THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY From the collection of Julius Doerner, Chicago Purchased, 1918. ZdOS KGSpi v.( ^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/pictorialhistory01kitt_0 THE PICTORIAL HISTOEY OF PALESTINE AND THE HOLY LAND, INCLUDING A COMPLETE HISTOEY OF THE JEWS. BY JOHN KITTO, Editor of“ The Pictorial Bible P WITH FIVE HUNDRED ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD. VOL. 1. BIBLICAL HISTORY. LONDON : CHARLES KNIGHT AND CO., LUDGATE STREET. MDCCCXLIV. S jO i' Y. I ' CONTENTS OF THE BIBLE HISTORY. BOOK L-THE PATRIARCHS. CHAPTER I. Page First Inhabitants of Palestine .......... 3 CHAPTER II. Abraham ............. 21 CHAPTER III. Abraham and Isaac ........... 52 CHAPTER IV. Jacob . . . . . . . . . . . . .91 BOOK II.— THE HEBREWS IN EGYPT AND THE WILDERNESS. CHAPTER I. Joseph . . . . . . . . . . . . .114 CHAPTER II. The Bondage ............ 145 CHAPTER III. The Deliverance . . . . . . . . . . . .161 CHAPTER IV. Sinai ............. 191 CHAPTER V. The Law . 217 CHAPTER VI. The Wandering ............ 304 BOOK III. -JOSHUA AND THE JUDGES. CHAPTER I. The Conquest ............ 335 CHAPTER II. From Joshua to Gideon .......... 365 CHAPTER III. From Gideon to Samson .......... 392 CHAPTER IV. Eli and Samuel . . . . . . . . . . . .413 'MJ IV CONTENTS OF THE BIBLE HISTORY. BOOK IV.— THE KINGDOM. CHAPTER I. Page Saul . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437 CHAPTER II. David ............. 463 CHAPTER III. Solomon ............. 502 CHAPTER IV. Israel, from 990 b.c. to 931 b.c. ......... 547 CHAPTER V. Judah, from 990 b.c. to 929 b.c. ......... 554 CHAPTER VI. Israel, from 931 b.c. to 895 b.c. ......... 564 CHAPTER VII. Judah, from 929 b.c. to 725 b.c. ......... 586 CHAPTER VIII. Israel, from 895 b.c. to 719 b.c. . . . . . . . . . 600 CHAPTER IX. Judah, from 725 b.c. to 586 b.c. ......... 604 BOOK V.— THE REMNANT. CHAPTER I. The Captivity ............ 625 CHAPTER II. The Restoration ............ 638 CHAPTER III. From 420 b.c. to 163 b.c. .......... 656 CHAPTER IV. The Asamonean Princes .......... 692 CHAPTER V. The Romans . . . . . . . . . . . .720 ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE BIBLE HISTORY OF PALESTINE. Title to the General History .... An Oriental Migration Egyptian Scales, from Rosellini’s ‘ Monumenti del Egitto’ Egyptian Ring Money, from ditto Island of Aradus, from Laborde’s ‘ Voyage en Orient’ Bedouin Encampment ..... Princes of Pliaraoh, from ‘ L’Egypte — Antiquites’ Egyptian Man-Servant, from ditto . Egyptian Maid-Servants, from Calliaud, Rosellini and ‘ L’Egypte’ Women of Egypt, lower class, from ‘ L’Egypte— Etat Moderne' Urfaii (Ur of the Chaldees), from Buckingham . Well with Camels, at Cana in Galilee, from Cassas . Woman veiled, from ‘ L’Egypte — Etat Moderne’ Girl giving drink to a thirsty ti-aveller, from Laborde’ ‘ Voyage en Orient’ ..... Women on Camels, from ditto .... Oriental Shepherd, from ^layer’s ‘Views in Egypt Egyptian Flint Knives, from Wilkinson’s ‘Ancient Egyptians’ ....... Harvest in Palestine, Cana, from Laborde Teraphim, from ‘L’Egypte’ .... Halt of Orientals on a Journey, composed from Laborde ........ River .Tabbok (Zerka), from Buckingham’s ‘ Arab Tribes’ Booths, or Sheds, from ‘ L’Egypte — Etat Moderne’ Tower in the Desert, from ditto Rachel’s Sepulchre, from Buckingham Binding Sheaves, from ‘ L’ Egypte’ . Bedouins and Travellers bargaining for a Slave adapted from Laborde ..... Pillows of Stone and Wood, from Wilkinson, and Specimens in Salt’s Collection Egyptian Scarabaei, Back and Side Views, from ‘L’Egypte — Antiquites’ .... Ditto, engraved under Surfaces, from ditto Egyptian Amulets, from ditto .... Pharaoh's Palace, from ditto .... Egyptian Stewards, from ditto, and Rosellini . Egyptian Lady, from ‘ L’Egypte’ Egyptian with a Tray of Meats on his head, from ditto Egyptian King on his Throne, from ditto Triumph of Joseph, composed from ditto . . Signet Kings of Ancient Egypt, from Wilkinson, and Specimens in British Museum Females of Priestly Families, Official Dresses, from Rosellini, &c Egyidian Granary, ditto ..... Storing Corn, from ‘ L’Egypte’. Bowing before a Public Officer, from ditto “ Slay, and make ready,” from ditto Page 1 3 5 5 8 21 32 32 33 41 42 52 58 66 67 76 81 91 9o 96 100 101 103 103 105 108 110 111 111 115 116 117 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 126 129 Page EgjT)tian House, from ‘ L’Egypte’ .... 129 Egyptians at Meat, from Rosellini .... 130 Egyptian Wine Cups, from ditto .... 130 Egyptian Carts, from ditto ..... 131 Modern Syrian Carts of ancient form, from Laborde . 132 Carts of the Tartar Nomades, from Sebastian Ide’s Travels ........ 132 Overseer of Cattle, from Rosellini .... 133 Part of an Egyptian Funeral Procession, with acts of mourning, from ‘ L'Egypte — Antiquites’ . . 136 Mummy lying in its Case, from ditto . . . 137 Mummy Cases, and Marble Sarcophagi, from Speci- mens in the British Museum .... 144 Eelauts in Persia, from Malcolm’s ‘ Persia’ . . 145 Moses and the Egyptian, the costume from Ancient Egyptian Paintings . . . . . . 155 Chapel of the Burning Bush in Sinai, from a drawing by Mr. Arundale 159 View on the River Nile, Minyeh, from ditto . . 161 Egyptian Bastinado, from Rosellini .... 163 Egyptian Couches, from Cailliaud’s ‘ Recherches,’ &c. 166 Ornaments of Egyptian Females, “Jewels of Gold and Jewels of Silver,” composed from various Egyptian Paintings and Sculptures . . . 172 A Departure from Egypt in the present day, composed from Laborde, &c. ...... 173 Egyptian Registration or Census, from Wilkinson . 174 Adjeroud, from ‘ L’Egypte — Elat Moderne’ . . 176 Suez, from the north-east, from ditto, ditto . . 177 Egyptian War-Chariots, composed from ‘ L’Egypte — Antiquites’ 179 Egyptian Soldiers of different Corps, ditto . . 179 Dance of Females with Timbrels, ditto, and Rosellini 182 Ain Mousa, from a drawing by Mr. Arundale . . 183 A Valley in Sinai, from Baron Taylor’s ‘ La Syrie’ . 191 Wady Gharendel, from Laborde’s ‘ Arabia’ . . 192 Pounding in a Mortar, from Wilkinson . . . 194 Baking, from Rosellini ...... 194 Kneading, from ditto 195 Wady Feiran, from a drawing by Mr. Arundale . 197 Bedouin Encampment in a Valley of Sinai, from Taylor’s ‘ La Syrie’ ...... 198 Apis, the Golden Calf, from ‘ L’Egypte — Antiquites’ 201 Metal Mirrors, Egyptian, from specimens in British Museum ........ 204 Winding the Yarn, from ‘ L’Egypte — Etat Moderne’ . 205 Present Inhabitants of Sinai, from ditto . . . 208 Egyptian Worship, composed from ‘ L’Egypte — Anti- quites,’ Rosellini, Wilkinson, &c 217 Hewers of Wood, from Lane’s ‘ Arabian Nights ’ . 218 Water-carriers, from Lane’s ‘ Modern Egyptians’ . 229 Egyptian Priestesses, from ‘ L’Egypte’ . . .231 Egyptian Priests, from Wilkinson .... 233 Drawers and Girdle, from Calliaud .... 234 Girdle and Tunic, from Rosellini .... 235 VI ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE 86 . 87 . 88 . 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100 101 102 103 104, 105. 106 107 108 109. 110 . 111 . 112 . 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120 , 121 . 122 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. m. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. Page Egyptian Mitres, from ‘ L’Egypte' aiid Rosellini . 237 Egyptian Tunic, from Rosellini .... 239 Ephod and Girdle, from ‘ L’Egypte’ .... 239 Ephod and Censer, from ditto 240 Breastplate, from ditto ...... 240 Shrine in its Sanctuary, from ditto .... 248 Shrine with Idol, from ditto ..... 249 Ark borne by Priests, ditto ..... 249 Shrine and Ark borne by Priests, ditto . . • 249 Shrine with Cherubim, ditto ..... 250 Bas-relief, from the Arch of Titus .... 251 Egyptian Lamps, from specimens in the British Museum, &c 252 House-top, Ancient Egyptian, from Wilkinson . . 294 House-tops, Modem Egyptian, from ‘ L’Egypte — Etat Moderne’ ........ 295 . Bedouins collecting Fruits in Palestine, Costume from Cassas, &c. 304 Egyptian Vintage, compiled from Rosellini, ‘ L’Egypte,’ &e 309 Rending Clothes, modem Syrian Costume . .311 . Departure of the Pilgrim Caravan from Cairo . . 318 Garden Bedstead, from Taylor’s ‘ La Syrie’ . . 320 Palm-branch Bedstead, from Wilkinson . . . 320 . Asses, saddled. Ancient Egyptian, from ‘ L’Egypte, — Autiquites’ ....... 321 Asses, with modem saddles, from ‘ L’Egypte, — Etat Moderne’ ........ 321 . Earrings of Men, from Rosellini .... 324 . Ancient Syrian Chief addressing the people, from Syrian Figures in Ancient Egyptian Paintings . 335 . Cairn and Kist Vaens 341 , Druidical Circle . . . . . . .341 . Stones of Memorial, at Trelech in Monmouthshire . 341 . Cromlech at Plas Newydd, from Painting in British Museum ........ 342 Druidical Circle, Jersey, from Grose's Antiquities . 242 Treading the Conquered under foot, from ‘ L'Egypte • — Antiquites’ 347 Bethlehem, from a drawing by Mr. Arundale . . 365 Captives bound, from ‘ L’Egypte— Antiquites’. . 367 Handcuffs, from Rosellini ..... 367 Immolation of Captives, from Calliaud . . . 368 Scribe counting hands (cut off), from ‘ L’Egypte— Anti({uites’ 368 Egyptian Slingers, composed from Egyptian Sculp- tures 370 Slings, from Wilkinson 370 Daggers, from ditto ...... 372 Summer Parlour on the Nile, from Mayer . . 373 Ox-Goad, from Fellowes’ ‘ Asia Minor’ . . . 374 Harvest, from ‘ L’Egypte — Antitpiites’ . . . 375 Winnowing Corn on the Threshing Floor, from ditto 376 Back Veil, from ‘ L’Egypte, — Etat Moderne’ . . 377 Egyptian Pitchers, from ‘ L’Egypte — Antiquites’ . 384 Gaza, from Forbin 392 Victor greeted with “ timbrels and dance,” costume from figures of Syrians in Ancient Egyptian Paint- ings 396 Supporting Pillars of Eastern Buildings, composed from ‘ L’Egypte, — Etat Moderne’ . . . . 403 Monumental Pillars, from Laborde. . . . 405 Druidic Stone in Persia, from Ouseley’s Travels . 411 Druidic Stone at Darab, from ditto . . . 412 Runners attending a Chariot, composed from Egyp- tian Sculptures ....... 413 Ethiopian Car drawn by Oxen, from Wilkinson . 417 Indian Car drawn by Oxen, from Mandeslo . . 417 Turkish Arabah drawn by Oxen, from ‘ Sketches of Turkey’ 4I8 A Meeting near Mount Tabor— Modern Syrian Cos- tume. ........ 422 A Musical Procession — Modern Syrian Costume — Instruments, Ancient Egyptian .... 423 Ancient Egyptian Seats, from Wilkinson, and speci- mens in British Museum ..... 426 Kit’s Cotty House, from King’s ‘ Munimenta Anti(]ua’ 433 Page 144. Open Temple in Phoenicia, from ditto, and Pococke . s35 145. Warrior and Armour-bearer, Modern Egypt, Costume from Cassas 437 146. Grindstone, from ‘ L’Egypte,— Etat Moderne’ . 4-il 147. Playing on the Harp before a King, Modern Syrian Costume ........ 447 148. Throwing a Javelin, Modern Syrian Costume . . 450 149. Escape from a Window, ditto .... 450 150. Ancient Egyptian Archer, from Wilkinson . . 452 151. Bows, from Rosellini ...... 452 152. Eastern Forms of Obeisance, iVom ‘ L’Egypte — Etat Moderne,’ See 453 153. Presents to a Bedouin Chief, adapted from Laborde, &c 458 151. Bedouins with Captives and Spoil .... 461 155. Body of Archers, from Rosellini .... 462 156. Hebron, from Laborde’s ‘ Syria’ .... 463 157. The Pursuer slain, costume from Canaanitisli Warrior used in Wilkinson 465 158. Funeral Procession, Modern Egyptian, composed from Lane, &e 468 159. Jerusalem, from Laborde ..... 471 160. Various Modes of Sitting, from Wilkinson . . 474 161. Ruins of Amman, from Taylor's * Syria’ . . . 477 162. Sawyers, from ‘ L'Egypte, — Etat Moderne’ . . 480 163. Flight on Mules, Bedouin Costume. . . . 481 164. Absalom’s Sepulchre, from a di-awing by Mr. Arun- dale 486 165. Race of Messengers ...... 487 166. Ferry-boat on the Nile, from Mayer . . . 488 167. Singing Men, Modern Syi ian, from Russell’s ‘ Aleppo’ 489 168. Ancient Egyptian Armlets, from ‘ L’Egypte — Anti- quiles,’ and Rosellini 493 169. Indian Armlets, from ‘ Asiatic Researches’ . . 498 170. Persian Armlets, from Malcolm’s ‘ Persia, ’ Ker Porter’s ‘ Travels,’ and Persian MSS. in British Museum ........ 499 171. Temple in the Isle of Elephantine^ from ‘ L’Egypte — Etat Moderne’ 502 172. King (the Sultan) on his Throne, from D'Ohsson . 504 173. Piiaraoh’s Daughter, from Rosellini . . . 505 174. Felling Trees in Lebanon, from ‘ L’Egypte— Anti- quites’ 507 175. Modes of bearing Burdens, from ditto . . , 508 176. Egyptian Mode of transporting large Stones, from Rosellini 508 177. Censers, from ‘ L’Egypte — Antiquites,’ and Rosellini 510 173. Spoons, from specimens in the British Museum . 511 179. Snuffers, from a specimen in ditto .... 511 180. Pincers, from Rosellini 511 181. Obelisks in front of a Temple, from ‘ L’Egypte — Antiquites’ 512 182. Door.s, from ‘ L’Egypte— Antiquites’ . . . 