incredible" that the Pentateuch should be such a patchwork as the documentary hypothesis makes it. Fortunately there are other examples of compilation, one of which is quite as elaborate as this is sui>posed to be. It is the " Dialessaron,'' or fourfold (iosj)el. of Tatian, which at one time had nearly supplanted the oriL^inals in the Syr- ian Church. The following is a specimen quoted from the Arabic 64 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM The dates given, it will be observed, are the dates when the documents as such are believed to have origi- nated, and when the Pentateuch as a compilation reached the various stages in its development. They do not, ex- cept in the cases in which the later documents can be shown to reproduce the earlier, indicate the age of the materials of which the documents are composed. These materials, in the case of J and E, were probably to some extent derived from oral tradition ; but there is good evidence that the authors of these two works, as well as those of D and P, had written sources at their disposal. In certain instances they confess their indebtedness to version of it by Professor Moore {JBL, ix. 207 ff.). The three kinds of type indicate the three sources, Mark, Luke, and Matthew, from which it was compiled : — " And the same day, -when even was come, he said unto them, Let us go unto the other side of the lake. And when they had sent away the multitude [Jesus] went into a ship with his disciples ; and there were also with him other little ships. And behold there arose a great tempest in the sea, and the ships were near being swamped by the waves ; and [Jesus] was in the stern asleep on a pillow. And his disciples cajne to him and awoke him, saying, Master, save us, we perish / Then he arose and re- buked tlie wind and the raging of the water, and said unto the sea. Peace, be still ! and the wind ceased, and there w^as a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful ? How^ is it that ye have no faith ? And they feared exceed- ingly [and] wondered, saying one to another. What manner of man is this .'' for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him " (Mar. iv. 35a ; Lu. viii. 22b ; Mar. iv. 36a ; Lu. viii. 22a ; Mar. iv. 36b ; Mat. viii, 24a ; Lu. viii. 23b ; Mar. iv. 38a ; Mat. viii. 25 ; Lu. viii. 24b; Mar. iv. 39b-4ia; Lu. viii. 25b). This passage consists of twelve fragments, only two of which contain a whole verse. There is probably in the Pentateuch no passage in which the critics would claim that the supposed editor (or editors) treated his documents with greater freedom. For other examples of compilation, see Oxford Hex. i. 4 ff. THE PENTATEUCH 65 such sources. Thus, although they differ on the form of the covenant made at Sinai-Horeb, they agree in repre- senting it as a written document the contents of which they reproduce. They both also quote from various na- tional songs. In one instance (Num. xxi. 14), it will be remembered, the Klohist names the source, the " Book of the Wars of Yahweh," from which the lines quoted are taken. The Yahwist does not inform the reader where he found the poetical extracts in the earlier parts of his narrative ; but the fact that, later in the work, he cites the "Book of Jasher " (Jos. x. 13) seems to war- rant one in supposing that the earlier quotations are from the same or some other written source. The words of the covenant, according to J (Ex. xxxiv. 28), were put into writing by Moses ; so, also, according to E (Ex. xxiv. 3), the judgments revealed to the lawgiver at Ho- reb.* Now it is not possible to apply these statements to the covenant and the judgments in the form in which they appear in Exodus xxxiv. 10-26 and xx. 22-xxiii. 33 ; \ but, since there can be no doubt that Moses was the actual founder of the Hebrew church and commonwealth, it is safe to assume that he gave his people in writing the simpler precepts and regulations from which were devel- oped, first the legislation ascribed to him in J and E, and finally the more elaborate codes of D and P. He may also, as Ex. xvii. 14 has been supposed to teach that he did, have made a record of the leading incidents of the * Deu. xxvii. 8, if it belongs to E (Bacon), also refers to these judgments and implies that they had been put into writing by Moses. t The principal reasons for this statement are, that these pas- sages are not homogeneous wholes, and that they contain elements clearly of a later date than that of the Exodus. See Driver, /LOT, 35 f., 39 f. ; Cornill, EA T, 66 ff. ; W. R. Smith, OTJC, 337 ff. ; Kit- tel, ////, i. 235 f. 66 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM Exodus ; but it is quite as probable that the memory of them was presented in popular songs like that of Ex. xv. and those collected in the "Book of Jasher " and the " Book of the Wars of Yahweh." As the ideas and prin- ciples taught by Moses were developed, it was natural that the resulting codes, one after another, should be called by his name ; and, when they were all finally in- corporated into a history of the period which closed with the Exodus, that he should be credited with writing this great work as well as performing the great deeds which it especially commemorates.* The outcome, then, of the investigation undertaken is, that, although in parts of the Bible the Pentateuch is at- tributed to Moses, and such was for centuries the teach- ing of the Christian as well as the Jewish church, the doctrine is based upon a mistaken tradition ; the truth being that this so-called "law of Moses" is a composite work, the growth of the entire period from Moses to Ezra. This conclusion, being based upon the best of evidence, will have to be accepted, however it may affect the authority of the Pentateuch or the renown of its sup- posed author. As a matter of fact it ought not to dimin- ish either. In the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli at Rome is the famous statue of the Hebrew lawgiver. It is a magnificent work of art, and at first one is glad that it is placed where its minutest details can conveniently be ex- amined. Soon, however, the spectator with some artistic judgment begins to be disturbed in his enjoyment. There seems to be something wrong about the masteqDiece. Its grandeur is so obtrusive that it becomes oppressive. He turns to his guidebook and there finds an explanation for the effect produced upon him. The statue, it appears, * For further illustrations of the process here described, see W. R. Smith, OTJC, 383 ff. THE PENTATEUCH 67 was not made for the place which it now occupies, but was to have formed part of a colossal monument in the largest of the world's cathedrals. Suppose, now, that some great artist should carry out the original plan of Michael Angelo, complete the memorial to Julius II., and add it to the attractions of S. Pietro in Vaticano. Would any one with any taste probably object to such a consum- mation } One might at first miss the sharpness of out- line which now forces itself upon the beholder, and feel a little confused by the thirty other statues belonging to the design for the mausoleum ; but the genius of the greatest of modern sculptors is a guarantee that in the end both the artist and his work would receive increased admiration. What might be done for the Moses of art the biblical scholars of the last half century have done for the Moses of history. They have deprived him, in- deed, of the lesser honor of having written a great work at the dictation of the Deity ; but, in associating with him the succession of writers by whom the Pentateuch was actually composed and compiled, they have given him the preeminence, as the inspired founder of a nation and its religion, for which his God designed him. Moreover, those whose eyes are open to "behold wondrous things" out of the Scriptures say of the process now revealed, as devoutly as they ever did of the one by which they for- merly believed the Pentateuch to have been produced, " This is from Yahvveh, And it is marvellous in our eyes." ANALYSIS OF GENESIS I.-XI. The Documentary Hypothesis is based on known facts with reference to the structure and content of the Pen- tateuch. It ought, therefore, to explain them. It does explain the great mass of them to most of those compe- tent to decide in such matters, and this is the reason for its prevalence in the scholarly world. Its most ardent ad- vocate, however, would hardly claim that it is absolutely perfect. He would doubtless admit that, at this distance from the period of the origin of the Pentateuch, it is too much to expect to be able to unravel to the last thread the history of its compilation, and that, therefore, one must not be surprised if the accepted theory is not appli- cable without exceptions. The limitations confessed, as well as the merits of the hypothesis, are fairly illustrated in the first eleven chap- ters of Genesis. The composite character of these chap- ters has been established. See pp. i6 ff. The separation of the Priestly from the other elements therein contained is easy. The first account of creation (i. i-ii. 3) is plainly of this character. It is equally clear that this account was originally immediately followed by chapter v. (except V. 29), and that by an account of the Flood which seems to have been preserved entire in vi. 9-22 ; vii. 6, 11, 13- i6a, 18-21, 24; viii. i-2a, 3b-5, 13a, 14-19; ix. 1-17, 28 f. The fourth chapter of this work is found distrib- uted through the tenth of the canonical Genesis {vv. la, 2-4a, 5-7, 20, 22 f., 31 f.) ; the fifth, as a continuous whole, in xi. 10-26 ; and the sixth, or a part of it, in xi. ANALYSIS OF GENESIS I. -XI. 69 27 and 31 f. These passages, when read continuously^ produce the impression that they were written, substan- tially as they have been preserved, for one another and by the same hand. When they have been removed, there remains a series of Yahwistic passages the discrepancies among which make it necessary to pronounce them the product of two or more authors, but do not make it possible in every case to determine by which of the supposed authors a given passage was written. It is pretty generally agreed that the following passages belong to J^ the earliest stratum of the Yahwistic component of the Pentateuch : iv. i6b-24 ; vi. i f., 4 ; ix. 20-27 ; and xi. 1-9. There is similar unanimity in referring the story of the Flood interwoven with that of the Priestly narrator in vi. 5-ix. 19, and the Yahwistic table of nations in chapter x., in their original form, to ]'^\ also xi. 28-30. There remain two extended passages, ii. 4b-iii. 24, in its original form, and iv. 2-1 6a, the former of which has hitherto generally been attributed to J\ the latter to a third author, per- haps the compiler who put J^ and J^ together. This is the view adopted in the following pages ; but Holzinger {Genesis, xxv.), e.g., treats both as excerpts from J^, while Kautzsch {LOT, 226) refers them to J^. The discrepan- cies among the passages which Holzinger assigns to J^ suggest to him the question, — which must have oc- curred to others, and certainly deserves consideration, — "whether it would not be more correct to suppose that the main stream of the Yahwistic history of primitive times (J2) has not been enriched by the incorporation of other (older) legends of very various origin, which had never previously been brought into organic connection " {Genesis, 122). Stade {ZA IV, 1894, 275 ff.) meets the same difficulty by supposing the Yahwistic account of the 70 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM Flood to have been incorporated into a previous compila- tion, consisting of J* (ii. 4a-iii. 24* and xi. 1-9) united with J^ (iv. 25 f., 17 ff., and ix. 20 ff. ; perhaps also x. 9 and vi. i f.) by an editor who also inserted the story (already long current) of Kayin and Hebhel.* It will be observed that, although the authors cited differ in their analysis of the remains of the Yahwistic document so- called, they agree that there was such an independent work, and that it was a compilation. The extent and character of the additions made by its compiler and the one who afterwards incorporated it with P, also later glossators, may be learned from the translation. On x. 8-12, see the comments. The object of the foregoing analysis was to discover the sources of the chapters to be studied. If, now, they be examined with reference to their content, the result will be more satisfactory ; for, in spite of the fact that they were compiled from various documents, they pos- sess a certain unity and unfold in accordance with an intelligible plan. This plan is a modification of that of the Priestly document, the author of which is one of the most logical of the writers whose works are pre- served in the Old Testament. An idea of the skill with which the compiler managed the materials at his dis- posal may be gathered, in advance of a more thorough study of the chapters themselves, from the following table of topics therein treated : I. The World before Abraham, i,-xi. I. The Orio^in of Things, i.-iii. a. The Work of God, i.-ii. * From this point onward, proper names, except in quotations from other autliors, will appear in forms indicating with approxi- mating exactness their Hebrew pronunciation. For a key to the transliteration, see the I'rcface. ANALYSIS OF GENESIS I.^XI. 71 (i) The First Account, i. i-ii. 3. (a) The First Day, i. 1-5. (b) The Second Day, vv. 6-8. (c) The Third Day, vv. 9-13. (d) The Fourth Day, vv. 14-20. (e) The Fifth Day, vv. 21-23. (f) The Sixth Day, 7/7/. 24-31. (g) The Seventh Day, ii. 1-3. (2) The Second Account, ii. 4-25. (a) The Formation of Man, vv. 4-7. (b) The Garden in 'Edhen, vv. 8-17. (c) The Advent of Woman, vv. 18-25. b. The Origin of Evil, iii, (i) The First Disobedience, vv. 1-7. (2) The Consequences of Disobedience, vv. 8-21. (3) Expulsion from Paradise, 7/7/. 22-24. 2. Early Growth and Corruption, iv. i-vi. 8. a. The Line of Kayin, iv. 1-24. (i) The First Murder, vv. 1-16. (a) A Rejected Offering, vv. r-7. (b) The Offerer's Resentment, vv. 8-16. (2) The Earliest Civilization, vv. 17-24. b. The Line of Sheth, iv. 25-v. 32. (i) A Genealogical Fragment, iv. 25 f, (2) The Complete Geneaolgy, v. c. The Apostate Sons of God, vi. 1-8. 3. Noah and his Times, vi. 9-ix. 29. a. The Deluge, vi. 9-ix. 17. (i) The Preparations of Noah, vi. 9-vii. 5. (a) The First Account, vi. 9-22. (b) The Second Account, vii. 1-5. (2) The Water of the Plood, vii. 6-viii. 14. (a) A Destructive Prevalence, vii. 6-24. (b) A Gradual Subsidence, viii. 14. (3) The Future of the Survivors, viii. 15-ix. 17. (a) Noah's Offering, viii. 15-22. (b) The Sacredness of Life, ix. 1-7. (c) God's Bow, vv. 8-17. b. Noah's Prophecy, 7'7A 18-29. 4. The Origin of the Peoples, x.-xi. 72 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM a. The Race and its Divisions, x. i-xi. 9. (1) A Gradual Dispersion, x. (a) The Families of Yepheth, vv. 1-5. (b) The Families of Ham, vv. 6-20. (c) The Families of Shem, vv. 21-32. (2) The Confusion of Tongues, xi. 1-9. b. The Line of Shem, xi. 10-26. c. The Family of Terah, vv. 27-32. THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM I. Translation * I, a (i) (a) '1 In the beginning God created heaven and earth. ^ Now the earth was waste and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep ; but the spirit of God brooded over the face of the water. ^Then God said, Let there be Hght ; and there was hght ; ^ and God saw that the Hght was good. God also separated the light from the darkness ; and God called the light Day, while the darkness he called Night. ^ So it became evening, then became morning, one day. (b) ^ Then God said. Let there be an expanse in the middle of the water, that it may make a division in the water ; and f sof it f was.f '^Thus God made the expanse, and it if separated the water that was under the expanse from the water that was above the expanse. ^ God also called the expanse Heaven : [and God saw that it was good].§ So it became evening, then became morning, a second day. (c) ^ Then God said. Let the water under heaven gather itself into one mass,|| that dry ground^ may * The sources of the text are indicated by difference of type : the Roman being used for passages from P and additions betraying a similar style or standpoint, and the Antique for the Yahwistic ele- ments. Omissions supplied are enclosed in brackets. t Gr. ; the Massoretic text has this clause at the end of v. 7. X Syr. ; text, God. § Gr. II Gr. ; text, place. \ Text, the dry grou7id. 74 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [I. 9-22 appear ; and so it was. ^^ [Thus the water under heaven gathered itself together into its mass, and dry ground appeared].* God also called the dry ground Land, and the mass of water he called Sea : and God saw that it was good. ^^ Moreover, God said. Let the land put forth vegetation : herb yielding seed [after its kind, and]f tree J bearing fruit, wherein is its seed, after § its§ kind§ on the earth ; and so it was. ^^Thus the land put forth || vegetation : herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree bearing fruit, whose seed is in itself, after its kind ; and God saw that it was good. ^^ So it becam.e evening, then became morning, a third day. (d) ^^ Then God said, Let there be lights in the firma- ment of heaven to distinguish between day and night. Let them also be signs, and for seasons, and for days and years ; ^^ and let them be lights in the expanse of heaven, to shed light upon the earth : and so it was. ^^ Thus God made the two great lights ; the greater light to rule day, and the lesser light to rule night ; also the stars. ^^ And God placed them in the expanse of heaven, to shed light upon the earth, ^^ as well as to rule over day and over night, and to distinguish between light and darkness; and God saw that it was good. ^^ So it became evening, then became morning, a fourth day. (e) 20 Then God said, Let the water swarm with abun- dant living creatures, and let birds fly over the earth, across the expanse of heaven ; [and so it was],^ 21 Thus God created the great monsters, and all the living, mov- ing creatures with which the water swarms after their kinds, and every winged bird after its kind ; and God saw that it was good. 22 Qq^ ^jsq blessed them, saying, * Gr. t Gr. % 'Yt^i, fruit-tree. § Gr. ; the Massoretic text inserts tliis clause 2iiiQX fruit. U Text, caused to go forth. T] Gr. I. 22-31] TRANSLATION 75 Increase and multiply, that ye may fill the water in the sea ; and let the birds multiply on the land. 2:5 j^q \^ \^^._ came evening, then became morning, a fifth day. (f) 24 Then God said. Let the land produce living crea- tures after their kinds ; cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, after their kinds : and so it was. ^Thus God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and all the creeping things of the ground after their kind : and God saw that it was good. 26 Moreover, God said. Let us make men in our image [and] * after our likeness, that they may exercise lordship over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of heaven, and over the cattle, and over all [the beasts of] f the earth, and over all the creeping things that creep on the earth. 27 Thus God created men in his own image ; in the image of God created he them : male and female created he them. ^8 Qod also blessed them, and God said to them. Increase and multiply, that ye may fill the earth and subdue it, and exercise lordship over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of heaven, [and over the cattle], J and over all the beasts [of the earth, and over all the creeping things], § that creep on the earth. "^ Qod. said also, Lo, I give to you every herb yielding seed that is on the face of the whole earth, and every || tree || in which is fruit ^ yielding seed ; yours shall it be for food : ^^ and to all the beasts of the earth, and to all the birds of heaven, and to all [the creeping things] ** creeping on the earth, in which is a living soul, [give I] every green herb for food ; and so it was. ^^ And when God beheld all that he had made, lo, it was very good. So it became evening, then became morning, a f f sixth day. * Or. Sam. Vul. f Syr. % Or. Syr. § Gr. II Sam.; iQx\., all the trees. H Gr. ; tQxi, fruit 0/ a tree. ** Gr. tt Text, the. 76 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [II. 1-15 (g) "• ^ Thus heaven and earth were finished, and all their host. ^ When therefore God, on the seventh day, had put an end to the work that he had done, he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 God also blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it, be- cause on it he rested from all the creative work that he, God, had done. (2) (a) ■* These are the generations of heaven and earth, when they were created. At the time when Yahweh God made earth and heaven, ^ no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up ; for Yahweh God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there were no men to till the ground. ^But a mist rose from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. ' Yah- weh God also formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Thus man became a living creature. (b) ^ Then Yahw^eh God planted a garden in 'Edhen, eastward, and placed there the man that he had formed. ''Yahweh God also caused to spring from the ground every tree pleasant to sight and good for food ; also the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of know^ledge of good and evil. ^^Now there went forth from 'Edhen a river watering the garden ; and thence it branched and became four sources. ^^ The name of the first is Pishon. It is the one that boundeth the whole land of Haw^ilah, where there is gold, i- Moreover, the gold of that land is [very] * good. There is bdellium and the onyx. ^^ And the name of the second river is Gihon. It is the one that boundeth the whole land of Kush. '^ And the name of the third river is Hiddekel. It is the one that floweth east of 'Asshur. And the fourth river is the Perath. '^ Yahweh God * Sam. II. I5-III. 1] TRAXSLATION jj also took the man and placed him in the garden of 'Edhen, to till and guard it. ^'' Moreover, Yahweh God charged the man, saying, From all the trees of the garden thou mayst eat, ^'* except the tree of knowledge of good and evil: from it thou shalt not eat; for in the day thou eatest from it thou shalt surely die. (c) i^Then said Yahweh God, It is not good for the man to be alone ; I will make him a helper suited to him. ^'' Thereupon Yahweh God | further] * formed from the ground [all the cattle, and] all the beasts of the field, and all the birds of heaven, and brought them to the man to see w^hat he -would call them ; and "whatsoever the man called each living creature, that was its name. -" Thus the man gave names to all the cattle, and [all] f the birds of heaven, and all the beasts of the field ; but for himself the % J^^n % found not a helper suited to him. -^ Then Yahweh God let fall upon the man a stupor, and he fell asleep ; ■whereupon he took one of his ribs, closing up its place w^ith flesh. -^ And Yahw^eh God fashioned the rib that he had taken from the man into a w^oman, and brought her to the man. -^^ Then said the man, This, now^, is one of my bones and a part of my flesh ; she shall be called Woman, because from [her] § man she was taken. -^ Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife, and the [t"wo] II become one flesh. -■' And they w^ere both naked, the man and his w^ife, yet they felt no shame. b (i) '''^Now the serpent was most cunning of all the beasts of the field that Yahweh God had made. [The serpent] ^ therefore said to the "woman, * Gr. Sam. f Gr. Syr. Vul. X Gr. ; text, a man or ^Adham. § Gr. Sam. II Gr. Syr. Vul. H Gr. Syr. 78 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [III. 1-14 Hath God, then, said, Ye shall not eat from any tree of the garden? -But the -woman said. From the fruit of [all] * the trees of the garden "we may eat, ^ except that of the fruit of this f tree that is in the middle of the garden God hath said, Ye shall not eat from it, nor shall ye touch it, lest ye die. ^ Then said the serpent to the woman, Ye will not surely die ; ^ for God knoweth that, in the day ye eat from it, your eyes will be opened and ye will be like God, knowing good and evil. ^Now when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and a delight to the eyes, also that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate : she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. ' There- upon the eyes of both of them -were opened, and they knew that they were naked ; so they sewed to- gether fig leaves and made themselves aprons. (2) ^ But when they heard Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the face of Yahweh God among the trees of the garden. ^ Yahweh God therefore called the man, saying to him. Where art thou ? ^^ and he said, I heard thee in the garden and I became afraid, because I w^as naked, and hid my- self. ^1 But he said, Who told thee thou wast naked ? Hast thou eaten from the tree from which I com- manded thee not to eat ? ^^ And the man said. The ■woman thou placedst w^ith me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate. ^^ Thereupon Yahweh God said to the woman. What is this that thou hast done ? And the -woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I ate. ^* Then said Yah-weh God to the serpent, Be- cause thou hast done this, cursed shalt thou be above * Gr. Syr. \ Sam. ; text, the. 1 1 1. 14-24] TRANSLA TION 79 all the cattle and all the other beasts of the field. On thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat, all the days of thy life. ^ ' I will also set enmity between thee and the w^oman, and between thy offspring and her offspring; they shall bruise thee in the head, and thou shalt -wound them in the heel, i'' To the "woman [also] * he said, I w^ill send thee labor very sore, even thy pregnancy ; "with labor shalt thou bear chil- dren. Moreover, to"ward thy husband shall be thy longing, and he shall rule over thee. ^' But to the f manf he said, Because thou hast listened to the voice of thy "wife, and eaten from the tree concerning which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat from it, cursed shall be the ground on thy account ; "With labor shalt thou eat from it all the days of thy life. 1^ Thorns also and thistles shall it put forth for thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. ^'' In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread until thou return to the ground — for from it thou wast taken; for dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return, ^o ^^d the man called the name of his wife Haw^w^ah, because she was the mother of every one living. ^^ But Yah"weh God made for the % man :|: and his wife tunics of skin and clothed them. (3) ^Then said Yahweh God, Lo, the man has become as one of us, knowing good and evil ; and now, lest he stretch forth his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever, — '^'> then Yah"weh God sent him from the garden of 'Edhen, to till the ground -whence he "was taken. ^ And w^hen he had driven the man forth, he sta- tioned eastward of the garden of 'Edhen cherubs and a gleam- ing, whirling sword, to guard the way to the tree of life. * Gr. Sam. f Gr. ; text, ^Adham. | Gr. ; text, 'Ad/iam. So THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [IV. 1-15 2, a, (i) (a) '^ ^Then the man knew Hawwah his wife, and she conceived and bore Kayin. And she said, I have gained a man with Yahweh. - Again, she bore his brother Hebhel ; and Hebhel became a keeper of sheep, but Kayiii became a tiller of the ground. 3 Thus it came to pass after a time, that Kayin brought from the produce of the ground an offering to Yahweh; -» while Hebhel brought from the firstlings of his flock, even from their fat. And Yahweh had regard to Hebhel and his offering ; ^ but to Kayin and his offering he had not regard. Thereupon was Kayin very angry and downcast. "But Yahweh said to Kayin, Why art thou angry? and why art thou downcast? 'If thou doest well, is there not acceptance? and, if thou doest not well, doth not sin lie at the door? Yet toward thee shall be its longing, and thou shalt rule over it. (b) ^ Then Kayin said to Hebhel, [Let us go to the field] ; * and it came to pass that, when they were in the field, Kayin assailed Hebhel his brother and killed him. '-* But Yahweh said to Kayin, Where is Hebhel thy brother? And he said, I know not. Am I my brother's keeper? ^<^Then he said. What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the ground. " Now, therefore, cursed shalt thou be from the ground, that hath opened its mouth to re- ceive thy brother's blood from thy hand. 12 "W"hen thou till- est the ground, it shall no longer yield thee its wealth. A wanderer and a fugitive shalt thou be in the earth. ^^But Kayin said to Yahweh, My punishment is greater than I can bear. ^^Lo, thou hast this day banished me from the face of the ground, and from thy face I must hide myself, becoming a wanderer and a fugitive in the earth ; so that it will come to pass, that whosoever meeteth me will kill me. ^* And Yah- -w^eh said to him, Therefore if any one kill Kayin, he shall be avenged sevenfold. So Yahweh appointed a sign for Kayin, ♦ Gr. Sam. Syr. IV. 15-26] TRANSLATION ^t that whosoever met him should xot kill him. ^'■' And Kayin went forth from the presence of YaiAveh and d^velt in the land of Nodh, eastward of 'Edhei. (2) 1' Then Kayin knew his wife, aiui she conceived and bore Hanokh. He • was * the buxMer of a city, which he called, after his sons name, Hanokh. ^^ There was born to Hanokh also 'Iradh ; and 'Iradh begot Mehiyya'el ; f and Mehiyya'el begot Methu- sha'el; and Methusha'el begot Lemekh. ^'^Now Lemekh took to himself two wives : the name of the one was 'Adhah, and the name of the second Sillah. 2"^' And 'Adhah bore Yabhal: he was the father of [every] one that dwelleth in tents with cattle. 21 And the name of his brother w^as Yubhal: he -was the father of every one that handleth the lyre and the pipe. - Sillah, also, bore Tubhal Kayin : he % was % the X father if of J every one that w^orketh copper. And the sister of Tubhal Kayin was Na'amah. -^ And Lemekh said to his w^ives : 'Adhah and Sillah, hear my voice : Wives of Lemekh, give ear to my speech : For a man I slay, if I am "wounded. And a boy for a wale given me. -^ If Kayin was avenged sevenfold, Then shall Lemekh be seventy and seven times. b (l) -'^Then the § man § knew his wife again, [and she conceived] || and bore a son, and she called his name Sheth. saying, God hath sent me other offspring instead of Hebhel, since Kayin hath killed him. '-^^ To Sheth, also, was born a son, and he called his name 'Enosh. He ^ was ^ the ^ first \ to call on the name of Yah- weh. * Ttxt, and (he) was. f Sam.; text, Mehiyya'el. X Text, hammerer. § Text, ^Adham. I! Gr. Syr. ^ Vul. ; text, the?i was begun. 82 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [V. 1-19 (2) ^iThis is the book of the generations of 'Adham. At the time when God created men, in the likeness of God made he theni. "^M^Xq and female created he them. He also blessed^them, and called their name Man, at the time of their creation. ^And when 'Adham had lived a hundred '^ad thirty years, he begot a child in his own likeness [and] * after his own image and called his name Sheth. 4 An(^ 'Adham f lived f after begetting Sheth eignt hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. y^Thus all the days that 'Adham lived were nine hundred and thirty years ; then he died. ^ And when Sheth had lived a hundred and five years, he begot 'Enosh. "' And Sheth lived after begetting 'Enosh eight hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters. ® Thus all the days of Sheth were nine hundred and twelve years ; then he died. ^And when 'Enosh had lived ninety years, he begot Kenan. ^^ And 'Enosh lived after begetting Kenan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begot sons and daughters. ^^ Thus all the days of 'Enosh were nine hundred and five years ; then he died. ^ And when Kenan had lived seventy years, he begot Mahalal'el. ^^ And Kenan lived after begetting Maha- lal'el eight hundred and forty years, and begot sons and daughters. ^^ Thus all the days of Kenan were nine hundred and ten years ; then he died. ^•'"'And when Mahalal'el had lived sixty-five years, he begot Yeredh. ^^And Mahalal'el lived after begetting Yeredh eight hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daughters. ^^Thus all the days of Mahalal'el were eight hundred and ninety-five years ; then he died. ^^ And when Yeredh had lived a hundred sixty-two years, he begot Hanokh. ^^And Yeredh lived after be- * Gr. f Ar. ; text, the days of 'Adham were. V.I 9- VI. 4] TRANSLATION 83 getting Hanokh eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. ^Thus all the days of Yeredh were nine hundred and sixty-two years ; then he died. 2^ And when Hanokh had lived sixty-five years, he be- got IMethushelah. -■^And Hanokh walked with God after begetting Methushelah three hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. '-"Thus all the days of Hanokh were three hundred and sixty-five years. '^^ But Hanokh walked with God, and was not, for God had taken him. 2^ And when Methushelah had lived a hundred and eighty-seven years, he begot Lemekh. "^ KnA Methu- shelah lived after begetting Lemekh seven hundred and eighty-two years, and begot sons and daughters. 2'' Thus all the days of Methushelah were nine hundred and sixty- nine years ; then he died. ^^And when Lemekh had lived a hundred and eighty- two years he begat a son. -'And he called his name Noah, saying, He will ease us of our work and the toil of our hands from the ground, which Yahweh hath cursed. ^^ And Lemekh lived after begetting Noah five hundred and ninety-five years, and begot sons and daugh- ters. ^^ Thus all the days of Lemekh were seven hundred and seventy-seven years ; then he died. ^ And when Noah had become five hundred years old, Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Yepheth. c ''' 1 NoTv it came to pass, when men had begun to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters had been born to them, -that the sons of God sa-w that the daughters of men were fair, and they took to themselves as -wives v^homsoever they chose. ^ And Yah^weh said, My spirit shall not abide in men forever, since they also are flesh ; but their days shall be a hundred and twenty years. '* [Now^] * the giants w^ere in the * Gr. Sam. Syr. 84 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [VI. 4-16 earth in those days, and also afterwards, "when the sons of God came to the daughters of men, and these bore them children. They are the heroes that of old -were the men of renoTvn. '' Now when Yah- weh saw that the wickedness of men was great in the earth, and that every design of the thoughts of their hearts was only and always evil, ^ then was Yahweh sorry that he had made men in the earth, yea he was grieved to his heart. '' Therefore Yahweh said, I will wipe men whom I have created off the face of the ground, — not only men, but cattle, and creeping things, and the birds of heaven, — for I am sorry that I made them. ^But Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh. 3, a (i) (a) ^ These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just, a perfect man among his fellows : Noah walked with God. ^^And Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Yepheth. ^^ But the earth became corrupt before God ; yea, the earth became full of violence. ^2 And when God saw that lo, the earth was corrupt, because all flesh had perverted its way on the earth, ^ God said to Noah, The end of all flesh hath come before me, for the earth is filled with violence on ac- count of them ; therefore lo, I will destroy them and * the earth. ^^ Make thyself an ark of cypress wood. In cells shalt thou make the ark, and thou shalt smear it within and without with bitumen. ^^And this is how thou shalt make it : Three hundred cubits shall be the length of the ark ; [and] f fifty cubits its width ; and thirty cubits its height. ^^ Light shalt thou provide for the ark, finishing it within a cubit of the top ; and the door of the ark shalt thou place in the side of it. "With a lower, a second, and a third story shalt thou make it. * Gr. ; text, with. \ Gr. Sam. Syr. VI. I7-VII. 7] TRANSLATION 85 ^' For lo, I will bring the Flood water upon the earth, de- stroying all flesh in which is a living spirit under heaven ; all that is in the earth shall perish. ^^ But I will establish my covenant with thee, and thou shalt go into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and the wives of tliy sons, with thee. ^^ Also of all * the * beasts,* of all flesh, two of each shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee ; a male and a female shall they be. ^o Qf the birds after their kinds, and of the cattle after their kinds, [and] f of all the creeping things of the ground after their kinds, two of each shall come to thee to be kept alive, ^i Dq thou also take of every food that is eaten and gather it to thee, that it may be for thee and for them to eat, ^2^^^^^^^ Noah did so ; just as God com- manded him, so he did. (b) ^''^ Then Yahweh said to Noah, Come thou, and all thy house, into the ark ; for thee have I found righteous before me in this generation. ^ of all the clean cattle thou shalt take to thee by sevens, a male and his mate, but of the cattle that are not clean by \ twos, J a male and his mate ; ^ also of the [clean] § birds of heaven by sevens, a male and a female, [and of all the birds that are not clean by twos, a male and a female,] || to keep alive seed on the face of the whole earth. ^ For in yet seven days I will bring upon the earth a rain of forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe all the beings that I have made off the face of the ground. ^ And Noah did just as Yahweh had com- manded him. (2) (a) ^ Now Noah was six hundred years old when the Flood happened water on the earth. " And Noah, and his sons, and his wife, and the wives of his sons with him, * Gr. Sam.; text, every thing that liveth. f Gr. Sam. Syr. X Gr. Sam. Syr. § Gr. Sam. Syr. || Gr. S6 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [VII. 7-21 went into the ark on account of the water of the Flood. ^ Of the clean cattle, and of the cattle that are not clean, and of the birds, and [of] * all that creep on the ground, ^ there came by twos to Noah into the ark a male and a female, as Yah- weh f had commanded Noah. ^^ And it came to pass, that in the seven days the water of the Flood was on the earth. ^^ In the six hundredth year of the life of Noah, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, — on that day all the sluices of the great deep were rent open and the windows of heaven undone ; ^2 and the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights. ^^On that very day went Noah, and Shem, and| Ham, and Yepheth, the sons of Noah, and the wife of Noah, and the three wives of his sons with him § into the ark ; ^'^ they, and all the beasts after their kinds, and all the cattle after their kinds, and all the creeping things that creep on the earth after their kinds, and all the birds after their kinds, every bird of every feather. ^^ Moreover, they came to Noah into the ark by twos of all the II flesh in which was a living spirit ; ^^and they that came came a male and a female of all flesh, as God had commanded him. Then Yahweh shut him in. ^^ Now when the Flood had been forty days on the earth, the water increased and lifted the ark, and it rose off the earth. ^^ And the water prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark moved on the face of the water. 19 Yea, the water prevailed very greatly on the earth, so that all the high mountains that are under all heaven were covered. ^ Fifteen cubits upward did the water prevail, and the mountains were covered, ^i^hus all flesh that moved on the earth perished, even birds, and cattle and beasts, and all the swarm that swarmed on the ♦ Gr. Sam. Syr. + Sam. Vul. Onk. ; text, God. X Sam. omits. § Gr. Syr. ; text, //i£//i. \\ Sam. omits. VII. 2I-VIII. II] TRANSLATION 87 earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything in whose nos- trils was the breath of the* spirit* of * life, of all that was on the dry land, died. ^'^ Thus Yahweh f wiped out all the beings that were on the face of the ground, not only men, but cattle, and creeping things, and birds of heaven ; yea, they were wiped off the earth, and there were left only Noah and those that were with him in the ark. ^^ And the water prevailed on the earth a hundred and fifty days. (b) ^i"-^Biit God remembered Noah, and all the beasts, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark ; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water fell. 2 Moreover, the sluices of the deep and the windows of heaven were closed. Then the rain from heaven ceased, ^and the water continually withdrew from the earth. Thus the water decreased from the end of a hundred and fifty days; ^and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark grounded on the mountains of 'Ararat. ^But the water continued to decrease until the tenth month ; in the tenth month, on the first of the month, the tops of the mountains ap- peared. ^Now it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark, that he had made," and sent forth a raven; -which went to and fro continually until the -water dried off the earth. ^ Then he sent forth from him a dove, to see whether the water had subsided off the face of the ground. ^But the dove found no resting-place for the sole of its foot : therefore it returned, — for there was water on the face of the whole earth, — and he stretched forth his hand, and took it, and brought it to him into the ark. ^^ Then he waited yet seven days more, and again sent a dove forth from the ark ; ^^ and the dove came to him at eventide, and lo, there was a fresh olive leaf in * Gr. omits. \ Text, Jie. S8 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [VIII. 11-22 its mouth. Then Noah knew that the water had sub- sided off the earth. ^- But he waited yet seven days more and sent forth a dove that did not return to him again. ^^^Thus it came to pass, that in the six hun- dred and first year [of the life of Noah],* in the first month, on the first day of the month, the water had dried off the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and lo, the face of the ground was dry. ^^ Even in the second month, on the twenty- seventh day of the month, was the earth dry. (3) (a) ^^ Then God spake to Noah, saying, ^^ Go forth from the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and the wives of thy sons with thee. ^' All the beasts, [also],f that are with thee, of all flesh, even the birds, and the cattle, and all the creeping things that creep on the earth, bring forth with thee, that they may swarm in the earth, and increase and multiply on the earth. ^^ So Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and the wives of his sons with him. ^^ [Also] \ all the beasts, and all the birds, and § all § the § creeping § things § that § creep § on the earth, after their families, went forth from the ark. 20 Then Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and, taking of all the clean cattle and all the clean birds, he offered burnt offerings on the altar. '-^^ And when Yahweh smelled the pleasant odor, Yahweh said to himself, I will not again curse the ground on men's account, because the design of the hearts of men is evil from their youth ; nor will I again smite everything that liveth, as I have done. 22 "^hile the earth endureth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. *Gr. I Cir. Sam. Syr. J Gr. Sam. Syr. § Sam, ; text, all the crcepini^ things^ after beasts^ and every thing that creepeth^ after birds. IX. I-I5] TRANSLATION 89 (b) '^-^Thcn God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, Increase and multiply, that ye may fill the earth ; 2 so shall the fear of you, and the dread of you, be on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds of heaven, with all with which the water teemeth, and all the fish of the sea ; into your hands are they given. ^ Every mov- ing thing that liveth shall be yours to eat ; like the green herb, I give you all. '^ Only flesh with its life, its blood, ye shall not eat. ^Moreover, for your blood, your lives, will I make demand ; of any beast will I make demand for it ; also at the hands of men, at the hand of each one's brother, will I make demand for the lives of men. ^ He that sheddeth men's blood, by men shall his blood be shed ; for in the image of God made he men. "* In- crease rather, and multiply ; [and] * swarm in the earth and exercise f lordship f over it. (c) ^Then God spake to Noah and his sons with him, saying, ^ Lo, I will establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you ; ^^ also with all the living crea- tures that are with you, even the birds, [and] J the cattle, and all the beasts of the earth with you : from all that go forth from the ark to all the beasts of the earth. 