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 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL
 
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 THE 
 
 MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 The Ancient Book of Genesis 
 
 WITH 
 
 ANALYSIS AND EXPLANATION OF ITS COMPOSITION 
 
 BY 
 AMOS KIDDER FISKE 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES," ETC., ETC. 
 
 Nciu ffotfe 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
 
 1897 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 Copyright, 1897, 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 C » I 
 
 
 TCortoooH IprfBS 
 
 J. S. Cusliing & Co. - Berwick & Smith 
 Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Modern critical research into the sources and 
 character of the ancient scriptures of the Hebrews 
 leaves no reasonable doubt that the Book of Gen- 
 esis, which was used as an introduction to the 
 old Jewish law, is a composite production made 
 up largely of myths and fragments of myths em- 
 bodying the conceptions of the earliest writers of 
 Israel, regarding the relations of that people to 
 their deity. Study of it in this aspect gives it 
 a new interest and significance, while persist- 
 ence in the old view of its origin and meaning 
 is in danger of sinking it from reverence to de- 
 rision. 
 
 This would be a calamity, because no more re- 
 markable production of ancient genius has been 
 preserved to us, and we may well be grateful for 
 the devoutness, even the superstition, which has 
 kept it through the ages from being buried in 
 the special " sacred writings " of a particular race 
 and a " peculiar " faith. So preserved and made 
 
 V 
 
 41 7°30
 
 VI PREFACE 
 
 widely familiar, by the gloss and glamour of a sanc- 
 tity which concealed or perverted its real mean- 
 ing, it now becomes of extreme interest to the 
 sane student of human development, not only be- 
 cause it contains the early notions of a remark- 
 able race concerning its own origin and destiny, 
 but because within it were planted the first germs 
 of religious conceptions which have grown and 
 expanded through human history and become one 
 of the powerful factors in the gradual elevation of 
 mankind. 
 
 The moral tone which pervades the Book of 
 Genesis is not high, and the ethical conceptions 
 of the writers were far from exalted ; their ideas 
 of divinity and its working were crude, but, con- 
 sidering the time of the production, the height 
 attained was lofty and luminous amid a vast ex- 
 panse of moral and religious gloom. The great 
 founders of the Jewish faith laid hold upon the 
 eternal principle of "righteousness" in human 
 conduct and of submission to divine law, so far 
 as it is revealed to human intelligence, and sought 
 to give it a potent sanction in the story of their 
 people. 
 
 The story is mythical, the product of imagina- 
 tion and race pride, but in the compact with Abra- 
 ham and the promise to Jacob was the anchorage
 
 PREFACE Vli 
 
 of a mighty cord upon which hung the law and 
 the prophets, and to which was appended the 
 gospel of love and peace. Surely it is worthy of 
 study in all the candor of broad enlightenment, 
 and such a study the present writer has endeav- 
 ored to give it, hoping to lead others who love 
 light rather than darkness to study it in the same 
 spirit. 
 
 The text used in this volume is in the main 
 that of the English translation which has been 
 so long familiar, but the two principal versions 
 have been collated with renderings by learned 
 Hebraists, in other languages as well as in Eng- 
 lish, and liberties have been taken here and there 
 where the real meaning could be made clearer, 
 while some obsolete words and phrases have been 
 superseded, as no special sacredness attaches to 
 the phraseology of King James's time. But an 
 effort has been made not to mar the diction, which 
 has become in a sense consecrated by long famil- 
 iarity. The old division of chapter and verse, 
 which is largely arbitrary, has been discarded, 
 and a division according to subject has been 
 adopted, without disturbing the traditional ar- 
 rangement of matter. 
 
 For the sake of a readier understanding, the 
 comments and explanations have been interspersed
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 in the form of introductions to the several pas- 
 sages, under new headings. It is the hope of the 
 writer that his labor may contribute to a revival 
 of the study of the oldest of "sacred literature," 
 more intelligent and not less truly devout than 
 that which so long prevailed but which seems to 
 have been dying out because it did not sufficiently 
 appeal to the " common mind " in an age of in- 
 creasing enlightenment. 
 
 A. K. F. 
 New York, April, 1897.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Modern Light on Ancient Scriptures . 
 
 Material and Composition of the Book of Genesis; 
 
 I. Earliest Writings of the Hebrews 
 
 II. Stories of the Patriarchs 
 
 III. Putative Ancestors of Tribes 
 
 IV. Origin of the Written Tales 
 V. The First "Sacred History" 
 
 VI. The Judean Version . 
 VII. Blending the Two Versions 
 VIII. Evidences of Late Origin . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 3 
 
 J 7 
 19 
 23 
 2 7 
 3i 
 34 
 37 
 39 
 
 The Tales And Myths: 
 
 I. The Elohist Account of the Creation 
 
 II. The Jehovist Story of the First Family 
 
 III. The Antediluvian Generations . 
 
 IV. The Mixed Account of the Flood 
 V. Post-diluvian Generations . 
 
 VI. Abraham takes Possession of the Land 
 
 VII. Abraham as a Warlike Chief 
 
 VIII. First Account of the Covenant . 
 
 IX. First Story of Hagar and Ishmael 
 
 X. The Elohist Account of the Covenant 
 
 XL Another Version of the Promise of Isaac 
 
 XII. The Cities of the Plain and the Family of Lot 
 
 XIII. Abraham and Abimelech .... 
 
 47 
 54 
 67 
 
 7i 
 
 84 
 
 93 
 100 
 106 
 no 
 114 
 120 
 123 
 133
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 XIV. Second Story of Ilagar and her Son 
 
 XV. Compact between Abraham and Abimelech 
 
 XVI. The Story of offering Isaac 
 
 XVII. The Sacred Burial Place . 
 
 XVIII. The Story of Rebekah 
 
 XIX. Varied Progeny of Abraham 
 
 XX. Isaac and Abimelech . 
 
 XXI. The Twin Peoples 
 
 XXII. Jacob's Journey to Syria . 
 
 XXIII. Jacob's Double Marriage . 
 
 XXIV. The Birth of Jacob's Sons. 
 XXV. Jacob and Laban — Israel and Syria 
 
 XXVI. The Division and Treaty . 
 
 XXVII. Jacob and Esau — Israel and Edom 
 
 XXVIII. At Shechem — The Story of Dinah 
 
 XXIX. Bethel and after 
 
 XXX. Edomite Ethnography 
 
 XXXI. Joseph and his Brethren . 
 
 XXXII. Judah and his Family 
 
 XXXIII. Joseph a Slave and in Prison . 
 
 XXXIV. Joseph's Elevation to Power 
 XXXV. Joseph's Brothers seek Relief in Egypt 
 
 XXXVI. The Second Journey to Egypt . 
 
 XXXVII. Jacob's Migration 
 
 XXXVIII. Settled in Egypt 
 
 XXXIX. Strange Results of Famine 
 
 XL. Adoption of the Tribes of Joseph 
 
 XLI. Poetical Description of the Tribes 
 
 XLII. The Burial of Jacob . 
 
 XLIIL The End of Joseph . 
 
