The History of Antiquity Volume I Part 23

[554] According to Lenormant, _um-pali_, "mother of the sword."

[555] Joh. Lyd. "De Mensibus," 4, 46.

[556] Lev. xix, 27-29; Deut. xiv. 1; xxii. 5; xvi. 21; xxiii. 1.

[557] Ezek. viii. 14.

[558] Lucian, "De Dea Syria," c. 8; Strabo, p. 755.

[559] "De Laudib. Constant." c. 13.

[560] Bunsen, "aegypten," 5, 1, 379.

[561] Herod. 3, 37; Gerhard, "Kunst der Phoenicker Taf." 4, 5; Movers, "Phoenizier," 2, 87-99; "Phoeniz." in Ersch. s. 391 ff.

[562] Jerem. x. 5; Baruch, vi. 3, xxv. 26; Diod. 20, 65.

[563] Lucian, "De Dea Syria," c. 49.

[564] Polyb. 31, 20; Diod. 20, 14; Just. 18, 7; Curt, 4, 13.

[565] 1 Kings xviii. 17-24.

[566] Movers, "Phoeniz." in Ersch. s. 419.

[567] Movers, "Opferwesen der Karthager," s. 8; Blau, "Opfertarif von Karthago;" Zeitschrift d. d. M. G. 16, 438.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ORIGIN AND DESCENT OF THE HEBREWS.

The tradition of the Hebrews of the early history and fortunes of their people previous to the settlement in Canaan is contained in the books of the Pentateuch. After they had settled in that land and had pa.s.sed beyond the loose combination of their tribes to the unity of civic life, after a monarchy had been established, and under it a metropolis and a centre for the national religion had been founded, the priesthood engaged in this wors.h.i.+p began to collect together ritualistic observances and customs of law, and to write them down in combination with anything still living about their early history in the traditions of their families. The Hebrews had found existing in Canaan that ancient and many-sided civilisation the nature and extent of which we have already attempted to describe. Of their own history they could have preserved nothing but prominent facts and decisive crises. Songs of praise and victory which celebrated the great events of the Hebrew past, such as the exodus from Egypt and the victories won over the Canaanites, of which some were already written down,[568] forms of blessing, genealogies,[569] isolated fragments of the moral law, or time-honoured sacrificial custom, or ancient rules of justice,[570] and finally narration of the wars,[571] const.i.tuted fixed points of connection in this tradition. At the new centre of religious wors.h.i.+p the whole stock of existing ritual and custom had to be brought under review, and from hence provision made for the use of the true and acceptable kind of sacrifice, and sentence of law. The consideration of the marvellous lot which had fallen to the Hebrews, the rise of a feeble shepherd tribe under the powerful protection of Egypt, the liberation from the dominion of this great kingdom, the conquest of Canaan, the capture of ancient and strongly-fortified cities, "of fields which they had not tilled, of vineyards and olive-gardens which they had not planted, of wells which they had not dug, of cities which they had not builded," caused the Hebrews to recognise in the favour which had attended them the direct guidance of their deity. This grace would remain with them if they continued to wors.h.i.+p the G.o.d of their fathers according to his will, in the way acceptable to him. Thus to the priests, who undertook the task of writing down the tradition, the nation appeared as a chosen people from the beginning, to whom their G.o.d had early given his blessing. In return for such grace and beneficence the Hebrews had to obey his law.

This is the "covenant" which Jehovah has made with them.[572] This law, therefore, must be carefully recorded, in order that it may be obeyed exactly in every particular by the priests themselves, as by the judges and all the nation.

On the basis of this tradition, these songs and poems, genealogies and ancient records, and under the guidance of the views just pointed out, there arose at Hebron, in the first decade of the reign of David, within the circle of a priestly family, which apparently claimed to be sprung from Aaron, the brother of Moses, the Judaean text of the Pentateuch, and the Book of Joshua.[573] Composed as annals, this text deals primarily with the connection and course of the fortunes of Israel; the central point is the covenant between Jehovah (Elohim) and Israel, Israel and Jehovah, and the law, which is the body of this covenant.[574] The unity of religious wors.h.i.+p and the centralisation of it at one place and one only is brought prominently forward, and this could not have happened till political unity had been obtained, a metropolis founded, and a seat erected there for the wors.h.i.+p of the whole nation, or at least contemplated, if not erected. The law for the priests, the minute details of ritual which make up the chief part of this text, were, in the view of the priests, given at that mighty time when Moses led the people; though, as a matter of fact, only a few of the fundamental precepts reached so far back (see below). The centralisation of the wors.h.i.+p also at one place of sacrifice, the command to have a common place of wors.h.i.+p, was thought to have been in existence as early as the time of Moses, and to have been prescribed even when the Hebrews were in the desert. And the priests were more inclined to believe that the ideal sought after for their religion, for Church and State, belonged to the time of Moses, because in those days of piety and exaltation the true ordinances must have been in existence, and certain sacrificial inst.i.tutions, certain principles of law and morality, actually came down from that period.