11 Yea, I will establish a covenant with you, that all flesh shall not again be cut off by the water of a flood, and that there shall not again be a flood to ravage the earth. ^2 God also said, This is the sign of the covenant that I will place between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, to endless generations : ^^ My bow will I place in the clouds, that it may be a sign of a cove- nant between me and the earth. ^^ So shall it come to pass, that, when I overspread the earth with a cloud, the bow shall appear in the cloud ; ^^ that I may remember my covenant that is between me and you, and every liv- * Gr. Sam. Syr. \ Text, multiply. X Gr. Sam. Syr. cp THE irORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [IX. 15-29 ing thing of all flesh, and that the water may not again become a flood destroying all flesh. ^^ When the bow is in the cloud, I shall see it and remember that there is an endless covenant between God and every living crea- ture, of all flesh, that is on the earth, i" And God said to Noah, This is the sign of the covenant that I estab- lish between me and all flesh that is on the earth. b. i^Now the sons of Noah, that went forth from the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Yepheth ; and Ham was the father of Kena'an. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth spread them- selves abroad. "^^Ih-Qn Noah, the husbandman, planted the first vineyard ; 21 and, drinking of the wine, he became drunk and exposed himself within his tent. -- Now^ w^hen Ham, the father of Kena'an saw the nakedness of his father, he told his two breth- ren without. 23 Then Shem and Yepheth took a cloak and, placing it upon the shoulders of both of them, went backward and covered the nakedness of their father ; their faces being backward, so that they saw not the nakedness of their father. -^ But ■when Noah aw^oke from his w^ine and learned w^hat his youngest son had done to him, -^ he said, Cursed be Kena'an : Lowest of servants shall he be to his brethren. 26 He said also. Blessed of * Yahweh * be * Shem : And let Kena'an be a servant to him. 2^ May God enlarge Yepheth. Yea, let him dwell in the tents of Shem : And let Kena'an be a servant to him. 28 And Noah lived after the Flood three hundred and fifty years. 297^^5 ^n ^^^^ ^^y^ of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years ; then he died. * Text, be Yahweh God of. X. i-iS] TRANSLATION 91 4, a, (i) (a) ''•^Novv these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shcm, Ham, and Yephcth ; and there were born to them sons after the Flood. ^ The sons of Ycpheth were Ciomer, and Maghogh, and Maday, cind Yavvan, and Tubhal, and Moshekh,* and Tiras. ^And the sons of Gomer were 'Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togharmah. "^And the sons of Yawan were 'Ehshah and Tarshish, Kittites and Rodhanites.f ^From these the coasts of the nations dispersed themselves. [These were the sons of Ycpheth] in their lands, each after his tongue, after their famiHes, in their nations. (b) ^And the sons of Ham were Kush, and Misrayim, and Put, and Kena'an. 'And the sons of Kush were Sebha, and Hawilah, and Sabhtah, and Ra'mah, and Sabhtekha; and the sons of Ra'mah were Shebha and Dedhan. ^ Now Kush begot Nimrodh : he was the first to become a potentate in the earth. ^He was mighty in hunting before Yahweh ; therefore it is said, Like Nimrodh, mighty in hunting before Yahweh. ^^And the beginning of his kingdom was Babhel, and 'Orekh,J and 'Akkadh, and Kalneh in the land of Shin'ar. ^1 From that land he went forth to 'Asshur and built Nineweh, and Rehobhoth-'ir, and Kalah, ^-and Resen between Nineweh and Kalah ; that is the great city. I'^And Misrayim begot Ludhites, and 'Anamites, and Lehabhites, and Naphtuhites, ^^ and Pathrusites, and Kasluhites, whence went forth Pelishtites, and Kaphto- rites. ^"^ And Kena'an begot Sidhon, his firstborn, and Heth, ^''and the Yebhusite, and the 'Eraorite, and the Gir- gashite, '"and the Hiwwite, and the 'Arkite, and the Sinite, i*and the 'Arwadite, and the Semarite, and the Hamathite; and afterwards the families of the Kena'anite spread * Gr. Sam. ; Text, Mcshckh. \ Gr. Sam. ; Te.\t, Dodhaiiitcs. X Gr. ; text, 'Erckh. 92 THE WOF^LD BEFORE ABRAHAM [X. 18-XI. 3 themselves gforoad. i^ tj^us the border of the Kena- *anite w? j from Sidhon as far as Gerar, unto 'Azzah, as far ^s Sedhom, and 'Amorah, and 'Adhmah, and Seboyim, unto Lesha'. -'^ These are the sons of Ham, after their fariiilies, after their tongues, in their lands, in their na- 'tions. (c) -^ Children were born to Shem also, the father of all the sons of 'Ebher, the elder brother of Yephoth. ^The sons of Shem were 'Elarn, and 'Asshur, and 'Ar- pakhshadh, and Ludh, and 'Aram. '^ Kw^ the sons of 'Aram were *Us, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash. ^4 And 'Arpakhshadh begot Shelah, and Shelah begot 'Ebher. 2^3 ipQ "Ebher also were born two sons ; the name of the one was Pelegh, — for in his days the earth was separated, — and the name of his brother was Yoktan. ^6 ^^^ Yoktan begot 'Almodhadh, and Sheleph, and Hasar- maweth, and Yerah, 2" and Hadhoram, and 'Uzal, and Diklah, ^^ and 'Obhal, and 'Abhima'el, and Shebha, 2^ and "Ophir, and Hawilah, and Yobhabh. All these the sons were of Yoktan. ^o ^^d their abode was from Mesha to Sephar, the eastern mountain. ^^ These were the sons of Shem, after their famiHes, after their tongues, in their lands, in * their nations. ^^ These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their na- tions ; and from these the nations dispersed themselves in the earth after the Flood. (2) ""^ ^ NoTv the "whole earth "was of one language and had the same -words. - And it came to pass, as they moved east-ward, that they came upon a plain in the land of Shin'ar, and there they abode. • Then said they one to another, Come, let us mould bricks and burn them thoroughly. Thus they had brick for stone, and bitumen they had for mortar. * Gr. Syr. ; Icxt, after. XI. 4-iS] TRANSLA TION 93 '* They said also, Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in heaven, that we may make ourselves a name, lest w^e be scattered over the face of the whole earth. 'But Yah-weh came dow^n to see the city, and the tow^er that the sons of men had built. '' And Yahw^eh said, Lo they are one people, and they all have one language; and this is their first exploit. And no-w nothing that they plan to do w^ill be too hard for them. "' Come, let us go down and there confound their language, so that they will not understand one another's lan- guage. ^ Thus Yahweh scattered them thence over the face of the whole earth, and they ceased from building the city. '^ Therefore they called its name Babhel, because there Yahw^eh confounded the language of the w^hole earth, and thence Yahweh scattered them over the face of the whole earth. b. ^^ These are the generations of Shem. When Shem was a hundred years old, he begot 'Arpakhshadh, two years after the Flood. ^^ And Shem lived after begetting 'Arpakhshadh five hundred years, and begot sons and dausrhters. o ^2 And when 'Arpakhshadh had lived thirty-five years, he begot Shelah. ^"^ And 'Arpakhshadh lived after beget- ting Shelah four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters. ^^And when Shelah had lived thirty years, he begot *Ebher. ^^ And Shelah lived after begetting 'Kbher four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters. ^^And when 'Ebher had lived thirty-four years, he begot Pelegh. ^' And 'Ebher lived after begetting Pelegh four hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daugh- ters. ^^And when Pelegh had lived thirty years, he begot 94 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [XI. 19-32 Re'u. ^^ And Pelegh lived after begetting Re'u two hun- dred and nine years, and begot sons and daughters. 2^* And when Re'u had Hved thirty-two years, he begot Serugh. ^^ And Re'u lived after begetting Serugh two hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters. '■^ And when Serugh had lived thirty years, he begot Nahor. ^3 p^y^^\ Serugh lived after begetting Nahor two hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. ^And when Nahor had lived twenty-nine years, he begot Terah. "^ hxiA Nahor lived after begetting Terah a hundred and nineteen years, and begot sons and daughters. ^ And when Terah had lived seventy years, he begat 'Abhram, Nahor, and Haran. c. -" Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah begot 'Abhram, Nahor, and Haran ; and Haran begot Lot. 28 ^nd Haran died before Terah his father in the land of his birth, in 'Ur of the Kaldeans. ^og^t 'Abh- ram and Nahor took themselves wives : the name of the wife of 'Abhram was Saray, and the name of the wife of Nahor was Milkah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milkah and the father of Yiskah. ^^ Now Saray was barren; she had no child. "^^ Then Terah took 'Abhram, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, his grandson, and Saray, his daughter-in-law, the wife of 'Abhram, his son, and went* forth with them from 'Ur of the Kaldeans, to go to the land of Kena'an ; but, when they reached Haran, they abode there, ^^^^d the days of Terah were two hundred and five years ; then Terah died in Haran. * Syr. ; text makes the verb plural. II. COMMENTS The first eleven chapters of Genesis embody the tra- ditions, more or less elaborated, among the Hebrews with reference to the early history of the world and its inhabit- ants. They may therefore be treated under the general title of I. THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM (i.-xi.). Of these eleven chapters the first three have to do with the origin of the world and the fundamental condi- tions under which man was created and still exists on the earth, or I. The Origin of Things (i.-iii.). But things as they exist, according to the Hebrews, are partly the product of divine activity and partly the result of human disturbance of the divine plan. Hence there are two parts to this division, the first of which deals with a. The Work of God (i.-ii.). This is presented in two distinct accounts, which, al- though they agree in certain fundamental features, were written by different authors, and therefore differ from each other, not only in style and standpoint, but some- times also in conception. See the Introduction, p. 17 ff. (i) The First Account (i. i-ii. 3), an excerpt from the Priestly narrative, falls into seven paragraphs, the first six of which correspond to the six periods into which the divine activity is divided, while the seventh describes the orifiin of the Sabbath. The record of 96 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [I. I (a) TJic First Day (i. 1-5) begins with a dogmatic state- ment attributing all things to God as the First Cause. I. In the beginning, when the present order of things had its origin, is the proper starting-point for a history of the earth and its inhabitants.* The sole agent in the work to be described is God. The name is one of the peculiarities of the Priestly style as far as Ex. vi. 3. See the Introduction, p. 17. It denotes the Supreme Power whose hand the writer traces in all subsequent events, and whose will he recognizes as the only moral standard.! Of him it is said, that he created, produced, as something new (Num. xvi. 30), by his divine energy (Isa. xl. 26), but, as the next verse clearly teaches, out of previously existing materials (Isa. Ixv. 17 f.), heaven J and earth, the visible universe in its original perfection * The fact that jn'*a7S"i3 is elsewhere (Jer. xxvi. i ; etc.) always followed by a dependent Genitive has given rise to the suggestion, that the next word, S"i3 create, should be, not a Perfect, but an Infinitive, and that therefore the verse should be regarded as a pro- tasis to V. 2 (Aben Ezra) or 7/. 3 (Rashi), and translated, /;/ the beginning of God's creating, or, more freely. When God began to create, heaven and earth. The analogy of ii. 4b points in the same direction. On the other hand, Isa. xlvi. 10, where n'*tCS~!^)/>'^>'>'/ the beginnings is used absolutely, shows that the present text is defensible. Of course, if the emendation suggested be adopted, no interpretation for the introductory phrase but the one above given is admissible. t The original of God, D'^nbs» being plural, is sometimes con- strued with a plural verb (xx. 13) or adjective (Jos. xxiv. 19), a cir- cumstance that gives some ground for explaining it as a relic of ])olytheism among the Hebrews (Baudissin, Stud. I. 55 f.); but whatever may have been its origin, this author never betrays any sympathy with such a conception. On the form, see Ges. § 124, I, c ; on the construction, comp. 2 Sam. vii. 23 and i Chr. xvii. 21. X The original of this word also is a plural, but, since the form in this case denotes extension, and not plurality, it should not bo reproduced in English. Sec Ges. § 124, \,a. I. I, 2] COMMENTS c^'j (ii. i). This is the natural interpretation of the verse. It is therefore the briefest possible sj;atement to the effect that the present frame of things owes its-e^cistcnce to the divinity worshipped by the Hebrews. 2. The first creative act is introduced by a description of the conditions under which God began his work. There are those who deny that v. 2 takes the reader back to the beginning. They contend that it describes the condition in which something, whose creation is re- vealed in V. I, was, when God proceeded with the execu- tion of his plan (Delitzsch). This view, however, requires a forced interpretation of the terms heaveji and earthy and ignores the demands of the structure of v. 2. It is a circumstantial sentence. In such cases the fact or state described is regularly contemporaneous with the principal event, and the connective by which it is intro- duced, lit. and^ equivalent to the English no"w.* This being so, the earth can here only mean the mass of matter out of which the world was finally created ; in other words, chaos. It is so called, because the author thought of it as a single whole including the substance of the earth, located where the earth was destined to remain. What was its origin he does not say. When the scene opens, it is there, -waste and void, a mere expanse of matter, without either features or inhabitants. The ab- sence of life is partly explained by the darkness that was on the face of the deep. Deep, being the parallel of eartJi, the word used in the first half of the line, con- firms the correctness of the interpretation given to the latter, at the same time disclosing more perfectly the author's conception of the nature of chaos. To him it was a mass of water, under which a solid element was submerged. See v. 9 ; also Ps. civ. 6, where the poet, picturing the same thing, says, * See Ges. § 142, i, R i. 98 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [1.2,3 "With the deep, as with a garment, thou coveredst it; The water lay over the mountains." The Babylonians had the same conception.* They, however, represented chaos as antedating the Creator. Not so the Hebrew author. He teaches that, when time began, the spirit of God, the unseen, but mighty, Agency by which creation was wrought, brooded, was brooding, over the face of the water. In other words, although he does not assert the eternity of God, he does not permit one to think of anything as existing before or without the Deity. Compare the Babylonian myth ac- cording to which the earliest gods sprang from chaos. Note also that, unlike the Phoenicians, in whose cosmog- ony a ''spirit" plays an important part (Baudissin, Stud. i. II, zi4 f.) he betrays no tendency toward pantheism. 3. God at once comes to expression ; God said, at the same time exerting, through his spirit, the power by which his will was fulfilled. Hence the expression spirit of God is used interchangeably with word of God. Comp. Ps. xxxiii. 6 and civ. 30. He first commanded light, a prime requisite for the calculation of time, as well as a necessary condition for the existence of life of any sort on the earth ; and there was light, without an interval of preparation or development between the command and its fulfilment.! It is useless to attempt to explain the * One of their accounts of creation says that primevally " all the lands were sea" (Schrader, KB, vi. 1,40 f.; Ball, LE, 19; Jastrow, RBA, 445); and another that " There was a time when heaven above was not, When earth below as yet did not exist ; The primal Ocean generated them, The raging Deep was mother to them both." See Schrader, KB, vi. i, 2 f . ; KAT, i ff. ; Ball, LE, 2; comp. Jensen, Kostnoloi^ie, I'jT.. t In the Babylonian myth the test of Marduk's supremacy is his I. 3-5] COMMENTS 99 source or nature of this light in harmony with the theories of modern science. It was neither solar light (Murphy) nor nebular light (Guyot) ; since the author clearly knows nothing of any matter except the undivided mass of which the surface was entirely water. To the question, How can there have been light without a lumi- nous body to produce it } he would doubtless have replied that, since the sun, etc., received their illuminating power from God, there was no difficulty in believing that the same effect might be, and originally was, produced by the divine fiat, without the intervention of such instruments. See Job xxxviii. 19 f. He therefore represents the Cre- ator as not only commanding light, but ordaining the alternation of light and darkness, before the heavenly luminaries existed.* Comp. Murphy. 4a. The light, when it appeared, was found good ; not in comparison with the darkness that preceded it (Gunkel), — God still has a use for that, — but as perfectly suited to the divine purpose. See Ps. civ. 31. 4b. The remainder of v. 4 belongs with the first half of V. 5. The two together describe the origin of day and night. God separated the light from the darkness ; fixed definite limits for their duration, and ordained that; they should thenceforth alternate with each other in the world. 5a. He called the light, or, strictly, that part of the diurnal period during which light reigns, Day, as it has ever since been termed ; and the darkness, or the part during which darkness reigns, he called Night. 5b. The author, as has already been remarked, does ability to make a garment vanish and reappear at his command. See Schrader, KB, vi. i, 22 f. ; Ball, LE, 8. * The Babylonians also represented light as existing hefore the creation of the heavenly bodies, the solar deity, Marduk, being a son of one of the great gods (Gunkel, SC^ \ 16). 100 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [I. 5 not seem to have thought of God as requiring any given length of time for his v^rorks ; yet, between those just described and the one to follow, it became evening, the evening of the first bright period after the creation of light. Then, after the interval of darkness for which the divine wisdom had provided, it became morning, the second morning. The whole interval between the two constituted one day. The meaning of the word day in this connection is disputed. Some, following Augustine, take it figuratively, as an indefinitely extended period, because (/) it is indefinite in ii. 4 and elsewhere, and in Ps. xc. 4 a thousand years are said to be as a day with God ; and {2) there was as yet no sun by which a natural day could be measured. The basal reason, however, for tjhis interpretation is (j) that it is required to harmonize the teaching of the Bible with the results of scientific investigation. The irrelevancy of all these arguments is apparent. The question is not, what the word may, but what it actually does mean ; and this must be determined by examining it in the relations in which it is employed, without reference to the demands of modern science or theology. An examination of this sort confirms the im- pression made upon the casual reader ; viz., that day here means simply a period of twenty-four hours. (/) This interpretation is in harmony with the writer's evi- dent purpose, to describe the origin of the visible world and its more salient phenomena. See the literal heaven of V. 8, and the literal earth and sea of v. 10. (2) The day in question commenced in the morning, as the literal day originally did among the Hebrews, as well as among the Babylonians {Enc. Bib. Art. Day), and con- sisted of a light portion called by a familiar name, and a dark portion similarly designated. (J) It is one of seven days, the last of which was the first Sabbath in I. 5-7] COMMENTS loi the world's history. (^) The literal interpretation fur- nishes a starting point for time and the author's care- ful system of chronology. Finally, (5) as has been suggested, it is inconsistent with the whole tenor of the account to suppose that, to the mind of its author, God required time for the production of his works. These considerations show that the traditional is, in this case, the natural and rational interpretation, while that which gives the word day a figurative meaning of any sort is mistaken. Comp. Delitzsch. (b) The Secojid Day {z>v. 6-S). 6. The second morn- ing dawned on the same watery waste described in V. 2. In this God commanded that there should shape itself an expanse, a solid partition, in the middle, and parallel with the surface, of the water; making a lateral division in the fluid mass : and so it "was.* The last clause takes the place of a repetition of the pre- ceding sentence, with an effect much the same as that produced in v. 3. The impression here also is that the divine command was no sooner given than fulfilled. 7. Thus God made the expanse. The material of which it was made is not indicated, but the following words describe more fully the purpose that it served. Itf separated the water that was under it, the water eventually collected into the sea of Hebrew geo- graphy {z>. 10), from the water that was above it, the water stored in the unseen celestial reservoirs (Ps. * The Hebrew text inserts these words at the end of v. 7; but their occurrence immediately after the creative command in vv. 9, II, 15, and 24 shows that the Greek Version, which is here fol- lowed, has the correct reading. t The text has Go(/^ but the preceding verse shows that the sub- ject is the expanse. So the Syriac Version. 102 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [I. 7-9 cxlviii. 4), to be poured as a curse or a blessing upon the earth (vii. 11 ; Ps. civ. 13). 8. This soHd structure, by which the Hebrews repre- sented the earth as overarched (Prv. viii. 27 f.),* and above which they located the dwelling of the Almighty (Am. Lx. 6 ; Ps. civ. 3), God called Heaven. Following this statement the reader misses, in the original, as well as in the English Version, the declaration that finds a cor- responding place in all the other sections of this chapter. The omission is sometimes explained (/) by supposing that the author restricted himself in the use of it to seven times, or {2) that, since neither heaven nor earth was as yet complete, he did not think it appropriate in the present case (Delitzsch). Neither of these reasons, how- ever, has much weight. On the second, see v. 10. Hence it seems safe to assume that here, also, the writer added, and God saw that it was good.f (c) The Third Day {vv. 9-12). 9. The removal of the water above the expanse did not change the face of the rest of chaos. It was still, to all appearance, entirely water. God next commanded the water under heaven * The Babylonians also; see Jensen, Kosmologie, gt. t The Babylonians represented heaven as formed from one half of the body of Tiamat, when Marduk slew her. The following are the lines from the Creation Epic bearing on the subject : " He split her, like a flattened fish, in two ; Took half of her and made it heaven's vault; Then drew a bolt across and stationed guards, Them charging not to let her water forth." See Schrader, ITB, vi. i, 30 f. ; Ball, LE, 11 ; Jastrow, RBA, 428; comp. Jensen, Kosmoloi^ie, 343. Berosus interpreted this as meaning that Bel (Marduk) divided the primeval darkness, and thus separated earth and heaven (Cory, AF, 59). 1.9-"] COMMENTS 1 03 to gather itself into one mass,* a more compact body, that dry ground,! the solid clement hitherto concealed, might appear ; and this also took place. 10. Here, again, the original is defective; and here, again, the Greek Version supplies the missing statement, Thus the water under heaven gathered itself into its mass, and dry ground appeared. The way in which this result was produced is not explained, but, as the author seems to have believed, with other Hebrews, that the land was not only surrounded by, but supported on the water (vii. 11 ; Ex. xx. 4; Ps. xxiv. 2), J he may have thought of it as making its appearance by simply coming to the surface. See the picturesque description of Ps. civ. 7 ff. ; also Job xxxviii. 8 ff. In harmony with this conception God called the mass of "water, viewed as a single whole, Sea, not scas.^ Comp. E. V. Note that land and sea are pronounced good under circum- stances precisely such as those under which the present text of V. 8 omits this formula. Hence, the principal reason usually given for its omission in that passage is invalid. 11. To the work already wrought God now, as in the case of the sixth day, adds a second : the land, freed from its watery covering and expo.sed to the quickening influence of the light, is commanded to put forth vege- tation of all kinds. The various species are grouped * The original has C*lp!:> //all suggests, by mistake, has SVir* let it cause to ^o forth ^ instead of the SI^in> let it cause to shoot, of the preceding verse. 1 . 1 4, 1 5] COMMENTS 1 05 This natural inference is confirmed by v. 16, where their creation as new phenomena in the world is distinctly afTirmcd. Comix Murphy. These li<^hts are to be in the expanse of heaven. This expression must be interpreted in the light of what has preceded. If the author really thought of heaven as a material canopy, he must have shared to some extent the primitive concep- tion with reference to the heavenly bodies which was current in his time, to the effect that they were in some way attached to it.* These bodies were to serve several purposes. In the first place, they were to distinguish betTveen, not to produce, — both had already been created, — day and night, as adjuncts of these divisions of the diurnal period. They were also to be signs, indi- cating points of the compass (Num. xxi. 11), changes in the weather (Mat. xvi. 2 f.), and extraordinary events (Joel iii, 3 f.; ii. 30 f.). Next, they were to mark the return of civil and ecclesiastical seasons ; whose dates, among the Hebrews, were generally determined by the changes of the moon (Ps. civ^ 19 ; Lev. xxiii.). Further, they were to measure days and years, as elements in the calculation of time (Jos. x. 12 ; i Kgs. xx. 22). 15. Having enumerated these four functions of the heavenly bodies, the author finally adds the one that would be the first to suggest itself to a modern thinker, to shed light upon the earth ; doubtless for the pur- pose of explaining why, although the existence of light was not dependent on them, there was more of it when they appeared than when they were invisible.! * On the Babylonian idea, see Jastrow, RBA, 442, 455. t The Samaritans have this specification at the beginning (7/. 14), as well as at the end, of the list; but the reading is prohably an imitation, conscious or unconscious, of V7>. 15 and 17. Compare also the Greek Version, which prefixes to light the earth and to rule day and flight to v. 14. lo6 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM \\. 16-18 16. The writer distinguishes tTvo great lights, as if the sun and the moon were both larger than all the rest ; the former being made to rule, /. r., preside over, day, the lesser in like manner to rule night.* He merely mentions the stars, giving no hint of their actual size or their immense distance from the earth. f 17. These luminaries God placed in the expanse, assigning them their places with reference to one an- other and their courses across the face of heaven ; and they began to perform the functions described. Notice, however, that, in repeating his account of these functions, the author takes greater liberties than he has heretofore allowed himself. Thus, the first of the previous enumer- ation now becomes the last, and the last, to shed light upon the earth, the first. 18. Moreover, no reference is here made to the appointment of the lights created for signs, etc., its place being taken by a specification strictly applicable only to the sun and the moon, viz., to rule over day and over night ; and in the next phrase light and darkness are substituted for the day and nigJit of v. 14. if * On the comparative importance of the sun and the moon among the Babylonians, see Boscawen, BM, 57 ff. f Baudissin {Stud. i. 120 f.) thinks that the use of the term rule of the heavenly bodies, as well as the fact that their creation is represented as postponed until the second half of the creative week, indicates that they were regarded by the author as personal beings. Comp. Gunkel, SC, 9. X The Babylonian account of the creation of the heavenly bodies runs as follows : — " He made the stations for the greater gods ; The stars, like them, as constellations placed. He fixed the year, and its divisions marked ; For each of the twelve months three stars he set. Throughout the year, from end to end thereof, He fixed the place of Nibir [Jupiter] for their bound ; ^ That none might change its course or go astray. I. 20, 21] COMMENTS 107 (e) TJie Fifth Day {vv. 20-23). Hitherto there has been no animal life on the earth. God now commands that the water swarm with abundant living crea- tures. The term suann, with its complement, abundant^ lit. sicarni a swarm, is intended to convey the impression of multitude. The writer, however, does not mean to indicate that the water was at first more thickly inhabited than in his own day. This is clear from v. 22. He is merely accounting for the multiplicity of life, or, as the psalmist (civ. 25) puts it, the "creeping things innumer- able, both small and great beasts," with which the sea, as he knew it, teemed. At the same time God summons into existence birds ; not the winged reptiles of the Jurassic period (Guyot), but, as appears from v. 21, the winged creatures popularly so designated when this account was written. They are to fiy over the earth, across the expanse of heaven, /. ^., in the space between earth and heaven. Compare the English Version, where the rendering "in the open firmament " is misleading.* 21. Here, as in v. 16, the general gives place to the particular, and the most remarkable examples take pre- cedence. In this case it is the great monsters, not the extinct reptiles of the Jurassic period (Guyot), but the huge forms of animal life, real or imaginary, with which the Hebrews peopled the great deep (Ps. civ. 25 ; With him he stablished Bel's and Ea's place. Then opened he on either side great doors, And made the bolt secure to left and right. Midway in heaven he the zenitli fi.xed. He sent forth Nannar the [moon], gave night to his charge, Ordained him for the night, to measure days." (Schrader, KB, vi. i, 30 f. ; Ball, LE, 12; Jastrow, RBA, 434 f-)- In this passage the identification of the moon and the stars with divine beings is unmistakahle. * The present text of this verse should be corrected by the addition of and so it was from the Greek Version. io8 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [I. 21-24 cxlviii. 7).* These God created, and all the other liv- ing, moving creatures that shared with them the watery element, after their kinds ;t also every vringed bird. The epithet ivingcd does not imply that the au- thor distinguished two kinds of birds, one of which had no wings, but simply emphasizes a familiar characteristic of the class so described. 22. Finally, God blessed them, by giving them, as he had already given the plants, the power of perpetuat- ing their kind. This power is bestowed upon the aquatic animals, — which, however, are not mentioned by name, as one would expect them to be, in this connection, — that they may fill the water in the sea. The birds, on the other hand, are to multiply on the land. (f) The Sixth Day {vv. 24-31). 24. The furniture of the land is still incomplete. It is now commanded to produce living creatures, beings of the same general character as those belonging to the sea, — ani- mals. These are divided into three general classes, of which the first is cattle, here the domestic animals. Comp. vi. 7. The creeping things doubtless include not only reptiles, but all the other smaller animals that move on or near the ground ; which are therefore in the next verse called creeping tilings of the ground. The beasts % of the earth are here the larger animals that * Gunkel sees in these creatures a relic of the Babylonian con- ception of chaos, with its mythical monsters, as described by Bcrosus {SCy 17 f., 120 ; Cory, AF, 58). \ In the form Cn3^!2b the vocalization is that of a plural; but the safer opinion, even if the suffix includes the sea-monsters, as well as the other aquatic animals, is that the noun is here, as in all other cases in which it is found, a singular. See Ew. § 247, d; comp. Ges. § 91, 2, R i. X On the form XHTI' sec Ges. § 90, 3, bj comp. v. 25. The Samaritans read r\^r\- I. 24-26] COMMENTS 109 roam at large and "seek their meat from God" (Ps. civ. 21). According to Ps. civ. 29, as well as Gen. ii. 19, all these animals were made of the material of the ground on which they were destined to live and move. 25. In reporting the fulfilment of the divine com- mand the author employs the same terms that he has just used in a different order, but the change to beasts of the earth, cattle and creeping things does woX. seem to have any significance. There is probably just as little in the omission of a formal blessing on these animals, such as was bestowed upon those of the sea and the air. If it was intentional, the reason can only be a desire to avoid the repetition, at this point, of a formula easily supplied from v. 22. Comp. Delitzsch.* 26. On the sixth, as on the third day, there were two creative acts. The second was the production of nature's lord and God's masterpiece. The phraseology used is calculated to attract attention. God says, not, Let there be, or, Let the land bring forth, but, as if he now had on hand a matter in which he took more than usual interest. Let us make. It is a mistake to find in the employ- ment here of a plural subject (/) an assertion of the majesty of God (Gesenius), {2) a summons to his divine powers (Dillmann), or (j) an intimation of the doctrine of the Trinity (Murphy). It is best interpreted as revealing the belief of the author in the existence, be- fore the creation of men, of a race of intelligences even nearer to God than his human children were destined * There are fragments of a Babylonian account of the creation of the land animals, in which the terms used are those employed by the Hebrews. One of them says, " The gods, when they together framed [the world], Created [heaven] and ordained [the earth], Caused livint; creatures to come forth . . . , The cattle, the wild beasts, the creeping things." (Schrader, KB, vi. i, 42 f. ; Ball, LE, 13.) no THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [I. 26 to stand. There are other references to such a heavenly court (r. g., I Kgs. xxiL 19; Job i. 6; Ps. xxix. 9); which, according to Job xxxviii. 7, existed when the foundations of the earth were laid.* The objection that, by addressing the " sons of God " in these terms, the Creator would have made them sharers in one of his divine prerogatives (Dillmann) is easily met ; since the form used, like the French assister, is warranted as merely recognizing the presence of interested spectators. See Isa. vi. 8.f The last of God's works is to be man in the collective sense, i. e., men.l The nature of these new creatures is described in the phrase in our image ; but not so clearly as it might have been, as is shown by the difference of opinion with reference to the meaning of these words. From v. 27 it appears that by oicr image is meant the image of God. The equivalence of these two expressions seems, at first sight, to tell against the interpretation of the plural pronoun just given, but the apparent discrepancy disappears, when one reflects that the image of God is also the image of the sons of God. The fact that, in v. 27, the phrase " image of God " takes the place of both of those here used shows that after his likeness is synonymous with the expression preceding. Comp. Delitzsch. The further question, what is meant by the image of God, seems answered in the remainder of the verse, where God is represented as setting forth the purpose for which men were to be cre- ated, viz.y lordship over every living thing, whether of * According to Jub. ii. i the angels were created on the first day. t This is the interpretation adopted by Philo {Works, i. 21 f.), and it seems to have been the favorite with Jewish authorities. Sec Bcr. Rah. 31 ff. X The verb of the next clause is plural. 1.26-28] COMMENTS in the sea or of the land. The image of God, therefore, must consist in those endowments which distinguish men from the lower animals, and enable the former to maintain over the latter a mastery only inferior to that of the Creator. See ix. 2 ; Ps. viii. 6/5 ; Sir. xviii. 3 ; comp. Gunkel. These, however, are but reflections of the divine attributes most perfectly revealed in creation. None of the animals is excepted, even the beasts * of the earth being placed under the dominion of mankind. 2^. Men were created male and female. Some of the Jewish authorities interpret these words as meaning that the human race sprang from a single androgyn, from one side (not rib) of whom God finally (ii. 21) made the first woman {Bcr. Rab. 30), and Lenormant {BH, 61 ff.) adopts this interpretation ; but there is absolutely no in- ternal evidence to support it. In fact, it is forbidden by the terms of the blessing at once bestowed. See also v. 2. The author does not here indicate how many of the genus homo were created, but the sequel (v. 3) shows that he intended to teach that the human race, like the various species of the lower animals, concerning which his ideas may be inferred from vi. 19, had its origin in a single pair.f 28. In the blessing bestowed on the first pair they are commissioned, not only to fill the earth, but to subdue it. The last phrase is especially significant. It shows that, to the mind of the author, the earth was not a para- dise in which men could live without effort, but a field for the employment and development of the powers, mental and physical as well as moral, with which they had been * The text has the earth ; but since ix. 2 and Ps. viii. Z/'j have the beasts of the earthy the missing word, rT^n? should doubtless be inserted in tliis jjassa^je. See the Syriac Version. t The word inS is equivalent to, if not a mistake for CHH* 112 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [II. 28-31 endowed. God had worked hitherto ; now they were not only to enter into, but supplement, the labors of their Maker. He had made, they were to control, the entire animal world.* 29. Men were not yet, however, permitted to kill, even for food, the animals thus placed "under their feet," but, according to the author, were restricted to an exclusively vegetable diet. See Ovid, Met. xv. 96 ff. Still, they were generously provided for, being given to eat every herb and every tree ; f i. e.y all the grains and vegetables and whatever grew on the trees. J 30. The lower animals, even the beasts of the earth, as well as the birds of heaven and the creeping things,§ at first received only every green herb for food ; in other words, the lion was compelled, in the language of Isa. xi. 7, to "eat straw like the ox." See Vergil, Geor. i. 130; comp. Strack. || The cattle and the fish of the sea are not mentioned in this connection, per- haps because the former are included in the term beasts of the earth (comp. Knobel), and the author could not imagine the latter as ever having subsisted on the sort of food provided for land animals. 31. The work of this d^y, like that of the others, was * The text of the latter half of this verse is clearly incomplete. It should follow V. 26, as it does in the Greek, and to the extent of supplying the cattle in the Syriac Version. t For yj7n read, with the Samaritans, yr- Comp. Ball. X The text, for fruit, has fruit of a tree; but since, according to vv. 1 1 £., it is strictly the fruit, and not the tree, that yields the seed by which the tree is reproduced, it is better, following the Greek Version, to omit the limiting phrase. § The subject of the participle is to be supplied from the Greek Version. Vox tt7?21"l the Samaritans read C^^nin- II The verb ^^ivi\ which is needed to make sense, is wanting in the original of this verse. I. 31-II. I] COMMENTS 113 good, but the usual statement to that effect is omitted. Its place is taken by God's estimate of all that he had made. Viewed as a completed whole, he found it, not only satisfactory, but very good. The night that fol- lowed closed a* sixth day.f The present arrangement of the text is such as, at first sight, to create the impression that the account of crea- tion with which Genesis begins closes with the end of the first chapter. This, however, is not the case, since the record of (g) The Seventh Day (ii. 1-3), in which the signifi- cance of its arrangement as a whole appears, is neces- sary to its completion. I. The statement, Thus, lit. and, heaven and earth ■were finished, doubtless means that, at the close of the sixth day, they were complete ; and all their host, not * The present text has the definite article before the numeral, but the Greek Version omits it, and this, since there seems to be no reason why the author should adopt a peculiar mode of expres- sion in this instance, is probably the correct reading. Comp. Ges. § 126, 5, R I, a. t The creation of mankind was attributed to different deities by the Babylonians of different dates, and places. In the epic from which several quotations have already been made, Marduk is the one thus honored. He is praised as " The lord whose spell is health, who wakes the dead ; Who mercy showed to the defeated gods, Took from the gods, his foes, the yoke imposed, And in their stead man into being brought." See Schrader, KB, vi. i, 34 f. ; Ball, LE, 16 ; Jastrow, RBA, 438. The poem, so far as preserved, does not give the details of man's orijjin, but Berosus says that Bel (Marduk), when he saw the earth, as the result of the destruction of a preceding race of monsters, without inhabitants, bade one of the other gods cut off his head, mix earth with the flowing: blood, and thus make men and animals that could bear the light (Gunkel, SC, 17; Cory, AF, 60). 114 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [II. 1-3. merely the sun, moon, and stars, elsewhere called the host of hcavcti (Deu. iv. 19), but the entire multitude of creatures, animate and inanimate, with which, during the preceding six days, heaven and earth had been furnished. The angels, since the author makes no reference to their creation, although he recognizes their existence (i. 26)^ can hardly be included. Comp. Strack. 2. What follows must be interpreted in harmony with this introductory statement. If, therefore, the present text be retained, the words which, in the English Version, are rendered, Ajid on tJie scvetith day God finis Jicd Jus work wJiich he had made, etc., can only refer to the ces- sation of the activity of which the various works previ- ously described were the result. This thought is better expressed by the rendering, And when, on the seventh day, God had put an end to the, lit. his, work that he had done, i. e., had been doing, etc.* The correctness of this interpretation appears from its harmony with the obvious meaning of the latter half of the verse ; where the statement, that God rested on the seventh day from all the, lit. his, work that he had done can only . mean that, on the given day, he refrained from the work, the activity, in which he had previously been engaged. f 3. This seventh day, because on it he celebrated, so to speak, the completion of his works, God blessed, gave especial honor among the days of the week ; and hal- lowed, ordained that it should be set apart as a day on * On the construction, see Ges. § iii, i, R 3. The versions have the sixth day, which is adopted by Ball and others, and, at first sight, seems the preferable reading ; but the fact that it relieves an apparent difficulty excites suspicion, and the evidently close relation between the verbs nb^ {put an end to) and H'Z.W {rest) favors the present text. On the meaning of nbD> see Num. xvii. 25/10. t On the meaning of riDSbtt {work), compare Brown, Lex. I., II.] COMMENTS 115 which men should not do any work. See Ex. xx. 9 f. The last clause preserves the distinction between the work and the works of God, being properly rendered, not, as in the T^nglish Version, all his ivork, which God had created and viade, but strictly, all his ivork, in doing whicJi God had created, i. e., acted as Creator, or, more freely, all the creative "work that he had done, /. e., all the work that, as Creator, he had done.