 The Unknown Homer of hie Hebrews .
 
 MODERN LIGHT ON ANCIENT 
 SCRIPTURES
 
 MODERN LIGHT ON ANCIENT 
 SCRIPTURES 
 
 It is more than two hundred years since Rich- 
 ard Simon, the greatest Oriental scholar of his 
 time, in his " Histoire Critique du Vieux Testa- 
 ment," presented the conclusion to which his 
 study had led him, that the so-called " Books of 
 Moses " were put together by the Scribes of the 
 time of Ezra, making free use of older material. 
 He was assailed by the whole Christian world with 
 such a storm of denunciation, that though he 
 defended his position valiantly, and with a wealth 
 of learning and argument to which his assailants 
 were deaf, he was so overwhelmed with sheer 
 abuse that scholarship was practically silenced on 
 the subject for a century. Though silenced, it 
 did not cease its explorations. 
 
 Among its discoveries was a certain difference 
 in what was palpably the oldest material of the 
 Pentateuch in the use of the name of the deity. 
 There was nothing new in the observation that 
 this name was sometimes Elohim and sometimes 
 
 3
 
 4 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Jehovah (Yahweh), but it was found that other 
 marked differences characterized the material in 
 which these terms were severally used in the Book 
 of Genesis and the first chapters of Exodus. The 
 first to set forth these differences in a critical way, 
 and to analyze the material with a view to a clear 
 separation of the component parts, was Dr. Jean 
 Astruc, in the middle of the last century. But 
 such a study of scripture was still so severely 
 discountenanced as to give encouragement rather 
 to the sneering cynicism of Voltaire, than to the 
 conscientious study of devout scholars. 
 
 It was not until De Wette began to present the 
 results of his study early in the present century in 
 Germany, that real learning and thought upon 
 this most interesting subject gained sufficient 
 hearing to enter upon the career of conquest 
 which the close of the century is likely to accept 
 as a complete triumph. The two greatest workers 
 in the field for a long time were Ewald at Tu- 
 bingen and Reuss at Strasburg. Ewald not only 
 had a vast command of Semitic and Oriental lore, 
 but he shrank from no conclusion to which know- 
 ledge and reason led him, and he had the courage 
 to state and to defend any position at which he 
 arrived. A great deal still depended upon infer- 
 ence from incomplete data, and upon conjectures
 
 LIGHT ON ANCIENT SCRIPTURES 5 
 
 supported by uncertain indications, and much of 
 what Ewald put forth was subject to later cor- 
 rection. 
 
 The next great advance was made when Abra- 
 ham Kuenen of Leyden began the publication in 
 1 86 1 of his history of the origin of the Old Testa- 
 ment books. Other learned scholars were working 
 simultaneously in the same field in Germany and 
 France, notably Noldeke, Schrader, Graf, Kayser, 
 and Reuss, all tending to the same goal. Kuenen 
 in his later work, the " History of the Religion of 
 Israel," benefited by the results of their labor, and 
 modified some of his earlier conclusions. Pro- 
 fessor Edouard Reuss of Strasburg, a Protestant 
 theologian, in his monumental work, " La Bible, 
 Traduction Nouvelle avec Introductions et Com- 
 mentaires," — the result of fifty years devoted to 
 study and labor in this field, — candidly accepted 
 the results of research and of honest reasoning 
 and presented them without reserve. Dillman in 
 his laborious commentaries, though conservative 
 in spirit, and cautious in exegesis, accepted the 
 main facts as to the composition of Genesis and 
 other ancient books without dispute. Francois 
 Lenormant, the French archaeologist, author of 
 "The Beginnings of History," versed as no other 
 man of the present generation has been, perhaps,
 
 6 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 in Chaldean, Syrian, Egyptian, Phoenician, and 
 Hebrew antiquities, and a devout Catholic in his 
 faith, published a translation of " Genesis " in 
 1883, not only recognizing the composite char- 
 acter of the book, but presenting its component 
 parts distinguished by differences of type. 
 
 Finally, the late Ernest Renan, in his " Histoire 
 du Peuple d'Israel," — the crowning work of a 
 lifetime devoted to Semitic learning and to the 
 study of the sources of Judaism and Christianity, 
 — having the advantage of all that had been 
 achieved by his forerunners and contemporaries, 
 and applying to his task the powers of a mind of 
 remarkable lucidity and vigor, adopted the con- 
 clusions as to the time and manner of the produc- 
 tion of the literature of the Old Testament with 
 the same confidence with which the author of a 
 new history of the people of Ancient Greece 
 would accept the established conclusions of schol- 
 ars regarding the origin of the early literature of 
 that people. That is practically the attitude on 
 this subject of the present generation of learned 
 theologians and special Biblical scholars on the 
 continent of Europe, of whom the most conspicu- 
 ous representatives are Julius Wellhausen and 
 Bernhardt Stade. 
 
 It was after the results of the research and
 
 LIGHT ON ANCIENT SCRIPTURES / 
 
 critical acumen of Ewald had become familiar, 
 and the riper fruits of the studies of Reuss, Kue- 
 nen, and Graf had begun to appear, that Bishop 
 Colenso, in the comparative isolation of South 
 Africa, gave evidence that at least one learned 
 English mind, and that within the pale of the 
 church, was open to the truth on this subject 
 and possessed the candor of its scholarship and 
 the courage of its convictions. But so little pre- 
 pared was the English mind in general and the 
 sentiment of the English Church in particular, 
 thirty years ago, for an appreciation of such work, 
 that Colenso encountered treatment which was 
 little short of persecution, and which would have 
 embittered the life of a prelate of less patient 
 and serene a spirit ; but his work on " The Pen- 
 tateuch and the Book of Joshua " has conquered 
 its place in the literature of this subject, and is 
 now acknowledged to be "a monument of sound 
 learning, unwearied industry, and of keen critical 
 insight." 
 
 The excitement caused by Colenso's writings 
 had scarcely subsided in ecclesiastical circles 
 when Professor William Robertson Smith's con- 
 tributions to the Encyclopaedia Britannica on 
 various Biblical subjects, kindled another, though 
 of much less violence. It was sufficient in the
 
 8 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Presbyterian Church of Scotland to cause his 
 deposition from the professorship of Hebrew at 
 Aberdeen by the General Assembly, but the time 
 had gone by for intolerance toward a scholarship 
 which merely insisted upon telling the truth, and 
 the result for Professor Smith was virtual pro- 
 motion, for his learning and high character won 
 him a place of honor in the teaching body of 
 one of the great universities of England. 
 
