^ff^ » .V/^ k^ f^3p\v\ %M ^^WMs >^ ^^^^fr / '^^(^ ^L V "^ ^•^s^to t^fSp' ^^^K^ • #fl\\l LIBI^A^I^Y OF THE 1 Theological Seminary, PRINCETON, N. J. Cfise^ D.ty.j.5ion3S|.l3.7-.. Shelf, Secti 0 n . .%K.6 . v^ S Book,. No,^,.. ■" N*>^l int : Alex.uuhine. Jos.-pluis as correctfd l.y Hale.';. *.«. B.C. Interval A. M. B. c. Interv. A.M. B.C. Inlerv. A.M. B.C. Interv. A.M. B.C. Interv. Creation. . . . 1 3760 1 4004 _ 1 4305 1 5508 1 5411 _ Deluf,'e .... 1656 2104 1656 1656 2;M8 1656 1307 2998 1307 2262 3246 2262 2256 3155 2256 Call of Abraham . 2018 1742 362 2083 1922 426 2384 1921 10/7 3469 2039 1207 3318 2093 1062 Exodc .... 2448 1312 832 430 480 2513 2992 1491 1012 430 480 2814 3294 1491 1011 430 480 3894 4495 1614 1013 425 601 37G4 4184 1648 1027 445 621 Solomon's Temple! founded . . .J 2928 Solomon's Temple! destroyed . . ( 3338 422 410 3396 588 424 3718 587 424 4919 589 424 4825 586 441 Hirth of Christ , . .3760 — 422 4004 — 588 4305 — 587 5508 — 589 5411 — 586 Chap. I.] NOTES TO FIRST INHABITANTS. n In this tabic the Samaritan and Septuagint accounts are extracted from tables in the valu- able Preface to the Ancient Universal History, and the others are derived from Hales, with the addition of the " intervals." The materials for comparison which the table offers are well worthy of consideration. It will be seen that the Samaritan makes a much nearer general approximation to the Hebrew than to the Sep- tuagint or Josephus ; it makes a much shorter estimate of the interval between the creation and the deluge than any of even the Hebrew accounts ; but, on the other hand, it gives a computation of the interval between the deluge and the call of Abraham so much longer than that of the Hebrew, as very nearly approxi- mates to the generally longer reckoning of the Septuagint and Josephus. It is important to observe that the Hebrew stands alone in its brief estimate of this most important period. The astonishing difference of 1748 years be- tween the highest and lowest accounts, con- tained in the Table, of the era of the creation, will appear a very strong discrepancy ; yet these are by no means the extreme points at which that era has been estimated. Alphonso, King of Castile, reckons the date of the crea- tion at 6984 B.C., and Rabbi Lippman computes it at 3616 B.C., the difference being 3370 years ! The reader will already have discovered that those who follow the Hebrew text, as it now stands, are not at all agreed in the computa- tions which they found upon it. The lowest estimate from this source has just been given ; the highest is that of the Seder 01am Sutha, or ' Small Chronicle of the World,' published about A.D. 1121, which dates the creation b.c. 4359. Now, taking the Hebrew and the Septua- gint as the representatives, respectively, of the shorter and longer estimates, it is quite evident that one of them must have been corrvipted. It is also clear that this corruption took place, not only after the birth of Christ, but after Jerusalem was destroyed ; for Josephus clearly testifies that when he wrote, towards the end of the first century, the Hebrew and the Sep- tuagint were in perfect chronological accord- ance; and, at a somewhat earlier date, Philo gave his valuable evidence to the same effect. The motive by which such a corruption may have been induced is easily found. The Jews had a cherished tradition that the Messiah was to appear about the middle of the sixth mil- lenary age of the world : at that time Christ did, in fact, appear, according to the longer chronology, and that this, their own tradition, was alleged against them by the early Christians, supplied a motive for the Jews to tamper with VOL. I. the Scriptural genealogies, whereby they might contend that he appeared much before the ex- pected time, and show that they still had ground for expecting the Messiah. That the Jews had this tradition we know ; and we also know that their writers have often availed themselves of this argument, founded on the present state of the Hebrew text. That, in their bitter enmity to Christ, they would not much scruple at siich a proceeding, we can learn from contemporary authorities (Justin Martyr, for instance), who distinctly charge them with altering or erasing passages in their Scriptures which the Chris- tians were in the habit of adducing to prove that Christ was the Messiah foretold by the prophets. If, then, the Jews desired to alter the gene- alogies, it was much easier for them to do so in the Hebrew than in the Septuagint. The copies of the former had become scarce during the wars, and the comparatively few remaining copies belonged to the synagogues or were in the hands of learned Jews, the Hebrew of the Bible being then a dead language; whereas the Septuagint being in a living language, extensively understood, the copies were nu- merous, a great number of them in the hands of Christians, and many, probably, even in the libraries of the curiously-learned heathen. The Jews could hardly at that time falsify the Sep- tuagint, but they could the Hebrew, and then appeal to its superior authority to throw dis- credit on the Septuagint. And that this was actually done appears from the statement of Eusebius, that, even so late as his time, the longer chronology had not wholly disappeared from the Hebrew Bibles ; some of which then had the shorter and others the longer account, agreeing with the Septuagint. The Hebrew text, as it now stands, also offers not a few in- ternal evidences of alteration, some very conclu- sive instances of which Dr. Hales has pointed out. But it may further be shown that the He- brew chronology is irreconcilable with proba- bility and fact. Eusebius well remarks, " The error of the Jewish Hebrew text is evident from this, — that it makes Abraham and Noah contemporaries, which is inconsistent with all history ; for since, according to the Hebrew text, there Avere not more than 292 years from the flood to the birth of Abraham, and since, according to the same text, Noah survived the flood 350 years, it follows that he lived to the 58th year of Abraham." To this judicious remark Hales adds : — • " Upon this supposition, idolatry must have begun and prevailed, and the patriarchal go- vernment have been overthrown by Ninirod and the builders of Babel, during the life-time 18 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. of the second fo\inder of the human race, and his three sons, Shem, Hani, and Jajjhct. " If Shem Uved until the 110th year of Isaac and the 50th year of Jacob, why was not he inchided in the covenant of circumcision made with Abraham and his family ? — or why is he utterly unnoticed in their history ? " How could the earth be so populous in Abraham's days, or how could the kingdoms of Assyria, Egypt, &c., be established so soon after the deluge ?" This last difficulty was strongly felt by Sir Walter Raleigh, who, in his 'History of the World' remarks, "In this patriarch's time all the then parts of the world were peopled ; all nations and covmtries had their kings ; Egypt had many magnificent cities, and so had Palestine, and all the neigh- bouring countries ; yea, all that part of the world besides, as far as India: and these, not built with sticks, but of hewn stone and with ramparts ; which magnificence needed a parent of more antiquity than th(jse other men have supposed." In another place he forcibly ob- serves, "If we advisedly consider the state and countenance of the world, such as it was in Abraham's time, yea, before his birth, we shall find it were very ill done, by following opinion without the guide of reason, to pare the times over-deeply between the flood and Abraham ; because in cutting them too near the quick, the reputation of the whole story might per- chance bleed." And it has bled. The sagacity of this accomplished man did not erroneously anticipate that "the scorners" would not fail to detect and make the most of the great and serious difficulties which the shorter chrono- logy creates, but which by the longer compu- tation are wholly obviated. After all this, we trust it will be felt that we have done well, and taken a safe course, in adopting the longer account for the present work ; and we do not regret that the explana- tion which thus became necessary has afforded an opportvinity of bringing so important a sub- ject under the notice of many whose attention may not hitherto have been directed towards it. It only remains to state why the reckoning of Josephus in particular has been chosen. It is perhaps scarcely necessary to remind the reader that the account of that great his- torian is not a system of his own, but a state- ment of the interpretation, received in his time, of the account which the Scriptures gave. The Scripture is still the authority ; and Josephus is the witness of the testimony which it bore before any disagreement on the subject existed, and when the accounts of the Hebrew and the Septuagint symdiroiiized. The system is that of the Rible, and Josephus be- comes the agent through which its uucor- rupted statements maybe recovered. His par- ticulars evince great skill in reconciling ap- parent discrepancies, and in eliciting that which, when clearly stated, appears at once to be the sense which the Scriptures convey, and which is in perfect agreement with every fact and circumstance which it records. Besides this, he gives sums and results collected from the Scriptures ; and how important such ma- terials are as tests, and as means of comparison and verification, no one who has given the least attention to such subjects needs be told. It is true that his numbers also have been much corrupted, in order to bring them into agree- ment with the Hebrew account; but, happily, enough of sums and dates escaped the general spoliation, to afford materials for the detection of the alterations, and the restoration of the original numbers. In some c;ises, where the sum had been altered, the particulars sufficed to render the alteration manifest ; but more generally a number of sums which, having been stated incidentally, had escaped the general havoc, evinced the alteration of the details, and at the same time offered a firm basis for the restoration of the original edifice, which had been disfigured in some parts, and demolished in others, to the grievous injury of the builder's reputation. The beautifully con- nected chain of analytical and synthetical argu- ment, by which Dr. Hales has effected this restoration, may, as one of the finest pieces of reasoning we possess, be recommended to the admiration even of those who feel but little interest in the subject to which it refers. (^) " Canaanites,'' p. 4. — In stating that the original settlements of the descendants of Canaan were on the Arabian coast of the Red Sea, we have adopted the well-supported opi- nion of Professor Jalin.* The necessary state- ment on this subject has the incidental merit of giving a much clearer and satisfactory ac- count of the Amalekites than it is possible otherwise to obtain. This very learned and acute Biblical archeologist says : — " The Ca- naanites frequently occur in the Arabian poets, historians, and scholiasts, under the name of Amalekites (ImUkon and Amalikon), as a very ancient, numerous, and celebrated people, who inhabited Arabia before the Joktanites, and some of whom removed to Canaan, whence they were expelled by the Hebrews. Hero- dotus also says that the Phoenicians (who are the same as the Canaanites) originally dwelt on the coasts of the Red Sea, whence they * Hililische Archaologie, tli. ii., b. 1 ; Politisclie Alt.T- tlmmcr, sect. 4. Wien., 1824 This (the historical) piu-tioii of Jahu's K'rPiit ^^rk on Hiblical Antiiinitios; has been translated in Ameiira, and reprinted in this rountry. under the title of " The History of the Hebrew Cummiiiiwealth." Chap. I.] NOTES TO FIRST INHABITANTS. 19 emigrated to the Mediterranean, and there en- gaged in navigation to distant countries.* We are informed in Genesis that when Abraham arrived in Canaan the Canaanite was then in the land ; a plain intimation that the Canaan- ites had emigrated thither not long before. The enumeration of the Canaanites among the Amalekites who inhabited Arabia Petrsea, but made distant excursions into other countries, is also an indication that Arabia was their ori- ginal residence.-)- The Canaanites who remained in Arabia formed a numerous people, of whom, in the seventh century, there were distinguished families still in existence. They could not be descended from Amalek the grandson of Esau, as they are spoken of long before his time as inhabiting the southern borders of Canaan. Balaam calls them one of the most ancient nations, and their king the most powerful monarch that he knew. For the offence of attacking the rear of the Hebrews in their march through Arabia Petrsea, they received immediate punishment, but those Hebrews who attempted to penetrate into Canaan, con- trary to the command of God, they defeated, and formed an alliance in later times with the Moabites and Ammonites, and also with the Midianites, against that people. They were vanquished by Saul, by David, and finally by the Simeonites, in the reign of Hezekiah. Being nomades, and subsisting principally by tillage, they led a wandering life, though we find them, for the most part, on the southern borders of Palestine. (^) " Midianites, Kenites," &c., p. 12. — The inference that the Kenites were a family of Midianites is derived from the circumstance that Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, is called both a Midianite and a Kenite. And then as we know that one nation of Midianites were descended from a son of Cush, they could not be a subdivision of the Kenites, but the Kenites of them. But there are two Mi- dians, and two nations of Midianites mentioned in Scripture, and the question arises to which of these Jethro, who is also called a Kenite, belonged. The older nation, which alone could have existed in the time of Abraham, is so con- stantly associated in Scripture with the Cush- ites (" Ethiopians " in our version) as to sug- gest that they were descended from Cush, the son of Ham, through some one of his de- * Herodot. i. 2; compare Justin, Frag, x^•iii. 3; Abulfede, Descript. SjTia, p. 5. t Gen. xi. 10—26; Pocock, Specimen Hist. Aiab., p. 30; Herbelot, Bible Orient., t. i. p. 215; Reland, Pates, p. 82; Gen. xii. 6, xiii. 7, xxvi. 34, xxviii. 8; Num. xiii. 29; Psa. Ixxxiii.; compare Deut. iii., JdsU. xii. and xiii. 2 — 32. scendants who was called Midian. It is true that no such name occurs in the list of the sons and grandsons of Cush which the tenth chapter of Genesis contains ; but we are scarcely to suppose that this list gives the names of all the first fathers of mankind ; and the founder of the Midianites may have been a great grandson of Cush. As it is scarcely worth while to enter into all the arguments for the existence of a race of Cushite Midianites, we may state that the evidence for the fact is so clear, that the conclusion has generally been formed and admitted on its own grounds, with- out reference to any controversy or discussion. The later Midianites were descended from Abraham himself, through his son Midian by his second wife Keturah. Now, although the Kenites were a Midianitish people, it is evident they could not be from this family, seeing that they are named in Scripture many years be- fore even Midian their founder was born. And this, by the by, is an argument for the exist- ence of a race of Cushite Midianites before Abraham's son existed. To weaken this argument it has been, how- ever, alleged that the Kenites are, in the list under review, named proleptically, as a people who should be in possession of a territory at the time when Abraham's posterity should arrive to take possession of the Promised Land. But an easy answer is found to this in the fact that no instance of a proleptical in- sertion occurs in any of these lists. The case indeed is so much the reverse, that all the apparent discrepancies between the lists arise from there being nothing in them either pro- leptical or retrospective. In all cases we are furnished the existing names of the clans ac- tually in occupation at the time the list is given. Hence every fresh list is indicative of the changes which had taken place since the previous one was supplied. If a name has been changed, the old one is dropped and the new one given : if a name once current has been lost, from whatever cause, it is omitted in the new list ; and if a new name has arisen by division, intrusion, or change of place, it fails not to be inserted. It will therefore appear most unlikely that the name of the Kenites should form the only exception to this general course of proceeding. Furthermore, that the Kenites mentioned to Abraham were not his own descendants pro- leptically named, might, at the very first view, be suspected from the fact that all the tribes whose lands were promised to his posterity were descended from Ham, and that a branch of his own descendants should be included, or, in other words, that one branch of his descend- ants should take aM ay the lands of another 20 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. branch, might not have seemed very desirable to him. If tlie inheritances of Moab and Anaiion were respected for the sake of Lot's relationship to Abraham, how much more would the inheritance of Midian be respected as that of the immediate son, though not the heir, of the great ]mtriarch. To this we may add tliat the Abrahamic Midianites settled to the cast and south-east of the Dead Sea, between Moab and Edom ; whereas the principal locality of the other Midianites was on the Red Sea to the south of Edom ; and it is there to whom, historically, the name of Kenites is also given ; and that these were Cushites is, in addition to what we have already said, strongly intimated in the fact that the daughter of Jethro, a great man among the Midianitish Kenites, is called a Cushite also, by Aaron and Miriam. (Num. xii. 1.) It appears that they occupied, or rather were in the country extending from the south of Palestine into Arabia Petraea and the borders of the Red Sea. The intimations to this effect are not very precise ; and this may be partly because the Kenites appear to have been a roving pastoral people, not dwelling in towns, and therefore more dispersed than the proper Canaanitish tribes. At the Hebrew conquest we find a very distinguished Kenite, Heber, living in tents in the very heart of Palestine, much in the same way, apparently, that the Hebrew patriarchs did befure, and as the Arabs do now in the same country, and the Eelauts in Persia. No doubt this was the case with other clans of the same people, and that, too, at a late date : for the kindness of a Kenite family to Moses, during his exile, was only not an ultimate benefit to that family, but secured frc^n molestation such of the tribes as chose to submit to the Hebrews. Such of them as did not, jjrobably joined the Edomites and AmaJekites; for we know that it was their practice to associate with more powerful tribes in times of difficulty, by which means their distinct existence was in the end lost. From the tO]) of the mountain to which the king of Moab called Balaam to view and curse the camp of Israel, that prophet was able to view the place of those Kenites who held aloof from the Hebrews. He mentions them along with Amalek and Edom, and intimates that they abode in caverns: " He looked upon the Ken- ites . . and said. Strong is thy dwelling place, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock."* But it is rather uncertain whether we are to infer from this that those of the Kenites who were near the Dead Sea and Seir sought the limited shelter which people of their habits required in the caverns which abound in the mountains of that neighbourhood, in preference to living in tents; or that they had taken refuge in them under the pressure of existing circum- stances, when they were in dread of the He- brews. The former seems probable enough, particularly since the caverns are described as their " dwelling places." As merely relating to so obscure a people as the Kenites, the remarks we have hazarded might seem of undue length, but will not appear to be the case when it is recollected that the subject has necessarily involved an exposition of our views concerning the Mi- dianites, who are of much more importance than the Kenites alone, and more frequently mentioned in the History of the Jews. * Num. xxiv. 21. CHAPTER II. ABRAHAM. [Bedoiiin Encampment.] At the time which we have already indicated, the postdiluvian fathers had long been dead.* While they lived, and while the flood and its causes were still fresh in the memories of men, the knowledge of the one true God appears to have remained clear, and uncorrupted by the devices of the imagination. The wild undertaking at Babel was a strong act of human madness and of daring pride ; but, although it proceeded on most mistaken notions of the character and power of God, there is no indication that any measure of idolatry was involved in that strange deed. The ensuing confusion of tongues may have tended, in its ultimate effects — by obstructing communications between the several tribes of men — to obscure the knowledge of the facts and doctrines which Noah and his sons had transmitted from the times before the flood. It could have had no immediate and direct effect ; but it is easy to see that in time it must have put the several tribes in a better condition for forgetting that knowledge which had ceased to be the common property of one language. Judging from the slight indications which the Scriptures offer, as well as from the analogous facts which it records, it would seem that the principles of social and moral conduct were corrupted much sooner than the abstract belief in the unity and providence of God : but the former corruption, doubtless, hastened the latter, it * This results from the chronology we have chosen. According to the shorter ;icco\int, the sons of Noah were alive long after the call of Abraham, and Noah himself had died but a few years before. 22 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. being not more true that "a reprobate mind" results from the dislike of men " to retain God in their knowledge," than that the pre-existence of the reprobate mind produces that dislike. It is rather remarkable that the same country which witnessed the mad speculation of the builders at Babel and the primitive tyranny of Nimrod, is also that in which the first corruptions of religious opinion appear to have arisen. When the early inhabitants of Chaldea beheld, in their most beautiful sky, " the sun when it shined, and the moon walking in bright- ness," their hearts were " secretly enticed" to render to the creature the worship and honour due only to the Creator. This is the testimony of all antiquity, which mentions no idolatrous worship as of earlier date than that of Chaldea. And this is also, indirectly, the testimony of Scripture. In all the history of Abraham there is not the least intimation of the existence of idolatry or any idolatrous usage among any of the various peoples in whose territories he sojourned. It is clearly intimated of some of them that they worshipped Jehovah, and it is implied of others in the manner in which they mention his name : but that idolatry was practised in Chaldea before Abraham departed to the land of Canaan, and even that Abraham's fiunily, if not himself, participated in that idolatry, is clearly stated by Joshua in his charge to the Israelites, when he says to them, " Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood [Euphrates] in old time, even Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor : and they served other gods." (xxiv. 2.) This settles the question as to Terah himself; and the Jews have a tradition which, as usual, improves considerably upon the scriptural intimation, by stating that Terah was not only an idolater, but an idolatrous priest, and a maker of idols. This conclusion appears to have been founded on the impression that the teraphim, the earliest manufactured objects of superstition mentioned in Scripture, took their name from Terah ; a conjecture that has seemed the more probable from the fact, that the teraphim are first brought under our notice as being in the possession of that branch of Terah's descendants which remained in Mesopotamia. But it is enough to know that before the time of Abraham, or, at least, in his early years, " other gods" than Jehovah were served beyond the great river, and that the family of Abraham concurred in that service. But that idol worship, in the restricted sense, as meaning the worship of images, was then known, is not very probable, and is, at least, incapable of proof. Men do not suddenly fall into so low a deep as this. The sun, the moon, the host of heaven, were the first of those " other gods" which attracted their admiration, secretly enticed their hearts, and, first, divided, and, in the end, entirely engrossed their reverence. To imafjes they had not yet descended ; or, if they had " teraphim," it may be well doubted that these were idols for worship, in the usual sense of the expression. It may also be questioned whether, at this time, even the servers of other gods beyond the Euphrates had altogether ceased to serve, according to their own views, the God of their fathers. The first steps from good to bad are, not to reject the good, but to join that which is bad unto it. To forget God, and formally to deny him, were impossible as first acts of corruption. The first act of the mistaken mind was, doubtless, after the knowledge of his character and attributes had become faint, to regard him, not as a God at hand, but as a God afar off" — removed too far from them by the ineffable sublimity of his essence, to be reasonably expected to concern himself in the small affairs of this world and its ])eople. Yet, feeling that the world needed that government which they deemed Him too high to exercise, they imagined that, far below him, but far above themselves, there might be agents by whom the government of the imiversc was administered, and to whom even man might make the smallest of his wants and his humblest desires known without presumption. Seeking these agents, they looked first upon the sim, " tluit, with surpassing t;lovy crowu'd, Look'tl from liis sole dominion, like the god Of this new world," and deeming that they had found in him the chief of the agents which they sought, he became the object of their admiring reverence. To the sun was added the moon, and, in time, the principal of the stars ; and he who has considered well the human heart, can readily conceive that the originators of this intermediate worship may have imagined that they did God service, that it magnified his greatness, and shewed a humbling sense of their own insignificance Chap. II] ABRAHAM. 23 before him, when they intrusted to inferior hands the interests which they held to be much below his attention, and Avithdrew themselves afar off from the effulgence of his presence. But under such a system, or under any system which takes from the Almighty the government of the world, the honour due to him must need sink before long into a simple recognition of his existence ; and even this truth must in the end fade from the general mind, and exist only as a cold speculative dogma, known only to the higher theologians, — a secret, whispered, in mystery and fear, to the chosen few, in groves, and caverns, and solitary places. All true and living worship can only come from the heart which is moved by love, hope, gratitude, or fear, and can only be rendered to one from whose beneficence blessings are hoped or have been received, or from whose anger evils are feared ; and to make the Almighty other than this, under whatever self-deluding pretence of enhancing his glory, was really to render his sovereignty barren and nominal, and, as far as man might, to depose him from his kingly throne — the heart of man — and take his glory from him. Therefore, God, knowing this inevitable result, at all times, rejected with indignation the agents or helpers to whom men were willing to ascribe some part of that honour which he only could claim. Hence, the grand interdiction on this subject, which he gave in later days to the house of Israel, struck at the beginnings of the evil. It said not, "Thou shalt have no other god instead of me;" but, "Thou shalt have no other gods before (or loith, or besides) me." The worship of other gods having thus been established, and God, foreknowing that it would overspread the earth, in such sort that he would be almost forgotten among the race which owed to him the breath of life, delayed not to take such measures as seemed best to his wisdom, to preserve his testimony among the nations until the arrival of that " time of refreshing " which he had pre-determined, and the coming of which he made known with increasing dis- tinctness as its date approached. To this end he determined to make one nation the steward of those great truths which were to become mysteries to the world at large — his unity, his supremacy, his providence, and to whom the hope of a future great deliverer might be com- mitted. His unity he would impress upon them by repeated declarations, and by the abhorrent rejection and punishment of all attempts to associate other gods with him : his supremacy, by the overthrow of idolaters and their idols, and by the demonstration that the powers of nature were the creatures of his will ; and his providence — ^his universal rule, for w-hich nothing is too high, and from which nothing is exempt — at first, by occasional appearances, and, at last, by abiding manifestations of his presence among them. Thus to keep ever before them the truth that he was a God at hand and not a God afar off, and to compel them to remember, not only that " he is, but that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him," he would constitute himself the Legislator and King of this peculiar people — as a Legislator, he would give them a code of laws which should keep them apart from all other nations till the object was accomplished ; and while, as a King, he directed all pubhc measures, and rewarded public virtue and punished public guilt, he would make it manifest that his care extended to the meanest of his subjects, and that while he dwelt among them in his high and holy place, he was not less present with the man of humble and contrite spirit. To accomplish these objects, the Almighty did not see fit to make choice of any existing nation; but to give a nation existence, and to watch over it from its birth, subjecting its infancy to his guidance and instruction, and forming its character and condition yvith. a view to the great final objects of its being. Separately from these considerations, the history of this peculiar people cannot well be imderstood. To write their history is one chief part of the duty we have undertaken ; and that history is first the history of one man, then of a family, and then of a nation. In the district of northern Mesopotamia which is called in Scripture " U r of the Chaldees,"(') being apparently the large and fertile plain of Osroene, dwelt a wealthy pastoral family, de- scended, in the line of Heber, from Shem the son of Noah. The living head of this family was that Terah whom we have already found occasion to name. This man had three sons, Haran, Nahor, and Abram. Of these sons the last-named was the youngest, having been borne by Terah's second wife, fully sixty years later than Haran his elder brother. f) Haran died pre- maturely in the land of his nativity, leaving one son named Lot, and two daughters called 24 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. Milcah and Sarai. According to the custom of those times, the two surviving sons of Terah married the daughters of their dead brother ; Milcah becoming the wife of Nahor, and Sarai being married to Abram.(^) Abram, the youngest son of this family, is the person — the one man — with whom the history of the Hebrew people commences; for on him the Almighty saw proper to confer the high distinction of setting himself and his future race apart among the nations, in fulfilment of the great object which we have already indicated. The fame which this appointment has brought upon the name of this great patriarch has produced much anxious inquiry into that part of his history which transpired before our more authentic and undoubted records introduce him to our knowledge, which is not until he was sixty years of age. Tlie traditions of the Jews and Arabians speak much of his early life ; but our certain information offers only the few facts of parentage and connection which we have just supplied. It thus also occurs, in many other cases, that such traditions supply much information which the Scriptures do not offer ; and it then becomes an anxious question to the historian, how far they may be accepted as materials for history. That they are not to be wholly disregarded, may be inferred from the circumstance that the Scripture does itself sometimes make allusions to facts, concerning persons and events of former ages, which the Scriptural accounts of them do not preserve, while yet these facts are alluded to as matters of current knowledge. It is, however, the peculiar felicity of a historian of the Jews, that he has for the basis of his narrative materials of unquestioned truth, which it is not needful for him to test, but only to understand. He is thus furnished with an unerring standard of historical verity, by which his information from other sources may be tested. That the information offered by the Jewish and other Oriental authorities is not to be found in the Bible, does not necessarily prove it to be untrue. It was not the object of the Sacred writers to relate every historical event, or every circumstance of the events which they do relate, and still less every incident in the lives of those persons of whom they speak ; and that there existed among the Jews not only oral traditions but written documents of ancient date, containing particulars which the sacred narratives do not afford, appears very clearly, not only from the express references which the Scripture writers make to such documents as supplying further information, but from the incidental allusions — as to things well known to the Hebrew nation — to events and circum- stances of which the historical narratives of Scripture give no account, and which are often of such ancient date, at the time allusion is thus made to them, as to show that they could only then have existed in the knowledge of the people through oral traditions or written documents. The truth of the accounts which they afford is substantiated, in the particular instances, by the allusions thus made by the sacred writers to them, and which also reflect a high degree of respectability upon the source from which they were derived. (^) If these documents and traditions had been preserved in their original forms, they would rank on the same level with the first rate materials of general history ; but, considering the superior and peculiar authority of the sacred narrative, only as second-rate materials in a history of the Jews. But they have long been lost ; although, probably, a considerable number of those details which the sacred historians did not find it necessary to embody in their compendious accounts, are preserved in the history by Josephus, and possibly a large proportion of them may exist, mixed with and disguised by enormous absurdities and matters of no value, in the traditions preserved in writing by the Jews and the Arabians. It may be well to remember, that many accounts which come before us, as oral traditions committed to writing, must be regarded as having been originally derived from written documents, after the loss of which many of them survived as oral statements ; and in this state they certainly received many disguising exaggerations, additions, and dislocations, before they were ulti- mately re-committed to writing in the very repulsive form in which they now come before us. This is not, indeed, the account Avhich the Jews themselves give ; for they allege that all their traditions were originally oral, and never existed in writing until they were put into the form in which they now appear. This may willingly be conceded of the mass of them, which are many degrees worse than useless; but to those who are disposed to carefidly consider the Chap. II.] ABRAHAM. 25 subject, it will manifestly appear that they may be expected to contain a portion of the facts transmitted from those older and more authentic sources from which the scriptural writers appear to have drawn their accounts, and to which they distinctly refer those who desire more extensive information. We know, on the authority of Scripture, that some part at least of this more ancient information existed in writing ; but as we are not sure that some of the allusions in Scripture may not be to facts contained in those oral traditions, it may be expedient to remind the reader that, from a variety of circumstances, the difference between oral tradition and wTitten statement, as historical authority, is far less important in the east than in Europe, and, even in the east, was far less important anciently than now. On these grounds we should be disposed to consider even oral ancient tradition as not necessarily excluded from historical notice, and, although we should scarcely be inclined to assign it a tithe of that pre-eminent value which the Jews claim for it, we shall sometimes consider it our duty to explore this class of materials, in the hope of finding a few of those further details which may have existed in the old documents or traditions to which the sacred writers occasionally refer. The mass of these statements, as they now stand, are so suspicious, that it will, in most cases, be neces- sary, in the first instance, to presume that even the most plausible and needful of them are untrue, until, after a careful examination, the facts which they offer appear to be not only not contradictory to the standard narrative, but, while in themselves desirable for the completion or elucidation of the biblical accounts, are in circumstantial agreement with the facts which those accoimts record, and are in no wise opposed in spirit to them. Even the statements which, after having been already sifted by Josephus, are admitted by him into his narrative, must be subjected to the same process. And when we are privileged to possess one standard narrative in which implicit confidence may be placed, the common rules of historical criticism leave it far from difficult to estimate the value of the other reports which come before us ; and this is easier still, when the agreement or disagreement of these reports with the spirit and manners of the age to which they refer becomes another element of our consideration. We have a very general suspicion of all the traditionary history which applies to the age of the patriarchs, whether we find it in Josephus, in the Rabbins, or in the Arabian historians. But, subject to this reservation, it may be desirable, for the information of the reader, some- times to state the particulars which they offer, if only to mark the contrast between their inju- dicious elaborations and the simple and unaffected truth of the standard narrative. Most of the traditions which refer to the early life of Abram, turn upon the religion of his family. All we know from Scripture on this subject is, that Terah served other gods beyond the Euphrates, and there is not much reason to doubt Ijut that Abram and the other members of Terah's family were brought up in the same service. That, as some allege, Abram stood alone as the sole worshipper of the true God, among an idolatrous people, and in a family of idolaters, and that therefore he became the special object of the Divine choice and favour, does not appear to us a very probable or a very necessary explanation. It is enough, and it is far more probable, that he felt unsatisfied with the things which he had been taught, and with the practices which were followed — that he had an incpiiring mind, and sought after the true God, if haply he might find him ; and we know that when he had found him, he manifested his satisfaction and joy by the most implicit and memorable obedience to every dictate of " the heavenly vision." The Jewash traditions undertake to decide the question whether image worship had com- menced at this early date, by assuring us that Terah was himself a maker of images. And they proceed to inform us that, when God had enlightened Abram's mind, he took an oppor- tunity of burning and destroying all the idols in his father's house ; and, it is added, that Haran attempted to snatch the idols of his father from the fire, but was himself surprised by the flames, and perished with his gods. They thus account for the premature death of Haran, which the Scriptures only notice without explaining. We are further told that for this act Abram was accused before Nimrod, and was condemned to be burnt ; but that his Divine Protector miraculously withdrew him from the flames. These traditions are told ^\'ith some variations ; but are in substance verj' ancient, and to this day are articles of firm belief among the Jews, Christians, and Moslems of the East. The word Ur VOL. I. E 20 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. means, in the Hebrew, Fire, and it is alleged that this last incident in tlie histon- of Abram is indicated in that passage of Scripture which tells us that God brought forth Abram from Ur (or the Fire) tjf the Chaldees. The excellent historian of the Jews, Josephus, could not but be well acquainted with all the current traditionary legends concerning their renowned forefather : but although belonging to a sect (the Pharisees) Avhich cherished " the traditions of the elders " with unusual zeal, he in general makes but a very guarded use of them ; and in his history of Abram omits all the particulars which we have now stated. But in this instance, at least, the omission appears to have been rather from ])rudential considerations than from actual disbelief; for it is not difficult to discover the very traditions which he allowed to influence his view of the religious character of the patriarch. He very properly omits any notice of image worship ; ])ut tells us that the people of Abram's native country were worshippers of the heavenly bodies, and pos- sessed much knowledge of astronomy, with which science he intimates that Abram himself was well acquainted. He tells us that the patriarch was of a most sagacious and superior mind, and possessed an eloquence the most persuasive. He had obtained, and endeavoured to give to others, a much purer idea of God than in his time prevailed ; and he was the first to teach that the sun, the moon, and the host of heaven had no power of themselves, but were subject to a superior power by which their movements were regulated. The Chaldeans and other inhabitants of Mesopotamia would not hear this doctrine; and, when they raised a tumult against the preacher of it, he deemed it proper to leave the country, and by the command, and through the assistance of God, he went to sojourn in the land of Canaan.* This account contains nothing, that we can perceive, contrary to Scripture, though it offers information which Scripture docs not contain. Nothing in it is more remarkable than the C(im])lete omission of all mention of Nimrod, who figures so conspicuously in all the Rabbinical and Oriental accounts of the patriarch, and whose presence wovild alone suffice to nullify- them all : for, according to the just view of Scripture chronology which the historian took, Nimrod could not well have been the contemporary of Abram, ])ut, according to ordinary circumstances, must have been dead long before his birth. The Arabian traditions of Abram's early life do, in some of their details, conform very strikingly to the view which we have taken of his religious character ; and although replete with preposterous incidents, and imentitled to historical notice, are curious and characteristic in themselves, and are also interesting as showing the notions which a large division of the human race entertain concerning the early life of the great patriarch whose memory the Moslem unites with the Christian and the Jew to cherish. On these grounds we have embodied the substance of these traditions in a note at the end of this chapter. (■') It is seen that all these stories and traditions concur in intimating that Abraham had, in his own countrv, brought enmity and opposition upon himself, by the open expression of opinions contrary to the corruptions of religion which there prevailed. To the same eff"ect is the old account preserved in the apocryphal l)ook of Judith, where the irritated Holofernes is repre- sented as recpiiring information concerning the Jewish people from all the neighbouring princes. On this subject the descendants of Lot might be suj)posed to be better informed than any of the others ; and, accordingly, Achior, " the captain of all the children of Amnion," is repre- sented as coming forward to furnish the required intelligence, which he does in a slight sketch of the history of the Hebrew nation, which, bi ief as it is, contains some facts not recorded in the Scrijjtures. At the outset, he says, " This people is descended of the Chaldeans ; and they sojourned heretofore in Mesopotamia, because they would not follow the gods of their fathers, which were in the land of Chaldea. For they left the way of their ancestors and wor- shipped the God of heaven, the God whom they know : so they cast them out from the face of their gods, and they fled into Mesopotamia, and sojourned there many days." (Judith v. 2 — 8.) This statement woidd be curious and interesting if we could rely \q)on it as embodying the traditions of the Ammonites on this subject, seeing that Amnion, their ancestor, was the son of Lot, who was Abram's nephew, and the companion of his migration from IVIesopo- tamia. But, from certain turns of expression, which arc not in keeping with the character of * Aiiti(|. 1. i. c. 6. Chap. II.] ABRAHAM. 