* Comp. Knobel. A few words with reference to this narrative as a whole. Its value has sometimes been exaggerated, and sometimes, especially in later years, overlooked. In the first place, the attempt has been made to show that it is in perfect harmony with the science of the day.f If the interpretation given above is correct, it is clear that no such correspondence can be established. The modern theory concerning the origin of the system to which the earth belongs may be stated briefly as follows : — The matter of the entire system, so far as can be ascertained, seems originally to have existed in a nebu- lous form. From this gaseous mass were thrown off rings of matter, which, when broken up and compacted in separate bodies, became the planets and their satellites. The earth, like the rest, was at first an incandescent ball ; * On the construction, see Joel ii. 20 f. ; Ges. § 114, 2, R 4. The presence of Cnbs {God) after S"13 {create) sug.ijosts the question, whether the text did not originally have the Perfect instead of the Infinitive of nti737 {ito) as in the preceding verse, without either of these words. f This is the position of Guyot in his Creation. See also the works of Principal Dawson, especially his Edefi Lost and iron, in which the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and its general harmony with science and history is maintained. Dana, in the last (1895) edition of his .Ifanuat oj' Geotoi^v, omits the chapter on Cos- mogony with which the book originally closed. ii6 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [I., II. but it gradually cooled, and, as it cooled, the vapor by which it was surrounded was condensed and the globe, which had meanwhile become solid, at least superficially, was thus more or less covered with water. The cooling process continued until, by the consequent deformation of the spheroid, a distinction between regions of compara- tive elevation and depression, i. e., continents and oceans, was established. Plants and animals made their appear- ance as soon as their existence was possible ; the simplest forms first, then, as the ages passed, those of the higher orders, until, finally, when the proper environment had been provided, the process of evolution in the animal king- dom culminated in the production of the human species. The following table, compiled from Rice's revision of Dana's Text Book of Geology, shows (read upward) by what stages the development of life on the earth is sup- I^osed to have proceeded : — Quaternary Period Tertiary Period. Cenozoic Age Mesozoic Age The first men. The first placental mammals. Age of mammals. Paleozoic Age Cretaceous Period. Jurassic Period. Triassic Period. Carboniferous Period. Devonian Period. Silurian Period. Cambrian Period. Archean Age The first angiosperms. The first birds. Age of reptiles. The first mammals. Age of amphibia. The first reptiles. Age of forests. The first flowering plants. The first am- phibia. Age of fishes. The first fishes. The first insects. The first land plants. The first marine inver- tebrates. The first seaweeds. Dubious traces of Hfe. I., II.] COAfMENTS 117 The most serious discrepancies between this outline and the biblical account are the following : — /. In the former the sun is the centre from which the system is viewed and described ; in the latter not only the sun and the moon, but also the stars, are mere ad- juncts of the earth. 2, The current theory represents the earth, with all that belongs to it, as the result of a development requir- ing ages ; while the biblical narrative describes it as pro- duced by a series of fiats, each of which was at once obeyed, and all of which were uttered within the space of six literal days. J. The order in which the principal events in the course of the earth's early history are supposed to have succeeded one another is not the same as that followed by the sacred writer : — a. If the current theory is correct, there must have been light long before there was any water on the surface of the globe ; but, according to the first chapter of Gene- sis, this is the reverse of the true order. b. The scientist claims that fishes appeared in the sea as early as plants on the land, and that there were other water animals, as well as marine plants, much earlier ; but the inspired author reports that the vegetation of the earth was created on the third, while the fishes did not appear until the fifth day. c. Finally, the rocks testify that fishes existed ages be- fore the land animals (except a few insects) and the latter other ages before the first man ; but the biblical record states that the birds were created on the same day with the fishes, and the first human pair on the same day with the rest of the land animals. These are serious divergences, but their significance may be exaggerated. They make it impossible for the Ii8 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [I., II. intelligent student to accept the biblical account as a cor- rect record of the process of creation ; but they do not make it necessary for him to reject it as valueless from the religious, or even from the scientific standpoint. In the first place, although the doctrine of God here taught can hardly be regarded as perfectly satisfactory to the Christian believer, it was sufficiently developed along right lines to furnish a basis for religion and morality un- equalled in the period to which it belongs. The author's conception of creation, too, displays a philosophic insight that is extraordinary. Indeed, in its essential features, the unity of nature and the gradual origin of things, it harmonizes so perfectly with the modern theory that the latter should be regarded as supplemental, rather than abrogative, of the former. See Ryle, ii'iV6^, 23 ff. Finally, the fact that the Sabbath did not originate exactly as described does not warrant a denial of its sanctity ; for, as in the case of Sunday, the antiquity of the Hebrew rest-day and the beneficent results of its observance are sufficient to assure one who has a sense for the divine that it was a providential institution.* See Gunkel, SC, 118, 170. The author hitherto followed would naturally next proceed to give a brief history of the earliest generations of the race. There is such a history, but it is separated from his account of creation by the rest of the second, and the whole of two more chapters. In other words, * The Babylonians from the earliest times seem to have regarded the seventh, the fourteenth, the twenty-first, and the twcnty-ei.sj^hth of each month as unlucky, and therefore, on these days, to have ab.stained, not only from their ordinary pursuits, but even from the presentation of sacrifices to their gods. See Schrader, KA T, iS ff. ; Boscawen, BM, 67 f . ; Toy, J BL, 1899, 190 ff. II. 4] COMMENTS 119 the continuation of the work from which this account of creation was taken is to be found in the fifth chapter. What now follows is (2) A Second Account (ii. 4-25) of creation. The first thing that strikes one on reading it is that it begins, not as the other did, with the creation of light, introdu- cing life in the order of its manifestations from the low- est to the highest, but with (a) The Formation of Mayi {vv. 4-7). 4. To the whole is prefixed a title, These are the generations of heaven and earth, such as elsewhere (v. i ; vi. 9; X. i; etc.) always introduces an excerpt from the Priestly narrative, to which the preceding account be- longed. The fact that it is here used to introduce a passage from the Yahwistic narrative is explained by supposing, either that it originally stood at the begin- ning of the first chapter, and was removed thence, when the two narratives were combined (Ilgen), or that it originated with a redactor or copyist, by whom it was inserted to relieve the abruptness of the transition from the first to the second account (Holzinger). The former of these suppositions seems the more attractive, the ob- jection that the author of i. i ff. would not have given it this title being met by the fact that, in vi. 9, a similar title introduces, not a list of Noah's descendants, but a history of his times. See also xxv. 19 ; xxxvii. 2.* The title is followed by the brief temporal clause, "when they * The idea that 4a is a subscription to the account preceding (Delitzsch) must be rejected ; so, also, that it is the title of a miss- ino; chapter of the Priestly document (Strack). The former is for- bidden by the constant usage with reference to the terms employed ; and the latter by the close connection between ii. 3 and v. i ff., as well as the absence of any allusion to the hypothetical passage in the parts of the Priestly narrative that have been preserved. The Greek Version has. This is the book of the origin of, etc., as in v. i, and Ball adopts this reading. I20 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [II. 4 ■were created, of which, as the text now stands, the re- mainder of the verse seems a superfluous repetition. The two clauses, however, do not belong together ; the latter, in some furm, as its phraseology indicates, having origi- nally been connected with what follows.* Here, as in the preceding account, there is no disposition to pry into the secrets of eternity. The story opens with a picture of the condition of things at the time when Yahweh (God) made earth and heaven ; that is, as they were when Yahweh began his creative work. The most inter- esting thing about this clause is the appearance in it, for the first time, of Yah-weh, the proper name of the God of the Hebrews, for which the English version usually has LORD.\ The meaning of the name is disputed, but, according to Ex. iii. 14 f., it seems to have desig- nated God as the unchangeable, in the moral as well as in the metaphysical sense.f The same passage, but Ex. vi. 2 f. more distinctly, teaches that it was not known or * The original relation of 4b to the verses following is in dispute; some exegetes connecting it with v. 5 (Tuch), others with v. 7 (Dillmann). The latter construction seems too involved to be the one intended. See Driver, Tenses, § 124. fThe pronunciation Jehovah, unknown until 1520 A. D., has no warrant except in a superstitious custom in accordance with which the Jews, to avoid the use of the sacred name, pointed nirf^ {VHWH) with the vowels of ''iiS (^"dhofiay), Lord, and, when reading their Scriptures, substituted the latter for the former. See Bottcher, Lehrbiich, § 88. The LORD of the English, like the Kvpios of the Greek Version, is a relic of this superstition. When the tetragrammaton was preceded by "^iTS' to avoid tlie repetition of the latter, the Hebrews pointed the former with the vowels of D^iibs i^^lohim), God; hence the excuse for the GOD of the Eng- lish Bible. X On the orii,Mn of this name, see Baudissin, SSR, i. 179 ff . ; Frd. Dclitzscli, IVLP, 158 ff. ; Driver, SB, i. i ff. ; Schradcr, KA T, 23 ff. ; Piepcnbring, TOT, 99 ff. 1 1. 4, 5] COMMENTS 1 2 1 used before the time of Moses. The latter passage is from the Priestly document. Hence, it is not strange that the name does not occur in the first account of crea- tion. The author of the second account, having no such theory, could, and did, employ it freely. In this and the following chapter, however, whenever YaJiwch occurs, a later hand has, for some unknown reason, perhaps to in- sure the identification of the Deity of the second account with that of the first, inserted after it G-od.* The phrase earth and heaven, found elsewhere only in Ps. cxlviii, 13, can hardly be correct ; but what the original reading was, it is difficult, if n(^t impossible, to determine. f 5. At this time no shrub, no herb, of the field ex- isted, much less any tree. The earth was a waste ; yet not, at least not wholly, a watery waste, as i. 2 teaches that it was in the beginning. J In fact, there was a dearth of water, because Yah-weh had not caused it to rain upon the earth. The dependence of vegetation upon * Budde {BU, 232 ff.) attributes the insertion of God in these chapters to the redactor who united J^ and J'^, the latter of which, he thinks, must have avoided Yahweh as far as iv. 26. Comp. Holzinger, EH^ 157 ff. The resulting combination occurs also Ex. ix. 30 and nine times outside of the Pentateuch. t The ancient versions all have heaven and earth, the Greek with the article. In the Samaritan Pentateuch the order is the same, but the article is omitted. If this was the original order, the present reading may have been substituted for the other for the sake of variety. Since, however, the Yahwist does not elsewhere in his account of creation include heaven, it is also possible that the original reading was earth, or the earth, vf\\.\\o\it the added term. Jin the second Babylonian account of creation occurs the line, " No plant had sprouted, not a tree was made ; " but in this case the dearth of vegetation is explained by the fact that " The lands were all and altogether sea." See Schrader, KB, vi. i, 38 ff.; Ball, LE, 19. 122 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [II. 5-7 moisture is here expressly recognized. There was, how- ever, another reason for the barrenness that existed ; there -were no men to till the ground. In other words, to the mind of this author it was necessary that men should appear contemporaneously with plants. Hence, instead of postponing the creation of the former until the earth was otherwise completely furnished, as did the Priestly narrator, he introduces them as soon as the ground has become fit for cultivation. The difference is funda- mental, making it impossible to suppose that both ac- counts are the work of one author. 6. The necessary moisture is provided, not by opening the windows of heaven and drawing upon the celestial reservoirs, but by a less direct and more familiar process. A mist, naturally through the agency of Yahweh, rose from time to time from the earth,* or that part of it covered by hitherto unrecognized seas. The mist, having risen, fell again in the form of rain and thoroughly and repeatedly watered the whole face of the ground, f Thus the process by which the earth has ever since been refreshed was instituted and the first requisite for the existence of animal as well as vegetable life provided. 7. When the ground had been made cultivable, Yah- weh, proceeding to his second task, formed man, moulded him as a potter fashions a vessel. J The material out of * Haupt {A OS, Proc, 1896, 158 ff.) renders the first half of the verse, an irrigating canal overflowed the land; making *TS nearly the equivalent of edii, the Assyrian iov Jlood, and substituting br» over^ for "j^. from. See also the versions. However, it seems clear that the IS not on\y goes up^ but supplies the rain without which, according to v. 5, there can be no vegetation. See also Job xxxvi. 27 f. t On the uses of the tenses in this verse, see Ges. §§ 107, i, a, and R 2 ; i J2, 3, a, o. X For a Babylonian parallel, see Jensen, Kosjnologie, 292 ff. 1 1 . 7, 8] ' COMMENTS 1 23 which he formed him was dust from the ground ; from which he afterward formed the beasts and the birds {v. 19).* The man thus produced, however, was at first as lifeless as the ground from which he had been taken. It was only when Yahweh breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, tlie breath by which life manifests itself, that he became a living creature. The term living creature occurs three times in the first chapter {vv. 20, 21, 24). In these and other cases it is applied to animals, exclusive of man. Here it is applied to him as an ani- mate being, the first that ever existed. f Nothing is said or implied with reference to any endowments by which he might later be distinguished from other living crea- tures. Compare the corresponding passage in the first chapter {vv. 26 ff.), where the superiority of man is ex- pressly taught. The first account of man's creation represents him as immediately commissioned to subdue the earth and enjoy mastery over it ; according to this second he was at first treated more tenderly, being placed in (b) TJie Garden in 'EdJien (vv. 8-17). 8. The garden, as appears in the course of the story, was a tract of ground enclosed (iii. 23) and planted with trees of various kinds (v. 9) ; in other words, a park or orchard like those in which the ancient rulers of the Orient delighted. See Frd. Delitzsch, IVLP, 95 ff. ; Ragozin, Assyria, 58. Such a park was called in Persian pairidaeza, whence, through the Greek, the English Paradise. The garden of God, or YahweJiy as it is sometimes called in other * The author seems to have intended to represent the word CIS? man, as related to rr^TS' i^round. Conip. Brown, Lex. t In the P)ahylonian document last cited, also, man precedes the beast of the tield. See Schrader, KB, vi. i, 40 f. ; Ball, LE, 19. 124 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [11.8,9 parts of the Old Testament (Eze. xxviii. 13; Isa. li. 3), was located in 'Edhen. The 'Edhen here meant is not that of Am. i. 5 (Ehden ?), nor that of Isa. xxxvii. 12 and Eze. xxvii. 23 (Bit-adini). It has been sought in almost every part of the globe. The fact that the Hebrew of the name signifies dcligJU in Ps. xxxvi. 9/8 has led to the suggestion that it is a poetical designation for a re- gion with whose real name the author was not acquainted (Dillmann). Another and a more plausible theory is that it is derived from the Assyrian cdmu, meaning fieldy which was sometimes used of the plain of Babylonia (Frd. Delitzsch, WLP, 79 f.). There is little to show where the author of this verse located the region he had in mind. What is said of the rivers that flowed from it is of doubtful value, since vv. 10-14 are clearly from an- other hand. It is here described as eastward ; vis.j from the standpoint of the writer, Palestine.* The only passage that throws any real light on the subject is xi. 2, according to which 'Edhen must have been, not in Babylonia itself, but in the Arabian desert ; since the sacred author there says that the people joitnieycd east- ward to reach the plain of the land of Shin^ar. This location would harmonize with the latter of the two theories with reference to the original signification of the name 'Edhen, the word edijin meaning desert as well as plain. See Schrader, KAT, 26 f. In this garden, wher- ever it was, Yahweh placed the single man that he had formed. 9. At the same time he caused to spring from the ground of the garden every tree pleasant to sight, to beautify the place (Eze. xxxi. 8, 16, 18), as well as all whose fruit is good for human food. In addition to all these ornamental and alimental trees, according to * On the word Cip^, sec iii. 24; xi. 2; xiii. 11. II. 9] COMMENTS 125 the present text, there were in the middle of the gar- den two others. One of these was the tree of life. 'Ihc tree is evidently so called to denote tliat its fruit possessed the property of preventing the decay and dis- solution of the human body. This appears from iii. 22, where Yahweh is represented as using language implying that the first pair might, by means of the fruit of this tree, have prolonged their lives indefinitely. It is not clear whether they could have done so by eating of it but once, or only by resorting to it from time to time, as they felt the need of its rejuvenating potency. The fact that no reference is made to any attempt on their part to ensure their immortality by partaking of it, after their disobedience and before their expulsion from the garden, indicates that they could not thus have forestalled their Creator : in other words, that the fruit of this wonderful tree was intended to heal actual wounds and cure in- cipient diseases. The reason why they had not partaken of it, when they were expelled, therefore, is not that they knew nothing about it (Delitzsch), but that they had thus far had no occasion to test its efficacy. See Prv. iii. 18; xi. 30; xiii. 12; xv. 4 ; comp. Eze. xlvii. 12; Rev. xxii. 2. Such were the nature and the function of the tree of life, so far as they can be learned from the refer- ences to it in this and the following chapter. It is very doubtful, however, if this tree had a place in the original of the story in which it now appears ; and for several reasons : (/) The idea which it represents does not har- monize with the teaching of the story as a whole ; ac- cording to which man's life was given to him directly by Yahweh {v. 7), and remained immediately dependent on the will of the Creator (iii. 19 ; see also Ps. civ. 29). {2) It is completely ignored throughout almost the entire story. Thus, not only is there no reference to it in v. 17, but in 126 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [II. 9 iii. 3 the language employed implies that there was only one tree in the middle of the garden. { j) The references to it have the marks of interpolations. Thus, in the verse under consideration, it obscures the author's meaning,* and iii. 22 and 24 evidently constitute a doublet to v. 23. These considerations seem to warrant one in concluding that the tree of life was wanting in the original story, and in restoring the text, if necessary, in harmony with this conclusion.! The tree of life being removed, there remains but one tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The nature of this tree, also, is indicated by its name. It was a tree that possessed the property of imparting to those who did not have it the faculty of knowing good and evil. The meaning of the terms good and evil in this connection is disputed. Wellhausen {GI, 314) insists that the author here refers, not to a distinction in the moral quality of voluntary actions, but to a classification of things as helpful or harmful ; in other words, that the knowledge of good and evil is only another name for culture, civiliza- tion. Budde {BU, 65 ff.) objects (/) that, granting that these terms originally had a purely utilitarian significa- tion, when the Yahwistic narrative was written, they had evidently acquired a moral application (Am. v. 14 f.) which finally appears in expressions similar to, or identical * The original author would certainly have introduced it after the phrase in the tniddle of the garden, and thus have made clear where the second tree was located. t The required changes, which will be introduced in the proi)cr connections, are the following: In 9b, for the present text, read a7id^ in the middle of the garden, the tree of knoiuledge of good and evil ; in 17a, for knowledge of good and evil, read, as in iii. 3, that is in the middle of the garden ; and omit iii. 22 and 24. For an exhaustive discussion of the text, sec Budde, BU, 4C ff. ; conip. Bacon, GG, 104. 1 1 . 9, I o] COMMENTS 1 27 with, the one in ciucstion (2 Sam. xiv. 17 ; i Kgs. iii. 9) ; and {2) that, in the story of the Fall, the application to moral qualities is proven by the fact, that the hrst know- ledge actually acquired by the first pair was that of their own nakedness. A still more convincing consideration is (j) that, in the threat attached to the prohibition of the tree in question, the capacity to distinguish between things advantageous and disadvantageous is taken for granted. What would have been the use of the declara- tion, thou sJialt die {v. 17), if he to whom the words were addressed had no notion of the desirable as distinguished from the undesirable ? The question, how the know- ledge thus described was imparted is easily answered. It resided in the fruit of the tree ; at any rate, it could be acquired by eating the fruit (iii. 7), and there is nothing to indicate that, to the mind of the author, it could be acquired in any other way. The theory that, if the first pair had not eaten of the forbidden fruit, the tree would have had any influence upon their moral condition (De- litzsch) is as gratuitous as to suppose that they could have satisfied their hunger by sitting in the shadow of the other trees of the garden. 10. The story of creation is here interrupted by a parenthetical description of a remarkable river. No name is given to it. It is introduced by the simple state- ment that it went forth, in a continuous flow, from 'Edhen, or, rather, an unknown point in the region thus designated. No reference is made to the creation of this stream ; but the author describes it as "watering the garden, and he evidently thought of it as provided for that purpose. As it issued from the garden it branched and became four sources, or the source of four tliverg- ing streams. It must therefore have been comparatively large. 128 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [II. ii II. The first of the streams to which the river of 'Edhen gave rise is called Pishon. The opinions with reference to its identity are numerous and conflicting. The earliest, which still is a favorite in some quarters, is that the author had in mind one of the rivers of India : c. g.y the Ganges (Josephus) or the Indus (Dillmann). Others seek it near the head-waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and find it in the Phasis (Brugsch), the Kyros (Keil), or the Araxes (von Raumer). Finally, those who locate the garden of 'Edhen in southern Babylonia iden- tify the Pishon with one of the mouths of the Shatt el- Arab (Calvin), the Karun (Pressel), or a canal fed by the Euphrates. The last is the view maintained by Frd. De- litzsch ( WLPy 45 ff.), who identifies it with a canal, the Pallakopas, which left the Euphrates below Babylon, and, after flowing through the Chaldean lakes and past the ancient city of 'Ur, emptied into the Persian Gulf some distance southwest of the mouth of the main stream, and still farther from that of the Tigris, which at that time entered the Gulf by a separate channel. Before attempt- ing to decide which, if any, of these views is correct, it is necessary to locate the land of Hawilah,* of which the Pishon is said to have formed a boundary. The name occurs seven times (Gen. ii. ii ; x. 7, 29 ; xxv. 18 ; I Sam. xv. 7 ; i Chr. i. 9, 23) in the Old Testament. In xxv. 18 it is given to the eastern limit of the territory occupied by the descendants of Ishmael, and, therefore, as P>d. Delitzsch (JVLP, 58) contends, must have been in the vicinity of the upper end of the Persian Gulf. So, also, in i Sam. xv. 7. In Gen. x. 7 Hawilah is a son of Kush, or a Hamite tribe, while in v. 29 the same name is given to a son of Yoktan, the second son of T£bher, from whom the Hebrews also were descended. It is not * For nVinn read nb^'lil with the Samaritans. 11.11,12] COMMENTS 1 29 necessary, in this connection, to decide whether the Hawilah of the latter passage is the same as that of the former, or a different tribe or country ; or, if they are the same, whether they are identically located. It is clear that chapter x. is a compilation, that vv. 7 and 29 are by different authors, and that, since the latter only is from the same document as the second account of creation, and therefore at least possibly by the same hand, it alone can be given any weight in determining where the author of ii. 10-14 located Hawilah. But the sons of Yoktan, so far as their identity can be dis- covered, were tribes or regions of Arabia. Hence the probability is that Hawilah also, according to the author of X. 29, was somewhere in that country. Glaser {SGA, ii. 341 ff.) has undertaken to show, not only that this interpretation is correct, but that the Pishon was Wady ed-Dawasir, one of the two great central wadies of the Arabian peninsula, a branch of which was formerly called Wady Faisan. See also Hommel, AHT, 313 ff. If, however, as seems probable, the Mesha of x. 30 is the Mash of the Assyrian inscriptions (Frd, Delitzsch, IIXP, 242 f.), I. c, the great Syro-Arabian desert, or the north- western part of it, Delitzsch's view, that the Pishon was a branch of the Euphrates, seems preferable. That this region produced gold appears from the fact that among the things brought as tribute to Tiglath-pileser III. by the king of Bit-yakin was " gold, the dust of his land." See Schrader, K7y\ ii. 14 f. 12. Of the gold of that* land the author says that it was very f good. Two other products of Hawilah are men- * On the form SIH sec Ges. § 32, R 6. The Samaritans read f This is the reading of the Vulgate, as well as of the Samaritan Pentateuch. The Massoretic text seems to have lost the adverb. 130 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [II. 12, 13 tioned. The word for the first has sometimes been ren- dered pearl (Bochart). The common opinion is that it is the name for bdellium, a transparent, aromatic gum, yellow in color, which, according to Pliny {HN, xii. 35), was found in Arabia, as well as in India, Media, and Babylonia. See Frd. Delitzsch, WLP, 16 ; Enc. Bib., art. Bdellium ; comp. Die. Bib. The third thing mentioned is a precious stone (Job xxviii. 16), found among the ornaments of the high priest's ephod (Ex. xxviii. 9, 20). It is supposed to be the same with the Assyrian satntUy the principal product of the Babylonian province of Meluha (Frd. Delitzsch, WLP, 60, 131). There are various opinions respecting its precise nature, but the oriental authorities identify it with the beryl, and this view is favored by many modern exegetes. See Enc. Bib., art. Beryl. 13. The identity of the Gihon, also, the second of the four streams into which the river of 'Edhen branched, is disputed. The ancients identified it with the Nile (Jose- phus), and their opinion in its various modifications still has its adherents (Dillmann). Others prefer the Oxus (Rosenmiiller), which among Mohammedans has some- times received the name Jeihun. Those who locate Para- dise in Armenia identify the Gihon with the Araxes (Brugsch), while those who find it in Babylonia prefer 'one of the mouths of the Shatt el-Arab (Calvin), the Kercha (Pressel), or a canal in that region. According to Frd. Delitzsch it was the Shatt en-Nil, a canal that left the luiphrates at Babylon, one of the branches of which emptied into the Tigris, while the other, after passing the ancient cities of Nippur and Uruk, finally reentered the Euphrates not far from 'Ur {WLP, loi.), Glaser (SGA, ii. 354 f.) identifies it with wady er-Rumma, formerly Jaihan, in Northern Arabia. Mere, again, the II. 13] COMMENTS 131 author comes to the assistance of the reader hy dcscrib- 'wY^ the river meant as the one that boundeth the •whole land of Kush. Now Kush, in the Old Testa- ment, usually denotes the country south of Egypt, the Ethiopia of classical geography, or some part of it, and this is the interpretation that has always been given to it in X. 6 f. In x. 8 ff., however, it cannot be so inter- preted, but must at least include a part of Babylonia, where the cities mentioned in v. 10 were situated ; and that passage, being of Yahwistic origin, doubtless indi- cates what is meant in this connection. It is probable, therefore, that Kush is here the name of a part, perhaps the whole, of Babylonia.* This being the case, it is fur- ther probable, that the name is but another form of the Assyrian KasJi, a designation for a people whose earliest known home was on the border of Media, between As- syria proper and 'Elam,t but who finally overran both *Elam and Babylonia, the latter of which they ruled for a period of at least four hundred years. :j: The river in question, therefore, must have been a branch of the Euphrates that bounded one of these regions ; and the only known stream that fulfils these conditions seems to be the ancient canal identified with the Arahtu of the * The Greek Version here has Ethiopia, but in chapter x. a transliteration. t Frd. Delitzsch, WLP, 32. See also McCurdy, HPM,\. 142 ff. Hommel {Die. Bib.., art. Babylonia) thinks that the Kasshites of lialjylonia came from 'Elam, Kash being an ancient name for the latter country. X This was the duration of the Kasshite supremacy according to Pciser(Z^/, vi. 264 ff.), who fixes its limits at 1579 and riSo n. c. See also Hommel Die. Bib.., art. Babylonia. According to Frd. Delitzsch (Miirdter-Delitzsch, GBA, Appendix) it was considerai)ly greater, — 1 726-1 150 H. c, — and according to Meyer {GA, i. 329) considerably less, — 1502-1257 b. c. 132 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [II. 13, 14 Assyrian inscriptions and the more modern Shatt en-Nil, whose pre-Shemitic name, according to Frd. DeUtzsch (IVLP, 75 f.), was Kahanna or Guhanna.* 14. The name of the third river is Hiddekel. This is the Hebrew form of Idiklaty the name by which the Assyrians called the Tigris. It is described as flow- ing east of 'Asshur. If by 'Asshur were meant the city of that name, the earliest capital of Assyria, the state- ment would be perfectly correct, for it lay on the west bank of the Tigris, on the site of the modern village of Kalah Shergat. Since, however, the rivers heretofore mentioned were described in their relation to the coun- tries that they bounded, it is more than probable that in this instance also the country, and not the city, 'Asshur is intended. This being the case, the author seems to be at fault, since Assyria lay on both sides of the Tigris, and the great cities, Kalah, Nineweh, and Dur-sharruken, were east of it.f Still, the Tigris did flow east of the better known part of the Assyrian empire. A further difficulty arises from the fact that the Tigris is here rep- resented as a branch of the same great stream as the fourth river, the Perath, /. r., the Euphrates. This, also, taken in a strict sense is incorrect ; for, although the two rise not far from each other, and flow only a few miles apart for some distance below the site of Sippara, they unite only after they have passed beyond the ancient limits of the Persian Gulf, which they once entered by * How it came to be called the Nile is unknown. See Frd. Dclitzsch, WL1\ 70 f. t Dillmann and others prefer to translate ntl"^^.^ in front of; but this rendering is not supported by any of the otlier passages in which the word is used (iv. 16; i Sam. xiii. 5; Eze. xxxix. 11). Moreover, it is no improvement; since a river that flows throuoli a country can with no greater propriety be said to flow in front of than east of\t. II. 14, 15] COMMENTS 133 separate channels (Frd. Delitzsch, WLP, 173 ff.). The only connectiun between them in early times was that made by canals such as the left branch of the Shatt en- Nil already mentioned. It seems necessary, therefore, to conclude, either that the author of vv. 10-14 lacked exact knowledge of Babylonia and its great rivers, or that he intended to represent the Tigris as, through the canal or canals connecting it with the Euphrates, a branch of the latter. The second of these suppositions is the more probable. The idea that the river flowing forth from 'Edhen was the Euphrates is by no means modern. It has the sanc- tion of the Talmud and other Jewish authorities (Frd. Delitzsch, IVLP, 143 f.). According to Tosaphoth "the river of Paradise, before it begins to divide into four sources, is the Euphrates. When it divides, the others branch from it on either side, but it flows straight onward and forms in its course the fourth." * If this was the idea of the author of these verses, he cannot have located the garden in Arabia, but must have identified it with the country about Babylon, a region which was called, in the language of its non-Shemitic inhabitants, Kar- duniash, "the garden of the Lord of the lands." (Frd. Delitzsch, IVLP, 64 ff., 133 ff . ; McCurdy, NPM, i. 124 f., 133 ; comp. Die. Bid., art. Eden; Jensen, Kosmo- logie, 507 ff.) 15. Having described the river by which the garden was watered, the author of the description finds it neces- sary to repeat somewhat to restore the connection. He states once more, what has already been narrated of the man in v. 8, that Yahweh placed him in the garden. * The Babylonians represented the Tif:^ris and the Euphrates as the first rivers created. See Schradcr, KB, vi. i, 4of. ; Ball, LE, 19. 134 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [II. 15-17 He, however, describes the place, not as tJic garden in^ but as the garden of 'Edhen. He also states expressly that, as is implied in the connection of v. 8 with v. 5, the man was placed in the garden to till it. He adds a touch that hardly harmonizes with the original story, when he says that another object was, that he might guard it; for as yet he is the only living creature in existence, and the animals, when created, are to be his companions, and not his enemies.* Comp. Jub. iii. 13. i6f. The orio^inal story now proceeds with the state- ment that Yahweh, having created the trees as described in V. 9, charged the man with reference to them. The expression all the trees of the garden, of course, means all those described in v. 9 as good for food ; or all but one, for one is expressly excepted. The present text describes it as the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but this can hardly be correct : for, (/) there being but one magical tree, it is more natural that it should be described by its location than by its properties ; {2) it is so described in iii. 3 ; (j) the language of iii. 4 f. implies that the first pair were ignorant of its peculiar properties; and (^) the nature of the story requires that they should be so represented. See iii. 10 f.f Yahweh, therefore, must have forbidden the first man to eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, without informing him what its effect would be and thus suggesting an in- ducement to disobedience. The reason for the prohibition has generally been overlooked. One suggestion is, that possibly it was only a temporary regulation ; that perhaps * Note also that the word ^^y^ i^ardcti, is here feminine, but else- where (i Kgs. xxi. 2; Isa. Iviii. 11 ; Jer. xxxi. 12; Cnt. iv. 12, 16) masculine. t The change in the text was made, and required, on account of the introduction of the tree of life in v. 9. II. 17] COMMENTS 135 Yahweh would finally have permitted man to partake of the tree, if he had remained obedient, and secured him against evil consequences (Budde, BU, 72). The favorite opinion, however, is that, had the temptation been resisted, the result would have been the development in man, thus voluntarily choosing good, of a knowledge of the distinc- tion between it and its opposite (Dillmann). Both of these views are clearly mistaken. The author evidently means to teach that man, when created, lacked the power to make for himself moral distinctions, and that Yahweh, although he made disappointment possible, intended that he should remain in this childlike condition (Piepen- bring, TOT^ 193 f.). To the further question, why Yah- weh was unwilling that man should possess the knowledge of good and evil, also, there have been various answers. It is not clear that this author thought of the Creator as moved by jealousy in the matter. Neither iii. 5, where the serpent is the speaker, nor iii. 22, which is by an- other hand, can be cited in support of such a supposition. On the other hand, in view of xi. 6, it is hardly safe to say that he wished to represent the Deity as acting from purely benevolent motives. It is more probable that, in his mind, the ideal, and therefore the original, relation of man to God was one of absolute dependence, and that the latter, in denying to the former the knowledge of good and evil, was at the same time asserting his pre- rogative as Creator and attempting to safeguard the interests of his creature.* The prohibition was accom- panied by a solemn warning. The words witli which this is introduced, in the' day thou eatest from it, might mean that the i)enalty threatened would immedi- ately follow the offence (Gunkel), but the sequel shows * On the jealousy attributed to their gods by other peoples, see Le norm ant, BH^ 104 If. 136 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [II. 17-19 that they are to be interpreted as equivalent to if thoic eatest tJiereof ; so that the whole clause might be freely rendered, So surely as thou catcst thereof thou shalt die, the emphasis being not on the date, so much as on the certainty, of the infliction. The serpent, in iii. 4, makes the ambiguity of this statement an excuse for a falsehood. The natural question, how long the first man remained the solitary inhabitant of the earth, is left unanswered. The author can hardly have thought it a great length of time, for he proceeds at once to describe (c) The Advent of Woman {vv. 18-25). 18. The account of her creation is introduced by a confession in which Yahweh is naively represented as, so to speak, feeling his way in his work. He says. It is not good for the man to be alone. Compare the satisfaction with which, in the first chapter, God is described as regarding the successive results of his creative activity, and the very good with which he finally characterizes the whole. On discovering that the provisions made for his creature are inadequate, Yahweh resolves to supply the deficiency. He says, I will make * him a helper, a sharer in his simple duties and their abundant rewards. This helper is to be one suited to him. Not his like, — it would have been a simple matter to have duplicated him, — but a second of his species in whom he will find himself complete. 19. In pursuance of his purpose Yahweh further f * The Greek and the Latin Version have Let us make. t The word rendered further ("T137), which, though not in the Massorctic text, is found in the Samaritan Pentateuch, and its equivalent in the Greek Version, beyond doubt forbids a rendering of the verb by which it is made to appear that here, as in chapter i., II. iQ, 2o] COMMENTS 137 formed from the ground, just as he had the man, three * classes of animals. The text does not say here, as in the case of the man, that life was imparted to the lifeless clay by the breath of Yahweh, but this was undoubtedly the author's idea. See Ps. civ. 29. The fish of the sea arc ignored or overlooked, as in i. 30. The newly created animals Yahweh brought to the man to see what he would call them ; gave him an opportunity to note their characteristics and put his ideas of them into appro- priate names. In the first account it is God himself who gives names to his creatures as they are brought into existence. Note that the man, even before he had a companion, according to the author, had a perfect com- mand of the original language of the race. The result was, that whatsoever the man called each, lit., zV,! that was, became and still remains, its name. J 20. One after another all the cattle, all sj the birds of heaven, and all the beasts of the field, the last being the so-called wild animals (comp. v. 9), passed in procession before the man. As he gave them their names he sought among them the companion he needed, the Creator had formed the animals before man existed. Comp. Murphy. * The item all the cattle is to be supplied from v. 20. Before n^n b^ insert also, with the Samaritans, nS, the sign of the ac- cusative. t The phrase a living creature, which follows in the Massoretic text, is without doubt a gloss introduced to prevent the possibility of a mistake with reference to the antecedent of the pronominal suffix. X The Hebrew idea of the relation of names to the persons or things desio^ated thereby is illustrated in the identification by them of the divine name with the Deity himself. See Isa. xxix. 23; 1. 10; also Piepenbring, TOT, 141 f. § The word all, which is wanting in the Massoretic text, is sup- plied from the Greek Version. 138 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [II. 19-22 but in vain ; for himself the man, \\\. for the* man Jie,\ found not a helper suited to him. 21. Tlic Creator, finding that none of the creatures he had produced from the ground was satisfactory, deter- mined upon the use of a different material for the desired helper. In pursuance of his plan he threw the man into a stupor, and, when the latter fell asleep, removed one of his ribs ; about the only bone that could be removed without mutilating the body. J In its place § he put flesh. 22. This rib Yahweh fashioned, lit. built ^ || into a * The Massoretes, not only here, but in iii. 17 and 21, omit the article ; but, since in this and the following chapter, wherever the definiteness or indehniteness of the noun can be determined from the consonantal text, the article is used, it is more than prohable that in these cases the proper reading is not 'CTW^tfor 'Adham, or for a man (Delitzsch), but U^'^.for the man, i. e., the first man. t Two other renderings have been suggested: one found not, or there was not found, as in the Greek and (Revised) English ver- sions ; and he (Yahweh) found not (Dillmann). Both of them, however, require a change of subject which is awkward and improb- able. Olshausen suggests the reading 3"TSm for msbv X The word vb!! also means side. In fact, this is the sense in which it is most frequently found. See Ex. xxv. 12, 14, etc. Hence some have insisted on rendering it so in this connection. See Ber. Rab. 75 f. ; also Lenormant {BH, 60 ff.), who cites Persian and Indian legends in support of his interpretation. This, however, cannot have been the thought of the author, since'^ie would not have repre- sented the first being created as wanting what he already possessed. It should also be noted, that the Assyrian equivalent of 377!