 This country has been singularly slow, not 
 merely in accepting the fruits of investigation 
 into the origin of the Jewish Scriptures, but even 
 in acquiring knowledge of them, and sentiment 
 on the subject seems to be backward and un- 
 formed, rather than actually hostile, save perhaps 
 in ecclesiastical precincts where traditional views 
 are still tenaciously held. One theologian and 
 scholar within the pale of an orthodox denomi- 
 nation who has candidly and fearlessly taught 
 what he has learned has been rewarded with 
 trials for heresy and efforts to depose him from 
 the Seminary which he has persisted in enlighten- 
 ing, but there have been many evidences that 
 public sympathy even in the Church is largely on 
 his side. Nevertheless, few clergymen venture to 
 tell the truth as many of them know or believe 
 it, because of the unpleasant if not damaging
 
 LIGHT ON ANCIENT SCRIPTURES 9 
 
 consequences which it is likely to bring upon 
 them. 
 
 It had long seemed to the present writer that 
 it would be an acceptable service for some one 
 in this country who was under no restraint of 
 authority and no prescribed obligations, but ac- 
 countable only to his own intelligence and con- 
 science, to set forth for the common understand- 
 ing - the view of the Old Testament which modern 
 knowledge justifies. He has thought it an ad- 
 vantage that this should be done by one who 
 was not only free from theological preposses- 
 sions, but whose working life had not been ab- 
 sorbed in the special study which is liable to 
 narrow the view and impair the sense of pro- 
 portion. It would be a rare gift if one who had 
 devoted years to close research and a profound 
 study of details should be able to present the 
 broad general results attractively to the unlearned 
 reader. In short, the present writer had the pre- 
 sumption to consider himself particularly qualified 
 to do just what he thought ought to be done 
 and what he has attempted to do in his little 
 work upon "The Jewish Scriptures." 
 
 Now he undertakes, perhaps with still greater 
 presumption, to present one example of the an- 
 cient Hebrew books, so analyzed and examined
 
 10 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 as to demonstrate the manner of its production, 
 and, as it seems to him, convincingly to justify 
 the general view which he has taken of the 
 whole collection. Among the conclusions which 
 he takes as established beyond further dispute 
 are these : The first six books of the Old Tes- 
 tament — the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua, or 
 the Hexateuch — which embody the ancient cove- 
 nants and the Jewish law, were put into their 
 present form after the return from the exile in 
 Babylon, when the Levitical system of the sec- 
 ond temple was developed. The code which 
 constitutes the bulk of the Book of Leviticus, 
 but parts of which are reiterated in the last 
 chapters of Exodus and scattered through Num- 
 bers and Joshua, was then formulated, and 
 woven somewhat crudely into the old narratives 
 of the early history of the people, which were 
 modified and adapted for the purpose, especially 
 the last sixteen chapters of Exodus and consid- 
 erable passages in Numbers. The Book of Deu- 
 teronomy, which was included in the " Torah," 
 contained the statement of the law, which was 
 put in form in the time of Josiah's reforms, and 
 which the High Priest, Hilkiah, pretended to 
 have found in the temple. The old primitive 
 or " Sacred " history of the people was used as
 
 LIGHT ON ANCIENT SCRIPTURES 1 1 
 
 the framework of narrative for the entire system 
 of prescriptions and requirements, and of laws 
 and ordinances for restored Judaism, which it 
 was the special purpose of the priests and 
 Scribes to consecrate. This Sacred History had 
 been compiled in the time of Hezekiah, after 
 the fall of Samaria, and near the end of the 
 eighth century B.C., mainly from two older ver- 
 sions, one of which had been produced in the 
 Northern Kingdom, and the other at Jerusalem, 
 from half a century to a century before. This 
 material constitutes the bulk of the Book of 
 Genesis and the first part of Exodus, and is 
 traceable in fragments through the other books. 
 In regard to the matters dealt with in the 
 present volume, there is now little dispute among 
 candid scholars, so far as the main facts are 
 concerned. The chief differences ,of opinion, 
 even among theologians of real learning, relate 
 to what they call the "divine element" working 
 through human means and agencies toward an 
 ultimate result. The present writer has no dis- 
 pute with those who contend for this " divine ele- 
 ment," and who indulge in controversies as to its 
 extent and potency. He acknowledges a divine 
 element in all humanity, a divine energy work- 
 ing in all human history, as it wrought in the
 
 12 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 development of the physical universe before 
 human history began. He has no doubt of a 
 divine power in the mighty ethical and religious 
 development of the ancient Hebrews, in the 
 beautiful aesthetic development of the ancient 
 Greeks, in the development of the capacity for 
 organization and government in the ancient 
 Romans, and in the combination and inter-working 
 of these factors under the blending influence of 
 Christianity in modern civilization. 
 
 Equally divine to his mind is the extension of 
 knowledge through science, research, reasoning, 
 and philosophy in these latter times, correcting the 
 errors of the past, and clearing the eternal verities 
 from the incrustations of ignorance and super- 
 stition. It is no less a sacred duty to accept 
 the truth as it is revealed now, than to accept 
 so much 06 it as may have been contained in 
 what was "said by them of old time." "The 
 eternal years of God " are on the side of truth, 
 and time was never so old and so laden with wis- 
 dom as it is to-day. Divine revelation has not 
 been confined to one age or one people, and it 
 never employed human elements and human 
 agencies with more effect than at present. 
 
 In analyzing and explaining the Book of Gene- 
 sis the writer has pursued the same method in
 
 LIGHT ON ANCIENT SCRIPTURES 13 
 
 detail which he followed in a broad general way 
 in dealing with the whole Old Testament collec- 
 tion. He has studied the work of others with a 
 view to enlightening himself, and then he has 
 studied the production in hand by the light which 
 he has gained. He has not summarized what 
 others have said or discussed their conclusions, 
 and he has felt entirely free to think for himself 
 and present the views which he has reached. 
 The one claim he makes is that of sincerity of 
 purpose and a desire to serve the cause of truth, 
 which is everlasting and always divine.
 
 MATERIAL AND COMPOSITION 
 OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS
 
 EARLIEST WRITINGS OF THE HEBREWS 
 
 It is a matter of inference from a variety of 
 indications how early in the history of the an- 
 cient Hebrews writing came into use among them. 
 Their language was substantially the same as 
 that of the other Semitic peoples about them, 
 including the Canaanite tribes which they had 
 subjugated, and which were akin to them in ori- 
 gin, and their alphabet was derived from their 
 neighbors on the northwest, the Phoenicians. It 
 must have been late in the period of the "Judges," 
 from eleven to twelve centuries before the Chris- 
 tian era, and two or three centuries, at least, after 
 the invasion of the country of the Canaanites, when 
 the language was reduced to written form, and 
 there is no trace of literary production in that 
 form before the time of David, unless it be found 
 in the statement that the prophet Samuel made a 
 record of the manner of setting up the first king- 
 dom, a statement which is contained in an account 
 compiled long after the event. 
 