513 183. Metal Door-pins, from specimens in the British Museum 513 184. Wooden Door, from Model of an Egyptian House in the British Museum 513 185. Ancient Egyptian Windows, from ‘ L'Egypte’ . 514 186. Fountain of Lions in the Alhambra, from Murphy's ‘ Arabian Antiquities of Spain .... 515 187. Egyptian Stringed Instruments, from Rosellini, &o. 516 188. Women Singers, Modern Egyptian, from Lane, &c. . 519 189. Egyptian Thrones, from ‘ L Egypte— Autiquites . 520 190. Throne with Steps, from ditto .... 521 191. Egyptian Fauteuils, from Rosellini . . . 521 192. Great Mogul on Throne, from ‘ L’Histoire Generale des Voyages’ 522 193. Tadmor ( Palmyra), from Laborde .... 525 194. Tribute-bearers, composed fiom ancient Egyptian sources ........ 528 195. Oriental State Dinner, from D’Ohsson . . . 533 196. Eg>ptian on Horseback, from Wilkinson . . 534 197. Modern Oriental Cavalier, adapted from Lane’s ‘ Arabian Nights’ ...... 5.34 198. Egyptian Palanquin, from Rosellini . . . 535 199. Howdah of the Great Mogul, I'rom Mandeslo . . 535 200. Eunuch of the Turkish Seraglio, from D'Ohsson . 536 BIBLE HISTORY OF PALESTINE. vu Paf(e 20J . Umbiolla, from an ancient Persian Sculpture at Per- sepolis, in Sir U. K. Porter’s ‘Travels’ . . . 538 202. Inilian Canopy and Umbrella, from ‘ L’llistoire (Jcnerale des Voyages’ ..... 539 203. .Journey of an Abyssinian Queen, composed from S.alt’s ‘ Abyssinia,’ Jourdain’s ‘ Persia,’ &c. . . 5-11 204. Samaria (Sebaste), from Laborde .... 5-17 205. Mount Zion, from a drawing by Mr- Arundale . 554 205. Shishak, king of Egypt, from a sculpture at Thebes, engraved in Rosellini 556 207. Jewish Physician, Modern Oriental, from Lane’s ‘ Arabian Nights' 560 208. Ancient Egyptian Physicians, from Rosellini . 561 209. Damascus, from Laborde ..... 564 210. Refuge in Caverns, Bedouin Costume . . 565 211. Santon under an Oak, costume from Cassas . . 567 212. Royiil Bed, modern Oriental, from Lane . . 569 213. Tables, ditto, from ditto, &c. ..... 573 214. Application to a Santon, Costume from Cassas . 574 215. Seething Pottage, from Rosellini .... 574 216. Oreat OfRcer on a Journey, composerl from Lane . 575 2J7. A King supported by one of his Nobles, from D’Ohsson ........ 577 218. Market at Gate, composed from Lane . . . 578 219. Human S.acrifice, 1, from ' L’Egypte — Antitpiites’ . 583 220. ,, 2, from ditto^” .... .583 221. ,, 3, from ditto .... 584 222. , , 4, from ditto .... 584 223. Petra, Mount Seir, from Laborde’s ‘Arabia Petrma’ . 586 224. Fortress, ‘ Memphis,’ from the Mosaic Pavement at iTsenesto 587 225. , , ‘ Babylon,’ from ditto .... 588 226. ,, from ditto ...... 588 227- Arab Horde coming to a halt. Costume from Laborde 589 228. Arab of Edom, from Taylor’s ‘ La Syrie et I’Egypte’ 594 229. Aggie-Stone, from King’s ‘ Munimenta Anticjua’ . 599 230. Nineveh, from Rich ...... 600 231. Sepulchre of the Kings, from a drawing by Mr. Arundale ........ 604 232. Serpent-Worship, from a painting at Pompeii . . 605 233. Tirhakah, from an ancient Egyptian sculpture, engraved in Rosellini 607 234. Fortifications : — 1, Walls and Towers, from Baby- . Ionian coins 620 235. , , 2, Walls and Towers, manned, from Rosellini ........ 620 236. , , 3, Detached Tower or Fort, from SeyfTarth 620 237. ,, 4, Fortress with Fosse and Double Wall, from Rosellini ...... 621 238. , , 5, Fortress with Double Fosse, from Rosellini ........ 621 239. , , 6, Storming a Fort, from ‘ L’Egypte’ 622 240. , , 7, Fortress attacked : — Testudo, &c. from Rosellini 623 241. ,, 8, ., V , from ‘ L’Egypte’ 623 242. , , 9, , , , from Rosellini 624 243. Babylon inundated, from a drawing by J. B. Fraser, Esq. 625 244. Ancient Persian Soldiers, composed from Persian sculptures engraved in Porter’s ‘ Travels’ . . 638 245. “ Record Chamber” (Library at Constantinople), from D’Ohsson 645 246. An Encampment, from Lane’s ‘ Arabian Nights’ . 648 247. Tartar or Turkish Courier, from D Ohsson . . 649 248. Ancient Persian Cuii-bearers, composed from Persian sculptures engraved in Porter .... 650 249. Modern Oriental Gate, Bab-el-Nasr, Cairo, from Lane’s ‘ Arabian Nights' ...... 651 250. Labour in the Brick-field, from Rosellini . , 625 251. 252. 253. 254. 255. 258. 257. 258. 259. 260. 261. 262. 263. 264. 265. 266. 267. 268. 269. 270. 271. 272. 273. 274. 275. 276. 277. 278. 279. 280. 281. 282. 283. 284. 285. 286. 287. 288. 290. 291. 292. 293. 294. 295. 296. 297. 298. 299. 300. 301. 302. 303. 304. 305. 306. 307. 308. 309. 310. 311. 312. 313. 314. 315. 316. Page Pulpit, Modern Oriental, from D’Ohs'^.on . . 653 Tomb of Ezra 655 I'yre, from Laborde 656 Alexander the Great, from a silver coin magnified . 659 Alexandria, from a drawing by Mr. Arundale . 663 Ptolemy Lagus, or Soter 665 Antigonus ........ 666 Seleucus Nicator ....... 666 Demetrius Poliorcretes ...... 666 Elephants employed in war ..... 668 Antioch, from Cassas . . . • . .670 Ptolemy Philadelphus and his sister-wife Arsinoe . 671 Ptolemy Soter and his wife Bereniee . . . 671 Autiochus Theos 672 Seleucus Callinicus 673 Ptolemy Evergetes . ..... 673 Ptolemy Philopator ...... 675 Elephants employed in the Execution of Criminals . 677 Ptolemy Epiphaues ...... 678 Antiochus Epiphanes 681 Ptolemy Philoraetor ...... 683 Ptolemy Physcou ....... 684 Jupiter Olympus, from Quatremere de Quincy . . 685 Bacchanalian Procession, from an Antique Vase in the Townly Collection, British Museum . . 686 Antiochus (V.) Eupator 690 Heliopolis, from the Mosaic Pavement at Praeneste . 691 Ascalon, from Forbin 692 Demetrius Soter ....... 93 Alexander Balas ....... 696 Demetrius Nicator. ...... 697 Sepulchre at Modin, on a Coin of Simon. . . 699 Antiochus (VII.) Sidetes ..... 700 Parthian Soldiers, from Montfaucou . . . 703 Alexander Zebinas 704 Tigranes 710 Antiochus (XI.) Asiaticus ..... 711 Pompey and his Sons ...... 711 Darics 713 Jewish Coins : — 1 — Shekel of silver 714 2 — Shekel, Copper.— Simon .... 715 3 — Shekel, Copper.— Simon .... 715 4 — Demi-Shekel, Copper 715 5 — Kennicott’s Quarter-Shekel, Copper . .715 6 — Quarter-Shekel, Copper. — Simon . . . 715 7 — Quarter-Shekel, Copper. — Simon . . . 715 8 — Quarter-Shekel, Copper ..... 715 9 — Quarter-Shekel, Silver. — Simon . . . 716 10 — Quarter-Shekel, Silver. — Simon . . . 716 11 — Coin of Alexander Jannaeus .... 716 12 — Coin of Archeleus ? Copper . . . .716 13 — Coin of Agrippa, Copper .... 716 Roman Soldiers 720 Roman Consul ....... 722 Julius Caesar ....... 723 Mark Antony ....... 725 Cleopatra 731 Augustus ........ 732 Oriental Builders ....... 735 Tiberius ........ 743 Roman Standards 744 Caligula ........ 746 Claudius 747 Nero 751 Vespasian ........ 755 Titus 756 Roman Medals, struck to commemorate the Con- quest of Judea ....... 757 Vlll ERRATA FOR BIBLE HISTORY OF PALESTINE. Page 3, line three, fur 1062 read 1002. ,, 16. In the last cumpartment of the table at the foot of the page, the second line, giving the date of Abraham’s Call, should be read thus, — a.m. 325S, b.c. 2153 : interval, 1002. ,, 205, lines two and seven, /or Aholiah read Aholiab. ,, 267, ,, twenty-one, /or tunics times. ,, 286, ,, eleven, /or hundreds read thousands. ,, 295, „ seven, pwt afflicted a/er towards. ,, 339, ,, eleven from bottom of text, insert not after was. ,, 352, ,, four ,, ,, ,, />r them road themselves. ,, 353, ,, two,/or largest ones read large stones. ,, 444, ,, twenty, /or not read now. ,, 492, ,, eleven from bottom, /or Aruanah read«Araunah. ,, 676, ,, seventeen, dele afterwards Caesarea. ,, 702, ,, fourteen, /or Hyreanius read Hyreanus. s BOOK 1. THE PATRIARCHS. CHAPTER I. FIRST INHABITANTS OF PALESTINE. [An Oriental Migration.] The History of Palestine, and of the Hebrew people, may be most conveniently commenced with the call of Abraham, which, according to Hales, took place in the year of the world 3258, after the deluge 1062 years, and 2153 years before the birth of Christ. (*) The ages which had passed since the deluge, concurring with the still long duration of human life, had again replenished with people the regions around the original seats of the human race. That great event, the confusion of tongues, which occurred 600 years after the deluge, must have greatly accelerated, and even compelled, more energetic movements than had previously taken place. The descendants of Shem appear to have extended themselves gradually over the regions east and north-east of the river Tigris; the children of Japhet spread themselves into Asia Minor, whence it was their ultimate destination to be impelled into Europe, and to fill the length and • B 2 4 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. breadth of that continent. The posterity of Ham remained in chief possession of Mesopotamia; they also formed settlements at the head of the Persian Gulf, in Arabia, and in Canaan ; they established empires in Assyria and Egypt; and, as their numbers multiplied, they advanced into Ethiopia, and other remoter parts of the African peninsula. The history of Japhet’s race is a blank in the early accounts of the Scriptures ; and that of Shem’s is little more. The sacred historian confines his notice to one family of Shem’s descendants ; and the intercourse of that family with the races of Ham, is the circumstance which evolves far more information concerning their early history and condition than we possess concerning any of the other descendants of Noah. From all that history tells, they appear to have been the first authors of the arts of civilisation and social life. But remem- bering the other races of which authentic history takes no occasion to speak, this need not be positively affirmed. That, however, very important advancements had, even in this remote age, been made by the posterity of Ham, appears very plainly in the early intercourse of the Hebrew patriarchs with Egypt. A division of the posterity of Canaan, the youngest son of Ham, left the Arabian shores of the Red Sea, and settled in the country whose history we have undertaken to write ; and they gave to it the name of their father, from whom also they are, collectively, called Canaanites.C) They manifestly were not very numerous at the time this history opens. They did not by any means fill the country, but lived dispersed, in detached and independent clans, and, contented with the use of such lands around their towns as they needed for their own subsistence, they beheld without jealousy powerful emirs, even of the race of Shem, establish themselves in the plains and feed their cattle in the vacant pastures. The time for territorial contests had not yet come ; and probably the settled Canaanites regarded the presence of the Bedouin sheikhs as an advantage, relieving them from the need of attention to pastoral affairs, by affording a ready market where they might obtain milk, butter, cheese, meat and skins, in exchange for their ’surplus corn and other vegetable produce ; and they appear to have been quite sensible of the advantages of an open traffic with the pastoral chiefs. It might be easy enough to work out a plausible and ingenious account of the social condition of the Canaanites at the time when Abraham came among them. But as this must be purely conjectural, or founded on circumstances which did not occur till four or five centuries later, during which it cannot be doubted that great changes took place in their civil and political state, we shall avoid such a course, and confine ourselves to the slight notices which may be gleaned from the history of Abraham, with the very few more which the histories of his son and grandson offer. Their language was the same as that of Abraham and the other patriarchs, who at all times speak to them without the medium of an interpreter. This was also true ages after, whenever any communication took place between the descendants of Abraham and the Canaanites or the Phoenicians. They were divided into a number of small independent cornmunities. Every town with a small surrounding district, and probably some dependent villages, appears to have been a sovereign state, acknowledging the control of no superior, but being in alliance with its neigh- bours for common objects. The vale of Siddim alone, the area of which does not exceed that of one of our smallest counties, is known to have contained five of such states. It appears to have been the plan, as the population increased, to establish new cities and new states on ground not previously appropriated ; in which case the tendency to consolidate numerous small states into a few large ones would not, in ordinary circumstances, arise till the country was fully peopled. We may well be astonished at the prodigious number of small states which the Hebrews found in Palestine on their return from Egypt ; but we do not, with some, infer that they were equally numerous in the time of Abraham. On the contrary, it rather seems to us that, in the long interval, the towns and states went on increasing with the population. That towns and states were as numerous in choice localities, such as the fertile vale of Siddim, in the time of Abraham as in that of Joshua, we can well understand ; but not so in the country at large. It seems also that the states, though fewer, were not larger at the former date than at the latter, the extent of ground which they divided being proportion- Chap. 1.] FIRST INHABITANTS. 