^' situ, means rib as well as side. § On n^nnn. lit. under it, see Ges. § 103, i, R 3. The Samari- tans have the regular form n^nnn- II There is a peculiar fitness in the use of HDS' build, in this con- nection, arising from the fact that vb!i is sometimes found in the sense of board. See i Kgs. vi. 15. 11.22-24] COMMENTS i39 woman, and brought her to the man, to see if he would recognize in her the needed companion. 23. Yiihweh must at the same time have explained the origin of the woman. The language in which the man welcomed her imjilies such an explanation : This, now, unlike all the previous ]:)roducts of the divine skill, is one of my bones and a part of my flesh ; lit. bone of my bones and flesJi of my flesh ; part and parcel of myself. He at once proceeds to name her, as he had previously named the animals presented to him. He calls her woman, and gives as a reason for so naming her, that she was taken* from herf man, her hus- band, f 24. Therefore, because the first wife was literally, according to this account, a part of her husband. The words that follow are probably the words of the first man, not, like x. 9b, an explanation interjected by the narrator (Dillmann). Comp. Mat. xix. 5. Hence they are to be rendered shall, and not doth a man leave his father and his mother, loose to a greater or less extent the ties by which he is bound to them, and cleave, as to no other, to his wife. See Ps. xlv. i i/io. Thus the two § are to become one flesh, their aims and interests thenceforth being identical. This verse, taken in con- nection with iii. 16, indicates that the author regarded * On the form nnf^b see Ges. § 52, i, R. f This is the Greek and the Samaritan reading; the Massoretic text omits the pronominal suffix. \ The writer seems to have derived the Hebrew word for ivo/ian, nti7S' from IT'-Sj ?nan ; and this was formerly supposed to be the correct derivation. See, however, Brown, Lex. 35b ; Frd. Delitzsch, HA, 9. § This is the Greek, the Syriac, and the Vulgate reading. The Massoretic text omits CH'^DLl?' t/icy two; the Samaritan has n^m Cn'^itr'*:' a7id there shall he from the two of them. 140 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [11.24,25 the equality of the husband and the wife as the ideal re- lation between them, but it does not so clearly as some have supposed (Dillmann) imply that he disapproved of polygamy. See iv. 19. 25. The account closes with a statement in harmony with the conception, evidently cherished by the author, that the first representatives of the human race were as immature, and therefore as irresponsible, as children. Though they were both naked,* they felt no shame ; saw no more harm in exposing their persons to each other than as if they had been infants. In the course of the comments on this second account of creation sufficient stress has been laid upon the varia- tions between it and the first to show that the two can- not be the work of the same author. They diverge, as is now generally conceded, both in style and, in large measure, in content. There is, however, a fundamental unity between them. They both, so far as they go, trace the origin of all things to the will of an intelligent Creator ; and they both make man the chief of God's creatures and the lord of the earth and everything in it. The difference between them, so far as these fundamen- tals are concerned, is merely a difference in the degree of clearness with which the common ideas are conceived and taught. When the second account was written, they were rather implied than expressed ; by the time the first appeared they had become recognized doctrines of the Jewish church. The condition and surroundings of the first pair, ac- cording to the Yahwist, were perfect. The garden yielded all that they needed to satisfy their physical wants. The ♦ On CDinr* naked, see Gcs. § 9, (2) R. III. I] COMMENTS 141 exertion required of them was enough to give zest to existence, but too little to be called labor. They lived at peace with the animals, one and all, and in delightful communion with each other. How long this state of things lasted, the author does not say.* He seems to have meant to give the impression that no great length of time elapsed before it was disturbed ; for he proceeds at once to describe b. The Origin of Evil (iii.). He explains the existence of physical suffering and death as the penalty for (i) The First Disobedience {^uv. 1-7). i. The pre- sence of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden, in view of its attractiveness, was in itself a temp- tation. This, however, was not sufficient. The force of the divine prohibition, which would naturally operate to prevent disobedience, must in some way be neutralized. This is accomplished through the intervention of the serpent. The question, Who, or what, was the serpent, has been variously answered. It has been interpreted as an allegorical figure. Thus, Reuss {A T, iii. 206 f.) makes it a personification of the instinct that impels man to emerge from the condition of childhood, while Schultz {OTTy ii. 272 ff.) holds that it symbolizes the animal prin- ciple in mankind. The objection to the first of these views is, that it neither attempts nor permits an explana- tion of the curse pronounced upon the serpent. The second is still less satisfactory ; for (/) the author of the story evidently did not distinguish between two or more species of life in man, but thought of it in its entirety as a manifestation of the spirit of Yahweh in the human form (ii. 7 ; vi. 3) ; (2) on the supposition that he made * According to the Book of Jubilees (iii. 12) it was seven years. 142 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [III. i such a distinction, the serpent could not symboUze the animal life, since, although the woman herself notes the beauty of the tree and the attractiveness of its fruit, the serpent takes no account of these things, but pre- sents the higher advantages to be obtained by partaking of it (iii. 5) ; and (j) this view renders the author's state- ment concerning the penalties inflicted confusing and unintelligible. A favorite theory is that the serpent was a mask for Satan. It is at least as old as the book of Wisdom (ii. 23 f. ; see also Rom. xvi. 20 ; Rev. xii. 9 ; XX. 2 ; but comp. 2 Cor. xi. 3). Some modern exegetes (Delitzsch) are very strenuous in their insistence upon it ; but it cannot be maintained. (/) There is nowhere in the language used any evidence that a concealed per- sonality was in the mind of the writer. {2) Granted that the serpent was a mask for another being, there would still be the best of ground for denying that this hypo- thetical being was Satan : for {a) the doctrine of Satan as an evil power opposed to the Deity is considerably later than the date of the origin of this story (comp. 2 Sam. xxiv. i and i Chr. xxi. 1) ; and {b) the introduc- tion of a positively evil being would have forestalled the very object of the story, to explain the origin of evil in the world, (j) This interpretation, also, like the allegori- cal, breaks down when applied to the penalty inflicted on the serpent ; for, either {a) the serpent alone is punished and the power of which it was the tool overlooked, or {b) Satan is condemned to a degradation which hardly har- monizes with his subsequent position as a son of God and a member of the heavenly court. See Job i. 6. If, now, the serpent is neither a figure of thought nor a mask for Satan, the presumption is that it is to be under- stood as a real animal. That this is the correct interpre- tation appears from the following considerations : (/) It III. I] COMMENTS 143 is distinctly classified among the beasts of the field, i. c, the animals (ii. 19), or, strictly speaking, the so-called wild animals (ii. 20). {2) It is described by a mark, cun- ning, that belongs, or has always been popularly supposed to belong, to actual serpents. See Mat. x. 16. (j) The object of the author required the introduction of a tempter without moral responsibility. (4) The penalty inflicted upon the serpent {v. 14) exactly fits the animal of that name and corresponds to those inflicted upon the man and the woman. To the objection that it is ridiculous to suppose the serpent ever to have had the power of speech or any other form than it now wears, it is sufficient to reply that the question now is, not what were the original form and capacities of this animal, but how the author of the story conceived of it. The early Jews had no diffi- culty with the literal interpretation. They seem to have believed that all the animals had the power of speech (Jub. iii. 24), and that the serpent went erect on two feet {Bcr. Rab.). The animal, if it was an animal, is described as most * cunning of all the beasts of the field. The epi- thet cunning does not imply moral obliquity, but denotes simply that this animal had to a larger degree than any other the kind of intelligence that is popularly attributed also to the fox. See Lu. xiii. 32. The serpent exemplifies its character by the way in which it approaches the wo- man ; coming to her, apparently, when she happens to be alone and saying, f Hath God, then, said? Note the name for the Deity. The form of address is half-exclama- tory, as if the serpent can hardly believe what it is about * The construction bDD» though comparative in form, is super- lative in signification, and should be so rendered in English. See Deu. vii. 7, etc. ; Konis:, S//S, § 309, d. t In the Massoretic text the subject of the verb "1J2S» smW, has to be supplied from the connection. A better reading is that of the Greek and Syriac versions, in which /he serpent is expressed. So Ball. 144 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [III. 1-4 to put into the mouth of God, Its version of the divine injunction is calculated to excite astonishment, being a reckless and incredible perversion of the original utter- ance. Yahweh had forbidden one tree ; the serpent pre- tends to have learned that he has forbidden all of chem. Ye shall not eat of any * tree of the garden, is its way of putting it. Comp. Murphy. "^2. The woman's reply is interesting in several respects. In the first clause she denies the serpent's statement, reproducing, with unimportant variations, ii. i6b.t 3. 'As she proceeds, she diverges from the phraseology of iL 17. The tree whose fruit is forbidden is designated, not by the name given to it in ii. 9 and 17, but, as it should be on the supposition that it was the only one there, by its location, as this % tree that is in the mid- dle of the garden. From the fruit of this tree the woman explains that she and her husband have been for- bidden to eat on pain of death ; but she enlarges upon the original injunction as reported in ii. 16 f. by the inser- tion of an additional clause. This clause can hardly be a thoughtless variation. It was doubtless intended to indi- cate the first effect upon the woman of the serpent's insinuation. It has given rise to a sense of injury, to justify which she converts what was at most an implica- tion of the original charge into an express prohibition, nor shall ye touch it lest ye die. § 4. This reference to Yahwch's threat furnished the serpent a second opportunity for the exhibition of its cun- * On the force of bD with the negative, see Ex. xx. 10; Ges. § 152, I, a. t The word b^* here all, which is wanting in the Massoretic text, is to be supplied from the Greek and Syriac versions, both of which, however, omit ^"^^^ fruit. X The Samaritan reading; the Massoretic has the. § On the form linDH' see Ges. i? 47, 3, R 4. III. 4-6] COMMENTS 145 ning. In ii. 17 Yahwch had said, In the day thou catcst from it thou sluilt surely die. The woman seems to have understood these words as meaning that death would be the direct and immediate effect of eating of the forbidden fruit. This, as the sequel shows, was a mistaken inter- pretation ; yet the serpent adopted it, thus making its reply, Ye will not * surely die, at the same time strictly correct and utterly misleading, since the natural inference would now be, that disobedience of the divine command would have no evil consequences. $. Having thus artfully disposed of the woman's fears, the serpent proceeds to inform her what are the real properties of the tree in question. At the same time it takes pains to increase the distrust of Yahweh awakened by its first utterance. The words with which it intro- duces its statement imply, not only, as v. 3 would lead one to suspect, that both the man and his wife had hitherto been ignorant of the nature of the tree, but that God had purposely kept them in ignorance of it, and from a sinister motive. God kno-weth, it says, that in the day ye eat from it your eyes will be opened. What is meant by the opening of their eyes is at once explained : Ye will be like G-od, not gods (Spurrell), knowing good and evil ; which could not but seem to the woman highly advantageous. 6. The tree, thus skilfully commended, now became very attractive. The woman saw, first, that it, or its fruit, was apparently good, fit, for food. This she seems not hitherto to have noticed ; much less that it was a delight to the eyes, looking as if it would be, not only nutritious, but delicious. F'inally, she was convinced that * On the position of the negative, see Ges. § 113, 3, R 3, where, however, the parenthetical clause should read, " where the object is the denial verbalim of the threat uttered in ii. 17." 146 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [III. 6 it was desirable, because, as the serpent had expressly, and correctly, told her, the effect of eating from it was to make one -wise, to communicate a knowledge hitherto denied. Comp. Delitzsch.* The last was the determin- ing factor. The .desire to become like God, a present advantage, overcame the fear of his displeasure, a future, and now at the most only a possible disadvantage ; and, approaching the tree, she took from its fruit and ate. Then she gave also to her husband. It is not clear that the author thought of the woman as giving the fruit to her husband with the idea of dividing the responsi- bility of transgressing the divine command (Dillmann). The serpent had, as she understood it, assured her that there was no danger, and she herself had learned by test- ing it that the fruit did not, as she had supposed it would, produce harmful physical effects. It is therefore more natural to suppose that she acted upon an impulse to share with her husband the good that she had coveted. The phrase "with her is usually understood as meaning that he was present when she finally yielded to the tempter. This, in view of the fact that he has no place or part in the scene between his wife and the serpent, can hardly be correct. If, therefore, the present te.xt is retained, these words must be interpreted as equivalent to as well, denoting that, when she found him, or he her, she gave him his share of the fruit that she had plucked,! and he ate.J This view of the matter is supported by the fact that, according to vv. 12 and 17, the woman alone is accused of tempting her husband. * If the rendering preferred by Delitzsch, lovely to behold, be adopted, one can hardly avoid the conclusion of Gunkcl, that this last phrase is a gloss to the one preceding. t The Arabic Version obtains a more intelligible reading by placing this phrase at the end of the verse. So Ball. X The Greek and Samaritan reading has the plural, they ate. III. 7] COMMENTS 147 7. The result was just what the serpent had predicted ; the eyes of both of them Tvere opened, /. e., they acquired the coveted power to distinguish for themselves between good and evil. This power at once manifested itself in the recognition of the fact that they "were naked. The consciousness of their condition produced an emotion which has usually been identified with shame in the sense of guilty confusion (Dillmann). It is doubt- ful if this was the author's meaning. His idea seems to have been that the pair were at first so preoccupied with the operation of the new faculty that they felt no condem- nation for the act by which they had acquired it. The emotion produced by the consciousness of their naked- ness, therefore, must have been the natural disturbance at being discovered naked which is perfectly consistent with innocence. It prompted them to clothe themselves, and, in obedience to this normal impulse, they served together fig-leaves and made themselves aprons. The smallness and irregularity of the leaves of X\\q fiats carica do not warrant one in supposing that the tree here meant was one of another species ; c. g., the banana (Delitzsch). The fig probably has its place in the story because the author, who thereby perhaps betrays his Palestinian origin (Dillmann), thought of it as the tree with which, through their use of its fruit for food, the man and his wife were best acquainted.* The sugges- tion of Budde {BU, 69 f.), that the use of fig-leaves for the purpose described betrays their helplessness, is less attractive. If, as has been suggested, the offending pair, at first, being preoccupied with the new faculty and its operation, * According to some Jewish authorities the tree of knowledge of good and evil was the fig. See Weber, PT, 212. 148 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [III. 8-10 forgot Yahweh and his warning, they were soon reminded of their responsibility to him and confronted with (2) The Consequences of Disobedience {vv. 8-21). 8. While, as it would seem, they were engaged in provid- ing themselves with a covering for their nakedness, they heard Yaweh, lit. the voice of Yaweh, walking, taking his pleasure ; in the garden, his garden as well as theirs ; in the cool of the day, just at evening, when one would naturally take such exercise (xxiv. 63). Here the author apparently attributes to God a ponderable form and parts, like those of human beings. When they heard him, the man and his wife hid themselves among the trees in the garden. What prompted them thus to try to elude their Creator t The usual answer is, A sense of guilt because they had disobeyed his command ; but see v. 10. 9. After a little, Yahweh, not finding them as readily as usual, called the man, as one man would call another, saying. Where art thou? The question calls not so much for information with respect to the man's where- abouts as for an explanation of his disappearance. ID. The man, hearing the voice of his Maker, at once presents himself to give the desired explanation. I be- came afraid, he says, because I -was naked. This statement is often interpreted as a mere pretext (Hol- zinger), and utilized as an illustration of the rapidity of the descent from innocence to depravity. It is very doubtful, however, if the author intended that it should be so understood. In the first place, he had too great knowledge of human nature to represent the Fall as so precipitate, and, secondly, he had too much feeling for literary effect to prefer a less, to a more, dramatic con- ception of his subject. See xxvi. 7 ff. ; xliv. iff. The story gains in interest as well as naturalness on the sup- III. 10-14] COMMENTS 149 position that the man, surprised in the midst of a new experience before he has time for reflection, is giving the jreal reason for his flight ; in other words, is registering a .second instance of the normal operation of the newly acquired faculty. The naivctt^ with which he is thus made to betray himself is, from a literary standpoint, one of the finest features of the story. 1 1. The climax is reached in the next question,* Who told thee thou wast naked ? At these words the man begins to realize what he has done, and his confusion at first renders him speechless. Indeed he does not venture to speak until forced to do so by the sterner demand, Hast thou eaten from the tree from 'which I com- manded thee not to eat ? 12. The mention of the interdict upon the tree of knowledge of good and evil recalled the threat by which it was accompanied, and filled the man with fear. When overcome by terror, men often do things unworthy of them. This first one is represented as seeking to save himself by inculpating his wife. Perhaps, also, the words attributed to him imply a disposition to make Yahweh himself partially responsible for his disobedience. They are. The woman thou placedst with me, gavest me as an associate, gave me from the tree and I ate. 13. The woman, in her turn, when called to account, seeing that her tempter had told her but half the truth, said, The serpent beguiled me and I ate. 14. The examination ended, Yahweh proceeds to pass sentence upon the offenders, beginning with the serpent. In his first utterance he declares in general terms that it shall be cursed, not only above all cattle, but above ajl the rest of the class, beasts of the field, to which, ac- * The Syriac Version supplies as subject the equivalent of Yahweh, ISO THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [III. 14, 15 cording to v. i, it properly belongs.* It is to be the least favored of animals. The implication is that it was pre- viously one of the most favored. It is to be degraded in its form and habits. The decree is, On thy belly shalt thou go. At this time, therefore, according to the au- thor, the serpent, of whose original shape there is no hint, by the divine fiat became the limbless, wriggling; creature since known by its name. Comp. Strack. Thci clause dust shalt thou eat, is merely a development of the one preceding. It does not mean that the serpent will henceforth live on dust, or dirt, but that, by its method of locomotion, it will be compelled to swallow more or less of the substance in which it moves. See Mic. vii. 17; comp. Isa. Ixv. 25. The phrase touching" the duration of the penalty, all the days of thy life, can only mean as long as the species exists. S,ee v. 15. 15. The worst of the curse is still to come. Yahweh continues : I "will also set enmity bet-ween thee and the "woman, and bet"ween thy offspring, the whole serpent family, and her offspring, the entire human race. Thus, according to the author, originated the antipathy, which he regarded as natural and universal, between men and snakes. When, therefore, he says they, mankind, shall bruise thee, he means, not the individual animal addressed, — for, if it were bruised in the head, the feud would be ended, — but its offspring. So, also, it is the offspring of the serpent that is to wound t mankind in the heel. The fact that it is the * Here, again, the word otJicr must be supplied to complete the meaning of the Hebrew author in English. t The meaning of V\Wi the word here rendered ivoutid, is dis- puted. Delitzsch insists that it can only mean bruise. Dillmann, following the Greek Version, gives it the force of PlStt7' aim at {trachti'H nach). Holzinger suspects that it, as well as r|Str> has both meanings, and that in this case it should be rendered, first by III. 15, 1 6] COMMENTS 151 head of the serpent which is to be bruised, and the heel of mankind that is to be wounded, has led many to sup- pose that the triumph of the offspring of the woman over the serpent's is here predicted (Luther). This, however, is not the case. The head of the serpent is specified because that is the part of the animal where an injury is most effective ; and the heel of the human spe- cies because that is the only part within easy reach of their adversary : but a blow on the head is no more seri- ous to the serpent than a poisonous wound in the heel to its hereditary enemy. There is thus no intimation with respect to the outcome of the feud, unless it be in the fact that the enmity between the parties is represented as a penalty inflicted upon the serpent. On the justice of this infliction it is enough to say that the Hebrews saw no cruelty in putting to death a beast that was dan- gerous to man. Sec Ex. xxi. 28 ff. 16. Turning now to the woman, Yahweh passes sen- tence upon her.* She has hitherto known only the free and agreeable play of the forces implanted in her nature. The author evidently believed that, had she bruise and then by pant for, or a similar term. See the Vulgate. Furst also supposes it to have a twofold signification, but he, re- calling the Syriac shaphyah, sting, makes the second pierce. So the Sypiac Version. The second and third of these views are un- tenable, because they do not harmonize with the apparent aim of the author to explain, not only the mutual hatred existing between men and serpents, but the positive injuries which they arc thereby prompted to inflict upon one another. Either of the other two seems defensible, that of Fiirst being most attractive. It is not impos- sible that in the second clause "IDCItiTI is a mistake for IDDtTH' from "71273' bite, sting, which would be the usual expression in such a connection. See xlix. 17. * The connective > here rendered b:it, is supplied from the Samaritan text, which is followed by the Greek Version. 152 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [III. i6 resisted the tempter, she would have remained ignorant of suffering, even in childbirth ; that, in fact, suffering was now introduced into the world as a punishment for her disobedience. This is what is meant, when Yahweh says, I will send thee labor very sore.* There follows what seems to be a gloss inserted to prevent mistake with reference to the meaning of the ambiguous word labor, which is used in a different sense in v. i8.f The addition even thy pregnancy, however, was hardly necessary, since the next clause explains that the labor % intended is that of childbirth. The curse pronounced upon the woman, like that imposed upon the serpent, is twofold, and the second part is here, as in the former case, a change of relation. She was created the equal of her husband (ii. 24), and thus far she has consistently been so represented ; but now Yahweh says, thy long- ing § shall be toward thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. The term lojiging is generally inter- * A literal rendering would be, / will greatly multiply thy labor : but this might be understood as implying that Hawwah had already had some experience in suffering, which the author would certainly not have admitted. The translation given above precludes such a misunderstanding. t On the construction of "^^nn* or, as the Samaritans read, '73V'^n' comp. Ges. § 154, n. b. Gunkel, following the Greek Ver- sion, amends the text by substituting "J3V;in> thy sighing, or "TDI^N thy pain. X For n!J17 read, with the Samaritans, "Jin^r- So Ball. § This is the reading of the Massoretic text, but instead of '7np1I27n the Greek and Syriac versions have the equivalent of '7ri3'1I27n» thy return ; and Ball, following Nestle, adopts the latter, citinfj in support of his opinion 2 Sam. xvii. 3, where, according to Driver {HTS, 248 f.), the correct reading is, as a bride returneth to her husband. Note, however, that in Cant. vii. n/io, where the versions again appear to have read "fnnVJ^n for "jnpltr'in' return in the sense of 2 Sam. xvii. 3 is anything but appropriate. 1 1 1 . 1 6, 1 7] COMMENTS 1 53 pretcd as meaning sexual desire, to which the author is supposed to have intended to represent women as pecu- liarly subject. This interpretation, however, is not en- tirely satisfactory. The word here used is found in only two other places in the Old Testament, iv. 7 and Cant, vii. ii/io. In the former of these passages, if it means anything, it must mean inclination, or something equally removed from sensuality ; and in the latter, where a man is the subject, it has the force of affection, dcvotioji. There is therefore ground for the opinion that the author, in this passage, intended to make Yahweh say that the very tenderness of the woman for her husband would en- able him to make and keep her his inferior. Whichever of these views is adopted, it should not be overlooked, that the change in the nature and destiny of the woman here described is not an effect produced by the forbidden fruit or the act of disobedience, but a penalty chosen freely by Yahweh after the offence had been committed. Comp. Delitzsch. 17. Last of all the man* receives his sentence. It is none the lighter for the excuse he offered. Because thou hast listened to the voice of thy Tvife, says Yahweh. This means, what was taken for granted in the case of the woman, that temptation, while it may explain, does not excuse transgression. It is interesting to no- tice that even here the forbidden tree is not described by its properties, but as the tree concerning "which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eet from it. The penalty is, cursed shall be the ground on thy account ; because of thy disobedience, and for its pun- ishment. The rest is explanatory. The earth, or that part of it occupied by the first pair, had hitherto produced abundantly, and seemingly without the necessity of * This is the Greek reading ; the Massorctic text has 'Adham. 154 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [III. 17-19 fatiguing effort on their part. The man, at least, is now to be required to exert himself, and that painfully, that he may obtain the means of subsistence. In his case the very ground has become an enemy, and in his case also there is to be no end to the struggle ; -with pain Shalt thou eat from it, lit. cat it, all the days of thy life. Here, as in the case of the serpent, the individual addressed represents his kind. The last phrase, there- fore, means as long as the race endures. 18. In the preceding verse the author doubtless in- tended to convey the idea that, on account of the man's transgression, Yahwehthen and there diminished the fer- tility of the earth. He now further represents the Crea- tor as decreeing that it shall henceforth be infested with thorns and thistles, the most noxious of weeds, which nut only divide the productive power of the soil with useful plants, but hinder the latter from securing their share of nourishment. Heretofore there had been no- thing of this kind. The full significance of this item appears with the further announcement that henceforth man must eat the herb of the field, the smaller plants or their fruits. According to i. 29, God, immediately upon creating man, gave him every herb yicldiiig seed that is on the face of the whole earth as well as all the treeSy for his sustenance. This author evidently believed that man originally lived from the fruits of trees, and that the use of grains, etc., for food, and the toil necessary to pro- duce them under existing conditions, were a reminder of God's displeasure with the first of the race.* 19. In V. ly the strenuousness of the toil imposed upon the man was indicated by the use of the same word for it that was used in z;. 16 for the suffering of the woman * The above interpretation, if correct, makes it improbable that, as Holzingcr suggests, iSb is a gloss. 1 1 1 . 1 9, 20] COMMENTS 1 55 in childbirth. The same thing is now pictured in its most famihar external manifestation. In the sweat of thy face, says Yahvveh, shalt thou eat bread. He adds, until thou return to the ground.* These words, be- sides repeating the idea already expressed at the close of V. 17, introduce the curse for which, as it now appears, the others were, not substitutes, but a preparation. Yahweh at last makes good his threat : dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return. The sentence is ad- dressed to the man, but it applies also to the woman. Indeed, as in the previous cases, it is a hereditary inflic- tion. As a penalty for the act by which the first pair transgressed his command, Yahweh ordains that their bodies, and the bodies of their descendants, shall finally dissolve and mingle with the earth of which they were originally a part. When the sentence is to be executed, and what is to become of the spirit thus released, — to these questions, for the present at least, the author has no answer. 20. This verse has not the slightest connection with the preceding. In fact, it interrupts the connection and introduces discord into the story. Would the author of it have represented the man f as replying to his death warrant by jauntily renaming his wife Hawwah, Life } The proper occasion for such a change was after the birth of her first child, when she might appropriately have been described as the mother of every one living. Hence the verse, if it is to have any significance, must be inserted after iv. i.J * The added words, for from it thou wast taken, have the appearance of a gloss. f The Samaritan reading is Wdham. X So Bacon {GG, 104), who refers it to J. Comp. Budde, BU, 60. It would make sense also if inserted after iii. 25 in its original form. 156 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [III. 21, 22 21. This section of the story closes with a statement that somewhat rehevcs the severity of the preceding verses, Yahweh, presumably out of pity for the help- lessness of his unhappy creatures, made for the man* and his wife tunics of skin, to take the place of the aprons that they had made, or were making, for them- selves, and clothed them. Since there is no hint of a change in climatic conditions, the object of Yahweh in providing these first clothes must have been to satisfy the demands of modesty. The mention of skins, which could only be obtained by the slaughter of animals, as the material out of which the garments were made, sug- gests several interesting questions : What was done with the flesh of the slaughtered animals } Was it eaten by the man and his wife in apparent contradiction with v. 18, or sacrificed to Yahweh ? If the latter was the case, was this the first instance of sacrifice, or had the custom ex- isted from the beginning 1 In other words what was the author's idea of the significance of sacrifice } He gives no clew to a reliable answer to any of these questions in this connection. (3) Expulsion from Paradise {vv. 22-24). This part of the story was originally told in a single verse, but in the present text the conclusion has been expanded into a separate scene, laid partly in heaven and partly on earth, by the addition of a duplicate of the original ver- sion in which the tree of life reappears. 22. Yahweh is first represented as considering with his angels the best method of dealing with his disobedient creatures. The act committed has already been reported. The scene opens with a statement of the situation, Lo, the man has become as one of us, knowing good * This is the Greek reading; the Massorctic text has \idliam. III. 22-241 COMMENTS i57 and evil. This statement leaves no room for the inter- view between Yahweh and the offenders just described. It also betrays the jealousy that the serpent, falsely, it is safe to suppose, imputed to the Creator. The rest of the verse is in a similar strain, the reason assigned for driving the man from the garden being, lest he take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. In other words, Yahweh seems more concerned to frustrate the ambition of his creature than to maintain his own authority. The last sentence is incomplete, lacking a protasis, which would read, let us drive him from the garden^ etc. 23. The continuation of v. 22 is found in v. 24. These two verses are separated by the simple statement with which, as has been intimated, the story originally con- cluded, then Yahweh sent him from the garden of •Edhen * to till the ground whence he was taken. Thus was begun the execution of the sentence which was to end in death. | 24. This verse describes the removal of the man from the garden in sterner terms than those of v. 23. It says the man was driven forth, and that, to keep him out, Yahweh stationed eastward of the garden of 'Edhen, where the entrance was located, cherubs.J The various * The phrase the garden of 'Edhen occurs elsewhere in the story only in ii. 15, which is probably editorial, the original author always (ii. 16; iii. i, 2, 3, 8 bis, 10) saying simply the garden. The descriptive term of 'Edhen is here, therefore, probably a gloss. See V. 24. \ Compare Holzinger, who pronounces at least the last half of this verse an interpolation in contradiction with vv. 17-19, although the final clause is a recapitulation of v. 19. X The Greek version has he caused him (man) to dwell eastward of the garden of 'Edhen, and set the cherubs, etc., and Ball adopts this reading; but it can hardly represent the original text. In the 158 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [III. 24 references to cherubs in the Old Testament are of two classes : (/) those in which they act as throne-bearers to Yahweh (Ps. xviii. ii/io; Eze. x. i ff.), and {2) those in which they serv^e as guardians of sacred places (Ex. xxv. 18 ff. ; I Kgs. vi. 23 ff. ; Eze. xxviii. 14 ff,). The passage now under consideration clearly belongs to the latter of these classes. It is not, however, necessary to suppose that in all cases of this sort the conception is identical. Cheyne {Enc. Bib.) supposes the cherub to have been of Hittite origin and originally to have had the fabulous form of the griffin ; but, since the narrative to which this verse belongs, especially in its later portions, betrays Assyrian influence, it is probable that the cherubs here meant were winged bulls, like those by which the en- trances to Assyrian (and Elamitic) temples and palaces were flanked, and to which the name kintbu, as well as shedii, was sometimes applied. See Eze. x. 14, where chenib takes the place of the ox oi i. 10 ; also Ball, LE^ 31 ff. ; Lenormant, BH, 117 ff. ; Schrader, KAT, 39 ff. ; Frd. Delitzsch, WLP, 1 50 ff. ; comp. Die. Bib. There was a second obstacle to the man's return in a gleaming, whirling svrord, cutting and thrusting this way and that, not in the hand of one of the cherubs, but probably between them in the very entrance to the garden.* Thus carefully did Yahweh guard the "way to the tree of life. first place, it impedes the flow of the author's thought; further, it is unlitce the author of vv. 22 and 23 to introduce such a touch of consideration for man; and finally, it is easily accounted for by supposing that either the Greek translator or a copyist before him, recalling xi. 2, first mistook the object of the only verb in the clause and then supplied a synonymous verb to govern the following ac- cusatives. * On this weapon sec the ingenious discussion of Lenormant, DH, 136 ff. III.] COMMENTS 159 The story of the Fall in its Hebrew form was clearly intended to be taken literally ; hence the interpretation adopted in the foregoing comments. It is possible that some who admit the correctness of this method of inter- preting it will continue to regard it as veritable history, but most thoughtful people will feel obliged to question or deny the correctness of the account of the origin of evil here given. Those who accept this result, however, need not reject the story as worthless, and therefore unworthy of a place in the Scriptures ; for, although it is not historically valuable, the religious ideas it inculcates, especially in view of the antiquity of their origin, are remarkable for their excellence. It teaches, naively but forcibly, the sovereignty as well as the beneficence of God, the freedom and responsibility of man, and the dependence of human happiness upon obedience to the divine will. It is these ideas that have given the story its real value in the past, and, if properly emphasized, they will make it, to those who read the Bible for edifica- tion, equally helpful in the future.* The exit of the first pair from the garden marks the beginning, according to the Hebrews, of a new period in the history of the world, a period of rapid development in two directions. The exiles had taken their first step in the arts of civilization when they undertook to provide themselves with clothing. Their immediate descendants, seeking relief from the hard conditions under which they had been condemned to live, displayed their superiority to their brute companions in other similar achievements. The development in this direction, however, as the record is now constituted, is more or less ob^^Uicd by the promi- * On an alleged Babylonian parallel to the story (.f the Fall, see Boscawcn, DM, 85 ff. ; Kyle, ENG, 39 ff. ; comp, Si irader, KA 7", 37 f. l6o THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [IV. i nence given to the growing alienation of the race from God during the same period. The first sin, although, so far as can be learned from the record, it did not disor- ganize human nature, as it has sometimes been repre- sented to have done, and although the ills by which it was punished remained as a warning against further offences, was followed by others, until the race became a race of evil-doers. This period may therefore be called the period of 2. Early Growth and Corruption (iv. i-vi. 8). The composite history of it first follows a. The Line of Kayin (iv. 1-24), the account of which is largely devoted to (i) The First Murder (^ov. i-i6). The first verse of this passage and parts of v. i6 are generally attributed to the author of the story of the Fall ; the rest of it, owing to discrepancies with the preceding and following context, is supposed to be the work of another hand.* The occasion of this first crime was (a) A Rejected Offering {vv. 1-7). i. The man began at once to pay the penalty imposed upon him. To Ha"wwah,t his "wife, was granted a brief respite ; but finally she conceived J and, in process of time, bore * The first verse supplies the genealogical table in vv. 17 ff. with a needed starting-point. See also the name Yahweh, which, the correctness of the reading being taken for granted (compare the Ocek Version), the author of vv. 25 f. as well as vi'. 3-1 6a would hardly have put into the mouth of Hawwah. For further discre- pancies compare vv. 2 and 20, 7/. 12 and iii. 17, and vv. 14 and 17. See also Budde, BU., 183 ff . ; Bacon, GG, 105; comp. Dillman /. /. t If, as has been suggested, iii. 20 belongs after iv. i, this name must have been inserted after the former verse had been removed to its present position. X Rashi and others give to this and the precedinij verb the sense of the Pluperfect, and i Sam. ix. 15 ff. and 2 Kgs. viii. i ff. make it IV. I, 2] COMMENTS i6i her first child, Kayin. Comp. v. 3. The words with which she is represented as greeting him illustrate a say- ing of Jesus. She forgot the anguish he had cost her for joy that a man had been born into the world (Jno. xvi. 21); saying exultingly, I have gained ♦ a man with Yahweh. The final phrase is not entirely clear, but it probably means by the aid of the Deity. f 2. The birth of Kayin was followed by that of a bro- ther, but probably not, as some (Reuss) infer, imme- diately ; for, had the author meant to represent the boys as twins, he would have done so in a way not to be mis- taken. The name given to the younger was Hebhel, but the present text gives no reason for so naming necessary to admit the possibility of such an interpretation ; but it is more natural to suppose the author to have intended to say that the man did not know his wife, or, at any rate, that their inter- course did not result in conception, until after their expulsion from the garden. * The verb 7V:i\) {kanah) was doubtless used, not because the author derived Kayin from it, but because the name, whose mean- ing according to some authorities is spear {Die. Bib.\ according to others smith {Enc. Bib.), in sound suggested it. In other words, it is a case of alliteration, imperfectly reproduced in English by the rendering gained. t On the force of nS» see Mic. iii. 8. It is also used to desig- nate a definite Accusative. Hence some exegetes have interpreted Yahweh as a second Accusative, thus making Hawwah say that she had gotten the Deity either as a son (Luther) or a husband (Umbreit). Both of these alternatives must be rejected ; the former because it anticipates a much later doctrine, and the latter because it is the child's, and not the husband's, name that is to be explained. A more attractive suggestion is that, as the Targum of Onkelos and the Samaritan Version would indicate, the original reading was not nS» but r\^tli from with qx from. Zeydner {ZA W, 1898, 120) prefers nS' sign, interpreted here and t/. 15 as circumcision, while Gunkel would emend niH"^ nS to niSnS' / desired. The Greek Version has through (5ta) God. Comp. Haupt m Addenda to Ball's Genesis, 118. l62 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [IV. 2-4 him.* In process of time he became a keeper of sheep ; better, perhaps, small cattle, since the word usually rendered sJiccp includes both sheep and goats. See Gen. xxvii. 9. The inference is that he was the first of his class ; but see v. 20, where the credit of intro- ducing the occupation of keeping cattle large and small is given to Yabhal, the oldest son of Lemekh. That Hebhel ate the flesh, as well as drank the milk and wore the wool, of his flock, may be taken for granted. See also V. 4. The final clause, which was probably originally attached immediately to v. i, or some form of it,t states that Kayin, following the example of his father, became a tiller of the ground. For the continuation of the original account of him, see v. i6b. 3. The date of the inserted incident is indefinite. It occurred after a time, lit. after days, when Kayin, not necessarily for the first time, brought from the produce of the ground, the fruit of his toil, an offering, tribute in kind, to Yahweh ; to whom he thus formally acknow- ledged himself indebted for the success of his husbandry. 