Not long after this first text arose a second, which, however, can hardly have been composed in priestly circles, and certainly did not come from Judah. With the author of this second text, it is not the collection and establishment of the law, and the desire to insist on the obedience to it, which is the main point. It is rather the personal fortunes of the fathers of the race, in which the divine guidance is shown, the manifestations of the deity in their favour, the revelations made to them by divine messengers, the importance of old customs and old names, on which he lays especial weight. He also availed himself of older written sources.[575] The language and style of this second text are more lively, versatile, and distinct than those of the first; and the importance which he ascribes to the fortunes of Joseph and the tribes of Ephraim confirms the a.s.sumption that the author belonged to this tribe. The origin of this second text falls in the second half of Solomon's reign, or immediately after it--in the decades from 970 to 950 B.C.[576]

About a hundred years later, towards the middle of the ninth century B.C., both these texts were combined and transformed into one work. The author of this combined text (the Jahvist) was guided by the feelings and views of the prophets. He is superior to the authors of the two texts in versatility, in reflection, and vivid power of imagination. Not only did he work up the two texts into one and insert into the whole his own views, but he has added some sections, the materials of which must have been furnished partly by tradition and partly by written records.[577] In this shape were the first four books of the Pentateuch, the beginning and the end of the fifth book, and the book of Joshua, at the time of the prophets Amos and Hosea. The "Second Law," _i.e._ the main portion of the fifth book of the Pentateuch,[578] on the other hand, was not written till the time of king Josiah, about 625 B.C., and was then added to the rest. The author of this second law also revised the book of Joshua.[579]

If we compare the Hebrew account of the Creation with the cosmogonies of Berosus and Philo (pp. 257, 353), and the narrative of Noah's deluge with the description of the flood on the a.s.syrian tablets and in Berosus (p. 240 ff.), we see at the first glance how far asunder the conceptions lie--with what clearness and vigour the Hebrews have succeeded in purifying and exalting the rude fancies of the nations so closely akin to them--the ancient common possession of the Eastern Semitic tribes, from whom the Hebrews were sprung. This power--the patient labour, the serious and thoughtful effort to deepen the traditions of the past into an ethical significance, to sublimate legends into simple moral teaching, and transplant the myth into the region of moral earnestness and moral purpose--to pa.s.s beyond the rude naturalism of their kinsmen into the supernatural--from the varied polytheism of Babel and Canaan to monotheism--this it is which gives to the Hebrews the first place, and not among Semitic nations only, in the sphere of religious feeling and development. At a later period the Greeks understood how to breathe life, beauty and n.o.bility into the G.o.ds of the Phenicians, whose rites came over to h.e.l.las; they could change Ashera-Bilit, the G.o.ddess of prost.i.tution, into the youthful Aphrodite, the G.o.ddess of blooming grace, and the highest charm of love; but the Hebrews practised the severer, sterner, and loftier task of carrying religious feeling beyond the life of nature, of conceiving the highest power as morally in opposition to natural impulses and forces, of publis.h.i.+ng the supremacy of the intellectual and moral over the natural being.

Adam begot Seth, so we are told in the first book of the Pentateuch, and Seth begot Enos, and Enos begot Kenan, and Kenan begot Mahalaleel, and Mahalaleel begot Jared, and Jared begot Enoch, and Enoch begot Methuselah, and Methuselah begot Lamech, and Lamech begot Noah, and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and j.a.pheth. The earth was full of evil, but Noah walked with G.o.d. Then G.o.d said to Noah: Make for thyself an ark of gopher-wood, 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in breadth, and 30 cubits in height. For I will send a flood upon the earth to destroy under the heaven all flesh wherein is the breath of life. But with thee I make my covenant; and thou shalt go into the ark, thou and thy three sons and thy wife, and the three wives of thy sons with thee. And of all living creatures thou shalt bring two into the ark, male and female shall they be. And Noah did as G.o.d commanded him. When Noah was 600 years old, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the fountains of the deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and there was rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and the waters rose and lifted the ark. And the flood was mighty, and all the high mountains that are under heaven were covered; the water rose fifteen cubits above the tops of the mountains. For 150 days the flood was mighty on the earth. Then G.o.d caused a wind to blow, and the waters sank. And in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested on the mountains of the land of Ararat; and in the tenth month, on the first day, the tops of the mountains appeared. It came to pa.s.s after forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark, and sent out a raven; but it flew to and fro. Then he sent out a dove, to see whether the water had retired from the earth. But the dove found no place of rest, and returned to the ark. And Noah remained seven days more, and again sent out the dove. Then the dove came to him at evening, and lo! a fresh olive-branch was in her mouth. And he remained yet seven days, and again sent out the dove, but she returned to him no more. Then Noah opened the door of the ark and looked out, and lo! the earth was dry. And in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the earth was dry. And Noah went out of the ark, and his sons, and his wife, and the wives of his sons, and he built an altar to Jehovah, and took of all clean beasts and birds and offered a burnt sacrifice upon the altar.