5 ably smaller. At both periods the states of the Canaanites suggest a comparison to our own boroughs, consisting of a town, with dependencies of fields, and perhaps villages. And the comparison perhaps holds further ; for the meleks or kings of those tiny kingdoms do not appear to have been more than chief magistrates, or patriarchal chiefs, with very limited powers. The mayors of our boroughs have probably greater civil power than they had. Indeed, it has more than once occurred to us to doubt whether these meleks had any independent civil power, and whether they were not regarded merely as the military com- manders of the people in time of war, and at all times the agent of their public transactions with other states. The real power, civil and political, of these small states seems to have remained in the body of the adult male population, and practically, it may seem, in the elder portion of it, from that deference which was paid to seniority in those early times. When Simon and Levi, the sons of Jacob, proposed on certain conditions an alliance with Hamor, the Canaanitish prince of Shechem, the latter was well pleased with the proposal, but would not conclude on what answer to give until he had consulted the citizens in the gate. The same tenor of conduct always appears when occasions arise. In some cases so little notice is taken of the melek, that it may almost be doubted whether particular states had any such functionary. A public transaction about a transfer of land with such “ a mighty emir ” as Abraham was well calculated to require the presence of any prince which the Hittites of Hebron might have had, but no one appears in the account of that transaction. Abraham bows to “the children of Heth;” he addresses his proposals to them, and they reply to him. If the Hittites had a king, he was doubtless present; and if so, the manner in which he was overlooked, or in which he is included without distinction as one of “ the children of Heth,” strikingly illustrates the position of the melek in these small communities. The only other alternative seems to be that the Hittites of Hebron had no king in the time of Abraham. All the states in the vale of Siddim had kings, and all we know of them is that they were the military leaders in war. From the answer of the king of Sodom to Abraham, waiving all claim to the goods which the patriarch had recovered from the Mesopotamian spoilers, without any reference to the wishes of his people in this matter, we may infer that, as might be ex- pected, the melek had higher powers in all warlike matters than were allowed to him in the affairs of peace. The only other act of a Canaanitish king which we meet with implies nothing in this respect. This was the act of Melchizedek, the king of Salem, who brought refreshments to Abraham and his party when he returned from the slaughter of the kings. The mention of this remarkable person leads us to observe that there is not in Scripture the least indication that the Canaanites were idolaters in the time of Abraham, or indeed at any time before the house of Israel went down into Egypt. The king of Salem is expressly declared to have been a priest of the Most High God ; and whenever suitable occasion offers, it appears that the Canaanites knew and reverenced the God of their fathers. It is true that they knew not this God as Abraham knew him ; and it is more than likely that, with some exceptions, such as that of Melchizedek, they had sunk into that state of indifference, and of ignorance concerning God’s character and attributes, which was but a too suitable preparation for that actual idolatry into which they ultimately fell. But that there was any positive idolatry in the time of Abraham, or before the patriarchs left the land, we see no reason to conclude. If we look at the remarkable case of the destruction of Sodom and the cities of the plain, we cannot fail to observe that idolatry is nowhere alluded to as one of the crimes for which the inhabitants were punished. They were punished because they were “sinners before the Lord exceedingly,” and because there were not among them any righteous or just men. What the character of their sins was we know. The repugnance of Isaac and Rebekah to the marriage of their sons with Canaanitish women, has often been alleged as a proof that they were by that time become idolaters, even by many who allow that they were not such in the time of Abraham. But the cited case proves nothing whatever, and could only have been adduced from that ignorance of the manners of the East which is now in a course of removal. The ideas of the patriarchal emirs required that their sons should marry into their own families, and this would have been frustrated by marriage with Canaanites. If this argument for the 6 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. idolatry of the Canaanites he applicable to the time of Isaac’s latter days, it must be equally applicable to the time of Abraham, for he was as anxious as Isaac could be that his son should obtain a wife from the house of his fathers in Padan-aram. But this argument is used by those who confess that the Canaanites were not idolaters in the days of Abraham. We have little information concerning the social condition, arts, and occupations of the Canaanites at this early date. That “the Canaanites by the sea,” that is, the Phoenicians, had already taken to the sea, and carried on some traffic with the neighbouring coasts, is very likely, but more than we can affirm. But we know that the people of Canaan lived in walled towns, in the gates of which public business was transacted. They cultivated the ground ; they grew corn ; and, as they had wine, they must have cultivated the vine ; which they probably did upon the sides of the hills, terraced for the purpose, according to that fashion of vine culture which has always prevailed in that country. Some find in the Perizzites a body of Canaanitish pastors, moving about with their flocks and herds, without any fixed dwelling. But as all this is founded upon a doubtful etymology, we shall lay no stress upon it. Doubtless the Canaanites had cattle, and paid some attention to pasturage ; but the presence, in their unappropriated lands, of pastoral chiefs like Abraham, who, by making it their sole pursuit, enjoyed peculiar advantages in the rearing of cattle, and could offer the produce of their flocks and herds on very easy terms to the settled inhabitants, was likely to prevent the latter from being much engaged in pastoral undertakings. Of their military character at this early period we know little, and that little is not much to their advantage. They were beaten in every one of the warlike transactions of this age which the Scriptures relate, or to which any allusion is made. Doubtless every adult male knew the use of arms, and was liable to be called upon to use them when any public occasion required. They had arrived to the use of silver as a medium of exchange, and that the silver was weighed in affairs of purchase and sale involves the use of the scale and balanced beam. In what form they exhibited the silver used for money we know not with any certainty ; they [Egyptian Ring-Money.] certainly had no coined money ; for even the Egyptians, who were far before the Canaanites in all the arts of civilisation, continued long after this to use circular bars, or rings, of silver for money ; and, most likely, the silver money of the Canaanites bore the same form. The description of the burying-ground which Abraham bought for 400 shekels of silver of Ephron the Hittite, may perhaps inform us concerning the sepulchres in which the Canaanites liked to bury their dead. It was a cave in a spot of ground well planted with trees. Seeing that there will hereafter be frequent occasion to mention by name the several tribes FIRST INHABITANTS. 7 Chap. I ] of Canaanites inhabiting the land, and that some of them are historically connected with the early history of the Hebrews, it will conduce to the clearness of the ensuing narrative, if, in this place, these tribes he enumerated, and their several seats pointed out. While the whole of the nation, collectively, bore the name of Canaanites, as descended from Canaan, there are occasions in which the Scriptures apply the name in a special manner to a part of the whole. Thus in Gen. xiii. 8, we read, “ the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jehusites and so in other places, except that the Girgashites are sometimes also named. We know that there were many tribes not included in this list of names, and the question is, to which or to what portion of those unnamed, the name of Canaanites is here given. The question is thought a perplexed one, and there appear some serious objections to all the explanations which we have seen. We therefore satisfy ourselves with the notion, that this is merely a method of summary statement to avoid the frequent repetition of a long list of names : that, first, “ the Canaanites” are put for all those clans not intended to he particularly enumerated ; and then follow the names of those tribes which were best known to the Hebrews and of the most importance to them. This view is confirmed by our observing that the tribes not named, and which we, therefore, suppose to be included under the name of Canaanites, are precisely those most remote from the early Hebrews, and with whom they had the least to do. That they are in other texts described as situated “ at the sea,” corresponds with the same intimation. In a general sense it will, under this explanation, be found to embrace, primarily, those several branches of the posterity of Canaan which settled on the northern coast, and were, collectively, known in general history as the Phoenicians. The matter appears to have been thus under- stood by the Seventy, for they render ‘^f Josh. v. 1, by oi Bao-tXetc rr/c ^oivIkt^c^ or “ kings of the Canaanites (which were by the sea),” by “ kings of the Phoenicians :” and many ages after, the names were interchangeable ; for the woman whom one Evangelist (Matt. XV. 22) calls “ a woman of Canaan,” is called by another (Mark vii. 26), “ a Syro- Phoenician woman.” Whether the families of Canaan, in migrating to the country to which they gave his name, were headed by his sons, from whom they took their own distinguishing names, or removed after their deaths, does not by any means appear. The question does not seem of much importance, except as it might help to fix the time of the first occupation of the country ; and we allude to it merely that no forms of expression which we may incidentally use, should be considered to involve the expression of any opinion on the subject. There is, however, suffi- cient evidence that the Canaanites had been a good while settled in the land, and we are repeatedly assured in Scripture that the Hittite city of Hebron was founded seven years before Zoan in Egypt. The Hebrew patriarchs, during their sojourn in Canaan, never approached the borders of the Phoenicians, and, consequently, they are not mentioned in the history, unless under the name of Canaanites. Indeed, we should not have been assured that the Phoenician tribes were descended from Canaan, were it not for the genealogy in Gen. x., which gives us a list of his sons, and assures us that all their families settled in Canaan. In this list the name of Sidon occurs first, as that of Canaan’s first-born son. He was the father of the Sidonians, the chief of the Phoenician tribes ; and the great, commercial, and very ancient city of Sidon, the mother of the still greater Tyre, was called after him. The list includes other names which cannot but be considered as those of families which, along with the Sidonians, history comprehends under the Phoenician name. Such are the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, and the Zemarites, whose territories seem to have extended along the coast, northward from the town and territory of Sidon. The ancient Phoenician city of Area probably took its name from the Arkites, and, therefore, will serve to indicate their situation. Area stood nearly midway between Tripoli and Tortosa, and about five miles from the sea, among the lower ranges of Lebanon, fronting the sea-board plain. Here, in a situation commanding