4a. At the same time Hebhel also brought an offering. He is said to have taken for this purpose from the first- lings of his flock ; not, however, the entire carcass (Keil), but, as is explained in a gloss, their fat,^ the * The meaning of the name is disputed. A favorite opinion has been, that it is identical with the appellative hebhel, breath, vanity, and that it was given in allusion to the brevity of the owner's life ; others have connected it with the Assyrian aplu, son (Schrader, KAT, 44 ff.); but a more probable conjecture is that, Hke the Syriac habbala, it originally had the signification shepherd. See Yabhal, v, 20. t The supposition is that, before the introduction of Hebhel, the text had the unemphatic form "J'^p "^n^V See Cies. § 142, i. \ On the relation of this phrase to the preceding, see Ges. § 154, n. I, b. One reason for pronouncing it a gloss is that the suffix of IV. 4-7] COMMENTS 163 parts which, according to the Mosaic ritual (Ex. xxiii. 1 8b; Lev. iii. 3 f.), were regularly burned on the altar. The rest furnished the feast which always accompanied such an offering. 4b. Yahweh had regard to Hebhel and his offer- ing ; gave it his approval. How he did so, the author neglects to say. He probably would have said by send- ing fire to consume the offering, as in the case of Manoah's (Jud. vi. 21) or Elijah's (i Kgs. xviii. 38). Comp. St rack. 5. On the other hand, to Kayin and his offer- ing he had not regard. Here again there is left plenty of room for conjecture ; but it is not probable that the author would have explained the failure of Kayin to please his Maker as due to the character of his offering ; e. g., because it was a vegetable rather than an animal offering (Tuch), or because it was not so choice as that of his brother (Uelitzsch) ; much less because it was not properly prepared for the altar (Ball). He would be the last to attribute importance to such matters. The natural inference from v. 7 is that Kayin had manifested a bad disposition, and that the rejection of his offering was of the nature of an admonition. This inference seems to be confirmed by his conduct on the present occasion. He became very angry and do"wncast, lit. Jiis face fell. See the English cJiapfallcn. 6. Yahweh remonstrated with him. Why art thou angry ? 7. Kayin was angry because he and his offering had not been received with favor. This fact makes it neces- sary to suppose that, in the apodosis of If thou doest ^n^bn (Sam. ^rr^^bn) is plural, although under the circumstances the author of the story can hardly have thought of Hebhel as bring- ing more than one animal. On the construction of the phrase, of the firstlings^ etc., so interpreted, see Ex. vi. 25 and Job xxvii. 6. i64 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [IV. 7 well, the word expressing the result, lit. uplifting,^ is to be rendered, not cheerfulness (Dillmann), but accept- ance. See I Sam. xxv. 35. This rendering is in har- mony with the natural interpretation of the next clause, where doth not sin lie at the door f teaches that the evil-doer must answer for his deeds, and implies that no such person can expect to find favor for himself or his offerings with Yahweh. The teaching of the whole ut- terance, therefore, is, that "the sacrifices of the wicked are an abomination to Yahweh " (Prv. xv. 8 ; see also Am. V. 21 ff. ; Isa. i. 10 ff.). There follows a statement that has the appearance of a gloss suggested by a mis- taken interpretation of the word lie.X Its real force is seen in Deu. xxix. 19/20. The scribe, however, probably with Gen. xlix. 9 in mind, interpreted it as meaning lie hi wait, and, thinking it important that the reader should be reminded that niam had power to resist evil even after his expulsion from Paradise, added yet tO"ward thee shall be its, the crouching sin's, longing, and thou shalt rule, prevail, over it. The inappropriateness of the term lo7igi7ig in this connection is apparent. § t The last words are usually rendered affirmatively, sin lieth, etc., but the parallelism between the two conditional clauses requires that the interroj^ative, which, in the original, precedes the particle introducing the first, should be supplied with the second. See Ges. §152,3- § The present text has been rendered, Whether thou bringest a rich ojl'erini^ or not, etc. (Budde) ; but, although Stt73 might mean brini^ a gift, nstl^b ^'^liTf could hardly mean britig a rich gift. The Cireek Version reads, If thou bringest ri(^htly, but dost twt rightly dii'iiie, hast thou not sinned? Be still; to thee shall be his (Hebhers) return, etc.; and in spite of the evident unnaturalness of the first, and the inconsequence of the last, half of the verse thus rendered. Ball corrects the text to make it agree with this reading. IV. 7-9] COMMENTS 165 (b) TJie Offerers Resentment {vv. 8-16) finally — how soon does not appear — vented itself upon his innocent brother. 8. The present text is corrupt or defective. The verse begins, Then Kayin said to Hebhel ; but no speech of the one to the other follows. The Samaritan reading, which is followed by the versions, puts into Kayin's mouth. Let us go to the field, and the insertion of these or similar words seems justified by the context.* If Kayin's crime immediately followed his rejection by Yahweh, the object of the invitation may have been to draw Hebhel away from the altar, where the violence intended would have been sacrilege (Strack). In any case they were apart from the rest of the family when Kayin assailed, lit. arose against, \ Hebhel his brother and killed him. 9. As in the case of the first transgression, the deed is hardly committed before Yahweh appears on the scene. Kayin, however, meets the accusation implied in the question. Where % is Hebhel, thy brother ? not with an excuse, but with a falsehood. Indeed, he supple- ments the lie, I knovr not, with a gratuitous display of insolence worthy of a hardened criminal, Am I my brother's keeper ? The only change that seems required is the omission of the last letter of nSI2n» sifi^ thus transforming it from a feminine to a masculine, so that it will agree with its predicate y3"^» ^y^^^g- See the Syriac Version, in which the subjects of the last clause are transposed. * Tuch supplies // after "ittS'*1» while Bottcher emends by changing this verb to n!2t£'''1» and he watched, and bS' to, to ns» the sign of the definite Accusative; but neither of these sugges- tions has found much favor. More attractive is Ball's {Addenda) suggestion, D^S'^I' and he lay in wait. t br» with Ball, instead of the bS' to, of the Massoretic text. X For "S read, with the Samaritans, TT^S- So Ball. i66 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [IV. 10-13 10. Here, as in iii. 13, Yahweh's disapproval first takes the form of a question, What hast thou done ? then he distinctly charges Kayin with the crime that he has committed, The voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me, demanding retribution. 11. Kayin attempts no defence. Yahweh therefore at once proceeds with the sentence, Cursed shalt thou be from the ground. The meaning of the last phrase is disputed. The prominence given to the thought of banishment in the following context has led most exe- getes to interpret the preposition from as denoting sep- aration (Dillmann) ; but since, according to 12a, the ground is actually to be cursed with unfruitfulness on Kayin's account, the author must here have thought of it as the means by which he was to be punished, as well as the place from which in punishment he was to be banished. By the ground that hath opened its mouth to receive thy brother's blood is meant the compara- tively fertile region in which the crime was committed. See w. 14 and 16. 12. The twofold nature of the curse is now explained. Of the ground Yahweh says, it shall no longer* jrield thee its wealth, lit. strength (Hos. vii. 9), as if it had thus far been normally fruitful. Comp. iii. 17 f. Secondly, and partly on account of the difficulty of ob- taining a subsistence from the soil, but partly in obe- dience to the spur of conscience, he is to be a vT-anderer and a fugitive up and down in the earth. 13. The prospect that these words disclose to Kayin fills him with terror ; but, instead of confessing the enor- mity of his guilt, as he has been understood by trans- lators and commentators to have done, he merely pro- tests against the severity of the penalty imposed upon * On the Jussive r]Dn» lit. Ut it no longer, see Ges. § 109, 2, b. IV. 13-15] COMMENTS 167 him. My punishment, he says in response to the divine decree, is greater than I can bear. 14. His version of the sentence omits any mention of the diminution of the fruitfulness of the earth.* Nor does he seemingly object to banishment from the face of the ground, the cultivable and cultivated region in which he may be supposed to have been born and reared, although it implies absence from Yahweh as well as endless unrest, so much as the threatened exposure to the vengeance of his fellows. His pica is. Whosoever, the first one who, meeteth me "will kill me. The most brutal men are often the most cowardly. The question, Whom did Kayin fear } is not so difficult as has sometimes been imagined. The answer is probably to be found in the admission that the Kayin here meant was not the son of the first man, but belonged to a later generation ; in other words, that this story was not writ- ten for its present setting. 1 5. Yahweh admitted Kayin's plea and provided against the dreaded result. If any one kill Kayin, he decreed, he (Kayin) shall be avenged sevenfold. Comp. Dill- mann. He also appointed, selected and ordained, for Ka3rin, in his interest and for his protection, a sign. This sign was not a wonder to allay Kayin's fears, lest he should himself be murdered (Clarke), but a warning to those whom he feared, that "whoever met him should not kill him, i. r., to prevent any one who met him from killing him. This, according to some early authorities, was a miraculous intervention of Yahweh to terrify his assailant {Bcr. Rab. 105 f.). A more probable opinion is that it was a mark on the body, perhaps the forehead, by which he would be recognized as a man under divine * A circumstance which may indicate that 12a is not a part of the orjrnnal text. i68 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [IV. 15-17 protection. Marks of this sort are referred to Ex. xiii. 9 ; Lev. xix. 28 ; Eze. ix. 4 ff. ; also Rev. xiii. 16 f. ; etc. See Stade, ZA JV, 1894, 301 ff. 16. Thus furnished, through the divine clemency, K.Byin -went forth from the presence of Yah-weh, and the region under Yahwch's immediate protection, and dTvelt in the land of Nodh. The expression dwelt is hardly in harmony with the sentence pronounced upon Kayin, to the effect that he should be a fugitive in the earth. Hence the statement of which it is a part probably belonged originally, not to the preceding story, but with vv. 17 ff. This leaves the meaning of the name NodJi unexplained, the author by w^hom it was preserved saying of the region thus designated only that it was eastward of Eden, on the eastern border of that in which, according to ii. 8, the garden was situated. Comp. Boscawen, BM, 92 f. The story of the first murder interrupted that of (2) The Earliest Civilization i^uv, 17-24). The lat- ter is now resumed. 17. Kayin, who, according to v. 2, became a tiller of the soil, finally took a "wife. Where he got her, the author seems not to have thought it neces- sary to explain. It is probably to be taken for granted here and throughout this genealogy, that the record is either necessarily or intentionally incomplete. Kayin's wife bore Hanokh.* The author proceeds to say that * The name occurs several times in the Old Testament; once as that of a son of Midian (Gen. xxv. 4). It is therefore hardly safe to say that its oris^inal signification was Instruction or Dedication. Cheyne {EB\ art. Cainites, following^ Sayce (//Z, 185), identifies it with Unug {Abode), the Akkadian form of Uruk{\\^h. ^Orekh), the name of a city associated with the Babylonian as well as the bil)li- cal Nimrodh, the date of whose origin belon!::;s to the earliest period in the history of Mesopotamian civilization. See Die. Bib. art. Erech; Frd. Dclitzsch, WLP, 221 ff. IV. 17, 1 8] COMMENTS 169 he, I lanokh, was the builder of a city ; /. c, the first to ci\Lcagc in such an enterprise ; and that he called it after his own * name Hanokh. The difficulty in understand- ing the statement that a son of Kayin was the founder of a city is relieved by recalling that the Hebrew city was not necessarily a large enclosure (xix. 20), and that origi- nally there was no connection between this passage and the story of the fratricide. 18. The next four names in the genealogy are mere links connecting the head of the line with later and more important descendants. To Hanokh was born 'Iradh,t who begot Mehiyya'eljJ who in turn begot Methu- sha'el,§ the father of Lemekh. || * The Massoretic text has 133 Ctt?D, after his son's name^ re- quiring that Kayin be made the subject of both verbs. This, how- ever, is awkward and unlike the author of the passage. It is there- fore probable that the original text had Win, he {was), instead of, or "^ISn, Hanokh, after "^rr^l and was, and that, when this reading was wittingly or unwittingly changed, the word p, son, was inserted to give the whole the desired or supposed import. See Budde, BC/, i2off. ; comp. Dillmann. t The derivation of this name is in dispute. If related to T1"!r» wild ass, it would naturally denote swiftness or shyness. Holz- inger suggests a connection with ni?, 'Aradh, a city of southern Judah (Jud. i. 16). If, however, Hanokh represents Uruk, it is certainly possible that, as Sayce {HL, 185 f.) also maintains, 'Iradh is only another form of Eridu, the name of another Babylonian city as ancient as it was famous. Comp. Cheyne, EB, art. Cainites. X The name of the son of 'Iradh appears in two slightly different forms, bw* inn and bs^"^nD, in this connection. Of the two Budde {BU, 125 ff.) seems to have shown that the latter, the pronunciation § This name is capable of two interpretations. If tr> j-//nS TT^T^ Sin, he was the father of, in this case also. The Greek Version, which has KoX ^v instead of kohv, points in the same direction. The word V2^^y smith, is probably a marginal gloss to tCin, whose present position is explained by the fact that it is also a synonym of 'J'^r?, or, at any rate, of the Aramaic ''D'^p. The objection by Budde {BU, 139), that trtob is too rare a word for a gloss, loses its force when one recalls that, although it is less frequent than K^in in the same sense in Hebrew, the latter is not used in this sense in Aramaic, the language of the later Hebrews, while the former is common to the two dialects. As for the name Tubhal, it also seems to be a variation upon Yabhal, but, if it is, its precise form may have been determined by that of the name of a tribe, the Tibarenians, southeast of the Black Sea (x. 2), who supplied Tyre with implements in copper or bronze (Eze. xxvii. 13). t In Jos. XV. 41, this name, which mQ^ns, pleasant, is given to a place in southern Judah. See also No'omi and A'a'aman. This is evidently another case of the same sort as those of 'Adhah and .Sillah. See Bacthgcn, BSR, 150. IV. 23] COMMENTS 173 siipplcnicntcd their lack of knowledge respecting her, sec Lcnorm:int, BlI, 204 ff. 23. There follows a song put into the mouth of Le- mekh. The close connection between it and the account of the origin of metallurgy naturally gave rise to the supposition that it was intended to commemorate the discovery by Tubhal of the art of manufacturing weapons from the metal in which he wrought (Herder). If, how- ever, it were a sword-song, Lemekh should have been the inventor of the sword as well as the author of the song.* When interpreted, as it must be, by itself, it will be found to voice the fierce passions and the crude notions of justice that the lex talioiiis (Ex. xxi. 12 ff. ; Deu, xix, I ff. ; Num. XXXV. 9 ff.) was intended to regulate. In form it consists of three distichs, each of which illustrates the most striking feature of Hebrew poetry, parallelism. In the first, tho object of which is t© secure the atten- tion of those addressed, 'Adhah and SiUah is repeated in wives of Lemekhf, and hear % my voice in give ear to my speech. The members of a so-called synony- mous parallelism, however, are not always perfectly equiv- alent. Hence it is not necessary to suppose that the victim of Lcmekh's vengeance is the same person in both cases. His boast is that he slays a man, either the one who has injured him or a relative, if he is wounded, and a boy belonging to the family of the offender for a * Budde {BU, 139 ff.) contends that this was the original sense of the passage, and emends the text to make it correspond to his theory ; omitting 22b, and, for V^ ti^tib X"\)^ Kayin a smith all, substituting "Jtib '^rT'l, afid Lemekh was, or, if 22b must be re- tained, inserting 't\ Itsb "^rf^l after it. t Compare Holzinger, who attaches the former phrase to the superscription, so that the song is made to begin. Hear my voice^ etc. } On the form y^XLW see Ges. § 46, 2, R 3. 174 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [IV. 23,24 Tvale, a less serious injury. In both* cases the harm he inflicts far exceeds that which he himself has suf- fered. 24. The ratio, death for a blow, Lemckh finally puts into a numerical form. If, he says, Kayin, the first of the race to bear a personal name, was avenged, or avenged himself,! sevenfold, then shall Lemekh be seventy and seven times, as fully as possible. J See Mat. xviii. 22. The above is the natural interpretation of vv. 17-24 apart from their context. When, however, they are viewed as a part of the larger whole to which they be- long, they cease to be merely a picture of the social and industrial activities of the earliest ages, and, so re- pulsive is Lemekh's frank brutality, according to the author to whom they owe their present position, mark a stage in the progress of the race in violence and wick- edness. The modern reader, who realizes the twofold significance of the passage, will find in its history an illustration of the rapidity with which the Hebrews under the tuition of the prophets developed in the direction of morality. For other cases of the same kind, see vi. i ff. and ix. 20 ff . Having thus followed the line of Kayin until it be- * On the rendering given to the verb, see Ges. § 107, 2, c. On the meaning of *Tb"*» sometimes improperly translated young inafi, see 2 Kgs. ii. 23 f. t The reflexive idea would properly be expressed by np"! rather than cp'»' Hence Budde {BU, 134) emends the text by substitut- ing the former for the latter. X The reference to Kayin at first sight seems to argue that the chapter thus far is a unit ; but the Kayin of this song, though no match for Lemekh in the lattcr's estimation, is a heroic figure, and therefore the concejjtion of another than the author of the story of the fratricide. IV. 25] COMMENTS 175 came alienated from God, the sacred historian returns to his starting - point with the first pair, and thence traces b. The Line of Sheth (iv. 25-v. 32). He seems to have had at his hand two complete accounts of Sheth and his descendants. One of these, for obvious reasons, he preserved entire. The one best suited to his purpose, however, entirely ignored both Kayin and Hebhel. To forestall the natural effect of this omission, he inserted (i) A Genealogical Fragment (iv. 25 f.), which is supposed to be the beginning of the (to him) less valua- ble genealogy.* For other remnants of it, see chapter v. 25. After the murder of Hebhel the man f knew his wife,J again. Her third son she § called Sheth, * This second genealoo^y, which had the same number of names as the first, in its original form is attributed to J^; the modifica- tions that appear in the fragment here preserved, to the editor by whom the story of the fratricide was inserted (Cornill, EA T, 43 f. ; Oxford Hex. ii. 7). On the source of the original there are two principal theories. The more prevalent is that it was constructed from the Kayinite genealogy by the insertion of the names of Sheth and'Enosh(Budde, BCI, 175 ff.). Stade {ZA IV, 1894, 276 ff.), however, contends that these two names originally belonged to the Kayinite genealogy, and that therefore the latter, in the form in which it has been preserved, was produced by their removal. See also Steuernagel, D/, 269; comp. Lenormant, B//, iS^fi. t This is the reading that seems to be required by the analogy of ii. 15 and iii. 22 and 24, passages closely related to this verse. The Massoretic text has 'Adharn. See Budde, BU^ 135, 162 f. X Her name appears in the Greek and the Syriac Version ; also the clause, and she conceived. The Greek Version further inserts saying before Hawwah's speech; but this is perhaps only a free rendering for the "^2, for, of the original, which is not otherwise translated. For Tir, again, on the other hand, it presents no equivalent. § For S~ipm, and she called, the Samaritans read S'^jTI, and he called. 176 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [!V. 25, 26 explaining the name by saying, God, not Yahweh (see V. 26), hath set ^ me other offspring instead of He- bhel. lliese words make the clause, since Kayin hath killed him, by the same or a later hand, an unnecessary amplification. Comp. Delitzsch. 26. The complete genealogy might have been intro- duced without further preliminaries. A second section from the parallel account, however, is added, probably for the purpose of preserving the interesting statement with which it closes, to the effect that 'Enosh.f the son of Sheth, was the first % to call on the name of Yah- weh. Elsewhere (xii. 8; xiii. 4; xxi. 33 ; xxvi. 25; Ex. xxxiv. 5) to call by the name of Yahweh means to wor- ship him. This, however, can hardly be its meaning in the present passage. Its actual significance may be inferred from the fact that, in the preceding verse, pains is taken to avoid the use of the name Yahweh. In other words, it means that, according to the author here repre- sented, this divine name was first used in the time of 'Enosh. Comp. Dillmann. For other views on the sub- ject, see Ex. iii. 14 f. and vi. 2 f.§ * Hebrew ntT, shath, a word-play like that in v. i. See also V. 29. The real significance of the name is unknown. f Like ''Adham originally an appellative for 7Ha?i, but mostly poetical. See Ps. viii. 5. X The Massoretic text has bmn TS, then was beo^nn, but the analogy of x. 8 requires \>r\T\ Sin, he bei^an. See also the Greek and Samaritan readings, which, though themselves faulty, indicate what must have been the original phraseology. § The only passage that can be cited against the interpretation here given is 7/. i, where the name Yahweh is put into the mouth of Hawwah ; but, if it is from J^, Yahweh is perfectly in place in it, and if it is from the same author as these last verses, the read- ing should undoubtedly be God^ as in the Greek Version. Steuer- nagel's theory {DJ, 269), that vv. 25 f. originally preceded v. I, furnishes a third alternative. V. 1-3] COMMENTS 177 (2) The Complete Genealogy (v.), for which the frag- ment just discussed was intended to prepare the way, was doubtless preferred because, although it was not so inter- esting to the casual reader, it furnished the materials for a chronology of the earliest period of the world's history. 1. In the document from which it was taken it consti- tuted a separate book with a title of its own, This is the Book of the Generations of Adham. This title be- trays the author of the table, and the statement that, when God created men, he made them in the like- ness of God, confirms the first impression, viz., that the passage came from the same source as the first account of creation, the so-called Priestly narrative. See ii. 4 ; i. 26 f. 2. For the phrase male and female, see i. 27. The statement that God blessed them refers to i. 28 f., and that concerning the name given to them, Man, to i. 26. 3. The common term, in Hebrew 'AdJia^n, which originally included both man and woman, is now first applied as a proper name to the first man. When he had lived a hundred and thirty years, he begot a child.* It is plain enough from these words that the author of the genealogy intended to represent this child as 'Ad- ham's firstborn. His meaning is rendered unmistakable by the addition of in his own likeness and after his 0"wn image, an explanation which would naturally ac- company a description of the first birth, but which would be superfluous in any subsequent case. This, however, is not the entire significance of the expression. The image of 'Adham can only mean likeness to the God-like nature with which he was endowed at his creation (i. 27). The author therefore ignores, not only Kayin and Hebhel, * On the omission of the object, which Ball supplies, see Ges. § 117, I, R 5- 1 78 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [V. 4, 5 but the story of the Fall and its consequences. In other words, as has already been intimated, this fifth chapter is the continuation of ii. 3. 4. The interval between the creation of 'Adham and the birth of his first child is a long one, but it is not out of proportion to the rest of his life, for he lived* after begetting his firstborn no fewer than eight hundred years. 5. The notice of 'Adham closes with the total of the years of his life. It makes so vast a period that many ardent defenders of the Scriptures have felt forced to interpret the terms used as having other than their nat- ural and obvious meanings. Thus, e. g., it has been pro- posed to reckon the year here and elsewhere in this chapter as a period of less than twelve months. f This method, however, creates as serious difficulties as it re- moves : for (/), unless unwarrantable violence is done to the text, some of the patriarchs are thus made to beget children before they reach the age for paternity ; and {2) the period from 'Adham to Noah, too short when the fig- ures are given their largest value, is thus abbreviated to such an extent as to be absolutely insignificant. Finally, any such method of interpretation is forbidden by the fact * The Massoretic text has C"TS "^^"^ Vn''\ And the days of 'Ad- ham were; but the analogy of vv. 7, 10, etc., requires CTN TT^"), And 'Adham livedo and this is the reading of the Arabic, and some copies of the Syriac, Version. t The following schemes are cited merely as curiosities : Hens. Icr {BPG, 280 ff.) claims that a year means three months from Adam to Abraham, eiglit from Isaac to Joseph, and not until after the time of Joseph twelve. Rask's scheme {ZHT, 1836, 19!?.) is still more complicated, giving to the year the value of one month from Adam to Noah, two from Shem to Serug, four from Nahor to Terah, six from Abraham to Amram, and twelve in and after the time of Moses. V. 5] COMMENTS 179 that, in his account of the Flood, the author of the gene- alogy clearly teaches that the year of this early period consisted of twelve months. See especially viii. 5 ff. There is equally little to be said for the theory that the list of names is incomplete, and that therefore the num- bers given do not measure the lives of individuals but of groups of persons (Delitzsch) ; or that the names repre- sent tribes or dynasties of the antediluvian period (Craw- ford). The construction of the table is such as to show that it still has as many names as it ever contained,* and that each of these names was intended to designate an individual.! It must therefore be admitted that the au- thor intended to say, and does say, that there were ten generations, neither more nor fewer, from 'Adham to Noah, and that each of the persons representing them actually lived the given number of years. The first lived nine hundred and thirty years. His longevity, sur- prising in itself, becomes additionally troublesome if one attempt to harmonize it with the sentence pronounced upon him on his expulsion from Paradise (iii. 19). The fact that, as has already been noted, this author ignores the Fall relieves the latter difficulty, at the same time exposing the incorrectness of interpreting then he died here and elsewhere in this chapter as "a standing de- monstration of the effect of disobedience " (Murphy). It is not death, but an untimely death, that is here regarded as penal. 6. The age at which Sheth begot his firstborn was * Note the closeness of the articulation ; also its conformity to the table in chapter xi., where, 'Abhram included, there are also just ten names. t The theory that the names represent tribes, etc, betrays its inadequacy as soon as one asks what is meant by the division into two components of the number of years assigned to each of them, and what by the sons and daughters who in each case follow the firstborn. i8o THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [V. 6-9 a hundred and five years, or twenty-five years earlier than his father begot him. Nor does this fact stand alone. In the next three cases the age at which the first son is begotten becomes earlier and earlier, and originally the first nine cases formed a nearly unbroken diminishing series.* See below. 8. The same is true of the totals, although in the present text the series is three times interrupted by an increase. See below. Thus, all the days of Sheth "were only nine hundred and t"welve years. 9. The name Kenan recalls Kayin, but the similarity between them would hardly have attracted attention if there were no other or clearer parallels between this genealogy and that of the fourth chapter. The fact is that all the names of the latter reappear here, two besides 'Adham in the same, the rest in more or less modified forms. The following table shows to what extent they agree or differ either in form or order : Chapter IV. Chapter V. Kayin Kenan Hanokh^-^^.^^^ ^^^Mahalal'el 'iradh ^^^X^^ Yeredh Mehiyya'el^^'"^ ^"^Hanokh Methusha'el Methushelah Lemekh Lemekh The similarity between the two lists is best explained by supposing that one of them is based on the other. The prevalent opinion, therefore, is that the names of the second, since they belong to a comparatively late work, so far as they differ in form or order, are more or less arbitrary variations upon those of the first.* Comp. * The chanf]^es may have been made by the author of this chap- ter (P), or he may have found them already made in the genealogy, antedating his own, of which iv. 25 f. (J^) was the beginning. V. 9- 1 9] COMMENTS 1 8 1 Delitzsch ; also Lcnormant, HB, 185 f. This being the case, it is more probable that Kenan contains a subtle reference to iv. 17 than that it connects the son of 'Enosh with a Sabean divinity (llolzinger).* 12. In the Kayinite genealogy the next name in order was that of Hanokh (iv. 17). In this it is Mahalal'el. Thus, on the supposition that it is a variation upon Mehiyya'el, the son takes the place of the father of 'Iradh (Yeredh). By this change the fifth name (Praise-of-God) is made to suggest that the first half of the antediluvian period was characterized by godliness, while that of Hanokh, as will appear, in the seventh place furnishes the exception to a contrary rule for the last half of the period, t 15. The firstborn of Mahalal'el was Yeredh, whose name, lit. Dcsccjity\ indicates that he, the first in the sec- ond half of the list, marked a turning-point, the beginning of decadence in the history of mankind. 18. In the present text the evidence of the name is unsupported. When, however, as it still does in the Samaritan reading, the record said that Yeredh begot his eldest son at the age of sixty-two, instead of a hun- dred and sixty-two years, and a computation based on these and corresponding figures showed that he, as well as Methushelah and Lemekh, perished in the Flood, there could be no doubt that the author of the table meant to represent him as a sinner. Comp. Dillmann. 19. The remnant of Yeredh's years, according to the present text, was eight hundred, for which the Samari- tans read seven hundred and eighty-five. * The idea is that the author may have had yi^) {kana?i\ whence ]P {kejt), ticst^ in mind. Comp. Bottchcr, § 474, 7. t For a detailed discussion of the significance of the names and numbers of this table, see Budde, BU^ 93 ff. X From l~l^, go down. i82 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [V. 20-24 20. The result of the adoption of the Samaritan read- ing is the reduction of the length of Yeredh's life from nine hundred and sixty-tTVO to eight hundred and forty-seven years. In other words, instead of being longer, it becomes considerably shorter, than that of any of his progenitors, being cut short, as above intimated, by the Flood. These figures embody the author's idea of the consequences of the decadence of which Yeredh is the first representative. 21. Hanokh begot his eldest at the normal age of sixty-five. 22. His subsequent life was brief, but, lest the reader should infer from this fact that he was particularly wicked, it is distinctly stated in this connection that he walked ■with God,* lived in constant harmony with the divine will (vi. 9), those three hundred, and probably the pre- ceding years. 23. The number three hundred and sixty-five, re- presenting the length of Hanokh's life, has its signifi- cance, but in this connection it can hardly have been interpreted as betraying a connection between the patri- arch and a solar divinity (Lenormant, BH, 253 ff.). It is probable that the author, both by giving him the sev- enth place (Jude 14) and assigning him the same number of years as there are days in the year, desired to indicate that, brief as was his life, it was still in a sense complete. See viii. 14, according to which the Flood lasted three hundred and sixty-five days.f 24. Hanokh was the first to finish his earthly life, but * The unnaturalness as well as the ambiguity of this expression seems to warrant the belief that in this first instance it has been substituted for the regular formula lived. See Budde, BU, 170 ff. t For >n''\ the singular, at the beginning of the verse read with the Samaritans Vn**"), the plural. See also 2/. 31. V. 24-26] COMMENTS 183 he did not die. While he walked with God he "was not, having suddenly disappeared from the midst of his fellows. His disappearance is explained by the brief statement that God had taken him ; the idea being that, as a reward for his uncommon piety, the patriarch was graciously delivered from the corruption of his time and translated, as Elijah was afterward (2 Kgs. ii. 11), to the immediate society of the Deity. See i. 26 ; comp. Delitzsch. The location of the divine abode is not given, but, wherever it was, it is evident that the author thought of it, not as a good that all men had hopelessly lost, but as one that some at least might by their virtues gain. Comp. iii. 24. For the details with which the Jewish imagination has enriched this scanty record, see the Book of Enoch.* 25. The age of Methushelah when his first son was begotten, according to the received text, exceeded, not only the normal limit, but even that at which his grand- father first obtained issue. He had lived to be a hun- dred and eighty-seven years old. Here, again, the size of the figures creates suspicion with reference to their genuineness, and in this case, as in that of Yeredh, it is necessary to substitute for them the Samaritan, sixty-seven. 26. In this case, as in that of Yeredh, the second component must be diminished as well as the first ; for, although the received text says that the patriarch lived after begetting his firstborn seven hundred and eighty- t'wo years, the Samaritan reading is six hundred and fifty-three. * The story of Hanokh has a parallel in Babjlonian mythology. In the epic of Uruk, however, the person who, with his wife, is made " like the gods " and translated " far away to the mouth of the streams," is Ut-napishtim, the hero of the Deluge. See KB, vi. I, 244 ff.; Jastrow, RBA, 505 f. i84 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [V. 27, 28 27. Thus the total of his years was not nine hundred and sixty-nine, but seven hundred and twenty. The latter number harmonizes better than the former with the death of the patriarch by the Flood.* 28. The prepaternal component of Yeredh's life was found to be longer than it should be by a hundred years, that of Methushelah by a hundred and twenty years. That of Lemekh in the received text is a hundred and eighty-t"wo years, or a hundred and twenty-nine more than it is in the Samaritan Pentateuch. The antedilu- vian period as a whole is thus increased from a thousand three hundred and seven to a thousand six hundred and fifty-six years. Why it should have been lengthened at all, and why by just three hundred and forty-nine years, there is no means of knowing, but the most plausible explanation is that (/) the lives of Yeredh, Methushelah, and Lemekh were lengthened, after the incorporation of the Shethite with the Kayinite genealogy, for the pur- pose of making the latter teach, not, as originally, the gradual deterioration of the race, but the godliness of the Shethites as compared with the Kayinites ; f and {2) that the amount of the increment was determined by the next important date, that of the death of Noah, who, according to ix. 28, lived after the Flood three hundred and fifty, or perhaps, according to the reviser, three hun- dred and forty-nine years.J In distributing the added * If the original thought was to represent Methushelah as having perished by violence at the comparatively early age of seven hun- dred and twenty, it is probable that his name, lit. Mau-of-the-jave- lin, was intended to suggest the violence for which the latter part of the antediluvian period is said to have been distinguished (vi. 11). t See Budde, Z?6^, 103 ff. X Another suggestion is, that the number added was chosen be- cause it made the sum of the years from creation to the Exodus two thousand six hundred and sixty-six, or two thirds of four thou- V. 29] COMMENTS 185 years the author of the new doctrine naturally gave few- est to the first, and most to the last of the patriarchs affected by the change. 29. The name of Lemckh's son was not mentioned in the preceding verse. This variation in phraseology re- calls iv. 25, and prepares the reader for the parenthetical explanation similar to the one in that passage, and prob- ably by the same author, that follows. The father called his child Noah, saying He "will ease * us. This is a prophetic utterance. It must, therefore, refer to some feature of Noah's character or some event in his subse- quent history. Now in the story of the Flood there occurs a passage (viii. 21) in which Yahweh is repre- sented as so pleased with the sacrifice offered by Noah, when delivered, that he resolves not again to curse the ground on men's account. The words recall iii. 17, and, although this is not the view usually taken, they may be interpreted as having reference to a curse like that pro- nounced upon the ground as a part of the penalty for 'Adham's disobedience. It is probable that the author of this passage so understood them, and took the two words, properly rendered not again, in the possible sense sand, the number representing the expected duration of the world. See Noldeke, UK AT, in ff . ; Enc. Bib. Art. C/ironology, 4; com p. Budde, Bi/, 106. * The verb is CTO IV, the first two consonants of which are the same as those of Noah. Ball substitutes for it r\Z because (/) it more closely resembles the name in question, and {2) it is the word that seems to be required by the avoTrauw of the Greek Ver- sion. But (/) it is plain from iv. i that in such cases strict corre- spondence between the terms is not to be expected ; and {2) it will appear on examination that the verb sufrgested by Ball does not convey the thought that the author evidently wished to express. The actual derivation and significance of the name are unknown. For various theories with reference to it, see Dillmann. i86 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [V. 29-32 of no longer, thus getting the idea that Noah by his piety procured the removal of the curse. He therefore makes Lemekh look for relief through his first-born from the •work and the toil occasioned by the stubbornness of the ground, which Yahweh * hath cursed. Compare Holzinger, who finds in the words of Lemekh a predic- tion of the discovery of wine by Noah (ix. 20 ff.). 30. The remnant of Lemekh's years, according to the Samaritans, was six hundred, but the received text says five hundred and ninety-five. 31. The reason for the deduction is apparent. The six hundredth year was that of the Flood, in which, therefore, according to the original reading, after a com- paratively short life of six hundred and fifty-three years, he perished. If the number six hundred had been re- tained, he would still have died in the year of the Flood, at the age of only seven hundred and eighty-two, and the inference would have been the same as in the former case, that he was a sinner. The subtraction of five years made his total seven hundred and seventy-seven, a number, suggested perhaps by iv. 24, which, like three hundred and sixty-five, though not large, would be con- sidered symbolic of completion. See also Mat. xviii. 22. 32. The genealogy ends with a notice of the birth of the three sons of Noah, not, of course, all at once, after he had reached the age of five hundred years. The ex- planation of the length of this interval is not far to seek. In the first place it was necessary to allow the godly patriarchs time to finish their lives. When Noah was born, Mahalal'el, whose total falls a little short of nine hundred, had five hundred and eighty-three years to live. Hence the postponement of the Flood until Noah's six hundredth year. If, however, his family had multiplied ♦ The Greek Version adds God. V. Z2] COMMENTS 187 at the rate at which the race was increasing when he was born, to save him, and for his sake all his house, it would have been necessary to make provision for no fewer than ten generations. On the other hand, if the increase of his family had been entirely suspended, there would have been no adequate provision for repeopling the earth after the Flood. Both difficulties were avoided by fixing the dates when he begot his sons after his five hundredth year. The names of these sons were Shem, Ham, and Yepheth.