After the flood sons were born to the sons of Noah. The sons of Shem were Elam and a.s.shur, and Arphaxad, and Lud and Aram. Arphaxad begot Salah, and Salah begot Eber. Eber had two sons, the name of the one was Peleg, and the name of the other Joktan. Peleg begot Reu, and Reu begot Serug, and Serug begot Nahor, and Nahor begot Terah.

Terah dwelt in the land of his nativity at Ur in Chaldaea, and his sons were Abraham, Nahor, and Haran. Haran begot Lot and Milcah and Iscah, and died before his father at Ur in Chaldaea. Nahor took Milcah to wife, and Abraham took Sarah. And Terah went with Abraham his son, and Lot the son of Haran, from Ur in Chaldaea to Haran and dwelt there. But Jehovah said to Abraham: "Go from thy land, and thy home, and thy father's house, to a land which I will show thee." Then Abraham took Sarah his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their goods, and the souls born to them in Haran, and went forth from Haran. He came unto the land of Canaan as far as Sichem and to the oak Moreh, and there he built to Jehovah an altar; and afterwards he went towards the mountain and pitched his tent between Bethel and Ai, and there he built an altar to Jehovah, and journeyed towards the south. And when the famine was sore in the land, Abraham, and Lot with him, went to Egypt, and Pharaoh, for Sarah's sake, gave Abraham sheep and oxen and a.s.ses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-a.s.ses, and camels. But Jehovah smote Pharaoh with great plagues, so that he let Abraham and Sarah go, and bade men guide him.

Then Abraham dwelt again at Bethel, and was very rich in flocks, in silver and gold. Lot also had tents and sheep and oxen, and there was a strife between the shepherds of Abraham and the shepherds of Lot. Then Abraham said to Lot: "Let there be no strife between my shepherds and thine, for we are brethren. If thou wilt go to the left hand, I will go to the right." Then Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw the land of Jordan, that it was watered as a garden of the Lord; and he set forth at morning, and pitched his tents at Sodom. But Jehovah said to Abraham: "Lift up thine eyes; the whole land which thou seest I will give to thee and thy seed for ever; rise up and go through the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to thee." And Abraham pitched his tents under the oaks, which are at Kirjath-Arba (Hebron), and there built an altar to Jehovah.

For twelve years the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, of Adamah, Zeboiim and Zoar, had served Kedor-Laomer, king of Elam. Then they rebelled; and in the fourteenth year Kedor-Laomer, and the kings who were with him, Amraphel, king of s.h.i.+nar, and Tidal and Arioch of Ela.s.sar, smote the Rephaims at Ashtaroth-Karnaim, the Zuzims at Ham, and the Emims at Shaveh-Kiriathaim, and the Horites on their mountain of Seir, and smote the whole land of the Amalekites and Amorites. The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah also, of Adamah, Zeboiim and Zoar, who had drawn out against them in the valley of Siddim, were put to flight, and fled to the mountains, and all the goods and all the food in Sodom and Gomorrah were taken, and they also took Lot and his goods. When Abraham heard that his brother's son was carried away, he set forth with his servants, 318 in number, and fell upon them by night at Dan, and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is to the west of Damascus, and brought back all the goods and Lot and the people that were captured. The king of Sodom came to him and said: Give me the souls, and take the goods for thyself. But Abraham said: I lift up my hand to Jehovah that I will take nothing of thee, save what my servants have eaten.