a beautiful view over the plain, the sea, and the mountains, Burckhardt found ruins, which he supposes to be those of Area, consisting of large and extensive mounds, traces of ancient dwellings, blocks of hewn stone, remains of walls, 8 HISTORY OF PALESTINE [Book \ and fragments of granite columns. To tlie north was a hill, apparently artificial, still bearing the name of Tel Arka, and on which the temple or the citadel probably stood in former times. In the parts adjoining was an ancient city bearing the name of Sin, and which, in con- nexion with other circumstances, may be thought to indicate the situation of the Sinites. This city had, so far back as the time of Jerome, long been ruined by war ; but the site on which it once stood still retained this ancient name. [Aradus.] The Arvadites are said by Josephus to have occupied and given their name to the small island of Aradus, called Arvad and Arphad in the Scriptures,* and the inhabitants of which are by Ezekiel mentioned along with the Sidonians, as taking an active part in the maritime commerce of Tyre. This island, which is about one league from the shore, and not above a mile in circumference, ultimately became the port and chief town of this enterprising and prosperous section of the Phoenician people; and there was a time when even Romans regarded with admiration its lofty houses, built with more stories than those of Rome, and its cisterns hewn in the rock. All this, except the cisterns and some fragments of wall, has passed away ; but Arvad is still the seat of a town, and, being a mart of transit, its inhabitants are still all engaged in commerce. Though the island was the favourite seat of the people, as their wealth and peace were there safe from the wars and troubles of the continent, and their shipping needed not to hazard the dangers of the coast, they were by no means without pos- sessions on the mainland, for their dominion along the shore extended from Tortosa,t which lay opposite their island, northward to Jebilee. They were, therefore, the most northernly of the Phoenician people. ^ The Zemarites are mentioned next to the Arvadites, and, correspondingly, they are usually, and with sufficient reason, placed next to that people, southward, on the coast, where, twenty miles to the south of Antaradus, and four miles to the north of Orthosia, close upon the shore, was a town called Zimyra, to the site of which the name of Zumrah is still given. The Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, and Zemarites, are scarcely mentioned historically in the Scriptures : and were it not for the tenth chapter of Genesis, it would be unknown to us that * 2 Kings xix. 13', Ezek. xxvii. 8. f Also Tartoiis, anciently Antaradus. t Joseph. Antiq., i. 6, 2. Straho, Gcog., v. 15. Pococke, ii. 27. Volney, ii. 148. Ihickirighani’s ‘ Arab Tiibes,’ 523. FIRST INHABITANTS. 9 Chap. I.] they claimed a common origin with the other inhabitants of Canaan. Indeed, their territory can scarcely be considered as within the limits of Canaan Proper ; and their distance, as well as their being ranked in the general Phoenician body, with which the relations of the Jews were neutral and sometimes amicable, secured them a happy exemption from that notice in the Sacred Records which would have resulted from such hostile acts as took place between the Jews and the other Canaanitish tribes. This much may at present suffice concerning the Phoenicians, whose historical importance is of later date than the times of which we now more particularly treat. Next to the Zemarites, the Ham.athites are mentioned in the list through which we are passing ; and, on several accounts, we were disposed to include them in the preceding state- ment as one of the Phoenician tribes ; but, as our information concerning the Phoenicians makes it difficult to regard them otherwise than as a people inhabiting the coast, which the Hamathites did not, it seems as well to notice them separately. Their situation is determined, without any difficulty, by that of the city of Hamath or Hamah, so called after them, and which, after having borne the Greek name of Epiphania, imposed upon it by the Macedonian kings of Syria, has now resumed its ancient name. It is situated sixty miles inland from the Mediterranean, eastward from Antaradus, and not less than 100 miles to the north of Damascus : it was, therefore, distant from the country known to the patriarchs ; and, although its territory appears to have reached to some extent south- ward, it was not involved in those wars which attended the conquest of Palestine by the Hebrew people. Yet, although scarcely more noticed, historically, in Scripture than the kindred tribes which have already passed under our notice, it happens that the name of Hamath is of very frequent occurrence there. This is because the territory of the Hamathites lay on the extreme northern border of the Promised Land, whence “ the entering in of Hamath” is often mentioned as a point to which the extreme line of northern boundary was drawn. But this boundary appears to have only ceased to be nominal during the reigns of David and Solomon, whose dominion, doubtless, extended to the borders of Hamah, if it did not include a part or the whole of the Hamathite territory. Hamah is one of those few very ancient towns which still exist as places of some note. It is situated on both sides of the Orontes ; and is, for that country, a well-built and comfortable town, the population of which is estimated at 30,000. The town has still, in one sense, a territory, being the seat of a district government, which comprehends 120 inhabited villages, and over seventy or eighty which have been abandoned.* We have taken the names of the above tribes in the order which their relative situations, in the north, rendered the most convenient. The remainder we shall go through in the order in which the Scriptures enumerate them. This brings us to the people called “ the children of Heth” and the Hittites. They were settled in the southern hills about Hebron and Beersheba. The Hebrew patriarchs had their encampments much in that part of the country, and appear to have lived on good terms wdth their Hittite neighbours, by whom they were treated with respect and consideration. The Jebusites, who are more noted in later history than in that of the patriarchs, were seated among the hills to the north of those which the Hittites occupied. Their territory extended to and included the site of Jerusalem, of which, indeed, they appear to have been the founders ; but whether before or after the date at which this history commences, we have no means of knowing. But, in a later day, we find them there in a city which they called Jebus, from which it was not unfil the time of David that they were entirely expelled. That they were able to maintain their post so long in the very heart of a country which the Israelites had subdued, warrants the conclusion that they formed one of the most powerful of the Canaanitish clans. t The Amorites appear to have been the most powerful and widely spread of the Canaanitish nations. The prophet Amos poetically describes the strength and power of the Amorite, by telling us that his “ height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks.” * A larger account of Hamah is given in ‘ The Pictorial Bible,’ under Num. xiii. 21. t Gen. XV. 19; 2 Sam. v. 6; 1 Chron. xi. 4. VOL. I. C 10 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. It is, indeed, likely that here, as is certainly the case in other places, such as Gen. xv. 16, the Amorites are taken, by a synecdoche of eminence for all the Canaanitish tribes ; hut by this fact their superior importance is just as strongly intimated. As this sometimes renders it doubtful whether the proper Amorites may he particularly intended or not, and as they were, moreover, of a remarkably encroaching disposition, it is not quite easy to fix their original seats with precision. It would seem, however, that they were first settled among the moun- tains to the west of the Dead Sea and of the southern part of the Jordan. While the Israelites were in Egypt, the Amorites crossed the Jordan, and, dispossessing the Moabites and Ammon- ites of the country between the rivers Jahbock and Arnon, established there an independent kingdom, which the ensuing history will bring conspicuously under our notice. The original seats of the tribe to the west of the Dead Sea and the Jordan were not, however, vacated ; hut the old and new settlements, separated by the river and the lake, do not appear to have had any dependence on each other. Indeed, it may be important to hear in mind that, in the early ages of which we speak, when the pressure of circumstances drove forth part of a tribe to seek new settlements, the now familiar idea of the necessary relations of dependence and subjection on the part of the offset towards the government of the original body, was one that never entered the minds of either. It was a discovery of later ages. This had its advan- tages ; hut it had the counterbalancing disadvantage, if it be one, that, seeing that the sepa- ration was in every way effectual, and that the emigrants had no right to look to the parent body for protection and support, they were obliged at the outset to be heedful that their own separate resources were adequate to the objects they had in view. Hence, emigrations by tribes or sections of tribes seeking new settlements were only made by large bodies of men, which contained in themselves every provision then thought necessary for independent existence, conquest, self-protection, and self-support. This cause and this effect acted recipro- cally on each other, the effect reacting to perpetuate the cause by which it was produced. The strong and vigorous offsets, expecting no assistance and intending no subjection, took care to put themselves above the need of help ; and that they did so, prevented the parent state from entertaining any notion that assistance might be called for, and, as a consequence, that subjection might be proper. This was the state of things at the beginning. Colonies had thus no infancy or adolescence, during which it was needful that they should lean upon the parent’s supporting arm, till they grew to the full stature of a nation. Yet the several branches of the same family were not unmindful of one another. The relations of the several states springing from the same source, to each other, and to the parent state, appear in general to have been those of friendship and alliance, with a greater readiness to coalesce for common purposes than was usually shown among unrelated tribes. This statement, though intended for larger application, is introduced here for the immediate purpose of showing how there came to he an independent Amoritish kingdom in the country beyond Jordan. It might even appear from Josh. v. 1, which speaks of “ all the kings of the Amorites which were on the side of Jordan westward,” that there were several Amoritish monarchies west of the Jordan ; but we rather incline to think that this is one of the passages in which the Amorites are named by a synecdoche of eminence for all the kingdoms not included among “ the Canaanites which were by the sea” (the Phoenicians) which the context mentions. And yet we think there were several distinct little royalties among them ; for if there were thirty-one kingdoms in so small a territory as Palestine, at the time of the conquest by the Hebrews, it seems unquestionable that several of them must have been in the hands of the Amorites, as they were certainly one of the most numerous and important of the families by which the country was originally peopled. But at the time of the Hebrew conquest, the Amorites had not only extended eastward beyond the Jordan, hut westward, towards the Mediterranean. The allotment of Dan, and the western portion of that of Ephraim, extended over the plains and valleys west of the central hills, and their western border approached as near to the sea as the previous occupation of the coast by a powerful people would allow. But we learn from a very instructive passage * that Judges i. 34 — 36. FIRST INHABITANTS. 