* * Thus far only two rescensions of this genealogy have been mentioned, the Hebrew and the Samaritan ; the latter, according to which it was a thousand three hundred and seven years from Creation to the Deluge, being preferred to the former. There is another, that of the Greek Version, which deserves notice. It dif- fers from that of the received text chiefly in that its numbers repre- senting the dates at which the patriarchs begot their first sons, if not already raised, are increased by a hundred, the same being deducted from the numbers representing the length of their subse- quent lives. In the cases of Lemekh and Methushelah both num- bers seem to have been further manipulated, the one increased, the other diminished. The following table exhibits the three systems, the Samaritan being taken as the norm and the numbers in which the others differ from it being printed in heavy type, that the number and extent of the variations may be readily seen and appreciated. Firstborn Remainder Total Death-date SHGSHGSHG SH G 'Adham 130 130 230 800 800 700 930 930 930 930 930 930 Sheth 105 105 205 807 807 707 912 912 912 1042 1042 1142 'Enosh 90 90 190 815 815 715 905 905 905 1140 1140 1340 Kenan 70 70 170 840 840 740 910 910 910 1235 1235 1535 Mahalal'el 65 65 165 830 830 730 895 895 S95 1290 1290 i6go Yeredh 62 162 162 785 800 800 847962962 1307 1422 1922 Hanokh 65 65 165 300 300 200 365 365 365 8S7 987 1487 Methushelah 67 187 167 653 782 802 720 969 969 1307 1656 2256 Lemekh 53 182 188 600595565 653777753 1307 1651 2207 Noah 500500 500 450450450 950950950 165720062592 This second revision is plausibly explained by a desire on the 1 88 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [V. There are those who still find reasons for believing that the names of this genealogy represent real persons, and that each of these persons actually lived the number of years he is reported to have lived. See Murphy ; Daw- son, EL IV, 84. These theses, however, cannot be main- tained, the following considerations being conclusive to the contrary : (/) It is the general opinion of physiolo- gists, that the human body is not adapted to bear the strain of more than, at most, two hundred years. See Thoms, HL. 14 ff. (2) There is reliable evidence that, at the close of the period covered by this genealogy, and in the region where the patriarchs are supposed to have flourished, the average length of human life was not much, if any, greater than in modern times,* and there is no equally good reason for believing that there were any ex- ceptions so remarkable as these cases would have been, if they had existed, (j) It is incredible that the age of pa- part of the Alexandrian Jews, not only to restore the symmetry of the table, but to bring the chronology based on it more nearly into harmony with an increased estimate of the antiquity of man. See Budde, BL^, 112. At any rate, the result is the extension of the antediluvian period from a thousand six hundred and fifty-six to two thousand two hundred and forty-two years. The discovery that, as appears from the table, by this scheme Methushelah lived fourteen years beyond the Flood led to its correction in the Hebrew text. * This may be inferred from the length of the reigns of a suc- cession of kings as recorded on a Babylonian tablet discovered in 1880. There are eleven of them, the first of whom must have reigned, at the latest, before the death of Noah (1998 B. c, accord- ing to the received chronology), and perhaps before the biblical date of the Flood (2348 k. c). The sum of their reigns was only three hundred and five years, the average being less than twenty- eight. See Hommel, AHT, 1 18 ff. The last eleven kings that ruled France before the Revolution reigned together two hundred and ninety-five, or an average of nearly twenty-seven years. v.] COMMENTS 189 tcrnity in the direct line should never have fallen below sixty-two (Ileb. sixty-five), and that in the case of Noah the first son should not have been born until the father was five hundred years old. (^) Finally, granting that the figures of the Greek Version are correct, their sum, two thousand two hundred and forty-two, falls far short of expressing the duration of the first period in the history of mankind. See Le Conte, EG, 61S ff. These considerations show that, from the strictly his- torical standpoint, the chapter is of little value. In reality it is a more or less artificial scheme, probably sug- gested by the list of mythological kings who reigned be- fore the Babylonian Deluge,* by which, in the absence of actual data, the author undertook to connect his doc- trine concerning the origin of the world with the more historical parts of his narrative. It is not, however, a mere genealogy, but, as has also been shown, suggests, and was designed to suggest, ideas that made it of value to those for whom it was written. Indeed, in its original form it contained instruction on all the principal religious ques- tions covered by the two preceding chapters. It taught the unity of the race. Its doctrine respecting the origin of sin differed, it is true, from that of the third chapter, but it laid just as great emphasis on the danger of defy- * There were ten of them also. These are their names, with the number of years each reigned, according to Berosus : Aloros 36,000 Daonos 36,000 Alaparos 10,800 Euedoreschos 64,800 Amelon 46,800 Amempsinos 36,000 Ammenon 43.200 Otiartes 28,800 Megalaros 64,800 Xisuthros 64,800 The total of their reigns, therefore, and the duration of the antedi- luvian period, was 432,000 years. See Cory, AF, 51 ff. On the ratio between this number and that representing the same period according to the Massoretic text, see Enc. Bib., art. Chronology, 4. I90 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [VI. i ing or neglecting the will of the Creator. Did not three of its patriarchs perish by the Deluge ? At the same time it taught, by its treatment of Hanokh and Noah, the possibility of resisting evil and securing the constant favor and protection of the Almighty. These doctrines have been somewhat obscured in the course of the his- tory of the chapter ; but it still retains a religious signifi- cance, and for this reason deserves the place it occupies in the Hebrew Scriptures. The fifth chapter brought the story of the development of mankind down to the birth of Shem and his brothers about a hundred years before the Flood. The continu- ation of that account is found in vi. 9 ff. These two pas- sages from the Priestly narrative are separated by a frag- ment from another source, like the story of Kayin and Hebhel and the song of Lemekh calculated to prepare the mind of the reader for the terrible visitation by which the race was finally all but annihilated. It treats of c. The Apostate Sons of God (vi. 1-8). I. The date of the episode here narrated is not defi- nitely fixed by the original author. Comp. v, 4. It hap- pened "when men, the race and not any part of it, as, e.g.y the descendants of Kayin as distinguished from those of Sheth,* had begun to multiply, be numerous, on the face of the ground. Comp. Murphy. At this time daughters, as well as sons, had been born to them. Hitherto the author of this story seems not to have men- tioned the birth of a woman.f Comp. v. 4, etc. * If, as may be the case, since this passage seems to be from the same hand as iv. 17 ff., the descendants of Kayin were originally intended, the author thought of them as constituting the entire human family. t This favors the view that the last clause of iv. 22, in which VI. 2] COMMENTS 191 2. These women, so the author says, attracted the attention of the sons of G-od. The persons here meant are undoubtedly angels ; but the idea that so exalted beings should have paired with human females, especially in view of Jesus' declaration as reported in Mat. xxii. 30, has offended many interpreters, and they have preferred other interpretations. Thus, some have held that the sons of God were sons of the mighty of the time (Rashi) ; others that they were the righteous, or the Shethites (Murphy) : but the evidence is all in favor of the opinion first mentioned. {/) The phrase " sons of God " in the Old Testament invariably means the attendants of the heavenly court, to whom i. 26 and iii. 22 are supposed to refer. See Job i. 6 ; ii. i ; xxxviii. 7 ; Ps. xxix. i ; Ixxxix. 6. {2) The belief in the possibility, and the occurrence, of intermarriages between divine and human beings was once almost universal. The classical instances are fa- miliar. For a Shemitic parallel, see Ishtar's proposal to Gilgamesh (Schrader, KB, vi. i. 1 66 ff. ; Jastrow, RBA, 481 ff.). ( J) The New Testament expressly identifies the sons of God with angels. See 2 Pet. ii. 4ff. ; Jude 6. {4) This inteqoretation is further supported by such an- cient authorities as the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubi- lees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Philo, Josephus, and most of the early Christian Fathers.* Compare, however, the Book of Adam and Eve, iii. 4, It was angels, then, who saw that the daughters of men -were fair, and, being smitten by the external qual- ities that appeal to the senses, took to themselves as •wives whomsoever they chose, without leave asked or Na'amah is mentioned, is an addition to the original text. See Budde, ^\\\va?iVvx\). See also Berry, /6'Z, xvi. 47 ff. t If, as Budde {BU, 44) claims, this verse originally immediately preceded iii. 23, the term men must then have denoted individuals ; but since a decree again limiting the life of the individual would have been as superfluous there as here, there is little probability that the passage ever formed a part of the third chapter. X This on the supposition that the correct reading is 22tZ72' lit. in that also (Ginsburg). The more common reading is C2ti'2» which is rendered in their (the angels') error (Dillmann). Ball {Addenda) explains it as originating in dittography of the follow- VI. 3] COMMENTS 193 ably means that men are of a lower order than the sons of God, and that therefore an intermixture of the two is unnatural and intolerable. The last clause fixes a defi- nite limit beyond which it will not be permitted : their days shall be a hundred and t"wenty years. If the interpretation just given to the first half of the verse is correct, such a declaration can only mean that the figures here used measure the further existence of the race. This view is not generally accepted, but it is supported by weighty considerations : (/) It is the one required by the immediate context. The author of this verse would not have considered the abbreviation of human life an expedient calculated to undo the mischief wrought by the sons of God. (2) Since, as already intimated, the story, in its present form and setting, was evidently intended to explain and justify the Deluge, the penalty threatened must be the destruction of mankind by that catastrophe. The most plausible objection is that, between the birth of Shem in Noah's five hundredth and the Flood in his six hundredth year there is not room for the given in- terval (Tuch) ; but this is invalidated by the fact that, as has already been explained, vi. 1-8 is not a continuation of chapter v., and therefore must not be expected to har- monize with it.* The early authorities, Jewish and Chris- tian, then, were correct in regarding this third verse as a ing "!tt?3- The principal objection to the first interpretation is that tZ; for "m^S is late Hebrew, or Aramaic, and therefore not in place in the Pentateuch (Dillmann); but (/)the lateness of W is not un- disputed (iMoore on Jud. v. 7), and (.?) if it is late, so in all proba- bility is this verse. Comp. Budde. * A similar mistake is made when, in arguing against the view that the number a hundred and twenty is the measure of the indi- vidual human life, the cases of Abraham, Sarah, etc., are cited ; since the data on which the objection is based all come from the Priestly narrative. Conip. Uelitzsch. 194 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [VI. 3-5 prediction of the Flood and its terrible consequences. Comp. Dillmann. The respite was naturally explained as an evidence of the longsuffering of God (i Pet. iii. 20) and an opportunity for Noah to preach righteousness to the ungodly (2 Pet. ii. 5). 4. The author of v. 3 evidently condemned the course of the sons of God as wicked and calamitous. In the statement that now follows there is no trace of con- demnation. Like the account of Lemekh's departure from monogamy (iv. 19 ff.) and that of Noah's discovery of wine (ix. 20 ff.), it is a passionless record of an inter- esting tradition. It says that the giants * were, per- haps arose, in those days. These words in themselves would not connect the giants with the sons of God as their offspring, but the clause when the sons of God came to the daughters of men has no significance unless it establishes such a relation.! These giants were the heroes, men of might and prowess, who, by their achievements, of old had become the men of renown. In other words they corresponded to the demigods of classical mythology. 5. Toward the end of the appointed interval Yahweh sa"w that the w^ickedness of men, stimulated by the lawlessness of the sons of God, was great in the earth, that, indeed, every design of the thoughts of their hearts, as expressed in their conduct, was only and always evil. In such a case specifications become su- perfluous. * The derivation of the word so rendered, C^bo is uncert.iin, but the meaning is clear from Num. xiii. 33, where, however, the sons of-Anakfroni the i^ianfs is a j]^loss. See the Greek Version. t The phrase and also afterward might be explained as refer- ring to the interval between the date of the first intermarriages and that of tlie Flood (Dchtzsch), but it is more probably an inlcrpola- liun suggested by Num. xiii. 33 (Buddc). VI. 6-S] COMMENTS 195 6. The effect upon Yahweh is described in pictur- esque anthropomorphisms from which the unsophisti- cated reader cannot fail to get a vivid impression of the extent of the corruption that prevailed. First, he was sorry that he had made men at all, and his grief over their waywardness went to his heart. 7. This feeling finally gave way to anger, and he de- clared, I will wipe men off the face of the ground.* 8. But one was found worthy of being excepted from this stern decision. Noah, for a reason that will appear hereafter (vii. i), found favor in the eyes of Yahw^eh. The story of the " sons of God" in its natural and necessary interpretation has been a stumbling-block to many devout readers of the Scriptures. One who has studied the preceding chapters in the light of recent ori- ental discoveries, however, and noted the traces of foreign, especially Babylonian, influence therein contained, will not be greatly surprised at finding here a decidedly myth- ological coloring. Nor will it disturb his reverence for the Old Testament as a whole, or his appreciation of this particular passage ; for he will have noted that, although the reality of the gods and demigods of the gentiles is here taken for granted, they are presented in such a light as to prevent the thoughtful Hebrew from placing them on an equality with the Holy One of Israel, and he will contemplate with growing admiration the moral insight * It is men with whom Yahweh is angr)'. They alone, there- fore, should be threatened with destruction. In the present text, however, animals of all sorts share in the divine displeasure. The discrepancy has been produced by the insertion of a list of specifi- cations, proper enough after such an expression as all flesh but not after men, to bring this verse more nearly into accord with vii. i\ and other like passages from a different source (P). The clause whom I have created, also, is an interpolation. 196 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [VI. 9, 10 that enabled the author so clearly to perceive the rotten- ness of the foundation of the ethnic religions. The central figure in the rest of this and the next three chapters is the patriarch Noah. The whole may there- fore appropriately be discussed under the title 3. Noah and his Times (vi. 9-ix. 29), the proper equivalent for the generations of Noah in this connection. The greater part of the narrative is devoted to a com- posite account of a. The Deluge (vi. 9-ix. 17) ; which naturally falls into three sections, the first dealing with (i) The Preparations of Noah (vi. 9-vii. 5). It is composed of two parts, each of which recounts the steps taken by the patriarch under the divine direction to save himself and his family from destruction by the Flood. (a) TJlc First Account (vi. 9-22), derived from the Priestly narrative, seems to have been incorporated into the text entire. 9. It begins with a statement with reference to the character of Noah, declaring that he was a just,* a per- fect man, and therefore conspicuous among his fellows, lit. /;/ Jiis gcticrations. Like Hanokh (v. 22) he also walked with God, 10. The author does not say that his three sons, whose birth was recorded in v. 32, were as remarkable for their piety as their father, but he probably thought of them as having profited by the patriarch's example. Comp. ix. i8ff. (J). * The Samaritans connect p** "!!!,/;/>$•/, which liall is inclined to pronounce a gloss borrowed from vii. i, with Z."''tlT\^ perfdi, Ity a > and. V 1 . 1 1 - 1 4] COMMENTS 1 97 11. Not so the rest of mankind; for the earth, here put for its inhabitants, in spite of his piety became cor- rupt, morally ruined. The prevalent corruption showed itself in violence, disregard of the rights of one's fel- lows, the prevailing sin of godless ages and communities. 12. The corruption described was not confined to man- kind. The lower animals learned to hunt and devour one another. Comp. Strack. Thus all flesh had finally per- verted its way, changed the course of nature and tem- porarily defeated the benevolent purpose of the Creator. 13. God was not slow to discover a remedy. He says to Noah, The end, the destruction (Am. viii. i), of all flesh hath come before me. He has set it before him- self as an object to be accomplished. Comp. Am. ix. 4, etc. He purposes to destroy them, the individuals re- sponsible for the state of things described, and* the earth; or, as the sequel shows, destroy them and devas- tate the earth, f 14. Thus far there has been no intimation with refer- ence to the means by which mankind are to be destroyed. It now appears that it is to be done by water, for God in- structs Noah to build an ark, /". c, as in Ex. ii. 3, a box that will float on the water. J It is to be made of a wood * With the Greek Version, the orip^inal of which seems to have had nsi instead of the nS> with, of the present Hebrew text. The Syriac has b^' on. t It is interesting to note that the word nntr» here used in the sense of destroy, is the same that appeared above in \\\7s.\.Qi corrupt 2Lnd pervert. If a paronomasia was intended, a similar effect could be produced in EngHsh by wsmg pervert throughout for the offence and subvert for the penalty. X The fact that Noah is represented as escaping by a box, and not, like the hero of the Babylonian deluge, in a ship or houseboat, has been supposed to indicate that the Hebrew story originated in- land ; but it is quite as probable that the author by the term here 198 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [VI. 14, 15 whose identity is in dispute ; probably cypress, which was anciently very common in western Asia, and was much used by the Egyptians for coffins and by the Phoe- nicians in shipbuilding. See Tristram, A^//^, 356. Comp. Cheyne, ZA IV, 1898, 163 f. The ark is to be constructed in cells,* doubtless for the accommodation of the various species of animals and their subsistence ; and the seams stopped by smearing it outside and in with bitumen, the mineral pitch which is found in large quantities in both Palestine (xiv. 10) and Mesopotamia (xi. 3). 15. Noah also receives instructions with reference to the size of the ark. The length prescribed is three hundred cubits. The Hebrews seem to have had cubits of two different lengths, the one a handbreadth longer than the other (Eze. xl. 5). If the cubit here meant was the longer of the two, and, as there are reasons for sup- posing, approximately identical with the " royal cubit " of the Babylonians, it measured about 495 millimetres or 19.49 inches. See Benziger, HA, art. E//c ; comp. Riehm. The length of the ark would thus be 148.5 metres or 487.2 feet. Its breadth, fifty cubits, in mod- em terms would be 24.75 metres or 81.2 feet, and its height, thirty cubits, 14.85 metres or 48.72 feet.f used meant to intimate that in the time of the patriarch ships were unknown. * Lagarde suggests the insertion of a second C^3p» which, how- ever, would only emphasize the idea expressed by the present text. The Babylonian Noah divided his ship into sixty-three compart- ments. See Schrader, /CB, vi. i. 232 ff. ; Appendix, 11. 62 ff. t The largest modern steamships (600-700 ft.) are much Ioniser than the ark, but, since they are not nearly so wide or deep, they have not an equal capacity (1,927,394.38 cu. ft.). The "Great Eastern," however, surpassed it in all three dimensions, being 6S0 feet long, 82.5 feet wide, and 58 feet deep. On the dimensions of the Babylonian ark, see Johns in 77/^ Expositor for April, 1901. VI. i6, 17] CO.\fMF,NTS 199 iT). IVovision for light and air is to be made by fin- ishing it — not a window (Dillmann), but the ark — within a cubit of the top, thus leaving an opening a cubit wide around the entire vessel under the roof.* The only door in the structure is to be placed in the side of the ark. Finally the interic^r is to be divided horizon- tilly by floors making a lower, a second, and a third story, each of them, if equal in height, being about six- teen feet high.f 17. Having finished this description of the ark, God announces in so many words that he will bring the Flood4 so called in anticipation of the prominence to be given to it by mankind, upon the earth, or that part of it not already covered with water. His purpose is the destruction, § with the exception hereafter to be made, of all land life. That there may be no doubt about his meaning, he defines the phrase all flesh by in which is a living spirit, and then employs, to emphasize the whole thought, the familiar Hebrew device, repetition: * This is the natural interpretation of the present text. It also seems to suit the context. There is therefore no necessity for importing from the Arabic a meaning (roof) for 'yrVli or recasting n^brn n!2S"VS' to a cubit thou shalt finish //, into HD'^S'bs* n^D^n to its U-nj^th thou shalt cover it. Comp, Ball. f The entire floor-space would thus be 118,681.92 square feet. The question whether a vessel answering to the dimensions here given would accommodate the cargo for which it was designed, is of importance only to those who feel obliged to insist that the story of the Flood is in all its details authentic history. The ship of Bahylonian legend had seven stories. See Schrader, KB, vi. i, 232 f. ; Appendix, 1. 62. X The word C*!:' water, of the present text appears to be a gloss on the perhaps unfamiliar term b'li:!2' Flood. § For the nntt^b of the received text the Samaritans read iHTIil-b or riTlti'nb' On the latter form, see Ges. § 53, 3, K 7 ; on the construction, § 1 14, 2, R 4. zoo THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [VI. 17-20 all that is in the earth, he says, shall perish. This, of course, implies a universal deluge. 18. The decree consigning to destruction the corrupt mass of mankind is immediately followed by a token of God's satisfaction with the patriarch : I "will establish, enter into, my, i. e., a, covenant "with thee. This cov- enant, however, though made with Noah alone, is to affect the fortunes of his entire family ; for the com- mand (and promise) reads, thou shalt go into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy "wife, and the "wives of thy sons "with thee.* 19. Nor is this all. For his sake God proposes to provide for the perpetuation of all the beasts,! i^ this case all the varied species of the animal world. To this end the patriarch is instructed to bring into the ark a male and a female of each kind. 20. Three classes of animals are enumerated, the birds, the cattle, and % all, the multitude of, the creeping things. The author seems to have felt that the term used in the preceding verse made it unnecessary to make express mention of "the beasts of the earth." In V. 19 Noah is commanded to brijig the animals into the ark ; here God says they shall come to him, as if, scenting danger, and, as is still their habit, seeking * The idea of Valeton {ZAW, 1892, 7), that the covenant here proposed is the same as that of chapter ix., is clearly mis- taken. This is made with Noah as a pledge of his escape from the impending deluge ; that, with him and his descendants after the Flood, as security against the recurrence of such a calamity. See ix. 9 ff. t rr^nri' with the Samaritans, instead of the ^nr\i living; thim^^ of the received text. See viii. 17; comp. iii. 20; viii. 21. X This is the Greek, the Syriac, and the Samaritan reading ; the received text omits the connective. \' 1 . 20- V 1 1 . 2 ] COMMENTS 20 1 human protection, they would take refuge with him, to be kept alive.* 21. Nt)ah, tor his part, has to provide for their suste- nance, as well as his own, by collecting an indefinite quantity of every food that is eaten. 22. The patriarch, being " a perfect man," exact in his obedience to the divine will, did just as God had commanded him. (b) TJic Second Account (vii. 1-5), which is of Yah- wistic origin, is but a fragment. The part that dealt \vith the ark and its construction, with which it doubtless once began, and by which it was connected with vi. 8, has been omitted, probably because it would have been a mere repetition of vi. 14-16. 1. In its present form it assumes that the ark has already been completed. It begins as if the command in vi. 18 had not already been given and the persons affected by it enumerated. Yahweh — mark the name for the Deity — says to Noah, Come thou, and all thy house, into the ark. There is no reference to a cove- nant made or proposed, but the reason given by Yahweh for his command, thee have I found righteous before me in this generation, amounts to the recognition of an obligation to reward the patriarch for his exceptional piety. 2. Thus far, therefore, there is practical agreement between the two accounts. The instructions now given with reference to the animals differ from those of the first account : first, in making a distinction among them ; and second, in adding to the number to be taken from one of the classes thus distinguished. Thus, a part of * The emphasis on the subject in v. 20 favors this interpreta- tion. 202 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [VII. 2, 3 the animals are characterized as clean, i. c, as appears from viii. 20, suital)le for sacrifices to the Deity as well as for food for mankind, viz., sheep, goats, etc. This distinction — which is not surprising in the present con- nection, the teaching of the Yahwist being that the use of animals for the purposes mentioned was an imme- morial custom (iii. 21; iv. 4) — would have been out of place in the other account, since, according to the Priestly narrator, animals were not slain for either purpose until after the Flood (i. 29 ; ix. 3). Of these clean animals Noah is directed to take by sevens. The meaning of this phrase is disputed. The more natural interpreta- tion makes it mean, not seven pairs (Dillmann), but seven individuals of each species, or three pairs of a male and his mate,* to secure a comparatively rapid restoration of these useful species, and an odd male for the sacrifice by which the patriarch is to celebrate his deliverance (viii. 20). This view is favored by the fact that, in the latter half of the verse, by tvros f evidently means a single pair of each species. 3. The phraseology of the received text might be interpreted to mean that all the species of birds are to be represented in the ark by sevens ; but viii. 20 makes it evident that this was not the author's idea, and there is good authority for believing that the original reading was, of the clean birds of heaven by sevens, and of all the birds that are not clean by twos. J The dis- * Compare a male and a fetnale, the expression used by P in vi. 19. t The present text has C^Dti>, two, but the Samaritan reading is C^:*i? r:'^3C' and it is supported by the Greek and Syriac versions. X The reading clean birds is supported by the Greek, Syriac, and Samaritan texts: but, if this is genuine, the Greek Version is doubt- less correct in adding the parallel clause prescribing the number of unclean birds to be admitted to the ark. VII. 3-5] COMMENTS 203 tinction between clean and unclean it was as important to notice in connection with the birds as with the cattle ; but it was not necessary to repeat the requirement that Noah should select alternately a male and a female. It is therefore probable that this phrase, which, more- over, is in the later style of the Priestly narrator (vi. 19), is an interpolation.* The expression the whole earth shows that the Yahwist also thought of the deluge as universal. 4. Yahweh gives his servant seven days in which to bestow the animals and the food necessary for their sus- tenance in the ark. At the end of that time, he says, he intends to cause a rain, in itself not a remarkable phe- nomenon, by which, owing to its duration, forty days and forty nights, he will wipe all his creatures off the face of the earth. The idea of the author evidently is that, at the end of that time, the work of destruction having been completed, the deluge will cease. See v.ij \ viii. 6 ; comp. v. 24 ; viii. 3 f. 5. This verse is only a less formal duplicate of vi. 21. When all things were finally in readiness, God sent the deluge, as he had threatened. Much of the rest of the story is devoted to (2) The Water of the Flood (vii. 6-viii. 14) : the havoc wrought by it and the experiences of Noah while it covered the earth. Here, too, the narrative is composite, but the extracts of which it is composed are too brief to be treated as separate paragraphs. The only further division that seems warranted is based on the phenomena of the rise and subsidence of the water. From this point of view there are two sections, the first of which describes * In the Samaritan Pentateuch this idiom has been substituted in V. 2 for that preserved in the Massoretic text. 204 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [VII. 6-9 (a) A Destructive Prevaleiicc (vii. 6-24). 6. It opens with a statement of the age of Noah, six hundred years, when the Mood occurred. This statement clearly be- longs to the chronological scheme, original with the Priestly narrator, which ran through the preceding chap- ters and furnishes a framework for the present story. 7. This general statement was originally followed by the precise date of the beginning of the deluge in v. 11. In the present composite narrative the connection be- tween the two is interrupted, first, by a notice of the embarkation of Noah and his family anticipating a more detailed account of the same incident in vv. 12-16. The words. And Noah -went into the ark on account of, through fear of, the water of the Flood, are attributed to the Yahwist ; the rest is probably editorial elaboration. Com p. V. I. 8. The description of the embarkation of the animals, also, being intended to harmonize vv. 2 f. with vi. 19, is of editorial origin. It recognizes the distinction between the clean and the unclean, but, following v. 3, omits to apply it to the birds as well as the cattle.* 9. It is not probable that the author of the last verse would follow vv. 2 f. so closely as he has thus far and contradict that passage before he finished the sentence. Hence one must conclude that in this verse by twos refers, not to the number of each species of animal that went into the ark, but to the number that went abreast in the procession. Perhaps — and the addition of a male and a female seems to favor this view — the auth(jr also interpreted by sevens in v. 3 as meaning • For bsi' aud all, the Samaritans read b3tt*l» ajid of all, and the latter, bein^ the more natural and having the support of the Greek and Syriac versions, is doubtless the correct reading, \ V 1 1 . 9- 1 1 ] COMMENTS 205 seven pairs. The last clause, with Jahweh,* naturally attaches itself to v. 7.! 10. At the end of the seven days granted Noah for his final preparations {v. 4), when he had taken refuge in the ark {v. 7), the "water of the Flood -was, began to be, on the earth ; the threatened rain set in. 11. The Priestly author now resumes his precise and detailed description of the embarkation. See ik 6. The month, the second, and even the day, the seventeenth,^ on which the Flood began are carefully noted. The Hebrew year originally began in the fall ; and, since the author elsewhere (Ex. xii. 2) distinctly attributes the change in the method of reckoning to Moses, he would naturally reckon from Tishri in the period preceding the advent of the lawgiver. Comp. Gunkel. The second month would thus be Bui (i Kgs. vi. 38), later Marhesh- wan, beginning about the middle of October; so that the seventeenth of the month would come about the first of November, when the rainy season in Palestine and the neighboring countries usually sets in.§ On that day all the sluices of the great deep, the openings by * This is the Samaritan reading and it is supported by tlie Tar- gum and the Vulgate. t Some manuscripts of the Greek Version have the equivalent of the pronoun hitn instead of the name Noah, and, when the clause was attached to v. 7, the former may have been the Hebrew reading. • X According to the Greek Version it was the tu/c. Bib., art. Ararat. t The Greek translators seem to have understood until the toith month as meaning until the end of it ; hence they chan without, implies a preced- ing S!!'*1 is not supported by usage, the example he cites (xxxix. 12) IX. 22-25] COMMENTS 229 implies that the three sons of Noah were all young ; which they cannot have been according to the author of cither of the accounts of the Flood. This difficulty could be avoided by inserting the incident here narrated before the Flood ; but then it would be impossible to ex- plain the preservation of such a person as Kena'an. These considerations make it necessary to conclude that the work to which this story "belonged did not contain an account of the Flood. 23. The two older brothers, with a filial reverence worthy of all praise, took a cloak, one of the ample outer garments often used by orientals as a covering at night (Ex. xxii. 25/26 f.), and covered their father, their faces meanwhile being modestly turned back- ward. 24. The close connection between this and the follow- ing verses requires that his youngest son should be interpreted as referring to Kena'an. Comp. Dillmann. 25. This being admitted, there is not the least diffi- culty in understanding the otherwise unjustifiable male- diction, Cursed be Kena'an, which Noah uttered when he learned what had happened. He cursed Kena'an, not because Kena'an was the youngest, and therefore pre- sumably the dearest, son of Ham (Delitzsch), but because Kena'an himself was the offender. His fate is to be the lowest of servants, lit. the servant of servants * to his brethren ; via.^ as the following verses show, the other sons of Noah, Shem and Yepheth. The reference to the subjugation of the Promised Land is unmistakable. Kena'an must, therefore, be interpreted, not in the broader sense of x. 15 ff., but like Kena'anite in xxiv. 3, not presenting a parallel case. On the other hand, see Cant, viii. r. * On this idiom, see Cant. i. i ; Ges. § 133, 3, R 2. 230 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [IX. 26, 27 etc., as including merely the primitive inhabitants of Palestine.* 26. Having cursed Kena'an, the patriarch takes occa- sion to pronounce a corresponding blessing upon each of his other sons, beginning with the elder. Blessed of Yahweh, he says, be Shem.f The use of the divine name dearest to the Hebrews in this connection indicates that Shem is here only another name for Israel, and this idea is confirmed when one considers the relation that he is henceforth to sustain to Kena'an. He is to be a mas- ter and Kena'an is to be a servant to him4 This was the precise relation between the Hebrews and the original occupants of the most of Palestine after the Conquest. See Jos. xvii. 13 ; Jud. i. 28, 30, 33 ; etc. 27. The second son receives the benediction, May God, not Yahweh the Holy one of Israel, enlarge Yepheth.§ The significance of these words is disputed. It has usually been taken for granted that the Yepheth * The etymology of the name "J^r^' K'na^an, is doubtful. See Enc. Bib., art. Canaa?i. Whatever its derivation, the author of this story doubtless connected it with V3D' be humble, and saw in it, as in Cwi7' Shem {Renown), a presage of the destiny of the people who bore it. f The received text \\7is Blessed be Yahweh the God of Shem; but this leaves Shem without a blessing and makes Kena'an the servant of Yahweh. These difficulties are removed by adopting Budde's suggestion {BU, 294 ff.), that '^nbW' God of, be omitted and Yahweh made the genitive, instead of the predicate, after blessed. See xxvi. 29. X On "rab» see Isa. xliv. 15 ; Ges. § 103, 2, n. § The verb r\^\ yapht, furnishes an excellent example of paro- nomasia, which, however, cannot be rendered into English without taking undue liberty with the thought of the author. It is gener- ally regarded as at the same time an etymology of Yepheth. Budde {BU, 358 ff,), however, derives the name from HDN be beautiful^ citing nbl» etc., as similar formations. IX. 27] COMMENTS 231 here meant is the Yepheth of x. 2, and, on the basis of this assumption, believed that the prayer of the patriarch was answered in the participation of some of the peoples which, according to x. 2 ff., sprang from Yepheth, in the power and glory of the ancient Shemitic empires (Dill- mann), or the admission of the entire family through the Gospel to the spiritual benefits of the Kingdom of God (Delitzsch). If, however, as has been shown, there is no connection between this passage and either source of chapter x., and the names Shcm and Kena'an must both be interpreted in a narrower sense here than there, it is fair to conclude that the Yepheth who is to dwell in the tents of Shem,* while Kena'an is to be a servant to him also, represents a people in or near Palestine. Well- hausen (67/, 14 f.) thinks it can only be the Philistines ; but, as Budde {BU, 331 ff.) has shown, the Hebrews always regarded the Philistines as aliens, and the rela- tions between the two peoples were from the first almost continuously unfriendly. See Jud. xiv. 3 f . ; i Sam. ix. 16; xviii. 25 ; 2 Sam. v. 17 ff. ; Isa. ix. 12; etc. Thus there was never a time when the expansion of Philistia could have been regarded as a thing to be desired by a loyal Hebrew. Compare the case of the Phoeni- cians. They, like the Hebrews, spoke " the language of Kena'an." The two peoples, although in some places they overlapped (Jud. i. 31 f.), seem never to have had any serious misunderstanding. When the monarchy was established, the relations between them became of the most cordial and profitable character (2 Sam. v. 1 1 ; I Kgs. V. I ff.) ; and the friendship continued for cen- turies, being sealed by royal intermarriages (i Kgs. xi. i ; * The view, dictated by Jewish prejudice, that the subject of yZi'W^ is God, is now generally abandoned. See, however, Briggs, Ml\ 82 f. 232 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [IX. 27 xvi. 31 ; 2 Kgs. viii. 18). Meanwhile the Phoenicians, having, like the Hebrews, conquered from earlier pos- sessors the territory that they occupied, must have held the native population in a more or less humiliating bond- ao-e. In i Kgs. ix. 11, Solomon is said to have trans- ferred twenty cities of Galilee to the king of Tyre. Add to these considerations that the Phoenicians were the only neighbors whose expansion would not injure the Hebrews, and the conclusion seems irresistible, that they were the people for whom the blessing here recorded was intended.* The teaching of this story, therefore, from the genealogical standpoint, is that Noah was the father, not of the new race that peopled the earth after the Flood, but of the three related peoples whose history is the history of Palestine.! The deeper lessons are that like produces like in the moral as in the physical * Budde {BU, 361 ff.) draws a further argument for the above view from the fitness of Yepheth, in the sense he gives to it, to represent the country and people whose capital was Tyre, a city famed for its beauty. See Eze. xxvii. 3 f. ; etc. He also (343 ff.) answers objections, the chief of which is based on the apparent use of the term Kena'anite as a distinctive designation of the Phoeni- cians, especially in Num. xiii. 29; xiv. 25; Jos. v. i ; xiii. 4; Jud. iii. 3; 2 Sam. xxiv. 7; Isa. xxiii. 11 ; Oba. 20. In none of these passages is Kena'an or Kena'anite the proper and peculiar name of Fhcenicia or the Phoenicians, but of the country — sometimes, it is true, inclusive of Phoenicia — west of the Jordan or its inhabi- tants. When the Phoenicians are to be distinguished from the rest, they are called Sidonians. See Deu. iii. 9; Jos. xiii. 4, 6; Jud. iii. 3; X. II f. ; xviii. 7; i Kgs. v. 20/6; xi. i, 5, 33; xvi. 31 ; 2 Kgs. xxiii. 13. See further McCurdy, HPM, i. 159 f. t In T/. 28 ff. Noah is made the son of Lemekh ; but this can hardly have been the idea of the original Yahwist. Perhaps, as lUiddc {BU, 405 ff.) suggests, in parts of his work omitted by the compiler he may have connected the patriarch with the Lemekh of iv. 18 ff. through Yabhal the first shepherd. IX. 28, 29] COMMENTS 233 realm, and that God rewards the good and punishes the evil for their doings. 28. The paragraph in its present form closes with a statement concerning the length of the life of the hero of the Flood from the Priestly narrative. He lived after the Flood, which began in his six hundredth year (vii. II) and lasted nearly two months beyond the end of it (viii. 13), three hundred and fifty years. 29. Thus the patriarch attained the enormous age of nine hundred and fifty years, an age, according to the received text, exceeded only by Yeredh (962) and Me- thushelah (969) ; but, according to the more reliable read- ing of the Samaritans, equaled by none of his predeces- The incident just discussed serves a twofold purpose, furnishing an impressive conclusion to the history of Noah and arousing an interest in that of his sons. The narrative next gives an account of the distribution of their descendants, in other words of 4. The Origin of the Peoples (x.-xi.). The larger part of these two chapters is devoted to a general survey of a. The Race and its Divisions (x. 1-xi. 9). On this subject there seem to have been two different views. The first was that the various peoples, each with its peculiar features, language, customs, etc., had their origin in (i) A Gradual Dispersion (x.) along genealogical lines. This view was shared by the Priestly narrator with the second Yahwist, both of whom prepared tables show- * For "^rr^l (sing.) read, with the Samaritans, Vn"^T (plur.). 234 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [X. i, 2 ing the relation of the peoples within their horizon to one another. From these tables the one preserved in this chapter was compiled. 1. It begins with a title, Now these are the genera- tions, etc., from the Priestly narrative. The beginning of the Yahwistic table, as has already been explained, is found in Lx. 18 f., where it serves as an introduction to Noah's prophecy. Perhaps the last half of this verse, and there were born to them sons after the Flood, is from the same source. The Priestly narrator does not elsewhere attach statements of the sort here found to his titles. See v. i ; vi. 9 ; etc. : comp. Dillmann. The sons of Noah are taken in the reverse order, and the peoples that sprang from each of them enumerated. First, therefore, come (a) TJlc Families of Yepheth {vv. 2-5). 2. His first- born was Gomer, who represents the Kimmerians (Ass. Gi^nirri), an Aryan tribe who once had their home in southern Russia, giving name, as is supposed (Meyer), GAy i. § 452), to the Crimea. They first appeared in Asia early in the seventh century b. c, but whether they came by way of Thrace across the Bosphorus (Meyer), or through the mountains east of the Black Sea (Sayce), is disputed. The fact that they came into contact with the Assyrians some years before their attack upon the king- dom of Lydia seems to favor the latter opinion.* They were finally driven back eastward ; where they lost them- selves among the Aryan hordes by whom the Assyrian empire was overthrown ; but not until they had become so • Esarhaddon (Schrader, KB, ii. 128 f.) claims to have defeated them, apparently in the region of Cilicia. When they assailed Lydia, he had been succeeded by Asshurbanipal (Schrader, A'/?, ii. 172 ff.). See Meyer, GA, i. §§ 453 ff. ; Rogers, HBA, ii. 239 f., 256 f. ; Ragozin, Assyria, 337, 378 f. X. 2] COMMENTS 235 closely associated with Cappadocia that the ancient Arme- nians, at least, called it Gamir. See Meyer, GA, i. § 486 ; Die. Bib. art. Gomcr. In Eze. xxxviii. Gomer furnishes a contingent for the final invasion of Palestine. But, since Gogh, the leader in this disastrous expedition, is evidently a reminiscence of the Scythian invasion (Meyer, GA, i. §§ 463 f. ; Ragozin, Assyria^ 423 ff.), it is probable that Maghogh, the second son of Yepheth, represents the Scythians, or, as the Persians called them, the Saka, who left their name in a region at the foot of the Cau- casus, the Sacasene of the ancient geographers.* The Assyrians and Babylonians seem to have included them with the Kimmerians under the general term Ma7idaj nomads. See Schrader, KB, ii. 128 f . ; iii. 2, 98 f. The same term sometimes included the Medes, who were properly called Mada, the equivalent of the name here given to the third son of Yepheth, Madhay. The As- syrians first came into contact with them toward the end of the ninth century b. c, when they occupied the region about the southern end of the Caspian Sea. See Schrader, KB, i. 142 f., 190 f. ; Rogers, HBA, ii. Sy. They were then without a general government. In process of time they became a united nation, powerful * The name Gogh is by some (Meyer) identified with that of the Lydian king Gyges (Ass. Gugu), but, in view of the facts in the case, there is more reason for supposing it the equivalent of Gagu^ which occurs in an inscription of Asshurbanipal as the name of the king of Sahi, a country to the north of Assyria. See Frd. De- litzsch, WLP, 246 f. ; Ragozin, Assyria, 422. The name Maghogh occurs also Eze. xxxviii. 2 and xxxix. 6; but in the latter passage, as appears from the Greek Version (B), it is a mistake for Gogh, and in the former, according to Meyer {GA, i. § 464, n.), an interpo- lation. Holzinger sue^gests that here, also, the original reading may have been Goi^h, and that the error was occasioned by the proxim- ity of Madhay. 236 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [X. 2 enough, first to throw off the Assyrian yoke, and then, with the aid of the Babylonians, to overthrow the empire. See Meyer, GA, i. §§ 481 f. ; Ragozin, Assyria, 419 if. ; comp. Rogers, HBA, ii. 287 ff. It should also be re- membered in this connection, that, after the conquest of Media by Cyrus, the Hebrews, like the Greeks, often called all the subjects of the empire Medes. See Isa. xiii. 17; Jer. li. 11 ; etc. Yawan (Ass. Yama7iu), prop- erly the lonians of the southwestern coast of Asia Minor and the islands adjacent, is here, as elsewhere in tlie Old Testament (Zch. ix. 13; Dan. viii. 21; etc.), the Greeks in general. As in Eze. xxvii. 