Abraham dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, but his wife bore him no son. But he had an Egyptian maid-servant whose name was Hagar. Her Sarah gave him to wife, and Hagar was with child, and the angel of Jehovah announced to her that she should bear a son who would be like a wild a.s.s, and his hand would be against every man and every man's hand against him, and he would dwell to the east of his brethren. And Hagar bore Abraham a son, and Abraham named him Ishmael. Then he received the promise that Sarah also should bear a son, "from whom should arise kings and nations;" and when he was 100 years old, and in the south between Kadesh and Sur, Sarah bore him a son. Abraham named him Isaac, and circ.u.mcised him when he was eight days old. The year before he had circ.u.mcised Ishmael, for G.o.d had said: This is the covenant which thou shalt keep between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, that every male shall be circ.u.mcised.

When Isaac grew up and Sarah saw the son of the Egyptian woman, she said to Abraham: Thrust out this woman and her son; Ishmael shall not be heir with Isaac. Then Abraham gave Hagar bread and a bottle of water on her shoulders, and sent her forth with her child. She wandered into the desert of Beersheba, i.e. the well of the seven, and when the water was spent, and the child was fainting with thirst, she laid him down under a bush, and sat down a bow-shot from him, and said: "Let me not see the death of the child." Then Jehovah heard the voice of the child, and His angel called to Hagar out of heaven: "Fear not, rise up, and take the boy in thy hand, Jehovah will make him a great people." And Jehovah opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and filled the bottle, and gave her child drink. And Jehovah was with him; he grew up in the desert, and was an archer, and dwelt in the desert of Paran, and his mother took him a wife out of Egypt, and Ishmael begot Nebajoth, and Kedar, and Adbeel, and Mibsam, and Mishma, and Dumah, and Ma.s.sa, and Hadar, and Tema, and Jetur, and Naphish, and Kedemah, twelve princes.

And Ishmael died 137 years old, and his descendants dwelt to the east of his brethren from Shur, which lies before Egypt, to Havilah, and towards a.s.shur.

Abraham abode a long time in the land of the Philistines. And G.o.d tempted Abraham, and bade him sacrifice his only son Isaac, in the land of Moriah, as a burnt offering. But when Abraham had built the altar on the top of the mountain, and laid the wood upon it, and bound Isaac and laid him on the altar, and taken the knife and stretched forth his hand to slay his son, the angel of Jehovah called from heaven, saying: Lay not thine hand on the lad, for now I know that thou fearest G.o.d; thou hast not refused Him thine only son. And Abraham saw a ram caught in the thicket, and he sacrificed him.

When Sarah died at Hebron, Abraham spoke to the Hitt.i.tes among whom he dwelt: I am a stranger and a sojourner among you; give me a burying-place for my people among you, that I may put away my dead from me. Speak for me with Ephron, the son of Zohar, that he give me the cave of Machpelah which is his, at the corner of his field; let him give it to me for a burying-place at its full worth in money. Ephron agreed, and Abraham weighed the money to Ephron, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. And thus the field of Ephron at Machpelah, to the east of Mamre, that is Hebron, the field and the cave, and all the trees on the field and round it, were given to Abraham before the eyes of the Hitt.i.tes, and the eyes of all who went into the gates of the city. And Abraham buried Sarah in the cave of the field of Machpelah.

Then Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah, and she bore him Zimram, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah. But Isaac had grown a man, and Abraham said to his servant, the oldest in his house, Eliezer of Damascus: Lay thy hand under my thigh; I charge thee that thou take not to my son a wife from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom we dwell; to my fatherland and my home thou shalt go, and there seek a wife for Isaac. Then the servant took ten camels from the camels of his master, and goods of every kind, and pa.s.sed over the Euphrates towards Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor, the brother of Abraham. To Nahor his wife Milcah, the daughter of Haran, had borne eight sons. The youngest was Bethuel, and Bethuel's son was Laban, and his daughter Rebekah. Eliezer came to the city of Nahor at evening, and halted his camels at the well outside the city. Then came a maiden, fair to behold, with her pitcher on her shoulder, to the well. When she had filled her pitcher and come up from the well, the servant went to her and said: Bend down thy pitcher and let me drink a little water. Drink, my lord, she answered, and quickly took the pitcher in her hand, and gave him to drink. Then she said: I will draw also for thy camels, and stepped down again to the well. Eliezer marvelled at her; and when all the camels had drunk, he took a golden ring, half a shekel in weight, and two golden bracelets, ten shekels in weight, and put the ring in her nose, and the bracelets on her arm, and then inquired whose daughter she was, and whether there was room in her father's house to shelter him and the camels. And she answered: I am Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Nahor; straw and fodder is in abundance with us, and room for the camels. And her brother Laban came to the well, and led Eliezer to the house, and Laban took the saddles from the camels, spread straw for them, and gave them fodder and brought water for his guest to wash his feet, and food. But Eliezer said: I will not eat till I have given my message. I am the servant of Abraham, and Jehovah has blessed my master, so that he has become great, and he has given him sheep and oxen, and silver and gold, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and camels and a.s.ses. And Sarah has borne a son to my master in his old age, and I have sworn to seek a wife for his son from his home and his own people; and Jehovah led me in the right path in order to take the granddaughter of the brother of my master for his son. If ye are willing to plight troth and love with Abraham, say it. Then said Bethuel, Rebekah's father, and Laban her brother: Behold, the maiden stands before thee, take her and go. Then Eliezer brought forth gold and silver ornaments, and garments, and gave them to Rebekah; to her brother also and her mother he gave gifts. And when Laban and his mother sent away Rebekah with her nurse Deborah, and Abraham's servant Eliezer, they blessed Rebekah, and said: Become a thousand times a thousand, and may thy seed possess the gate of thy enemies. When Eliezer returned home, he told all that he had done, and Isaac received Rebekah into the tent of his mother, and she became his wife, and he loved her. And Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac; but to Ishmael and the sons of Keturah he gave gifts, and sent them away from his son Isaac into the land to the East. Then Abraham, after he had lived 175 years, died at a good old age, and his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah.