27 the speaker, it is evident that the speech is put into his mouth by the narrator, and actually exhibits a Jewish tradition, worthy of notice as the oldest on this subject which exists in writing. Its information is not at variance with that which the Scriptures give, while it coincides, in substance, with the later statements of Josephus, and with the resulting effect of the less authentic traditions and tales of the Jews and Arabians. We see, then, that all accounts out of Scripture, and not therein disagreeing with Scripture, state that Abraham was of purer faith than his countrymen, and on that account left or was obliged to leave his native land. This may be true or not ; for although Scripture states his proceeding as the result of an immediate command from Heaven — we know not, from the same authority, what previous enlightenments, what line of conduct, what difficulties, what past or present thoughts — ^prepared the patriarch to receive and to be guided by the Divine command. There were such, doubtless ; and even the command has the tone less of an original suggestion than of an authoritative interi^osition to decide a question which " the father of the faithful " had entertained, but found it difficult to determine. It is not clear from Scripture that the father and surviving brother of Abram had by this time been brought over to his religious views. Its slight intimations seem to imply that they had not : nor does their going with him, when he departed from Ur of the Chaldees in obe- dience to the heavenly call,C) necessarily imply their participation in his religious sentiments, since various other considerations are supposable which might have influenced them, and they might even have recognized the authority of that Divine Being who spoke to Abram to direct his and even their owti course, without being convinced, as Abraham was, of his ex- clusive claim to honour and obedience. So the whole house of Terah departed with Abram, from the land of the Chaldees, and proceeded until they arrived at " Haran," or, more properly, " Charran C) (as in Acts vii. 2), where, for some cause not declared to us— but probably the increasing infirmities of Terah, together with the temptations of a rich pastoral district for their flocks and herds— they were induced to abide many years. After fifteen years, the father of Abram died in Haran, at the then reasonable old age of 205 years. C) Abram was then at the ripe middle age of seventy-five years, when the Divine command, made to him fifteen years before, was renewed, with a slight but significant variation of its terms. The first command required him to leave his country and his kindred, or his natural connections, in the general sense, and was not considered necessarily to involve a separation from his immediate family ; but the second call was more precise and stringent, requiring him to leave not only his country and his kindred, but also his " father's house." The Divine intentions being confined to his posterity, which as yet had no existence— for he had no child, his wife being barren — it was judged right to isolate him completely from all such natural and social ties as might interfere with this object. This was hard to bear and God knew that it was ; and, therefore, although it was designed that his faith should be tried to the uttermost, and made manifest as an example to his posterity and to the people of future ages and distant lands, these trials did not come upon him in one overwhelming demand, but were made successive, after intervals of repose,— rising one upon another, as his trust grew progressively stronger in that Great Being, the special object of whose care he had become. We shall see this throughout the history of this patriarch. When the patriarch received his first call, the circumstances in which he was then placed, and the privilege of being still permitted to remain with all those who were, by natural ties, dearest to him, probably made the commanded migration indifferent or even desirable to him, and therefore no promises with reference to the future are held forth to encourage his obedience. But now, when he seems to have been more prosperously and happily situated, saving the recent grief of his father's "death, the command to depart is accompanied, for the first time, by that high promise which was destined to cheer and bless his remaining life. This call and the annexed promise are thus given in the scriptural narrative : — " Then the Lord said unto Abram, Depart from thy land, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land which I will shew thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing ; and I will bless them E 2 28 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee ; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." (Gen. xii. 1—3.)* The land to which he was to go is not named, either on this or the former occasion ; but the difference in the form of expression may have sufficed to intimate to Abram, that the comitry appointed for his sojourning would now be more distinctly indicated to him. So Abram separated himself from the household of Nahor, his only surviving brother, and departed, not at that time knowing the point of his ultimate destination, but relying upon the guidance of the Divine Being whose command he was obeying. Lot, the son of his dead brother Haran, and brother to his wife Sarai, joined himself to him. For this no reason is given, but may be found in the fact, that, while Abraham remained without issue, Lot was his natural heir ; besides, it appears that Lot entertained an exclusive belief in the God of Abram, which there is some ground for suspecting that Nahor and his household did not. Lot had a household and property of his own, and the united parties must have formed a goodly pastoral company, such as may still be often met with crossing the plains and deserts of the east in search of new pastures. We are told that they went forth " with all the substance they had gathered, and the souls they had gotten in Haran," which last clause applies to the " little ones" of their households — being the children which had been born of their slaves during the fifteen years of their stay in Haran. Those who are, from reading or travelled observation, conversant with the existing manners of the Asiatic pastoral tribes, — as the Arabians and the Tartars, — can easily form in their minds a picture of this great migrating partv- LTnder the conduct of their venerable emir, and the active direction and control of his principal servants, we behold, from the distance, a lengthened dark line stretching across the plain, or winding among the valleys, or creeping down the narrow pathway on the mountain-side. That in this line there are hosts of camels we know afar off, by the grotesque outline which the figures of these animals make, their tall shapes and their length of neck ; and that the less distinguishable mass which appears in motion on the surface of the ground is composed of flocks of sheep, and perhaps goats, we can only infer from circumstances. (^) On approaching nearer we find that all this is true, and that, moreover, many of the camels are laden with the tents, and with the few utensils and needments which the dwellers in tents require ; and if the natural condition of the traversed coimtry be such as to render the precaution necessar}', some of the animals may be seen bearing provisions and skins of water. The baggage-camels follow each other with steady and heavy tread, in files, the halter of those that follow being tied to the harness of those that precede, so that the foremost only needs a rider to direct his course ; but nevertheless women, children, and old men are seen moimted on the other burdens which some of them bear. These are slaves, retainers, and other persons not actively engaged in the conduct of the partv, and not of sufficient consccpience to ride on saddled dromedaries. Such are reserved for the chiefs of the party, their women, children, relatives, and friends, and are not, unless it happen for con- venience, strung together like the drudging animals which bear the heavier burdens. For the youths and men of vigorous age, the slaves and shepherds, there is active employ- ment in directing the orderly ])rogress of the flocks, and in correcting the irregiilarities, frisk- ings, and breaches which sometimes occur. In this service they are assisted by a stout staff, crooked at one end, — the origin of the pastoral and episcopal crook, — which, however, is but sparingly used by those most accustomed to the flocks, their familiar voices being in general quite sufficient to control and guide the sheep ; and of their voices they make no stinted use, but exert them lilierally in the incessant utterance of loud cries and shouts, reproaches, warnings, and encouragements. The feeble of the Hock are very tenderly dealt with ; the progress of the whole is but slow, on account of the lambs, and the ewes great with young ; and some of the shepherds may be seen bearing in their arms the weaker lambs of the flock, or those which had been lately yeaned. The men engaged in these services are on foot, though a few of the principal may be on camels, or, preferably, on asses, if there be any of those animals in the troop. The whole conduct of the Oriental shepherds supplies many beautiful allusions and • Tlie pass.age is here given as translated by Dr. Ilalos, more precisely Ihati in our pulilic version. Tlie .Uiren-nce between the lirst and seeond calls is pointed out in a note (already referred to) at the end of this chapter. Chap, II] ABRAHAM. 29 metaphors to the sacred writers of the Hebrews, — as where the prophet says that the good shepherd " shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." (Isa. si. 11.) We have introduced this short description of the pastoral migrations with the view of enabling the reader to form some idea not only of this migration of Abram and Lot, but of the various other removals which are so frequently mentioned in the history of the pastoral patriarchs. Nicolas of Damascus, an ancient author cited by Josephus, states that Abram, coming from the country of the Chaldeans, ichich is above Babylon* with a large company, tarried for a season at Damascus, and reigned there, before he went into the land of Canaan. He adds that the name of Abram continued to be very famous in all the region of Damascus, in which there was still a place called Beth- Abram (the house of Abram). Justin, in his ex- travagant account of the origin of the Jews, also numbers Abram among the kings of Damascus.! There is nothing hi Scripture to countenance this story, which is probably based on some tradition that Abram encamped for a while near Damascus, in his way to Canaan : even this we do not know ; but it seems not luilikely, as that city lay on the most convenient route from Haran to the land of Canaan, and as the subsequently favoured domestic of the patriarch, whom he on one occasion describes as having been "born in his house," is, in another, called by him Eliezer of Damascus. The history in Genesis gives us no account of this journey, which is the same afterwards made by Jacob, and the longest ever made by the Hebrew patriarchs. We are only told, with inimitable brevity, that " they went forth to go into the land of Canaan ; and into the land of Canaan they came." It would, to us, have been interesting to follow the route which was on this occasion taken. But, in our existing want of information, it is only necessary to observe that some writers tell us needlessly of the frightful deserts which Abram crossed J in this journey. But we need not necessarily conclude that the present great desert of Syria was a desert then. And, if it were, seeing that flocks of sheep cannot, like a herd of camels, be conducted across a parched desert, destitute of herbage and of water, as the deserts of Syria and Arabia are, during summer, it will follow that the transit was made, if at all, in the early spring, when, from the recent winter and vernal rains, the Syrian desert, at least in its northern part, becomes a rich prairie, covered with fragrant and nutritive herbage. ('") But no situation which has been assigned to Haran requires that the patriarch should at all cross this desert in journeying from thence to the land of Canaan. Proceeding westward from beyond the Euphrates, he would skirt this desert on the north, and then turning southward he woidd follow the course of the mountains which border it on the west, being with, little interruption, most of the way in the enjoyment of the fine pastures and abundant waters of the plains and valleys which border, or are involved among, the Syrian mountains. Arriving at last in the land of Canaan, the patriarch was arrested by the rich pastures of Samaria, near the mountains of Ebal and Gerizim ; and in the beautiful valley of Moreh, which lies between these mountains, and where the city of Shechem was not long after founded, Abram formed his first encampment in the land. Not long after his arrival, the Lord favoured the patriarch with a more distinct intimation of his intentions than any which he had hitherto received, by the promise that he woidd bestow on his posterity the land into which he had come. From this time forward Abram and the other patriarchs were constantly taught to regard the land of Canaan as the ftiture heritage of their children. Abram testified his gratitude and adoration by building there an altar imto Jehovah, who had appeared unto him. We are by this instructed that Abram even then knew God by this his high and peculiar name — that ifiystic name on which many have so largely written, and * A valuable geographical intimation this, by the way, showing how the name " Chaldee," and "land of the Chaldeans, was anciently applied. t Nicol. Damascen. in Joseph. 1. i. c. 8; and in Euseb. Prsepar. 1. ix. c. 16; Justin, 1. xxxvi. c. 4. t Voltaire, and other sceptical writers of his school, found on this circumstance several shallow objections to the Scriptural account of this migration, which evince nothing but their ignorance of even the existing usages of the Orienfctl nomades. Tliey have been ably answered by the Abbe Guenee, in his ' Lettres de quelques Juifs Portugais, Allemands et Polonais, a M. de Voltaire.' 30 HISTORY OF PAI.ESTINE. [Book I. on whicli not a few deep, or ingenious, or simply absurd, spccidations liave Ijeen founded by Christians and by Jews.(") As this is the first act of religious service which is mentioned in the patriarchal history, and, indeed, the first recorded since the act of worship and sacrifice performed by Noah when he came forth from the ark, it deserves to be attentively considered. It is observable that we meet with no mention of temples or ecclesiastical structures in this age. The Sabsean idolaters, from among whom it appears that xVbram came, did n(jt until a very long subsequent age, worship their gods in temples made with hands, but presented their offerings and sacrifices u]ion altars erected in the open air. Our information concerning the religious practices of the Canaanites is little more than negative ; but there is nothing in the Scriptures, or in the civil or religious state of society in this early age, which renders it probable that they, or even the inhal>itants of Egypt, had buildings set apart for religious service. Egypt ])robal)ly had the first temples : and from history wc should infer that the earliest in at least LowTr Egypt — which ahme is the Egypt of the early Scriptures — was that at IIelio])()lis; and, through the measure of progress which has i)cen made in deciphering the sculptured hieroglyphics of the old Eg\^tian monu- ments, we now know that this temple was originally founded by the first Osirtasen, upwards of three centuries later than the time now under our notice. This monarch also built a temple in the province of Crocodilopolis : ])ut before his time, this new branch of learning has not ascertained that any temples existed in Egy])t.* It may seem, therefore, that the practice of the j)atriarchs to render their religious rites at an open altar was the general practice of their time. It appears that they created an altar of heaped stones, or earth, at every place where they purposed to remain encamped any considerable time, as well as at other places where God vouclisafed to manifest his presence to them. And many were the memorials of this kind — altars dedicated to Jehov.vh — which the Hebrew fathers erected, at different places, while they were " strangers and sojourners" in the Promised Land. We think it may be collected that at such altars sacrifices were not regularly or periodically offered, but only on extraordi- nary occasions ; but the facts which the Scriptures furnish concerning the religious observ- ances of the ])atriarchs are few, and these few it may be best to notice as they occur. It may further be observed, that in all the patriarchal history there is not, in any nation, the mention of a priest — uidess it l)e in the singidar instance of Melchizedek, which will presently engage our notice. Besides this, the first distinct mention of priests, as a body of men set apart for the service of religion, occurs, like that of temples, in Egypt, a good while after the times which now engage our attention. Priests, however, no doubt existed befi)re temples; and under some complications of religious service, with which we are unacquainted, they may have existed in the time of Abram. In the patriarchal practice, however, which appears to have been that in general use, the functions, which were in after-times considered priestlv, appear to have been discharged by the eldest, or first-born of the family, and that this indeed was considered one of the most valuable privileges of his seniority. Our Talm\ulical inform- ation on this subjecL is in entire conformity with Scripture. It tells us that before the taber- nacle was erected, ])rivate altars and high places were in use for sacrifice. When the children of a family were to offer a sacrifice, then the father was the priest : but when the sons of a f:miily were met together to offer sacrifice after they came to be themselves fathers of houses, having families of their own, and were separated from their father and their fixther's house — their father not being present with them — then the eldest son was the priest or sacrificer for himself and his brethren. f A i)astoral chief has no other alternatives than cither to remove frequently to the new pas- tures which his flocks and herds re([uire, or, retaining his household long in one place, to send forth his flocks, under the charge of trusty persons, to distant pastures. Tlie former was the course which Abram took. Ilis next recorded removal was al)out twenty-four miles fi-om the • Sco Wilkinson's ' Aiirioiit Iv-yptiiins,' vol. i., cli:!!). 2. Tliis v,ilu:i1)lc writer, in liis hi^t<)ri(^■ll oh.iiitiTs, farnislios some vory impurtunt E^'yiitiiir. dates and laets, wliieli wMl lie uselulto ns ; but , as in his relercnces to supposed contemporury incidents ill •lewish liistory, lie makes use of the common l'>herian ehronoloj,'y , which wc do not.wc shall be obliged to make our own appli- cations and conclusions. In the present instance he necessiirily allows no more than an interval of 180 vears between .\l)raham's visit to Kf,'yptand the reifrn of Osirtasen I. t Tract. Melikim in Mishiia, 14; Hereshith Rabba, fol. 7, cited in .Shuckford, book v. p. 255. Chap. II.] ABRAHAM. 31 plain of Moreh, southward, towards the vale of Siddim, where the valleys of the hilly country north of the plain of Jericho offer fine and luxuriant pasturage. In this district the patriarch pitched his tent near a mountain on the east of the place then called Luz, but to which, in a later day, Jacob gave the name of Bethel.* There also the patriarch " built an altar to Jehovah, and called upon the name of Jehovah." When the exhaustion of the pasturages rendered further removals necessary, we learn that his progress was southward. In those days there arose a famine in the land of Canaan, doubtless caused — as scarcity usually is caused in that country — by one or more seasons of excessive drought. It is the peculiar felicity of Egypt that its soil does not need local rains to awaken its productive powers, which are called into most vigorous operation by the periodical overflowings of the river Nile. There may be scarcity even in Egypt, for the river sometimes fails of its due redundance ; but this happens but rarely, and when it does occur, the causes which produce it are to be found in the droughts of that remote country in which the river rises, or which it traverses in the early part of its course. Bvit as these remote droughts which stint the water of the Nile and produce scarcities in Egypt — which has itself no adequate rains in its lower country, and none in its upper, to compensate for this want — are seldom so extensive as to have any serious influence in the countries which border on that land in which the river terminates its course, it follows that there is seldom any coincidence between the scarcities of Western Asia and those which occur, with comparative rarity, in Egypt. Thus that singular country has, in all ages, been regarded as the granary of Western Asia, not only from the extraordinary fertility produced by the periodical inundation of its soil, but from the circumstance that it might be expected to fvirnish a supply of corn at the very time Avhen other countries were consumed with famine — producing droughts. It is interesting to learn that this was the state of matters in the time of the patriarchs, who on all occasions looked towards Egypt, whenever a scarcity of corn was experienced in the land of Canaan. So now, Abram, being in the south of the Promised Land, heard that there was corn in Egypt, and determined to proceed thither with his household. Josephus adds that he also wished to ascertain the religious sentiments of the Egyptians, and to teach them or to be taught by them ; which is consistent enough with the traditionary history of Abram's earlier life, but has no warrant in Scripture. Arriving on the borders of Egypt, the patriarch had an opportunity of making comparisons between the Egyptian women and his own wife, greatly to the advantage of the latter. She appears to have been a very fine woman ; and, under the present circumstances, her compara- tively fresh complexion, as a native of Mesopotamia, gained by the contrast with the dusky hue of the Egyptian females. It is true that Sarai was at this time sixty-five years of age ; but this age is not to be estimated by the present standard of life, but according to the standard which then existed, by which the wife of Abram could not seem to her contemporaries of more advanced age than a woman of thirty or thirty-five appears to us. Knowing the attraction of his wife's beauty, and being perhaps aware of some recent cir- cumstances in Egypt which were calculated to awaken his apprehensions for the result, the heart of Abram failed him, in the very point in which the hearts of all men are more weak and tender than in any other, and he resolved to take shelter under an equivocation. He therefore said to his wife, — " Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon. Therefore it may come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they will say, ' This is his wife : and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.' Say, I pray thee, that thou art my sister : that it may be well with me for thy sake, and that my soul may live because of thee." (Gen. xii. 11, 13.) This was accordingly done; and we are instructed by this, and other similar incidents, that the men who figure in the history before us as the best and holiest in aggregate character, were not such immaculate representatives of ideal perfection as shine in common history and romance, but are true human beings, " compassed about with * This ueigUboiuhood has not mucli been visited by modern travellers. liauwolff (ed. Kay, p. 317) was there, and says that some old ruins of stone are pointed out as markinj^' the spot where Abram pitched his tent. Bethel, which still bore the iwme of Bethizella, was situated about half a league to the west of this, at the foot of the hill, in a \ery fertile district. We shall pre- sently have further occasion to notice Bethel. 32 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. infirmities," as all men are, and tempted, as all men are, by their passions, iloulits, or fears ; and by such temptation too often drawn aside from the right path. The whole of the sacred book offers to us not a single character exempt from temptation ; and it tells us of only One whom all temptation left " without sin." It ajjpears that Abram did not over-estimate the efllect which the beauty of Sarai was likely to produce upon the sensitive Eg\"i)tians. The attractions of the fair Mesopotamian stranger >vere speedily discovered, and became the theme of many tongues. She was at last seen by some of " the princes of Pharaoh ;" and the report of her beauty becoming, through them, the talk of the court, soon reached the ears of the Egyptian king. [Princes of Pluiraoh.] In Europe the tendency of civilization is to procure increased respect from the governing powers for the personal liberties and privileges of the people, and for the rights of property and the sanctities of private life ; but this rule has ever been reversed in the East, where the most civilized nations have always been those in which the natural immunities of man have been the least regarded, and in Avhich no natural or social privilege existed on which the sove- reign despotism might not, if it so pleased, lay its iron hand freely. Here we have a very early instance of this. Egypt had doubtless at this time reached a higher point of civilization than any other country of which the sacred history takes notice — and here we read of the first act of despotism which that history records. Abram was, in the first place, afraid that he should be slain for the sake of his wife, for which reason he reported her as his sister ; but no sooner did the reputation of the beauty of this alleged sister of a powerful emir — a stranger taking refuge in the country — arrive at the ears of its sovereign, than he sent to demand her for his harem. This is what the sovereigns of the most " civilized" Oriental states often do, as a matter of royal right, when stimulated by the sight or rumour of a beautiful female among the sisters or daughters of their subjects; and the present case is a remarkable evidence of the early existence of this most offensive privilege of Oriental despotism. It is evident that the patriarch had no appeal from the authority which made this grievous demand ; and yet could not himself have been a willingly consenting party. That Abram was not the subject of the Egyptian king, but a newlv-arrived stranger of distinction, rendered this a still stronger act of despotic poAver than it might other- wise have seemed ; and it was probablv from this con- sideration that Pharaoh sought to pacify or propitiate the patriarch by making him valuable presents, suitable to his condition as a pastoral chief — such as " sheep, [Egyptian M:ui-Soivaut.] ftud oxcu, and lic-asscs, and men-servants, and maid- Chap. II.] ABRAHAM. 33 [Egyptiau Maianners. It was throu-h the well-kiiown system of analo^'ies that tlie kin?,' oljtjiined this title, beins^ the chief of earthly, lis tlie smi was of he.ivenly, bodies. Hut the word is not derived from, or related to, Ouro, 'kin^',' .is .Toseidins sniiiioscs (' Antiq.' viii. c. 6). Phouro is like Pharaoh; but the name is Phrah in Hebrew, .ind Pharaoh is an unwarraiiti'd cormiition."— Wilkinson's ' .\neient Ki^ pti.ms,' vol. i. \i. -13. + ' Pietorial llible,' notes to Gen. xxv. 34, and Kxo.l. i. 8. i The 17th dynasty commenced B.C. 1051, and was introduced by Osirtasen II. The first Osirt^iscn belonged to tlic IGth dyii.xsty, and Wilkinson thinks he be(,'.in to reijin about B.C. 1/40, and reigned I'ortv-three years. § Wilkinson, vol. i. ch. 1. Chap. II.] ABRAHAM. 35 it is not a little remarkable that in concluding, from the evidence of monuments, that the pastor-kings were expelled before the accession of Osirtasen I., he obtains exactly the same conclusion as that to which Hales and Faber arrived, when, on purely historical data, they con- ceived that this great change took place before, but not long before, Joseph was made governor of Egypt; Hales fixing it about the year 1885, b.c. This coincidence of independent tes- timony, taking different lines of evidence, is very important ; and its use for our present puq)ose is, that if the pastoral dynasty was extinguished before the time of Joseph's exaltation, it must have existed at the time of Abram's visit to Egypt, 185 years before, seeing that the conquering nomades occupied the country 260 years. No one supposes that their dominion had terminated before the visit of Abram ; and that it had not, is indirectly evinced by the sacred narrative itself. In the time of Joseph's government every nomade shepherd was detested at the Egyptian court, in consequence of the oi)pressive and humiliating dominion which a race of pastors had exercised in the country. Of this we hear nothing in the time of Abram ; although, if this race had then recently been expelled, the manifestations of that hatred must have been more manifest and lively in his time than nearly two centuries later. The result of all these considerations tends to intimate that one of the shepherd kings reigned in Lower Egypt at the time of Abram's journey to that country ; and this conclusion, while it serves to explain some differing circumstances which we find in the Egyptian court as described in the respective times of Abram and Joseph, throws considerable light upon the picture which, from these accounts, the mind forms of both ; and more especially illustrates the fact that, while the family of Jacob found favour at the court of Egypt, and was admitted into the country only for the sake of Joseph, Abram found no difficulty of access to the country, and was treated with consideration by the court in that very character — as a pastoral chief — which was regarded with abomination by the native government of a later day. The fragments of Manetho indmate that the conquering nomades, while in occupation of Egypt, gradually adapted themselves to the customs and practices of the native Egyptians, while they were careful to maintain their alliance with their kindred tribes of the desert. And as this process of adaptation must have been in operation not less than seventy-five years, at the time now tinder our notice, we need not wonder that the reigning king bore the Egyptian sovereign title of Pharaoh, and that the external aspect of the court was probably not very different to what it might have been under a native prince ; always excepting the sympathy between it and the desert nomades, as contrasted with the hatred of the ensuing native dynasties towards the same race of people. The degree of attention which has here been given to this interesting subject, while not unsuitably subjoined to the notice of Abram's sojourn in Egypt, forms a necessary introduction to the whole history of the Hebrew intercourse with that country. By the time that the patriarch returned from Egypt to the land of Canaan, the scarcity which had driven him thence appears to have ceased. He retraced his steps through the southern part of the country, and at last arrived at the place between Bethel and Hai, where his tents had been before, and at the altar which he had formerly built upon one of the neigh- bouring hills he again enjoyed the satisfaction of " calling upon the name of Jehovah." Since Abram and Lot were formerly encamped in the same place, their svibstance had been greatly increased. We are now told that " Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." The royal gifts of the king of Egypt had, no doubt, contributed considerably to the increase of his previous stock of cattle ; and as the precious metals are mentioned among the articles of his wealth immediately on his return from Egypt, they were most likely obtained in the same country, either by the gift of the king or from the sale of the produce of his flocks to the towis-people. This is, indeed, the first occasion on which the precious metals are mentioned, in all history, as articles of property and wealth — that is, as shown by subsequent transactions — as the representatives of value. Lot, who had hitherto been the con- stant companion of Abram's migrations, was also rich, having great possessions of " flocks, and herds, and tents." That he also is not said to possess silver and gold is a rather remark- able omission, and may be significant. k 2 36 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. Their united pastoral wealth was so arcat that it became manifest that the two parties coukl not remain together much longer. There is not, indeed, any scarcity of water in the district in which they were then encamped ; but the land unappropriated by the Canaanites in that part of the country was insufficient to furnish free pasture to all their flocks and herds ; and hence quarrels about the choice and rights of pasture arose between the shepherds of Abram and Lot, who were probably more zealous about the separate interests and rights of their masters than they were themselves. Lot, however, does not in his general character appear to have been at all indift'crent to his own interests ; and the generous and disinterested pro- posal which Abram made to prevent all future difference or difficulty, looks very much like an answer from him to some remonstrance or complaint which his nephew had been making. He said, " Let tliere be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herds- men and thy herdsmen ; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee ? Separate tlivself, I i)ray thee, from me : if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou wilt depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left." In the life of a Bedouin pastor, the concession of a choice of pasturage to another chief is the most extraordinary act of generosity which he can ])ossil)ly show, in consequence of the large interests which are involved ; and, under all the circumstances, it becomes almost sublime when the claims of the party to whom the concession is made to the right of election are only equal or, as in the present case, inferior to those of the conceder. An English grazier may have some idea of this, but it is only by a Bedouin that it can be fully appreciated. Lot made no scruple of availing himself of the advantage which his uncle's liberal proposal gave to liim. From the lieights on which they stood, the vale of Siddim off'ered a most inviting prospect. It was well watered everywhere — which alone is a great advantage to the possessor of flocks and herds — which, with the exuberant vegetation which resulted from it, wdth the prospect of fair cities here and there, gave it the aspect of a terrestrial paradise. The low, broad, and warm valley, fertilized by the fine river which passed through it, also suggested a resemlilance to the rich valley of the Nile, from which they had lately come. Lot, beholding all this, made choice of all the plain of the Jordan for his pasture-ground, and soon after removed to it with all his possessions. We are told that " he pitched his tent towards Sodom " — or, made the neighbourhood of that city his head-quarters, not probably caring so much as Abram miglit have done about the depraved character of the inhabitants ; for he could not well liave been ignorant of the fact that the men of Sodom were notoriously " wicked, and sinners before the Lord exceedingly." Now at last, by the operation of circumstances, without any immediate command from God, Abram was brought to that state of complete isolation from all his natural connexions which the Divine purpose, to ])reserve liis future race aj)art and mnnixed, rendered necessary. But aUhough this present separation, which left the patr'arch, more completely than before, alone in a strange land, was not immediately caused by the Divine interposition, no sooner had Lot taken liis de])arture than the Lord again manifested his presence to Abram, to cheer and encourage him 1)y the renewal, in more distinct terms, of the promises formerly made to him. To the childless man was promised a posterity countless as the dust — the future inheritors of the land in which he dwelt — which land he w^as now directed to traverse, in its length and breadth, to survey the goodly heritage of his children, and to take, as it were, possession of it in their behalf. In obedience to this direction, Abram broke u]) his cam]) near Bethel and departed, pro- ceeding first towards the south. His next encampment was formed about a mile from the town of Arba (afterwards called Hebron), in the fair and fertile valley of Mamre, where lie })itched his tent under a terebinth tree, which became in after ages famous for his sake. The patriarch was still at this place when his history brings us acquainted with tlie first warlike transaction of which any record remains. It appears that, in this age, the Assyrian ])ower predominated in Western Asia; and we should not wonder if it be idtimately discovered that even the " Shepherd-kings" of Egypt were Assyrian viceroys, which discovery would throw great light on several circumstances in the lives of the patriarchs. Be this as it may, we learn that some years before the dale at Chap. 11] ABRAHAM. 37 which we are now arrived, an Assyrian force had crossed the Euphrates, and made extensive conquests in Syria. This force appears to have been composed of detachments from the several small nations or tribes which composed or were subject to the Assyrian empire, each commanded by its own melech or petty king. Of these kings, one named " Chedorlaomer, king of Elam," probably Elymais, appears to have been left viceroy of the conquests west of the Euphrates. This chief, in the end, resolved to carry his arms southward, and to this end took with him, not only the warriors drawn from his own clan, but those commanded by three other of such " kings," namely, Amraphael, king of Shinar (or Babylonia); Arioch, king of Ellasar; and another called Tidal, who, from his title, " king of Goim," or, if we translate the word, " of peoples," may seem to have ruled a mixed people or union of small tribes. Although the history only requires the mention of the vale of Siddim, we think it wrong to infer from thence that no other district of southern Syria was involved in the consequences of this expedition. The intermediate country, particularly on the coast of the Jordan and the country beyond, possessed the Horim of Mount Seir, probably experienced its effects, although we only read that the four commanders made war with the five petty kings of the plain, being Bera, king of Sodom ; Birsha, king of Gomorrah ; Shinab, king of Admah ; Shember, king of Zeboim ; and the imnamed king of Bela, afterwards called Zoar. Being defeated, these five kings were made tributary to Chedorlaomer, whom we have supposed to have been vice- roy of the Assyrian conquests, west of the Euphrates ; and in this state of subjection they remained twelve years. But, in the thirteenth year, some unrecorded circumstances en- couraged the kings of the plain to withhold their tribute, in which act we may reasonably conclude that other districts of southern Syria concurred. The year following, Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him undertook a new expedition to punish the revolters ; and that they did not proceed at once against the kings of the plain, but went to the countries beyond the vale of Siddim, and only noticed it on their return northward, seems to us to give a very clear sanction to our conclusion — that other neighbouring districts were also subjugated by the Assyrians thirteen years before, and participated in the revolt of the thirteenth year. And this conclusion is further strengthened by the fact that the mere incidents of this expedi- tion would seem to have been far more important than what we must otherwise suppose to have been its sole or principal object. Coming from the north, the Assyrian commanders traversed the country east of the Jordan, overthrowing in their way the gigantic races by which that coimtry appears to have been inhabited. The river Jordan at this time flowed on in a widened stream, beyond the vale of Siddim to the eastern ai'm of the Red Sea ; and continuing their progress southward, along the eastern borders of that river, the invaders smote the Horim who dwelt in the caverns and fortresses of Mount Seir. Where they crossed the Jordan we know not, but we next find them returning northward along its western border, reducing the tribes who inhabited the verge of the wilderness of Paran, on the south of Palestine, namely, the Amalekites, and such of the Amorites as abode on the south-western borders of the vale of Siddim. Arriving at last at that vale, the five kings by whom it was ruled went forth to give them battle. But they were defeated and fled. Now the vale of Siddim was of a bituminous nature, and its surface was in consequence much broken up into deep pits and fissures, into which a large number of the natives who had been in the battle were, in their flight, driven by the victors. Those who escaped, knowing that the towns off'ered no safety, fled to the neighbouring mountains. The conquerors then proceeded to ravage the cities of the plain. In this they met with no opposition, as all the adult population fit to bear arms had been defeated in the battle. They took all the moveable property and provisions and departed, carrying away with them as captives the women, children, and other people whom they found in the towns. That they did not burn the towns and destroy the people, indicates that the usages of war were less barbarous in-this age than they afterwards became — perhaps, because war was as yet a new thing, and human life continued to be regarded as a thing too precious — even to those who held it in their power — to be needlessly sacrificed. Among the prisoners was Lot, who, it appears, had relinquished the custom of dwelling in tents, and the peculiar character of a nomade shepherd, and had taken the first step into the 38 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I usages of settled life, ])y dwelling in a fixed abode, in a town, sending forth his shepherds to the pastures with his flocks and herds. The evil city of Sodom was that in which he had his residence; and for this choice of an abode he suffered on more than one occasion. As a stranger, he liad ])rol)ably not been exi)ected by the king of Sodom, or had declined, to go forth to the Imttlc ; and his servants, who alone could have rendered his aid of much conse- quence, were probably abroad with his cattle.* Be this as it may, Lot, with his family and goods, were among the spoil with wliicli the concpierors departed, northward, frcjui tlie vale of Siddim on their homeward march. Tiie news of this calamity, Avhicli had befallen his nephew, was borne to " Abram the Hebrew " ('') i)y one of those who liad escaped. The patriarch was then still encamped in the valley of Mamre; and he acted on this occasion with all the decision and promptitude which attend all the operations of a nomade chief. He instantly called out all of his people who were able to bear arms,t and in whom he coidd most confide, — these were the servants who were " bom in his house " or camj), than which they knew no other home, and were attached to their master as to a father. The number of these was 318; and when we make a proportionable addition of slaves bought bv himself J in the C(mrse of his life, and those presented to him l)y the king of Egvpt — on whose naturally weaker attachment to him the patriarch did not on this occasion make any claim — we obtain a much clearer idea of his wealth and the extent of his establishment than without this incidental statement we shoidd have 1)een able to realize. Three Amoritish chiefs, Ijrothers, by name Mamre (from whom the valley took its name), Eshcol, and Aner, who were friends and allies of Abram, joined him with their clans ; and we need not su])pose that they did this entirely out of regard to the patriarch, as is usually stated, seeing that they also had an interest in the matter, for the tribe to which they l)elonged liad, as we have seen, been smitten by the Assyrians. The four nomade chiefs, having united their forces, hastened in pursuit of the four conquer- ing kings, and overtook them about the place which was in after-times called Dan, near the sources of the Jordan. The assault was exactly in such style as still prevails among the Bedouin tribes, which avoid, whenever possil)le, a clear open fight with a superior or even an etpial force, but rather seek their object by siulden surprises and unexpected attacks; oppor- tunities for which are easily found by the neglect, even to infatuation, of employing sentinels and scouts. So Abram, overtaking by night the force which he p\irsued — or rather, probably, delaying till the night season his advance upon them — divided his pco])le so that they might rush in at once upon them from different quarters, and by overturning the tents and creating all p()ssil)le confusion, suggest to the enemy, tluis roused from their rest, exaggerated ideas of such numerous assailants as it nmst be hopeless to resist. The slaughter, as such affairs arc managed by nomades, is not generally great, and was probably the less on the present occa- sion, from the fear which the ])ursuers must have been in, of injuring, in the darkness of the night, those whom they came to deliver. Struck with a ])anic, the Assyrians fled, leaving beliiud them all their spoil ; and, lest they should have leisure to reflect and rally, Abram chased them about eighty miles, as far as a ])lace called Hobali, to the north of Damascus. Many writers have ])ointed out this transaction as one of the most improbable in the Hebrew history; but it is one wliich a person acquainted with the usages or even the history of the East receives without the least hesitation. The ease with which a very large body of men nuiy be thrown into a panic by the night attack of a very small one is familiar in all military history. But the present case needs not such illustration. It rather appears that we form too exalted a notion of the force of the invaders, arising, perhaps, from the ideas of power and magnificence which we connect with the title of " king." But what the kings of • .Tosoi-lms s:iys lip dill assist llio kiiifi of Sodom : l)ut this is not (•oiiiitciiaiiccd by tlio ScrivHiral narrative, wliicli appears to indicate Uiat only those wlio remained in the tomis were carriere it is said of Ziglag that 'it pertaineth to the kings of Judah unto this day ;' which form of expression, lie very justly remarks, commenced after the time of Solomon, and consequently terminated at the 'he tliat is now called a prophet • Thus, in 1 Sam. ix. 9, ' was hefuretime called seer." + See .losh. iv. 9; vii. 2(); viii. ^29; x. 27; 1 Sam. vi. 18. % See Josh. v. 9; vii. 2i;; Jud;;os i. 2G ; xv. 19; xviii. 12; 2 Kings xiv. 7- § See .Indices i. 21 ; and 1 Sam. xxvii. 6. II See 1 Sam. v. 5; and 2 Kings xvii. 41. Chap. II.] NOTES TO ABRAHAM. 45 time of the captivity. The remaining five books, from Clironicles to Esther, he thinks it still more probable were compiled by Ezra the scribe, some time after the captivity ; to whom uninterrupted testimony ascribes the comple- tion of the sacred canon." This is nearly as much as we have alleged in the text, and in some respects more. What we further think is, that many of the facts which were recorded in these contemporary docu- ments, and which the sacred writers did not include in their accounts, might be preserved in the traditionary knowledge of the people after these original documents were lost. And further, we are disposed to extend the exist- ence of such documents back to an earlier date than the commencement of the Hebrew polity. The very same sort of internal evidence which is produced in the above extract, may be ad- duced to show that the author of the book of Genesis only gives the substance of larger in- formation which existed in some form or other. Some of this information transpires in long subsequent ages, showing that portions of it, at least, were still preserved. Thus the martyr Stephen assvunes it as known t(j his audience that Abraham was called by God from Ur of the Chaldees; but this important fact is not recorded in Genesis, which only mentions the call from Haran, fifteen years later. Again, whoever reads carefully the commencing chap- ters of Chronicles will, from among the lists of apparently dry names, collect several very curious and important facts relating to times which had become ancient when that por- tion of historical Scripture was digested in its present form, and which are not included in those earlier portions of Biblical history which treat of the times in Avhich the circum- stances which thus transpire occurred. For instance, it is evident that, at that time, other information existed than the Pentateuch con- tains respecting the condition and proceedings of the Israelites during their sojourn in Egypt. The very remarkable circumstance which oc- curred in the lifetime of Ephraim, the son of Joseph, which is incidentally mentioned in 1 Chron. vii.21— 23, and there only, would alone suffice to render this manifest. C) Arabian History of Abram, p. 26. — The particulars concerning the birth and youth of Abram which are believed by the Arabians, have been collected in a book called Muallem. These stories concerning the patriarch are ob- viously very ancient; for most of them are alluded to in the Koran as circumstances which were already matters of common knowledge among the Arabians. We are told tliat Nimrod, who then reigned in Babylon, was one night astonished to see a star rise above the horizon whose light ex- ceeded that of the sun. He consulted his diviners as to the meaning of this strange appearance, and they assured him, Avith one voice, that it signified the approaching birth of a mighty prince. Terrified at this, the tyrant gave such orders as he thought calcu- lated to prevent the accomplishment of this event. But Adnah, the wife of Azar, a lord of Nimrod's court, conceived, and when her time drew near to be delivered, she hastened to a secret cave, and there brought forth her son. After a while she left him in the cavern, the entrance to which she well secured, and, re- turning to her hvisband, informed him that her child had died in the birth. Adnah often returned to the cave to visit her hidden babe, and to give him the breast ; and on all these occasions she found him sucking the ends of his fingers, and discovered that those of one hand furnished him with honey, and of the other with milk. The mother was at first astonished at this wonder; but her as- tonishment soon yielded to joy that it had pleased Providence thus manifestly to make her infant the special object of its care. Her astonishment and satisfaction were greatly in- creased, when she found that her child grew and ripened so quickly, that at the end of five moons he had every appearance of a boy five years old, and his mind was still more ad- vanced. As this pi-ecluded all apprehension of his coming under the operation of the decrees, which Nimrod had aimed at the existence of the eminent person whose then approaching birth the star had so lately indicated, Adnah no longer hesitated to acquaint her husband with all these circumstances, and Azar saw that he might safely avow such a child to be his son. The father hastened to the cavern in which his son lay, and regarded him with much ad- miration and affection, and bestowed many caresses upon him. On his return, he declared to the anxious mother his intention to remove him to the city, Avith the vicAV of ultimately introducing him to Nimrod, and placing him at court. It was tOAvards evening Avhen Adnah AA'ent to the cave to conduct her son to the city of Babylon. In proceeding across the plain, they passed herds of oxen, camels, and horses, and flocks of sheep. The child, to Avhom, having been from his birth confined to the cavern, all the things Avhich he saAV Avere ncAV and strange, asked his mother the name of whatever at- tracted his attention ; and, in reply, Adnah fully instructed him in the names, qualities, and habits of the creatures which they passed. 