13, where they receive earliest mention, so here, they are associated with Tubhal * and Moshekh. f Tubhal (Ass. Tabalu) is supposed to denote the Tibarenians, a people who, when they first appear in history (c. 850 b. c), occupy the country adjoining Cilicia on the north (Schrader, KB, i. 142 f., ii. 56 f.) ; and Moshekh (Ass. Miishkti), the Moschians, whose territory adjoined that of the Tiba- renians on the northeast. See Meyer, GA, i. § 245 ; Rogers, HE A, ii. 22 f. They generally appear together, not only in the Old Testament, but in the Assyrian in- scriptions. In Eze. xxxviii. i ff. they, like Gomer, are arrayed under the leadership of Gogh ; which is only another way of saying what is here taught, that all these peoples were in some way related to one another. In the Persian period the Moschians and the Tibarenians occupied parts of the mountainous region along the south- eastern shore of the Black Sea. See Frd. Delitzsch, ♦ The received text has b^n* without 1> but many manuscripts have the full form, binn> as do the Samaritans. t The text has *7lCtt» Meshck/i, but the Samaritan reading is "fC?''^ Jind this is supported by the Moo-ox, Afosoch, of the Greek Version. X. 2, 3] COMMENTS 237 WLPy 250 f. The only theory with reference to Tiras that deserves mention is the one according to which it means the Tyrsenians, a primitive seafaring people, pro- bably the Turushu of the Egyptian monuments (Meyer, GA, i. §§ 260, 263 ; Rawlinson, AE, 258, 275 ff.), who had their home on the shores and islands of the yEgean Sea ; and this can hardly be regarded as satisfactory.* 3. The author follows the process of dispersion still farther, but only in two lines. Gomer is represented as the father of three tribes or peoples. Their identity is more or less uncertain. Jer. li. 27, however, seems to furnish a clue to that of the first, 'Ashkenaz. Since, in this passage, 'Ararat is Armenia and Minni the coun- try of the Mannai of the Assyrian inscriptions to the southeast of it {Die. Bib., art. Mi?t?ii), it is safe to seek 'Ashkenaz in the same region. The conditions seem to be met by Ashguza, whose king supported the Man- naeans in a revolt against Esarhaddon. See Schrader, KAT, 610; KBy ii. 128 f., 146 f. ; comp. Dillmann. If, however, 'Ashkenaz was northeast of Assyria, it is not probable that Riphath f was either in eastern (Josephus) or western (Bochart) Bithynia. The safer supposition is, that it was in the neighborhood of Togharmah, which Ezekiel (xxxviii. 6) locates in the remote north and tra- dition identifies with Armenia. J * According to Jub. ix. 11 the portion of Tiras was "four great islands in the midst of the sea, which approach the portion of Ham." t For Riphath, 1 Chr. i. 6, evidently through an error of a copy- ist, has Diphath. X The name by which the Armenians call their progenitor is Thorgom, the Thergama, or Thorgama, of the Greek Version. The latter is generally accounted an error of the translators, but an examination of the proper names of the region to which the people in question is supposed to have belonged will show that 238 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [X. 4 4. The only other branch of the stock of Yepheth that receives further attention is that of Yawan. His firstborn is 'Elishah.* The older authorities are divided with reference to this name ; some making it the equiva- lent of .'Eolia (Josephus) and others of Hellas (Targum), while still others interpreted it as representing the Greeks of Sicily and Lower Italy (Targ. to Ezekiel). It has also been identified with Elis (Bochart), Carthage, the founda- tion of Elissa (Movers), and finally with Alashia (Conder), one of whose kings wrote several of the Tell el-Amarna letters (Schrader, KB, v. i, 80 ff.; Ball, LE, Z'j f.). The likeness in the last case is strikingly close, but this theory, whether Alashia be located in northern Syria (Maspero) or Cyprus (Winckler)f requires a reexamination of the prevalent opinion respecting one of the next two sons of Yawan. If it was in Syria, there is still something to be said for the idea (Josephus) that Tarshish here means Tarsus or Cilicia ; while, if it was Cyprus, a new location must be found for the Kittites. The former of these suppositions is rendered improbable by the apparent fa- miliarity of the Hebrews of the sixth century b. c. with the real location of Tarshish. See Jer. x. 9 ; Eze. xxvii. 12. The latter seems to be forbidden by evidence that KittiteSy if it was sometimes used in a larger sense than there is something to be said for a contrary opinion. See Tarhuna and Tarhanabi, names of mountains near Lake Van (Schrader, KB, i. 30 f.) ; Tarzanabi {KB, i. 142 f.) and Bit-taranza(A"^, ii. 6 f.), l)laces in or near Media; and Tarsihu {KB, i. i82f.), Tarhular KB, ii. 18 f.), and Tarhunazi {KB, ii. 62 f.), kings of Nairi, Gam- gum, and Miliddu; etc. * The Samaritan reading is tt7'*bS' ^Elish. t Maspero's view is favored by the jealousy of the Hittites dis- liiayed by a king of Alashia in a letter to Amcn-hotep III. (Schrader, KB, V. I. 82 f) ; Wincklcr's by the fact tliat the presents sent by the former to the latter consisted largely of copper {KB, v- i. i)0 ff.). X. 4, 5] COMMENTS 239 Cyprus, always included that island. See Isa. xxiii. i, 12 ; also Num. xxiv. 24. These objections to the identifica- tion of 'Elishah with Alashia permit a return to one of the older theories. The only hint of the identity of the country or people in question, outside its name, is found in Eze. xxvii. 7, where the "isles " or "coasts " of 'Elishah are the source of the purple stuff from which the Tyrians made awnings for their ships. This has been supposed to point to Greece, or some part of it ; but, since Ta- rentum was as famous in its time for the production of the purple dye from the nmrcx brafidaris as Laconia, it is as safe to say that the prophet had in mind the Greek colonies of Italy and Sicily as that he was thinking of the mother country. In explanation of the appearance of Tarshish and Cyprus as sons of Yawan it should be added that, although both were originally occupied by the Phoe- nicians (Meyer, GA, i. § 191), in the sixth century b. c. the Greeks had a flourishing settlement at Tartessos (Meyer, GA, ii. § 429), and long before that they had gained almost complete possession of the island of Cy- prus (Meyer, GA, i. § 277). Rhodes had a similar his- tory. Hence the Rodhanites * also are numbered among the sons of Yawan. The plural form of the last two names indicates in what sense the term sojis is to be understood in this table. f 5. The line of Yawan is not followed beyond the first generation ; but the author adds the general statement, that from these already named the coasts of the na- tions, the southern coast of Europe and the islands of * This is the reading in i Chr. i. 7 as well as the Greek and Samaritan codices. Tlie Massoretic text has 2*^31% Dodhanites, by a copyist's error. t It is possible, also, that it should be interpreted as indicating difference of authorship. See v. 13. 240 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [X. 5, 6 the Mediterranean, or the peoples occupying them, dis- persed themselves as branches. This is undoubtedly the original meaning of the words, but, in the present text, by the omission of a clause corresponding to that by which the conclusion of a paragraph is introduced in vv, 20 and 31, they are made to refer to the whole family of Yepheth. The words to be supplied in this connec- tion are These were the sons of Yepheth.* There- upon follow naturally the four technical phrases in which the author presents the thought of separation from as many different points of view. Thus the peoples are re- presented as segregated in space in their lands. Each also had its distinctive tongue. The implication is that the various languages spoken by the branches of the family were the result of their separation. There cer- tainly is no indication that the author thought the oppo- site to have been the case. Comp. xi. i ff. After their families suggests the intimate relation among the indi- viduals of which each family was composed (viii. 19), and in their nations the solidarity of their interests as a division of mankind.f (b) T/ic Families of Ham {vv. 6-20). 6. Ham's first- born was Kush. This name doubtless has more than one meaning, even in the present chapter. See v. 8. In most cases, however, in which it occurs in the Old Testa- ment it plainly refers to the region, east of the Nile above the first cataract, called by the Greek geographers * This seems a better explanation than that of Holzinger, who thinks that "13t27bb tC"^M betrays the hand of a reviser, and suggests that the one who substituted this expression for Cn3tt?bb also sub- stituted the clause with which the verse now begins for the one that is needed to give the remaining words their proper significance. t (Jn the form and order of these expressions, compare vv. 20 and 31. X. 6] COMMENTS 241 Ethiopia. See 2 Kgs. xix. 9 ; Eze. xxix, 10 ; etc. It is therefore Pul, read, with the Greek version, 1:1?: Put. X Stade (/y, 5 ff.) reads D'^D'lbj Libyans, here and in Jer. xlvi. 9, while Toy {SBOT) substitutes the singular of the same name for T^b in Eze. xxvii. 10 and xxx. 5, and Cheyne {SBOT) omits all the names from Isa. Ixvi. 19. § He explains the Hebrew C^^i^^ as compounded of the two Eg>'ptian words an, nomad, and amii, herdsman. X. 13, 14] COMMENTS 251 tioned in the Old Testament were of Libyan origin. See Meyer, GA, i. §3i7f. ; Die. Bib., art. Lubivi. On the hst of types already twice cited they appear under the name Temhu. See Ebers, ABM, 93. The Naphtu- hites, according to Ebers {ABM, Ii2ff.), are those of BtaJi {tia-PtaJi), i. e., the inhabitants of Memphis and the surrounding country, whose patron deity was Ptah ; but Erman {ZAW, 1890, 1 18 f.) derives the name from Pe- temhi, an Egyptian designation for the Delta : *' and there is not much choice between the two opinions. 14. The Pathrusites are the people of Pathros or Upper Egypt (Eg. Petres\\^\\os,c political and religious centre was Thebes. See Jer.'xliv. i.f The name Kaslu- het is said {Die, Bib., art. CapJUoi) to occur in an in- scription in the temple of Kom Ombo, in Upper Egypt, as that of a country conquered by Ptolemy XIII. ; but there is no indication where it was situated. It is there- fore of no assistance in locating the Kasluhites, whom Ebers {ABM, 120 ff.) and others suppose to have occu- pied the coast between the Delta and Philistia. From the Kasluhites, according to the present text, -went forth the Pelishtites, i, e., the Philistines. In Am. Lx. 7, how- ever, the Philistines are said to have come from Kaph- tor. The relative clause is therefore probably a gloss that should have been inserted after Kaphtorites.f With- out it this name probably meant here, as in Deu. ii. 23, the Philistines ; who, since in i Sam. xxx. 14, Eze. xxv. * Erman changes the text, making it read D'^n^snC' PatJumt- hites. t In Eze. xxix. 14 and xxx. 14 Pathros seems to be a synonym for Egypt. \ Ball and others transfer it to this position, but there is no probability that it ever had any other place in the text than it now occupies. If they wished to restore it to its original position, they should have removed it to the margin. 252 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [X. 14-16 16, and Zph. ii. 5 they are called Kerethites, are believed to have been of Cretan origin. See Enc. Bib., art. Che- rcthitcs ; comp. art. CapJUor. 15. In Lx. 25 ff. the Kena'anite and the Phoenician were represented as brothers. Here Kena'an is the father of several children, Sidhon — not the ancient capital and its inhabitants alone, but, like Sidoniaiis in I Kgs. xi. 5 and elsewhere, the Phoenicians as a people — being his first-born. His second son was Heth, the Heta of the Egyptians and the Hatti of the Assyrians, a powerful people with whom both of these great nations waged long and bloody wars, and to whom Sargon H. gave the decisive blow in 717 b. c. Their original seat ap- pears to have been in Cappadocia, but they early pressed into northern Syria, whence they continually threatened Palestine. According to Gen. xxiii. i ff., there were Hit- tites in Hebron as early as Abraham's time. When the Hebrews returned from Egypt, there were still remnants of them in various places (Num. xiii. 29), and they did not entirely disappear after the Conquest. See 2 Sam. xi. 3 ff. ; etc. It is these southern Hittites, as a part of the population of Palestine, who, to judge from v. 19, are meant in this passage. See further McCurdy, HPM, i. i9off. ; Ball, LE, 95 ff. 16. The list of Kena'an's family, in its present form, gives him eleven sons ; but the names yet to be noticed are later additions to the original table, as is shown (/) by their form, — they are all gentilic nouns in the singular, with the article, — and {2) by the fact that some of them represent communities outside the limits of the territory allotted to the Kcna'anites in v. 19. The first of these added names is the Yebhusite, a collective designation for the ancient inhabitants of Jerusalem and its vicinity. See Num. xiii. 29; Jud. i. 21. The 'Emorite, like the X. 1 6, 17] COMMENTS 253 Keiia^anitey sometimes means the original inhabitants of Palestine as a whole (xv. 16 ; etc.), but here, as in xiv. 7, c. g.y it appears to denote a tribe in the southern part of the country. See further McCurdy, HPM, i. 159 f. The Girgashite, according to Jos. xxiv. 11, lived west of the Jordan ; but the tribe bearing the name cannot be more definitely located. Comp. Die. Bib.,2irt. Girgasliite. 1 7. The Hi-wwite is a name given to the inhabitants of certain cities — Shekem, Gibeon, etc. — in Central Palestine. See xxxiv. 2; Jos. ix. 7, 17.* The four names thus far examined are familiar, at least three of them being found in all the editorial lists of the tribes of Palestine in the historical books of the Old Testa- ment.! Those that follow are found only here and in the corresponding passage in Chronicles (i Chr. i. 15 f.). The 'Arkite represents the inhabitants of 'Arka, the ruins of which are found about twelve miles north of Tripolis. It was a very ancient city, being mentioned in * The only passages in conflict with this statement are Gen. xxxvi. 2, Jos. xi. 3, Jud. iii. 3. In the first ^^'nT\i the Hiwivite, is evidently an error for the "^nnH' the Horite^ of v. 20. In Jos. xi. 3 the correct reading is doubtless that of the Greek Version (AB), in which the Hiwwtte, as elsewhere, immediately precedes the Yebhusite^ and it is the Hittitev^ho is under Hermon ; and Jud. iii. 3 should probably be made to agree therewith. See Moore /. /. I The four, with the addition of the Hittite, the Kena^anite, and the Perizsite, occur Deu. vii. i ; Jos. iii. 10; xxiv. 11. All but the Girgashite^ with the same additions, are found Ex. iii. 8, 17; xxiii. 23; xxxiii. 2; xxxiv. 11 ; Deu. xx. 17; Jos. ix. i ; xi. 3 ; xii. 8 ; with the Hittite and the Kena'anite, Ex. xiii. 5 ; and with the Hittite and the Perizzitc^ i Kgs. ix. 20; 2 Chr. viii. 7. All but the Hiwwite, with the Hittite, the Ketia'-anite, and the Perizzite, ap- pear in Neh. ix. 8; and with further additions in Gen. xv. 19 ff. The Yehhusite and the ' Emorite are found in a peculiar list in Ezr. ix. I, and the Hiwwite in another in Ex. xxiii. 28. For the order in which the names appear, see Driver, Deu. 97. 254 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [X. 17-19 the Tell el-Amarna letters (Schrader, KB,\. i. i/of.), as well as in the annals of Tiglath-pileser III. {KB, ii. 28 f.). Later it became known as the birthplace of Alexander Severus. Sin, the Sianu of the Assyrian inscriptions {KB, ii. 26 f.), whence the Sinite, was on the coast not far from 'Ark a. 18. The 'Arwadhite is the inhabitant of 'Arwadh, a city and island, now Ruad, just off the coast north of Tripolis. It is mentioned in the annals of Thothmes III. (c. 1475; Petrie, HEy ii. 113), and frequently by the Assyrian king Asshurnasirpal (884-860) and his succes- sors. See Schrader, KAT, 104 f. ; etc. Semar, whence the Semarite, is the modern Sumra. It, also, was a very old city, just north of 'Arka. See Petrie, HE, ii. 114; Schrader, KAT, 105 ; KB, v. i, 98 ff. et pas. Finally, the Hamathite represents the people of Hamath, now Hama, on the Orontes, and the country bounding the Promised Land on the north (Num. xxxiv. 8), of which it was the capital. David added Hamath to his domin- ions (2 Sam. viii. 10), and Jeroboam II. recovered it for Israel (2 Kgs. xiv. 28). The Assyrians conquered and reconquered it, finally reducing it to lasting submission about 720 B. c. See Schrader, KAT, 105 f. The final clause of this verse is the proper conclusion of v. 15. It informs the reader that afterward, i. e., after the birth of Sidhon and Heth, the families of the Kena'anite, which the original author did not attempt to enum.erate, spread themselves abroad over the territory to be described. 19. The western border of this territory extended from Sidhon in the north, along the Mediterranean, southward as far as * Gerar, a city the ruins of which, ♦ On the rendering as far as for nDS3 and H^S^ 117, see xiii. 10; I Sam. xvii. 52; i Kgs. xviii. 46; etc. X. 19] COMMENTS 255 six miles southwest of Gaza, now bear the name Kirbet el-Jcrar. See Thomson, LB, i. 196 ff. The place is chictiy interesting for its associations with Abraham and Isaac. See xx. i ff. ; xxvi. 17 ff. The phrase unto 'Azzah (Gaza) seems to be an explanatory gloss, added because 'Azzah was better known than Gerar. The south- eastern corner of the country is Sedhom (Sodom) famous as the principal of the cities destroyed by the terrible visitation described in chapter xix. Its situation is dis- puted. Some (Dillmann) place it at, or in, the shallow southern end of the Dead Sea. This, however, is not the view that finds support in the most important passages bearing on the subject. In xix. Sedhom is repeatedly {vv. 17, 25, 28, 29) represented as located in the Plain, lit. Roimd. But this Plaiiiy according to xiii., was tJic Plain of the Yarden (Jordan), i. e., the oval tract on the lower course of the river at the head of the Dead Sea, seen from the hills near Bethel lying between them and So'ar {vv. 10 f.). Compare xix. 28, by the same author (J), where Abraham looks toward, but does not see, the site of the doomed cities. Still more definite is Deu. xxxiv. 3 (J), where the Plain is described as the Plaifi of Yer- cho (Jericho). If the author of xiv., like the Chronicler (2 Chr. XX. 2), identified Hasason-tamar with 'En-gedhi, he also {;uv. 7 ff.) must have located Sedhom at the head of the Dead Sea. See Thomson, LB, i. 371 ff . ; Tristram, LI, 354 f. ; comp. G. A. Smith, HGHL, 505 f. This is probably the idea in the present passage, the author thinking of the southern border as running, first to, and then along, the sea, to the north end of it. The mention of Sedhom would naturally suggest to one fa- miliar with chapter xiv. or Deu. xxix. 23 'Amorah, 'Adh- mah, and Sebho3rim ; but, since one place was better than four for the author's purpose, it is probable that 256 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [X. 19-21 these last three were added by a less thoughtful copy- ist.* The remaining name, Lesha', seems to correspond to the 'Azzah in the preceding phrase, but it is not so easily explained, since, so far as is known, there was no place of this name in the neighborhood of Sedhom. Perhaps, as Wellhausen suggests {CHy 15), the name is a corruption of that of Layish, afterward Dan (Jud. xviii. 29), the place that marked the northeastern corner of the country of the Kena'anites.f The traditional view, that Lesha' is Callirrhoe, east of the Dead Sea, is certainly mistaken. J 20. The paragraph closes, as did the first {^0. 5), with a formal summary of its contents. Here, however, the order is not, lands^ tongues, families, nations, but, as in V. 31, families, tongues, lands, nations. § The collateral branches having received due attention, lastly, in harmony with the method employed through- out Genesis (xxv. i ff., 12 ff., 19 ff. ; xxxvi. i ff. ; xxxvii. 2ff.), (c) The Families of Shem {vv. 21-32), constituting the main line, are introduced. 21. The opening clause, children were born to Shem also, reminds one of iv. 26, and thus betrays its Yahwistic authorship. The * Ball omits them all as secondary. t For "^wb Wellhausen proposes to read Htrb or Ct^S the accu.sative of tT'^V Holzinger's objection that, if the place meant were Layish, the name would be preceded by H^SD instead of 1V» like the names of Gerar and Sedhom, is not conclusive; since, in I Sam. xvii. 52, both particles are employed. X The Samaritans read this whole verse differently, substituting a compilation from xv. 18 and Deu. xi. 24; viz., And the border of the Kena'-anite was from the river of Mis ray im to the great river, the river Perath [Kiiphratcs], and to the Western Sea. % For CTT^ID^ the Samaritans read Cn**"12b here, as in z/. 31. X. 21, 22] COMMENTS 257 patriarch is described first as the father, the progenitor, of all the sons of 'Ebher, i. r., the Hebrews ; the object ui the uLithur in so describing him being to remind his readers that he has at last reached the part of the table that has especial interest for them.* Comp. Dclitzsch. At the same time he recalls the fact that Shem, though the last to appear, was the older brother of Yepheth,f and therefore, as in ix. 18, the eldest son of Noah. 22. This interesting verse is followed by a brief extract from the Priestly table, according to which the first of Shem's sons was 'iBlani. By this name (Ass. Elamtn) is meant the people of the highlands about the head of the Persian Gulf, east of the river Tigris. They reached the height of their power about 2300 b. c, when they conquered Babylonia and, according to chapter xiv., ex- tended their dominion to the Mediterranean Sea. See Meyer, GA, i. §§ 135 ff. ; Rogers, HBA, i. 380 ff. ; Ra- gozin, Chaldca, 219 ff. Later they came into conflict with the Assyrians, by whom they were finally (645 b. c), reduced to subjection. See Meyer, GA, i. § 459 ; Rogers, HBA, ii. 269 ff. ; Ragozin, Assyria, 399 ff. 'Asshur, Shem's second son, can only denote the Assyrians ; who, however, according to v. 11, were of Kushite, i. c, Ham- ite origin. The discrepancy reminds the reader that he is not here dealing with the same author as he was in * Budde {BU, 221) suspects that ''33 bs^ all the sons of, is a harmonistic addition ; but since, in this connection, the father of '■Ebher could only mean what is meant by the present reading, there seems to be no sufficient reason for the supposed interpolation. It is more probable that the whole of the descriptive phrase has been inserted, but not, as Bacon {GG, 117) suggests, from an earlier source. t The punctuation of the original indicates that the Massoretes understood this phrase as the Greek translators rendered it: viz.^ as meaning the brother of Yepheth^ the elder. 25S THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [X. 22 that passage. 'Arpakhshadh was early (Bochart) iden- tified with Arapachitis (Ass. Arbaha ; Schrader, KB, il 88 f.), a region on the Upper Zab, northeast of Nineweh. To this view, however, there are serious objections ; viz.^ (/) that it ignores important elements in the name ' Ar- pakJishadJi ; and {2) that it excludes the most important branch of the stock of Shem. The latter of these con- siderations has led many, following Josephus (4/, i. 6, 4), to prefer to believe that 'Arpakhshadh is only another name for Babylonia and the Babylonians.* The latest suggestion (Cheyne), arising from an attempt to do justice to the etymological as well as the historical side of the question, is that 'Arpakhshadh combines the names of two of the sons of Shem, ' Ai-pah, Arrapachitis, and Ke- sJicdh, Chaldea. This theory requires one to believe that an editor (Rp), having mistaken the two names for one, used the mistaken designation in v. 24 and substi- tuted it for Keshedh in xi. 10 ff. : which seems improbable. See, however, Enc. Bib., art. ArpJiaxad ; also xxii. 22, where Ke^edh f is among the sons of Nahor, the brother of Abraham. In ^. 13 the Ludhites were tentatively identified with the Rutu of Egypt, as the context seemed to require. The context here forbids one to suppose that the same people was in the mind of the author. In fact, Ludh can hardly be any other than the Lydians, who, about the beginning of the sixth century b. c, had pushed their conquests eastward to the very border of the Median empire (Meyer, GA, §§ 486 f. ; Ragozin, Media, 217 ff.), and who remained one of the great powers of the period until 546 b. c, when they were * A modification of this view makes the name a compound from a conjectural PlIH (Ar. Utrfat), boundary, and "Ttt,b (Ass. Kaldii), Chaldea. See Schrader, KAT, 1 12 f. t With a i:', like cnbD» ChaUUans. X. 22, 23] COMMENTS ^so overthrown by Cyrus. l-Mnally, 'Aram is the Aramocans. According to Am. ix. 7, their original home was Kir, which must have been somewhere in the direction of Assyria. See Am. i. 5. In xxii. 21 'Aram is the grand- son of Nahor, of Haran, in northwestern Mesopotamia, a region which the Hebrews called 'Aram-naharayim (Aram of tivo rivers ; xxiv. 10) and Paddan-'aram (xxv. 20), and where the Assyrians found the Aramaeans (Aramu), when they began to extend their borders west- ward. See Schrader, KB, i. 32 f. By 'Aram, however, the Hebrews usually meant what they sometimes took pains to designate as 'Aram-dammess^ekh (2 Sam. viii. 6), i. e., the country of which Damascus was the capital. They also distinguished an 'Aram-beth-rehobh near Dan (2 Sam. x. 6 ; Jud. xviii. 28), an *Aram-ma*akhah farther westward (i Chr. xix. 6; 2 Sam. xx. 14), and an 'Aram- zobhah between Damascus and Hamath (2 Sam. x. 6). From other sources the Aramaeans are known to have spread themselves far beyond these limits, mingling with other races in Assyria and Babylonia and penetrating southward into the Arabian desert, while Aramaic be- came the international language of Western Asia. See 2 Kgs. xviii. 26; Frd. Delitzsch, WLP, 257 f.; Meyer, GA, i. § 401 ; McCurdy, HPM, i. 84 f. ; Enc. Bib., art. Aram. 23. There are only two of the sons of Shem in whom the Priestly author betrays any further interest. One is 'Arpakhshadh ; but he, being in the line through which the Hebrews traced their descent, is neglected for the time being, to be given his place in that line in chapter xi. The other is 'Aram, to whom are given four sons. The first is *Us,* who appears in xxii. 21 (J), not as the son, but as the uncle of 'Aram. See also xxxvi. 28 (P), * For yi^' the Samaritans read y"in» ^us. 26o 77//; WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [X. 23, 24 where he is a grandson of Se'ir the Horite. According to Lam. iv. 21, *Us seems to include 'Edhom.* This would indicate that *Us was northwestern Arabia, where the author of the book, of Job also, who makes the patriarch an Arab (i. 3) and represents him as being plundered by the Sabeans (i. 15), no doubt located it.f This being taken for granted, it is more probable that, as Glaser suggests (SGA, ii. 421 f.), Hul and Gether were in the northern and northeastern part of the same country, than that either of them was in northern Syria ; J espe- cially since there is not much doubt that Mash § is the region, or a part of it, so called by the Assyrians, vzs., the great Syro-Arabian desert west of Babylonia. See Schrader, KB, ii. 220 f. ; vi. i, 202 f. ; comp. Glaser, SGA, ii. 419 f. 24. This verse is not the continuation of the preceding. It is commonly attributed to the editor who compiled the present table (Rp) ; but, since v. 25 can never have im- mediately followed V. 21, and the language here used is Yahwistic,T[ it is better, with Bacon {GG, 117), to refer it to the author of the Yahwistic genealogy. To com- plete the connection with v. 21, supply. And the firstborn * In Jer. xxv. 20 f., where 'Us occurs with 'Edhom, 'Us is prob- ably interpolated. See the Greek Version. t Glaser (SGA, ii. 411 ff.) inclines to think that 'Us is really a synonym of Put, which he takes to mean western Arabia, overlook- ing the fact that both names are from Priestly sections of the chapter, and therefore cannot well refer to the same region. t On Frd. Dclitzsch's attempt (^Z/^, 259) to identify *^j and ///// with an Ussa and a Hulia of the Assyrian inscriptions, see Schrader, /CB, i. 86 f., no f., 146 f. § For WO the Samaritans read SIC^, as in 7/. 30; i Chr. i. 17, I^C'TS, Mcshekh. See also the Greek Version. K The verb "rV is here used in the first (Kal) stem in the sense of beget, as it always is in Yahwistic passages. See v. 26. X. 24, 25] COMMENTS 261 of SJicvi ivas ' ArpakJisJuidJiy or something equivalent, which must have been omitted by the compiler, when vv. 22 f. were inserted. The name of the son of 'Arpakh- shadh, Shelah, like that of 'Knosh in iv. 26, is probabl}' symbolical, but its significance is uncertain. This Shekdi begot 'Ebher.* The name, lit. crossing, seems intended to embody a tradition to the effect that the original home of the Shemites of Arabia as well as Palestine was be- yond the Euphrates. The corresponding gentilic, 'Ibhri, Hebrew, however, is used only of Abraham and his de- scendants through Isaac and Jacob, and that chiefly in cases in which a contrast between them and their neigh- bors is expressed or implied (xiv. 13 ; xxxix. 14; xl. 15 ; xliii. 32). The tradition with reference to their origin was uniform and explicit. See xii. 5 (P) ; xxiv. i ff. (J) ; Jos. xxiv. 2 (E) ; comp. Meyer, GA, i. § 289. 25. The elder of the two sons born f to 'Ebher was Pelegh. The name signifies division, separation. To a Hebrew it would naturally suggest the dispersion from Babhel. It is not strange, therefore, to find it explained by the causal clause, for in his days the earth, or, strictly speaking, its population, Tvas separated. See ix. 19; comp. Jub. viii. 6 ff. This clause, however, is without doubt an interpolation, since the author of the table would hardly have called attention to a story which contradicts his teaching with reference to the origin of the peoples and their languages. The second son of 'Ebher was Yoktan. He has generally been identified with the Kahtan of the Mohammedan genealogies ; but there is really no connection between the two names, * The Greek version introduces a Kainan (Kenan) between She- lah and 'Ebher here as in xi. 12 f. t For "T^'^j the singular, read, with the Samaritans, nb^^ the plural. 262 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [X. 25-28 and there is no evidence that Kahtan — originally a tribe ur district in northern Yemen — was recognized by the Arabs as their eponym until they became acquainted with this table. Glaser {SGA, ii. 423) suggests the pos- sibihty of a connection between Yoktan and Katan, the name of several districts in Arabia. 26. This Yoktan had no fewer than thirteen sons. Some of their names are very familiar ; but the most of them occur only here and in the parallel passage in the Chronicles (i Chr. i. 20 ff.), and are therefore difficult of identification. 'Almodhadh is among those that have not been identified. For conjectures, see Die. Bib., art. Al Modad; Glaser, SGA, ii. 425. Sheleph is perhaps another form of Salif or Sulaf, the name of a tribe in Yemen, where similar names abound. See Glaser, SGA, ii. 425. Hasarmaweth is Hadramaut, a district on the southern coast of Arabia, east of Yemen, of which the Sabhtah (Sabata) of v. y was anciently the capital. Glaser {SGAy ii. 425) identifies Yerah with Mahrah, in eastern Hadramaut. Comp. Die. Bib., diTt.Jerah. 27. The traveler just quoted claims to have found Hadhoram * in Dauram, not far from Sana {SGA, ii. 435) ; and 'Uzal,t also Eze. xxvii. 19 (Davidson), in the Azalla of the Assyrian inscriptions (Schrader, KB, ii. 220 f.), which he locates northeast of Medina {SGA, ii. 430) ; but in neither case is there sufficient evidence for a safe conclusion. Diklah, also, awaits identification. 28. There is a place called 'Obhal % in the Tihama, west of Yemen (Glaser, SGA, ii. 427), but whether there is any connection between it and the place or tribe here * For n^*nn the Samaritans read n~l*)TSN *Adora?n. t For VtIS the Samaritans read bT"^S» Heal. X For bnij? the Samaritans read b^^^, 'Ibhal, while the Greek Version omits the name altocrcther. X. 28-30] COMMENTS 263 meant, it is impossible to determine. 'Abhima'el re- mains unidentified. Shebha is the Sabeans, as in v. 7, where, however, they are derived from Kush. 29. Thus far but two of the sons of Yoktan, Hasarma- weth and Shebha, have been satisfactorily identified, but it has been taken for granted that those not definitely located should be sought somewhere in the Arabian peninsula. It is therefore natural to look for 'Ophir in the same region. This location is favored by the ap- pearance, in the next place, of Hawilah, which, in ii. 11, a related passage, can hardly mean anything but the Ara- bian desert ; also by v. 30, from which it is clear that all the tribes or districts represented by the sons of Yoktan, wherever they were, were contiguous. See v. 19. Glaser (SGA, ii. 353 ff.) is therefore probably correct in main- taining that 'Ophir is here and elsewhere in the Old Testa- ment southeastern Arabia, along the Persian Gulf.* For other views see Die. Bib., art. OpJiir. Finally, Yobhabh may well be the district called Yuhaibab or Yuhaibib in the Sabean inscriptions (Halevy), which Glaser {SGA, ii. 303 ff.,424) locates in the neighborhood of Mecca. 30. Here, as in v. 11, the author closes with a descrip- tion of the extent of the territory over which the family in question spread itself. One of the limits laid down is Mesha, for which one would most naturally look in northern Arabia, where, as has been shown, the ]\Iash of V. 23 and the Assyrian inscriptions must be * The objection to this conclusion based on i Kgs. x. 22, that the region described is not remote enoujxh, takes for granted that the author of the passaije cited had 'Ophir in mind, and that he and the Yahwist located it in the same region ; both of which points are open to question. Kittel thinks i Kgs. ix. 26 ff. and x. 22 are from different sources, and explains the omission of 'Opliir from the latter passage by supposing that the author did not know where it was situated. 264 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [X. 30-32 located.* The other limit, Sephar, therefore, was prob- ably in the southern part of the peninsula ; and, if the phrase the eastern mountain is intended to define its position, more probably at Zafar on the coast of eastern Hadramaut, than at the place of the same name in southern Yemen. Comp. Dillmann. 31. On the formula here used, see v. 20.t 32. This partial summary is followed by one, also by the Priestly narrator, including all the families of the sons of Noah, to which is added the statement, that from these, as the larger divisions of the race, all the nations known to the writer dispersed themselves after the Flood. The above discussion, although it has not been so fruit- ful as it might have been, has made possible an approxi- mately just estimate of the value of the chapter. There can be no doubt that in the past its scientific importance has been overestimated. In the first place, as has been shown, it is not a self-consistent unit, but a compilation consisting of a table by the Priestly narrator, apparently preserved entire, which has been expanded by sometimes incongruous additions from a Yahwistic source. See the divergent representations with reference to the origin of the Babylonians and Assyrians and the tribes of the Arabian peninsula. It will also be remembered that both of the sources employed are sometimes evidently at fault in the relations in which they place the peoples enumer- ated. Thus, e. g., Misrayim (Egypt) and Kena'an are alike sons of Kush (P), Sidhon and Heth sons of Ke- * Glascr {SGA, ii. 420 f.) identifies Mesha, not with Mash, but with the Massa of xxv. 14; but if, as is <^enerally agreed, v. 23 and XXV. 12-17 ''ire by the same author (P), this is inadmissible. t For r:n^i:ib read Dn'*'):j> as in vv. 5, 20, 32. XI. I] COMMENTS 2C5 na*an (J), and 'Asshur and 'Elarn sons of Shem (P) ; although in each case tlie po()i)lcs meant belonged to distinct types and spoke altt)gether different languages. Finally, although vv. 5 and 32 permit one to suppose that the author was acquainted with more peoples than he enumerated, there is no evidence that those not named included either black, brown, or yellow men, or any whites beyond the limits within which those named must be located. In other words, the table covers only that part of the earth whose northern limit is the Black Sea, its eastern the Caspian, and its southern the strait of Bab el-Mandeb, while its western is Tarshish just outside the dimly known Mediterranean. It is plain that a docu- ment so imperfect cannot be regarded as authoritative on the subject of the origin of the peoples into which the race is divided. Still, it is not lightly to be pronounced worthless. It doubtless contains material of interest and importance to the ethnologist. In any case the religious ideas underlying it must elicit the admiration of the thoughtful reader ; for it teaches (/) that the race is one, and {2) that the rise of the nations and languages was a part of the divine plan (i. 28), that man should subdue the earth, and govern and enjoy it. See Ragozin, Chal- dca, 1 3 1 ff . The two authors from whose narratives the Table of Nations was mostly compiled agree in teaching that the diversity in language, etc., among mankind is the result of dispersion to the various quarters of the earth. This was not the only view of the matter current among the Hebrews. A more primitive is taught in the story of (2) The Confusion of Tongues (xi. 1-9). i. It be- gins with the declaration that at first the "whole earth, or all the people on it, were of one language, lit. ///, and 266 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [XI. 1-3 they all had the same words ; there had thus far not arisen even dialectic variations among them. 2. At this time the whole body of primitive men moved east^vard. The author does not mention the point of departure. The natural inference from the pre- ceding context would be that it was 'Ararat, or its vicin- ity ; and this view is common (Delitzsch). The author, however, can have had no such thought ; for the land of Shin'ar, Babylonia, was not eastward, but directly southward, from the region where the ark grounded. The text evidently requires that the place from which the movement started be sought to the west of Baby- lonia, /. e., in Arabia, where the author of ii. 8 seems to have located 'Edhen : which means that, when this pas- sage was written, the Yahwistic narrative did not contain an account of the Flood. When the wanderers came to Shin'ar, delighted with the beauty and fertility of the country, they abode there, the first of several layers of immigrants from the same direction. See Meyer, GAy i. § 131 f.; Rogers, //^^, i. 353 f- 3. Having decided to wander no more, they proceeded to build themselves houses. To this end, since neither stone nor wood in any quantity was within their reach, they resolved to use bricks. The Babylonians of later times employed the same material. Their bricks were of two kinds, sun-dried and kiln-burned. The former were used for cheap buildings, and for the interiors of more ambitious structures. See Ragozin, Chaldca, 39 f. If it was desired that a structure be particularly substan- tial and enduring, the builder would naturally, like those of this story, need burned bricks, and wish to burn them thoroughly. The bricks thus provided were laid, not in mortar, but in a stronger cement, the bitumen to this day supplied by the wells at Hit on the Euphrates above XI. 3, 4] COMMENTS 267 Babylon. See Ragozin, Chaldcay 42 ff. ; Rogers, IIBAy i. 287 f. 4. iLncouraged by their success in securing proper materials, mankind began to plan larger things. They aspired to build a city. Now a city, on the supposition that the present passage refers to a later date than iv. 17, was not an unheard-of enterprise. This, however, was to be a much larger city than that of Hanokh. Moreover, it was to have a tO"wer so high that its top would seem lost in heaven. Towers of this sort, called zikkiirats, were common in Babylonia. Many of them had names indicating their great height. Thus, one at Lagash was called "the summit house," * one at Agade "the house reaching to heaven " f one at Larsa ** the link of heaven and earth," \ etc. See Jastrow, KB A, 616 ff., 639. They were symbolic structures, representing the mountain on which the gods were supposed to dwell (Jastrow, RBA, 612 ff. ; also Eze. xxviii. 14) ; and those who erected them sought by so doing to obtain the favor of the divinities to whom they were dedicated (Schrader, KB, iii. 2, 6f.§). At the same time they gratified human pride. A He- brew would naturally regard all such works as products of a lust for glory. Hence the author of this story repre- sents the builders of the zikkurat whose erection he is describing as impelled by the desire to make themselves * E-pa. t E-an-dadia. % E-dur-an-ki. § Nabopolassar concludes his account of the reconstruction of the zikkurat of the temple of Marduk in Babylon as follows : "Marduk, my lord, look graciously upon my pious deeds. By thy lofty command, which may not be changed, may the work, the product of my hands, endure forever. As the wall of E-temen-an- ki [the name of the tower] is fixed forever, so establish my throne firm to the remotest time. E-temen-an-ki, to the king who restored thee be gracious. When Marduk, amid rejoicing, enters thee, O house, proclaim to Marduk my lord my piety." 268 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [XI. 4-7 a name. This explains the tower. The motive they give for the enterprise as a whole is, lest we be scat- tered over the face of the whole earth.* 5. When the plan proposed had been adopted and partially executed, Yahweh, the same who brought the animals to 'Adham to see what he would call them (ii. 19), and called to him in the garden to know where he was (iii. 9), came down to see the city, but especially the tower, f that the sons of men had built, or, more exactly, had brought to an advanced stage of construc- tion. See V. 8. 6. He was not pleased with the enterprise. He saw at once whence came the impulse to it. They were one people, and they had the consciousness of strength that must sooner or later come to a united multitude. He saw, too, that this was their first % exploit, only the beginning of the things that they would undertake, un- less something was done to check their presumption. Nothing that they plan § to do, he says, will be too hard for them. 7. These words seem to have been addressed to the angels by Yahweh on his return to his palace above the clouds (Am. ix. 6). He now takes the attendant spirits into his plan for frustrating the ambition of mankind. * The construction in this verse is undoubtedly somewhat con- fusing, but the naturalness of the tower in tlie plan of a Babylonian city makes the theory that the text is here composite decidedly improbable. The analysis proposed by Gunkel, who makes the lust for fame the motive for building the city, and the dread of separation that for erecting the tower, is certainly mistaken. t Hall (jmits b-r2!2n ns> X For cbnn Bail, following the Greek Version, reads ibfin* § On ^!2r, for :^!2T;. and, in v. 7, nbn^. for nbh2» see Ges. § dT, R n. ■' XI. 7-9] COMMENTS 2(x) Come, he says, let us go down,* and there confound their language. The explanatory clause, so that they 'Will not understand one another's language, nuist not be taken too literally, since such a decree would have abolished the family, and rendered the continuance of the race impossible. It should also be remembered that, although, according to x. 25, the dispersion occurred in the fourth generation after the Flood, the present writer, since he betrays no knowledge of any such catastrophe, must have thought of mankind as much more numerous when they were scattered than the author of that passage could have conceived them. See vi. i. 8. The means proposed was adopted, — for a statement to that effect, see v. 9, — and produced the desired result. Thereby Yahweh scattered mankind thence over the face of the "whole earth, and, in consequence, they ceased, no longer continued, to build the city.f See V. 5. 9. The city thus left unfinished — whether it ever had any other name, the author omits to say — was thence- forth called Babhel, Babylon, because there Yahweh confounded the language of the whole earth. The idea of the author seems to be, that the name Bab/iel\v2iS derived from the verb rendered cojifound ;\ but, since Babhel is only another form of the Babylonian compound Bad-zlUyVneaning "the gate of the god," it is probable that, on the contrary, the story here narrated was suggested by the similarity between the two vocables. The re- * The transfer of the scene from earth to heaven, it must be admitted, is unexpected, but it hardly seems to warrant the con- clusion that this verse is by a different author from v. 5. Comp. Gunkel. t The Samaritans add bm^SH nsi' a/i(/ the tower. See also the Greek Version. X bb> balal. 