These narratives show that the Hebrews derived the origin of their nation from the land of the Euphrates and Tigris. We remarked above that the legend of the Deluge could only have arisen in river valleys, exposed to severe inundations (p. 245). If we set aside the additions made in the prophetic revision, the narrative of the flood belongs to the first text; in this text therefore the nations of the earth were derived from the sons of Noah. The revision adds that the descendants of Noah, in their journey from the East, found a plain in the land of s.h.i.+nar, i.e. Babylonia, and dwelt there, and erected a city and a tower, intended to reach to heaven. Then Jehovah confounded their language and scattered them over the earth.[580] But it is the first text which gives the genealogy of Abraham, according to which the descendant of Noah, Terah, the father of Abraham, dwells in the land of his nativity, at Ur in Chaldaea. We found that Ur lay on the lower Euphrates, where the ruins of Mugheir mark its site, that the oldest buildings in Babylonia belong to this place, and the oldest sovereigns on the Euphrates called themselves kings of Ur (p. 259). From Ur Terah, according to the first text, journeyed with his family to Haran.[581] Haran lies in a wide plain surrounded by hills on the Skirtos, a tributary of the Belik, at no great distance from the Euphrates; it is the Carrhae of western writers. From Haran Abraham turns towards Canaan; but his brother's tribe remains in Haran. Hence, as the oldest writings of the Hebrews without any doubt derive the progenitors of the nation from Ur and Carrhae in the land of the Euphrates, so later authorities maintain, as an absolute certainty, that "the fathers dwelt beyond the river," _i.e._ the Euphrates. In the "second law" Abraham is called a "wandering Aramaean," and Ezekiel calls Chaldaea "the birthplace of the Hebrews."[582] The name "Hebrews" confirms this statement and view.

Heber means "that which is beyond," "those who dwell beyond." The Hebrews call themselves the sons of Israel; the name of Hebrews they received from the Canaanites, into whose land they forced a way, though the Canaanites, no doubt, meant no more by the name than that the sons of Israel dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, before they set foot in Canaan.

But the genealogy of the Hebrews goes far beyond Carrhae and Ur. After enumerating the ten patriarchs from Adam, _i.e._ from the man "formed of earth" (adama) to Noah, and giving the age of these patriarchs in hundreds of years (the highest age is 969, and the lowest is the seventh, 365), the first text enumerates another set of ten patriarchs from the sons of Noah down to Abraham, and of these the age gradually dwindles from 600 to 175 years.[583] The head of this series, Shem, the eldest son of Noah, the friend of G.o.d, is the immediate progenitor of the Hebrews. That the recollection and feeling of the relations.h.i.+p with the inhabitants of the land of the two streams, and with the population of Aram, _i.e._ of the upper land between the Tigris and Euphrates, the Euphrates and the Jordan, and with portions of the inhabitants of Arabia and Asia Minor, was alive and present in the minds of the Hebrews, is clear from the fact that these nations, akin in tribe and blood and language, were carried back to Shem. From Arphaxad, the third son of Shem, sprang the fathers of the Hebrews; the two first sons Elam and a.s.shur, we already know as the progenitors of the Elamites and a.s.syrians. From Lud and Aram, the fourth and fifth sons of Shem, the Lydians and Aramaeeans were derived, a genealogy which certainly belongs to the Ephraimitic, if not to the Judaean text. In Arphaxad, the name of the third son, we cannot mistake the name of a district any more than in the names of the other sons. Arphaxad is a mountain canton of South Armenia, between the lakes of Van and Urumiah,--the Arrapachitis[584] of the Greeks, the Alpak of the Armenians, the modern Albak--and lies more than 6,000 feet high, at the source of the Great Zab, which also flows through it.[585] The son of Arphaxad is Salah, _i.e._ "leaving,"