 The first writings of which we have any actual 
 trace were those which embodied the traditions 
 c 17
 
 1 8 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 of the escape from bondage in Egypt and the 
 struggle for the possession of the land occupied 
 at the time the writings were made. These tra- 
 ditions had been preserved by oral repetition, as 
 was common everywhere in primitive times, until 
 they could be gathered up in a more enduring 
 vehicle of transmission. 
 
 The " Book of the Wars of Jehovah " and the 
 "Book of Jasher" — whether these were indepen- 
 dent productions or parts of one collection cannot 
 be clearly determined from the scanty references 
 — were the first receptacle of the legends con- 
 nected with the invasion and conquest of Canaan, 
 and the conflicts which preceded the establishment 
 of the Kingdom. The lament of David over the 
 death of Saul and Jonathan is said by the compiler 
 of the Book of Samuel to be written in the " Book 
 of Jasher," which indicates, at least, that the col- 
 lection had not been closed when David became 
 the King of Judah. This collection of the tra- 
 ditions of Israel's heroic age appears to have 
 furnished much of the material or many of the 
 suggestions for the narratives of the Books of 
 Judges and Samuel, and for some of the episodes 
 of the escape from Egypt and the conquest of 
 Canaan, including those of the late and artificial 
 account of Joshua's exploits.
 
 II 
 
 STORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS 
 
 It is pretty clear that it was after the division 
 of the Kingdom and the establishment of Jero- 
 boam as the first ruler of the Northern realm 
 that the ethnic myths, known as the " Stories of 
 the Patriarchs," first appeared. It has been com- 
 mon, even for those who admit that their original 
 production could not have been earlier than that 
 time, to assume that they were based upon traditions 
 of the Nomadic days before the migration into 
 Egypt, preserved from generation to generation by 
 oral transmission, but that is extremely doubtful. 
 Considering the variety of ethnic and mythic mean- 
 ings still traceable in these tales and their many 
 points of contact with the relations, purposes, and 
 ideas of the time and place of their production, 
 it is more likely that they were the imaginative 
 offspring of the genius of that time and place. 
 
 The aspects of Nomadic life were still familiar 
 in the neighboring plains on the east, and the 
 Nomadic instinct of the Hebrews was always 
 yearning for its freedom and simplicity. It in- 
 
 19
 
 20 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 spired the ideals which determined their aspira- 
 tions and rendered them weak as an organized 
 nationality. And yet, there is no clear evidence 
 that they carried memories or definite traditions 
 of their own Nomadic days through the dark 
 bondage in Egypt and the long struggle from 
 the deliverance to the conquest. The impress 
 of the infant days of their race was" indelible ; 
 the tendency then begotten never died, and there 
 were, no doubt, cherished associations of name 
 and place that survived through ages of trial, 
 but the actual persons and deeds of their ancestry 
 were utterly forgotten. 
 
 When their first writers began to supply this 
 lack by their own creations, the two kingdoms 
 of Judah and Ephraim, the latter monopolizing 
 the ancient name of Israel, were at the height of 
 the antipathy engendered by the division of the 
 first kingdom, and were engaged in their earliest 
 rivalry as separate nations, with Ephraim the 
 stronger and more confident. Being the immedi- 
 ate neighbor of Phoenicia and having as its ruler 
 a man of uncommon ability and energy, who had 
 enjoyed the advantage of a long sojourn in Egypt 
 under the favor of the monarch of that country, 
 Ephraim entered upon a period of intellectual 
 and literary activity of which Judah, under the
 
 STORIES OF THE PATRIARCHS 21 
 
 feeble and reactionary reign of Rehoboam, the 
 son of Solomon, showed no sign. It was at this 
 time, in the Kingdom of the North, that the patri- 
 archal stories first appeared. They are usually 
 spoken of as a collection, but they seem to have 
 formed a series with no clear sequence or cohe- 
 rency, and they underwent variations which in 
 time produced different versions. 
 
 If we recall the situation of the time we shall 
 find the Kingdom of Israel (Ephraim) in the first 
 flush of its pride and power, with a sense of 
 superiority over Judah, mingled with a degree 
 of fraternal enmity ; with a kindly feeling toward 
 Egypt, and friendly relations with Syria, and 
 with a scorn for the subjugated tribes of 
 Canaan. Associated with Ephraim was the 
 closely related tribe of Manasseh and the North- 
 ern provinces, which had names that were rather 
 territorial than tribal, and there was a disposi- 
 tion to detach from Judah, the warlike com- 
 munity of Benjamin, which lay on the division 
 line, and which had furnished the first king of 
 all Israel, whose dynasty had been cut short by 
 David. 
 
 There were rooted enmities for the Edomites 
 and Moabites, which were common to all the 
 tribes, and had been inherited from the time of
 
 22 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 the long struggle through the deserts on the 
 way to the conquest of the land of the Canaan- 
 ites, for the hostile spirit of those peoples had 
 added to the length and the hardships of the 
 struggle. There had been many a conflict with 
 the Ammonites who were akin to Moab, and 
 with the predatory Amalekites of the South, and 
 these also were rated as hereditary enemies. 
 
 The dominant sentiment of Israel was pride of 
 race and a sense of superiority, though the ancient 
 relationship of the Semitic peoples of the whole 
 region from the " Great River " to the sea, and 
 to the " River of Egypt," including the Ishmael- 
 ites and Midianites of the Arabian desert, was 
 acknowledged, save that the subjugated and de- 
 spised Canaanites were cut off from that noble 
 stock. The victims of conquest and of the sen- 
 timent engendered by it, were relegated to an 
 inferior origin, and ejected from the family in 
 which they were born. Knowledge of the great 
 eastern Empire of the Tigris and Euphrates 
 was imperfect and somewhat vague, and all 
 beyond to the east and north, was mystery. 
 There was a tradition that the Hebrews — a 
 name that signified " from beyond " — had origi- 
 nally migrated from the northern plains of Meso- 
 potamia ( Paddan-aram).
 
 Ill 
 
 PUTATIVE ANCESTORS OF TRIBES 
 
 Abram, or Abraham, was a revered name 
 among all the Semitic peoples, and the Syrians, 
 Arabians, and Phoenicians, as well as the He- 
 brews, had their separate lines of tradition con- 
 necting with it. It even figured in the fabulous 
 history of the Chaldaeans. When the Israelites 
 began to produce their ethnic myths, explain- 
 ing and glorifying their origin, their superior- 
 ity, and their special claim to the land of which 
 they had taken possession, and to exalt their 
 God above all other deities, they appropriated as 
 peculiarly their own the fatherhood of Abraham 
 and relegated to an inferior position all the 
 other reputed progeny of Terah, who had come 
 from the mysterious land of "Ur of the Chaldees." 
 
