latter to be historical personages) ; for there are many examples where
races, have preserved their types for a much longer time ; and the
Jews themselves, as we shall show, have maintained their own type,
from the epoch assigned to Ahraham, down to the present day. The
„ era of Ahraham has. been variously estimated, from 1500 even to
2200 years b . c. ; which would give to his descendants at least one
hundred generations, according to the common rules of vital statistics.
It should he kept in view that we are here treating the Book of
Genesis according to the vulgar understanding of its language, In
P ar t II., and in the S u p p l em e n t , it is shown that a far different construction
has been adopted by the best scholars of the day ; who
regard, the so-called ancestors of Ahraham as geographical names of
nations, and not as individuals.
The inadequacy of King James’s Version to express literally the
meaning of Hebrew writers, compels us to follow the Bible of C a h e n ,
Director -of.the Israelite School of Paris, and one of the ablest translators
of the .day. This work, printed under the patronage of Lotris-
P h il i p p e , commenced in 1831, and completed its twenty-two
volumes in 1848: “La Bible, Traduction Nouvelle, avec l’Hëbreu
en regard; accompagné des points-voyelles et des accens-toniques, avec
des notes philologiques, géographiques et littéraires; et les variantes
des Septante et du texte Samaritain." There is nothing like it
in the English language ; nor shall we discuss Old Testament questions
with those who are unacquainted with Ca h e n and the Hebrew
Text. Keither must the reader infer, from our general conformity with
, the ordinary mode of expression, that we regard the documents of
Genesis otherwise than from the scientific point of view.
The country of Abraham’s birth was Upper Mesopotamia, between
the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates, not very far from the site of
Mineveh ; and, after his marriage with Sarai, his history thus continues
:—
“ And Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his
daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife ; and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldees
[AUR-KaSDIM], to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran and
dwelt there, and the days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.
“ Now IeHOuaH said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country and from thy birth-place and
from thy father’s house, unto a land which I will show thee. And I will make of thee a
great nation, and I will bless thee, and I will aggrandize thy name, and thou shalt be a
blessing.” 64
Accordingly, Abrabam and Lot, with their families and their flocks,
journeyed on, “ and in the land of Canaan they arrived.” “ And
IeHOuaH appeared unto Abram and said, Unto thy seed will I give
this land.”
They were soon driven to Egypt, by a grievous famine, to beg corn
of the Pharaoh who then ruled over that country ; but, after a short
sojourn there, they returned to the Promised Land, and pitched their
tents again on the very spot from which they had been taken. And
the Canaanite and the Perizzite then dwelled in the land.”
Abram and Lot soon separated; and “Abram struck his tents, and
came, and established himself in the grove of Mamre, which is near
Khebron, and there he built an altar to IeHOuaH.” In his eighty-
sixth year of age, Abram’s Egyptian concubine H agar (whose name
means désert, stone) gave birth to I sh m a e l ; who, launched into Arabian
deserts, became the legendary parent of Bedouin tribes ; while,
to us, hé is the earliest Biblical instance of the mixture of two types
— Semitic and Egyptian.
Then the patriarch’s name was changed : “ Thou shalt no longer
be called ABRaM (father of high-\and) ; thy name shall be ABRaHaM
{father of a multitude), because I have rendered thee parent of many
nations.”w _
S a r a h , at ninety years of age, gave birth to I saac, ITsKaaK,
“ laughter.” Her own name, also, had previously been changed:
“ Thou shalt no longer call her SaRal [ladyship], her name is now
SaRaH [a woman of great fe c u n d ityY 66 She died at the age of one
hundred and twenty-seven years, and was buried in the family cave,
which Abram had purchased in Canaan. Wishing then to dispose
of his son Isaac in marriage, Abraham said to his most aged slave, “ I
will make thee swear by IeHOuaH, God of the skies anti God of the
earth, that thou shalt not take/or my son of the daughters of the Canaanite
[nether-landers] amongst whom I dwell, but thou shalt go
into my country, and to my birth-place, to take a woman for my son
Isaac.”®7 And, accordingly, the slave went back into Mesopotamia,
unto the city of Uahor, and brought Rebecca, the cousin of Isaac,
whom the latter married.
The next link in the genealogy is Jacob ; who, after defrauding his
brother Esau of his birthright, retired, from prudential motives, into
the land of his forefathers, and there married Leah and Rachel, the
two daughters of Laban. Isaac lived to be one hundred and eighty,
and Jacob one hundred and forty-seven years old; and they were
both deposited in the family cave, or mausoleum. So tenacious were
they of their customs, that Jacob, after being embalmed with great
ceremony, was carried all the way back from Egypt, as was afterwards
his son Joseph, to repose in the same family burial-place ; which,
oùr Supplement shows, is not a cave called “ Machpelah,” but “ the
cavern of the field contracted for, facing Mamre.”
Here closes the history of those generations which preceded the
departure of the Israelites for Egypt ; and the evidence is clear, up to
15