"departure," and the son of Salah is Eber, in whom we have the later name of the Israelites, transformed into a patriarch. To Eber two sons are allotted. The name of the elder, Peleg, means division, "because in his time the earth was divided." From this we may draw the conclusion that the division of the descendants of Noah and the separation of the nations was transferred to the fifth generation after him. But another meaning may also be given on linguistic grounds to the name Peleg (Phaleg), and at the juncture of the Chaboras and the Euphrates we find a place of the name of Phalga.[586] Joktan, the second son of Eber, we know already as the father of those Arabian tribes who dwell from Mesha to Dshafar, and in Kachtan we have already found his name in Arab tradition (p. 326). The descendants of Peleg, the elder son of Eber, are Reu, and Serug the son of Reu. The name Serug appears to have been retained in the district of Serug, and the modern Serudsh, south-west of Edessa, in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates. Western writers speak of the district of Osrhoene, and give this name to the south-west of Mesopotamia.[587] Serug's son is Nahor, _i.e._ "the river," the Euphrates. Nahor is followed by Terah, who had his home at Ur.

If this series of the first text preserved a genuine historical recollection, a portion of a Semitic tribe, settled in the mountains of South Armenia, or even the whole tribe--the sons of Arphaxad--journeyed to the south, after leaving nothing but their name in the mountain valley. The separation from their kindred was signified by the name Salah, _i.e._ "leaving." At first the sons of Arphaxad pastured their flocks at Serudsh, in the north-west of Mesopotamia, and from thence they pa.s.sed to Ur on the lower Euphrates, while another branch, the sons of Joktan, turned away from the mouth of the Euphrates in the direction of Arabia. At a later time the sons of Arphaxad settled at Ur must again have marched up the Euphrates to Carrhae. Then followed a second division; one portion, the Nahorites, _i.e._ the people of the river, remained at Carrhae, while others, the Abrahamites, wandered to Canaan, or rather into the deserts bordering on Canaan. Moreover, since the first text denotes Abraham's eldest son Ishmael, as the progenitor of the Ishmaelites, _i.e._ of a considerable number of tribes of North and Central Arabia, and since the revision derives the Midianites, who wandered on the peninsula of Sinai, and further in the East, and other Arabian tribes, from the sons of Keturah, the younger sons of Abraham (pp. 324, 393), it follows that on the borders of Canaan a portion of the Abrahamites must again have broken off, and pa.s.sed on to the peninsula of Arabia.

However this may be, the kins.h.i.+p of the Hebrews with the Babylonians, a.s.syrians, and Aramaeans, the derivation of their tribe from the river-land of the Euphrates and Tigris, is beyond a doubt, and we must regard the districts of Arphaxad and Serug, of Ur and Carrhae, as the original home of the tribe, which afterwards grew up to be the Hebrews.

In any case it is clear from this genealogical table that the Hebrews considered themselves closely allied to the Nahorites of Haran, but more especially to a considerable number of the Arabian tribes, or Ishmaelites, _i.e._ the Nebajoths, the Kedarites, the Temanites, the Jeturites, and finally the Midianites. This is proved, not only by the derivation of the Ishmaelites from the eldest son of Abraham, but also by the close relations.h.i.+p in which the Edomites, the brothers of the Hebrews, are represented as standing to the Ishmaelites. The names Ishmael and Israel are similarly formed; the first means "G.o.d (El) hears," the second, "G.o.d strives," or "G.o.d rules."