 The Ishmaelites and Midianites were allowed to 
 be of a direct descent from Abraham, but in an 
 inferior sense. A close relation was permitted to 
 the Edomites, but they were humiliated to a sec- 
 ondary place. The Syrians were set off on a 
 collateral branch as descendants of Abraham's 
 
 23
 
 24 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 brother Nahor, while the hated Moabites and 
 Ammonites were placed on another line with the 
 stamp of death and incest on their origin. The 
 Israelites alone were of the pure strain of Abram, 
 the " high father," who became Abraham, the 
 "father of many," the favored offspring of Sarai 
 ("the princess"), doubly sanctified by divine prom- 
 ise and by birth in her old age, after a long life 
 of barrenness. 
 
 There were traditions of an ancient branch of 
 the Hebrew family on the Philistine border in the 
 south, about the old fane of Beersheba, or the 
 Seven wells. This had died out, and the tradi- 
 tions were dim, but the name of Isaac ("laughter") 
 remained, and the Beersheba region, though in 
 the south, was associated much more closely with 
 Ephraim than with Judah. The general name 
 for the Hebrew tribes in their union had been 
 Israel from a time that is immemorial now, if it 
 was not then. Many writers assume that it ante- 
 dated the Egyptian bondage. According to the 
 generally accepted etymology it meant " warrior 
 of God." The Hebrews were not essentially a 
 warlike people, and they could hardly have given 
 themselves that title in the Nomadic days. It 
 more probably sprang out of the one era in their 
 history, when they were nerved to desperate
 
 ANCESTORS OF THE TRIBES 25 
 
 battle for the possession of a country which they 
 claimed by inheritance and divine promise, and 
 when their deity became a " God of battles." It 
 is more likely that Israel was adopted as a general 
 title by a people engaged in a war of conquest, 
 than by one roaming about with flocks and herds, 
 or dwelling in servitude in a foreign land. 
 
 Jacob was a poetical designation for the same 
 people, and used only in rhetorical language. It 
 was derived from a word meaning " heel," and 
 was applied to one who supplanted or superseded 
 another. There is no indication of its use before 
 the tribes were established as a nation, and its 
 adoption probably had reference rather to the 
 crushing or supplanting of the Canaanites than 
 to any relation with the comparatively remote 
 Edomites. The dominant tribes of the Northern 
 Kingdom were poetically designated as Joseph, 
 the double derivation of which may have a spe- 
 cial significance. It is explained as meaning both 
 taking from and adding to. It may imply an 
 original joining to the other tribes, or a separation 
 from them in their later history, and it was used 
 with apparent reference to both senses. There 
 were traditions of a tribe or branch of the Hebrew 
 people which had settled in the south under the 
 name of Simeon, but which had faded out, and
 
 26 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 of two that had remained to the east of the Jor- 
 dan after the conquest, designated as Reuben and 
 Gad, which had also lost their distinct identity. 
 There was a class of persons scattered over the 
 country, and wandering from place to place, asso- 
 ciated chiefly with the oracles and shrines of wor- 
 ship, and known as sons of Levi, that being a 
 general term borrowed from Egypt for those who 
 served at altars. 
 
 Most tribal and territorial names in those days 
 had some meaning derived from characteristics of 
 the people, or of the country which they occupied, 
 or from some incident in their history, though 
 derivations were frequently assumed from the 
 superficial resemblance of proper names to words 
 in common use, with which they had really no 
 etymological relation. Both tribal and territorial 
 names were often personified, and taking posses- 
 sion of a land was sometimes represented as the 
 marriage of a man bearing the name of the tribe 
 with a woman bearing the name of the country, 
 while clans and provinces figured as their children.
 
 IV 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE WRITTEN TALES 
 
 Jeroboam had established his seat of power at 
 Shechem, which had been the scene of the turbu- 
 lent effort of Abimelech, the son of Gideon, to 
 make himself king. Near by was Shiloh, where 
 it was said that the Ark of the Covenant had 
 long "rested," and where the priests had received 
 their offerings and made their sacrifices in the 
 old days, but the temple at Jerusalem had become 
 a centre of worship, and Jeroboam deemed it 
 expedient to establish his principal altar farther 
 away. He placed it on the height at Bethel, 
 which, under the name of Luz, had been a sacred 
 place of the Canaanites, and sought to make it 
 attractive by symbols of worship similar to those 
 of Egypt. 
 
 The material for the stories of the patriarchs 
 existed in the names of places, of nations, tribes, 
 and clans, in the various characteristics of these 
 and their relations with each other, and in tradi- 
 tions of events and circumstances to many of 
 which we have found no tangible clue. Their 
 
 2 7
 
 28 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 chief motive was to exalt Israel and degrade its 
 enemies, to trace its possession of the country 
 to divine promise and divine aid, and to explain, 
 in a manner that glorified rather than degraded it, 
 the falling into Egyptian slavery. Incidentally, 
 in their development they were made to impress 
 lessons and warnings relating to the ethics and 
 religion of the time of their production. 
 
 In outline, the ancestral story was that the 
 father of Abraham had wandered from the remote 
 and mysterious land of " Ur of the Chaldees " 
 in the East and settled in Aram of the rivers 
 (Paddan-aram). There the brother of Abraham, 
 Nahor (that being the name of a place), had be- 
 come the ancestor of Syria, and another brother, 
 Haran (also the name of a place), had died. 
 With his wife Sarah (princess) and his orphaned 
 nephew (Lot), Abraham went into the land of 
 Canaan, where he was to become the progenitor 
 of many peoples, and the specially sanctified 
 ancestor of the Israelites, and where the nephew 
 was to become the forefather of the Moabites 
 and Ammonites on the other side of the lower 
 Jordan and in the region beyond the Dead Sea. 
 
 Abraham took possession of the land by pass- 
 ing through it and setting up altars at Shechem 
 and Bethel and at Beersheba, and went on into
 
 ORIGIN OF THE WRITTEN TALES 29 
 
 Egypt, where the divine care over his life was 
 exhibited. The Judean version of the story asso- 
 ciated him especially with Hebron, the first scene 
 of David's royalty, where his possession of the land 
 was consecrated by purchasing a permanent burial 
 place. The name of "Isaac," associated with the 
 Beersheba region, was given to the son of Abra- 
 ham's old age, and for him a wife of the blood 
 of his father's family was obtained, and from that 
 union came Jacob, who married in Syria and 
 begat the heads of all the tribes. Joseph was 
 a favorite son and had been carried captive to 
 Egypt, as the result of the envy and spite of his 
 brothers, there to be exalted to power and to be- 
 come the saviour of the family. 
 