46 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. At last he inqiiirod who it was that had pro- duced so many different beings; and was told by his mother that there was nothiniz; in all the world which had not its creator and lord, on whom it depended. "If that is the case,"' said Abram, " who placed me in the world, and on whom do /depend ?'' " On me," replied Adnah, without hesitation. "Then who is your lord?" continued Abram ; and his mother answered, "Azar, your father, is my lord." Abram did not rest satisfied with this ; but proceeded to ask, "And who is my father Azar's lord?" and being told that it was Nimrod, he still wished to know who was the lord of Nimrod ; but his mother, finding herself rather pressed for an answer, said, " You ovight not, my son, to search into these things too closely, for they are dangerous for you." In this time, when Nimrod reigned in Chal- dca, the men of his empire worshipped divers gods. Some adored the sun, others the moon and the stars; and while some bowed themselves down before images, in which they recognised the presence of some divinity, others acknow- ledged no other divinity than Nimrod himself. Abram continued, during the night, on his way across the plain to the great city ; and as he went he indulged mentally in those in- qiiiries which his mother had wished to re- press, lie looked up to the sky and beheld the stars, and the brightest of them all was Venus, whom many in that country adored. " Surely," he said within himself, " this must be tlie god, the lord of the world:" but, after a while, the beautiful luminary set and dis- api)eared, and, after some f\u-tlier reflection, Abram said, " This cannot be the master of the universe ; for it is not possible that he should be subje(;t to such a change." His attention was next attracted by the moon, which soon after rose in the full, and he exclaimed with rapture, " Jk'hold now, the divine creator, the god, aj)- pears !" But as time passed, he saw this planet also sink to the horizon and disappear; on whicdi, with still greater disappointment, he made the same remark as before. The rest of the night was sjient by him in deep thought, and when, in the morning, he arrived before the gates of Babylcjn, and beheld nuiltitudes of people ])rostrate in adoration before the rising sun, "Wondrous orb," he thought, "thou in- dee his creatures more lovely than him- self, seeing that the creator must needs be of a more perfect nature than his creatures?'' This was the first occasion which Abram took to disabuse his father of his idolatry, and of preaching to him the imity of God, the Creator of all things, who had revealed himself unto him. The zeal which he testified on this and other occasions excited the choler of his father, and in the end drew him into great strifes with the courtiers of Nimrod, who refused to ac- quiesce in the verities which they heard from the yovmg prophet. The rumoiu" of these disputes at last reached the cars of Nimrod himself; and this proud and crviel prince threw him into a burning furnace, from which, never- theless, he came forth in safety, without having sustained the least damage from the flames. In the circumstances thus related there is something of character and something of Orientalism which renders the account pleas- ing, regarded simply as a fiction. This is not the case with the unmeaning and unimaginative hyperboles of the Talmud, which tells us, for instance, that Abraham was taller than all the giants, being as large and as strong, and re- quiring as much food as seventy-four common men: the rabbinical authorities differ, how- ever, about his paces, one set assuring us that his every pace measured three miles, while another set allows that the feet of the patriarch did not span more than one mile at each step he took. It will be seen, however, from what we have stated in the text, that the accoiuits which tlie Jews and the Arabians respectively give of Abram's early life coincide in some of the principal details. (*') The first and second Calls of Abram, ]>. 27. — The first call is not noticed in the Old Testament, nor the second in the New. The history in Genesis merely relates that Terah took Abram and the other members of his family, " and they went forth from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land of Ca- naan ; and they came to Haran and dwelt there." liut St. Stephen, in the discourse which occuj)ies the seventh cha])ter of tlic Acts, supplies the antecedent command, — Chap. TI.] NOTES TO ABRAHAM. 47 " The God of glory appeared to our father Abra- ham while he was in [at Ur of the Chaldees] Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, and said unto him, Depart from thy land and from thy kindred, and come hither to a land which I will show thee. Then departing from the land of the Chaldees he dwelt in Charran."* The second call is given in the Old Testament after the account of this removal to Haran, and of Terah's death there after fifteen years. " Then the Lord saidf unto Abram, Depart from thy land, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land which I will show thee." Gen. xii. 1. The difference between the two commands is obvious, and is pointed out in the page to which this note is appended. It will be observed that Abram himself was sixty years of age when he left Ur of the Chal- dees and seventy-five when he left Haran and proceeded to the land of Canaan. C) Charran, p. 27. — " Charran," as given by St. Stephen, is the proper reading of this name, and is, therefore, different from the name of Abram's brother, which is truly spelt Haran. The site of this place is very question- able. Most writers on Scriptural geography identify it with the place called Charrae by the Greeks and Romans, and renowned in history for the defeat of Crassus. But we are inclined to think that this identification is scarcely compatible with that which finds Ur in Urfah: for not only is this Charran in the same plain with Urfah, but is actually, at almost all times, visible from it, being distant not above eight hours' ride to the south ; so that a removal to this distance hardly corresponds with the his- torical intimations which refer to it. There are three other sites to which different writers refer the Charran of our history. One is Oruros, on the Euphrates, about fifty miles below the embouchure of the Chaboras; the second is Harce, about twenty miles to the E.N.E. of Palmyra; and the third Carrae, about thirty-eight miles N.E. from Damascus. All these places would, however, be out of the way in proceeding from Urfah to the land of Ca- naan, excepting the one near Damascus, which on many grounds we should hold to offer the preferable claim, were it not that the account of Jacob's journey to the same place expressly informs us that Haran was in Mesopotamia, on which ground the site, with the mention of which we commenced this note, must still be * The versions and most of the particulars in this uote are from Hales. t This call is injudiciously confounded with the former in the English Bible.incorrectly rendering the Hebrew, "Now the Lord had said to Abram, Get thee out of thy country," &c. — Hales. held to have a little the preference, notwith- standing the objections which apply to it, as none of the others answer to this condition. We think it very likely that the site of Ur, and more than likely that the site of Haran, is yet to be found. (") Primitive Longevity, p. 27. — We need not remind the reader that the age of man before the deluge made a near approach to a thousand years ; but, after that event, rapidly declined to the present standard (which it had certainly reached before the time of Da- vid), at which it has remained unaffected but by local influences. Many reasons have been given for the antediluvian longevity, and for the subsequent abridgment of human life ; but they all fail in some point or other, excepting that which, proceeding on the observation that air is the agent by which, under all circumstances, the duration of life is most affected, infers that the superior purity of the air before the deluge — or, more properly, its superior fitness for the conservation of the living principle in man, was the operating cause of the long duration of antediluvian life ; and that the gradual but quick contraction of man's life, which after- wards took place, was probably owing to some signal deterioration, caused by the deluge, in the wholesome properties of the primitive air. How the deluge may have produced such a change is another question, into which we need not enter. At the time this history opens, the duration of life was about threefold that to which it ultimately fell ; and, notwithstanding the gradual abridgment which took place, it re- mained twofold till about the time of the de- parture of the Israelites from Egypt. Terah himself died at the age of 205, which must have seemed but a reasonable old age, as it is considerably within the age attained by any of his ancestors, except his own father Nahor, who died prematurely at 148 years of age. But the operation of the abridging influence is best shown by figures, thus : — Years of Life. Noah 9.50 Shem 600 Arphaxad 438 Salah 433 Eber 464 Peleg 230 Reu 239 Serug 230 Nahor 148 Terah 205 Here we see that Noah, nearly two-thirds of whose life had passed before the deluge, lived as long as an antediluvian: whereas his son 48 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. Slicm, most of whose life passed after llie deluge, has one-third of the average duration of antediluvian life struck off from his. His son Arjiliaxad was born two years after the flood, and therefore may be taken to represent the first generation of entire postdiluvians, whose term of life is made one-third shorter than that of the semi-antediluvians, and (in two generations) is reduced to one-half that of the pure antediluvians. A rest at this ])oint of reduction was allowed for three generations, after which the existing term of life was again halved, reducing it to a quarter of the antedi- luvian term. After three more generations, another reducing process commenced, not, as before, by abrupt halving of the previous term of life, but by a gradual reduc^tion, which in about 500 years reduced the previous term of 230-40 years to about one-half, or 120 years; and in about 500 years more, we find that this term also had been nearly halved and brought down to the present standard ; for at that time it is that David said, " The days of our years art' threescore years and ten ; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow." (Psa. xe. 10.) The progress of the abridgment may be illus- trated by a few more figures. Abi-aham died at the age of 17o, being 40 years less than his father's age ; and yet he is said to have died " in a good old age ; an old man and full of years:" in like manner Isaac, who lived to 180, is said to have been " old and full of days ;" and if these expressions do not embody the ideas of a writer who, from living in a later day, when the term of man's life* was much shortened, naturally considered these as ex- treme old ages, we should be entitled from them to conclude— as was probably true after all— that a man was in those days called old, with reference to the age at which his con- temporaries, rather than his predecessors, died. The patriarchs were very sensible that the term of life was undergoing abridgment. Thus, when Jacob stood before the Egyptian king, and was asked his age, he replieil, " The days of the years of my ])ilgrimage are PiO years: few and full of evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." He lived to 147 years. His son Levi lived to 137 years; and another of his sons, Joseph, only to 110 years. Amram, the son of Levi, lived to exactly the same age as his father ; and Moses and Aaron, the two sons of Anuam, both lived to 120. Our information of the steps by which life declined to " threescore years and ten" before the time of David, is less distinct. But we principally wish to remind the reader of the ])robability — or rather the moral certainty — that the seasons of life, its child- hood, youth, maturity, and age, were distributed over the whole period of life, however long, in much the . same proportions as at present : so that the prime and old age commenced later and ended later than under a more abridged term of life. Thus we should not suppose that when the term of life was 140 years, a man of seventy was constitutionally older than one of thirty-live is now. This seems so obvious as to require little argument ; and we are not disposed to discuss the question even were argument needed. But we may just observe that there is not wanting much positive proof in favour of this view. Thus we see those whose ages when their eldest son was born is recorded, are only in one instance under thirty — and that one instance is in the case of a man (Terah's father) whose whole age little ex- ceeded half the average of his time. We see also that none of the Hebrew patriarchs had a son before he was forty. And when we take into account the general disposition to early marriages in the East, this may show that the age of manhood was reached much later than it has been since ; and the activity and vigour, mental and bodily, which these same persons evince at an age far passing the present ex- treme term of life, shows that constitutional old age began late in proportion. The admira- tion which the beauty of Sarah excited when she was near seventy years of age also affords a strong corroborative illustration. The sub- ject is one of considerable interest, and deserves a more attentive consideration than it can hero obtain. (°) Flocks and herds, p. 28. — We may take this opportunity of correcting some pre- valent impressions respecting the flocks and herds of the Bedouin shepherds We believe there is some such notion as that they have numerous herds of oxen as well as flocks of sheep, and that they traverse the desert with them at all seasons. This is not correct. The Arabian Bedouins have no oxen: sheep and goats are very common among them ; but very ancient families among them have often only camels. The Hebrew patriarchs had oxen; and the difference requires some attention, the rather as some curious considerations are in- volved. In the first place, the Hebrew fathers, though nomades, and imbued with the ideas and practices of that class of people, were not desert nomades, but, for the most ]mrt, lived in the open parts of a coimtry already settled and partly cidtivated. Neither, as we have already shown, had they any occasion to cross deserts. Chap. II.] NOTES TO ABRAHAM. 49 unless the comparatively short one between Canaan and Egypt. They were not, thus, of the class of Bedouins who are constantly moving into and from deserts, or between places which deserts separate. Hence, we imagine, proceeds their possession of oxen, which are not animals suited to live in, or to cross, such deserts as those of Arabia, and which, tlierefore, form no part of the wealth of a modern Bedouin. There must, however, have been something more than this to cause the difference ; for the same is true of the sheep, which is, however, con- ducted across deserts, by taking advantage of those times of the year when even the desert ceases to be destitute of water and green herbage. The patriarchs, in trafficking with the people of the towns and villages near which they lived, might have found an advantage in the posses- sion of oxen which the Bedouin of the desert wants. But as even those Bedouins, who are somewhat similarly circumstanced with the patriarchs, do not keep oxen, there must be still some further reason for the difference. Perhaps there has been some change of appe- tite or use as to animal food. The patriarchs ate the flesh of the ox and calf; and the same was very commonly eaten in the nation which sprung from them. To entertain a stranger, or to make a feast, " a calf tender and good," or " the fatted calf" was slain; whereas now a sheep or goat, a lamb or kid, serves the same purpose. In fact, the present Orientals rarely eat beef, and a calf is never killed. Seeing, therefore, that the Bedouin does not like the flesh of the ox or the calf, that his other animals supply him abundantly with milk, hair and hides, while he has no need of horn, and lacks opportunity of turning the products of the ox to profitable accoimt ; seeing also that he has no need of its labour, and that its wants and habits are not well suited to his way of life — it may appear that inducements are wanting to the care and maintenance of so large an animal. Strictly speaking, the camel is, in fact, the only domestic animal suited by nature to cross the deserts during the summer and autumnal heats, not only from its power of abstinence from water, but because desert herbs, which other animals do not like, form its choice food ; and because, while other domestic herbivorous animals require herbs juicy and green, the camel delights in herbage dried and parched by the sun, such only as the deseits offer during the season of heat. Flocks of sheep and other animals must be taken into or across the deserts in the spring, before the heats have dried the vegetation which has been excited by the rains of winter and early spring, VOL. I. if not before the water left in pits and hollows has been absorbed by the hot air ; for while the herbage remains juicy and green, all the cattle of the Bedouins can do without water, except the horse. Under this condition of the desert, Bedouins with flocks of sheep not only pass through it, but encamp in it during winter and spring; but in svmimer and autumn they seek plains and valleys unconsumed by the extreme drought which pervades the length and breadth of the desert. In speaking of the nomades of Western Asia as not now possessing herds of oxen, it ought not to be forgotten that those of Eastern Asia, —the great Tartar races,— do possess oxen, and make much use of them. This is not the only instance in which the developments of patri- archal life, as exhibited in the books of Genesis and Job, more strongly reminds us of nomade life among the Tartarian, than among the Ara- bian, races. The general analogy— the practices in which all agree — are so considerable, and the proximity of language and place gives such a preponderating advantage to the Arabian Be- douins, that it is seldom necessary to go further in search of illustration of the patriarchal usages or habits of life ; but when this does become necessary, one is tolerably certain to find the additional elucidations in the customs of the nomades of the Tartarian deserts. In the pos- session of oxen the Tartars more resemble the patriarchs than do the Bedouins: they have such uses for this animal as the patriarchs had. They eat more animal food than the Arabians, and like the flesh of the ox ; they also employ it as a beast of burden ; and (which is perhaps more to their purpose) they prepare from its milk, for use during winter, a sour beverage called griut, which it does not appear that they are able to obtain from the milk of any other animal. ('") Page 29.— The information respecting the characteristics of the desert in the time of spring, which was at first designed for this place, it is now judged better to reserve for the text of a future chapter. C) The name of Jehovah, p. 30. — Some of the Jewish ideas with reference to the in- effable proper name of God, are excusable on the ground of extreme reverence ; but others are merely ingenious trifling, or trifling not always ingenious, nor always reverent. Our own theologians have fallen in with some of the Jewish notions on this subject. Most Christian translators of the Old Testament, including our own, generally abstain from in- troducing the name in their versions, putting H iO HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I " tlic Lord " instead of Jehovah, in this follow- ing the example of the Jews, who, to avoid any attempt to pronounce the Name, read 'JIK, Adonai, instead of it ; and of the Seventy, who sat down the word kJj;«5 in lieu of it. The Jewish notion in this matter is explained in the Talmud, on the authority of R. Nathan ben Isaac, who is reported to say, " In this world thinj^s are not as in the world to come. In this world we write the name of God with the letters TDTV (Jehovah), and read '';]1^< (Adn/iai) ; but in the world to come we shall both read rniT' and write milV"* However, as the meaning of some texts of Scripture is involved in the use of the proper name, it is well that more recent translators seem generally disposed to retain the word " Jehovah" in their versions. Although the word is now thus spelt, it does not afford the right spelling, and it is doubtful that the true pro- nunciation can now be recovered. For it will be observed, that while the abstinence of the Jews from pronouncing the word on any occa- sion was alone sufficient to occasion its loss, there is this further circumstance, that even in writing it, in the Hebrew copies of the Scriptures, the Masoretes did not attempt to give the word its original and proper vowels, but transferred to it those of the word Adonai, from which results the now usual spelling and pronunciation of " Jehovah." The word Klohi)n, God, is also sometimes substituted for it, as well as Adonai. With all this, the Jews have rather been averse to the writing of the name at all, unless on very particular occasions ; and have substi- tuted for it various abbreviations and devices, to some of which high n.ystical qualities have been assigned. Thus, for instance, the myste- rious name is sometimes written with two "• >, and sometimes with three jods inclosed within a circle, thus but this last very ancueut form has been relimpiished, and one of the jods is often ex])unged in old examples, in con- sequence of some resort having been made to it by Christians in demonstrating the doctrine of the 'I'rinity.'l- The Jews are quite aware that the true pronunciation of the word is lost, and regard it as one of the mysteries to l)e unveiled in the days of the Messiah. They hold, however, that the knowledge of the N-ame does exist on earth, and he by whom the secret is acquired has, by virtue of it, the powers of the world at his command ; and they account for the miracles of Jesus by telling us • T. Dab. IVsachim, fol. 50; apud l::d/.aiili tracUit. Talm. Avoda Sara, sivc de Idololatria. t ' IJaitoIuccii Bililiothfca Ma;,'iia R.:il)l)iiiica,' pars. i.p. 643. that he had got possession of the ineffable name. Rightly understood, they seem to mean that he who calls upon God rightly, by this his true name, cannot fail to be heard by him. In short, this word forms the famous tetra- grainmaton, or quadrilateral name, of which every one has heard. Some imagine that this was the same Tir^aKrvi which the Pythagoreans knew, and by which they swore ; and that a knowledge was abroad in the world that the true name of the true God bore some such form as Jehovah may be traced in the Jah, Jao, Jevo, Jove, of the heathen. It is remarkable, and we are unable to find a reason for it, that the Jews, who so carefully abstained from the utterance of this ineffable name, yet took particular pleasure to join that name to their own in a somewhat shortened form ; in the beginning of a proper name they employed it as Jeho, as in Jehoshaphet, Jeho- ram, &c. ; and at the end, as Jah, as in Mica- jah, Eli-jah, &c. ; and sometimes in the very same name, either form is taken indifferently, thus: — Jeho-ahaz, in 2 Chron. xxi. 17, isAhaz- jah in 2 Chron. xxii. 1 ; and so Jehoiachin, in 2 Kings xxiv. 8, Jechon-jah in 1 Chron. iii. 16.* As a specimen of the ingenious trifling which we have mentioned, we may adduce the remark of Lightfoot, who tells us that twenty-six is the numerical value of the letters in the sacred name, and very seriously connects with this information the remark, that, when Sihon and Og were conquered, there had been twenty six generations— from Adam to Moses, — " and ac- coi-dingly does Ps. cxxxvi. rehearse the du- rability six and twenty times over, beginning the story with the creation, and ending it in the conquest of Sihon and Og."t But enough of this. ( — ) Abraham's Equivocation, p. 31. — This was not a subject which the fertile fancies of Aljiahain's rabbinical descendants were likely to leave unimproved. Accordingly, we have a Talmudical story, which tells us that on approaching Egypt, lh<' patriarch put Sarah in a chest which he locked \\\), that none might behold her dangerous beauty. " But when he was conu; to the place of paying custom, the collectors said, ' Pay us the custom." And he said, ' I will pay the custom.' They said to him, ' Thou carricst clothes.' And he said, ' I will pay for the clothes.' Then they said to him, ' Thou carriest gold ;' and he answered them, ' I will pay for my gold.' On this they said to him further, ' Surely thou bcarest the finest silk ;' and then he replied, ' I will pay • Li;,ditfoot, ■ Harm, of tlie Four Evaiif,'., in Matt. i. 11. t • Harmon, of the Old Tostamcnt,' Num. cli. xxi. Chap. II.] NOTES TO ABRAHAM. 51 custom for the finest silk.' Then said they, ' Certainly it must be pearls that thou takest with thee ;' and he only answered, 'I will pay for pearls.' Seeing that they could name nothing of value for which the patriarch was not willing to pay custom, they said, ' It cannot be but that thou open the box, and let us see what is within.' So they opened the box, and the whole land of Egypt was brightly illumined by . the lustre of Sarah's beauty."* C^) The Tkrebinth-tree of Mamre, p. 36. — It is generally understood now that the word usually rendered plain in our version, means a terebinth (or turpentine) tree ; and as the word is plural in the present case, the text would mean that Abram encamped under the terebinth-trees of Mamre. The fact that the site in which the trees grew is actually a valley or plain enables us to combine both in- terpretations. The ancient celebrity of an old terebinth-tree in this valley, under the shade of which Abram was believed to have entertained the three angels, has been given in the ' Pic- torial Bible' (note on Gen. xiii. 18). Morison says that at the time of his visit an old tree was still pointed out as that to which this statement refers ; but, with his usual good sense, he indi- cates the improbability that the tree should have remained standing for 3500 years, and wishes his informants had been content to state that this tree occupied the same ground, and that, from age to age, care had been taken thus to mark a site so distinguished. After a long interval, the neighbourhood of Hebron begins to be again visited by European travellers ; but we do not find that any of them take notice of the valley of Mamre or of the trees which may be growing there. C^) The Hebrew Name, p. 38. — The name of Hebrew, on this occasion first given to Abram and afterwards borne by his descend- ants, has been very commonly supposed to have been derived from Heber, the fifth in descent from Noah. " But it is hardly pro- * • T. Bab. Beieshith Kabba,' 40 ; cited in ' Stehelin's Tra- ditions,' ii. 88. bable that Abraham would call himself by this name, rather than by that of any of his ten predecessors ; and we rather think that it was given him by the Canaanites, because he came thither from the other side of the Euphrates ; the word 1^^, Heber, signifying, in the original, the other side, whether of a river, sea, or any other thing ; in which sense some people are called transmarine, transalpine, and the like. What seems to confirm this etymo- logy is, that we do not find that he was called by this name, till word was brought him of his nephew Lot's misfortune, so that it is likely the messenger inquiring for Abraham of the inha- bitants, might describe him by the word ''mi?, Hibri, or one that came from the other side of the river. However, after Jacob had received the great name of Israel, Abraham's descend- ants preferred that of Israelites to that of Hebrews, though the neighbouring nations still called them by the latter." — ' Ancient Uni- versal History,' vol, iii. p. 24. C*) Hagar, p. 41.— The Jewish tradition (a marvellously unlikely one) is that Hagar was a daughter (by a concubine, as some say) of Pharaoh, who, seeing the wonders wrought on account of Sarai, said, "It is better that my daughter should be a handmaid in this house- hold, than a mistress in another," and, there- fore, gave her to Sarai.* The Moslems, in virtue of her being the mother of Ishmael, treat her name and memory with great respect. They allege (what in a limited sense is true) that she was the legal wife and not the concubine of Abram ; and that Ishmael, by his seniority, had a great advantage over Isaac, which, say they, is indeed evinced by the difference of their inheritances — Arabia, which fell to the share of Ishmael, being a much more extensive and rich country than the land of Canaan, which became the portion of his younger brother. They believe that Hagar died at Mecca, and was bm-ied within the outer enclosure of the temple of the Kaabah.f * Targum Jonath. and Jarchi in Gen. xvi. 1 ; Bereshitli lliibba, p. 40, 2 ; Pirke Eliezer, c. 26. t D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient, in Hagar. H 2 CHAPTER III. AliRAIlAM AND ISAAC. ^'i--' ''■'>- ■ ' iHv^^^^i •'^ [Vt\-n. with Camels.] After the birth of Ishmael thirteen years passed away, during which it woukl seem that both Abram and Sarai were well satisfied to rest in the conclusion, that the son of Hagar was the long-promised and divinely-appointed heir of the patriarch. They had the less doubt of this, seeing that Abram was now on the verge of 100 years old, and the age of Sarai was only ten years less. It was at this time that Abram was again favoured with a manifcstatit)n of the Lord's presence ; and no sooner did he hear the Divine voice, than he fell upon his face, and remained in tliat most reverent of postures while it continued to speak to him. He was reminded tliiit there was a covenant of God witli him, that he should be the father of many nations. And, as a sign of this, he was directed — according to a custom, which has to this day remained common in the East, of changing the name to render it significantly applicable to new developments and circumstances — to call himself no longer Abram (liicjh father), but Abraham (ftillicr of a myllitudr). On this occasion the Lord's communications to the patriarch were unusually full and explicit, and cleared up nuich which remained previously uncertain — thus corroborating an observation already made, that at every fresh appearance to him, he received, not only confirmations of what had been already promised or foretold, but an addition to his previous knowledge. So now, while the promises as to llie future Hebrew race are confirmed, Ch^p. Ill] ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. 53 Abraham now fust learns that he is to be the father of other races-many races ; for, lest he should suppose that the plurality applied to the subdivisions in the race ot the ^eir of the promise he is told " I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and nations shall come out of thee. He is further assured of the permanency-the continuing effect to lu^ P-f f y-«^ ^^^ J^^- nant made with him,-that He, Jehovah, would not only be his God, but the God of the chosen race to spring from him, and that the land in which he was a stranger should be their ™nent possession. To be as an enduring and ineradicable token of this covenant, sealed fn their flesh, the rite of circumcision was instituted, and directed to be exercised not only upon Abraham himself and his son Ishmael, but upon all the males of his household, whether they had been born in that household or obtained by purchase or gift from strangers. And this was to be, in all future generations, of Abraham's descendants, the perpetual sign of a perpetual covenant, insomuch that he who did not receive the sign m his Aesh should be regarded as an alien to the covenant, and disentitled to any share in ^ts benefits^ In all future time the rite was to be administered on the eighth day from the bir^h of the child, probably because (as in the case of animals destined for sacrifice under the law) a child was Jiot conlidered perfect, or cleansed from the impurities of its birth, until seven days had ""'mSX has been directed to the institution of this rite and the objects connected with it : but we will not here detain the reader with the view of these matters which we are ourselves disposed to take, but rather refer him to a note which is subjoined to this '^Tfter the directions which were given in the matter of circumcision, it pleased God to furnish the first distinct intimation that Sarai was to be the moa.er of the heir of he pro- mises. In the first place, and introduced by the words, " As or Sarai thy wife -he is directed to call her no longer Sarai [or vuj princess, appropriatively] but Sarah [or pnncess, indefinitely and at large] ; the reason for which change is given or implied m tl- ™n-|^;^^ Y" fullowing promise :-" And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her : yea I will bless her, and% le shall be a mother of nations ; kings of people shall be of her." The ideas thus pre ented to the mind of Abraham were so new and strange to him, after he had been so long resting in the conclusion that Ishmael was the promised heir, and had so thoroughly dismissed all expectation of issue by Sarah, that he laid his face still closer to the gi'ound, and laughed within himself, as he thought of the confirmed barrenness of his wife and the old age of both ; yel less, probably, as being incredulous or doubtful, than as being struck by the singularity of such circumstances.* i .i. i, <- 4.„i.„„ „„ But then, as our affections are engaged by that which we know, and he heart takes no cognizance of ties which do not yet exist, the mind of Abraham turned to his living son sSmael, whom he knew and loved, and whose claims to the inheritance of the promise he etrat' the time to have considered ,uite sufficient, or, rather, his anxious "j P^^;^ ^ had found a rest in Ishmael, and that rest he was, perhaps, not quite willing to have disturbed by tit question of inheritance being again laid open. He therefore, ventured gen^ to inU- mate his willingness-even his desire-that Ishmael should be regarded as the heir of the "rom by whispering, " O that Ishmael might live before thee!" But God in answer to This renewed the declaration of his purpose, that the promised heir must be born of Sarah and'assured him that she should bear him a son indeed ; and then, at once to commemorate and gently rebuke the secret laughter of heart with which he had first received this intima ion itwa^sdirLtedthatthe name of Isaac Uaughter] should be given to this -"' -^^^^^^^^^ .vithin a year was distinctly promised. But although the Lord had f ;;^y ^^ f^^^^^^^^^^^ unborn son was he with whom the Divine covenant would be ^^'f^^^^'""^^^^^^^^^^ regard for Ishmael was respected, ancr his anxiety for his welfare satisfied, by the assurance . So^e interpreters tell us that he laughed for joy, in spite of the ideas which ^^^^^^^^Z^!:^! his laughter. Nothing is move preposterous and revolting than these constant -"^-I'*;J° "^^It renders them true human sacred lucrative employs freely in drawing the characters of the most f^vvoured sa ts -"^ b^ h.ch t ^^^^^^^^^^ portraitmes of beings with whose feelings we can sympathise, beca.u^e they are natu.al and «e can imaci.ta for instance, was a good and true-hearted man, but surely he was not more than a man. 54 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. that lie should be blessed abundantly in the usual objects of a Bedouin chief's ambition and desire, — he should be multiplied exceedingly, the honoured founder of twelve tribes who should, collectively, form a great nation. We have dwelt particularly on this most remarkable act of intercourse, principally on account of its historical imjjortance ; for the Divine intentions — which are so largely developed on this occasion — are not to be treated as incidents, but as tlie great animating and guiding principle in the early Hebrew history ; but also on account of the very beautiful manifestation which it offers of that condescension to human feeling, that gentleness and that tender consi- deration, which the Hebrew Scriptures ascribe to the Lord of the Universe. During the heat of the day the interior of the tent is usually close and oppressive ; and the Bedouin likes then to sit near the entrance, on the shady side — that, while protected from the sun, he may enjoy the comparative freshness of the open air. Abraham was sitting thus, about three months after this transaction, when he saw three strangers approaching, who bore the a])pearance of wayfaring men. Exactly as a Bedouin would do at the present day, the patriarch no sooner saw them than he hastened to press his hospitality upon them. For the reason we have just stated, he did not ask them into his tent, but invited them to sit under the shade of his terebinth-tree, until victuals should be got ready for them, and water brought to refresh their feet and cleanse them from the dust of travel. To be allowed thus to entertain strangers is the first personal ambition of the less-corrupted Bedouins; and so sincerely do they feel that they are the favoured parties, and so deep the shame to them of having their hospitality rejected, that we are not — as our differing customs might suggest — to suppose that the patriarch on this occasion proceeded in a manner unusual to him ; although there was that in the dignified appearance of one of the three strangers, which, while it led Abraham to single him out as the proper person to be addressed, may have induced him to accost him as " my lord," and to " bow himself towards the ground" more reverently than was his wont. This dignified stranger graciously accepted the invitation of the patriarch, and desired him to do as he had said. The manner in which Abraham proceeded to provide an entertainment fur the strangers, and the expedition with which this appears to have been accomplished, afibrd us much instruction, and serves to show very clearly that the main usages of nomade life are un- changed to this day. The preparation of bread, even to the grinding of the corn, is the exclu- sive work of women ; and as the bread is made merely as the temporary occasion requires, and none is ke])t in hand from one day to another, a baking of bread alwavs attends the arrival of a stranger. Abraham, therefore, hastened into the tent to Sarah, and desired her to make ready quickly three measures of fine flour, and to knead it and bake cakes upon the hearth. He then hastened to the herd, and took from thence a calf, " tender and good," which he gave to one of his young men to slay and dress ; and this indicates the antiquity of another Bedouin custom, of slaying an animal for the entertainment of a stranger arrived in the camj) ; and also shows that even then the Orientals had no objection to meat which had been cooked before the vital warmth had departed from it. (f) Abraham had only promised to bring " a morsel of bread to comfort their hearts;" but now, with the bread, he brought the calf, with some of those preparations of butter and milk, for which pastoral tribes have in all ages been renowned. Having brought the meat, he sat not down with them to partake of it; but, according to a still-subsisting method of showing respect, he stood by his visitants under the terebinth-tree while they ate. (') Sarah remained in the tent. The women do not generally make their appearance on such occasions; and it is considered in the last degree impertinent for a stranger to take notice of their existence, or to make any incpiiries about them. Abraham must therefore have been not a little startled when the seeming principal of the strangers abruptly asked him, " Where is Sarah thy wife?" and that the stranger should know her by a name so recently imposed, may well have increased his surprise. He answered, shortly, " Behold, in the tent." On which the stranger, by declaring that Sarah should in nine months become the mother of a son, revealed his high character to the patriarch ; and, accordingly, he is, in the remainder Chap. III.] ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. ' 55 of the account, distinguished by the ineffable name of Jehovah. As they were sitting just outside the tent, Sarah herself, who was within it, heard what passed, and she laughed incredulously to herself, knowing well that not only had she ever been barren, but that she was past the time of life at which all the women of her day ceased to bear children. On this the Lord asked why she had laughed, and why she was incredulous ; for was there anything too hard for the Lord ? and he ended in repeating the terms of the assurance he had just given. Sarah, being afraid, and knowing that no one could have heard her laughter, ventured to deny that she had laughed ; but was stopped by the rebuke, " Nay, but thou didst laugh." Soon after, the strangers arose, and departed, directing their course towards the vale of Siddim; and Abraham went with them a part of the way. As they proceeded, the Lord condescended to make known to him the object of the present motion towards Sodom ; which, speaking after the manner of men, as one who needed to examine and inquire before pro- ceeding to judgment, he does in these words ; — " Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now and see, whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come imto me; and if not, I shall KNOW." The other two then went on in advance towards Sodom, while Abraham remained alone with the Lord. The patriarch knew what interpretation to put upon the last ominous words ; and the character of the inhabitants of the plain was too well known to him to permit him to cherish a hope for them, as matters now stood. He therefore, having himself had large experience of the Lord's tender mercies, ventured, although feeling that he was but " dust and ashes," to draw near and speak to him on their behalf. It was not possible, he knew, but that the Judge of all the earth should do right ; and, therefore, far must it be from him to slay the innocent with the wicked. But, yet more, the patriarch urgently desired that, for the sake of only a few just men in Sodom, the whole city might be spared. He named fifty ; but after this request had been granted, his recollection of the intense cor- ruptions of Sodom made him anxious to reduce the number to the lowest possible limit ; and therefore, by successive petitions, all readily yielded to him, he gradually brought down the number to ten, for the sake of which small number of righteous men the Lord declared that even Sodom should not be destroyed. The Lord then departed on his way, but not — at least not in bodily form — to Sodom ; and Abraham returned to his tent in Mamre. It was even-tide when the two angels came to the town of Sodom. Lot was then sitting at the gate, and, influenced by those old Bedouin habits of hospitality in which he had been brought up, he advanced to meet them, and after proper testimonials of respect, such as Abra- ham before had shown, he invited them to become his guests for the night, after which they might rise early in the morning and pursue their way. There were in those days no such caravanserais, or lodging-houses, as now aff'ord house-room to friendless travellers in the towns of the East ; and, therefore, in at first declining the kind ofleer of Lot, they expressed an in- tention of spending the night in the street. But he pressed them greatly, so that they at last yielded, and went with him to his house, where "he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they did eat." After they had supped, and before they lay down, the house of Lot was surrounded by a great mob, composed of " both young and old, all the people from every quarter," which large expressions are no doubt designedly employed, to acquaint us with such universal depravity in Sodom as rendered her unable to furnish the ten righteous men on whom her salvation depended. The object which thus assembled them together— the abominable outrage they contemplated on Lot's angelic guests— exhibits a degree and shape of moral guilt of which we could have had no previous idea when told, in general terms only, that "the men of Sodom were sinners before the Lord exceedingly." Lot, whose Bedoum notions of hospitality required him to incur any sacrifice, and risk any danger, rather than that any evil should befall those who had come under the shadow of his roof, went out to the mob, shutting the door after him ; and after expostulating with them on the enormity of the conduct they contemplated, endeavoured to pacify them by the offer of a revoking alternative, which, while it shows the sense he entertained of the supreme obligation of his hospitable duties. 