11 Chap. I.] both the tribes had to contend for this portion of their domain with the Amorites. The Ephraimites, though the most successful, were not able to drive them out, as was their object, but were obliged to be content with making them tributary : but the Danites were entirely kept out of the plain by the Amorites, and obliged to confine themselves to the mountains, in consequence of which a body of them were ultimately compelled to seek out a remote settle- ment in a part of the country unappropriated by any kindred tribe. We have been drawn into these anticipatory details by the desire of making the position of this important member of the Canaanitish family clearly understood. It will, however, be borne in mind that much of its relative importance was the growth of a later age than that at which this history commences. Then their place seems to have been among the hills bordering on the west the valley of the Jordan, which valley then included the vale of Siddim, afterwards the Asphaltic lake. Consequently their territory closely adjoined that of the children of Heth in one part, — so closely, indeed, that it is not easy to see whether Abraham when encamped at Mamre was a nearer neighbour to the Hittites or to the Amorites. Hebron was not quite a mile from Mamre, and was in the hands of the children of Heth ; but Mamre itself was so called after a living Amorite chief of that name, who evidently abode there, or thereabout ; for he, with his two brothers, Aner and Eschol, were friends and confederates with Abraham, and joined him in his noted expedition in pursuit of the four kings who had carried Lot away captive. After this, it seems somewhat remarkable that the only hostile transaction (excepting the sad affair at Shechem) in which any of the Hebrew patriarchs appear to have been involved with the people of Canaan, was between Jacob and the Amorites. The circumstance is not historically recorded, nor would it have been known but for the allusion which the patriarch himself makes to it when bestowing his dying blessing upon his favourite son, Joseph, to whom he gives one portion above his brethren, which portion, he says, “ I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.”* Of the Girgashites very little historical notice is taken : indeed we know little more of them than that their name occurs in the list of the nations by which the country was occupied. It is supposed that they were seated along the upper Jordan, and more particularly upon the eastern borders of the lake of Gennesareth. This conclusion is founded chiefly on the fact that this district continued, even in the time of Christ, to bear the name of “ the country of the Gergesenes.” That we do not meet with them in history among the nations which warred against the Hebrews, the Jewish writers account for by telling us that they evaded the contest, as one from which they had no hope, and emigrated to Africa, where they ultimately settled in a country which from them took the name of Gurgestan. The Hivites, also called the Avim, are said to have been originally settled in the advan- tageous district afterwards occupied by the Philistines ; on their expulsion from which by that people, they were unable to obtain situations for the whole of their body, and therefore separated, one part of them settling to the north of the Jebusites, in what afterwards became the finest portion of Benjamin’s lot, and where, on the return of the Israelites from Egypt, they were in possession of the “ great city ” of Gibeon, and other important towns. The other portion withdrew to the more vacant territory beyond Jordan, and established itself about Mount Hermon. Some think that the Hivites originally on the coast were wholly destroyed by the Philistines ; and that these other settlements — ^the existence of which is undisputed — ^had been previously established, and remained undisturbed by that event. But the account which we have given seems to result more clearly from a comparison of the several texts which bear on the subject. t We have now gone through the list of the families which are expressly described in the tenth chapter of Genesis, as being descended from Canaan, and as occupying the country which received his name. The list is very valuable, if only as enabling us to know, when the name of any clan occurs, whether or not it belonged to the common Canaanitish stock, or was derived from some other source, which knowledge sometimes throws a light upon the transac- tions in which we find them engaged. * Gen. xlviii. 22. f Dent. ii. 23; Josh. ix. 17; x. 2; xi. 3; xiii. 3. 12 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. The promise made to Abraham, that his descendants should possess the land in which he was a stranger, gave occasion for the introduction of another enumeration of the clans among whom the country was then divided.* This list differs in several respects from the former, and requires examination. It omits the names of the Sidonians, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites, as does every other and later list ; but, as we have already suggested, they are probably included under the name of Canaanites, which first occurs in the list we are now reviewing, as the name of a section of Canaan’s descendants. The name of the Hivites also does not occur in this list ; but we shall presently find an account for it. The names in which this list coincides with the former are those of the Hittites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. The new names are those of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Perizzites, and the Rephaim, besides that of the Canaanites, to which we have already alluded. By a process which a note at the end of this chapter 0 explains, we arrive at the conclusion that the Kenites were descended from a branch of the family of Midian, the son of Cush. The Kenizzites not being mentioned in the list of those nations whom the Hebrews ultimately overcame at the Conquest, it is probable that in the interval they either migrated or were absorbed by some other tribe. Their situation is unknown, and the only inference which looks moderately probable is that which, from their being named between the Kenites and Kadmonites, supposes that they occupied some part of the country beyond Jordan. In that case, it is supposable that they were expelled or absorbed by the Midianites, Moabites, Ammonites, Amorites, or Bashanites, among whom the east country was found to be divided when the Hebrews arrived from Egypt. As the Hivites are not noticed in this list, though their name occurs in others of later date, and we know historically of their continued existence as a people, it has been rather generally supposed that they are here denoted by the name of Kadmonites. The reason for this is, that the word Kadmonites means Easterlings, or people of the East-country ; and we know that some of the Hivites were settled under Mount Hermon, in the north-east. But if we do not consider ourselves bound to account for the omission of the Hivites, and still lay stress upon the signification of the name of Kadmonites, it might seem quite as well to understand this as a general term for all the tribes then occupying, or rather living in, the country east of the Jordan. As none of these became of historical note, it might not seem needful to mention them more particularly — the less so as they were all superseded, and other nations, with whom we are made well acquainted, filled their place, at the time the Israelites arrived among them after their years of wandering in the desert. Indeed, from the facility with which Midian, Moab, Ammon, and others, were able to establish themselves “ in the east country,” it would seem to have been very thinly occupied in, and for some time after, the age of Abraham. The existence of few settled communities in it are intimated ; and its chief inhabitants were doubtless the dwellers in tents, who must early have been attracted by the rich pastures which Gilead and Bashan offered to their herds and flocks. The Perizzites are not named in the original list, in Gen. x. 15 — 18, of the families descended from Canaan : it is, however, generally concluded that they were real Canaanites, and that the name they bore is rather to be taken as characterizing their mode of life than as indicating their descent. But, even so, interpreters are not quite agreed as to the mode of life which the name of Perizzites indicates. Calmet,t influenced by an erroneous etymology of the word, which makes their name to denote a dispersed people, thinks that they were a pastoral people who traversed the land of Canaan with their flocks, without any fixed habitations. But in Hebrew the word perazoth denotes villages, or hamlets, in the open country, in opposition to walled towns ; and hence Perizzite, when used otherwise than as a gentile name, describes a dweller in the open country, an inhabitant of such villages, that is, a peasant. Hence the reasonable enough conjecture of Wells J and others, that such of tlie Canaanites in general as lived not in well-frequented towns and cities, but in villages and hamlets about the country, were comprehended under the general name of Perizzites, that is, * Gen. XV. 19—21. -j- Hist, de I’Ancien Test, tome i. 61. t Geog. of the Old Test. Ft. i. ch. 8. 51. ClIAl*. I.] FIRST INHABITANTS. 13 villagers or rustics, to whatever particular nation they belonged. The Sacred History notices their presence about Bethel (Gen. xiii. 7), in the northern part of what became the inheritance of Judah (Jud. i. 4, 5), and in the hilly woodlands of central Palestine (Josh. xi. 3; xvii. 15 — 18) ; but the incidental indications of history cannot be supposed to show all the localities of such a people. That they were a less polite and civilized people than those who dwelt in towns, is probable from the analogy of circumstances ; but we abstain from introducing that peculiarly unfavourable character of them which, without any historical warrant, some writers have ventured to draw on the strength of that assumption. There is happily no difficulty in finding the situation of theRephaim in the time of Abraham, since we are expressly told (in Gen. xiv. 5) that they abode near Ashteroth Karnaim, or rather, perhaps, about the site on which that city afterwards stood. This was near the eastern border of that portion of the country beyond Jordan which after fell to the lot of the half-tribe of Manasseh. “ But,” as old Fuller observes, “ though here was their principal nest, we find some of their feathers scattered in other places.” Fie alludes to the “valley of the Rephaim” near Jerusalem, through or by which the boundary-line between Judah and Benjamin in after- times passed; and to another in the tribe of Ephraim.* As, however, we do not find them in these situations till the time of Joshua, it is reasonable to infer that the clan, or some sections of it, had, intermediately, migrated thither from their original seats east of the Jordan. The long list through which we have attended the reader has not yet exhausted the names of the clans seated in and on the borders of Palestine. A few names are added to the list of border-tribes in the brief account which is given, in Gen. xiv., of the expedition of Chedor- laomer and his allies. Happily the passage precludes uncertainty by specifying not only the names of the people, but the situations which they occupied. We are told that the invaders “ smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim, and the Hivites in their Mount Seir, unto El-paran, which is by the wilderness. And they returned, and came to Enmishpat, which is in Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites that dwelt in Hazezon-tamar.” In this passage all the names, except those of the Rephaim and Amorites, are such as have not previously occurred. In the preceding page the conjecture has been offered that the term Kadmonites, or “ Easterlings,” was probably used as a general name for all the tribes east of the river Jordan; and it may then be said that the names of the Rephaim, the Emim, and the Zumim, were those of particular tribes comprehended under that general denomination. At all events it is certain that they were all seated in the country east of the Jordan. As to the Rephaim, our previous statement shows that they were in the country which afterwards formed the kingdom of Og king of Bashan. With respect to the Emim, we have, in Deut. ii., very clear information. Moses, speaking to the Israelites while they were in the plains of Moab, before crossing the Jordan, and looking back to the times of which we now treat — times anterior to the existence of even the founder of the Moabites, says, “ the Emim dwelt therein (in the land of Moab) in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim ; which also were accounted giants, as the Anakim ; but the Moabites call them Emim.” From this it is clear that in the patriarchal times they dwelt in the country which the Hebrews found in the occupation of the Moabites when they marched through it on their way to the Jordan. The Jewish writers, with the greatest probability, conclude that the Zuzim of Gen. xiv. are the same as the Zamzummim of Deut. ii. From the mention of them in the latter chapter, they appear to have been a very similar people to the Emim. Speaking of the land occupied by the descendants of Ammon, the brother of Moab, Moses observes, on the same occasion as that which supplies the former statement, “ That also was accounted a land of giants ; giants dwelt therein of old time ; and the Ammonites called them Zamzummim ; a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim ; but the Lord destroyed them before them ; and * Compare Josh. xv. 8; xvii. 15; and 2 Sam. v. 18. 