 In filling in this outline with a variety of details 
 the first writers took occasion to explain in the 
 forms of personal story not only the separation 
 of Lot from Abraham and the opprobrious origin 
 of Moab and Ammon, but the elimination from 
 the heritage of the chosen people of Ishmael and 
 Edom and the birth of Midian and the kindred 
 people of the desert. They undertook to account 
 for the division of possessions with Syria in the 
 northeast and with the Philistines of the south- 
 west, and to explain the origin of the " Cove- 
 nants," which were assumed to be the peculiar
 
 30 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 bond between the people of Israel and their God, 
 and the basis of their worship and their sacred 
 law. How much of this kind of literature may 
 originally have existed in oral form, and how 
 much may have been altogether lost in the pro- 
 cess of preservation in writing, we have no means 
 of knowing, but we can plainly see that what 
 was preserved became wrought into a marvellous 
 patchwork. The seams are still visible and the 
 colors do not entirely harmonize, but the effect 
 produced has been deeper and more lasting than 
 that of any other creation of human genius in its 
 pristine vigor.
 
 V 
 
 THE FIRST " SACRED HISTORY " 
 
 The most striking single embodiment of the 
 early Hebrew genius appeared in the writer 
 who produced the first "sacred history" of the 
 " peculiar people." He was of the Northern 
 Kingdom of Israel, and his time, as nearly as 
 it can be determined, was that of the reign of 
 Jehu, at Samaria, in the middle of the ninth 
 century B.C., when the spirit of "prophecy" was 
 first awakened, and a fierce conflict was waged 
 against the tendency to lapse into the ways and 
 the worship of Phoenicia, to which a strong 
 impulse had been given in the days of Ahab, 
 when the Tyrian queen Jezebel exercised so 
 much influence. This writer, whose name and 
 identity are lost in the mists of antiquity, was 
 contemporary with the mysterious personality be- 
 hind the legendary names of Elijah and Elisha, 
 and it is a fascinating conjecture that he may 
 have been identical with that personality. 
 
 His main purpose was to lay down rules of 
 
 31
 
 32 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 conduct and requirements of worship for the 
 people of Israel, and to give these the most 
 solemn and impressive sanction. This sanction 
 was to be derived from the covenants of Jeho- 
 vah with the ancestors of the people and his 
 promises to their posterity, and to be confirmed 
 by the deliverance from Egyptian bondage and 
 the possession of the land of Canaan in fulfil- 
 ment of promise. The worship of Jehovah was 
 to be exalted and sanctified and made a matter 
 of such terrible obligation as to be a bulwark 
 against the enticements of Baal and Astarte 
 ("Ashtoreth"). 
 
 This writer had some familiarity with the fables 
 of Babylon and Nineveh, and with the mythology 
 of Phoenicia, and he began his story with the 
 creation of the world and the origin of the human 
 race, deriving his material from those foreign 
 sources, but giving it the impress of his own 
 potent genius. He made large use of the legends 
 already existing in written form, of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob, and the sons of Jacob, develop- 
 ing and varying them to suit his purpose, and he 
 used, in a continuance of his history after the 
 period of Egyptian bondage, material from the 
 " wars of Jehovah," and traditions of Moses, 
 Miriam, and Aaron, and the trials of the long
 
 THE FIRST SACRED HISTORY 33 
 
 journey through the wilderness, blending these 
 elements into a narrative which had a certain epic 
 grandeur. 
 
 So much as has been preserved of the pro- 
 duction of this Northern writer forms what is 
 called the Jehovist material in the Hexateuch, 
 and from it a considerable part of the Book of 
 Genesis was derived. The term Jehovist (or 
 "Yahwist")is employed because the writer used 
 the name Jehovah, or Yahweh, for the deity, that 
 being the name in common use at the time, which 
 was assumed to have been first adopted in the 
 wilderness, when Moses had just rescued the peo- 
 ple from their servitude within the borders of 
 Egypt and was rallying them to the tremendous 
 effort of making their way to the possession of 
 the promised land.
 
 VI 
 
 THE JUDEAN VERSION 
 
 It was but a few years after the time of the 
 Jehovist that the writer known as the Elohist put 
 forth at Jerusalem the Judean version of the 
 " Sacred History." Such of his work as has been 
 preserved is known as the Elohist material, or 
 from the " Elohist document," because he used 
 the word "Elohim " for the deity down to the point 
 in the narrative at which the appellation of Jeho- 
 vah was said to have been revealed to Moses. 
 There had been as yet no such religious ferment 
 in Judah as had been going on in the Northern 
 Kingdom, and the prophetic spirit had not begun 
 that vigorous development which culminated in 
 Isaiah. Writing had been mainly devoted to 
 genealogies and rude annals, and the Elohist was 
 rather of the priests than the prophets. 
 
 He was familiar with the common traditions of 
 the Hebrew people, and with some of the stories 
 which had sprung up around the names of the 
 tribes, and had some knowledge of the fabulous 
 lore of Babylon and Assyria. He had much 
 
 34
 
 THE JUDEAN VERSION 35 
 
 less familiarity than the Northern writer with the 
 learning of Egypt, and possessed little of the 
 creative faculty of the Jehovist, his form of state- 
 ments being more prosaic. He began with an 
 account of the creation, derived from the Chal- 
 dean cosmogony, but it had rather the quality of 
 an infantile science than of a poetic mythology. 
 The Chaldean division of time into periods of 
 seven days, fourths of the lunar month, and the 
 Assyrian practice of devoting the seventh day to 
 rest and worship had come into vogue, and this 
 writer sought to give it a special sanctity in his 
 description of the creation. He it was who em- 
 bodied the "decalogue" in his narrative, and in 
 it consecrated the Sabbath as the day on which 
 the Lord rested after creating " heaven and earth 
 and sea and all that in them is." When this little 
 code in a somewhat different form was incor- 
 porated in the law in Jeremiah's day, the Sabbath 
 was hallowed in remembrance of the deliverance 
 from Egyptian bondage. 
 
 Both the Jehovist and the Elohist adopted with 
 some variation the Babylonian story of the de- 
 struction of mankind by a universal flood, and 
 the latter endeavored to fill the intervals between 
 the creation and the flood, and between the flood 
 and the migration of Abraham, with regular gene-
 
 36 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 alogies, or " generations," of the families of the 
 earth before Israel was born, using for the purpose 
 the geographical names within his knowledge. 
 
 In fact, the Elohist's work was largely genea- 
 logical and ethnographical, and he made scanty 
 use of the patriarchal stories. The Northern ver- 
 sions of them were probably unknown to him, and 
 he did not have the genius for developing such 
 tales which the writer of Ephraim possessed. He 
 was more intent upon tracing religious customs to 
 an ancient origin, and it was he who sanctified 
 circumcision as the seal of the covenant with 
 Abraham. The practice was neither religious nor 
 Israelite in its origin, but the Israelites had 
 brought it into the land of Canaan, and there 
 insisted upon its sacredness as a badge of their 
 separation from all other peoples, and made it 
 the most rigidly observed rite of their peculiar 
 faith.
 