56 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. emphatically illustrates the difficulty in which he was placed, and his sense of the character of the ]»eople with whom he had to deal. Nothing can, more strikingly than this last act of their history, evince that the measure of their iniquity was indeed full to overflowing. So far from listening to Lot, they were enraged at his interference, and after reviling him as an inter- meddling stranger, attempted to lay hold of him, with the threat to deal worse with him than with his giiests. It was now high time for the angels, w'hom Lot w^as entertaining unawares, to interfere hy the exercise of the powers with which they were invested. As the mob pressed on, not only to seize Lot, but to break the door open, the angels opened it themselves, and pull- ing Lot into the house, shut it again. They then smote the brutal mob with distorted vision, whereby objects were presented so falsely or confusedly to their sight that they fancied they saw the door where it was not, and did not see it where it was : thus were baffled all their attempts to find the door, in which, vmknowing what had befallen them, they madly per- severed until they were wearied out. The angels then told Lot, that if he had any natural or acquired relatives in the town whose lives he wished to preserve, he must hasten to remove them with him from the place ; " For," said they, making known their character and their avenging mission, " we are about to destroy this place : for great before Jehovah is the cry of their" [its ])eople's] "guilt; and Jehovah hath sent us to destroy it." On this Lot went into the town to the men, to the husbands of his married daughters, to exhort them to flee with him from the doomed city. But they received his communication and warning as an idle jest. When the morning dawned, the angels hastened Lot to depart with his wife and two unmarried daughters, that they might not be consumed in the ruin which hovered over the guilty city. Lot appears to have been attached to a place in which he had lived so many years ; probably he had much property to leave in it ; and, above all, his married daughters were left there with their infatuated husbands. (^) All these things made him linger as one reluctant to depart; and, perceiving this, the angels laid a gentle restraint upon them, taking them by their hands, and leading them forth beyond the city. One of tliem then charged the party to hasten for their lives, and not to make any stay in the plain, or even to look behind them, till they reached the mountains on the borders of the vale; from which it appeared that the Divine judgment was not to be confined to the town of Sodom, but that the other cities of the plain were to be involved in its doom. Lot looked forward, and seeing that the moun- tains to which he was directed to escape lay at a considerable distance, ventured to entreat to be excused from so far a flight on so urgent an occasion, and that the near town of Bela might be allowed him for a refuge. Tliis request involved a desire that this town should be pre- served, in excuse for which liberty, he pleaded the smallness of the place ; whence, his request being granted, it was afterAvards known by the name of Zoar [wm//]. This town being spared for his sake, he was directed to hasten thither; for that the impatience of the Divine indigna- tion could not be appeased till he arrived there safely. So they hastened down the valley ; and the sun had not yet risen when they entered Zoar. Then the destruction, sudden and over- whelming, came ; and not only did it overthrow and devour the cities of the plain, and all the inhabitants, and the growth of the ground, and every living thing, but it cut ofl" the Jordan in its course, and absorbed the very plain itself: the surface of which, once blooming like another Eden, no man has beheld since that day ; but, instead thereof, a bitter, sul- phureous and fcctid lake, the Lake of Death, which has from that hour to this remained one of the wonders of the eartli. The examination of the agencies which it pleased God to employ in eftccting this great overthrow, and the description of the existing As])haltic Lake, are su])jects which need not interrupt the present narrative, as they more suitably belong to the other division of this work. It suffices now to mention, that when Abraham, who was prol)ably roused by the shock and noise of tliis terrible convulsion, got up early that same morning, and hastened to the place where he had interceded with Jehovah, " he looked towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and towards all the land of the i)hiiii, and In-hcld, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as tlie smoke of a furnace." 'V\w\\ he hut loo well knew that lie had judged all too favourablv Chap. III.] ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. 57 of Sodom, when he had reckoned that at least ten righteous men might 1)e inclosed within its walls. Although he had not expressly named Lot in his intercession, he doubtless now felt very anxious for him, as it could not yet he known to him that in this great destruction the Lord had remembered Abraham, and had delivered his nephew from the overthrow of the city in which he dwelt. And yet all the party which left Sodom were not saved. The destruction, as we have said, commenced the instant that Lot entered Zoar ; and his wife, who, too curiously or incredu- lously, lingered behind, regardless of the strict injunctions which had been given, suffered the dreadful consequences, by being involved in that destruction which extended to the very border of the city which had been given to Lot for his refuge. She was overwhelmed and smothered in the spray of the igneou^s and saline matters which filled the air ; and wliich, gathering and hardening around her, left her incrusted body with some resemblance to a mass of rock-salt. Lot tarried not long in Zoar ; but removed to the mountains to which he had at first been directed to escape. We are told that he was afraid to dwell there ; but whether on account of the danger and annoyance from the unwholesome vapours and mephitic effluvia proceeding from the combustion of the plain, or from the apprehension that the town Avould be swallowed up by the increase of the waters which were collecting in the basin of this inclosed plain, are alternatives left open to conjecture :* but whatever moved him to it, the resource which he adopted was less out of the way, at that time and in that place, than it seems to us ; seeing that probably it had been his yearly custom, while living in the vale of Siddim, to remove during the season of heat to the mountains, and to abide there in one of the cool caves they ofi'ered, perhaps in the very cave to which he now resorted. To live thus in caves during summer has ever been a favourite practice, wherever such caves are to be found, in this region ; and if Lot had some property remaining, his condition was not so much altered but that it was as natural, or more natural, that he should take this usual course, than that he should go and claim the hospitality of his kinsman Abraham, which some needlessly wonder that he did not do. And that he had property is more than likely ; not, indeed, as some preposterously conceive (from finding that he had wine in the cave), that he and his daughters had escaped from Sodom laden with provisions, wine, and other necessaries, but that his flocks and herds were out with his servants and shepherds, beyond the limits of the ruined plain ; and their return to him afforded the means of obtaining from the townspeople whatever provisions or other goods he required. In his caverned retreat a new and unexpected evil befel Lot. His daughters, like all eastern women, and especially all women of Bedouin parentage, looked upon the possession of children as the best and brightest hope of their existence ; but they saw none on earth whom they might expect to marry. They knew not that any of their father's family and connections existed, to become their husbands ; and the example of their sisters, who had perished in Sodom with their husbands, made them afraid, if willing, to entertain the notion of a mar- riage with Canaanitish husbands. They therefore most wickedly managed, on two successive nights, to intoxicate their father with wine, and in that condition, and without his clear know- ledge of what was done, to procure issue by him. A son to each daughter was the result of this transaction. The eldest daughter gave to her son the name of Moab [from a father], and the younger called hers Ben-Ammi l-son of my people}, which latter name, intimating the mother's satisfaction in the fact that the child was a son of her own race, corroborates the view we have taken of the motives by which the women were influenced, and which seems to us far preferable to the notion that they supposed that all the inhabitants of the earth, except their father and themselves, were destroyed in the overthrow of Sodom. We do not see how it is possible that they could have entertained any such impression. Be this as it may, the sons which were born to them were the progenitors of the Moabites and Ammonites, — * The Jewish WTiters have a tiailitiou that Zoar, though temporarily spared for the sake of Lot, was destroyed within the year alter Sodom. Josephns seems to say, that while Lot was at Zoar the place was destitute of inhabitants and provisions; but tliis appears incredible \inder all the circumst;inces. If there were no people in Zoar, what became of them, how were they destroyed, since the general destruction did not commence till Lot had entered Zoar? VOL. I. I 58 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. nations well knuwn in a later age for their enmity to the house of Israel. Thus much of Lot of whom the sacred history takes no further notice. Not long after the destruction of Sodom, Abraham removed from the valley of Mamre, where he had lived so many years, and proceeded southward, towards the desert border of Palestine, and encamped * near a place called Gerar, between Kadesh and Shur. What occasioned his removal at this particular juncture does not appear ; but it has been with sufficient plausibility conjectured, that he could not bear the stench which at that time arose from the sulphureous lake where the cities of the plain had been. This is the first time we read of any place called Gerar, which, it appears, lay in what was even then known as the land of the Philistines ; or that any mention is made of a people of that name as occupying any part of the country. But they now were settled in the country of which Gerar was then the capital ; for although the Abimelech who reigned at that place is only called " king of Gerar " on the present occasion, his successor, of the same title, who reigned there in the time of Isaac's manhood, is distinctly called "king of the Philistines." It thence results that the remarkable people of that name had already arrived in the country, seeking a settlement ; and finding the settled people, w hom, coming themselves from the south, they first met with in the land of Canaan, to be in possession of a fine and fertile territory, from which they deemed themselves strong enough to expel them, they made the attempt, and succeeded in it. All this is clear ; but there are some questions connected with the origin and early history of the Philistines which claim from us some such attention as we have given to the subject in a note. C*) Abraham had not long been at Gerar before an incident occurred remarkably similar to that which had some years before happened in Egypt. Uncorrected by the experience he had then gained, and still tormented by the fears by which he had then been influenced, the patriarch gave out, on his arrival at this strange place, that Sarah was his sister. As, according to a still subsisting custom among the Bedouin nations, unmarried females go unveiled, while betrothed and married women are heedful to screen their beauties from the eyes of strangers, Sarah was obliged to dispense with her matrimonial veil, the better to support the character of Abraham's sister. Hence she w^as the sooner seen by Abime- lech, the king of Gerar, or by those who described her to him ; and the consequence was, that he sent and took her to his harem. For this act, he and his household were smitten by the Lord, as Pharaoh had before been smitten ; and in a dream he learnt . wherefore this infliction came upon him, namely, because he had taken away the wife of another man. In extenuation, Abimelech, who, as an Oriental king, did not see any harm in taking away a man's sister without his or her consent, alleged his ignorance of the more intimate rela- Womiu Vfikd.] ^JQj^ between them, and protested that in the in- tegrity of his heart and the innocency of his hands he had dune this. His anxious inquiry, " jF.novAH, wilt thou also slay a righteous nation?" possibly intimates an apprehension of some such avenging calamity as that by which the cities of the plain had been lately overthrown ; while at the siime time it manifests his knowledge of the true God by his peculiar name ; and of Him, the answer of the heavenly vision leaves it unquestionable that Abimelech was a wor- shipper. His excuse was admitted ; he was informed that Abraham was a prophet, at w hose ])raycr, when his wife shoidd be restored to liini, the fatil malady by which the king's liouse- * Wc s;iy "encamped;" hut as the text is that "lir sojonrnoil r>/ (Jinar, " «i' 'lo iint t>rl assured hut that he iiu^dit at first ha\c lived in the town, as Lot had lived in Sodom. Chap. Ill] ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. 59 hold was visited would be removed. The king gat up early in the morning, and told all this to his wondering servants. He then sent for Abraham, and remonstrated with him, rather impressively, for having concealed the true relationship between Sarah and himself. To this the patriarch could only allege his fear of being slain for her sake, in places where he supposed the fear of God did not exist ; taking care to add, that he had not untruly stated the near con- nection by birth, although he had concealed the nearer ties which existed between them. Abimelech then made the patriarch liberal gifts of sheep and oxen, and men-servants and women-servants ; and told him that he was at liberty to dwell in any part of the land which he pleased. On returning Sarah to her husband, the king took occasion to administer a very graceful reproof, telling her that he had given her "brother" a thousand shekels weight of silver, with which he might purchase for her such a veil as it became a married woman to wear.* The joy, so L.ng expected, and so long delayed, came at last; and at the date specially appointed'by God, being exactly one year from the time that Abraham entertained the angels under the terebinth tree, Sarah gave birth to a son. To this son the name of Isaac was given, with a joyous feeling t which suggested to Sarah a more pleasant application of the name than in the circumstances which gave the first occasion for it. She nourished the infant from her own breast, probably not less than three years ;t and a great feast signalized the day on which the heir of the promises was weaned. In consequence of the changes and modifications of feeling and expectation which the event quite naturally occasioned, the birth and growth of Isaac did not bring unmixed satisfaction to the family of Abraham. Sarah, a woman on the verge of old age, unexpectedly gratified with a son, naturally enough threw the whole force of her affections upon him, to the gradual neglect and ultimate dislike of Ishmael, to whom, as her actual blessing, she appears to have been considerably attached before her greater blessing in Isaac came. Of Hagar's feelings we know nothing positively, but from our previous knowledge of her, we can readily conclude that it was with no pleasant impressions that she saw the consequence of her own son, now grow^ ing up to manhood, much diminished, and many of his expectations superseded by the young stranger. The mind of the rough youth himself appears to have been somewhat irritated by the comparative neglect into which he had fallen ; and he seems to have occasionally mani- fested unkind feelings towards the child by whom this had been unconsciously produced. The patriarch himself appears to have been the least altered of the three. The sturdy cha- racter of Ishmael was not likely to be displeasing to a pastoral chief; and while the heart of Abraham was large enough for both his sons, each of whom he was willing to see in the several stations which Providence had assigned them before their birth, it is probable that his first-born still possessed a higher place in his affections than the infant Isaac had yet won. An occasion soon occurred on which the operation of these different feelings was manifested. At or not long after the great feast which Abraham made when Isaac was weaned, Ishmael grievously offended Sarah, probably not for the first time, by some derision or ill-treatment of the young heir, to which Hagar appears, in some way or other, to have been a party. The wrath of Sarah was warmly excited, and she passionately insisted to Abraham that Hagar and her son should both be sent away, declaring that " the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac;" which is probably levelled at some intention which Abraham w^as known to entertain of dividing his actual property between his sons, leaving to Isaac the heirship of those higher hopes which belonged to him. Such an intention was in itself so proper and customary, that in a later age it was applied to such cases by the law of Moses. The demand of Sarah was very grievous to the patriarch. But God, who on a * M:aiy different interpretations of Abiraeleeh's speech to Sarah have been given, and after a careful examination of them all we adhere to this (which has already been given in the ' Pictorial Bible,') as the only one which appears to us to receive illustra- tion from the ideas and usages of the East. + See p. 53. Now Sarah says, " God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear shall laugh witli me." X It is still very common in "the East to suckle a child for two or three years ; and tliat this w.as the practice among the Jewish women appears from various instances. If, as we suppose, the physical developments of children were protracted in proportion to the then longer duration of the whole term of life, Isaac may very possibly ha\ e been considerably mor than three years old when weaned. I 2 60 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. former occasion intcriiosed to prevent a separation, and obliged Hagar to return to the mistress from Avhom she had fled, now indicates his high approval of the course which the displeasure and passion of Sarah had suggested. This difterence of procedure is evidently another in- stance of the operation of the divine intenti. IIW. if it did exist on the part of the Egyptians, he could not fail to know it, not only because his visit to that country, but because afterw'ards he had in his household persons who knew the usages of Egypt better than himself— being the men-servants and women-servants he had re- ceived from Pharaoh. And that the Egyptians then practised this ceremony, is rendered pro- bable l)y the consideration that the Egyptians, who were even at this time an important nation, afterwards became more important, and that their system of rites and usages was fixed and settled, and was confided to the charge of men who, of all others, hated change and innovation the most, by, and long before, the time that the Hebrews were in a condition to make any im- l)ression upon the Egyptians, or could be sup- l)osed by that proud people to have any prac- tice which was worthy of their adoption. This could not have been before the time of Solo- mon ; and who supposes that the Egyptian system woiild then have admitted such a rite as circumcision if it had been till then ex- cluded ? When Jacob went down into Egypt with seventy souls, the males were undoubtedly circumcised ; but were the Egyptians then, or during the ensuing bondage, hkely to adopt so marked and distinguishing a practice from a people who were "an abomination" to them as pastoral nomades, and whom they afterwards brought into hard and bitter bondage, and treated as slaves ? That, of all the people on earth, the Egyptian priests should be those who would then, or after (and certainly not before) adopt this rite from a people so adverse in all respects to them, and circumstanced as the Hebrews were, seems almost the most unlikely thing- possible to happen, in the regard of one who possesses but the faintest notion of the cha- racter of the Egyptian hierarchy. Their system was then at least established; and, after the establishment of their system, their aversion to all change, and especially to the adoption of foreign rites and customs, was perfectly pro- verbial. The disposition of the Hebrews was exactly the reverse; and it would be difficult to find in all history a jjcople who were more dis- posed to the adoption of foreign manners and ideas (Egyi)tian, especially), or more prone to disfigure, by alien rites and opinions, the form and substance of that noble system of faith and worship which they received amidst the thun- ders of Sinai. When the Israelites, having long discon- tinued circunK;ision in the desert, were on the point of entering the promised land, they were circumcised, and God said, "This day have I rolled away f/ie reprnach nf E Hebrews, by which some act, in itself medically or morally usefid, is made compul- sory, by its adoption for some symbolical or ceremonial purpose. Thus is magnified the wisdom and beneficence of that great God whose service was never made to require any act hurtful or of no use to his servants. {^) Use of Anim.m. Food in the E.\st, p. \A. — This is only one out of luany instances in Scripture which show that the practice of the Asiatics was, in the earliest times, similar, in this respect, to that which still juevails '* ' Reasons of the Laws of Moses, from tlu- More Xeroihim of Maim(mides,' by .lames Townley, D.D., p. 331. Chap. III.] NOTES TO ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. 83 throughout Asia, and which is entire]}' oppo- site to our own. In Europe few persons can bear the idea of eating meat the cookery of which had commenced before its fibre has hardened, and the warmth of life has tho- roughly departed from it : but in tlie East the meat is considered best wliich is cooked the soonest after Ufe is extinct ; and the Orientals regard with aversion that which lias been kept so long before dressing as ours usually is. In no case is meat which has been killed in the morning kept undressed till the ensuing day, although if killed in the evening— which is rarely the case — it may be kept till the day following. The law of Moses even took up this matter as one of police ; for seeing that there were seasons when, in consequence of ample peace offerings, animal food would be most abundant, and a great temptation would arise to the reservation of part for future consumption, it interfered and directed that all should be consumed on the same day, and that if any of it were left, it should be de- stroyed by fire. The reason of all this is plain. The heat of the climate produces the appear- ances of decomposition in animal substances with amazing rapidity, and about the same time which in our climates would be required to pass before meat is considered yi7 for eating, would in the East be so much too long, as to render it disgustingly unfit for food. So there is reason on both sides, with some allowance for the disposition which exists everywhere to carry practices into extrenies. It will thus be seen that, in such cases as the present, the practice is not to be uirderstood as resulting from the urgency of the occasion, but is quite in the line of the regular practice, according to which even those who, on particular occasions, slaughter their own meat for a regular meal, or a pre-determined feast, postpone the slaugh- ter till near the time when the cooking must be commenced. One consequence of this prac- tice is, that meat in the East is always what we should consider over-done : for it is only by over-dressing that meat so recently slaughtered can be rendered tender and fit for use. C) The Food of Angels, p. 54.— Josephus, in his version of this incident, says not that the angels ate, but that they itiade a show of eat- ing. The Targums of Jonathan and Jarchi convey the same intimation. This is evidently founded on the old notion that angels, being- spiritual creatures, could not eat or assimilate the food fit for a being so much more gross as man. It is evident we cannot know how they proceed in their natural condition, but there appears no reason why they might not eat the food of earth when they took the form of men — unless they took the form of an imperfect man, which is not very likely. We prefer to take literally the Scripture statement that " they did eat." Milton, who was well ac- quainted with all the dreams of the rabbins and the schoolmen on the subject, honestly laughs at their useless speculations, and, after alleging that — " Wliatever was created needs To be sustaia'd aud fed," tells US of his archangel (Raphael) and Adam, that — " Down they sat And to their viands fell ; nor seemingly The angel, nor in mist, the common gloss Of theologians ; but with keen dispatch Of real hunger." The reader who will take the trouble to ex- amine the full report of the rabbinical notices concerning angels which may be found in the first volume of Bartoloccio's 'Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica,' will see a remarkable ana- logy between their speculations and those of the Angelical Doctor,* and others of the scho- lastic craft. (^) Lot's Married Daughters, p. 56. — There is another very current interpretation, which supposes that, instead of reading of Lot's " sons-in-law, which [had] married his daugh- ters," we should read, "which were to have married his daughters;'' that is to say, that he really had no daughters, and that the per- sons called his sons-in law were only betrothed to the virgin daughters who continued to li\'e with him. But we have followed the view of our translators, as judging it to agree best with all the circumstances. Thus we see that when Lot was ordered by the angels to hasten liis departure, he was told, "Arise, take thy wife and thy two daughters, which are here,'' &c., which seems clearly enough to intimate that there were other daughters not there— his married daughters — whom he could not take. The supposition that married daughters were left behind, to perish in the overthrow of the city, does also afford a satisfactory and touch- ing explanation of Lot's lingering reluctance to leave the city, of his wife's wistful loitering behind, and even of some parts of his pre- served daughters' conduct in the cave. C^) The Philistines, p. 58. — In pages 34, 35 of this work, and in the ' Pictorial Bible,' under Gen. xxv. 34, and Exod. i. 8, we have taken some notice of a race of " Shepherd Kings,'' who made an irruption into Lower Egypt, and held that country in subjection 260 * Thomas Aijuinas. M 2 84 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. years. We liave expressed our reasons for be- lieving that the period of their rule commenced before Abraham, and ended before Joseph ; consequently, that a shepherd king reigned at the time of Abraham's visit, and a native prince at the time tliat the house of Israel went down into Egypt. We have now to intimate our persuasion that tliis intrusive dynasty, being expelled from Egypt, ])roceeded northward, and, settling in the country from which they expelled tlie Avini, became the " Philistines " of the sacred Iiistory. As tlie limits of our work Avill allow ns but little space for the investigation of the origin or history of even those nations which the history of the Hebrews must bring mu(;h under our notice, we must abstain from some truly curious matters of inquiry connected with the history of this people before their incursion into Egyi)t, and confine ourselves to those ])oints which may contribute to the illustration of our leading narrative. And in fulfilling even this limited object, we must take the liberty of assuming some points which those of our readers who have a general acquaintance with the subject will know to be little open to dis- pute, and which those who have not may very safely take for granted. That the Philistines came from Egypt seems to be now very generally agreed. The Bible states repeatedly that they came from the country of Caphtor, and that this means Lower Egypt is now very rarely called in ques- tion. Now from Lower Egypt only two people could come, as a people, either the native Egyptians (say a body of them fleeing from the Shepherds), or the She])herds when ex- pelled by the Egyptians. They Mere not Egyptians ; because there is no record that the Egyptians did at any time seek a refuge in the land of Canaan. When oppressed in Lower Egypt, their retreat at all times was Upi)er Egyi)t, and there is positive record that this was their resort on the invasion of the Shep- herds. Besides, although the Philistines look like a people who had been in Egypt, and who had been under the operation of its civilising influences, and although they remained in the close neighbourhood of Egypt, nothing ever transpires iu their subsequent history to con- vey the slightest intimation that the Egyptians ever recognised them as brethren. If they liad been Egyptians, they might have returned to their own country after the shepherds were expelled, or, at least, we may vviih tolerable certainty infer that they would have hastened to claim kindred Avith, if not to put themselves luider the protection of, the powerful parent state. But so far are we from liearinu,- any- thing of this, that in fact the Egyptians and Philistines are never mentioned together in all Scripture, except to intimate that the Egyp- tians acted against them, including them, with the Jews, among the enemies in that part of Syria against whom they sometimes warred. They were less connected with Egypt than even the Jews, to whom that country had been the house of Ijondage ; there is never the slightest intimation of any alliance between these near neighbours ; the Philistines never assisted the Egyptians in their wars ; they Avere never helped by Egypt in any of their diiBculties, nor did they resort to that country in any of their troubles. It is clear that the Philistines had no claim to the Egyptian name, though they bear the marks of a people who had been in Egypt. It would on these grounds appear to us strongly probable that they were a remnant of the intrusive shepherds: and this lirobability strengthens into a conviction when to this negative evidence is added that of a l)ositive character which we now proceed to adduce. In the history of the expulsion of the shep- herds, which is given by Manetho, in a precious fragment preserved by Josephus,* we are told that the native Egyptian princes ultimately rose against tlie intrusive tyrants, and after a tedious warfare drove them out of the rest of Egypt, and shut them up in Avaris.t But, despairing of success, the Egyjjtians concluded a treaty with them, and they were suffered to depart unmolested from Egypt, with all their households, amounting to 240,000 souls, and their cattle. Accordingly, they crossed the desert, and went and settled in Palestine. Ma- netho's account is clear in this point ; though at first view an awkwardness and uncertainty is prodiiced by his confounding them with another shepherd race (the Israelites) who ar- rived not (historically) very long after the de- parture of the Shepherds, and who, after a stay of almost equal duration, de})arted to the same country. Now among the early inhabit- ants of Palestine, before the Jews, there was no nation that can for an instant be supposed to have come from Egypt, or whose identifi- cation with the Shepherds can be even sus- • ('(mini Ajiiim, i. ]4. f This is previously desciibod by MiiiU'lho ;is an old city iu Iho Siiito uonu!, coiivenifiitly situated on the uoitli side of the liub.istic canal of the Nile. One of the sheiiherd kings, anx- ious to secure the casteni part of the country against any in- vasion from the Assyrians, who were then very powerful, re- built this city, and fortified it most slion,!,'Iy, and garrisoncil it with 2-iO,U0O soldiers. To this place he used to come in sum- mer to furnish them with corn and pay; ;ind lie disciplined them so carefully, that they became a terror to fureiijuers. This place was afterwards called Pelusium, where tliey liad collected all their cattle and plunder, and besic;:^eil tlieiu with an armv of JtiU.OOO men. Chap. Ill] NOTES TO ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. 85 peeled, save the Philistines, whose situation, in the part of the country nearest to Egypt, would alone direct attention to them in the first instance, apart from any other considerations. All the information which Mr. Wilkinson could obtain concerning the date of the building of the Egyptian pyramids, led him to conclude that they were built about the year 2120 B. c, a sufficiently close approximation to Hales, whose historical comparisons gave him the date of 2095 B.C., as that at which the first pyramid began to be built. According to both accounts, therefore, they were erected about or a little before the time of Abraham's visit to Egypt, about 2077 b. c. Now, Hero- dotus, who was allowed by the priests — who held the keys of knowledge — to take some transient and obscure glimpses into the his- tory of those ancient times, lets out the fact, that at the time the pyramids were erected, a shepherd called Philitis fed his flocks in that country, and that his name was given to those renowned erections. How remarkably does this, in its incidental way, corroborate our former conclusion, that the Shepherds were in Egypt about the time of Abraham's visit ; as well as our present argument, that these Shep- herds were the Philistines ; and how much is not this last position confirmed when we learn that the word Philitis means a shepherd, and Philistines are shepherds ; while the word Pales- tine or Pali-sthan — which first their own district in Canaan, and afterwards the whole country took from them — means Shepherd-Land. As the Philistines appear, before the Biblical student, more as warriors than as shepherds, it may be well to remind the reader that these two cha- racters are, in the East, perfectly compatible ; and that, in fact, whatever they became in later ages, they were noted for their cattle in the days of the patriarchs, and during the sojourn of the House of Israel in Egypt. This will appear from the disputes between the herdsmen of Isaac and Abimelech, as well as from the circumstance that while the Israelites dwelt in the land of Goshen,* a party of Ephraimites undertook a truly Bedouin ex- pedition across the desert to drive off the flocks of the Philistines of Gath.t All the particulars which we know of the Philistines are in entire agreement with this explanation, and none are opposed to it. A people who had ruled Lower Egypt for 260 years may be expected to exhibit some. cha- racteristics in their institutions and manners similar to those which we encounter in Egypt. * Tliirty years before tlie exodc according to the Chaldcc Jlaraplirast. t 1 Chrou. vii. 21. Abraham and Isaac were never in apprehen- sion about their wives, except in Egypt and in the land of the Philistines, and in both (countries the king took Sarah to his harem. The kings of the Philistines had a title or official name, Abimelech, used precisely as the name of Pharaoh was in Egypt ; and the kings in the time of Abraham and Isaac had such an officer as a " captain of the host," a functionary we shall not at this early date meet Avith else- where, vuiless in Egypt, nor yet such a military organization as the mere existence of such a functionary implies. This officer is also named on the same Egyptian principle as his master : the chief captain of the host was Phichol in the time of Abraham, and is still Phichol when Isaac visits the Philistine territory, a hundred years later. In short, their whole appearance offers that mixture of pastoral and Egyptian habits which we should expect the shepherds from Egypt to exhibit ; and in the same degree in which such of their usages as we can ascer- tain are in agreement with those of the Egyptians, in that degree do they differ from those of the native Canaanites, M'ith whom they are never seen to have any feeling or interest in common, even on those occasions when all the inhabitants of the land might be expected to unite as one man in resistance to the in- vading Israelites, and when, in fact, powerful confederacies were formed for that purpose by the native princes. The Philistines were the most inveterate enemies which the Hebrews in Canaan ever had ; and yet in their wars we find them proceeding as a distinct people, with separate interests of their own, — acting by tliemsehes and for themselves, assisted by none, and never assisting others. (") Worship in Groves, p. 62. — The use of groves as places of primitive worship is natural and easily understood, though it could only have arisen in an early state of society, or be pro- served where society remained in a primitive condition. It was the thought of a people who had not made any advances in architec- ture— who dwelt in tents or in huts — and who, while they did not feel that these dwellings were unsuitable or inaderpiate for themselves, could not but be sensible that they were so un- impressive, that it seemed revolting to associate with them, in any more formal service of wor- ship, the idea of that God who fills all nature and of whose grandeur they had no unworthy notions. They, therefore, preferred to seek intercourse with Him, and to render Him their service amid the vastness of his own creation, and under the shadow of those an- ient woods, which insensibly inspire us with 86 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. awe, and fill us with reverential feelings, which turn and vent themselves upon whatever has been customarily before the mind as the proper object of its reverence. Happy when that ob- ject is God ! — as it was to the patriarclis. There is no doubt that men had this use for groves, almost universally, before any temples existed; but it is not so clear to us that, as some sup- pose, groves were used for religious purposes, before even altars were known. But Noah (;onstructed an altar as soon as he left the ark ; and this use of groves must, therefore, have been antediluvian, if it existed before altars: and this is certainly more than we know. It is certain, however, that, under the operation of the ideas we are tracing, altars were placed in the groves ; and the next step was probably to build a hut near at hand to contain the im- plements of sacrifice ; and when men had be- gun to build in their groves, the idea of a cha- pel or oratory for use in inclement weather, and when the trees were, in winter, bare of foliage, would naturally have been suggested. When, at last, the increased resources of con- structive art, coupled with a weaker and more humanised idea of God, led men to entertain the bold idea of rearing fabrics — " temples made with hands" — which might make im- pressions on the mind worthy of his worship and service, the influence of old habits and old associations still operated. Most nations took care, when in their power, to plant groves around these buildings, for the must part with an enclosing ditch, hedge, or wall ; and these gro\es were not only consecrated to the gods in whose honour the temples in the midst of them had been built, but were themselves places of sanctuary for criminals who fled to them for refuge. As to the corruptions which became, in the end, associated with groves, and which led Moses to prohibit them very strictly, and to connnand that the groves which were found, in the land of Canaan, consecrated to idols, should be cut down,— another opi)ortunily will be af- forded us of considering this ])art of the sub- ject. Meanwhile, we only wish to call atten- tion to the point alluded to in the text, re- specting some points of analogy in this matter between the practices and the ideas of the patriarchs and those of the Celtic Druids. Among them we seem to find preserved, down . to a late date, many of the ideas and practices wliich equally belong to the patriarclial ages, and which are doubtless to be regarded as relics of the religion which was common to all men in the first ages, and which they carried M-ith them to the several places of th(>ir dis- persion. In process of time these primitive institutions were in almost every country woe- fully corrupted, or indeed lost, in various mo- difications of ceremony, idolatry, and unbelief. The Hebrew patriarchs doubtless exhibit in purity the religion of anterior ages, and what had been the sole religion of mankind : and thus he who studies the history of religious notions and practices is supjjlied with a test wliich enables him to ascertain the traces of this primitive religion, which may have been preserved in different and distant nations. Now we know not of any peoi)le who pre- served, mixed with many and awful corrup- tions, so many traces of this ancient religion as existed in the Druidical institutions and re- ligion of the Celtes. It is true they had idols, and that many wild notions were entertained, and many horrid rites practised by them ; but, amidst all, they believed in one supreme Being, to whom all other gods were far inferior. His symbol was the oak, and him, exclusively, they worshipped amid the groves. They ne\ er had images of him, or erected temples to him ; and Tacitus, speaking of the Senones, who were a branch of the Celtes, and had the same reli- gion, tells us that its principle consisted in the acknowledgment that the Deity whom they worshi])ped in the groves— the God without name — was he who governed all things, on whom all things depended, and whom all be- ings were bound to obey. There are other resemblances which would render our position more clear if we could bring them inio one view. But the purpose of the present note does not require this; and there are parts of the subject to which we sliall again have occasion to refer. We need only now observe that these remarkable analogies between the patriarchal (or say the Hebrew) and Druidical religions are late discoveries of our own day, but the antiquity and wisdom of the Druidical religion, and its conformiiies with that of the Jews, were adduced so long ago as the time of Celsus in opj)()sition to what tliat writer was pleased to consider the no- velties of the gospel. (^) Portable Fires, p. G3.— The text offers the first occasion on which a fire for use is directly nunitioned. It is not easy to see why the fire should have been carried to the spot where it was to be used, instead of being kindled there. Were the difficulties in kin- dling a new fire in tliat early age so great that it was more con\enient to carry a fire from one place to another? Some think it ])ossible that it was not in those days con- si(l(>re(l right to kindle a fire on an altar but from the fire of another aliar, and ihat, for this Chap. Ill] NOTES TO ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. 87 reason, this fire had been brought all tlie way from the altar at Beersheba ; but this would imply that the fires upon the patriarchal altars were kept up constantly, which we very much more than doubt. We are not inclined to suppose that the fire was brought from Beer- sheba at all ; but rather conceive that a halt had lately been made, when a fire had, as usual, been kindled, either for warmth (if the halt had been fur the night*), or to dress their victuals; and that when they left, Abraham, knowing the remaining distance to be in- considerable, judged it best to take some of the live embers with him. The Orientals at this day are much in the habit of carrying fires about in vessels for various purj)Oses ; and this is sometimes for a whole day, and from day to day dviring a journey : but this is chiefly in Persia, to supply the servant with the means of lighting his master's pipe when required, in which case the fire is contained in a small vessel of iron, which hangs by a chain from the servant's saddle to about two feet from the ground. In this case as in that of Abraham, our habits would lead us to say, " How much easier it would be to kindle a fire at once, when needed, than to bear it about all day -^ but in practice, and with the bad igniting ap- paratus which the Orientals employ, it is not found to be so. The vessels in which fire is carried maybe of different shapes and sizes, ac- cording to the use for which it is required ; but in general they are small, and, as in the cited case, borne suspended by a chain. Our itine- rant tinkers (who, as being for the most part gipsies, are of Eastern origin) carry about their fires much in the same fashion. C) The Ishmaelites, p. 69. — ^We know not whence the strange opinion arose that the whole Arabian nation is descended from Ish- mael, and that, consequently, the names of the Ishmaelites and Arabs are co-extensive, unless from the Chaldee and Arabic paraphrasts, and from other Jewish writers, whose his- torical authority, at all times of the least pos- sible value, becomes a perfect nullity when open to any obvious influence, such as the wish to represent Abraham as the father of so great and wide -spread a nation as the Arabians. The whole testimony of the Oriental writers, and all the inferences deducible from the sacred narrative, are opposed to this conclu- sion. The Arabians have a history anterior to Ishmael ; and it would be preposterous to sup- pose that Arabia, even to its deserts, was not occupied before his time. * The Bedouins never, unless under very peculiar circum- stances, halt for a night without kindling a fire, even in summer. According to the Arabian writers, Arabia was ocucpied a few generations after the Flood by the successive settlement witliin it of variously descended tribes, all of whom ultimately gave way to the races from which the present Arabs claim to be descended, either from being de- stroyed by them or lost in them. These latter proceed from two stocks, of which the most ancient is that of Kahtan, the same who is in the Bible called Joktan, a son of Eber ; and the other that of Ad nan, who descended in a direct line from Ishmael. To the posterity of the former is given the distinguishing title of eminence, al Arab al Araba* that is, the genuine or pure Arabs ; while those of Ish- mael receive that of al Arab al Mostdreba, meaning naturalized or mixed Arabs. But some writers, who wish to be more precise, apply the first and most honourable title to the more ancient and lost tribes to which we have alluded, while the descendants of Kahtan ob- tained the name of Motareba, which likewise signifies mixed Arabs, though in a nearer degree than Mostdreba ; those who acknow- ledged Ishmael for their ancestor (through Adnan) being the more distant graft. Con- sidering the origin of Ishmael, it is no wonder that those supposed to be descended from liim should have no claim to be admitted as pure Arabs ; but as he is alleged to have contracted an alliance with the Jorhamites,t who pos- sessed Hejaz, by marrying the daughter of their emir Modad, whence, and by subsequent intermarriages his descendants became blended with them into one nation, their claim to be regarded as Mostareba is beyond dispute. There is considerable uncertainty in the descents from Ishmael to Adnan, which is the reason why the Arabs have seldom attempted to trace their genealogies higher than the latter, whom they, therefore, look upon as the founder of their tribes. The accoimt of this Adnan does not commence, however, till 122 B.C. ; so that the uncertainties extend over a period of about 1800 years. This is a very awfvd circumstance at the first view, but the line of descent is not compromised by it, not- withstanding. The uncertainties refer merely to the numbers and names of the generations which fill the interval, and arise from the con- tra(;ted manner in which genealogies, extend- ing over a long series of ages, were necessarily kept. Thus they do not specify all the gene- rations from A to Z, in this way : — " Z, the son of Y ; Y, the son of X ; X, the son of W," and so on up to A : but knoAving it to be a matter of perfect notoriety and unquestionable truth * Equivalent to " A Hebrew of the Hebrews" among the Jews. t Descended fi-om Jorham, a son of Kahtan. 