and son. full.

This mythic story has been already discussed in

The two lovely incidents of the burial of Sarah, and the courtship of Rebekah for "Isaac" by "Eliezer of Damascus," Avram's steward, now follow. Nothing can surpass the pastoral charm of the latter idyl. The picture, (particularly,) of Isaac going out into the fields to meditate at eventide, and of the lofty necks of the camels, the tall "ships" of the waste, appearing in the dun light of the desert horizon, as they bring the fair Rebekah to his home, is matchless in beauty.

On the abode of Ishmael's descendants, "from Havilah unto Shur," (chap. xxv., 18,) it may be remarked, that the confining of the term "Ishmaelites" to the Arabians proper has led to (what appears to be) the error of some critics in placing "Havilah" on the east extremity of Arabia. Here it would not answer the condition, - fixed in chap. ii.,that Pison or the Indus "compasseth the whole land of Havilah." I conclude, therefore, that "Havilah" was the sea-coast west of the Indus, and separated only by it from Ophir or Abhîra.'

"From Havilah unto Shur "would thus cover all the lands on the Persian Gulf, and in North-Arabia, beginning from the Indus, and extending south of Euphrates across the desert to Syria, (Shur). The early (Cushite) Ishmaelites must have been a very different race from the present Arabs, possessing, as they did, "towns" and "castles," (v. 16). Many and grand remains of these forgotten cities still exist in the North-Arabian desert, where the Cushite Ishmaelites dwelt.

CHAPTER X.

LEGEND OF YAHAKOBH AND HIS SONS. — YOSEPH, AND HEBREW IMMIGRATION INTO EGYPT.

WHILE yielding to no one in earnest admiration for the early effort of the human mind to grapple with the problem of its own origin and destiny, which is recorded for all time in the Hebrew Scriptures, nor in reverent acknowledgment of the great truth, evolved in that struggle and also recorded in those writings, of the unity of Deity, it would ill become me to hesitate to express, (as I have done,) the manifest truth with regard to the book of "Genesis" in particular, that it is a collection of extremely antique Hebrew "folk-lore," legends, poems, and fables, — some, perhaps, original with that people, more, derivative, compiled, with considerable additions of their own, by authors of the age of David and Solomon, in the "school of the prophets," with the praiseworthy design of advancing the cause of monotheistic religion. Out of the materials at their hands, they have pieced together what purports to be, and what they, doubtless, themselves believed to be, a veritable history of their people during the time previous to the Egyptian captivity. This "history," however, when critically examined, turns out to contain, as reliable matter, only a general outline of the wanderings of the race before their residence in Egypt. All particulars of individual heroes and their acts, must on historico-critical rules, be consigned to the department of fable.

Believing thus, there is no want of the reverence, with which I have insisted we should approach the records of Hebraism, in the treatment of their legends as legends ; —

some of them imbued with lofty poetic and religious feeling, and embodied in language of an inexpressibly charming and noble simplicity; others, on the contrary, painfully in contrast with the former, and exhibiting the dark and rude side of early Hebrew character.

I

The story of Yahakobh or Yisrael, from whom the people are said to have taken their second name of "Israelites," and who may be considered the typical Hebrew hero, is one of those which exhibit this dark side of character. There must have been a grievous defect in the moral rectitude of a race which could invent for their name-hero such a legend as that contained in chap. xxvii., where Yahakobh, with the assistance of his mother, betrays his absent brother, swindles his dying father, and takes the name of his God Yahvè to witness to his lies. Upon all this treachery the approving smile of Yahvè is abundantly bestowed.

The insidious character attributed to Yahakobh, is made to appear even in the story of his birth; (chap. xxv. 25– 34). The birth of the red and hairy "Esau," and his being so closely followed by his brother the "supplanter," Yahakobh, ("Jacob,") is by some critics, thought to be founded on a myth of the sun, supplanted by the evening twilight his brother. However this be, there can be little doubt that the story of the younger brother's artifice for "supplanting" the rightful heir in his birthright, is a folklegend, woven about the historical fact of the abandonment to the Israelites by the Idumæans, of much of their ancient territory. The second name of Yahakobh,-Yisrael or "Israel," is that of a Phoenician divinity who was equivalent to Hea or Kronos, and who presided over time, darkness, death, and the "abyss," the original also of the Arabian "Azrael." 3 This fact seems to support the theory of the sun-myth origin of the birth-story.