0\ir public translation, however, instead of preserving Rephaim as a gentile name, translates it into “giants” — “the valley of the giants” — “ the land of the giants.” 14 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. they succeeded them and dwelt in their stead.” This information concerning the Emim and Zumim is very clear, and needs no elucidation ; and as they are not again mentioned in the patriarchal history, and were destroyed before the Hebrews arrived from Egypt, we shall not have any future occasion to notice them, unless in connexion with some inquiry concerning giants, which the progress of this work will render necessary. At present it is only requisite to direct the attention of the reader to the fact that there is no force or meaning in the plainest and most literal language, if the passages which we have cited do not state that there were some gigantic races among the early generations of men. Here and elsewhere, however, we are informed of their destruction or gradual extinction ; so that of “ the races of the giants,” only a few individuals, and they of one family, appear to have remained to the time of David. But we must not anticipate an inquiry reserved for a future page. The history of the Horites in Seir is very similar to that of the people of whom we have just spoken. They occupied the mountains of Seir in the time of Abraham, but were ultimately dispossessed by the descendants of his own grandson, Esau, the father of the Edomites, who will, hereafter, often come historically under our notice. This information we also obtain from Deut. ii., where we are told that the Lord destroyed the Horites before the children of Esau which dwelt in Seir ; “ and they succeeded them and dwelt in their stead.” A slight variation in the phraseology of this statement, as compared with the others, intimates that when the Edomites extirpated the Horites, they had previously dwelt among them : and, correspond- ingly, we find that Esau had established himself, as a powerful chieftain in Seir, by the time that Jacob returned from Mesopotamia; and the further information, now given, intimates that, when his posterity and retainers felt themselves strong enough, they rose against the old inha- bitants, overthrew them, and established their own sovereignty over the mountains. It seems possible to collect from the remarkable but obscure details in Gen. xxxvii., that the Edomites lived in a part of Mount Seir in independence, under a government of their own, for some time before they were able to establish their dominion over all the mountains ; or, in other words, there seems clear intimation that the Edomites and Horites divided the possession of Seir between them until the former became strong enough to add the portion of the Horites to their own, reducing the whole to their single dominion. It is also a very singular circumstance that the chapter to which we refer gives an account, not only of the posterity of Edom, but of that of “ Seir the Horite :” from which last phrase it would seem that Seir, from whom the mountains generally took their names, was no other than a very eminent man among the descendants of Hor. It is a very striking instance of the tenacity with which the most ancient names cling to the sites on which they were originally imposed, that, while the names of Esau and his descendants cannot be recognised in those which any of the sites and conspicuous points in these mountains bear, the older names of Hor and of Seir himself are well preserved to this day. Now, as in the time of the patriarchs, the range, or a most important part of it, bears the name of Mount Seir, in the softened form of Mount Shera, and now, as in the time of Moses, the most conspicuous summit — that on which Aaron died — ^bears the name of Mount Hor. A thousand similar instances occur, in which the new or repeatedly altered names, imposed by successive conquerors and overthrowers, are quite forgotten, and the venerable old patriarchal names, which the first inhabitants of the earth bestowed, are alone remembered by the people of the land. The mention of the Amalekites in the account of Chedorlaomer’s expedition would not, to the general reader, appear to suggest any difficulty. But a difficulty has arisen from the incompatibility of this fact with the received opinion concerning the origin of the Amalekites. person of the name of Amalek is mentioned in Scripture save a grandson of Esau;* and therefore it has been concluded that this Amalek was the founder of the Amalekites ; and the difficulty which is offered to this conclusion by the fact that the Amalekites are mentioned as a people many years before even Esau, the grandfather of this Amalek, was born, is got over by the convenient conjecture that the Amalekites are mentioned proleptically in the time of Abraham, and that “the country of the Amalekites” means no more than the country which the Amalekites ultimately occupied. To such a hypothesis we should not at all object, if we * Gen. xxxvi. 12. Chap. 1.] FIRST INHABITANTS. 15 saw any real necessity for it, — that is, if some fact or circumstance mentioned in history could not be understood without such an explanation. But this is very far from being the case in the present instance. Here we have a simple historical fact recorded, and there we have a conjecture founded on the mere occurrence of a name ; and that the fact should give place to the conjecture, instead of the conjecture being held untenable, because incompatible with the fact, is a course which appears to require much stronger reasons than any which can be adduced in the present instance. Indeed, were the alternatives opposing facts, instead of conjecture opposed to fact, the collateral evidence whi(;h must decide between equally balanced alter- natives seems far more in favour of the earlier origin of the Amalekites than of their descent from Esau, and renders it a far more reasonable conclusion that Esau’s grandson was named after the founder of a neighbouring people, already powerful, than that he was himself the progenitor of a nation so proverbially powerful as the Amalekites were at the time that the Israelites departed from Egypt. As this people make a considerable figure in the following history, it has seemed proper to make these observations on their origin, on which subject some further information may be found in the second note. Such particulars as are known of their history will transpire in the course of the historical narrative. And it is only necessary to add in this place that the territory which they overspread appears to have extended from the heart of the Sinai peninsula northward, along the borders of the desert towards the southern frontier of Palestine. In the early history of Palestine there is no people, after the Hebrews, who come more frequently under our notice, and in whose proceedings we take greater interest, than the Philistines. Their importance is indicated by the simple fact that the country derived from this people the name of Palestine, which it had acquired as early as the departure of Israel from Egypt. In the notice of the Hivites it has been already shown that the Philistines were not one of the original nations of Canaan, but they obtained a settlement there by the expulsion of the Hivites. Their previous history has been a subject of much discussion, and offers a matter of curious inquiry, to which we shall not be inattentive ; but we find that a subsequent page will afford a more suitable opportunity than the present for the introduction of the obser- vations which a careful examination of the subject may enable us to offer ; and what we may then state will become much clearer to the reader through various particulars which the course of the narrative will intermediately require us to produce. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. (^) “Chronology,’* p. 3.— Some of the dates given in the text will not fail to strike the reader as very different from those to which he is most accustomed, as occurring in the margin of our Bibles. They are derived from Dr. Hales. As this computation adds no less than 1407 years to the age of the world, and as it involves the necessity of considerable trouble in its application to historical uses, it will easily be believed that we have only determined to adopt it after very anxious consideration and strict examination of the evidence on which it stands. But although it is now first adopted formally in a regular history, such of our readers as have paid the least attention to the subject will not regard it as a very startling innovation. The question between the shorter and longer chronologies has been so often and so largely discussed, and the evidence in favour of the longer has acquired such strength, and has, lastly, been so clearly set forth by Dr. Hales, that only the disposition to acquiesce in that which has received the sanction of time and of general use, together with the labour which the alteration involves, can adequately account for the retention of the shorter system by his- torical writers, some of whom have, indeed, not retained it without recording their convic- tions in favour of the computation which, in practice, they were too indolent or too timid to adopt. Its historical adoption now, in a work of this nature, does not require much courage, nor can be regarded as a measure of doubtful propriety : for we believe the time is fully come, in which no writer need be anxious for anything more than the solid truth of that opinion or system to which he declares his adherence. And for the present question in particular, it is so far fortunate, that no point of faith is involved in the shorter chronology, and that those who have disputed its claims 16 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. and advocated its rejection, have all been, to a man, persons of eminent orthodoxy. This is particularly the case with the distinguished chronologer and eminent scholar by whom the claims of the longer system have been eluci- dated beyond all possibility of future observa- tion ; and those whom some fanciful and sus- picious speculations of Dr. Hales may have induced to examine his chronological prin- ciples more guardedly than they might other- wise have deemed necessary, will feel propor- tionate satisfaction in rising from the inquiry with the most entire conviction that his con- clusions, with respect to the Scriptural chro- nology, have been founded on a rock, and can never be overthrown. To ourselves it will be a particular satisfaction, if our adoption of the larger computation helps in any degree to bring it into more general use, seeing that there are few studious men who do not now accept its guidance in their private historical or chronological researches. As there will probably be among our readers some who have but little acquaintance with this really important subject, a slight explana- tion may be considered necessary. Our information concerning the age of the world, and of the interval between the different great epochs in its history, is necessarily de- rived, in the earlier portions, entirely from the materials which the Scriptures supply. The first information is supplied by genealogies, which ascend as high as the first man. They tell us at what age he begat a son, how long after he survived, and the number of the years he lived : the same information is supplied con- cerning his son, and so on through many gene- rations. By adding these particulars together, we have a clear and unquestionable estimate of the whole duration of time over wdiich they extend ; and as we know the ages of particular persons, we also know the date of such events as arc said to have occurred in some particular year of their lives. Information of this kind comes down to the more proper historical data, in which we compute time by adding together the particulars which inform us, successively, of the durations of captivities, wanderings, reigns, and governments. If, in the same time, genealogies occur, and the intervals between two great events happen to be specified, these are valuable materials whereby to test or cor- roborate the deductions from historical data. It is by this process that the duration of the interval between the creation and the birth of Christ, and the respective dates of the various events which that grand interval embraces, have been determined. The process is clear enough, but not so its particular applications and developments. We are, undoubtedly, to follow implicitly the Sacred Scriptures ; but the difficulty is in ascertaining what the Scriptures really do state, and in col- lecting and combining the information w hich they intend to convey. At the outset there is this great difficulty, that the present Masorete copies of the Hebrew Scriptures differ very greatly from the Septua- gint and from Josephus. The Samaritan Pen- tateuch differs from the Hebrew in some im- portant particulars ; its estimate of the ante- diluvian generations is shorter than even that of the Hebrew ; and, although its estimate of the postdiluvian is higher, the resulting effect leaves it with the Hebrew as affording an estimate more than 1000 years less than that which the Septuagint and Josephus require. The two latter do not exactly coincide, but they approach so nearly, and so easy to detect and remove the cause of difference, that their tes- timony may be regarded as one. But to ex- plain all this the more clearly, we must give the reader some idea of the discrepancies and analogies of the various computations, before that period at which they came to an agree- ment. This is best done by stating the in- tervals which they respectively place between certain marked epochs. We have included the computation of Archbishop Usher, founded on the Hebrew text, as his account is that which is most generally received, and has been adopted in our Bibles. Hebrew : Vulgar Account. Hebrew : Usher’s Account. Samaritan. Septuagint ; Alexandrine. Josephus, as corrected by Hales. A« M. B. C. Interval a.M. B. C. Intel V. X.M. B.C. Interv. a.M. B.C. Interv. A M. B. C. Interv. Creation. . . . 