88 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. that Z is descended from some eminent ances- tor, say S, and that it is etiually notorious and imquestionablc that the remote ancestor of tills S was M, and that M was descended from G, and G from A,— they may omit the inter- mediate ancestors, through whom Z descended from S, and S from M, and M from G, and G from A, and state the matter thus : — " Z, the son of S, the son of M, the son of G, the son of A ; and thus it may occur that not only the names but even the numbers of the generations between A and Z may, in the course of time, become involved in great uncertainty through their not being given in detail in the genealo- gies, while the truth yet remains certain and miquestionable, that Z is descended from A through G, M, and S. Hence it is not ques- tioned that Adnan is descended from Ishmacl, and a certain number, eight or ten, of illus- trious names are mentioned to mark out the line of descent, while the names of the mass of intermediate ancestors is lost, and even the nmnbcrs of their generations may be a subject of fair dispute without the main question being touched. It is, therefore, surprising to sec some able writers so much in the dark as to imagine that, because the Arabian writers give us only some eight or ten names to mark the line of descent, they were absurd enough to suppose that that eight or ten generations sufficed to cover the long interval between Ishmacl and Adnan. We have dwelt on this subject the rather because this Arabian manner of proceeding suffices to clear up some diffi- culties which the Hebrew genealogies offer. It must not be inferred that the Arabs un- dervalue the descent from Ishmael in com- parison with that from Kahtan, on account of their apyilying to it a less honourable designa- tion. This is by no means the case ; for, on the contrary, they set a high value, like the Jews, on the pri\ ilege of being descended from Abraham ; and this distinction is, in the eyes of the modern Arabs, greatly enhanced by I he circumstance that Mohammed belonged to this race, and gloried in being descended from Ishmael and Abraham. Of the personal history of Ishmael the Arabians give a highly embellished account, which it is not necessary in this place to re- peat. In those circumstances which seem most entitled to consideration, as not incmnpatil)le with his Scriptural history, we are somewhat inclined to suspect that they apply to him actions and events which really belong, if they are at all real, to some of his descendants. For instance, that Ishmael ever was in Ilqiaz, or formed any important connections there, seems to us very doubtful ; but there is nothing in this that might not be very probably true of one of his descendants, after the tribe had increased, and had formed alliances among the Arabs of the Kahtan races. We, therefore, attach little weight to the statement of his marriage to the daughter of the king of the Jorhamites, though we should not be prepared to doubt" it merely on the ground that the S<'ripture tells us that he married an Egyptian woman, since his Arabian wife might liave been the second. In fact, much that the Arabians tell us about Ishmael proceeds on the grievous misconception that Abraham himself lived in Ilejaz, and that there all the events of his later history took place. The account of the descent of numerous Arabian tribes from Ishmael is not open to the same doubts or difficulty, and is, indeed, so clear in itself, and so universally acknowledged, that the object of the present note has not been to prove this, l)ut to indicate the his- torical certainty that all the Arabians could not, and did not, claim to be descended from him. (^) Greediness of Uncivilized ]\Ien, p. 70. — Tlierc is nothing better calculated to im- press the mind with a due sense of the true dignity which civilization confers upon the liuman character, than a little practical ac- quaintance with uncivilized or savage races. The beast of prey sees no other object in exist- ence than to seek food, to gorge himself with it, if he finds enough for the purpose, and to sleep till that which he has eaten is digested. Thus, also, it is with such jieople ; and it is offen- sive to the civilized man to have these mere animal aims and ends of existence pressed constantly upon his notice. We hear of the abstemiousness of the Iledouin, for instance ; and he may be abstemious from necessity, but he cannot be temperate. While there is any- thing for him to cat, he will eat for ever ; and when all is gone, he can remain longer in a starving condition— in this also like a beast of prey — than can the civilized man, who is ac- customed to a regularly recurring and tem- perate meal, and who thinks little or nothing of his food except when he actually takes it. But among the people of whom we speak, every one seems to be at all times in a con- dition to eat voraciously of whatever he can obtain ; the safest way to his heart is through his stomach ; there is nothing he will not do for those who fill him with good cheer, nothing- he will not undertake for the prospect of an indulgence to his appetite before him ; and we are well ])ersuaded that there are few who would resist the temptation of sacrificing al- most any amount of re\ersionary benefit for the present enjoyment of a mess of pottage. Chap. III.] NOTES TO ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. 89 We find a passage in Mr. Stephens' "In- cidents of Travel " strikingly confirmatory of these observations, and Avith reference to the same people (the Bedouins), Avhom we have had more particularly in view, he says, " Their temperance and frugality are from necessity, not from choice ; for in their nature they are gluttonous, and will eat at any time till they are gorged of whatever they can get, and then lie down and sleep like brutes. I have some- times amused myself with trying the variety of their appetites, and I never knew them refuse anything that could be eaten. Their stomach was literally their god, and the only chance of doing anything with them was by first making it a grateful oflFering. Instead of scorning luxuries, they would eat sugar as boys do sugar-candy ; and I am very sure that if they could have got povind-cake, they would never have eaten their own coarse bread." These things are, however, not peculiar to the Bedouins, but belong to all people till they become civilized Such people live only for the present. Enlarged forethought is exclu- sively the virtue of civilization, and we are thoroughly persuaded that among the uncivi- lized people of different countries there would be thousands of voluntary candidates for sacri- fice upon the altars, if it were well understood that, as among the ancient Gauls, the victim would, for a whole year previously, be fed on the choicest dainties of the land. By the way, it seems to us that not only do these observations bear on and illustrate the conduct of Esau, but that of Isaac himself. He "loved Esau because he did eat of his venison ;" and the whole account of the bless- ing is rendered painful to us by its being so much mixed up with the history of "the savoury meat which he loved," and through which his Avhole plan for blessing Esau was marred. But all this would appear wonderfully natural to a Bedouin ; and, indeed, the introduction into the sacred narrative of characteristics not in themselves amiable, but so true to nature and cii"cumstances, must bring strong evidence of its verity to every unprejudiced mind. C^") Isaac's Blessing, p. 70.- — That the bless- ing which Rebekah and Jacob were so anxious to obtain, and to obtain which was the object of their strange plots and devices, was rather the heirship of the promises than of the temporal preferences which were held to be the due of the firstborn, is confirmed in our minds by the following considerations, which we copy from Dr. Hales. " That their principal object was the spiritual blessing, and not the temporal, was shown by VOL. I. the event. For Jacob afterwards reverenced Esau, as his elder brother, and insisted upon Esau's accepting a present from his hand, in token of submission ; Esau also appears to have possessed himself of his father's property during Jacob's long exile ; 1. from his coming to meet him, on his return homeward, with so large a retinue as 400 men; 2. from his saying 'Ae had enough,' when he wished to decline Jacob's present ; 3. from Jacob's making no claim upon him for the division of the patri- mony, saying that he also had enough ; and, 4. from Esau's removal to Mount Seir with all his substance, which he had gotten in the land of Canaan ; thus relinquishing to his brother's family all future title to the possession of that land by establishing himself elsewhere. Gen. xxxiii. 3 — 14, xxxvi. 6, 7.* (' ^) Cultivation by Nom ades, p. 71 • — When- ever we seek a comparison fur the situation which the pastoral })atriarchs occupied in Pales- tine, we find nothing that seems to us so strictly analogous as the position of the Tartar tribes in Persia. Cultivation is never practised by the purely desert nomades ; but when pastoral tribes wander in tlie plains and free pastures of a settled (-ountry, there are many circum- stances which may lead them, in a thinly- peopled district, to turn their attention to agri- culture, with the view of raising such produce as they require for their own subsistence ; and this is particularly the case when their range is limited to a district in which the winters are attended with any considerable degree of cold. Under such circumstances the Eelauts in Persia build villages of luud — well known as " Tartar villages," — and cultivate the sur- rounding soil. They retire to these villages on the approach of winter, and when summer draws near, they betake themselves to the plains, which form the summer pasture- grounds of their flocks, and live there in tents, but leave behind them at the village a sufficient number of hands to attend to their fields, and gather in the produce in its season. They have evidently taken a first step towards exchanging the condition of the shepherd for that of the cultivator. We do not offer this as a ])recise resem- blance of the usage into which the Hebrew patriarchs fell ; but it offers some illustration of this mixed condition, and suggests the nearest analogy Avhich can, perhaps, be found. The patriarchs certainly did not live in vil- lages or houses ; but even this appears to have been the case with the family stock which re- mained in Mesopotamia, to whose condition * • Analysis of Chronology,' ii. 133. N 90 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. the analogy may, perhaps, be still more close than to that of the ])atriarchs in Canaan. C^) Beersheb.v, p. 72. — In the last number (for April, 1S39) of the ' American Biblical Repository,' we liave just had the great satis- faction of perusing a very valuable and in- teresting ' Report of Travels in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions, in 1838; undertaken fur the Illustration of Biblical Geography by the Rev. Prof. E. Robinson and Rev. E. Smith;' in which we find a notice of the discovery of the site of Becrsheba, about thirty miles to the south of Hebron. Our readers will not fail to be gratified at being enabled to obtain the view, conveyed in the following description, of a place of such great interest in the history of the patriarchs: — " After crossing another elevated ])lateau, the character of the surface was again (dianged. We came upon an open rolling country ; all around were swelling hills, covered in ordinary seasons with grass and rich pasturage, though now arid and parched with drought. We now came to Wady Lebu ; and on the north side of its water-course we had the satisfaction of discovering the site of ancient Beersheba, the celebrated border city of Palestine, still bear- ing in Arabic the name of Bir Seba. Near the water-tfourse are two circular wells of ex- cellent water, nearly forty feet deep. They are both surrounded with drinking troughs of stone, for the use of camels and flocks ; such as doubtless were used of old for the flocks that then fed on the adjacent hills. Ascending the low hills north of the m ells, we found them strewed with the ruins of former habitations, — the foundations of which are distinctly to be traced. These ruins extend over a space of half a mile long by a quarter of a mile broad. Here, then, is the place where Abraham and Isaac and Jacob often lived ! Here Samuel made his sons judges; and from here Elijah wandered out into the southern desert, and sat down under the rethem, or shrub of broom, just as our Arabs sat down under it every day and every night. Over these swelling hills the flocks of the patriarchs roved by thou- sands : we now only found a few camels, asses, and goats." CHAPTER IV. JACOB. [Harvest iu Palestine. Caua.] Jacob proceeded on his long journey to Mesopotamia, making, in tlie first place, for the fords of the Jordan, which river his course obliged him to cross. On the second or third evening * he arrived in the neighbourhood of a town which bore the name of Luz, on account of the numerous almond-trees which grew there ; and here he determined to spend the night. Having procured from the neighbouring town such refreshments (including oil) as he needed for his present relief and for his use in the morning, he lay down to rest, placing a stone under his head for a pillow. (') He appears to have been in a dejected state of mind, occasioned by the recent separation from his mother and father, the prospect of the toilsome journey before him, and the uncertainties of his future lot. But now he was cheered by a dream which conveyed to him a lively notion of the watchful providence of God, and assured him of the Divine pro- tection. He beheld the similitude of a ladder, which seemed to connect earth with heaven ; and on this ladder he saw the angels of God descending and ascending, proceeding on and returning from the missions entrusted to them by One who appeared above, and who, at last, spoke to Jacob himself, and, after announcing himself as the Jehovah of his fathers, Abraham and Isaac, proceeded to recognize him as the heir of the promises, and to renew to him, in express terms, the covenant made with Abraham ; and then, mercifully compassion- ating his depressed state and forlorn condition, the Divine vision added, — " And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into • The distance was about 60 miles, and this could not be travelled in less than two days, and might ta.ke three. Thirtj- miles is considered a good dav's journey for even a mounted traveller. N 2 92 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. tliis land: for I will not leave thee until I have done that whieh I liave spoken to thee of." Jacoh, who had not hefore heen favoured with any manifestations of that Jkhovah of whose greatness and goodness, and of whose especial regard for their race, he had often heard Ahra- liam and Isaac speak, awoke with deep awe, and exclaimed, " Surely Jehovah is in this l)lace, and I knew it not." And then he added, with some terror, " How dreadful is this place • Surely this is none other than the house of God, and this the gate of heaven." In allusion to what he said on this occasion, the place was thenceforward called Bethel [the house of God'] by himself and his descendants, in which name the more ancient one of Luz was soon lost. (0 Jacob arose early in the morning, and his first act was to set up, or plant on one of its ends, the stone which had served him for a bolster. Upon the top of this he poured some of his oil, and in doing so, vowed a remarkable and characteristic vow which cannot be adequately repre- sented but in its own language : — " If God will indeed be with me, and will keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I may return to my father's house in peace, — then shall Jehovah be my God ; and this stone which I have set vp for a 'pillar shall be GocVs house : and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee." The allusion to the meaning with which the stone was set up is very inter- esting, as it offers the first historical trace of a custom of placing erect stones as memorials and evidences of different events and actions, — of victories, providences, vows, contracts, boun- daries, and sepulchres. In some of these meanings — and more especially as votive and sepul- chral memorials — this old patriarchal custom exists everywhere to this day, either in actual usage or in traces of one extinct ; and hence, although the Druids preserved this custom also, it cannot be called druidical,* distinctively, like some other of the old Hebrew usages con- cerning stones, which we find at a later day almost confined to the Druids. Jacob's declared intention of devoting to God a tenth of the substance which might be given to him, probably means that he would expend that proportion in the building of altars, in offering sacrifices, and in the performance of such other acts, if any, in which the patriarchal religion allowed men to consider that they rendered God service. Jacob proceeded on his journey, and in due time arrived at the famous old well of Charran, where Eliezer had first seen Rebckah. Here he found some shepherds of that place waiting with their flocks. Being himself well versed in all the usages of pastoral life, he was struck that they did not at once water their flocks ; but on inquiring the reason, was told that dif- ferent flocks were entitled to water from that well, and that the well coidd not be opened till they were all on the ground, or rather, till all the shepherds of those flocks were present. Con- tinuing to talk with them, he learned that they knew Laban, that he was well, and that his home flock was kept by his daughter Rachel, for whose presence they were then actually waiting before they opened the well. While they were thus in talk, Rachel came with her sheep, and the kind stranger — the forlorn son of a wealthy house — hastened to render a mark of civility and attention which was probably not less acceptable to her than Avere the orna- ments of gold which her aunt had received from his father's servant at that place ; with the ease of an accomplished shepherd, he removed the stone from the mouth of the well and watered her flock for her ; and when he had done this, he drew near to her and kissed her, and told her, with many tears, that he was her own cousin, the son of Rebekah, her aunt. Rachel ran to bear these tidings to her father, who instantly hastened to meet his sister's son, and eml)raccd him, and kissed him, and brought him into the house. The reception which Laban gave to one who came in so humble a guise, raises the generally miamiable and self- seeking character of Rebekah's brother considerably in our esteem, and satisfies us that, within certain limits — which soon enough appear, — he wished to show all possible kindness and just treatment to Jacob. His tone did not alter when he imdcrstood how matters really stood with Rebekah's son : " Surely thou art my bone, and my flesh," was his emphatic answer to his • As wo shall liavo <)PC;ision (o use this word, to .avoid the necessity of circumlocution, we may .ts well intimate at once that, .altlioutih in strict propriety it could not be so vised, wo shall employ it to express those cuitoms of the old Ilibrews which the druid- ical religion preserved in a long subsequent age. Chap. IV.] JACOB. 93 nephew's etatenient, which probably conckuled with an intimation that Isaac did not know there was any other object in Jacob's journey than to obtain a wife from the house of Nahor. Amono- people of such habits of life as we are now describing, it would be a reproach to any man, when on a visit, not to take his full share in the occupations and pursuits of the family ; and the estimation in which he is held will be proportioned to the disposition and power which he manifests of making himself useful to his friends. Jacob accordingly exerted himself, during the first month of his stay, with such good effect as made a strong impression upon his uncle, who was too shrewd a man not to perceive that, probably from his having spent all his life in tents, and latterly in active superintendence of his father's flocks, Jacob had such a very superior knowledge of pastoral affairs as would render his services of much value. Therefore, at the end of the month, he spoke to him, observing that since he seemed likely to make some stay, he was unwilling to take advantage of their relationship to receive the benefit of his assistance without price ; but was anxious to make him whatever recompense he desired. Now Jacob during his stay had not been unobservant of Laban's two daughters. The eldest of them, Leah, was afflicted with a disorder in her eyes, but seems in other respects to have been an agreeable and sensible woman. The other, Rachel, whom he had first seen at the well, was very beautiful, and as she participated in the care of the flock, there were more points of sympathy between her and Jacob, and he saw more of her than of Leah, who, as the eldest daughter, was much engaged in the household affairs. On all these grounds it was natural that the heart of Jacob preferred Rachel ; indeed, he loved her deeply. To the fair, and even liberal proposal of Laban, his nephew therefore made answer, that he only desired that Rachel might be given to him for wife ; and that, seeing he had not where- with to pay for her the price * which custom required, he was willing to give his services for seven years, as an equivalent. Laban readily closed with this proposal ; and the arrangement thus made, is, to this day, not unusual in Syria with young men who have nothing but their services to offer the family from which they desire a wife. Usage required that a month should pass between the formation and completion of such an agreement ; and when the month w^as expired, Jacob demanded his wife. On this, Laban assembled a large party of his friends, to keep the wedding-feast, which, it seems, even at this early date, lasted durhig a week. On the first evening, Laban led his veiled daughter to the chamber of her husband, which was left in darkness : thus it was not until the morning that Jacob discovered that the wily Laban, instead of giving him his beloved Rachel, had brought him his less favoured daughter, Leah. This was enough to tlirow a meeker man than Jacob into a passion ; but, on being reproached with his conduct, Laban coolly answered, that it was not the custom of the country to give the younger daughter in marriage before the elder. This is so conformable to Oriental ideas, that it is very likely to have been true ; but it was his duty to have told this to his nephew when the agreement was made, instead of forcing upon him, for a wife, a woman he did not wish to marry, in the place of one whom he tridy loved. But his real object was to get rid first of his least attractive daughter, as well as to secure a longer claim upon the valued services of his sister's son. Accordingly he added, that, when he had completed the matrimonial week due to Leah, there would be no objection to his taking Rachel also, provided he would undertake to serve another seven years for her sake. Cir- cumstanced as he was by the guile of Laban, Jacob was compelled to agree to this ; and we are touchingly told that the further seven years which he served for Rachel, " seemed to him but as a few days, for the love he had to her." To Jacob's former indifference towards Leah, was now added the disgust which her evident participation in the fraud practised upon him was calculated to inspire. But it turned out that Leah had a ground of exultation over her favoured rival, in the fact that she bore four sons to her husband, while her sister was barren. Finding this to be the case, Rachel bethought herself of giving to Jacob her handmaid, named Bilhah, whom she had received from her father on her marriage, under the notion that the children which this woman might bear would be counted as hers. It will be remembered that Sarah had given her handmaid, Hagar, to • Lest any raider slioiild be offeudod at the use of this word, we may mention that this is the corrert and formal term for the consideration which the bridei;room is obliged to make to the family from which he takes a daughter or sister. 94 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book 1. Abraham, under a similar idea. The plan so far succeeded, that Bilhah became the mother of two sons, both of -whom received from Rachel names expressive of her exultation. Leah, finding how her sister's plan answered, and that she had herself ceased to bear children, per- suaded Jacob to take also her handmaid, Zilpah, and by her he had two sons; then Leah herself recommenced bearing, and had two sons and a daughter. At last the cries of Rachel herself were heard in heaven ; her womb was opened, and she conceived, and bare a son — Joseph, the favoured and beautiful, who fills so large a ])lace in the history of the patriarchs. Thus the fourteen years passed away, during which Jacob must have been much disturbed by the bickerings and hcari-burnhigs of his wives; and at the end of which he found himself the father of eleven sons and a daughter.* Jacob's full term of service being now expired, he apj)lied to Laban for leave to return to the land of Canaan with his wives and children. But Laban begged him to prolong his stay, " for I have found by experience," said he, " that Jehovah hath blessed me for thy sake." This gave Jacob the opportunity of hinting that he fully knew the value of his own services to his uncle, whom he reminded of the comparatively small extent of his pastoral property on his own arrival, and how amazingly it had since been increased — not, indeed, through his exertions, though nothing had been wanting on his part, — but through the Lord's blessing on his account. He added that it was now become his duty to provide for his own house also. In answer to this, Laban intimated his willingness to grant him whatever remunera- tion for his future services he might himself require. Jacob then made the extraordinary proposal that, seeing shepherds were usually paid for their services from the produce of the flock, his payment should consist of all tlie 'dark sheep and all the pnrty-coloured goats which might hereafter be born in the flocks under his care, after all the animals so coloured in the existing flock were separated and committed to other hands. As the proportion of animals of such colours is in all cases small in a flock of Western Asia, and as the ordinary physical chances for the propagation of those colours seemed to be diminished by the proposed separation, Laban readily agreed to a plan which seemed so advantageous to himself. He made the stipulated separation, and gave the separated flock to the charge of his sons, direct- ing them to keep at three days' distance from the pastures which Jacob frequented. But Laban had soon occasion to find, if he had not found it before, that his nephew was, fully a match for himself in craft. The terms of the agreement, as Laban understood them, must have been, that hazard, operating with certain drawbacks, would adequately remunerate Jacob for his care of the flock of which his uncle was the proprietor. The intention, there- fore, with which Rebekah's sori made his proposal, as indicated by its subsequent execution, speaks far more in behalf of his superior knowledge of the shepherd's art, and is much more in unison with his early operations upon Esau and upon his own father, than it is moral, or, in any sense, honest. His profound knowledge of the habits of the animals which form the pastor's wealth, put him in possession of the fact, that the powerful thirst which, in those warm climates, the animals necessarily feel by the time they are brought to the wells for water, makes the time of drinking one of the highest excitement to them, as manifested by the disposition which, in the proper season, they then show to the act of propagating their kind. This state of excitement lays their imaginations open — so to speak — to receive im- pressions from the slightest and apparently the most inadequate causes; and that when the impression has been received, it may operate upon the colour of the issue of those ani- mals in which colour varies, few physiologists will (picstion. To avail himself of his know- ledge of these facts, Jacob took rods of the poplar, hazel, and plane, and peeled white streaks in them by laying bare the whiteness of the rods. Thus prepared, he set them in the troughs from which the flocks were watered ; and the umisual appearance at that well-known and favourite place could not fail to draw their attention strongly at that most exciting time — when they drank and also coupled — which we have indicated. The result was, that the * It may l)e useful to add lipre their names, witli the years of their birth (stated with reference to the age of their father) an- nexed, as settled by Dr. Hales, that the reader may he clearly aware of their relative ages. By Leah— Reuben, 78, .Simeon, 80, Levi, 82, Judah, 83; by Bilhali — Dan, 84, Naphtali, 85 ; by Zilpah— Gad, 8G, Asher, 87; by Leah again— Issafhar, 88, Zebulon, 89, Dinah, 90; by llachel— .To.seph, 91, lienjamiu, 104. We add the name of Benjamin to complete the liNt, though he waa not born till some years after th(! date at which we are now arrived. Chap. IV] JACOB. 95 young which were conceived under such circumstances were of the colours which Jacob required, and which he was entitled to set apart as his own property ; and as he only tried this operation upon the stronger animals of the flock, leaving the weak ones to the course of nature, it happened that not only did his share become very large, but the stronger animals of the flock were his, and the weaker Laban's. This transaction has been a subject of various and warm discussion. The natural adequacy of the cause to produce the assigned eft'ect has been denied l)y parties entirely opposed to each other, — by sceptics, who endeavour to throw doubt on the truth of the scriptural narrative, and by truly pious persons, who believe that the result proceeded from a miraculous interposition of Divine power, and that the operations were in themselves nothing but as sanctified and directed by God. To both parties we would say, that we much doubt whether they and the authorities on which they depend knew so much of the nature of sheep and goats as did Jacob, who for nearly a century had hved constantly among the flocks ; and that a denial ought to be made with diffidence which is founded on observations made in European countries, where, for the most part, the animals themselves are so differently circumstanced, and their natural cha- racteristics less actively developed than under the skies of Syria and Mesopotamia, and in the broad and warm plains in which they feed, and under the modes of treatment to which they are subject there. And to the latter we would beg to remark, that we are not told that God did direct Jacob to take this course ; and the deep reverence with which we regard that great and holy name makes us shrink with intense repugnance from such attempts to exonerate Jacob at the expense of making Him a party in this most fraudulent proceeding. It is by such things as this — by attempts to clear the characters of the eminent persons of Biblical history from all stain, by connecting the Divine sanction with their most weak or culpable actions — that more real and vital injury has been done to the cause of truth than by all the sneers and in- sinuations which avowed scorners of revelation ever uttered. For ourselves, this proceeding seems to bear, from beginning to end, the aspect of a complicated and well-planned piece of dishonesty. The proposal was Jacob's own, when Laban left him the choice of his own terms ; and the very singularity of it suggests that he was well aware that he possessed the means of obtaining a far greater benefit from it than any one else could have supposed likely, or than would have been possible under the operation of ordinary circumstances ; and the real dis- honesty of employing artificial means for his purpose, is greatly enhanced by his measure for securing all the stronger animals for himself, and leaving the weak to the original owner of the flock. The real excuse for Jacob, and for many of the unseemly actions into which some most venerable persons in the Hebrew history did at times fall, lies in this — first, that those eminent persons whom we fondly picture to ourselves as somewhat more than men, were men only, and often, as in themselves, very weak men ; and, secondly, that they were Orientals ; — for it must not be concealed, that in the East, however pure may be the religious principle, and lofty the religious feeling, and however strong the pride of honour, there is now, and ever has been, such a weakness of the moral sense as is not Avithout much pain and difficulty comprehended by those w^ho have from infancy breathed in a moral atmosphere which Christianity has purified, and which, by its insensible influences, keeps in a state of moral heakhiness even those who have not found therein the breath of life. We are thoroughly convinced that, at the present day, there are, in Western Asia, and, least of all among the Bedouins, very few men, even among persons of character and station, who would not to the end of their lives make their boast of such splendid exploits in overreaching as those which passed between Laban and Jacob. They would be incapable of seeing any- thing more in them than evidences of their own ability and cleverness ; and their auditors, labouring under the same incapacity, w^ould, to a man, listen with deep interest and admira- tion. The story of Laban's cheating Jacob into taking the wrong wife would be received with rapture; and Jacob himself would be regarded rather with contempt than pity, until the story of his dealings with the sheep and goats intrusted to his care, which would not fajl to be heard with shouts of delight, should turn the scale of admiration in his favour. Now, from this time forward, Jacob "increased exceedingly," and in the course of about six years, he "had much cattle, and men-servants, and women-servants, and camels, and 96 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. asses." This prosperity excited the envy of Laban's family, and his sons were heard to sav, " Jacob hath taken away all that was our father's ; and of that whicli was our father's hath he gotten all this glory." Laban, also, as might be ex- pected, looked much less pleasant than in former times. Jacob, therefore, began to think it high time for him to return to the land of Canaan ; and any doubts on the subject were removed by a Divine command to that effect. As he suspected that Laban would not let him withdraw unmolested with all the substance he had acquired, he resolved to go away without notice ; and as his uncle was absent at a sheep-shearing, the opportunity was too fiivourable to be neglected. But first he consulted his wives, calling them forth into the fields, that they might not be overheard. He stated the matter fully to them, and had the satisfaction of finding that they entered entirely nito his views. He therefore hastened his pre- parations for departure, in the course of which Rachel managed to secrete the small superstitious images, called Teraphim,(') which belonged to her father. This she did, most probably, for the ])urpose of continuing in the strange land to which she was gohig, that superstitious use of them, oil reference to them, in which she had been brought up. vVU being ready, Jacob mounted his wives and children upon camels, and sped away toward the Euphrates with his flocks and herds, and all his substance. Having crossed the great river, he ]uirsued his way for several days, until he arrived at the mountains of Gilead, where he pitched his tent, and resolved to spend the lime usually allotted to rest. [Toraphim ?] «P4ei-c>t_ -^^ Il.lil (11 .1 .Idlltlll'V 1 Chap. IV] JACOB. 97 Laban did not hear of Jacob's flight until the third day after he started ; but no sooner did he learn it, than he called together the men of his family and household, and commenced a rapid pursuit. That he persisted in this pursuit for seven days, during which he traversed all the distance from Chairan to the mountains of Gilead, shows the inveteracy of his purpose, which, it seems, was to take from Jacob all the property with which he had departed. But the night before he overtook the fugitive in Gilead, God appeared to him in a dream, and warned him, saying, "Take heed that thou speak not unto Jacob either good or bad." This changed his purpose entirely ; for such an injunction as this, even Laban dared not disobey ; but being now, as he knew, so near to his fugitive son-in-law and daughters, he determined still to follow and seek an interview with them. When they met, some strong recrimination passed between Laban and Jacob. The former professed especial indignation that his daughters had been hurried away, "like captives taken with the sword, " and that no opportunity had been allowed him of giving one farewell kiss to them and their children, and of sending them away with music and with songs. And after declaring that only the vision of the past night prevented him from making use of the power he possessed, he added, with some heat, " And now though thou wouldest needs be gone, because thou sore longedst after thy father's house, yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods ?" Jacob, who was really ignorant of Rachel's theft, disavowed all knowledge of his teraphim, and declared that any one in whose possession they were found shovdd be put to death. He also told Laban to go with his friends and make a strict search everywhere, to convince him- self that there was nothing in the camp which he could justly claim for his own. His uncle took him at his word, and proceeded to make a very strict search. It seems that tents had only been pitched for the accommodation of the women and children, and that each of Jacob's wives had her separate tent. Laban went into each of them ; but as he entered that of Rachel the last, she had an opportunity of hiding the teraphim under the pack of her camel, and seated herself upon it, as Bedouin women often do when enjoying rest on a journey : and when her father entered, she, with much more art than decorum, accounted for not rising to receive him, by such a statement as to her condition, as she knew woidd not only excuse her in that, but would induce him speedily to leave her tent. The plan answered ; and Laban returned with a confession that he was unable to find that for which he sought. On this, Jacob, who before had been more disposed to excuse than vindicate his retreat, took a high tone in his turn. He stated how long and faithfully he had served Laban — fourteen years for his two daughters and six years for his cattle, and alleged that his wages had several times been altered, when it was found that the agreed mode of payment proved more productive than had been foreseen. There are many traits in the preceding statement illustrative of the manners of that age and state of life ; and one further passage is too descriptive of the condition and duties of an eastern shepherd to be other than literally given : — " That was torn of beasts," Jacob said, "I brought not unto thee : I bare the loss of it ; of my hand didst thou require it, whether it was stolen by day, or stolen by night. Thus was I; in the day the drought consumed me and the frost by night j and my sleep departed from mine eyes." Laban did not attempt to answer; but gave a change to the subject by saying, that although he considered all he saw to be his, yet, as a father, he had no desire to interfere with the prosperity of his daughters and their children. He then proposed that they should enter into a covenant of future peace ; and the mode in which it was formed and established will seem singularly interesting to those Avho inquire into old usages and the ideas connected with them — particularly those to which the name of Druidical has been assigned. Jacob, as he had done at Bethel, set up a tall stone on its end ; and he also directed his people to collect large stones to form a heap. They all sat down then, and ate beside or upon this heap ; it being a very early and still subsisting custom for those who entered into a friendly covenant to eat and drink together. And as it was also customary to impose significant and commemorative names upon the stony memorials which were erected on such occasions, Laban, in his Syriac dialect, imposed the name of Jegar-sahadutha upon the heap ; and Jacob called it Galeed, both of which names have the same meaning of, THE WITNESS HEAP ; but to the erect stone, the name of Mizpeh, the watch, or watch- VOL. I. o 98 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. TOWER was given. The significant application of these terms is derived from the manner in which they were employed by Laban. " This heap is witness," he said to Jacob, " between me and thee this day," and, with reference to the erected stone, " Jehovah watch lietween me and thee, when we are absent one from another." After thus establishing these stony evidences, Laban, as the elder and superior party, continued to state the terms of the covenant ; whicli were, — that Jacob should treat his daughters kindly, * caul not take any other uives besides t/ie?n, which last is a remarkable and significant stipulation which will not escape the reader's special notice. " Behold this heap," continued Laban, " and behold this pillar, which thou hast set up between me and thee, let this heap be a witness, and this pillar be a Avitncss, that I Avill not pass over this heap, and this pillar to thee, and that thou wilt not pass over this heap and this pillar to me, for harm." Laban then invoked the God of Abraham, and of Nahor, to judge between them ; and Jacob called upon the Revered One of his father Isaac. In the account of this transaction the Idea of the erected stone and the heap being icitnesses is so repeatedly produced, as clearly to evince their intention. These memorials belong to an age in which written bonds and contracts were unthought of, or, at least, were not in use among the people with whom the early Scriptural history makes us acquainted. If one in those days saw a stone or a number of stones arranged in such a manner as to suggest that they could not have l^een so })laced by accident, he, knowing the custom of his own time and country, Avould be aware that the erection was intended as the monument of some covenant or vow, and he would respect it as a sacred thing, not to be disturbed or injured by him. The name which it bore would suggest the object of the erection, and if he desired further information, he would seldom fail to learn, from the people near the place or in the district, the traditionary account of the occasion on which the name had been imposed, and, consequently, the par- ticulars of the transaction which the name and the erection were designed to commemorate. Thus these stones were more effective witnesses or memorials than the inhabitants of a highly civilized and densely-peopled country would, at the first view, be inclined to suppose. Jacob slaughtered some sheep in the evening, and made a feast for Laban's party and his own. They spent the night together among these mountains, which thenceforward took the name of Gilead; and Laban set out in the morning on his return to Padan-Aram. No sooner was Jacob relieved from the anxiety which the apprehended pursuit and actual appearance of Laban had occasioned, than his mind was much pressed by the recollection of the danger that might still be apprehended from the old resentments of his brother Esau, who, as he knew, had already established himself in the land of Seir, where he had be- come the chief of a powerful clan. But when he next formed his camp, after journeying among the mountains of Gilead, he received much encouragement from the vision of another great camp near his own, from which the angels of God approached towards him.t This he rightly interpreted as an assurance of the Divine protection, and memorialized the event by calling the place Mahanaim.J He then, with re-assured heart, proceeded to take such measures as the occasion seemed to recpiire ; and in all these his profound knowledge of cha- racti!r, and his consummate tact in acting iq)on it, arc manifested with singular force. He determined to send messengers to announce his arrival. The distance, which could not well be /e.^fthan 100 miles, would alone be a strong indication of his respect for, and his wish to stand well with, his brother; and he took great care that his messengers should not injure the effect of this measure by their mode of stating their errand, but instructed them in the form of words which they were to employ, everv syllable of which was admirably calculated to assure Esau that he was very far from pretending to any personal superiority in virtue of his pur- chased birthright, but, on the contrary, looked up to his elder brother whh great respect ; and lest he should imagine that he was returning as a needy adventurer to claim a temporal inhe- • This wassuperlluons as to R.u'hel ; but I,;il):\ii probably Taiicieil tliat lie hail cause 1o fear least Leah shoulrl be treated with neglect or injury when absent from the- j)rol('cti()ii which his presence alloriU'd. Ihit we think better of Jacobthan Lal)an ilid, and believe him to have been incai)able of treating,' Lcali unkindly. + To this the Psalmist appears to allude: — "The angel of the Lord encampctli round about tlicm that fe;ir him." I'sa. xxxiv. 7- X The [two] camps. Chap. IV.] JACOB. 99 ritance, and to devour the substance of their common father, the men were particularly charged to expatiate on the wealth which he had acquired in Padan-Aram.* The messeno-ers returned in due time without any verbal answer from Esau, but with the alarming announcement, " We came unto thy brother Esau, and also he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him." Apprehending that Esau could not be coming with so formidable a force without the most hostile intentions, Jacob was much distressed at this intelligence. He cried to God for protec- tion, in a most feeling and even pathetic address : and then, with his usual prudence and decision, proceeded to take such measures as the emergency seemed to require. In the first place he divided his company and possessions into two bands, between which he purposed to place a wide marching interval, that if any purposes of injury or vengeance should be manifested by Esau on meeting the foremost division, the chance of escape might be left open to that which remained behind, and which contained all that he held dearest and most valuable. Nor was he insensible of the effect which a preceding exhibition of presents might have in mollifying the heart of Esau, and in preparing him to receive his brother favovirably. He therefore set apart a most noble present of 200 she-goats and 20 he-goats, 200 ewes and 20 rams, 30 milch camels with their colts, 40 heifers and 10 steers, 20 she-asses and 10 foals, — which list, while it suggests some idea of the large pastoral wealth which Jacob had acquired in Padan-Aram, is particularly valuable from the indication which it offers of the numerical pro- portions of the animals by which that wealth was composed. The milch camels and their colts were especially valuable. The animals thus selected — which, we may be sure, were the best and finest of Jacob's flocks and herds— were to go first of all, and were divided into droves with intervals between them, not only to make the more imposing display, but to afford opportunity for a succession of pacifying operations upon the temper of Esau. For the chief attendant with the first drove was carefully taught by Jacob how to deport himself and what to say, thus :— " When Esau, my brother, shall meet thee, and ask thee, saying, ' Whose servant art thou ? and whither goest thou? and whose are these before thee?' Then thou shalt say, ' They are thy servant Jacob's : this is a present to my lord Esau ; and behold he also is behind us.' " The leaders of the second and following droves were instructed to give exactly the same answers. This being arranged, they were ordered in the evening to cross the river Jabbok and proceed on their way. But Jacob himself remained still on the other side the river, with the reserved division, till some hours after, when, while it was still night, he arose, and passed all the party over that stream. When he was left alone on the other side, there came to him, in the form of a man, an angel, or rather, as Hosea (xii. 21) tells us, the same Divine person who had appeared to him at Bethel, and engaged for some time in a per- sonal struggle with him. The stranger withheld himself from overcoming, or, indeed, allowed himself to seem the weaker party ; but at last he stretched forth his hand and struck the hollow of Jacob's thigh, when the sinew instantly shrank ; and thus he made his superhuman power known to the mortal with whom he strove. He then said, " Let me go ; for the morning dawneth :" but Jacob, who at this critical moment of his life felt the need of strengthening and relief, answered, " I will not let thee go, unless thou bless me." On this the stranger told him that his name should be not only Jacob but Israel,! because as a prince he had power with God, and with men also should prevail. He also blessed him, after refusing to acquaint him with his name. Thus Jacob was taught that, as he had not been conquered in this contest, so neither should he be overcome by the difficulties Avith which he was then threatened. Jacob departed from that place as the sun rose, and found that he halted on his thigh which had been smitten ; and in memory of this, even to our own day, his descendants have abstained * Jacob thus charged his messengers :—" Thus shaU ye speak unto my lord Esau,—' Thy servant Jacob saith thus: I have sojourned with Laban and stayed there until now. And I have oxen, and asses, flocks, and men-servants, and women-servants ; and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favour in thy sight.' " We are persuaded that the carefully guarded terms of respect, "thy servant," " my lord," were purposely intended to assuage the bitter feelings which seem to have been created iu the mind of Esau by the knowledge that Isaivc in the blessing intended for him, but which his brotlier had received, had made Jacob " lord over his brethren ;" Isaac himself had told Esau that, iu saying, " Behold, I have made him [Jacob] thy lord." t One who has power with God. o 2 100 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. [River Jiibbok— Zerka.] from eating the part which contains that sinew which, under the angel's hand, shrunk in the tliigli of their forefatlier. How long his lameness lasted we are not told ; hut it seems more proliable that it soon passed away, than that it continued to the end of his life, as some suppose. Jacob had not proceeded far on his way, when he saw his brother approaching in the distance with his 400 men. He then hastened to separate his several wives and their children in such a manner as might most contrilnite to the safety of those who were dearest of all to him. The two handmaids and their children went on first, then, at some distance, Leah and her children, and, last of all, Rachel and Joseph. Jacob himself then went on before them all, and, as he came near enough, he walked forward and bowed himself very low, and then went on and bowed again, and this repeatedly — after the fashion in which Orientals still approach a superior — \mtil they met. With wliat purposes Esau set out to meet Jacob no one can know. They may have been stern. But he liad already passed the reverent liarbingers of Jacob with their presents ; and, now that his long absent brother approached thus humbly towards him, the heart of the sturdy hunter melted within him, all old resentments passed away, and, obeying the kindly impulses of his own generous nature, he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell upon his neck, and kissed him. And they both wept. Afterwards, in answer to Esau's inf|uirics about the droves which he had met, Jacob very anxiously, and in all sincerity, pressed llieni upon his acceptance : for he seems not to have been yet relieved from his apprehensions ; and he was well aware that for a superior to receive a present from an inferior, was a well-understood pledge of friendship, whereas to decline such an oflering, or to return it after it had been received, was a common mark of dissatisfaction. . Esau at first refused this costly gift, alleging that he already had enough ; but, being much urged by Jacob, whose real feeling he probably penetrated and wished to relieve, he consented to take it. Esau, taking it for granted that they were to go to Mount Seir, proposed to proceed on the journey. But this was no part of Jacol)'s plan, whose destination was the land of Canaan. He, therefore, without saying this, evaded compliance with his l)rotlier's pro])osal, by alleging the necessity which the presence of young children, and of the Hocks and herds with yovmg, Chap. IV.] JACOB. 