 VII 
 
 BLENDING THE TWO VERSIONS 
 
 After the fate of Samaria in 721 B.C., such 
 of the literary treasures of the Kingdom of Is- 
 rael as were fortunately preserved were added 
 to those of Judah, which had been accumulat- 
 ing at Jerusalem, and a few years later, during 
 the active and productive period of the reign 
 of Hezekiah, some writer, probably of the tem- 
 ple scribes, undertook to combine into one, the 
 two versions of the sacred history. He appears 
 to have had other material at his command, and 
 did not refrain altogether from injecting state- 
 ments of his own. He was by no means a 
 skilful or painstaking compiler, and he preferred 
 copying and piecing together his material to 
 recomposing it into a new and harmonious nar- 
 rative, and even when he attempted to modify a 
 statement of his predecessors, he often did it 
 so clumsily as to leave evidence of inconsist- 
 ency. 
 
 This writer had the Judean point of view, and 
 was accustomed to the use of Jehovah (or Yahweh) 
 
 37
 
 38 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 as the name of the Deity ; but the shorter Elohist 
 document was the basis of his compilation, so 
 far as it went, and where he pieced passages of 
 the other into it he made no changes in the 
 divine name. Where he had two versions of 
 the same proceeding, he usually adopted one 
 in preference to the other, but sometimes he 
 undertook to combine them in order to save dif- 
 ferent details, and sometimes where they varied 
 rather widely he used both, as if they referred 
 to different proceedings. Occasionally he intro- 
 duced fragments of material quite independent 
 of his two main documents, and formed connect- 
 ing links of narrative of his own. 
 
 That so much of the Northern production was 
 preserved, notwithstanding its exaltation of Ephra- 
 im and disparagement of Judah, was due in part 
 to the perfunctory manner of the compiler, and in 
 part, no doubt, to the softening of old antipa- 
 thies after the calamities of Israel and the de- 
 struction of Samaria, and to the hope that was 
 now cherished of the ultimate reunion of the 
 tribes under one king of the house of David.
 
 VIII 
 
 EVIDENCES OF LATE ORIGIN 
 
 There is little evidence that, during the in- 
 terval between the compilation of this sacred 
 history and the taking of Jerusalem by the 
 Babylonians, its contents had become familiar 
 even to the prophets and writers of the period. 
 One of the strongest evidences that the oldest 
 material in the narrative was later than the 
 time of Solomon, and was unfamiliar until after 
 the captivity, is to be found in the absence of 
 all allusion to what it embodies in the other 
 writings of the time of the kingdoms. In the 
 books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings there is no 
 sign of a knowledge of the venerable ancestors 
 of the race, or even of Moses and his " law," 
 save for the latter in passages of the later annals 
 distinctly traceable to redaction after the exile. 
 
 Not only is there no sign of such knowledge, 
 but the whole tone and spirit of the narratives and 
 the character of their contents are inconsistent 
 with its existence. In the later literature we 
 meet with the names Israel and Jacob and 
 
 39
 
 40 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Joseph, as well as Ephraim and Judah, in their 
 general national application, but with no refer- 
 ence to such personalities as Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob, and the sons of Jacob. 
 
 The prayer put in the mouth of Solomon at the 
 dedication of the temple by the late compiler of 
 the annals of his reign, is anachronistic and out 
 of keeping with the character, but while it con- 
 tains repeated appeals to the "God of Israel," 
 there is no recognition of the God of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob. In the strange passage which 
 represents the prophet Elijah as praying to Jeho- 
 vah in competition with the prophets of Baal, he 
 invokes the "God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of 
 Israel," but elsewhere in the annals, from the 
 conquest to the doom of the kingdom, these 
 venerable names do not appear, and the appear- 
 ance of this phrase in the story of Elijah reminds 
 us of the coincidence of time and similarity of 
 character in the production of the Jehovist docu- 
 ment and the legend of the prophet of Carmel. 
 
 The phrases, "the posterity (or seed) of Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob" and "the covenant with 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," are common in the 
 Book of Deuteronomy, and the former appears 
 once in the writings of Jeremiah, who was almost 
 certainly associated with the production of that
 
 EVIDENCES OF LATE ORIGIN 41 
 
 book, at a time when the literature of the temple 
 already contained the "sacred history" as it had 
 been compiled in the days of Hezekiah. Isaiah 
 used the names Abraham and Jacob only in the 
 ethnic sense, and the former occurs only once in 
 the writings of the first, or real, Isaiah. He shows 
 no knowledge of the patriarchs of Israel. Micah 
 uses the name of Abraham once, but in the strictly 
 ethnic sense. Hosea alone of the prophets shows 
 some evidence of familiarity with the legend of 
 Jacob, but he was of the Northern Kingdom, and 
 near the time of the legend's origin. Amos, who 
 dwelt near the Beersheba region, where the Isaac 
 tradition prevailed, is the only one to use that 
 name even in its ethnic sense before the captivity, 
 save in the phrase of Jeremiah already referred to. 
 The conclusion is irresistible that nothing was 
 known, in the land of Israel, of the patriarchs, or 
 of the stories in which their names figure, until 
 after the period which is now assigned by learned 
 critics for the production of those stories, and that 
 knowledge of the Sacred History in which they 
 were incorporated was confined to a small class 
 until after the captivity, when the books of the 
 law were promulgated. There is no trace of an 
 oral tradition of the personalities or the families 
 of the so-called ancestors of the Israelites during
 
 42 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 the long period anterior to the division of the 
 kingdom, and the development of written litera- 
 ture, and if it had existed it could hardly have 
 escaped some passing allusion. The use of per- 
 sonal names to designate tribes or bands, and the 
 putting of tribal history into the form of personal 
 story, were common everywhere in primitive times, 
 especially among Oriental peoples. The Israel- 
 ites usually spoke of the people of a land as the 
 children of the land, and the Hittites, a much 
 older people than themselves, were called the 
 children of Heth, Heth being assumed to be the 
 name of an ancient personage. There is a curi- 
 ous illustration of the practice of the first writers 
 in personifying tribes in their ordinary language, 
 at the beginning of the Book of Judges, where, 
 several generations after the era assigned to 
 Jacob's family, "Judah said unto Simeon his 
 brother, ' come up with me into my lot, that we 
 may fight against the Canaanites, and I likewise 
 will go with thee into thy lot.' So Simeon went 
 with him." 
 