1 3/60 1 4004 1 4305 — 1 5508 — 1 5411 — Deluj'e .... 1656 2104 1656 1656 2348 1656 1307 2998 1307 2262 3246 2262 2256 3155 2256 Call of Abraham . 2018 1742 362 2083 1922 426 2384 1921 1077 3469 2039 1207 3318 2093 1062 Exode .... 2448 1312 430 2513 1491 430 2814 1491 430 3894 1614 425 3764 1648 445 Solomon’s Temple 1 founded . . . j 2928 832 480 2992 1012 480 3294 1011 480 4495 1013 601 4184 1027 621 Solomon’s Temple 1 destroyed . . J 3338 422 410 3396 588 424 3718 587 424 4919 589 424 4825 586 441 Birth of Christ . . 3760 “ 422 4004 — 588 4305 — 587 5508 589 5411 — 586 Chap. L] NOTES TO FIRST INHABITANTS. 17 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. 4.359. 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 corrupted. 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 such 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 w^re 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 were 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 Nimrod and the builders of Babel, during the life-time D 18 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. of the second foiinder of the human race, and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet. “ If Shem lived until the 110th year of Isaac and the 50th year of Jacob, why was not he included in the covenant of circumcision made with Abraham and his family ? — or why is he utterly unnoticed in their history ? “ How could the earth he 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 countries 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 those 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 opportunity 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 synchronized. The system is that of the Bible, and Josephus be- comes the agent through which its uncor- rupted statements may be 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 cases, 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. C) “ 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 Jahn.* 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 (Imilkon 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 * Biblische Archaologie, th. ii., b. 1; Politische Alter- thumer, sect. 4. Wien., 1824 This (the historical) portion of Jahn’s great work on Biblical Antiquities has been translated in America, and reprinted in this country, under the title of “ The History of the Hebrew Commonwealth.” Chap. J.J 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 wliom, 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 Petraea, 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 UR, though we find them, for the most part, on the southern borders of Palestine. (3) « 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- * Hcrodot. i. 2; compare Justin, Frag, xviii. 3; Abulfede, Descript. Syria, p. 5. t Gen. xi. 10 — 26; Pocock, Specimen Hist. Arab., p. 30; Herbelot, Bible Orient., t. i. p. 215; Reland, Palaes. p. 82; Gen. xii. 6, xiii. 7. xxvi. 34, xxviii. 8; Num. xiii. 29; Psa. Ixxxiii.; compare Deut. iii.. Josh. 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 away the lauds of another D 2 20 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. branch, might not have seemed very desirable to him. If the inheritances of Moah and Ammon 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 patriarch. To this we may add that the Abrahamic Midianites settled to the east 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 Petrsea 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 before, 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 from molestation such of the tribes as chose to submit to the Hebrews. Such of them as did not, probably joined the Edomites and Amalekites; 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 top 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. [Bedouin 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 efiPects — 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 account, 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 family, 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 images 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 people. 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 universe 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 sun, " that, with surpassing glory crown’d. Look’d from his 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 bands the interests wbicb they held to be much below his attention, and withdrew 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 with^ 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 which 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 public 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 with a view to the great final objects of its being. Separately from these considerations, the history of this peculiar people cannot well be understood. 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 “Ur 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. C^) 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. The 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 which 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 carefully consider the ABRAHAM. 25 Chap. II.] 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 written 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 accounts 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 but 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 inquiring 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 Jewish 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 with some variations ; but are in substance very ancient, and to this day are articles of firm belief among the Jews, Christians, and Moslems of the East. The word Ur E VOL, I. 26 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. means, in the Hebrew, Fire^ and it is alleged that this last incident in the history of Abram is indicated in that passage of Scripture which tells us that God brought forth Abram from Ur (or the Fire) of the Chaldees. The excellent historian of the Jews, Josephus, could not hut be well acquainted with all the current traditionary legends concerning their renowned forefather : but although belonging to a sect (the Pharisees) which 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 prudential 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 ; but 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 ofiers information which Scripture does not contain. Nothing in it is more remarkable than the complete omission of all mention of Nimrod, who figures so conspicuously in all the Rabbinical and Oriental aecounts of the patriarch, and whose presence would 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, but, 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 unentitled 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. (0 It is seen that all these stories and traditions concur in intimating that Abraham had, in his own country, brought enmity and opposition upon himself, by the open expression of opinions contrary to the corruptions of religion which there prevailed. To the same effect is the old account preserved in the apocryphal book of Judith, where the irritated Holofernes is repre- sented as requiring information concerning the Jewish people from all the neighbouring princes. On this subject the descendants of Lot might be supposed to be better informed than any of the others ; and, accordingly, Achior, “ the captain of all the children of Ammon,” 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, brief as it is, contains some facts not recorded in the Scriptures. 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, whieh 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 would be curious and interesting if we could rely upon it as embodying the traditions of the Ammonites on this subject, seeing that Ammon, their ancestor, was the son of Lot, who was Abram’s nephew, and the companion of his migration from Mesopo- tamia. But, from certain turns of expression, which are not in keeping with the character of * Antiq. 1. i. c. 6. Chap. II.] ABRAHAM. 21 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 interposition 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,(®) 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 own 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 (^) (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. (®) 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 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. 28 [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 country 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 party. Under 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 country be such as to render the precaution necessary, 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 mounted on the other burdens which some of them bear. These are slaves, retainers, and other persons not actively engaged in the conduct of the party, and not of sufficient consequence 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 progress of the flocks, and in correcting the irregularities, 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 liberally in the incessant utterance of loud cries and shouts, reproaches, warnings, and encouragements. The feeble of the flock 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 * The passage is here given as translated by Dr. Hales, more precisely than in our public version. The difference between the first and second calls is pointed out in a note (already referred to) at the end of this chapter. ABRAHAM. 29 Chap. II.] 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. xl. 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, which 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. t There is nothing in 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 unlikely, 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 “bom 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 I 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 would 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 would 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 future heritage of their children. Abram testified his gratitude and adoration by building there an altar unto 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 mystic name on which many have so largely written, and * A valuable geographical intimation this, by the way, show’iug how the name “Chaldee,” and “land of the Chaldeans,” was anciently applied. t Nicol. Damascen. in .Joseph. 1. i. c. 8; and in Euseb. Praepax. 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 Oriental nomades. They h.ave been ably answered by the Abbe Guenee, in his ‘ Lettres de quelques Juifs Portugais, Allemands et Polonais, a M. de Voltaire.’ 