101 imposed upon liim of proceeding very slowly ; " For if men should overdrive them one day, all the flock will die." He, therefore, begged Esau to go on before, at his own speed, and promised to follow gently after. His brother yielded to the force of these reasons; but he still proposed to leave some of his men with him, to guide and protect him on the way. But Jacob, who dreaded such turbulent protectors, whose presence wuuld also interfere with the execution of his plan, and who only wished himself fairly rid of the whole party, excused himself from this also, and at last Esau departed with all his people, fully expecting that Jacob would soon rejoin him in the land of Seir. But he was no sooner out of sight, than Jacob turned his course westward towards the Jordan.* Why he did not cross that river and enter the land of Canaan, and why he allowed several years to pass before he went to his father, we have no means of knowing. But when he arrived at a favourable situation, about five miles from the eastern bank of the Jordan, he made preparations for some stay there, by building for his own household one of the easily constructed houses of that time, with numerous sheds or booths for his people and cattle. From this circumstance the site took the name of Succoth, or booths, which was continued to a town built in a later day on that spot. It is thought that Jacob did not remain at Succoth more than six months before he crossed the Jordan and entered the land of his future heritage. He arrived safely in the neighbour- hood of Shechem, where he made his first stay in that land. As all the land about that city was by this time appropriated and had become of some value to the inhabitants, he was obliged to furchase the ground on which his camp was formed for the value of 100 lambs. (■*) Here he built an altar, and called it the altar of El- elohe Israel :t and here, in long after ages,J was shown, and still is, a well which was dug by him and bore his name. Here Jacob spent eight years in much prosperity, and greatly respected by the people of the land. By that time his only daughter Dinah was about fifteen years of age, when, in an evil hour, she went into the town, to see the finery of the women, during some festival which the Shechemites celebrated. On this occasion she was seen by Shechem, the son of Hamor the prince of the place ; and he, being mvich struck by her great beauty, took her to his house, and defiled her by force. Yet after this " his soul still cleaved to her, and he loved her, and spoke kindly to her ;" and, anxious to secure this treasure to himself, as well as to appease the resentment which the damsel's family would be sure to entertain, he begged his father to go and intercede with her's, that Dinah might become his wife. Jacob was greatly distressed when he heard what had befallen his daughter, who still re- mained in Shechem's house. But his sons were then out with the cattle ; and as, among the Bedouin races, when a father has children by different wives, the full brothers of a woman are, more than her father, the especial guardians of her welfare, her avengers if she is wronged, and her punishers if she errs, he made no answer to Hamor's proposals till his sons came home. They were greatly enraged when they heard of what had happened to their sister. But Hamor proceeded, with considerable address, to place his overtures in an advantageous light. He dwelt on the deep affection with which his son regarded Dinah, and did not forget to expatiate on the advantages which would "result to them from so close an alliance with the * Some tliink that Jacob really did intend to visit his brother in Seir •nheu he promised to do so. But tliis is not the impres- sion which any one spontaneously recei^•es from the Scriptural narrative ; and tlie more common notion, wliich we have embodied in the text, is certainly more in unison with Jacob's general character, and agrees well enough with all his dealings witli Esau. t The mighty God of Israel. % Join iv. 5. [Booths or Sheds.] 102 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. Shechemites. They could intermarry, he said; and, while they might enrich themselves by establishing a free tratfic in their pastoral produce with his people, they would be at perfect liberty to acquire whatever possessions in that town and district they desired. Shechem,who was himself present, was careful to add, that he would readily pay for the damsel whatever dowry or gift they might name, and this was, according to Bedouin habits, an exceedingly liberal proposal, and more likely to be satisfactory than all the rest put together. The brothers of Dinah alfected to be appeased by these liberal offers : but in reality they nourished in their heart purposes of large and terrible revenge ; and the readiness with which they conceived on the instant a deep-laid plot for effecting their purpose will seem most surprising to those who do not reflect how much the inventive faculties are sharpened by the necessity for prompt decision, combined with a thirst for blood. They answered, that they could not give their sister to an uncircumcised man ; neither was it possible for them to form such marriages with the Shechemites as Hamor proposed, unless every man among them were circumcised. With this answer Hamor and his son returned to their town, and proceeded to the gate — the place of concourse — where they proposed a general circumcision as the only means of se- curing the advantages which might be obtained by forming a close connection with Jacob's wealthy tribe. These advantages were stated so strongly, that the people gave their full assent to the proposal, and were accordingly circumcised.* Now the third day after the ope- ration is that in which those who have been circumcised are the most distressed by their wound. This fact was well know n to Jacob's sons ; and, therefore, on the third day, when the Shechemites were all in pain and quite unapprehensive of danger, Simeon and Levi, the full brothers of Dinah, collected such of Jacob's people as they covdd persuade to join them, and entered the city, where they put Hamor and Shechem and every male to the sword ; after which they went and took their sister from Shechem's house, and returned with her to the camp. Their terrible object was accomplished. But then the other sons of Jacob entered the city to plunder all its wealth. They stripped the slain of their vestures; they made plunder of everything they could find in the houses ; they made the women and small children captives ; and they drove off all the cattle belonging to the Shechemites which they could find in the town and its surrounding fields. Jacob expressed his just abhorrence of this most unprincipled and barbarous deed ; and he continued to retain a deep sense of it, long after all apprehension of the consequences which might be expected to result from it had passed away. Even on his death-bed he spoke of it with indignation and regret. In the first instance Jacob saw great cause to fear that the inhabitants of the surroundino- districts would unite and fall upon him, to avenge this horrid massacre. But his doubts resi)ecting the course it might be best to take were relieved by a Divine command to proceed to Bethel, and dwell there, and erect an altar in that place to God, who had there appeared to him when he was on his road to Padan Aram. This reminded him of the vow which he had made on that occasion ; and in obedience to that stricter devotion of his household to the Lord's service which his vow imposed, and that he might the more becomingly approach a place to him so venerable, he conmianded that all the idolatrous or superstitious figures and symbols which had been found among the spoils of Shechem, or which belonged to any of his people, should be given up to him. Among these were probably the stolen teraphim of Rachel ; and mention is made of ear-pendants, intimating that this favourite oriental ornament had already been turned to superstitious uses, probably by being worn as amulets, and bearing the figures of idolatrous symbols — perhaps of the sun or moon.f He did not destroy these -things, as might have been expected, but buried them secretly under an oak which grew near Shechem. By his direction also his household purified themselves and put on clean apparel ; and this the first recorded instance of the religious use of outward purifications of the person or attire. • For some remarks on this trans;iction, see before, p. 79. + Tlie Targiira of Jonath;ui interprets the text by jKirapUraje thiis— " The earrings which had been iu the ears of the iuhabitauU of tho city of Shechem, in which was formed the likeness of their idoli." Chap. IV. ] JACOB. 103 Tliey arrived at Bethel in safety, and there Jacob hastened to buikl an altar to the God Mho answered him in the day of his distress, and was with him in the way which he went. After this, the Lord appeared to him, and confirmed to him and his heirs the heritage of the promises made to Abraham, and the change of his own name to Israel. On the spot where God then appeared to him he set up another memorial stone, and shed thereon drink-offerings and oil. Deborah, the old nurse of Rebekah, died during the stay at this place, and was buried with all honour, untler an oak, which, from the lamentations made on that occasion, was called "the oak of weeping." Reliekah herself was before this dead; and it was after her death, probably, that Deborah went to Jacob, in order to be with his wives, who were her countrpvomen. No long stay was made at Bethel, and from thence Jacob proceeded southward, to see his father, whom he had left at Beersheba, Init who was now in the valley of ^lamre, near Hebron. He journeyed slowly, and probably encamped several times on his way, although we read of only one encampment, which was at a place not far from Ephrath [afterwards Bethlehem], where a flock tower, erected by some former pastors, offered its safety and convenience. Such towers still exist, and are still erected. From its summit the desert shepherds hold their watch af;\r, and within its walls they deposit, in dangerous times, their moveable goods, with their women and young children, if they do not themselves resort to the shelter which it offers. Such are the watch-towers — the Mizpehs — which the Scriptures so often mention. ^:^6sL* [Tower in the Desei-t.] [llachel s sepulchre.] "\ATiile Jacob tarried at this place, his beloved Rachel fell in severe labour, and died after she had given birth to a son, on whom, in her sorrow, she imposed the name of Benoni,* — which sad name, but too well calculated to bring to mind the loss he had sustained, Jacob in the end changed to Benjamin.t Here, where she died, Rachel was buried; and her afflicted husband erected over her grave a tall stone as a monument. This was long after kno's\^l as " the pillar of Rachel's grave;" and its place is now supplied by the modern Moslem struc- ture of which a representation is annexed. J • Son of my sorrow. + Son of my right hand, i. e. one dear to me ; but the Samaritan has Beujamim, "son of days, " i. e. of his father's old a^e. i We have no doubt that the original erection by .lacob was mereh' the most tall and shapely stone which could be found in the neighbourhood. Tlie site seems always since to have been marked by some sepulchral erection or other. That which now exists is such as those with which Sheikhs and other persons of note are honoured. Its date we cannot lind, but it is certaiuly modern. Tlie structure which the travellers of tlie 16th and 17th centuries figure and describe, had the same general shape, but it was open . in arches, on all sides. The best figure of it is in " .Vmico's Tratt;\to delle Piante e Immagini di Sacri Edifi/.i di Terra Santa." 1620. And this was not very ancient, for the travellers of the 13th century (.as Brocard) describes Rachel's sepulchre as a pyramidal monument. 104 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. During Jacob's stay at this place another calamity befel him ; for Reuben availed himself of the opportunities which his father's grief afforded to corrupt Bilhah, the handmaid whom Rachel had given to her husband, and who had borne him two sons. Jacob heard of this shameless act ; but it does not appear that he took any pul)lic notice of it, although it made a deep impression upon his mind, even to his dying day, and it cost Reuben his birthright in the end. Soon after this, Jacob departed from this sad place, and proceeded to join his aged father in Mamre. None of the circumstances of the interview are told, nor know we any particvdars of the intercourse between them during the sixteen years they spent together. At the end of those years Isaac died, at what was even then considered the good old age of ISO years. Esau was then present at Mamre, having probably been sent for as his father's last hour approached; and he joined with Jacob in the last solemn duty of depositing the remains of their parent Avith those of Abraham and Sarah in the cave of jMachpelah. We read not of any difference between them respecting the division of the inheritance. Esau probably, by this time, understood that Jacob did not consider that the old transactions between them disturbed his claim, as the first-born, to a double portion of his father's substance ; and for any other than present advantages, a man of his character was not likely to be much con- cerned.* The previous property which the two brothers had acquired, now increased by their respective shares of Isaac's wealth, was so great, that it was found impossible for them to remain together, as the land was unable to sustain their flocks. They therefore separated peaceably. Esau returned to the land of Seir, leaving Jacob encamped in the valley of Mamre. The sacred historian, whose example we have followed, conducts the life of Isaac to its close before he commences the long history of Joseph, although its earlier scenes took place not long after Jacob's arrival at Mamre. This story of his beloved son is so intensely interesting ; it is so surprising, and withal so natural ; it is so perfect, — every minute detail bearing so importantly on the ultimate result, that the most simple story in the world might, in one point of view, be taken for a laboured production of such consummate skill as would, in a fiction, immortalise its author's name ; and the whole is withal told with such unaffected simplicity and natural pathos, — that through half the world the story is impressed from very infancy upon the hearts of countless thousands, and its circumstances are in every place as familiar as household words. While the Jew takes pride in the glory of Joseph, and the Christian admires the wisdom and power of God which his history displays, the Moslem is never tired of calculating the personal qualities which he ascribes to him — his form polished as the box-tree and erect as the cypress, — his locks falling in ringlets, — his forehead shining with immortal beams, — his eyebrows arched, and his eyelashes shading his sleepy eves, — his eyes beaming mildness, the eyelashes darting arrows, — his lips smiling and shedding sweets, his words " dropping honey," — and his pearly teeth, between his ruby lips, like the lightning playing upon a western sky.f A story thus familiarly known, and which cannot be told in other words than that of the original historian, without great injury to its force and beauty, it does not seem desirable to relate more in detail than may be necessary to carry on the historical narrative, unless when it offers circumstances which seem to need explanation, or which appear calculated to throw light upon the manners and institutions of the time. There were many obvious circumstances wliich might concur in rendering the first-born of his Rachel particularly dear to Jacob. He Avas the offspring of many jirayers, his birth ^had been the subject of unbounded joy, and his father had ])clield him as the constant object of maternal tenderness to his beloved wife. Wlien she died, Joseph was also probably the only one of the household who could fully sympathise with Jacol), and mingle tears with him ; • See on this subject before, p. 89. + .Toseph is the Ailonis oftlie Moslem Kast ; and liis name is used to express the perfection of maseiiline beauty. The Arabians, Persians, and Turks, have epics anr H'% ^4 ^- k [Ik'doiiius and Travellers bargaining for a slave.] Re\iben was not a party to this transaction, as he happened to be absent at the time ; and he was greatly afflicted, and, according to the oriental method of expressing passionate grief, rent his clothes, when he returned to the cistern to deliver Joseph, and found him not there. He went and told his brothers; but, whether they acquninted him with what h;ul taken place, or left him in the persuasion that Josejjh had been killed or stolen unknown to tlicm, we are not informed. We only know that they slew a kid and dipped in its blood the envied dress of which they had stripped their brother when they cast him into the ])it ; and they sent it to Jarol), saying they had found it in that state, leaving him to judge whether it was his son's robe or not, and to draw his own inferences. He knew the many-coloured coat ; and drew, .IS they desired, the inference, that some evil beast had devoured his beloved son. "And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be com- forted; and he siiid, ' Fcjr I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.' " Before the sacred narrative follows Joseph into Egy])t, it relates a remarkable incident in the history of Judah, whicli contributes to illustrate the ideas and manners of that remote age, and of the condition of society mider which the patriarchs lived. At some undefined time previous to Jacob's removal to Mamrc, Judah had contracted a friendship with a certain native of AduUam called Hirah ; and while on a visit to this person he fell in love witli the daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shuah, Chap. IV.] JACOB. 101 and married her, and by her had three sons, Er, Onan and Shelah. When the first of these became marriao-eable — long after Joseph was sold to the Arabs, his father provided a wife for him in a woman of Canaan named Tamar ; but he died prematurely, being cut off for some unnamed wickedness, without leaving any children by her. Now a custom of that country and state of life, — which was afterwards adopted into the law of Moses, and operates throughoiit the Jewish history, — recpiired that what was deemed the greatest of all calamities, the death of a man without children to carry on his name and race, should be obviated by its being made incumbent on the next brother of the deceased to marry his widow, with the understanding that the first-born son of this union should to all intents and purposes be regarded as the son and heir of the man who died childless. This duty was often very unpalatable to those on whom it devolved. It was so to Onan, who, according to this custom was obliged to take Tamar in order " to raise up posterity to his brother;" and he, knowing that the issue would not be regarded as his own, took a very criminal method of averting the designed result. For this he died, in some such sudden and marked way as evinced that his death was a punishment from God. It then became the duty of the third son, Shelah, to become the husband of Tamar ; but Judah, who began to be afraid for his only surviving son, was glad that his extreme youth justified him in desiring Tamar to withdraw to her father's house, and remain there as a widow, till Shelah should be of sufficient age. She waited accordingly ; but observing that her father-in-law made no sign of being willing to let his son discharge the obligation under which he lay, she thought of a plan whereby she might not only remind him of his neglect, but might, perchance, realise. that high and happy con- dition of a mother, after which Ave have seen all the patriarchal women longing with intense desire. Judah had lately buried his wife ; and after the days of mourning were over he went to Timnah with his old friend Hirah, to overlook the sheep-sliearing which w^as in progress at that place. Tamar being aware of this presented herself to Judah's notice, on the way, in the guise of a harlot, and as such he was betrayed into an unlawful connection with her, whereby, in the end he became the father of two sons. He had promised her a kid, and as security for it left with her his staffs, his bracelets and his signet ring ; but when he sent the kid, to redeem his pledge, the harlot was no where to be found. But three months after he heard that Tamar was with child ; and, probably, not displeased at being thus released from his fears about Shelah, at once said, " Bring her forth and let her be burnt 1" She was brought forth : but when she produced the staff, the bracelets and the signet, with the declaration that the owner w^as the father of her unknown child, her stern judge was put to confusion : but the first and uppermost feeling in his mind seems to have been, that all this had justly befallen him for withholding from Tamar the husband she was entitled to claim. Besides the remarkable practice, and the ideas involved in it, on which this transaction turns, the details bring the manners of the time very vividly before us, and evince the antiquity of usages which still exist in the East. The distinctive dress which harlots wear, and whicli Tamar assumed for the occasion, the idea of leaving a pledge more valuable than the price, to assure the payment of a price ; the use of such ornament as a bracelet, and of such an instrument of authentication as a signet ; and, above all, the existence of a capital punishment, and that punishment burning, for criminal conduct in a woman, with the authority assumed by Judah of directing the infliction of that punishment, are all facts of great interest to those who like to inquire into the origin or early history of usages or public notions. The patriarchal history may here be said to conclude, although the personal history of the patriarchs is not concluded. We are now about to direct our view to scenes very different to those w^hich have hitherto engaged our chief attention. Therefore, although the history of Joseph might be included in the history of the patriarchs, — for he was a patriarch himself, and his father and his brethren still live, — we shall regard him as their harbinger in Egypt, and avail ourselves of the change to conclude this first book of our history. It is now usual at the conclusion of a book of any history, to ofler general remarks on tlie p 2 108 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. usages and customs of the period which that book embraces. We have nothing of the kind to offer. We have rather endeavoured to enliven our leading narrative by making it self-expla- natory of the traits of society and character which it brings under our notice. This has not always been an easy operation ; and sometimes it has been necessary to throw into notes, at the end of the several chapters, larger illustrations and discussions than the text could have been safely made to comprehend. This, indeed, has not been the sole use of the " Supple- mentary Notes ;" for they have not only enabled us to keep the text more clear from digressive matter, but also, by allowing us to explain things as they occurred, have left no need for those separate dissertations on particular subjects which we might have otherwise deemed it necessary to annex to the several books of this work. This plan it is still our intention to pursue, believing that we shall be the most likely thus to succeed in impressing upon our readers the idea which, from much study and some eastern travel, we have ourselves been enabled to form of the modes of life and developments of character which pass under our review. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. [rillows of stone anil Wood.] (') Jacob's Pillow, p. 9L — Jacob's use of a stone for a support to his head during sleep, seems a resource which might be suggested to any one under similar circumstances, and whi(;h, therefore, no one has thought it needful to ex- plain by any reference to ancient customs. Yet it is possible that in his case the resom-cc was all the more natural and obvious to him from its not being then customary to use any other pillows than those of some hard substance — such as stone or wood. When we find that such hard pillows or head-stools were in use among so comparatively luxurious a people as the Egyp- tians, it seems but reasonable to infer that their more hardy neighbours of the desert had no softer rest for their heads. The frame of the Egyptian head- stools is shown in our wood- cut, in which the specimens arc of wood, excejjt the foremost, which is of alabaster. It is singular that the most costly and hixurious are the hardest, being of stone or hard foreign woods. Those which were employed by the inferior classes were of connnon soft native woods, such as the sycamore and tamarisk, and sometimes even of earthenware. It is not easy to see how the head could rest comfortably on pillows of this shape and height ; and it is, therefore, likely that their ancient use should be explained by their existing use among the Abyssinians, who rest the neck rather than the head upon them.* (^) Bethel, p. 92. — The following brief but interesting notice of the site of Bethel has lately been afforded by Professor Robinson. After telling us that the site now bears the name of Beit-Tn, he proceeds to state that, — " It lies just east of the Nablous road, forty- five minutes N.E. of Bireh. Here are ruins of very considerable extent, and among them the foundations of several churches, lying on the point of a low hill between two shallow wadys, which unite below, and run off S.E. into a deep and rugged valley. This was evi- dently a place of note in the early Christian ages, and apparently also in the days of the Crusades. It is now entirely uninhabited; except that a few Arabs, probably from some neighbouring village, had pitched their tents here for a time. In the western valley we spread our carpets, and breakfasted on the grass within the limits of what was once an immense reservoir. We obtained here from the Arabs butter of excellent quality, which might have done honour to the days when the flocks of Abraham and Jacob Avere pastured on these hills." — American Biblical Repository, April, 1839, p. 42U.t • Wilkinson, ii. 204. Univ. Hist. xv. 84. f Tlic Viiluabli! nu^moir from which this is extracted, and of which we have written more puticuhirly in the hist note to the preceding chapter, has since been reprinted, in a greatly abridgetl form, in the ' .Journal of the Geographical Society,' vol. ix. pt. 2, p. 295-303. NOTES TO JACOB. Chap. IV.] f) Teraphim, Talismans, and Amulets, p 96 —Our information concerning the tera- phim, so often mentioned in Scripture, is so perpleKed by confused statements and doubttul conjectures, that it is not quite easy to arrive at any tolerably clear notions on the subject. The name, even, has excited considerable discussion. The word is allowed by all the Jewish rabbins to be not Hebrew ; and, seeing that we first meet with the word, and the objects denoted by it. in Syria, beyond the river, it is more natural to look for it in the Syriac language than in the Arabic, in which its etymology has been more generally sought. Now in Syriac the word, in its singular form, {.mn teraph,) means, according to Bar Bahlul, an inquirer, which very well agrees with the use of teraphim as oracles. From the narrative in the text, it is mani- fest that the figures were of small size, other- wise Rachel could not so easily have removed them or have concealed them so readily m or under her camel's furniture. Yet the story in 1 Sam. xix. has been thought to show that a teraph was as large as life,-or, at least, that such figures sometimes were so in the end, although those of Laban were small. Ihis may have been true ; but, in our view, the in- cident in question does not make this mamfest. That same passage is also the only one which is adduced to prove that the teraphim bore a human form ; and although we think that they did it is not clear to us that this is evinced by MichaVs contrivance to screen her husband from the wrath of Saul. It is, however the most received and probable opinion that those images were wholly, or in part, human. From the intimations we have been able to collect, we infer that some of the common forms ot the teraphim were not unlike those of the analogous Egyptian figures represented m our cut at p 96. For although the images among the ancient idolaters, which we conceive to have been strictly answerable to the Scriptural teraphim, sometimes bore animal heads on human bodies, we defer to the opmion that the teraphim always had human heads; al- thouo-h it is allowed that the human form was rarely if ever, complete— the general figure being' that of a bust, or else of a sort of ter- minus. Yet there may be reason to suspect that these figures might bear almost any form which the caprice or fancy of the maker assigned to them. The instance of Mioah's teraphim eJudg. xviii.) is the only one in which the materials are mentioned. In that case silver was em- ployed ; but we are not to infer that they were always of silver, or even of metal. The figures, like those of analogous character elsewhere. 109 were probably often of carved wood, or even of earthenware; but probably not of stone. Of course, no attention is to be paid to the very silly story of the rabbins, who inform us that a teraph was formed of the head of a first-born son, plucked off from the neck and embalmed ; under the tongvie of which was fixed a golden plate, with the name of some false deity en- graven thereon ; and that the head, thus pre- pared, and deposited in a niche or upon a bracket, gave vocal answers to the questions which were proposed to it. The objects which these figures were sup- posed to represent, and the precise point of view in which they were regarded, are also questions involved in some doubt. That they Avere not public idols, but mere private pro- perty, and for domestic use, is clear from almost every instance in which they are men- tioned ; and hence some have inferred that they were small private images— representatives of the larger idols worshipped in the temples. But this is reasoning from later knowledge concerning the household gods of the Romans ; and it is not clear to us that teraphim were not honoured before there were any larger idols, or any temples. We know, indeed, of instances, as in that of Laban and Micah, in which the owners of the teraphim fully recognised the supreme power of Jehovah, and, in the case of the last, laboured under the delusion that these figures were certain to bring down His bless- ing upon the house in which they were con- tained. In this use of them there can be no difficulty. We have not only the examples of the Roman household gods— the penates and lares,— \)Vit, in our own day. the tinsel-covered picture of the Virgin or St. Nicholas, conspi- cuously displayed, receiving marks of respect, and with the lamp kept constantly burning before it,— which may be seen in every Russian shop or cottage, and without which no house would be held happy or prosperous— affords as good an illustration as could be de- sired, not only in fact but in principle. But, besides this, it was more peculiar to the teraphim that they were consulted as oracles. This appears constantly in the Bible,* and is confirmed by the mention of teraphim in con- nection with the arts of divination.t But in what manner the responses were supposed to be conveyed, when reference was made to them, to forctel what was to come or to dis- cover what was hid or lost, we are not told, and it is useless to conjecture. Many writers on the subject tell us that the superstition con- » Compare Judges xvii. 5; xviii. 5. 6, 14-20 ; E^k. xxi. 21 ; Zech. x. 2 ; Hos. iii. 4. t 1 Sam. XV. 23. 110 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. ccrning talismans, with wliich the whole East is still infatuated, may be traced to the tera- phim. We should rather say that they may be traced to the common principles in which these and a thousand other superstitions had their origin; and these principles are easily detected, whatever disjmte there may be about details. All of it seems to us to result as plainly as possible from the operation of those views which we have explained in a preceding page (21 et seq ). When men, without disavowing the supreme Lord of all, undertook to relieve Ilim from the care of their own small affairs, which they transferred to inferior agents, they ere long thought of attracting and fixing the beneficent attention and influence of those agents, by placing in their houses, or by at- taching to their persons, certain symbolical or representative figiu'es, which they appro- priated to their determined use with such rites and astrological or other observances as they judged suited to the purpose. They are then the symbols, and draw to him the bene- volent attention of those powers which are deemed to stand between man and that great and awful Being, Mhom he thinks he cannot decorously trouble with the relatively small concerns of his family and home. The \m.c- tical tendency of this to become a low idolatry in the end, we need not indicate. Under the view we have taken, such things as talismans and amulets will be regarded much in the light of teraphim to be worn upon the person; and, therefore, a slight notice of these instruments of superstition may very suitably be added in this place, to anticipate the separate statement concerning them which might otherwise be necessary. That such things were known, even in patriarchal times, is manifest from the instance of the ear-rings, which, being instruments of superstition, Jacob obliged his people to deliver u]i to him, and which he buried under the oak near Shechem. And it is now also well understood that Moses alluded to the previous use of talismans and amulets when he connnanded the Israelites to bind his words for a sign upon their hands, and that they should be as frontlets between their eyes.* It is in confirmation of the views we have stated in a preceding i)age, concerning tin; prior antiquity of reference to tlie heavenly 1)odies, as the agencies or influences by which the Supreme ])ower was administered over this world and its pe()])le, that talismans were first, and for the most part still are, connected with astral influences, and were constructed on astrological i)rincii)les. They most usually • i;.\uil. xiii. y ; Deul. \i. 8, \i. 1». consisted of figures, of vaiious metals and sizes, cast under certain constellations, and bearing the representative figure of the sun or moon or of some planet, or else were charged with certain astrological symbols and characters ; and also of stones, more generally engraved with such characters or representa- tive figures on the surface, than cut, in mass, into symbolical forms. Yet in the case of the talismanical scarabaeus of the Egyptians, the stone itself was cut into the figure of the sacred beetle, the symbol of the sun, while its under surface was charged with figui'es cut in intaglio, of solar, lunar, and astral symbols and charac- ters. The figures of beetles and hawks, whicli the Egyptians engraved in emerald and jasper, are noticed by Pliny ; and w^e learn that be- sides the general virtues attributed to them, they were more particularly held to inspire the soldier with courage and to protect his person in the day of battle, and also to defend children from the malign influence of the " evil eye." As there is little reason to doubt that the Hebrews learnt the use of these very things in Egypt, if they were not previously known to them, and that they, therefore, may be counted among the objects of idolatry and superstition, against which many of the injunctions and prohibitions of tho Mosaical law were levelled, there is a double projiriety in offering specimens of them to the reader's notice. And while they are recommended to [l^gjlitiaii Scav:iL!i-i. — liacU and side views.] his attention as specimens of the earliest talis- manical figures which now cxisl, and which Chap. IV.] NOTES TO JACOB. Ill [Egyptian Scar;ibrei. — Engraved vinder suiTacea.] unquestionably must, at some time, have been known to the Hebrews, the fact will not be overlooked that they also offer the earliest specimens of engraving on stone ; which curious and difficult art the Hebrews certainly did bring with them from Egypt. The shape which these articles bear, and the engravings with which they are charged, Avill spontane- ously suggest to the reader that they might have been used as seals or signets ; and to this use it seems that they were in fact applied, although other engraved stones were also used for that purpose. In like manner, while we believe that the old Babylonians engraved cylinders, which have lately engaged so much attention, were astral talismans ; there appears also to be reason to conclude that they were used as signets. These talismanical stones of the Babylonians seem to have exhibited a horoscopical representation of the constellation of the heavenly " aspects,'' i;nder which the parties who owned them were born ; or, as we would venture with some diffidence to suggest, of those happier " aspects," chosen by them- selves, under Avhich they would have desired to be born, and the favourable influences of which they, by means of these talismans, hoped to fix and concentrate upon their own persons. And these horoscopical representations, if used as signets, would serve as much to identify the party to whom they belonged as a proper name, and still more than the crests which we engrave upon our seals. It is remarkable that the higher class of talismans among the Orientals were chiefly engraved stones, whereas, in general, metallic figures, of which we first took notice, were little more than simple amulets ; and that the reverse of this was the case among the classical ancients, who set the highest of all value u])on the talismans of Samothracia, which were made according to the rules observed in the cele- brated mysteries of which that island was the seat. There were bits of metal on which cer- tain astral figures and symbols were engraved, and which were usually set in rings. Now the reader will be prepared to see how the principle on which the ancient talismans were constructed, agrees with that which the more judicious Jewish writers * assign to the teraphim, which as they tell us were figures in the human form, constructed under certain con- stellations, the favourable influences of which were then thought to be contained in them. The history of talismans is large and ciuious ; and it will be understood that we have only stated such facts as seemed necessary for the purposes of the present note.f Amulets require little separate notice as [Egyptian Amulets.] * Such as Aben Ezra, Maimouides, and R. Eliezer. t It may, however, be desirable to specify the several kinds of talismans which finally came into use. 1. The astronomical, or rather astrological, which were charged with celestial signs, accompanied with intelligible characters. 2. Magical, which bore monstrous figures, mysterious words, and names of un- known angels. 3. Mixed, containing both celestial signs and strange or barbarous words, but nothing otherwise supersti- tious or any angelical names. 4. Sigilla planefarum, marked chiefly with Hebrew numeral letters, and used by the framers of horoscopes and fortune-tellers to throw a mystery over their .arts. Other magical figures, bearing Hebrew names and cha- racters, models of which are given by Agrippa. The tivo last are of comparatively modern invention, and have little claim to be regarded as talismans. The third is doubtful ; and the two first are the only proper subjects of antiquarian research. The first and most ancient is that on which our oliservations have chiefly borne. 112 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. they were but a lower kind of talisman ; and most of such consideration as they require has been involved in the preceding statement. It is difficult to say where the line between the talisman and the amulet should be drawn. But they were not generally considered so much connected with astral influences as the talis- mans. They were, in fact, for the most part, wliat we call " charms," intended to guard against special evils and particular diseases. Their forms were as much diversified as their objects among the ancient idolaters. Almost every different kind of gem had its virtue as an anmlet: and besides these, amulets among tlie Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, and, we may conclude, among the Syrians, often bore the form or ornament for the person, such as crowns of pearls, necklaces of shells, gems, coral, &c ; with the heads and figures of gods, heroes, lions, horses, dogs, rats, birds, fish, and various gro- tesque and obscene objects. The annexed en- graving offers specimens of some of those whicli were in use among the ancient Egyptians. The Jews became much addicted to the use of amulets, especially for the prevention or ciu'e of diseases — and, indeed, their "medical" practice consisted of little else. " There were hardly any people in the whole world," says Lightfoot, " that more used, or were more fond of amulets, charms, mutterings, exorcisms, and all kinds of enchantments." For some while before, and ever since, the time of Christ this has been true ; and the use of them was n(jt discouraged by the ecclesiastical rulers. Iheir only difficulties respected the use of them [probably in common with other curative measures] on the sabbath-day ; and the decision was, that a man should not go abroad with his amulet on the sabbath, unless it had been pre- scribed by an approved " physician" — that is, by one who was known to have cured at least three persons previously by the same means. Their amulets were sometimes certain small roots hung about the neck ; but more generally certain « ords in writing — being, in the simpler forms, extracts from the law supposed to be applicable to the case ; but often mysterious names and characters, disposed according to the rules of cabalistic art — frequently within the well-known hexagonal figure called the shield of David, or, the seal of Solomon. This, with smne other Jewish practices, appears to have arisen from the misapprehension or gross perversion of the passage in the law* to which we have already referred. From their example the Christians adopted, among other amulets, the use of written charms, consisting, for the most part, of words taken from the gospel — which practice is not yet wholly extirpated from some rural districts of our own country. And the same example probably led the Moslems to that most exten- sive use of written amulets, composed generally of sentences from their Koran, which we now find every where among them.t (*) Antiquity of ComEo Money. — p. 101. The word in the original is kesitah, rendered " pieces of money" in our authorised version of the Bible, but " lambs" in the margin. The word is rare, and only occurs in three places: — here ; in the retrospective reference to the transaction which is given in Josh. xxiv. 32; and in Job xlii. 11. All these references therefore apply to about the same time. The conclusion of many critics is, that they were pieces of money stamped with the figure of a lamb or sheep — perhaps as being of the current value of that animal —and consequently that an advance to coined money had been made since the time Abraham weighed out 400 shekels of silver as the price of the field of Machpelah. But this seems to us so in- credible, that we know not how the notion could enter the mind of any one who possessed the slightest acquaintance with the subject. We disbelieve it utterly, and for the follow- ing among many other reasons. Fii'st, it will be observed that all the versions whose testimony is of any value— being the Septuagint, Samaritan, Syriac, Arabic, and the Latin Vulgate, render the word by " lambs;" to which we may add that the marginal read- ings, in our own version, happen to be very generally preferable to those in the text. • Dent. vi. 7, 8. t For further inforniiitioii on the subject ofTeraphini, the reader may be recomiiiendeil to consult, Selden, De Diis Syriis Syntag, 1G29; .Turieu, Histoire Criti(|U<' des Dogmes, pt. iii. cli.4; Carpzov, IX'Tcrajihimis, in Apparatus Historico- Criticus, 174S; Dicteric, Antiq. niblicao i. 271, 272, 555, Banier, Mytliolojiy and Fables of the Ancients, U. Tii. oh. 6; Calmet, Dictionary, in the word " Teraphim :" Taylor, On Tera- phim in "Scripture Illustrated;" Jahu Riblisehe Archrrolofjia. iii. 504. On the subject of Talismans and Amulets, much information may be found in several of the above, as also in Lijzhtfoot, Heb. and Talm. Exercit. in Matt. xxiv. 22; Eu- cyclop. Methodiquc : Anticiuities; art. Talismans; Towuley, Disserfcition viii. prefixed to " Reasons for the Laws of Moses, from the More Nevochim of Maimouides ;" and Lane's Modern Egyptians, vol. i. ch. 11. Chap. IV.] NOTES TO JACOB. 