I These remarks are expressly confined to the early semi-barbarous Hebrews. 2 Goldziher, Steinthal, etc.

3 Κρόνος τοίνυν, όν οι Φοίνικες Ισραέλ προσαγορεύουσι ; (Sanchoniathon in Eusebius, Viger's ed., 40.) This Phoenician god Isra-el was, it would seem, a form or manifesta

The frequent repetition of certain favorite incidents in these early Hebrew stories is very noticeable. Thus almost all the chief heroes are said to have been born of superannuated mothers, already long past the usual age of child-bearing. This seems to have been a feature particularly striking to the early Hebrew mind. The rapid increase of the children, and of the flocks and herds, of those protected by the Deity, is another favorite incident,

naturally so to a pastoral people. Again, the unpleasant and pointless story, as it seems to us, of the man who tells lies about his wife at a foreign court, falsely representing her, through cowardice, as his sister, and allowing her to be taken into the royal harem, and who nevertheless largely profits, by this mean conduct, from the sensitive. conscientiousness of the king, seems to have been one well adapted to the character of the early Hebrews, as it is three times repeated, the hero of the first two repetitions being Av-ram or Av-rahham, and of the third, Yitschak, (chap. xxvi.). (In the latter, the king is again "Abimelech.") Another favorite incident, connected with child-bearing, is the supposed struggling together of two unborn twins for the mastery and the privileges of firstbirth. To modern knowledge of the mechanical or invol untary character of "quickening," and other movements of the foetus, such a fable seems ridiculous, yet it was a very natural one to arise among a primitive people from their untaught observation of gestation. The "struggle" between the unborn children of Yitschak is repeated in the case of two of his great-grandchildren, (see tale of

tion of law, Ia, Ya, or Yao, the heaven-father, with the attributes however, of "la, Hea or Kronos the Chaldæan god of time and of "the abyss." Isra, if connected, as is probable, with isrun (Heb.,) “ upright," should, with el, signify "the erect god." or the "upright god." Compare the meanings of As-r, (Assur,) Asher the early god and the son of Yahakobh, (Ashera, fem.,)" the upright," "lofty," or "erect," "the manly" or "virile; " also the text ehye asher ehye, and the significance of the stone set up by Yahakobh-isra-el.

The introduction of this name Israel or rather Yisrael, like that of the divine name Yah, Yahvè or Y'hovah, marks the intimacy with Phoenicia in David's and in Solomon's reign, the period of the composition of Genesis.

the twin sons of Yehudah, xxxviii. 28-30). In the former case, as has been remarked, the "supplanting" of his brother by Yahakobh was probably an allegory of the supplanting of the Edomites by the Israelites. The latter case has no such special significance, and is, therefore, to be considered as, at first, merely an early story-teller's repetition of a stock incident which was a favorite with his pastoral auditory.

In the poem of "Jacob's dream," chap. xxviii., — the "pillar" which Yahakobh sets up, and on the top of which he pours oil, was unquestionably a "Phallic pillar," the emblem of the reproductive power in nature, worshipped throughout Syria, on the top of which pillars it was customary to pour libations and oil. The appropriateness of this emblem may be fully understood if it is considered. that the special promise made by Yahvè in the dream was that of an immense multiplication of the offspring of Yahakobh; "thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth," etc. Yahakobh, in his vow, with characteristic liberality, promises to "give" to Yahvè "the tenth" "of all that thou shalt give me!" and furthermore that if Yahvè shall keep his promises, "then shall Yahvè be my elohim." This tenth of his own gifts Yahvé has always been content to enjoy through the intermediation of priests!

In chap. xxix. follows the charming idyl of Yahakobh's courtship and double marriage. The story of the naming of his children is evidently an invention of the compiler, to account for the names of the several Hebrew tribes. Chap. xxx., 1-24, continues the same fanciful etymology of tribe-names. The story (vv. 32-43, chap. xxxi. 1–13,) of Yahakobh's succeeding in breeding cattle of particular colors by an artifice of his own, (thus "jockeying" his father-in-law,) and then giving the credit of this success, not to his own device, but to an alleged miracle, wrought by Yahvè in his favor, is another amusing illustration of the duplicity and meanness of early Hebrew character. Polytheistic idolatry must be supposed to have prevailed