Within this circle of kindred nations, the Hebrews occupy the foremost place. The Ishmaelites are descended, it is true, from the eldest son of Abraham; but not from a legitimate or equal marriage; the mother of their tribe is a maid-servant and an Egyptian. Ishmael's wife also came from Egypt, and, in this there may linger a dim recollection of the ancient supremacy of the Hyksos in Egypt.[588] The Midianites, on the other hand, spring from a younger branch than the Hebrews; and they too are not born from the true wife of Abraham, and hence are not his genuine heirs. To the Moabites also, who pastured their flocks to the east of the Dead Sea, and the Ammonites, whose land lay to the north-east of this sea, the Hebrews held themselves akin. These tribes are the descendants of Lot, Abraham's brother's son; and therefore they, like the Hebrews themselves, spring from those who had moved from Carrhae to the West. But Lot had separated from Abraham, and chosen the region of Jordan. And when Jehovah rained fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah, because the sins of their inhabitants were grievous, and overthrew these cities, and the whole land around them, Lot with his two daughters escaped towards the East; but because all the men of Sodom were destroyed, there was no man to dwell with Lot's daughters. Then they gave their father wine to drink, and lay with him, and the elder bore Moab, and the younger Ammon. Thus although the Moabites and Ammonites are closely allied to the Hebrews, and are of the pure stock--they were begotten in incest. A dark stain rests on their origin.

Obviously the bitter hostility which afterwards prevailed between the Hebrews, and the Moabites and Ammonites, and the severe wounds which the Hebrews suffered from the attacks of these nations, have had their influence in forming and moulding the story of their origin. The Judaean text narrated quite simply the separation of Abraham and Lot, the choice of the land of Jordan, the destruction of the cities, and Lot's escape.[589] The broader details and motives given in the narrative are the work of the prophetic revision, to which the account of the origin of the Moabites and Ammonites exclusively belongs.

To the Hebrews, the wanderings and fortunes of their forefathers appeared compressed into the lives of the patriarchs, whose mighty forms are also to them the patterns of morality, piety, and a life pleasing to G.o.d, the expression of the genuine national character. The name Abraham means, in the form ab-ram, "high father;" in the form ab-raham, "father of the mult.i.tude." Sarah means "princess." Their right to the possessions, which they won in Canaan by the sword, they saw in the command given to their ancestors to go thither, and in the promise that the land should belong to his seed, which is given to Abraham, even in the first text. Moreover, the purchase which Abraham concluded with the Hitt.i.tes of Hebron of a burying-place for his wife and himself in the cave of Machpelah--this narrative is a part of the Judaean text--and the services rendered by Abraham to Canaan gave to his descendants a claim to the possession of Canaan. Abraham planted the trees at Beersheba, and dug wells; he defended Canaan against Kedor-Laomer, and recovered from the kings of the east the booty taken, without keeping back any for himself. These services of the progenitor also const.i.tuted a claim for his descendants.

The accounts in Genesis[590] of campaigns of Elamite rulers towards the west, and the supremacy of a king of Elam, one of the Kudurids, over Syria, are founded on events and circ.u.mstances which occurred about the year 2000 B.C., as has been already pointed out in detail (p. 251). The connection into which Abraham is brought with them is the work of the Hebrews, and belongs to the Ephraimitic text.[591] The account which puts the Horites, who occupied Mount Seir before the Edomites, among the nations conquered by the Elamites, and beside these certain extinct and mythical tribes--the Rephaites, Susites, and Emites--shows plainly that the events must belong to a very distant past.

When the rights of the Hebrews to Canaan had been proved, when at the same time it was ascertained that the kindred tribes of Moab and Ammon could establish no claim to the land, after the voluntary renunciation of their progenitor, it remained to be shown that the ancient inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites themselves, had been from the first destined to give way to the Hebrews. We found that the Canaanites, like the Hebrews, belonged to the great family of the Semitic nations; but they were distinguished from them in character, in dialect, and religious conceptions. Hence they were not derived from Shem, but from Noah's second son, Ham; and they were also burdened with the curse of Noah--a trait which the prophetic reviser has added to the narrative.[592] After the flood, Noah planted a vineyard, and he became drunken, and uncovered himself in his tent; and Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, but Shem and j.a.phet went backwards and covered him. And when Noah heard what Ham had done, he said, "Cursed be Ham; a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren."

Abraham pa.s.sed through the length and breadth of Canaan, the land which his descendants were destined to possess. At Shechem and Hebron, and then in the south, at Kadesh (Barnea) and Shur, he abode longest; at Hebron, and between Bethel and Ai, he built an altar to Jehovah. The presence of the patriarchs consecrated the places where his descendants were to dwell; among the Hitt.i.tes and the Canaanites Abraham remained true to the G.o.d who had led him into Canaan; he rendered a willing obedience even to the harshest command. At the places where Abraham had set up altars, and where he had offered sacrifice, we find at a later period centres of Hebrew wors.h.i.+p: by Abraham's sacrifices they were already consecrated. The Judaean text places the abode of Abraham mainly in the south of Canaan, at Hebron; the south belonged mainly to the tribe of Judah, and Hebron was David's royal abode till he conquered Jerusalem from the Jebusites. The Ephraimitic text placed Abraham mainly at Shechem, the chief city of the tribe of Ephraim, and gives especial prominence to the sacred place at Bethel. The wandering of Abraham from the south of Canaan to Egypt, where the Pharaoh, warned by plagues from Jehovah, sends him away with valuable presents and in peace, is the work of the reviser. It is an antic.i.p.ation of the later sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt, and forms at the same time a contrast to the widely different circ.u.mstances of their exodus.