30 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. on which not a few deep, or ingenious, or simply absurd, speculations have been 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 he attentively considered. It is observable that we meet with no mention of temples or ecclesiastical structures in this age. The Sahaean idolaters, from among whom it appears that Abram came, did not until a very long subsequent age, worship their gods in temples made with hands, but presented their offerings and sacrifices upon altars erected in the open air. Our information concerning the religious practices of the Canaanites is little more than negative ; hut 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 inhabitants of Egypt, had buildings set apart for religious service. Egypt probably had the first temples : and from history we should infer that the earliest in at least Lower Egypt — which alone is the Egypt of the early Scriptures — was that at Heliopolis ; and, through the measure of progress which has been made in deciphering the sculptured hieroglyphics of the old Egyptian 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 : but before his time, this new branch of learning has not ascertained that any temples existed in Egypt.* It may seem, therefore, that the practice of the patriarchs 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 vouchsafed to manifest his presence to them. And many were the memorials of this kind — altars dedicated to Jehovah — 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 patriarchs 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 — ^unless it be in the singular 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 before 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 priestly, 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 Talmudical inform- ation on this subject is in entire conformity with Scripture. It tells us that before the taber- nacle was erected, private 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 family 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 father’s house — their father not being present with them — then the eldest son was the priest or sacrificer for himself and his brethren. t A pastoral chief has no other alternatives than either to remove frequently to the new pas- tures which his flocks and herds require, or, retaining his household long in one place, to send forth his flocks, under the charge of trusty persons, to distant pastures. The former was the course which Abram took. His next recorded removal was about twenty-four miles from the * See Wilkinson’s ‘ Ancient Egyptians,’ vol. i., chap. 2. This valuable writer, in his historical chapters, furnishes some very important Egyptian dates and facts, which will be useful to us ; but, as in his references to supposed contemporary incidents in Jewish history, he makes use of the common Usherian chronology, which we do not, we shall be obliged to make our own appli- cations and conclusions. In the present instance he necessarily allows no more than an interval of 180 years between Abraham’s visit to Egypt and the reign of Osirtasen I. f Tract. Melikim in Mishna, 14; Bcreshith Rabba, fol. 7i cited in Shuckford, book v. p. 255. ABRAHAM. 31 Chap. II.] 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, hut 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. But 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 furnish a supply of com at the very time when 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 com was experienced in the land of Canaan. So now, Abram, being in the south of the Promised Land, heard that there was com 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 neighbourhood has not much been visited by modern travellers. Kauwolfif (ed. Ray, p. 317) was there, and says that some old ruins of stone are pointed out as marking the spot where Abram pitched his tent. Bethel, which still bore the name of Bethizella, was situated about half a league to the west of this, at the foot of the hill, in a very 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, doubts, 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 appears that Abram did not over-estimate the effect which the beauty of Sarai was likely to produce upon the sensitive Egyptians. The attractions of the fair Mesopotamian stranger were 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 Pharaoh.] 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 which 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 newly-arrived stranger of distinction, rendered this a still stronger act of despotic power than it might other- wise have seemed ; and it was probably 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 Man-Servant.] ' and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid- Chap. II.] ABRAHAM. 33 [Egyptian Maid-Servants.] servants, and she asses and camels.” Some reflection has been made upon the conduct of Abram in accepting these presents ; hut those who are acquainted with the usages of the East know that he dared not refuse them. So Sarai was taken to the house of Pharaoh. (’2) This lamentable result of his weak equivoca- tion did not so far rouse the patriarch’s faith or courage as to make him avow the actual relationship between her and himself. But at this juncture it pleased God to interfere to prevent the evil consequences, which human means could not well have averted, by inflicting on Pharaoh and his house “ great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.” What these plagues were we are not clearly told ; but probably some grievous disease, of such a nature as, joined to some intimation to that effect,* rendered it manifest to him that the infliction was intended to prevent or punish his designs upon the wife of another man. On this, the king sent for Abram, and after rebuking him with some severity for the dissimulation of his conduct, which had placed all parties in a dangerous position, desired him to take his wife and leave the country, at the same time giving orders to his people to facilitate his departure. Seeing that the early condition of Egypt is a subject of great historical interest in itself, as well as from the early connection of the Hebrews with that country, the visit of Abram to it awakens our curiosity, and makes us studious to collect all the information which the account of that visit furnishes or indicates. The facts are few compared with those which transpire at a subsequent date ; but these few are valuable. We observe, in the first place, that this visit of Abram settles the question whether this, the lower part of Egypt, was then dry.f It was dry, and inhabited by an industrious agricultural population, who extracted from the soil so much more food than sufficed for their own subsist- ence, that, as previously noted, the country had already become the asylum of those who were oppressed by famine in other countries. The impression which the account of the transactions in which Abram was engaged in Egypt affords, is very different from that which we receive from the account of his dealings with the petty sovereigns and states of Canaan. With them, Abram and the other patriarchs treat very much as with equals — as in the instances of the kings of Siddim, the king of Gerar, and “ the children of Heth,” not to mention the comparatively late instance of the affair between Jacob’s family and the prince and people of Shechem. In all these cases the patriarchs are treated with deference and respect ; and give free utterance to their sentiments, even those likely to be most unpalatable. But before Pharaoh, Abram, when reproved by him, answers not a word ; and * Josephus says that the intimation came from the priests or diviners whom the king consulted ; and that the infliction consisted of a sedition as well as of a bodily disease. But most commentators, having regard to the similar aflair with Abimelech, suppose that Pharaoh received this intimation in a dream or vision. t Scripture furnishes another and most conclusive fact on this question, by informing us that Zoan, or Tanis, in Lower Egypt, was a city so proverbially ancient, that Moses indicates the antiquity of Hebron by telling us that it was built seven years beiore Zoan in Egypt. (Num. xiii. 22.) Now Hebron existed when Abram arrived in Canaan, and we do not know that its date was tlien recent. VOL. I. F 34 HISTORY OF PALESTINE. [Book I. if the royal gifts which he received from the king of Egypt testified the consideration to which the foreign emir was entitled, it was the consideration of a superior to one whom he wished to benefit. We direct attention the rather to this circumstance, as Abram had a feeling in the matter of presents which led him, on every other occasion with which we are acquainted, to decline those which were offered to him ; for which, on one of those occasions, he assigns to the king of Sodom the dignified reason, — “ I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, ‘ I have made Abram rich.’ ” In short, the idea which we derive from the account of this remarkable affair, is that Lower Egypt was even then a great and flourishing kingdom, ruled by a powerful and magnificent monarch, invested with many of the characteristics by which an Oriental despotism has in all ages been distinguished, and surrounded by courtiers, who made it their prime object to minister to his tastes and passions. It will also be noted that this monarch was thus early distinguished by the title of Phrah, or, as we spell it. Pharaoh, which in all subsequent ages was borne by the native sovereigns of Egypt, and which is the Egyptian name for the sun, applied by way of eminence to him whom his subjects regarded as the chief of men.* * * § It may, moreover, not be unimportant to observe that slavery existed at this time in Egypt, as it did also in other countries. This is shown by Pharaoh’s gift — men-slaves and women-slaves — to Abram ; and if, as might be suggested, a foreign dynasty ruled then in Egypt, it is not impossible that at least some of these slaves may have been native Egyptians. Hagar “the bondwoman,” of whom we shall presently read, was probably one of these women-slaves ; and she is called an “ Egyptian.” It would be a valuable piece of information to know what king or dynasty reigned in Egypt at the time of Abram’s visit. -But the sacred narrative does not mention any king of Egypt by his proper name till after the time of Solomon ; and the Egyptian chronology at, and for some time after, this early date is still involved in much uncertainty and confusion, not- withstanding the light which has been thrown on the general subject by the progress made in deciphering the hieroglyphic inscriptions. But all the information from this source which has lately transpired, or with which further inquiry has made us acquainted, tends greatly to con- firm the view of the matter which we have had occasion to state in another place. t One of the best established facts in the very early history of Egypt is, that its lower country was for a long series of years (260) under the dominion of a race of pastoral nomades, while the upper country continued subject to the native sovereigns. This great fact has abundance of incidental confirmation, although many particulars which it might be most desirable to know remain in obscurity, and among these is the date at which the pastoral dominion in Egypt commenced or terminated. In the work to which we have referred, we have shown the strong- probability that it had been put an end to before the time of Joseph; and in confirmation of this we may now adduce the testimony of Mr. Wilkinson, who, from the state of the earliest monuments, and from the information which they afford, conceives that the irruption of the pastors was anterior to the erection of any building now extant in Egypt, and long before the accession of the I7th dynasty, J that is, in the earlier periods of Egyptian history, previous to the era of Osirtasen 1. The monuments of that monarch satisfactorily prove that in his reign and that of his second successor, the Egyptians had already extended their conquests over some of the tribes of Asia, and were consequently free from any enemies within their own valley. § This writer also suggests, as a question, whether the dominion of the shepherd-kings, as they are called, in Egypt, may not have been overthrown by this Osirtasen. Now this king was, as Mr. Wilkinson conceives, coeval with Joseph, and must, at least, have been nearly so ; and * " 1 hiive frequently had oeciisimi to notice the true meaning and purport of this name. I shall therefore only observe, that it is written in Hebrew, Phrah, and is taken from the; Egyptian word Pire, or Phre (pronounced Phr.a), signifying the sun, and represented in hieroglyphics by the hawk and globe, or sun, over the royal banners. It w