113 History offers no indication that coined money existed anywhere in the east or west, till upwards of a thousand years after the date of this ti-ansaction, and it offers much evidence that none did till then exist ; and it is utterly incredible that the Hebrews or the Canaanites, not only in the time of the patriarchs, but at any subsequent date in their history, should have had stamped coin before near and distant na- tions, many of them more civilized, and nearly all of them more commercial than themselves. In fact, the invention of marked or stamped money is not one, as far as we know, for which an oriental origin has been claimed. Gold and silver in ingots, bars and rings, delivered and re- ceived by weight, were the general instruments of traffic among the nations of Western Asia, and even the Egyptians, down to a date con- siderably after that at which we know that the Greeks were in possession of coined money ; nor among any of these do we find any coined money till we can historically prove that they were in a condition to learn the use of it from the Greeks. This is singularly the case with the Jews, among whom we find not the least trace of money coinage till so late as the time of Simon Maccabaeus, to whom the Greek king of Syria, Antiochus Sidetes, granted the privi- lege of coining money.* It seems indeed suf- ficiently clear that although they might for some time before have had some slight ac- quaintance with coined money as a cmious foreign invention, they did not know it as a practical matter until after their national exist- ence had been extinguished by Nebuchad- nezzar. And then, for some centuries or more, they were in too dependent a condition to have any money of their own, but used that of their successive masters and their neighbours, until, under the Maccabees, they rose again to such national importance as led them to desire a coinage for themselves. Even after this, how- * 1 Mac. XV. 6. ever, foreign money, first Greek and then Roman, was that which they chiefly employed in their dealings. To return to Jacob. — If the preceding state- ment shows the improbability — even the ab- surdity, of alleging that he paid stamped money for the field he bought at Shechem, it only remains to ask whether he actually gave a hundred lambs, or as much silver as was worth a hundred lambs. We have not much objection to the latter alternative, but we see not what necessity for it is created by the fact that silver had already become a medium of ex- change, when we know that then and for a very long time after it was only used for this purpose under circumstances in which barter would have been impracticable or less con- venient. The Shechemites had land, and Jacob had sheep ; and if they wanted his sheep as much as he wanted their land, it was the most natural thing possible for him to give and them to take his sheep for their land, even though silver was known as a medium of exchange. Otherwise there must have been an interme- diate process ; and the money paid by Jacob would have been the amount which he had ob- tained by the sale of a hundred lambs, or their equivalents in other cattle, in some other place. Where the direct operation was equally acceptable, it would be preferred to this inter- mediate process. The present is not the only fact which illustrates or bears on this. Jacob himself required cattle, not silver, as the wages of his service with Laban ; and cattle were the only presents which he offered to his brother Esau. His son Judah offered Tamar a kid as the price of her sin. Even Solomon paid the Tyrians, not in silver, but in corn and oil for the workmen and timber which they supplied : and in the long-subsequent case of Hosea's purchase of a wife for five shekels weight of silver and a measure and a half of corn, we see the one process helping out the other. BOOK U. THE HEBKEWS IN EGYPT AND THE WILDERNESS. CHAPTER I. JOSEPH. '^ ^!^^^^:^";:::!^^^^^^ --- - ^^..i. .., e,..., ,....i court of the Egyptian king , , ^^Tf^ ,r''\''' ^^^'^^I'^-' -^ ^"Hce.- of h.gh situation, he a^^Ll hin.df ^^ ! J^Z^:! T'rTf^ '""^'^'^ ^'^ ^^^"^'^ ,^'catd,|,oe„ce and hddity to the discharge of for sa]c,(') nink in the in Jiis new its duties. Chap. I.] JOSEPH. 115 These qualities are too rare and valuable in a newly-purchased slave to escape the master's notice. Joseph's conduct engaged Potiphar's attention and won his esteem ; and when he moreover found that his slave was blessed with singular prosperity in all his undertakings, he raised him to his confidence, and, in the end, he intrusted the management of all his concerns to him, making him steward, not only over his household, but over his lands. In this honourable station — which in the East is one of more authority and power (even when held by a slave) than anything in our own state of society would suggest — the son of Jacob might have been tolerably happy ; and doubtless was so, save when his mind wandered to his father and his father's tents. He had been ten years in the service of Potiphar, and had reached the fine age of twenty-seven years, when it happened that his extreme comeliness attracted the attention of his master's wife. Finding him insensible to her slighter seductions and overtures, she at last came to declare to him plainly her criminal desires ; and this she did one day, when all the family were from home, in so very passionate a manner, that Joseph, not deeming it safe to stay and plead, as he had been wont to do, his [Egj'ptian Stewards.] obligations to his master, and his duty to his God, abruptly withdrew, leaving in her hand his outer garment,* of which she had laid hold. As might be expected, the love of Potiphar's wife was turned to bitter hatred by this affront, and she resolved to be the ruin of the man by whom her advances had been repelled. The means by which this might be effected would readily occur to the sharp invention of a resentful woman. She raised a terrible outcry ; and, when those who were within hearing hastened to the spot, she declared that Joseph had made an attempt upon her virtue, but when he heard her cries he fled, leaving behind him his mantle. The promotion of a foreign slave, descended from a class of men hateful to the Egyptians, to the chief authority in the large household of Potiphar, was calculated to raise the envy and jealousy of other members of that household. This the woman knew, and, artfully appealing to feelings so well calculated to make their ears greedy for a tale to his disadvantage, she said, " See, he [Potiphar] hath brought in an Hebrew unto us to mock us." When the good man himself came home, she related to him the story of the guilty impudence of the " Hebrew slave," with such passionate earnestness of indignation, [Egyptian Lady.] * This was a kind of narrow mantle or skirt, covering the back and reaching to about the middle of the leg In the sculptures and paintings of ancient Egypt it is almost always seen as worn by overseers and stewards, and appears to have been a part ot their distinguishing dress. From the manner in which the lower part of it only is brought into view, it is manifest that it was only used as the outer covering for the back. Q 2 116 HISTORY OF PALESTINE [Book II. that no doubt of its truth could he suggested to his mind, especially as the evidence of the cloak lay before his eyes. In most cases an Oriental master would, under such circum- stances, put his slave instantly to death; and, as Potiphar's resentment must have been all the greater for the esteem in which he had held Joseph, and the entire confidence he had reposed in him, we agree not with those who think that such feelings now operated in preventing him from slaying the slave he supposed so unfaithful, but are rather disposed to conclude that in a country which was so subject to law, and whose government was so completely organised as that of Egypt, no master, not even of Potiphar's rank in the state, was allowed to inflict death even on a slave. The measure he took was to send Joseph to the prison in which the king's prisoners were kept, and which was probably under his own direction as chief of the royal police. Here " his feet were galled with fetters ; the iron entered into his soul."* But the horrors of this imprisonment were soon mitigated through the kindness of the keeper, who was won by his engaging disposition and his abilities to release him from his chains and commit all the other prisoners to his charge. As imprisonment has rarely been used among the ancient or modern nations of the East as a punishment after trial or judg- ment, but only to detain men in safe keeping until they have lieen tried, or until it has been determined what to do with them, — it is rather difficult to account for Joseph's long imprison- ment of three j-ears, but by supposing it the result of his master's indecision, encouraged by the opportunity, which his official post afforded him, of keeping his slave imprisoned without question or interference from other parties. We have no doubt that, when Potiphar sent Joseph to prison, he intended to take further measures, but many circumstances may be supposed which were calculated to prevent the fulfilment of this intention. We incline to imagine that he soon found cause to suspect the truth of his wife's story ; and it is possible that Joseph had given a true account of the matter, which, on further reflection, his master may have been rather disposed to believe. t But then, while, on the one hand, he could not inflict a further and final punishment, or bring him to trial — if trial was necessary to a further punishment; on the other, a proper regard to his own peace and honour would prevent him from restoring Joseph to his former place in his household. Joseph was his slave, and he could not liberate him without also relinquishing his property in him, to which, or to the other alternative of selling him, he may have seen objections whicli we do not see, unless in the desire of keeping close the story of his wife's conduct. He probably therefore satisfied himself with acquiescing in the favourable treatment which Joseph received in tlie prison from the keeper. It must not be forgotten that this officer was Potiphar's own subordinate, and that he was himself the superior functionary who was responsible to the king for the prisoners ; and it follows from this that, when it was found that Joseph's talents for business might be turned to account in the management of the prison, he was still, in fact, serving his old master, and indeed rendering services of such value as might alone suffice to account for his not being sold or manumitted. Joseph had been about a year in the prison when Potiphar % received into his custody two of his brother officers of Pharaoh's court, the chief butler and the chief cook, who had given the king some cause of deep offence ;§ and he, willing to show them all the attention which his duty allowed, recommended them to tlie especial care of Joseph. Anciently, as now, tliroughout the East, the utmost attention was paid to dreams ; and the interpretation of them became an art, in wliich the ingenuity of many inteUigent minds found * Psalm cv. 18. WeshoulA scarcely have imagined that fetters of iron were thus early in u.se, but for this express statement. -)- The Uible does not say that .Joseph did give any account of these transactions to his master, and .Tosephus says that he tlid ■not. But, as we afterwards find .Joseph making interest with tlie chief butler to get his case laid before the king, (a circumstance, by the by, which the historian omits,) it does not appear likely that lu^ s.iid nothing to undeceive his master. X The Scripture history does not name Potijihar ; but, as it distinguishes the party from the keeper of the prison, and gives the very same title which had previously been assigned to Potiphar, we have no doubt it is the same person, unless, indeed, .Joseph's master had died during the year, and another had taken his oflice ; and this does not seem likely, as then some change would probably have taken place in his slave's condition. § The paraphrast Jonathan makes their offence a design against the life of the king. Chap. I.] JOSEPH. 117 much mistaken exercise in the attempt to assign a vital meaning to the fantasies of dreamy sleep. Hence every one sought an interpretation of whatever dream made sufficient impres- sion to be remembered ; and he became most uneasy for whose dream no interpreter could be found. We shall see many instances of this as we proceed. One morning Joseph observed that the countenances of the two great officers were more downcast than usual, and on asking the reason they told him that it was because they could procure no interpretation of the singular dreams with which their sleep had been visited. He then desired to hear their dreams ; and, knowing their superstitious notions, took the oppor- tunity of hinting that the interpretation of dreams, when they were of any importance, did not depend on rules of art, but, to be true, must be suggested by God, who thus sometimes saw fit to convey warning and admonition. The dreams themselves, being pictures of actual circumstances, are, so far, illustrative of the usages of the Egyptian court. The butler's dream shows how a grape-sherbet (not " wine ") was made for the royal drink. He beheld a three-branched vine, full of ripe clusters, which he seized, and pressed their juice into Pharaoh's cup, which he then delivered into the king's hand. Joseph told him that this dream signified that in three days Pharaoh would come to a decision on his case, and would restore him to his former office. " And when it shall be well with thee," continued Joseph, " think on me, and show kindness, I pray thee, to me ; and make mention of me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house. For, indeed, I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews ; nor have I done aught here for which I should be put into a dungeon." The chief cook was encouraged by this interpretation to tell his dream also. He had seemed to bear on his head three trays ; the uppermost contained all kinds of baked meats for the king's table. But, as he passed across the court of the king's palace, " the birds of air "t came and stole them from the basket. This dream was inter- preted by Joseph to signify that in three days the king would decide upon his case also ; but, instead of restoring him to his post, would cause him to be hanged on a tree, where the birds of the air should come and devour his carcase. I All happened as Joseph had been enabled to foretell. On the third day from that the king's birth-day occurred ; and we are instructed that even at this early date birth-days were celebrated with rejoicings. Pharaoh made a feast for his great officers ; and it being, seemingly, customary for him to distinguish the occasion by acts of grace and favour where they could be worthily bestowed, he now pronounced his decision re- specting the two great officers then in prison. The chief butler he pardoned, and restored to his place, but, having found no ground for clemency in the case of the head cook, he commanded him to be hanged.§ To this account [ Egyptian with a Tray of Meats on his liead * It will be seen that in this cut the man is in the act of removing the tray from his head, and has knelt down for the purpose. + Kites probably, which much infest eastern cities, and are of surprising boldness. Stories are constantly told of their seizing and bearing off meat, even from the heads of men, when carried through the open air. t We note with sorrow such a practice as this among the Egyptians, which was wisely and humanely forbidden to the Jews by the law of Moses. This prohibition offers further evidence that the practice previously existed. But before we reflect upon the civilization of the Egyptians, for their leaving the bodies of criminals to rot, or to be devoured before the public eye, let us re- collect that we, who claim so high a place among civilized nations, have only within the present century abolished the same horrible practice. § The execution of the chief baker at this time is as natural as the liberation of the other; for the king had been led by the occasion to consider and decide on botli tlieir cases. 118 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book II. the sacred historian adds the significant announcement — " Yet the chief hutler did not re- member Joseph, but forgot him." After this two years passed away, and Joseph still remained in prison. At the expiration of that time the king of Eg\i3t himself had two remarkable dreams by which he was greatly troubled. It is still usual for the cattle in the hot valley of the Nile, when they are driven to the water, to enter the stream and stand there as long as they are allowed, solacing themselves in the cool wave. Pharaoh thought that he was standing on the bank of the river, when he beheld seven beautiful fat heifers come up out of the water, and feed in a meadow. After a while there came up at the same spot seven of the leanest and most ill-conditioned heifers that the king had ever seen, and stood beside the others on the river's brink ; and, in the end, the seven fat and beautiful heifers were devoured by them. The king awoke : and when he again fell asleep dreamed that he saw spring up, on one stalk, seven good and plump ears of corn ; and after that sprang up seven other ears of corn, thin, and blighted by the east wind ; and by these the first were devoured. As these dreams appeared to have a certain significance and analogy not common in dreams, the king was, in the morning, more than even usually anxious to have them interpreted ; but none of the in- terpreters and diviners — none of the "wise men," who customarily gave the interpretation of his dreams — were able to assign any satisfactory meaning to them; and their failure brought to the mind of the chief butler the dreams of himself and the chief cook in the prison-house, with the exact accomplishment of the interpretation which Joseph had given. Of this he gave the king a brief but clear account : and Pharaoh, happy in the prospect of relief from the unusual trouble of an uninterpreted dream, sent an order to the chief of the royal police to release Joseph, and send him to the palace. When this order arrived, Joseph was just allowed time to shave his head and beard,* and change his raiment, and was then hurried off to the royal palace, and presented to the king. The sovereign said to him, " I have had a dream, and no one hath been able to interpret it. Now I have heard say of thee, that when thou hearest a dream thou canst in- terpret it." But the fiiithful Joseph, not will- ing to encourage even a kingly delusion, an- swered, " It is not in me ; but may God give to Pharaoh answer of peace." Then the king, without further parley, related his dreams ; and Joseph told him that they had both the same signification, which was, that seven years of exuberant plenty were coming, and that they would be followed by seven years of the se- verest scarcity ever known — so severe that the land would be consumed, and the preceding years of plenty be utterly forgotten. This principle of the dreams being explained, the connection of both of them with the river ob- viously suggested to all who heard the dreams and their interpretation, that the years of plenty woidd resvdt from an unusually favourable succession of those inundations by which the valley of the Nile is fertilized ; and that the ensuing years of scarcity wt)uld be caused l)y the failure of its waters to rise to the fertilizing limit. Jose])h, perceiving at once how the exuberant supplies of the seven fertile years might be so husbanded as to meet the deficiencies of the seven years of scarcity which were to follow, proceeded to state his views in this matter to the king, and advised that some discernino- and wise man should be invested with full powers to give effect to the measures whicli he had [Egyptian King on his Throne] * The Egyptians shaved botli tlif lioail ami Ii.mkI. A iik liavo l)('(Mi oonsidcied indocimt to apiioar iiiislia\cn hoCoii' thi II 111 pn- kill-. Ill would 111' liUidy to ncirloct (his practice: hut it Chap. I] JOSEPH. 119 suggested. The king, struck not less by the interpretation of his dreams than by the wisdom of the plans by which Joseph proposed to avert the evils which that interpretation threatened, asked the great persons then present, " Can we find another man like this, in whom is the spirit of God ?"* And on their assent, he ad- dressed Joseph, saying, " Forasmuch as God hath shown thee all this, there is none so dis- creet and wise as thou art. Thou shalt be over my house ; and to thy word shall all my people be subject ; only in the throne will I be greater than thou." And then, after a pause, he proceeded more formally to invest him Avith this high office. He drew the signet- ring from his finger, and placed it upon the finger of Joseph, conveying to him, by that act, the highest powers he could delegate, saying, as he did it, " See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt." He then ordered him to be arrayed in vestvires of fine muslin — such as only royal and high persons wore ; after which he placed, with his own hands, a chain of gold about his neck. And, it being usual to promulgate with high pomp and ceremony such acts of royal favour, and make known the authority which had been con- ferred, the king commanded that Joseph, thus nobly arrayed, should be conducted in grand procession through the city, in the second of the royal chariots ; and that men should go before him to cry, " Bow the knee." There is much in all this which is calculated to instruct us in the extreme antiquity of * We wish this to be marked as an intimation that the kings of Egvpt were in the liabit of asking consent ol their council to the course they proposed. at least formally, the 120 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book U. customs which still exist, and of ideas which still prevail in the East. Here we see not only the signet-ring, hut its employment as the sign and symbol of authority, delegated by him to whom it belonged and for whom it was made. In those days, when not the manual signature, but the impression of the signet-ring, authenticated every royal act and command, there was nothing, unless a due regard tf) circumstances, to prevent the holder of the royal signet from doing whatever he pleased in the king's name. Then the dress not only gives the seal of high antiquity to the Oriental ideas concerning dresses of honour, but even to that bestowing an office by such a dress, which is not quite abandoned in Europe, and the former prevalence of which is indicated by our very words, ^'invest'' and " inre^iiture." The chain or collar of gold is still used, almost everywhere, in courts, as a badge of honour ; and, in the higher cases of its use as such, it is even now fostened about the neck by the sovereign hand. Of the procession of honour, analogous examples rem.ain among ourselves — although the public taste is becoming too refined to receive from their imposing circumstances those impressions which, in their LSi<:net-Ilinf,'s of Ancient Kgyi^t.*] institution, they were intended to convey. All these actual circumstances, and others which they imply, serve to evince how little this most ancient court was wanting in those conditions of splendour and ceremony with which, in other countries and later ages, the sovereion state has been surrounded. The whole transaction may be instructingly compared with the account which the Scripture givesf of the promotion of Mordecai by the Persian kino-. When Joseph returned, and again stood before the king, Pharaoh more strongfy still ex- pressed his own view of the powers he had conveyed to him. " I am the king/' said he, reserving his royal authority ; " but without thee shall no man lift up his hand o?'foot in all the land of Egypt." It has never been unusual in Oriental countries for foreign slaves to rise to the highest offices in the state ; and there have been countries in which none but such persons could rise to them. But, from the view of Egyptian society which we have been enabled to realize, we are led to • This cut represents different seal rin<,'s of ancient Egj-pt, ami are very rurious, not only as such, but for the specimens of .•incient seal-enj^-aring which they offer. It will be observed that in some of the specimens the stone is a cube engraved on each of its four sides, and made to revolve in the ring, so that any of the inscriptions might be used at the option of the possessor. The hands in the centre of the engraving are copied from a mummy-case in the British Museum, and are those of a female. Tliey serve to show the manner in which fmger-rings were worn, and the awkward profusion in which they were exhibited by the women of ancient Egypt. The bracelets will also eng.ige the notice of the reader, as illustratin the principal form of an ornament so often mentioned in the Scriptures. t Esther, vi. 4-11. Chap. I.] JOSEPH. 121 suspect that such promotion of a foreigner and a slave could at no time be very usual in ancient Egypt, where all the avenues to power and influence in the state were zealously guarded by the priesthood, wliich would little brook the intrusion of any one not of their order — much less a foreigner — into the high office which had been bestowed on Joseph. The system may have been less rigid at this time than it afterwards became : but that it operated to some extent we see in the measures which the king — although he already had the consent of his council — • deemed it prudent to take, to confirm Joseph in his high place. That his foreign origin might not be constantly presented to the mind of the Egyptians, by his strange, and, to them, barbarous name of " Joseph," the king bestowed upon him the high-sounding and signifi- cant Egyptian one of " Zaphnath-paaneah."* And that he might establish him in his position, by securing him the countenance and support of the priestly order — which was indispensably necessary to him — the king got him married to Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, the chief [P'eniales of Priestly Families.— Official Dresses.] priest of On, better known by its later Greek name of Heliopolis — the city of the sun. This city was in all ages a sort of ecclesiastical metropolis of Lower Egypt — the prime seat of the sacred mysteries and higher science of the country ; and was, as such, the fountain from which the Greek philosophers and historians were allowed to draw the scanty information which they have transmitted to us. For these reasons, as well as because the sun, which was there worshipped, was, as in other idolatrous systems, one of the first, if not the chief, of the gods — and in Egypt the rank of the priests was proportioned to that of the gods to whom they ministered — there can be no question that the priest of On, into whose family Joseph married, was one of the most eminent and influential of his illustrious order. The marriage was, there- fore, doubtless a great temporal advantage to Joseph, w hatever may be said of it in other respects. t By this marriage Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, before the years of famine came. • The revealer of secrets. t We know too little of the affair to feel authorized to pass a very decisive judgment upon it. We shall, therefore, only ob- serve that, in the strong remarks which some divines have made on the subject, it appears to have been entirely overlooked that Judah, the only other of Jacob's sons of whose marriage we know anything, married a woman of Canaan, and tliere is e\ery reason to conclude that all his brothers did the like. It does not appear that any of them went to Padan-Aiam for wi\ cs ; and how far it may have been preferable for them to have married among the descendants of Ishmael, Midiau, and Edom.is another question. VOL. I. R 122 I IT STORY OF PALESTINE. [Book II. Soon after his elevation, Joseph made a prdgress throughout the land, in order to acquaint himself thoroughly with the materials with which he had to work, and to determine the par- ticular arrangements which might be necessary to give effect to the measures which he con- templated. These measures do not appear to us to have been well understood or appreciated, although considerable attention has certainly been given to them ; and they, indeed, deserve the best attention, whether we look upcm them as forming, together, one grand operation, the several acts of which were made, with statesmanlike skill, to bear on one another in working out the important result which his view embraced; or whether, without attributing to him so much political foresight as to have seen all the results from the beginning, we confine our attention to the consummate ability with which his course was taken under the circumstances which necessarily arose. There has been much objection, not less to the principles than to the details of his procedure — arising, we are persuaded, from the inveterate habit of measuring all things by our own standard, without adequate reference (if any) to, or allowance for, the very differing ideas which grew up, and seemed reasonable, under other systems of govern- ment, and under other public notions than those by which our own ideas are formed and guided. We are far from saying that the proceedings of Joseph are not to be explained or justified by the severe rule of estimate which is formed by the application of our own ideas of government to measures of Oriental policy ; but we are not willing that J(jscpli's character as a statesman should suffer in consequence of the application of such a standard to a crude and erroneous view of his position, and of the circumstances under which he proceeded. In our own view, the character of Joseph stands so high, and he appears before us with hands so clear from any taint of political iniquity, that we are willing his conduct should be tried by the severest rule which can be found, as long as the facts of his procedure are thoroughly vmderstood. Brought up at first imder the tents of his father, in a spirit of order and combination ; and then well exercised in affairs of detail, and in the management of men, while in charge first of a noble household, and then of a prison, — the providence of God had furnished Joseph with more than ordinary trail ing for the high place to which he was now called. Our own task is to detail his proceedings in that place, according to the view which we have taken, and to offer such remarks upon them as may seem necessary ; and if the result contributes in the slightest degree to the vindication of one whose public character we highly value, our satisfiiction will he very great. In his tour of survey, Joseph directed the construction of immense granaries in the principal [Egyptian (iiauary. j* cities, and established proper officers, who were charged with the duty of buying upt one-fiith part of all the corn produced during the seven years of plenty, within the surrounding district, * From tliis cut it .iiJiicars tliat the ^'raiiaiics in Egypt consisted of a series of vaulted clianibers; and as the men are engaged in carrying the corn up the steps to the top of these vaults, it is evident that the corn \vas ca.4 in through an opening at the top, wliich does not appear in the engraving— just as coal is thrown into our cellars from the street. + It is usual at this day, and has, we believe, always been so, for the government to buy up, at a fixed and fair valuation, a proportion of the produce of the land from the cuUi\ator; and, by the present government, the whole produce is tluis sometimes taken up. — ' Lane's Egyptians,' i. 158. Chap. I.] JOSEPH. 123 the borders of which met those of other districts, for wliich other cities with pubhc granaries were the centres of collection. The whole land was thus, for the piirp;)se of the collection divided into districts, prol^ahly of nearly ecpial extent. The corn thus collected was to be stored away in the granaries for use during the years of famine. All this was done. And [Storing Corn.*] let it be observed that in originally recommending this plan to Pharaoh, Joseph did not, even to him, propose the aggrandisement of the royal authority as any motive for, or probable effect of his operations, but only that " the people of the land might not perish through famine." Those years of famine came at the appointed time. It appears that the dearth was very general, and not by any means confined to the valley of the Nile. Syria, at least, was not visited by the rains, the want of which, in their season, kept back for seven years the ferti- lizing inundations of that river. When the pressure of the famine began to be felt severely by the people — or, in the strong language of the sacred historian — " When all the people of Egypt began to famish, they cried to Pharaoh for bread." The king referred them to Joseph ; who now understanding that the proper time was arrived, opened his well-filled granaries, and sold not only to the Egyptians, but, with some restrictions, to foreigners, such corn as they required. When their money was all spent, they again came to Joseph, and with that deter- mined manner which the knowledge that there was corn to be had was calculated to give, said, " Give us bread ; for why should we die in thy presence, though the money fail ?" The vizier, knowing that the subsistence of their cattle must, vmder these circumstances, be a matter of great difficulty to them, offered to give them corn in exchange for their cattle. This offer was cheerfully accepted ; and Joseph, by bringing the flocks and herds together, and subjecting them to a general system of management and subsistence, was doubtless enabled to preserve them at a less expense to his stores than would otherwise have been practicable. It is on this occasion that we first read of horses, which are named among the cattle which the Egyptians exchanged for corn. By this means the people secured subsistence for another year ; but in the year following they had no cattle left to offer for corn. They therefi)re came to Joseph, and offered — freely offered, be it remembered, — to transfer their lands to the king, and to place their persons at his disposal, provided they were supplied with food while the famine lasted, and with seed to sow the land, when it again became cultivable. Their stipulation for seed to sow the land, in the same breath that they otter to sell their lands and services to the king, seems to us to give their pro- position a very different appearance to that in which it is usually represented. Does it not clearly intimate that they expected still to remain in occu'pation of the land ? For Avhat cause had they to be anxious about seed, if they had no land in which to sow it ? — or what cause, if they expected no longer to derive benefit from the labour they bestowed upon it ? One who views himself as one " sold" — a slave or a serf, makes no anxious stipiilation fur seed to cul- tivate his master's fields ; for he knows well that his master will look to that, and will take * This curious subject shows the section of a granary, to wliic^i the grain is in the act of being transferred after it has been winnowed. Tlie clerk, seated on the heap, writes down the number of the measures boine to the gran;iry, seemingly from the oral report of the man who stands on the ground with raised hands. R 2 124 HISTORY OF PALESTINE [Book II. care that his lands shall be cultivated. When they therefore said, " Buy xis and our lands," it must be evident that they are to be understood in some such sense as, that, in consideration of their f^imilies beiim; maintained during- the famine, they woidd relinquish their freehold right in their lauds, but regard the king as supreme proprietor of tlie soil, and cultivate it as his hereditary tenants or farmers, paying him, in acknowledgment of his claim, such a i)roportiou of the produce for rent as the justice of Joseph might determine. And if their proposition is to l)e imderstood in some such way as this, then the same sense must be assigned to Joseph's acceptance of it, in the name of the king, and also to the terms of his answer, echoing their own words, when he said, " Behold, I have bought* you, this day, and your land, for Pharaoh." His character has paid too dearly for these words : although the sense in which he really used them, and in which he understood them to be used by the applicants, is, quite conformably to the view we have here taken, evinced by the agreement which he actually made. This was, tliat they were to remain in occupation of tlie lands of which Pharaoh had become the sovereign proprietor ; and that they were to pay him, as yearly rent, one-fifth part of the produce, in lieu of all other charges and imposts to which it may have been subject. Thus Pharaoh became the sovereign proprietor of the soil in Egypt, and thus the former proprietors became his tenants — " servants," the text indeed says, for the word "tenant" does not occur in all the Bible ; and those whom, from the ])articulars offered, we recognize as tenants, are called " servants" there. That this is the case in the present instance — and that the people became tenants, paying a produce rent and not serfs or slaves, — is so self-evident from terms of the compact, that no agreement or explanation seems needful to make it clearer. And we are to remember, that a tenant in the East — and more especially in Eijypt — has, even in his worst estate, tliat of the fellah, enjoyed almost a freehold right in his land, from which he could not be removed by the proprietor, and which he might transmit to his heirs, and might even alienate it by gift or sale to a stranger ; although, in the last case, he had to obtain the per- mission of the proprietor and to pay him a fine. The proprietor could only resume the occupa- tion of the land or introduce a new tenant when the last died without heirs. t If we could be well aware of the position in which those Egyptians stood before Joseph's regulation took effect, we should very pro])ably find more and stronger reasons for exonerat- ing the minister of Pharaoh from the charges which have been brought against this part of his conduct.^ The sovereign in almost every country of the East has, from the most remote times, been regarded as the paramount proprietor of the soil. The tendency of Oriental ideas is decidedly to regard him as such : and, even under the Jewish theocracy, God, as the King of the Hebrew people, was mindful to instruct the Israelites that the land was his,§ which they held of him as hereditary tenants, much in the same way as that in which, under the regidation of Joseph, the Egyptians held their lands of Pharaoh ; the offerings and tithes which they gave for the suppiu't of His worship, being, in one point of view, regarded as a produce-rent, paid to him for tlie land. It is likely, therefore, that the subject had before this been mooted among the Egyptians, and that tliey only took this occasion of expressing their acquiescen'.-e iu a matter which had in former times been talked of and considered. Their doing so nniv had the advantage of giving them the appearance of a claim for subsistence out of the public granaries during the famine: while the substitution of a settled produce-rent, in * Part oC (iiir mistakes in Uicsu matt(!rs proooods from our S'^ '"fl =i riijid l^uioix-an form to loose and motai'liorical Oriental oxprcssions. 80 ol' tlie words to 6«// ami sell; whicli to our oars do not sound pleasantly in snchtransactions.bnt wliichare applied, orientally, in an indefinite, lax si^nse, to many circumstances in which we should not use them. Thus a wile is said to be boutjlit and the sum or presents delivered by the bridegroom is her price- Vet she is not therefore a slave : she has rif,'hts and privileges, and knows how to claim and exercise them. - t (Jreat and oppressive alterations have been made by Mohammed Ali. Hut we lielieve these are still flu- formal rights of the Egyptian fellah, though they have been made barren of good to him. Kespecting the land-tenure in Kgypt, see ' Keynier, i)e I'Kcouomie I'ublili his coudeiisod account of the circumstances has been mainly adopted, t For remarks on all these products see the notes to the ' Pictorial Bible ' on (ieu. xxxviii. and xliii. Some of tliem will be further noticed in the Natural History of this work. Chap. I.] JOSEPH. 129 Slay and make ready."] Joseph daily transacted his business concerning the sale and distribution of the corn. When he saw them, accompanied by a youth whom he guessed to be his brother Benjamin, " the son of his own mother," he directed " the ruler of his house " to take them home to his dwelling-house, and to slay and make ready ; for it was his intention that they should dine with him at noon.* The steward did as he was ordered, and took them to his master's house. This proceeding occasioned consider- able alarm in the minds of Jacob's sons, who thought that perhaps some pretext was sought against them, for making them bondsmen and taking away their asses, in connection Avith the money which was due for the last supply, and which they had found returned in their sacks. They, therefore, spoke to the steward, stating how the matter really stood ; and he, who probably knew how they were related to his master, and what were his intentions towards :^a^fe^ -:^^*- them, answered them kindly, assuring them ^;==^ r.s,=s=:-^r:-:'^-^^ that nothing was on that account imputed to % them. He also produced their brother Simeon ; ^ Isl- and after having brought them into the house, — -^ gave them water to wash their feet, and pro- vender for their asses. When Joseph came home they brought him their present, and bowed themselves down reverently before him. " And he asked them of their welfare, and said, ' Is your father well, the old man, of whom you spoke ? Is he yet alive ?' And they answered, ' Thy servant, our father, is well ; he is yet alive.' And Joseph said, 'Blessed of God be that old man.'f And they bowed their heads and made obeisance. And he raised his eyes, and saw his brother Benjamin, the son of his own mother, and said, ' Is this your younger brother of whom you spoke unto me?' And he said, ' God be gracious unto thee, my son.' And Joseph made haste (for his bowels yearned towards his brother), and sought where to weep ; and he entered into his chamber and wept there." I He then washed from his face all trace of tears, and returned to them, mastering for a while his strong emotions. He commanded dinner to be brought ; but as it was an abomination to an Egyptian to eat with a tent-dwelling shepherd, Jacob's sons were seated apart from Joseph and his Egyptian guests. They were also placed according to their seniority, at which they were greatly astonished, for some of them were so nearly of an age, that this discrimination implied a more intimate knowledge of them, in some quarter, than they could suppose that any one there possessed. When the small round tables were brought in with the provisions, Joseph conferred on Benjamin a truly Oriental mark of esteem, by heaping the table which was placed before him with five times the quantity of food which the other tables bore.(') After the dinner they drank wine together and were merry. * This conveys several indications of Egyptian usages, at least in great fiimilies ;— that they dined at noon,— that meat was not bought of butchers, but was slaugliteicd on the premises, at least when au entertainment was to be given; and that this was done only just before the meat was to be cooked. All these are still subsisting usages. The cut shows the method employed by the Egyptians in slaughtering cattle for food. Beef was their favourite animal food. Tliey rarely ate mutton ; which is a most remarkable circumstance, when we consider how prevalent the use of mutton has been in tlie East, and that, in fact, it is, in a warm country, so much lighter and more wholesome than beef. t This beautiful clause is not in the present Hebrew text, but is preserved in the Samaritivn and Septuagint. t Gen. xliii. 27—30. [Eg)ptiuu liuiise-] 130 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book II. [Egjiitians at Meat.] Joseph had one more trial in store for his brothers before making himself known to them. He wished to make their C(mdnct towards Benjamin a test of the present state of their feelings, and of such repentance of their conduct towards himself as would make them shrink from allowing harm to befal one whom their father so tenderly loved. "With this view he directed his steward privately to introduce his silver drinking-cup into the month of the youngest brother's sack ; and when they were at some distance from the city, to pursue them, and after a thorough search, to bring the pretended thief back to him. All this was punctually executed : and when the cup was found in Benjamin's sack, they were very far from manifesting any indifference — very far from pursuing their way, and leaving him to that slavery in Egypt, to which, in by-gone years, they had consigned his brother. They rent their clothes in bitter anguish, and all returned to the city. When they re-appeared before Joseph they fell on the ground before him ; and not seeing how Benjamin could be cleared from what must seem so plain a case, they only answered Joseph's reproaches by declaring that Benja- min and they were all his slaves. To this Joseph answered that such was not his inten- tion : only he with whom the cup was found should become his bondsman ; but as for the rest, they might return in peace to their father. Now was the time for Judah — he at whose proposal Joseph had been sold for a slave, on the one hand, and who, on the other, had become the surety that no harm should befal the son of his father's right hand, — now was his time to redeem his character, and full nobly did he discharge that duty. We cannot give his speech entire, nor need we ; for who has not often turned to that most perfect pattern of natural and affecting eloquence which was ever delivered. It will be remarked that, with great address, he abstains from any reference to the crime. He does not acknowledge it ; for that would [Ef;yi)tian Wine Cups.] Chap. I.] JOSEPH. 131 have been to reflect upon Benjamin : nor does he deny it ; for that would have been to reflect upon the justice of Joseph. But all his efforts were directed to move his pity for their father — for that old man of whom they had spoken to him. He touched on every circumstance which could evince the strength of that old man's love towards Benjamin, and dwelt much on the difficulty with which he had consented to part with him. Jacob had said, " Ye know that my wife bore to me but two sons. And the one went from me, and I said. He is tom, torn in pieces ; and I have not seen him since. And if ye take this one also from me, and mischief should befall him, then will ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." " Now, therefore (continued Judah), when I come to thy servant, our father, and the lad be not with us— It will be, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die ; for his life is bound up in the life of the lad. Thus will thy servants bring down the gray hairs of thy servant, our father, in sorrow to the grave." He concluded in announcing the favour he sought, which was, that Benjamin might be allowed to return to his father, and that he might himself remain a bondsman in his stead. If all this touches us so deeply, how must not Joseph have been aff"ected ! He could no longer act a part in such a scene as this, — he could refrain himself no longer, but wept aloud, and made himself known to them, crying, " I am Joseph !" Who shall adequately realize or describe the profound emotions of that hour ! The brethren of Joseph lay dumb before him. The quick sense of their wrong against him, and the dread of his remembering vengeance, — the sensible evidence which they had of the power and splendour of him whom they sold a naked slave to the Arabians,— and the sudden and keen perception that all their old malice against him had but worked out the fulfilment of the high destinies, the mere thought of which had moved their hate and envy, and made them heedless of " the anguish of his soul," when he entreated the mercy which they refused : — all this, with the complication of circumstances in which they were now placed, overwhelmed them, and held them mute, in astonishment and remorse. Perceiving this, Joseph addressed them in words of kindness and encouragement, desiring them to be no longer angry with themselves, but rather to admire the overruling providence of God, through which all things that had seemed evil and hard to bear, had worked together for great good to them and to himself. He further opened to them the plan he had in view for their benefit. As the famine was still to continue for five years, it would be best for them to return home and fetch into Egj^it their father, with all their households and possessions — that they might all be sustained in comfort near him, and not come to poverty. Being thus reassured, his brethren rose from before his feet; and he kissed them all, and wept upon them. The rumour had reached the king that Joseph's brethren were come ; and it is a pleasing evidence of the esteem in which he was held, and the regard which he had conciliated, that a domestic incident which was calculated to be a satisfaction to him, was highly agreeable to Pharaoh and all his court. The monarch sent for him, and authorized him to express the kindest intentions towards them, and the utmost anxiety for their welfare. He, as well as Joseph, saw that it would be best for them to come to Egypt, and he had the consideration to direct that they should be well supplied with provisions for the way, and that they should be furnished with carts, (^) in which the aged Jacob, with the women and young children, might [Carts from Egyptian Slu1i>Iuius,1 s 2 132 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book II. [Modern Syrian Carts of Ancient Form.] [Catts of tlie T lit vr ^om.l(les ] pas's from Canaan to Egypt with more comfort tlian by the more ordinary means of convey- ance. All this was (lone; and, in dismissing them for their journey, Joseph gave each of them two suits of raiment, Init distinguished his own brother Benjamin by the present of live dresses, with the addition of three hundred shekels-weight of silver. We may be suic tliat this journey home was performed with much more speed than the I'ornier. Then tliey had to tell their father of one son taken from him, and another demanded; now tliey l)ad to accpiaint him with the recovery of one who had long l)een lost, and for whom he had never ceased to mourn. Joseph had charged them to tell his father of " all his glory in Egypt ;" and so eager were thev to tell it, that, as they drew near the canq) at Mamre, Chap. I.] JOSEPH. 