After long waiting, the true son is at length born to the patriarch from his wife, of the blood of his fathers in Haran.[593] In order to preserve the blood of the Hebrews pure, a wife is not taken from Canaan for this son, Isaac, but the care of the father provides a wife from among his kindred, the tribe of the Nahorites, on the Euphrates. The first text tells us quite briefly, "Isaac was forty years old when he took to wife Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the Aramaean of Mesopotamia, the sister of Laban the Aramaean."[594] The lively description of the journey and the suit of Eliezer is the work of the reviser of the two original texts. After thus providing for the continuance of the pure stock, when the oldest son, the child of Hagar, and the younger sons, the children of Keturah, had been sent away with presents, as the law of the Hebrews afterwards ordained for the sons of concubines, and directed to the East, when he had given everything into the hand of Isaac, Abraham died full of years and blessings.

Isaac was now sixty years old--such is the account given in Genesis--and his wife Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, the sister of Laban, had borne him no son. Then Isaac besought Jehovah for his wife, and Jehovah heard him. Rebekah became with child, and lo! there were twins in her womb, and the children strove in her womb; and Jehovah said to her: Two nations are in thy body, and two people shall separate from thy bosom.

The first boy was red in colour, and hairy, and she called him Esau; and afterwards his brother came out, and his hand was upon Esau's heel, and he was called Jacob, _i.e._ "one that holds the heel." And the boys grew; and Esau was a hunter, but Jacob abode in the tents, and his mother loved him. Once Esau returned weary from hunting, as Jacob was making a mess of pottage. And Esau said: Give me to eat. And Jacob replied: Sell me first thy birthright, and pledge it to me. And Esau swore, and sold his birthright, and ate and drank, and went his way.

Thus Esau despised his birthright; and when he was forty years old, he took to wife Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hitt.i.te, and Basmath (Bashemath), the daughter of Elon the Hitt.i.te, and afterwards Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Nebajoth's sister.

There was a famine in Canaan, and Isaac went to Gerar in the land of the Philistines, and there dwelt, and sowed in that land, and received a hundredfold, for Jehovah blessed him. He became more and more mighty, and had sheep, and oxen, and many servants. And Isaac dug out the wells which Abraham's servants had made, and which the Philistines had filled up after the death of Abraham. And the shepherds of Gerar strove with the shepherds of Isaac, and Isaac called the name of the wells Esek (contention) and Sitnah (hatred); but to the third, for which the shepherds of Gerar had not striven, he gave the name Rehoboth (room).

From thence he went to Beersheba, and there he set up an altar.

When Isaac was old, and his eyes were dim, he said to Esau: Take thy bow and quiver, hunt venison for me, and make a savoury dish such as I love, that I may eat, and my soul may bless thee before I die. Esau went forth, but Rebekah, who had heard Isaac's speech, said to Jacob: Go to the flock and bring me two kids. I will prepare them for a savoury dish for thy father, that he may bless thee instead of Esau. Jacob obeyed, and Rebekah put on him the clothes of Esau, and placed on his neck and hands the skins of the kids, that his father, if he touched him, might not know Jacob by his smooth skin. Then Jacob went in to his father, and said: I am Esau, thy firstborn; eat of my venison. How hast thou found it so quickly, my son? asked the father. Jehovah, thy G.o.d, put it into my hand, he replied. The voice is the voice of Jacob, the father said, but the hands are the hands of Esau. He ate, and Jacob brought him wine, and he drank. Then Isaac said: Come near, and kiss me, my son. G.o.d give thee the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and abundance of corn and wine. Be thou lord over thy brethren, and let the sons of thy mother bow before thee. Cursed be they who curse thee, and blessed be they who bless thee. And when Jacob had gone away from his father with this blessing, Esau came with his venison. Isaac trembled and said: Thy brother has come with subtilty, and taken away thy blessing. Then Esau lifted up his voice and wept, and said: My birthright has he taken from me, and now thy blessing also. Bless me, even me also, O my father.