270 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [XI. 9 maining materials for it were doubtless gathered from current reports concerning a ruined tower of immemorial antiquity located in Babylon. The fact that the author makes the tower a part of the city is overlooked by those (Delitzsch) who, following Jewish tradition {Bo'. Rab., 172), identify it with the zikkurat of the temple of Nebo at Borsippa, now Birs Nimrud, on the west bank of the Euphrates not far from the capital, finding support for their view in the fact that this tower stood a long time un- finished, and finally fell into ruins, before Nebuchadrez- zar restored it.* A safer view is that it was the equally famous zikkurat of the temple of Marduk, the tutelar divinity of Babylon, which, after it had long been in ruins, Nabopolassar (625-604) rebuilt (Schrader, KB, iii. 2, 2 ff.) and Nebuchadrezzar completed {KB, iii. 2, 30 f., 40 f.). According to a tablet discovered by George Smith {The Athcnceiim, Feb. 12, 1876), it was built in stages, with the sides facing the cardinal points ; the first stage being 300 ft. square and 1 10 ft. high, the second 260 square and 60 high, the third 200 square and 20 high, the fourth 170 square and 20 high, the fifth 140 square and 20 high, the sixth no (i*) square and 20 high, while the seventh was the sanctuary 80 by 70 ft. in area and 50 ft. high ; the en- tire height being equal to the length of each side of the base, 300 feet. It was called E-temen-an-ki, " The house of the foundation of heaven and earth." This is the tower * The great king describes (Schrader, KB, iii. 2, 52 ff.) the con- dition of the structure before its restoration as follows : " At that time E-ur-imin-an-ki [the house of the seven divisions of heaven and earth], the zikkurat of Barsip, which a former king had built, raising it to the height of forty-two cubits, but not rearing its top, had from a remote date been in ruins. Its gutters had not been kept in order; rains and storms had torn down its walls ; the tiles of its facing had burst asunder ; the bricks of its sanctuary had fallen in heaps." XI. 9, 10] COMMENTS 271 which, in its ruined condition, is here used to illustrate the wantonness and the futility of godless ambition.* In the Priestly narrative the table of the nations was followed immediately by a genealogy, resembling that of chapter v., of b. The Line of Shem (xi. 10-26). This time, however, the totals are omitted, also the formal statement in each case, that the given patriarch died.f 10. Shem was a hundred years old before he had any children, older than, according to the correct text, were any of the antediluvian patriarchs except 'Adham, Sheth, and Noah. The reason for the postponement of pater- nity in his case was the same as in that of Noah, the necessarily limited capacity of the ark. When the Flood was over, the restriction upon the increase of the family that survived was removed and 'Arpakhshadh was born. That, since Shem was born after Noah was five hundred years of age, would be in Noah's six hundred and first year, which was the second year of the Flood (viii. 13 f.), or, as the Hebrews expressed it, tTvo years after the Flood. J See ix. 28 f. ; comp. Holzinger. This interpre- tation makes the present passage consistent with itself, * The above discussion has made it clear that the story of the tower of Babhel, in the form in which it has been preserved in the Old Testament, is of Hebrew origin. Whether there was an in- digenous legend on the subject, is, for the present, uncertain. The one reported by Eusebius {PE, ix. 14) as derived from Berosus is but another form of the Hebrew story. t The Samaritans have both items, the Greek Version only the latter. X If, as Budde {BU, loS f.) maintains, the last clause is a gloss, the above is simply the glossator's interpretation of the original author's statement. 272 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [XI. 10-12 but renders only more apparent the discrepancy between it and x. 22, where 'Arpakhshadh is not the first, but the third, son of his father. The new difficulty seems best met by supposing, with Delitzsch, that, in chapter x., the order is determined by the distribution of the peoples which the sons of Shem there represent. Comp. Gunkel. 1 1. Shem did not attain the age of any of the antedi- hivian patriarchs except Hanokh ; yet he lived, after the birth of 'Arpakhshadh, five hundred years, so that his total was six hundred. 12. In chapter x. 'Arpakhshadh was one of a number of peoples ; here the name is treated as if it denoted an individual. He was but thirty-five years old when his first son was born. This is an early age as compared with that of Shem, but, when compared with that at which Lemekh and those before him began to beget children, it is none too early to harmonize with the author's theory of a gradual decrease, not only in the length of human life, but in the period preceding paternity.* On the name Shelah,f see the comment to x. 22. * This fact seems to prove that the Massoretic reading, and not that of the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Greek Version, a hun- dred and thirty-five, is the original. The same must be said in the cases of the next five patriarchs, in each of which there is a differ- ence between the Hebrew and the other texts of just a hundred years, and in that of the sixth, where the difference amounts to only fifty years. The object in raising the age of paternity doubtless was to lengthen the period between the Flood and the birth of 'Abhram, and thus relieve the reader from the necessity of believing that none of the preceding nine patriarchs died until forty-eight years after this last was born. t Here, also, the Greek Version introduces Kainan between 'Arpakhshadh and Shelah, and Dillmann favors this reading. See also Lu. iii. 36. The fact that the number of years assigned, and the length of the periods into which they are divided, are the same as in the case of Shelah, however, sustains the opinion already ex- XI. 13-17] COMMENTS ^y^ 13. The second period of 'Arpakhshadh's life was long, four hundred and three years, in comparison with the first ; yet the total fell considerably short of that of his father.* 14. Shelah had lived only thirty years when 'Ebher was born. On the name and its significance, see * the comment to x. 24. 15. The sum of Shelah's years was thirty ///^j- four hundred and three,! or four hundred and thirty-three. 16. In the case of 'Ebher the age of paternity is raised to thirty-four without any apparent reason.:|: On Felegh his son, see the comment to x. 25. 17. The second period of 'Ebher's life, according to the received text, was four hundred and thirty years ; but, since the addition of this number would raise his total above that of his father or grandfather, and there is no other instance of this sort in the table, it is probable that the Samaritans are correct in making the total four hundred and four, and that, therefore, 'Ebher should be pressed, that the patriarch is an importation. His name seems to have been added to make the number in the table ten without that of either Noah or 'Abhram. * In the Samaritan text the hundred or fifty added to the first period is deducted from the second, so that the totals remain un- changed. Not so in the Greek Version. In this case for four hundred a?id three the latter has four hundred and thirty, making the total five hundred and sixty-five. f For'the three hundred and tht'ee which one would expect in this case the Greek Version has three hundred and thirty, making a total of four hundred and sixty. X In vv. 12 and 14 the subject precedes the verb. The order is now reversed, and the new construction is used for the rest of the table. The change does not favor lUidde's suggestion {FH/, 413 f.), that the names 'Arpakhshadh and Shelah were added to the gene- alogy by the Priestly narrator. It would rather point to Rp as the supplementcr. See, however, the comment to x. 24. 274 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [XI. 17-24 represented as living, after the birth of his first son, three hundred and seventy years.* 18. The firstborn of Pelegh was Re'u. The name re- minds one of Ruua, the designation for an Aramaean tribe of southern Babylonia frequently mentioned in the Ass^Tian inscriptions (Frd. Delitzsch, WLP, 237 ff. ; Schrader, KB, ii. 10 f., etc.) ; but it is doubtful if Glaser {SGA, ii. 408) is correct in identifying them. 19. In X. 25 Pelegh is connected with the dispersion. If the author here had such a connection in mind, it may explain the abrupt abridgment, with him, of human life by nearly two hundred years. At any rate, he lived after the birth of Re'u only two hundred and nine f years, so that his total was only two hundred and thirty- nine. 20. Serugh, the firstborn of Re'u, is commonly iden- tified with Sarug, a district a day's journey north of Haran. Comp. Glaser, SGA^ ii. 408. 22. The name Nahor, which Serugh gave his eldest son, is a familiar one. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, however, except in the parallel passage in Chronicles (i Chr. i. 26), Nahor is the brother of 'Abhram {v. 26) and the father of the Aramaeans (xxii. 20 ff .). It is pro- bable that this name was added at the same time with 'Arpakhshadh and Shelah, when the number was in- creased from seven to ten. Comp. Budde, B[/, 413 f. 24. Of all the patriarchs Nahor was youngest, only * This is the actual readinsj of the Greek Version, according to which, therefore, 'Ebher lived in all yive Jnmdred and four years. t The transfer of a hundred years from the second to the first period by the Samaritans makes it appear that Re'u and the three followinj^ patriarchs lived considerably longer before than after they began to have children. XI. 24-26] COMMENTS 275 twenty-nine,* when his first son was born. The theories with reference to the origin of the name of his son Terah are various, the latest being that of Jensen {HA, 153), who identifies it with that of a Hittite god, Tarhii. 25. Here again the second period is unusually short- ened, being but a hundred and nineteen years, so that Nahor lived in all only a hundred and forty-eight, f 26. This list, like that of chapter v., ends with a father who has three sons. Here, too, as in the preceding case, the author gives the age, seventy years, of the father when the first son was born. The three sons of Terah were Abhram, Nahor, and Haran. The reasons given for doubting the historicity of the table in chapter v., with a single exception (j), apply to this one. Moreover, by reducing the age of paternity, without correspondingly reducing the total of years, the author exposed himself to an objection quite as serious as the one he avoided. It is also incredible that all the persons — taking for granted that the names represent persons — here mentioned, including 'Abhram, were born forty-eight years before any of them died ; that three of the others outlived 'Abhram ; and that *Ebher survived * For twenty-nine the Samaritans read seventy-nine, the increase of only fifty being necessary to make the death of Nahor fall in the year before the birth of 'Abhram, and the death of Terah in the year in which 'Abhram left Haran (xii. 4). See Acts vii. 4. The Cireek Version agrees with the Samaritan text so far as the reading seventy-nine is concerned, but in this case the number added has no significance. To produce the result obtained by the Samaritans the Greek translators would have had to add sixty to the age of Terah at the birth of 'Abhram as well as to the total of the years of Nahor. t Vox a Jiundred and nineteen the (Ireck Version has a hundred and twenty- nine, making a total of two hundred and eight. 276 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [XL 26 seven years after Joseph had been sold into Egypt. The modifications in the Samaritan text and the Greek Ver- sion relieve this difficulty, but, as has been shown, create the one that the original author avoided.* * The following tables exhibit all the data used in the above discussion and the results deduced from them. The first is a com- parative view of the figures representing the two periods of the life of each of the patriarchs, according to the three authorities cited, and their totals ; the variants from the Massoretic text being in heavy type. Firstborn Remainder Total iT S ~G H S G H S ~"g Shem 100 100 100 500 500 500 600 600 600 'Arpakhshadh 35 135 135 403 303 430 438 438 565 Kenan I30 . . 33O . . 460 Shelah 30 130 130 403 303 330 433 433 460 'Ebher 34 134 134 370 270 370 404 404 504 Pelegh 30 130 130 209 log 209 239 239 339 Re'u 32 132 132 207 107 207 239 239 339 Serugh 30 130 130 200 100 200 230 230 330 •Nahor 29 79 79 119 69 129 148 148 208 Terah 70 70 70 135 75 135 145 145 205 The second shows in what year after the first of the Flood each of the patriarchs, including Noah and 'Abhram, was born, and ia what year he died. Birth-date Death-date iT S G iT S G Noah 350 350 350 Shem .. .. 501 501 501 'Arpakhshadh i i i 439 439 566 Kenan 136 596 Shelah 36 136 266 469 569 726 'Ebher 66 266 396 470 670 900 Pelegh 100 400 530 339 639 869 Re'u 130 530 660 369 769 999 Serugh 162 662 792 392 882 1122 Nahor 192 792 922 340 940 1 130 Terah 221 871 looi 366 1016 1206 'Abhram 291 941 1071 466 11 16 1246 XI. 27, 28] COMMENTS 277 The first general division of the book of Genesis closes with a third genealogy, that of c. The Family of Terah {vv. 27-32). 27. The title is followed by a repetition of the names of the sons of Terah. The first is 'Abhram. He is also called 'Abhraham. The latter name is probably a local or dialectical variation upon the former. The Priestly narrator, in xviii. 5, interprets it as a pledge given to the patriarch that he would be " the father of a multitude of nations."* Nahor, according to this au- thor the second of his name, at once drops as com- pletely out of sight as his grandfather, not being men- tioned even in the notice of the migration from 'Ur to Haran (t\ 31). The reason for thus dismissing him' is not far to seek. The author having, in x. 22, made 'Aram a brother of 'Arpakhshadh, could not let Nahor remove to Haran and so become, what the Yahwist (xxii. 21) says he was, the progenitor of the Aramaeans. The suggestion has been made (Wellhausen), that Haran is only another form of Haran ; but this would imply the idea that Haran was the father of the Aramaeans, an idea that the author could certainly not have entertained. The only son of Haran was Lot, who finally accompanied his uncle 'Abhram to Kena'an (xiii. I2).t 28. This is all that the Priestly narrator has to say of Haran. The Yahwist, from whose work vv. 28-30 were * The original meaning of the name is doubtful; but the favor- ite theory is that it is another form of 'Abhiram, my father is ex- alted (Num. xvi. I ff.), as 'Abhner is of 'Abhiner (i Sam. xiv. 50). On a corresponding Assyrian name, Aburamu, see Schrader, KA 7", 200, 479. t Note that P, with his customarj' regard for the reputation of his worthies, seems to have omitted the obscene legend by which J accounts for the Moabites and the Ammonites. See xix. 29. 278 THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [XI. 28-31 taken, says that he died before, in the presence of, and therefore in advance of, Terah his father in the land of his birth. If no name were given to this land, one would naturally identify it with Mesopotamia ; for this is called the land of 'Abhram's birth (xxiv. 7), and Haran the city of Nahor (xxiv. 10). It is therefore a surprise to find that, according to the text, the land in question was 'Ur of the Kaldeans. In fact this explanatory phrase sounds so strange in this connection that many authorities regard it as an interpolation for the purpose of harmonizing the Yahwistic with the Priestly narra- tive. See also xv. 7 ; comp. Delitzsch. 29. The natural inference from the order in which the sons of Terah are mentioned is that Haran was the youngest. Yet he seems to have married, and his off- spring to have become adult, before his brothers took themselves "wives ; for Nahor married his daughter. 'Abhram chose Saray, who, according to xx. 12 (E), was his half-sister. She is later called Sarah, her name, ac- cording to xvii. 15 (P), having been changed at the same time with that of her husband. The name of the "wife of Nahor was Milkah. See xxii. 20 ff. Milkah had a sister, Yiskah ; but she plays no part in the story. 30. In process of time 'Abhram discovered that Saray •was barren, a circumstance that furnishes a background for much of the subsequent history of the patriarch.* 31. The rest of the chapter is of Priestly origin, the continuation and conclusion of v. 27. The reason for the migration of Terah and his family, with the excep- tion of Nahor,f is not given. Tradition seems to teach * For ibl the Samaritans read iV- t The Samaritans, feeling this omission, have clumsily supplied it as follows: and ^aray and Milkah his daughters-in-laWy the ti/ife of 'Abhram and Nahor his sons. X 1 . 3 1 ] COMMENTS 2 79 that he left his home to escape idolatrous associations. See Jub. xii. If, however, he originally "went forth* from 'Ur of the Kaldeans, it is probable that the change of residence was occasioned by political consid- erations, perhaps an invasion of the 'Elamites. See Meyer, GA, i. §S 135 ff. ; Rogers, HBA, i. 379 ff. 'Ur is no doubt the Uru of the Assyrian inscriptions, one of the most ancient and famous of the cities of Babylonia ; its history as a religious as well as commercial centre going back nearly four thousand years before the Chris- tian era. Its ruins have been unearthed at Mugheir near the right bank of the Euphrates a little below the site of 'Orekh. See Schrader, KAT, 129 ff. ; Rogers, NBA, i. 370 ff. ; McCurdy, HPM, i. ii7f. ; comp. Kit- tel, ////, i. iSi ff. The destination of the emigrants was the land of Kena'an ; but when they reached Haran, now Harran, on the Belias (Belik), a tributary of the upper Euphrates, for some reason, perhaps the feebleness of Terah, they stopped there. Haran is first mentioned in the Assyrian records by Tiglath-pileser I. (c. 1 100) ; but it was much older than his time, and it remained an important religious and commercial centre long after the overthrow of the Assyrian empire. See Schrader, KB, i. 38 f. ; iii. 2, 96 ff. ; Eze. xxvii. 23 ; Mc- Curdy, HPM, i. 84 f. It, like 'Ur, was a seat of the worship of Sin (the moon), a fact that indicates a close relation between the two cities and doubtless explains the route taken by Terah and his family. * In the Massoretic text the verb is plural and is followed by CnN. This is an impossible comhination, which must be remedied by reading IPS' with him, for nns» ivifh them (Ball) ; or, better, by changing ISli**"! to S!^"'1' and he went forth, with the Syriac Version, as above, or CDS ")S!^;*."1 to CHS Sl"1"*1' and he brouj^ht thefnjorth, with the Samaritans and the Greek Version. 28o THE WORLD BEFORE ABRAHAM [XI. 32 32. The Massorctic text gives to Terah a total of two hundred and five years. So also the Greek Version. The Samaritans, however, make the number a hundred and forty-five, and this is probably the correct read- ing. The reasons for this conclusion are the following : (/) There is no other case in this chapter in which the son lives longer than the father. {2) In all other cases the totals are the same in the Massoretic as in the Sa- maritan text. ( j) It is hardly probable that any one so careful as the present writer would adopt figures that would make 'Abhram appear to have left his father sixty years alone in Haran. Substitute the Samaritan for the present reading and the year of Terah's death becomes the seventy-fifth of 'Abhram, the year in which, in obe- dience to the call of God (xii. 4), the latter continued his journey to Kena'an. See also Acts vii. 4. APPENDIX The Babylonian Account of the Deluge; from Tablet XI. of the Gilgamesh Epic* Said Ut-napishtim to Gilgamesh : " I will reveal to thee, Gilgamesh, a precious matter ; lo And the decree of the gods I will relate to thee. Shurippak, a city known to thee, Lying on the bank of the Euphrates, — When that city had become old, the gods in its midst. The great gods, were moved in their hearts to cause a flood. 15 Therein were their father, Anu, Their counsellor, the warrior Bel, Their herald, Ninib, Their leader, Ennugi. The all-wise Ea sat with them, and 20 Their words he repeated to a hurdle : ' Hurdle, hurdle ! wall, wall ! Hurdle hear, and wall attend ! Man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar-tutu, Plan a structure, build a ship ; 25 Leave riches, look after lives ; Goods hate, life preserve. Living things of all kinds embark in the ship. The ship that thou shall build — Its size shall be measured ; 30 Its width and its length shall correspond ; Into the deep launch (?) it.' * For the oriiicinal transliterated, see Schrader, KByV\. i, 230 ff. The lines are here numbered as in that work. 282 APPENDIX I understand and speak to Ea, my lord, * . . . my lord, which thou speakest thus, I will respect, I will perform. 35 [But what] shall I answer the city, the people, and the elders ' ? Ea openeth his mouth and speaketh ; He saith to me his servant, ' Man, thus shalt thou speak to them : Bel hath cast me off, he hateth me ; therefore 40 I will not dwell in your city. Nor will I lay on the soil of Bel my head ; but I will go down to the deep, with Ea, my lord, will I dwell. Upon you will he pour overwhelming rain. . . . birds, . . . fishes, 45 the harvest, A time hath Shamash set, he who illumineth the dark- ness ; At evening shall he cause heaven to pour upon you heavy rain.' '* As soon as morning brightened .* The strong brought. On the fifth day I drew its plan. In KANHISA 120 cubits arose its walls; Likewise 120 cubits was the extent of its top. 60 I drew a picture of its front, outlined it. Urtag^ip it to the number of six ; I divided into seven parts ; The inside of it I divided into nine parts. Plugs against water I drove within it. 65 I provided a rudder, and laid in necessaries. Six sars of bitumen I poured on the outside (i*) ; Three sars I put on the inside. Three sars of oil the people who bore its sussul f brought ; • Seven lines missing. f Something made of wood {isu). APPENDIX 283 I left a sar of oil, which the sacrifices consumed \ 70 Two sars of oil the seaman stowed away. For the people I slaughtered oxen ; I killed lambs daily. SirisJiu, mead, oil and wine I gave the people to drink like the water of the river ; 75 A feast I made like the day of the new year ; I opened a jar of unguent, thrust my hand into it. In the month of great Shamash the ship was finished. Because is toilsome The^''/> of the ship of (?) KAK MESH ^ho\c and below is full (?). 80 two-thirds thereof. " All that I had I stowed therein : All the silver I had I stowed therein ; All the gold I had I stowed therein ; All the living things I had I stowed therein. 85 I embarked in the ship all my family and my kindred : Cattle of the field, beasts of the field, the artisans, all of them, I embarked. * A time hath Shamash set, and He who illumineth the darkness at evening shall cause heaven to pour out heavy rain. Go into the ship and close the door.' 90 That time arrived. He who illumineth the darkness caused heaven to pour out heavy rain. When I beheld the face of day, To look upon the day I was afraid. I went into the ship and closed my door ; 95 To the pilot of the ship, the seaman Puzur-bel, I delivered the structure with its contents. " As soon as morning brighteneth There riseth from the horizon a dark cloud. Ramman in the midst of it roareth ; 284 APPENDIX loo Nabu and Marduk go before, As heralds they go over mountain and plain. Uragal looseth the tarkulli ; Ninib goeth forth, beginneth the conflict ; The Anunaki bear torches 105 With whose brightness they make the land glow; Ramman's fury reacheth to heaven, Turneth every bright thing to darkness. ... the land like . . . devastated. One day the storm no Swiftly it blew and the water . . . mountains . - . Like a battle upon- men One seeth not another ; Men are not recognized in heaven. The gods fear the flood ; 115 They flee, they climb to the heaven of Anu. The gods, like a pet dog, cower in kamati. Ishtar crieth like a woman in travail ; The mistress of the gods, the sweet-voiced, mourneth : * May that day turn to clay, 120 Because I in the assembly of the gods spoke evil, When I spoke evil in the assembly of the gods, To destroy my men a conflict decreed, — Do I then bear my men, That, as the brood of fishes, they may fill the sea ' ? 125 The gods of the Anunaki weep with her ; The gods, prostrated, sit weeping ; Their lips are covered . . . a bu ah re e ti. " Six days and nights The wind bloweth, the flood, the storm, overwhelmeth the land. 130 When the seventh day arriveth, the storm, the flood, abateth ; the conflict. Which it fought like an army. The sea rested, retreated, and the tempest, the flood, ceased. APPENDIX 285 When I behold day, the noise is stilled, But all mankind are turned to clay. 135 When daylight came, I prayed ; I opened the window, the light fell upon the side of my face. I am crushed, and I seat myself and weep : Over the side of my face flow my tears. I looked upon the world, wide-spread was the sea. 140 Twelve leagues distant an island rose : For Mt. Nisir the ship made. Mt. Nisir held the ship fast, and did not let it rise : One day, a second day, Mt. Nisir, KI MIN ; A third day, a fourth day, Mt. Nisir, etc. ; 145 A fifth, a sixth, Mt. Nisir, etc. When the seventh day arrived, I brought forth and released a dove ; The dove went, it returned; There was no resting-place, therefore it came back. 150 I brought forth and released a swallow: The swallow went, it returned ; There was no resting-place, therefore it came back. I brought forth and released a raven ; The raven went, and, when it saw that the water was dry- ing up, 155 It ate, ishahhi, itarri, but it did not come back. I sent forth to the four winds ; I offered an offering. I placed an altar on the top of the mountain ; By sevens vessels I set : Into them I poured cane, cedar, and asu^ 160 The gods smelled the odor; The gods smelled the pleasant odor ; The gods, like flies, gathered over the offering. " As soon as the mistress of the gods arrived. She held up the great necklace that Anu made for her adornment : 165 * Ye gods, as I shall not forget the ornament of my neck, 286 APPENDIX So these days shall I remember and not forget forever. Let the gods come to the altar, But let Bel not come to the altar, Because without consultation he caused a flood, 170 And my people he devoted to destruction.' " As soon as Bel arrived And saw the ship, Bel was angry ; He was filled with wrath at the gods, the Igigi : * Hath there any soul escaped ? 175 Not a man should have survived destruction.' Ninib openeth his mouth and speaketh, Saith to the warrior Bel, * Who but Ea deviseth aught ; Ea also knoweth every art.' 180 Ea openeth his mouth and speaketh, Saith to the warrior Bel : * Thou counsellor of the gods, warrior, Why, why, didst thou without consultation cause the flood? On the sinner lay his sin, 185 On the offender lay his offence ; Show mercy, lest he be destroyed, have patience, lest . . . Instead of causing a flood Let the lion come and decimate men ; Instead of causing a flood 190 Let the jackal come and decimate men ; Instead of causing a flood Let a famine occur and the land . . . Instead of causing a flood Let Ura come and devastate the land. 195 I did not reveal the decree of the great gods ; 1 caused Atrahasis to have a dream, and the decree of the gods he heard.' When now he had taken a resolution, Bel boarded the ship. He seized my hand and brought me forth ; T APPENDIX 287 200 He brought forth my wife and caused her to kneel at my side ; He turned toward us, took his place between us, blessed us : * Hitherto Ut-napishtim hath been a man ; Now Ut-napishtim and his wife shall be like us, the gods, And Ut-napishtim shall dwell afar at the mouth of the rivers.' 205 They took me and afar at the mouth of the rivers they caused me to dwell." INDEXES I. Topics Treated. Analysis: of Gen. xxi.-xxx., 37; of Gen. i.-xi.,6S ff. Angels : at creation, 109 f. : as " sons of God," 191 ; at the confusion of tongues, 26S. Anthropomorphisms : absence from P, 30 ; prevalence in J, 32. Apostles as witnesses to the authorship of the Pentateuch, 14 f. Ark, comparative size of, 198. Article, in Hebrew, 5, 9. " Book of Jashar," 65. " Book of the Wars of Yahweh," 65 f. Chronicles, etc., on the authorship of the Pentateuch, 10 ff. Chronology of the Pentateuch : com- parison of texts and versions, 187, 276 ; historical value, 20 f., 188 ff., 275 f. Clean and unclean, 202, 218, 221. Composite narratives in the Pentateuch, 19 ff., 63 f., 196 ff. Creation : Genesis and geology, 115 ff. ; the two accounts compared, 140. Critics, schools of, 37 ff. Day in Gen. i. 1- ii. 3, 100 f. Deuteronomic Document : its discov- ery, 9, 40, 41;, 49 ; relation to Deuter- onomy, 45 ; characteristics, 23, 34 ; recognition by de Wette, 24 ; age, 39 ff., 63 ; composition, 45 fl. ; rela- tion to J and E, 51. Deuteronomy, on its own authorship, 6ff.,4i ff. Diet of primeval man, 112, 156, 221. Documentary Hypothesis : origin and history, 25 f. ; statement, 28 ff. ; preva- lence, 28, 36 ; result of its acceptance, 66 f. Duplicate narratives in the Pentateuch, 17 ff. Elohistic Document : discovery, 26, 28 ; characteristics, 32 f. ; relation to J, 32, 52 f. ; age, 51 ff., 63; relation to D, 52 f. ; composition, 64 ff. Ezekiel and the Priests' Code, 60 f. Ezra : restorer of the Hebrew Scrip- tures, 14 ; relation to the Pentateuch, 6i ff. Fall, story of, its value, 159. False prophets, 44. Flood: duration, 216; value of the story, 225 f. ; Babylonian account of, 225 f., 281 ff. Fragmentary Hypothesis, 21 f. God (^Elo/iim) in the Pentateuch, 17, 22, 29, 33, 96. Hexateuch, use of the term, 3, 54. Image of God, no f., 177. :9o INDEXES Images: forbidden in Deuteronomy, 9 f., 47 ; tolerated in earlier docu- ments, 54 f. Inspiration, limitations of, i6. Jeremiah : familiarity with D, 39 ; rela- tion to P, 60. Jesus and the Pentateuch, 14 f., 15 f. Joshua, relation of, to the Pentateuch, 3,54. Light, Hebrew conception of, 98 f., 104 ff. Moses : the growth of the tradition as- cribing to him the authorship of the Pentateuch, 4 ff. ; the earliest testi- mony concerning him, 10 ; his place in Hebrew history, 66 f. Patriarchs, longevity of, 188 ff. Pentateuch : names, i f., 4, 14 f. ; divi- sions, 2 f. ; warrant for the name, 3 ; traditional authorship, 4 ff. ; structure and composition, 16 ff. ; age, 36 ff. Priestly Document : characteristics, 17 ff., 29 ff. ; age, 58 ff., 63. Proper names, transUteration of, iv f. Prophet : the title, 41 ; his work, 43 f. ; types, 43 f. Prophets : the former, i, 8 ff. ; the later, 10. Rainfall in Palestine, 206. Second person in Deuteronomy, 46 ff. " Sons of God," value of the story of, 195 f. Supplementary Hypothesis : origin, 23 f. ; overthrow, 27 f. Table of nations, value of, 264 f. Talmud on the authorship of the Pen- tateuch, 12 f. Titles of the Priestly Document, 119, -i-n, 196,234,271. Tradition, value of, 17. Translation of Gen. i.-xi., ^j-i^ ff. Worship, centralization of, in Deuter- onomy, 10, 40, 44 f., 48 f. Yahweh in the Pentateuch, 1 7, 22, 29, 53, 120, 160, 176. Yahwistic Document : characteristics, 17 ff., 31 f., 53 ; relation to E, 32, 52 ; extracts in Gen. x.xi.-xxx., 37 ; age, 51 ff., 63 ; relation to D, 52 f. ; com- position, 64 ff. II. Books and Authors Cited. [Figures in parentheses indicate the number of times an author is referred to on a particular page.] Aben Ezra, Com., 96. Adam and Eve, Book of, 191. Allen and Sachtleben, Across Asia cm a Bicycle, 211. Arabic Version, 82, 146, 178. Astruc, Jean, Conjectures siir la Gen'hse, 25, 27. Augustine, De Geuesi ad Littcram, 17, 100. Baba Bathra ; see Talmud. Bacon, B. VV., Genesis of Genesis, v, . 29, T,Z, 37^ Sh »26, 155, 160, 257, 260 ; JBL, 53 ; Triple Tradition of the Exodus, 6, 29, 33, 45, 53, 65. Baethgen, Fried., Beitrds^e zur sem. Rcligionss;cschichte, 170, 171, 172. Ball, C. J., Gen., 103 (2), 104, 112, 114, 146, 152 (2), 157, 161, 163, 165 (3), INDEXES 291 170(2), 171, 177, 185, 192 (2), 196, *99> 213 (2), 214, 218, 221, 222, 22S (2), 251, 268 (2), 279; Light from the East, 98 (2), 99, 102, 107, 109, 113, 121, 123, 133, 158, 238, 245 (2), 246 (2), 252. Baudissin, W. W., Studicn zur scm. Rciti^ionsgcschichtey 96, 98, 106, 120. Belirnian, Georg, Dan., 10. Benzigcr, J., Heb. Archaeologie, 171, 172, 198. Bereshiih Rabba, no, in, 138, 143, 167, 270. Berosus ; see Cory. Berry, G. R., Am. Jour, of Scm. Lan- guages, etc., 192. Bevan, A. A., Dan., 10, Bleek, Fried., Afh. Bcitrdge, 54 ; Einl. in das A. T., Eng., 3 (2), 23. Bochart, Sam., Geographia Sacra, 130, 237, 238, 258. Boscawen, W. St. C, The Bible and the Monuments, 2, 106, iiS, 159, 16S, 225. Bottcher, Fried., Lehrbuch, 120, 181, 217; Aehrenlese, 165. Briggs, C. A., Higher Crit. of the Hex., 15, 17; Mcs. Prophecies, 231. Brown, Francis, Lex., 114, 123, 139. Brugsch, Hein., Persische Reise, 128, 130. Bruston, Ch., Les deux Jchovistc, 35. Budde, Karl, Bib. Urgeschichtc, 35, 121, 126 (2), 135, 147, 155, 160, 164, 169 (3X 172, 173, 174, 175 (2), iSi, 182, 184, 1S5, 188, 191, 192, 193, 194, 207, 20S, 209, 212, 213, 22S, 230 (2), 231, 232 (2), 247, 257, 271, 273, 274; Richt. u. Sam., 3, 43, 54- Calvin, John, Com., 12S, 130. Cheyne, T. K., Enc. Bib., 15S, 168, 169, 170 (2), 171, 258; /sa., 250; ZA W, 1 98. Clarke, Adani, Com., 167. Colenso, J. W., The Pent, and the Book of Jos., 24, 39. Conder, C. K., The Bible and the East, 238. Cornill, C. H., Einl. in das A. T., 3, 37,45. 49, 53, 54, 57, 61, 65, 175- Cory, I. P., Ancient Fragments, 102, 108, 113, 189, 211, 217. Crawford, T. P., The Patriarchal Dy- nasties, 179. Dana, J. D., Manual, 115; Text- book, 116. Davidson, A. B., Eze., 262. Dawson, J. W., Eden Lost and Found, 115, 18S, 206. Delitzsch, Franz, Com., v, 97, loi, 102, 109, no, 119, 125, 138, 142, 146(2), 147, 150, 153, 163, 176, 179, 181, 183, 192, 193, 194, 207, 208, 221, 229, 231, 242, 257, 266, 270, 272, 278. Dclitzscli, Fried., Gesch. Babyloniens u. Assyriens, 131, 245 ; Hebrew and Assyrian, 104, 139; Wo lag das Paradics, 120, 123, 124, 128(2), 129, 130 (3), 131, 132 (2), 133 (3), »58, 165, 235, 236, 244 (2), 246 (2), 247, 24S, 249, 259, 260, 274. Diet, of the Bible (Hastings), 130, 131 (2), 133, 158, 161, 168, 172, 210, 211, 235, 237, 243(2), 244, 251 (2), 253, 262 (2), 263. Dillmann, Aug., Gen., v, 29, y], log, no, 120, 124, 12S, 130, 132, 135, 138, 139, 140, 146, 147 (2), 150, 160, 164, 166, 167, 169, 170, 171, 176, 181, 185, 192 (2), 193, 194, 199, 202, 209, 212 (2), 216, 218, 224, 229, 231, 234, 237, 249, 255, 264, 272; Num. Deu. u. Jos., 35, 36, 38 (2), 42, 48, 49, 52 (2), 58. Driver, S. R., Deu., 39, 41, 42, 43, 46 (2), 47, 48, 253 ; Int. to the Lit. of the O. T, 3, 29, 30, Z2^ 34, 43, 45, 51, 52, 65 ; Heb. Text of Sam., 152 ; Tenses, 120; Studia Biblica, 120. Ebers, Georg, Aegypten u. die Biicher Moses, 2^1 (3), 250(3), 251 (3). 292 INDEXES Eichhorn, J. G., Einl. in das A. T., 27. Encyclopedia Biblica, 100, 130 (2), 15S, 161, 168, 169, 170 (2), 171, 185, 189, 225, 226, 230, 241, 244, 246, 252, 25S, 259. English Version, 4, 8, 102, 103, 107, 114, 115, 120(2), 13S. Enoch, Book of, 1S3, 191. Erman, A., ZAW, 251 (2). Eusebius Pamphili, PreJ>. Evangelica, 271. Ewald, Hein,, Gesch. Israels, 27 (2) ; Heb. Sprache, 108. French, R. V. ; see Lex Mosaica. Fiirst, Jul,, Kanon des A. T., 2 (2) ; Lex., 151 (2). Geddes, Alex., Bible, 21 (2), 54. Gesenius,Wil., Gesch. der heb. Sprache, 39; Gram., 5, 96 (2), 97, 103, 104, 108(2), 113, 114, 115, 122, 129, 138, 139, 140, 144 (2), 145, 152, 162 (2), 164, 166, 171, 173, 174, 177, 199, 206, 207, 212, 228 (2), 229, 230. Ginsburg, David, Bib. Hebraica, 192. Glaser, Ed., Skizze der Gesch. Ara- biens, 129, 130, 241, 242 (4), 243(2), 244, 260 (3), 262 (7), 263 (2), 264, 274 (2). Graf, K. H., Die geschichtl. Biicher des A. T., 37. Greek Version, 59, 72, i.3), 74 (4), 75 (S), 77 (6), 7^, 79 (3), 80, 81, 82, 83, 84 (2), 85 (5), 86 (2), 87, 88 (3), 89 (2), 91 (3), 92, loi, 103 (2), 104 (2), 105, 107, 112 (3), 113, 119, 120, 121, 131, 136 (2), 137, 138, 139 (2), 143, 144, 146, 150, 151, 152 (2), 153, 156, 157, 160, 161, 164, 170, 171 (2), 172, 175, 176(2), 186, 187, 189, 194, 197, 200, 202 (2), 204, 205 (2), 206, 209, 210, 211, 213, 214, 215, 218, 220, 223, 228, 235. 236, 237, 239, 241 (3), 246, 250, 253. 257, 260 (2), 261, 262, 268, 269, 271, 272 (2), 273 (2), 274, 275 (3), 276, 279, 280. Green, W. H., Hebraica, 36; Heb. Feasts, 36 ; Higher Crit. of the Pent.^ 4, 5, 7, 16, 29, 36, 41 ; Moses and the Prophets, 36, 60, 61 ; Unity of Genesis, 36, Gunkel, Hermann, Gen., v, 111, 135, 146, 152, 161, 205, 268, 269, 272; Schdpfung u. Chaos, ()() (2), 106, 168, 113, 118. Guyot, Arnold, Creation, 99, 107 (2), 115. Halevy, J., Jo7ir. Asiatique, 242, 263. Harman, H. M., Intr. to the Study of the Holy Scriptures, 4, 7, 16. Harper, W. R., Hebraica, 36. Hartmann, A. T., Hist. -krit. Forschun- gen, 22. Haupt, Paul, Am. Or. Soc, 122; Sacred Books of the O. T., 29, 161, Hensler, C. G., Bcmerkungen iib. Pss. ti. Gen., 178. Herder, J. G., Spirit of Heb. Poetry y 173- Hobbes, Thos., Leviathan, 6. Holzinger, H., Einl. in den Hex., 3, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35» 36, 45 (2), 61, 63, 121; Gen., V, 69 (2), 119, 148, i5o> 154, 157, 169, 173, 181, 186, 209, 213, 216, 219, 223, 228, 235, 240, 249, 256, 271. Hommel, Fritz, Ancient Heb. Tradi- tion, 129, 188, 245 ; Die. of the Bible, 131 (2). Hupfeld, Herm., Die Quellen der Gen., 27. Ilgen, C. D., Die Urkunden desjerus. Tempdarchivs, 26 (2), 27, 119, 192. Jastrow, Morris, Jr., The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 98, 102, 105, 107, 113, 183, 191, 225, 226, 244 (2), 248, 267 (2). Jensen, P., Hittiter u. Armenier, 275 ; Kosmologie, 98, 102 (2), 103, 122, 133- Johns, C. W. H., The Expositor, 198. /.VDKXICS 293 Josephus, Fl., Antiquities of the Jews, 13, 128, 130, 191, 237, 23S (2), 25S; Cont. A/ion, 13. Jubilees, Book of, no, 134, i.}i, 143, »9', 237. Kautzsch, Emil, The Lit. of the O. T., 60. Keil, C. F., £i„/. in das A. T., 4, 7, 41, 42, 43; Gen., 12S, 162, 224, 245. Kelle, K. G., Vorurthalsfreie Wurdi- gungdcrmos. Schriften, 23. Kittel, Kud., History of the Hebrews, 3, 3^ 3S, 42, 52 (2), 58, 65, 279 ; Kon., 263. Klostcrmann, A., Sam. Jt. K"on., 54 ; Pentateuch, 2S. Knobel, A., Gen., 112, 115, 250. Konig, Ed., System der hcb. Syntax, 143- Kosters, W. H., Herstel van Israel in het pers. Tijdvak, 63. Kuenen, Abram, Origin and Composi- tion of the Hex., 34, 35, n, 38, 46, 47, 49, 55, 61 (2) ; Theol. Tijdschrift, 192. de Lagarde, Paul, Onom. Sacra, 198 ; Oricntalia, 170. Le Conte, Jos., Elements of Geology, 189. Lenormant, Frang., Beginnings of His- tory, III, 135, 138, 158 (2), 170 (3), ^73) '75> 181, 182, 211, 216. Lex Mosaic a, 16, 36, 60, 61. Luther, Martin, Gen., 151 ; Version, 161. Maspero, G. C. C, Receuil de Tra- vaux, 238 (2), McCurdy, J. F., History, Prophecy, and the Monuments, 131, 133, 232, 246 (2), 247 (2), 248, 252, 253, 259, 279 (2). Mdnant, Joach., Annales des Rois d'Assyrie, 249. Meyer, Ed., Gesch. des Alterthums, 13^ 234 (3), 235 (4), 236 (2), 237, 239(3), 241, 247, 250, 251, 257 (2), 25S, 259, 261, 266, 279. Mitchell, II. G., Am., 205, 246; JUL, 46, 47, 48. Moore, G. F., JBL., 64 ; Jud., 3, 42, 55, »93, 253. Movers, F. C, Die Phdnicier, 238. Murphy, J. G., Gen., 99 (2), 105, 109, '37. "44, >79, »88, 190, 191, 209, 224. Nestle, E., Marginalien u. Mate- rielien, 152, 222. Ncildekc, Theodor, Unterss. sur Kritik des A. T., 1 85. Nowack, W., Klein. Propheten, 61. Olshausen, J., Beit rage zur Kritik des iiberliefcrten Textes im Buche Gen., 138, 214. Onkclos, Targum, 86, 161, 211, 238. Origcn, Cont. Celsum, 15. Ovid, Met., 112. Oxford Hexateuch (Carpenter, Har- ford-Battersby, and others), v, 29, 30, 32, 33 (2), 34, 35, 39, 45, 5^ (2), 52, 57, 61, 63, 64, 175. Peiser, Felix, Zeitsch. fur Assyri- ologie, 131. Petrie, W. M. F., Hist, of Et^ypt, 244, 2?4 (2). Philo Juda;us, Works {^ohv), 13, no, 191. Piepenbring, Ch., Theology of the O. T., 120, 135, 137. Pliny, Hist. Naturalis, 130. Pressel, W., Stimmen der Volkcr, 12S, 130. Ptolemy, Geographia, 242. Ragozin, Z. A,, Assyria, 123, 234, 235 (2), 236, 245,257 ; Chaldea, 257, 265, 2r>6, 267 ; Media, etc., 258. Kashi, Com., 96, 160, 191. Kask, K. C, Ilgen's Zeitsch. fiir hist. Theologie, 17S. von Kaumer, Karl, Pal'astina, 12S. 294 IXDEXES Kawlinson, George, Ancient Egypt, Reuss, Ed., Z7 \ Das A. T., 141, 161 ; Gesch. dcs A. T., 49. Rice, W. N. ; see Dana. Riehm, Ed., Eint. in das A. T., 41 ; Handworterbuch des bib. Altertums, 172, 198. Rogers, R. W., Hist, of Babylonia and Assyria, 234, 235, 236 (2), 245, 246, 247, 249, 257 (2), 266, 267, 279 (2). Rosenmiiller, E. F. K., Ha?idbuch der bib. Altcrthuviskunde, 130. Ryle, E. F., Early Narratives of Gen., 118, 159. Samaritan Pentateuch, 75 (2), 76, 'j'j (2), ^%, 79, 80, 81, z-s, 84, 85 (4), 86 (4), 88 (3), 89 (2), 91 (2), 105, 108, 112(2), 121, 128, 129(2), 136, 137, 138,139(2), 144, 146, 151, 152(2), 155, 161, 163, 165, 175, 176, 181, 182, 183 (2), 184, 186, 187, 196, 200 (2), 202 (2), 203, 204, 205 (2), 206, 207, 210, 213, 217, 220, 223, 233, 236 (2), 239, 244, 256 (2), 259, 260, 261, 262 (3), 269, 271, 272, 273, 274 (2), 275 (2), 276, 278 (2), 279, 280 (3). Sayce, A. H., Hibbert Lectures, 168, 169, 170; Races of the O. T., 234- Schrader, Eberh., Einl. in das A. T., 54 ; Keilitischriften u. das A. T., 98, 118, 120, 124, 158, 159, 162,210,211, 225 (Eng.), 237, 243, 246, 247, 248 (2), 254 (3), 258, 277, 279 ; Keilin- schriftl. Bibliothek, 98 (2), 99, 102, 107, 109, 113, 121, 123, 129, 133, 183, 191, 198, 199, 206, 207, 211, 212, 213, 216, 218, 220, 224, 234 (2), 235 (2), 23^>, 237, 238 (9), 243, 244, 245 (4), 246 (5), 247, 248 (5), 249, 253, 254 (3)» 258, 259, 260 (2), 262, 267, 270 (3), 274, 279, 281. Schultz, Herm., Alttestamcntl. Theo- lofiie, 141. Siegfried u. Stade, Lex., 228. Smith, George, Assyrian Discoveries^ 246 ; The Athenceum, 270. Smith, G. A., Histor. Geography of the Holy Land, 255. Smith, W. R., The O. T. in the fewish Church, 49, 60, 61, 65, 66 ; Religion of the Semites, 222 (2). Spinoza, Benedict, Traotatus Theo- logico-politicuSf 21 (2). Spurrell, G. J., Gen., 145. Stade, Bernh., De Populo favan, 250 ; ZAW, 69, 168, 175. Stahelin, J. J., Kritische Untersuch- ungen, 54 ; Einleitung in das A. 7"., 54- Steuernagel, Carl, Deu. it. fos., 50 (2), 175, 176. Strack, H.L., Gen., 112, 114, 119, 150, 163, 165, 197. Syriac Version, T>>, 75 (2), 11 (3)> 78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85 (3), 86 (2), 88 (2), 89 (2), 92, 94, loi. III, 112, 139, 143, 144, 149, 151, 152, T65, 175, 178, 197, 200, 202 (2), 204, 206, 209, 2U, 213, 218. Talmud, 12, 133. Targum to Ezekiel, 238. Tatian, Diatessaron, 63. TertuUian, Adv. Hermogenem, 17; Adv. Marcioncm, 191. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs^ 191. Thoms, W. J., Human Longevity, 188. Thomson, W. M., The Land and the Book, 255 (2). Tiele, C. P., Babylonisch-assyrische Geschichte, 246. Torrey, C. C, Ezra-Nehemiah, 63. Tosaphoth, 133. Toy, C. H., Eze., 250 ; fBL., 118. Tristram, H. B., Land of Israel, 255 ; Nat. Hist, of the Bible, 198. Tuch, Fried., Gen., 25, 120, 163, 193. Umbreit, F. W. C, Stud. u. Krit., 161. lA'DKXES 295 Valeton, J. J. P., 7. A W, 200. Vater, J. S., Com., 22. Vergil, Gcorspca, 112. yu/^i^(i/g, 31, 75, 77 (2), 81, 86, 129, 136, 139, 151, 205, 213, 241. Weber, Ferd., PaUisiinische Theologie, 147. Wellhausen, Jul., Comp. dcs Hex., 37 (2), 43, 45, 53, '92, 23', 244, 256(2); Israelii, u. j'iid. Gesch., 62 ; Gesch. Israels, 43, 60, 61, 126, 277; Skizxen u. Vorarbeiten^ 10. Westphal, Alex., Sources du Penta- tcuque, 46. de Wcttc, W. M. L., Dis. critico-exe- getita, 24 ; Einl. in das A. T., 34. \Vildclx»cr, G., Letterkunde des ouden Verbonds, 3. Winckler, Hugo, Mittheilungen der vorderas. Geseilscha/t, 238 (2), 241, Zeydncr, H., ZAVV, 161. Zunz, L., ZDMG, 39. III. Isolated Passages Explained. Gen. xxxvi. 2 Ex. xvii. 14 xxi. 13 x.xxiv. 2S Num. xiii. 33 Jos. xi. 3 . Jud. iii. 3 . viii. 27 I Sam ii. 22 . X. 25 . 2 Sam xvii. 3 . I Kgs. viii. 4 253 5 5» 5f. 194 253 253 55 59 9 152 59 f. I Kgs. viii. 53 X. 22 . Isa. ix. 15/14 xlvi. 10 Ixvi. 19 Jer. vii. 22 . xxv. 20 f. xlvi. 9 . Eze. XX vii. 10 XXX. 5 Cant. vii. 11/10 54 263 44 96 250 60 260 250 250 250 I52f 296 INDEXES IV n-rs- ,...277 , . . .122 ....123 .96, 120 176 258 ....139 iriD^i? TOP2-tS n^^s nsb^^s 254,256 bns 2^9 -15^5 42 n^irs-1.5 96 192 162 164 163 169 171 192 120 171 Hebrew Words Discussed (i)nb3 "4 ^l?2:p 230 br^'b 172 "np^ 1^9/ bs;^n^ 169/- bscp^n^ 169/ nbt^JiriT^ ^^4 n>---- 185 nttr^2 172 ''•^;?v HT^ l-l'^y D^ttSP. nb^ rb^ n??!)"? (in)2p ri2 lyp; vn Pi^ttj 150/ nntt7 ^97 ntp -176 bn^n ^72 "n^DD ^?: rT nin": ''?'>^ -tV 244, 260 -rb^ '74 nf:^ 230,232 ^^> 181 bb 144 .261 .169 .169 .250 .170 .138 .132 .224 .162 .181 .210 Tior^m^;?! 52/ Elecirotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton dr* Co. Cambridge^ Mass., U. S. A. . Date Due "^^ l9 'AQ Ali^h'S!^ ^G29 55 ii * ■ -^^^ -.- ^ "■- t