133 they hastened on before the carts, and told him — " Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt ! " At this most unexpected and surprising news, " Jacob's heart fainted, though he believed them not." They therefore told him all the particulars; and by the time they had done so, the carts had come up to confirm their story. Then the spirit of Jacob revived, and he said, " It is enough. Joseph, my son, is yet alive. I will go and see him before I die." He soon departed ; and, on his way to Egjrpt, paused at Beersheba to offer sacrifices at the altar in that place. There he was favoured with a dream, in which God removed any doubts he might have felt about the ultimate consequences of the important step he was now taking, by assuring him that his sojourn in Egypt was a part of the divine plan concerning his race, which should there be fostered into a great nation, and then brought forth from thence. Thus encouraged and relieved, Jacob proceeded on his way, and at last entered Egypt with his sixty-six descendants,* accompanied, no doubt, by a large retinue of slaves and shepherds. Joseph, without having, as yet, consulted the king, had, in his mind, fixed upon the land of Goshen as their future abode — not only as being best suited to a pastoral people, but as being that which the Egyptians would, from various circumstances, be the most willing to see in their occupation. This being a border district in the direction of Palestine, was the first part of Egypt which Jacob reached ; and he then sent Judah onward to the capital to acquaint Joseph with his arrival. On learning this, Joseph entered his chariot, and sped to meet his father. Thev met. Joseph threw himself upon the neck of his dear old father, and wept upon his neck a good Avhile. " Now," said the greatly moved Jacob, " Now I can die, since I have seen thy face — since thou art still alive ! " After the first emotions of this meeting had subsided, Joseph proceeded to explain to his brothers the further measures Avhich were necessary. He intended himself to go and announce their arrival to Pharaoh, after which he would introduce some of them to the royal presence, and they were instructed what answers to return to the questions which the king would be likely to ask. He did not conceal from them that " every shepherd was an abomi- nation to the Egyptians;" and his instructions were skilfully framed with a reference to that state of feeling. So he took with him five of the most comely of his brothers, and returned to the capital. He first himself went to the king to inform him that his father's family had arrived, with all their flocks and herds, and were now in the land of Goshen, awaiting his commands. His brothers were then introduced ; and, on being asked what was their occupation, they, as they had been taught, answered, that they were shepherds, as all their fathers had been. They [Overseer of Cattle. +] * TI\ese were all his descendants who went down with him from Canaan to Eg> pt. The number seventy, given elsewhere, counts iu, besides, .Tacob himself, with Josevh and his two sons who «tne already in Eg\-pt; and the number seventy-Jive, in the New Testament (Acts vii. 14), excludes these, but adds to the sixty-five the nine wives of Jacob's eleven sons, the wives of .Tudah and Simeon being at tliis time dead. These results are displayed more largely by Dr. Hales, who derives tliem from a critical examination and comparison of the passages which bear on the subject. t The central figure, of largest size, is the overseer, who, attended by his clerk, receives accounts of the herdsmen, whose postures manifest great respect. The one who lies on the ground, at the clerk's feet, has probably committed some olTence from which he seeks to avert punishment. Tlie overseer is followed by a servant who bears his bow and arrows and the stool to assist l\im in ascending and alighting from his chariot. The other servant bears a pair of sandals and an axe. 134 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book II. added, that they liad come to sojourn in Egypt, for in the land of Canaan the drought had been so severe that they could find no pasture for their flocks ; and concluded with a request that they might he allowed to remain among the pastures of Goshen. On this the king turned to Joseph, and told him that the whole land was at his disposal ; to place them in the best part of it — in Goshen, if that district seemed the most suitable for them. He also desired him, if among his brothers there were men of sufficient ability, to make them overseers of the royal cattle, an employment which their previous habits and qualifications rendered the most suitable for them. Joseph's ])lan fur the benefit of his family having thus happily succeeded, he introduced his fixther also to the king ; but whether immediately after or not, is not quite clear. The patri- arch respectfully saluted Pharaoh, in acknowledgement of the consideration and favour with which he had been treated ; and the king, much struck by his veneralde appearance, entered into conversation with him, particularly inquiring his age. Jacob's answer was impressive : — " The days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years : few and evil liave the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." After some further conversation, probably, Jacob again saluted Pharaoh, and withdrew from his presence. We are now to regard the Israelites as in that pastoral district, on the eastern border of the Delta, which the Scriptures call " the land of Goshen :" and it may not be unimportant to note the sound and far-sighted policy which induced Joseph to fix on that district for them, and to procure the grant of it from the king. Reverting to the information already given concerning the shepherd-race, which, not long before this time, had held Egyi)t in subjection, we may now further remark, that this land, on account of ofl"ering the best pasture-grounds in I^wer Egypt, had been their principal settlement, and that in which they maintained themselves for some years after they had been expelled from the other parts of the country. Having been not long vacated, and but little wanted by the Egyptians for the pastoral purposes to which it was more properly applicable, it seems to have lain at this time waste and unoccupied. It was therefore a district, the (occupation of which by the Hebrews dispossessed no one, and which, from its peculiar character, the Egyptians would see in their occupation with as little ill-will as they were capable of feeling towards a shepherd race ; while its situation on the borders would tend, in a great degree, to keep them apart from the Egyptians, and prevent the disputes and interferences, as well as the idolatrous contamination, which might be expected to arise in any situation which would have involved them more among the natives. There were also circumstances which might have rendered not only tolerable, but highly agreeable, to them, that the Hebrews should occupy this district. " It stretched along the Bubastic, or Pelusiac branch of the Nile, and formed the eastern barrier of Egypt towards Palestine and Arabia, the quarters from which they most dreaded invasion ; and the ' naked- ness ' of which they soon had the satisfaction of seeing in a short time covered by a brave and numerous people, amply repaying, by the additional security and the resources which they gave to Egypt, the hospitable reception which they experienced, and the indulgence which was now extended to them."* These considerations were of esjoecial importance, when Egypt woukl seem not yet to have recovered the exhaustion \\liich necessarily followed its convulsive efforts to expel the hated race. The seven years of famine were, in Egypt, succeeded by abundant and seasonable years ; for the wonted overflow of the great river was not withheld, and therefore the soil offered all its rich products in great plenty. After having been cherished by his son during the remainder of the famine, the aged Jacob lived to sec twelve of these fruitful years. Then, seventeen years from his arrival in Egypt, the partial failure of his sight, and decay of his bodily powers, gave him warning that the day of his death could not be far ofl". He therefore sent for his son - IIal«, 11. lip. 141, nij. Chap. I.] JOSEPH. 135 Joseph, and expressed an earnest desire to lie with his fathers in the cave of Machpelah, and engaged his son to promise, by oath, that his remains should not be buried in Egypt, but carried to the promised land. Joseph left his father, satisfied with this assurance, and returned home; but he was soon recalled by the intelligence that Jacob had fallen very ill, and seemed likely to die. This time he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. When Jacob heard that he was come, he exerted his remaining strength, and sat up in the bed to receive him ; and the cheerfulness and force of expression with which he spoke to him, and, afterwards, to all his sons, shows that the inner lamp continued to burn brightly in him, however much his outward lights and powers had grown dim. He dwelt on the glorious promises of God to him, especially at Bethel, and made mention of the death of Rachel, for whose dear sake — which had first recommended Joseph himself to his peculiar love — he now proposed to give him a very strong mark of his regard. This was, to bestow on him, through his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, a double portion — the portion of the first-born — in that rich inheritance which awaited his race. Pro- perly, they would only divide as grandsons the single share of their father ; but he would adopt them among his own sons — and as such they should each receive a full portion, and be counted heads of tribes, even as Reuben, or Simeon, or any other of his sons. As Jacob could not see clearly, he had not hitherto observed that the lads of whom he spoke were present with their father ; but now, perceiving that there were some persons with him, and being told who they were, he desired them to be brought nearer, that he might bless them. He kissed them, and embraced them ; and said, tenderly, to Joseph, " I once thought that I should never see thy face; and, lo ! God hath shown me also thy seed." In causing them to kneel before their reverend grandfather, Joseph placed the eldest, Manasseh, opposite his right hand, and Ephraim opposite his left ; but Jacob crossed his hands, placing the right upon the head of the youngest, Ephraim, and the left upon the head of Manasseh ; and when Joseph attempted to rectify what he supposed a mistake, his father persisted, telling him that he acted by the divine direction : and, in proceeding to bless them, which he did with great fervency and devotion, he not only preferred Ephraim to Manasseh, but gave him much the larger and nobler blessing. And how exactly this prophetic blessing of the two tribes, which Ephraim and Manasseh founded, the ensuing history will show. After this, the aged patriarch, feeling his strength fail, and that the hour of his death approached, called all his sons together, that he might, severally, by that prophetic impulse which was upon him, tell them "what should befall them in the latter days." This he did in a noble poem — the most ancient which any language has preserved — describing the several characters of his sons, and the distinguishing features of their future possessions in the pro- mised land, in language replete with the most beautiful and natural imagery, and alternately tender, pathetic, and stern. With what force and varied images does he, for instance, describe the sufferings and the glory of his beloved Joseph, and pray — " May the blessiugs of the heavens from above. The blessings of the low-lying deep. The blessings of the breasts and of the womb. The blessings of thy father and thy mother. With the blessings of the eternal mountains. The desirable things of the everlasting hills, Abound and rest upon the head of Joseph." Jacob concluded with repeating to all his assembled sons the charge which he had already given to Joseph, separately, concerning his burial in the family sepulchre. He then laid him- self down on the bed in which he had hitherto sat up, and gently died. And when Joseph saw that his father no longer lived, " he fell upon his face, and wept upon him, and kissed him." For a person in Joseph's station not to embalm his father, would have been considered a very heinous omission by the Egyptians, among whom he lived, and to whose general ideas and habits of life he conformed. The necessity of taking the body to Canaan would also recommend the adoption of this process. Joseph therefore " commanded his servants, the 13f) HISTORY or PALESTINE [Book II. physicianp,(') to cnilialm his fatlicr," acordinL:: to the fasliion of the country, and doubtless in the most ehil)orate and costly of tlie various processes employed. As the eml)alminii took a considerable lime, it appears to have been customary for the Egyptians to mourn for the dead while this operation was in progress, and till the body was deposited in its sepulchre ; but not after tiiat, as in other nations where death was sooner followed by interment. The mourniiitr for Jacol) lasted seventy days, and out of respect for the father of Joseph, it was a public mourning among the Egyptians. After tliis, having obtained tlie king's consent, Josej)!! set forward to take the remains of his father to tlie sepulchre in Canaan, according to his promise. He was attended, not only by his own and his father's family, but by the chief officers of the royal household, and the grai;dec8 of the kingdom, who, in honour to Jo. eph, bore him company, and took a part in all the solemnities of his father's funeral. The cavalcade consisted of a great number of chariots and of hursemen, "so that they made a very great host." The principal persons were doubtless accompanied by their servants and followers, probably with some appearance of military array, for protection on the road. If our frequent preceding statements are right, the enemies thev had most to dread were the Philistines, close to whose border, if not through whose country, thev must have passed if they had taken the shortest and most obvious route to Mamre ; and we imagine that the a])prehension of an attack from that people explains a circumstance which no one has taken the trouble to notice, as requiring explanation, namely, that they went a great way about, across the desert, and by the way of Edom and Moab, and incurred the necessity of crossing the Jordan — for some reason which does not otherwise appear. In fact, the latter part of the route coincided with the latter part of that which, two centuries after, the Hebrew host took to avoid " the way of the Philistines." And, as it was, tlieir way, till they entered Canaan, lay through the lands of tribes descended from Abraham and Isaac, who would be likely to respect the funeral solemnity of the patriarch. After they had passed the Jordan, and had marched about three miles beyond it, into the l)lain of Jericho, they came to the large open threshing-ground of Atud, which, being level, and enclosed by a low wall, offered a convenient situation for a halt, and for the commencement of those funeral solemnities which they had made so long a journey to celebrate. Hitherto thev had been making a journey ; now, having entered the land, they commenced the funeral solemnities. During these seven days " they mourned with a great and very sore lamen- [Piirt of iiii E!,'}-ptian FiiiicmI Prooc.-;sion, with .ictji of mourning.] tfttion ; and in this act the Egyptians were, from their greater numbers and more marked form •of wailing,* so conspicuous, that, when the inhal)itants of the land witnessed the mourning in the Hoor of Atud, they said, " This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians ;" and hence the place afterwanls bore the name of Abel-Mitzraim.t There may have been some policy in commencing the funeral observances so innnediately on entering the land of Canaan ; for it • When i( h.i> i imlilic inoiiriiin;;. .is for ,i kiiii;, thry went alxiiil twin- a-iliiy in rumpanics of two or tliiee hundred, uttering diilcliil lanK'iit;ition aiis most of tlic information on this subject wliieh can be collected from the remains of that remarkable people : — "Tlie captives brought to Egypt were em- ployed in the service of the monarch, in build- ing temples, cutting canals, raising dykes and embankments, and other public works ; and some, who were purchased by the grandees, were employed in the same capacity as the Memlooks of the present. Women slaves were also engaged in the service of families, like the Greeks and Circassians in modern Egypt and other parts of the Turkish empire ; and, from finding them represented in the sculptures of Thebes, accompanying men of their own nation who bear tribute to the Egyptian monarch, we may conclude that a certain number were annually sent to Egypt from the conquered provinces of the north and east, as well as from Ethiopia. It is evident that both white and black slaves were employed as servants. They attended on the guests when invited to the house of their master ; and, from their being in the families of priests, as well as of the military chiefs, we may infer that they were purchased with money, and that the right of possessing slaves was not confined to those who bad taken them in war. The traffic in slaves was tolerated : and it is reasonable to suppose that many persons were engaged, as at present, in bringing them to Egypt for public sale, independent of those who were sent as part of the tribute, and who were probably at first the property of the monarch. Nor did any diffi- culty occur to the Ishmaelites in the purchase of Joseph from his brethren, nor in bis subse- quent sale to Potiphar on arriving in Egy])t." — Ancient Egyjdiayis, i. 403. (^) Potiphar's Office, p. 114. — Tlicre lias been rather an amusing diversity of ojiinion respecting the offices which were borne by Joseph's master ; and as, in tlie text, we have given him a new title, it may be necessary to advert slightly to the subject. Our own excellent translators exhibit more than usual doubt in this matter. In the text they call him "an officer of Pharaoh, and captain of tlie guard.'' But to the word " officer " they add Chap. I] NOTES TO JOSEPH. 139 the marginal note " Heb. eunuch; but the word doth signify, not only eunuchs, but also chamberlains, courtiers, and officers. Esth. i. 10." We find, in fact, that the Septuagint translates the word DHD saris, by eunuch, and the Jews generally believe that Potiphar was actually an eunuch. The word does, in- deed, mean an eunuch in its primary signifi- cation; but, seeing that such persons were generally employed about the royal palaces, and intrusted with their interior administra- tion, the word came to signify a courtier, or palace officer, whether an eunuch or not. We are seldom able, when the word occurs in Scripture, to decide whether the original idea is retained or lost. The present seems to be one of the clearest cases ; for that Potiphar was not an eunuch seems to be proved by his being married, although we must confess that this fact is not perfectly conclusive. It is, however, certain, from the sculi)tures, that eunuchism existed in the most ancient times in Egypt.* But, as we concur with our trans- lators in this matter, we may turn to the other of Potiphar's titles, which is that which we have altered. In the text of our Bibles it stands "captain of the guard," for which, in the margin, not less than three alternatives are offered to us—" chief of the slaughtermen, or executioners ; or chief marshal.'" The first is the literal meaning of the original words, and the others, as well as that in the text, are interpretations assigned to them. Other meanings have been given to them, such as " chief of the butchers," and " chief of the cooks." Now we have no objection to any of our Bible interpretations, separately taken ; but none of them so taken will suggest an idea of Potiphar's probable office; and for this pur- pose it is necessary to combine in one as many as possible of the several ideas which these interpretations convey. For this purpose we have chosen to call Potiphar "chief of the royal police," not because the title quite answers this condition, but because it offers the only intelligible combination of terms we can invent to describe an office of which Europe has no knowledge. We collect it thus : — He was undoubtedly the chief of the executioners ; but this is a high office in the East, as a court office ; for such executioners have nothing to do with the execution .of the * See the plate in 'Description de I'Egypte, Antiquites,' tome ii. pi. 12. This evidence, witli which he ought to liave been acquainted, quite nullifies the superficial cavils of M. Reghellini, who, in his elaborate ' Examen du Mosaisme et du Cluistianisrae,' displays twice the malice, without half the ability, of Voltaire or even of Paine. awards of the law in its ordinary course, but only with those of the king. It is thus an office of great responsibility ; and to ensure its proper, and, if need be, prompt execution, it is intrusted to an officer of the court, who has necessarily under his command a body of men, whose duty it is to preserve the order and peace of the palace and its precincts, and to attend and guard the royal person on public occasions; and, under the direction of their chief, to inflict such punishment as the king awards upon those who incur his displeasure. He thei'efore, in this sense, may be called captain of the guard, or chief marshal, which last we think the best of the interpretations, next to that which we have ourselves chosen. Further, it appears that this officer had, ad- joining to or connected with his house, a round building,* in which the ^m^'5 prisoners— those who had incurred the royal suspicion or dis- pleasure— were detained in custody till their doom should be determined. A functionary who combined these various duties in his person cannot perhaps be better described than by the title which we have given to him, " chief of the royal police." If the view had been adopted that Potiphar was an eunuch, it might be mentioned as a remarkable coincidence that the chief of the black eunuchs under the Arabian khalifs was the royal executioner, and the head of the in- terior police of the palace. The personage so well known in Arabian tale, Mesroor, the chief of the black eunuchs to the Khalif Ilaroon Er-Rasheed, and, with the vizier, the constant companion of his rambles, was at the head of the interior police, in which character he was, officially, the royal executioner. Thus the vizier says to 'Alii ed-Deen,— " He who was speaking to you, and who has just now retired, is the Prince of the Faithful, Haroon Er- Rasheed, and I am the Vizier Jaafar, and this is Mesroor, the khalifs executioner."'!- (^) Egyptian Eating, p. 129. — The usages of the Egyptians in the matter of eating, as collected from the examination of the repre- sentations which occur in the painted tombs, throw considerable light on this and many other passages of the early Hebrew history and law. And this not only on those passages which afford distinct allusions to Egyptian customs, but from the indications which are offered, that many of them were adopted by the Hebrews ; and not only by analogy, but by * The original words denote that the prison was round, and appears to have been a round-honse or round-tower— terms which some translators have employed. t Lane's ' Arabian Nights,' vol. ii. p. 276. x2 140 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Bo^K II anta,2;oiiisin ; for there is no doubt that niaay of the regulations on this subject, wliich arc contained in the law of Moses, are designedly levelled at Egyptian usages in eating, wliich were not considered suitable for the Hebrew people. We shall, therefore, in this note, collect from Mr. Wilkinson's large and very interesting statement on tlie subject * such particulars as seem in this point of view of the most importance. As shown by the text to whiLh tliis note is a})pended, and confirmed by the antiquities, an Egyi)tian dinner consisted of a considerable number of dishes, and the meat Avas killed for the occasion, as at the present day in eastern and troj)ical climates. If it was an entertain- ment to whicli guests were invited, tliey were in the interval amused with music and the dance, or passed the time in conversation. In the mean time, the kitchen presented an animated scene ; and the cook, with many as- sistants, was engaged in making ready the dinner. An ox, kid, wild goat, gazelle, or oryx, and a quantity of geese, ducks, widgeons, quails, or other birds, were obtained for the occasion. Pork was not eaten ; and the use of nmtton for the table is never indicated, and this confirms the testimony of Plutarch, who tells us that the flesh of the sheep was used for food in only one of the Egyptian nomes.t Beef and goose constituted the principal part of the animal food throughout Egypt ; but the flesh of the cow was never eaten. That a considerable q\iautity of meat was served up at those repasts to which strangers were invitetl, is evident from the sculptures, and agreeable to the customs of eastern nations, whose azoonia, or feast, prides itself upon the quantity and variety of dishes, in the unsjjaring profusion of viands, and, wherever win(; is permitted, in the freedom of the bowl. An endless succession of vegetables was also re- quired on all occasions, and, when dining in private, dishes of that kind were in greater request than joints, even at the tables of the rich. We are therefore not surprised to find the Israelites, who, by tlu-ir long residence there, had acq\iired similar habits, regretting them equally with the meat and fish + which tliey " did eat in Egypt freely ;" and the ad- vantages of a leguminous diet are still acknow- ledged by the inhabitants of modern Egypt. This, in a hot climate, is far more conduci\ e to health than the constant introduction of meat, which is principally used as a flavour to the vegetables cooked witli it ; and if, at an eastern • ■ Ancient Egyptians,' ii. 35 t Pint, dc Isifl.s. 72. -100. X Num. \i. -), 5. feast a greater quantity of meat is introduced, the object is rather to do honoiu' to the guests, who, in most covuitries, and in all ages, have been welcomed by an encouragement of excess, and a display of such things as show a desire on the part of the host to spare no expense in tl.e entertainment. The same custom prevailed with the ancient Egyjjtians ; and their mode of eating was very similar to that now adopted at Cairo, and throughout the East ; each person sitting round a table, and dipping his hand into a dish p>laced in the centre, removed on a sign made by the liost, and succeeded by others whose rotation depends on established rule, and whose number is pre-determined, accord- ing to the size of the party or the quality of the guests. Among the lower orders, vegetables con- stituted a very great part of their ordinary food ; and they gladly availed themselves of the variety and abundance of the esculent roots growing spontaneously on the lands irri- gated by the rising Nile, as soon as its waters had subsided : some of which were eaten in a crude state, and others roasted in the ashes, boiled, or stewed ; their chief aliment consist- ing of milk and cheese, roots, leguminous, cucurbitaceous, and other plants, and ordinary fruits of the country. Among these vegetables there is one which requires particular observa- tion. This is the onion, which, Juvenal says, the Egyptians were forbidden to eat ; but Plutarch restricts this abstinence to the sacer- dotal order. That onions were cultivated in Egypt is proved by the authority of many writers, as well as from the sculptures. Their quality was renowneil, both in ancient and modern times ; and the Israelites, when they left the country, regretted " the onions," as well as the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the garlick, and the meat,* which they " did eat" in Egypt. The sculptures frequently represent the priests as laying bundles of onions upon the altars for offerings. They were also introduced at private as well as public festivals, and brought to table M'ith gourds, cucumbers, and other vegetables. The onions of Egypt were mild, and of an excellent flavour, and were eaten raw, as well as cooked, by persons both of the higher and lower classes. In slaughtering for the table, it was cus- tomary to take the ox, or whatever animal liad been ciiosen for the occasion, into a coiu't-yard near the house, to tie its four legs togetlier, and then to throw it upon tlie ground,-!- in which position it was held by one or more persons, while the bulclier, sharpening his • Num. .\i. 5, and K.\od. x\i. 3. + hifc Ihi- cut :it p. 120. Chap. I.] NOTES TO JOSEPH. 141 broad knife upon a steel attached to his apron, proceeded to cut the throat, as nearly as pos- sible, from one ear to the other, sometimes continuing the incision downwards along the throat. This is the manner in which animals are still slaughtered throughout Western Asia; and, no doubt, generally among the an- cient Hebrews ; for we suppose the striking off of the animal's head at once, as described in the ceremonies for the expiation of an un- certain murder,* had a significant reference to the particular occasion, and was not used in slaughter for the table. Among the Egyptians the blood was frequently received into a basin, for the purposes of cookery. This was re- peatedly forbidden to the Israelites by the law of Moses ;t and the reason for the urgency of the prohibition is found in the necessity of preventing them from adopting a custom which they had constantly witnessed, or ra- tlier, probably, from continuing one which they had practised, in Egypt. Nor is this cus- tom less strictly denounced by the Moham- medan religion; and all Moslems look upon this ancient Egyptian and modern European custom with unqualified horror and disgust. After this the head was taken off, and the animal skinned, commencing with the leg and neck. The first joint removed was the right fore-leg or shoulder, whether for the table or the altar ; and it is remarkable that this first- separated joint is that which, under the law of Moses, became the due of the priest in all peace-offerings.$ The other parts followed in succession, according to custom or convenience. Servants carried the joints to the kitchen on wooden trays, and the cook, having selected the parts suited for boiling, roasting, and other modes of dressing, prepared them for the fire by washing, and any other preliminary process he thought necessary. In large kitchens the head-cook had several persons under him, who were required to make ready and boil the water of the cauldron, to put the joints on spits or skewers, to cut up or mince the meat, to pre- pare the vegetables, and to fulfil various other duties assigned them. The mode of cutting up the meat was so different from ours as sometimes to prevent our recognising the exact part which the sculptures intend to represent. The same mode of slauglitering and prepar- ing the joints extended to all the larger ani- mals ; but geese, and other wild and tame fowl, were served up entire, or at least only deprived of their feet and pinion joints. Fish * Deut. xxi. 4, 6. + Lev.xvii. 10, 11, 14, &c. ; Dent. xii. 16, 23 ; xv. 23. t Lev. vii. 32. were also brought to table whole, whether boiled or fried, save that the tails and fins were removed. We cannot follow our authority into the details of the cooking operations; but must return to the party which we left waiting for their dinner. Sherbets* and other light re- freshments were handed round to the assem- bled guests, while the meal was in prepara- tion. Dinner, as we have seen in the text, was served up at noon ; but it is likely that the Egyptians, like the ancient Romans and modern Orientals, and, indeed like ourselves, for our late "dinner" is such, had a full supper in the evening. The table, as shown in the cut at p. 130, was very similar to that still used in Egypt and Western Asia, being a small stool supporting a round tray on which the dishes were placed, together with loaves of bread, some of which were apparently not unlike those of the present day, flat and round, as our crumpets, and others in the form of rolls or cakes sprinkled with seeds. Occasionally each guest had a table to himself, as seems to have been the case in that entertainment of wiiich the text takes notice. The tables, as at a Roman repast, were occa- sionally brought in and removed with the dishes on them ; sometimes each joint was served up separately, and the fruit, deposited in a plate or trencher, succeeded the meat at the close of the dinner ; and in less fashionable circles, particularly of the olden time, it was brought in baskets, which stood beside or under the table, of which two instances are offered in an engraving. The Egyptians, like the Jews, were particularly fond of figs and grapes. The sycamore fig was highly esteemed. Fresh dates during their season, and in a dried state at other periods of the year, Avere also brought to table, as well as a pi'eserve of the fruit still common in Egypt and Arabia. The guests sat on the ground, or on stools or chairs ; and, having neither knives nor foiks, nor any substitute for them, they ate with their fingers like the modern Asiatics, and, like them, invariably with tlie right hand. Spoons Avere introduced when soups or other liquids required their use, and perhaps even a knife was employed on some occasions to facilitate the carving of a large joint, which is sometimes done in the East at the present day. • Mr. Wilkinson says " wine," and we dissent with extreme diffidence ; but, from the large size of the vessel which is of- fered, and from other circumstances, we judge that the before- dinner beverage was not wine, but so'.iie pleasant acidulated driulv or sherbet, such as the dreams whicli Joseidi interpreted in prison, seem to represent the king himself as taking before dinner. 142 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book II. The preceding facts will make the parti- culars in the cuts which we have introduced* more clear to the reader ; but it may be de- sirable to specify that in the last and largest engraving, the first and last of the men arc taking up figs to eat, the third pulls off the wing of a goose, the fourth applies an entire joint to his mouth, the fifth and seventh are eating fish, and the sixth drinks water from an earthen vessel. C) Carts, p. 131.— The Egyptians had no chariots, except perhaps war-chariots, suited to bear such a journey as this, and they would have been most unsuitable for the present puri)os('. Besides, the word for a chariot is different from that which is here employed, although a wheel-carriage of some kind or other is certainly indicated. To indicate that carriage we have taken the word " cart," as pre- ferable, upon the whole, to that of "waggon" — partly as being less definite. But it docs not appear that the Egyptians had any carts, or any wheeled carriages save cliariots of war, and light curricles for civil use. The Nile and the numerous canals offered such facilities for carriage and conveyance by water, that the vise of carts and waggons does not appear to have been thought of. Carts are indeed re- presented in the paintings and sculptures of that ancient country ; but not as being in use aiuong the Egyptians themselves, but by a j)eople with whom they are at war, apparently a nomade people of Asia, and who are repre- sented as escaping in their carts. Such are those represented in our first wood-cut — none of which are Egyptian, though all copied from Egyptian remains. The hindermost of these is rather a chariot than a cart, though its body has a cart-like shape. Now, we infer that as the Egyptians had no carts of their own ; those Mhich were sent for Jacob were such as they had either taken in war from a people by whom they were used, or had been left behind by the intrusive slie])herd-race. As having been used by a pastoral people, they would seem to the king particularly suitable for the removal of a pastoral family. In connection with preceding statements, and with the con- jecture just offered, it deserves to be noticed that the next instance of carts which occurs in tlfc Scriptural history is found among the Philistincs.-i- The second of our engravings represents the only kind of Avhcel-carriage now used in Syria, and that chiefly for agri- cultural purposes. The third reiiresents the carts of the Tartar nomades of (Central Asia, • At i);ij;i's lis, 12J, ami 130. t 1 Sam. vi. 7- whose usages have been already mentioned by us as offering many remarkable resemblances to those of the patriarchs and the early pas- toral races with which the early Bible history makes us acquainted. C) EciVPTiAX Physicians, p. 13G. — From this it appears that the art of embalming was regarded as a branch of the medical profession. We shall not here add anything on the subject of embalming to the information which has been given in different parts of a former work.* But, as the first liistorical mention of physicians occurs in this place, and as the Jews appear to have derived from the Egyp- tians the very little they ever knew of medical science and practice, the following particulars on that subject may be usefully introduced. They are condensed chiefly from a larger statement by Mr. Wilkinson.-i- We su])pose that Joseph's " servants, the pliysicians," were rather those who were em- ployed by him as occasion required, than en- gaged exclusively in liis service. There is a peculiar propriety in the use of the plural " physicians," for no family in Egypt could manage with the services of one only. Matters were so arranged by the Egyptians — and He- rodotus regarded it as a proof of their great attention to health, and of their wisdom — that no doctor was allowed to practise any but one branch of the profession. Some were oculists, who only studied diseases of the eye ; others attended solely to complaints of the head ; others to those of the teeth ; some again con- fined themselves to complaints of the intes- tines ; and others to secret and internal ma- ladies: accoucheurs being usually, if not always women. The previous study for the profession con- sisted in acquiring an acquaintance with the rules established and the ])ractice followed by their ancestors ; for it was believed that, while much danger might ensue to patients from rash experiments, few persons could be capable of introducing any new treatment superior to that which had been sanctioned and ai)proved by the skill of the old practi- tioners. Hence a doctor was adjudged to be guilty of a capital offence if his patient died under any other medical treatment than that which i)recedent warranted. The medical profession, as a body, was jiaid by the government ; but they were not Ihei i'l>y ])reclu(led from receiving fees, excejit on a foreign journey or on military service, when patients were visited free of expense. • ' The Pictorial IJiljlo." t ■ Ancieut Kgyptiaiis,' iii. iWO-Si)/- Chap. I.] NOTES TO JOSEPH. 143 These particulars have been preserved by Diodorus,* who further informs us that the Egyptians held most diseases to arise from indigestion and excess in eating, and therefore had frequent recourse to abstinence, emetics, slight doses of medicine, and other simple means of relieving the system. It is also stated by Herodotus that the inhabitants of the corn country physicked themselves for three successive days every month— submitting to a regular course of medicine, in the way of prevention. The employment of numerous drugs in Egypt has been mentioned by sacred and profane writers ; and the medicinal pro- perties of many herbs which grow between the Nile and the Red Sea is still known to the Arabs, though their application has been but imperfectly recorded and preserved. " O virgin, daughter of Egypt," says Jeremiah, " in vain shalt thou use many medicines, for thou shalt not be cured.'"t And Homer$ describes Egypt as " a country whose fertile soil pro- duces an infinity of drugs, some salutary and some pernicious ; where each physician pos- sesses knowledge above all other men." The members of the profession were very numerous. Herodotus says (ii. 84) that every place was full of them ; and Pliny, at a later date, confirms his testimony. The last-named writer also takes notice of their skill, and intimates that they examined bodies after death to ascertain the nature of the diseases of which they had died.§ The medical skill of the Egyptians was well known in foreign countries, and must have been quite familiar to the Jews ; and the physicians to whom Asa resorted were probably of that country. Dreams, as we have recently seen, were regarded by the Egyptians with religious reverence ; and they believed that the prayers of the devout were often rewarded by the indica- tion in them of the remedies which their case required ; but it seems that this and magic were only a last resource, when the skill of the physician had been baffled, and all hope of recovery by human means was lost; and a similar superstitious feeling led them to present votive offerings to the temples for the same purpose. The Jews were, however, disposed to reverse this order, and to look to the physician as the last resource. C) Joseph's Coffin, p. 137.— The body of Joseph was, doubtless, dealt with like those of Egyptians of rank. Under this treatment, the body, after being embalmed, was com- pletely swathed with strips of linen [some * 'Bibliotheca'.i. 82. t Odyss. iv. 229. + Jer. Ixvi. 11. § Hist. Nat. xxi. 5. think cotton] cloth, of various length and breadth, and was then enclosed in an envelope of coarse, or sometimes of fine, cloth. In Mr. Davidson's mummy the weight of the band- ages, including the outer sheet, was 29lbs.,and their total length 292 yards ; and in another, Mr. Pettigrew's, the cloth weighed SSJlbs. ; and the one examined at Leeds was in no part covered with less than forty thicknesses of the cloth. The mummy thus prepared, with its envelope, presents the appearance of a large mass of cloth, somewhat resembling the ge- neral outline of the human figure. The mummy was thus prepared by the embalmers, and in this state consigned to the coffin-makers, who, in the first instance, enclosed it in a case of a strong, but flexible kind of board, some- thing like papier mdche, made by gumming Avell together several layers of hempen or linen cloth. This was formed into the shape of the swathed mummy, which was inserted into it by means of a longitudinal slit, on the under side, reaching from the feet to the head, which was stitched up after the insertion of the mummy. This case is, in most instances, lined, and covered with a thin coating of plaster, with the representation of a human face on the upper part. This was then intro- duced into a coffin of sycamore wood, made sometimes out of one piece of wood, and either plain or ornamented within and without, with representations of sacred animals, or mytho- logical svibjects. Besides this there is often yet another wooden coffin, still more highly orna- mented, and covered with paintings secured by a strong varnish. The upper part of both these cases is made to represent a human figure, and the sex is clearly denoted by the character of the head-dress, and by the presence or absence of the beard. The last covering of all was a sarcophagus of stone, which, from its heavy additional ex- pense, could only, it may be supposed, be used for kings and wealthy people. These stone coffins consist of two parts,— a case to contain the body, formed of one piece of stone, open at the top, and a lid to fit the opening. Some of them are comparatively plain, while others— of which there are examples in the British Museum, and one, of alabaster, in the Museum of Sir John Soane— are elaborately sculptured with hieroglyphics and figures of men and animals,* forming not the least astonishing monuments which we possess of Egyptian industry and art. This brief account of Egyptian coffins we » In the most remarkable of the sarcophagi in the Museum, the superfice sculptured is more than 100 ieet square (Frencli), and the number of characters exceeds 21,700. 144 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book II. liavo drawn from the more extensive statement in tlie instructive chapter on ' Mummies,' in the ' Egyptian Antiquities," of the ITsoful Knowledge Society ; and is chiefly intended to give the requisite explanation of the figures in the annexed engraving, whicli offers specimens of all the different varieties of the Egyptian mummy cases and sarcophagi. It seems not unlikely that tlie remains of Joseph were kept in a stone sarcophagus while in Egyjit, and were taken out and removed in one or more wooden coffins, when the Israel- ites departed from Egypt. An Arabian writer,* who could, however, know no more about it than we do, entertained the same impression, and states that the remains of Joseph were deposited in a marble coffin, and cast into the Nile, — the last particular being derived from one of the wonderful stories of the Rabbins, concerning the preservation of Joseph's body. Their most common account is, that the coffin of Joseph was at first deposited in the royal * Patricides, p. 24, . viii. !>. 379. ipiul Ilottiiii: 0]ii-nt:il. sepulchre ; but that, when the Hebrews de- manded lea\e to depart, the magicians came to the then reigning king, and told him that, if he was minded to keep the Hebrews in his dominions, the best course would be to conceal the body of Joseph in some place where they could not possibly find it, as they would cer- tainly not leave the country without it ; and tliat, in pursuance of this advice, it was sunk in the bed of the Nile, and tliat a miracle was effected, to enable Moses to recover it, and carry it away.* Another accoiuit alleges that the coffin was deposited in the treasury of the kings, in consequence of a prediction by the ma- gicians, that if the Hebrews got possession of it, and carried it away, Egypt would be involved in a multitude of calamities.t The truth })ro- bably is, that the sarcophagus, containing the body of Joseph, was kept in a sepulchre in the land of Goshen, in charge of his family, and that no difficulty was experienced in its re- moval when the time of deliverance came. » Talra. Bab. Sotah, c. i. fol. 13. 1. Tai-um .louatb. in loc. t Ti'st. xii. Patiiarcli.'c, in Simeone. [Muniniy (?asps anil MiiMc Sanopliai,'!.] CHAPTER II, THE BONDAGE. /V =^,^- :^-