 Apparently the Book of Genesis underwent 
 little change after the compilation in the time of 
 Hezekiah. It must have been among the literary 
 treasures of the temple, which were carried from 
 Jerusalem to Babylon and preserved through the
 
 EVIDENCES OF LATE ORIGIN 43 
 
 captivity, and after the return it was made the 
 first section of the Torah, as containing the an- 
 cient covenants upon which the early writers had 
 based the law in its rudimentary form.. It needed 
 little change to adapt it to the purpose. It was 
 designated only by its opening words, and the 
 present title was first attached to it in the Greek 
 version of the Pentateuch known as the Septua- 
 gint. The circumstances and method of its pro- 
 duction make it the most compact and remarkable 
 repository of the first conceptions of primitive 
 genius that has been preserved in human history. 
 The seal of sacredness put upon it by the doctors 
 of Judaism deterred for ages all attempt at an 
 analysis of its composition, but the daring of mod- 
 ern scholarship has at last resolved it into its 
 elements.
 
 THE TALES AND MYTHS
 
 THE ELOHIST ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION 
 
 The compiler, as we shall call the writer who in 
 the time of Hezekiah wrought the "Sacred His- 
 tory " out of materials furnished by his prede- 
 cessors, began with the Elohist's account of the 
 creation, which occupies the first chapter and the 
 first three verses of the second chapter of Genesis, 
 as it came to be divided long afterwards. The 
 author of this knew something of the Chaldean 
 fable on the subject. It is not necessary to assume 
 that this knowledge came through long tradition 
 from the time when the Semitic tribes wandered 
 as Nomads on the borders of Mesopotamia, for 
 there was not an absolute lack of communication 
 with that land in the writer's own day. 
 
 The system of six days for labor and the seventh 
 for rest was of Chaldean origin, had long been in 
 use in Assyria, and was already established in 
 Judah. The account of the creation was made to 
 give a special sanction to the observance of the 
 Sabbath, which had come to be a requirement of 
 the religion of the temple. Otherwise, there is an 
 
 47
 
 48 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 infantile simplicity in the quasi science of the 
 description, in marked contrast with the mystical 
 tendency of the Jehovist writer. 
 
 The infantile simplicity of the writer's concep- 
 tion of the physical universe is manifest in every 
 phase of the six days' work of creation. He con- 
 ceives first of the earth as a mass of water welter- 
 ing in darkness, and of the appearance of light 
 and the alternation of day and night in advance 
 of the existence of the luminaries that were to 
 rule the day and night and determine the seasons. 
 His notion of the firmament was that of a solid 
 barrier holding a mass of water above the earth, 
 forming the reservoir of rain and storms. The 
 same general idea appears in the Book of Job 
 and some of the older Psalms, writings of sub- 
 stantially the same age as this. 
 
 In order to keep to the six days for labor two 
 processes are crowded into the third day. The 
 dry land is made to appear by the simple process 
 of gathering the waters that were left below the 
 firmament into one place, which hardly conforms 
 to any real physical geography, and then vege- 
 tation is brought forth in advance of the creation 
 of the sun with its vivifying influences. The 
 classification into grass assumed to be seedless, 
 plants that bear seed, and fruit trees, is of the
 
 ELOHIST ACCOUNT OF CREATION 49 
 
 most primitive order. The sun, moon, and stars 
 are created after there have been three alterna- 
 tions of night and day, and after the earth has 
 been clothed with vegetation. 
 
 A day is devoted to the production of the 
 denizens of the water and the air, and on the 
 sixth day the animals that occupy the earth are 
 brought into being and roughly classified as 
 cattle, reptiles, and beasts. Then comes the 
 crowning work of man's creation in the image 
 of God. This was strictly according to the 
 anthropomorphic conception of the ancient He- 
 brews. Other divinities might have the likeness 
 of beasts, but their deity had the semblance and 
 qualities of an exalted man. The exaltation was 
 so sublimated as to make it the height of pre- 
 sumption to provoke comparison by material 
 representations of God. Hence the aversion not 
 only to idols, but to all portrayals of the human 
 form. The account closes with assigning the 
 grass or "green herb" to the animals for suste- 
 nance, and the cereal plants and fruit of trees to 
 man. In the mind of this writer there was no 
 eating of flesh in the infant days of the world. 
 
 It is needless to say that the physical science 
 of this account is the fancy of a primitive age, 
 and bears no relation to the actual origin of
 
 50 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 things. But the real significance of the produc- 
 tion lies in its embodiment of an exalted con- 
 ception of the almightiness of God, who wrought 
 all things out of nothing by the mere exercise of 
 his will, and in the acceptance of the work of 
 God as altogether good. The sublimity of this 
 conception of monotheism so glorifies the account 
 of creative processes that we lose sight of the 
 crude absurdities of the details. 
 
 [I-II 4I 
 
 In the beginning God [Elohim] created the 
 heaven and the earth. The earth was waste and 
 void ; and darkness brooded upon the face of the 
 deep ; and the spirit of God moved upon the face 
 of the waters. And God said, Let there be light : 
 and there was light. And God saw the light, that 
 it was good ; and God divided the light from the 
 darkness. And God called the light Day, and the 
 darkness he called Night. And there was an even- 
 ing and a morning, one day. 
 
 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the 
 midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from 
 the waters. And God made the firmament, and 
 divided the waters which were under the firmament 
 from the waters which were above the firmament : 
 and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. 
 And there was an evening and a morning, a second 
 day.
 
 ELOHIST ACCOUNT OF CREATION 51 
 
 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven 
 be gathered together unto one place, that the dry 
 land may appear : and it was so. And God called 
 the dry land Earth ; and the gathering together of 
 the waters called he Seas : and God saw that it was 
 good. And God said, Let the earth put forth grass, 
 herb yielding seed, and fruit tree bearing fruit after 
 its kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth : 
 and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, 
 herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree bearing 
 fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after its kind ; and 
 God saw that it was good. And there was an even- 
 ing and a morning, a third day. 
 
 And God said, Let there be lights in the firma- 
 ment of the heaven to divide the day from the 
 night ; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, 
 and for days and years ; and let them be for lights 
 in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon 
 the earth : and it was so. And God made the two 
 great lights ; the greater light to rule the day, and 
 the lesser light to rule the night ; he made the stars 
 also. And God set them in the firmament of the 
 heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule 
 over the day and over the night, and to divide the 
 light from the darkness ; and God saw that it was 
 good. And there was an evening and a morning, 
 a fourth day. 
 
 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abun- 
 dantly the moving creature that hath life, and let 
 fowl fly above the earth in the open firmament of 
 heaven. And God created the great sea-monsters,
 
 52 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 and every living creature that moveth, which the 
 waters brought forth abundantly, after their kinds, 
 and every winged fowl after its kind ; and God saw 
 that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, 
 Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the 
 seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And there 
 was an evening and a morning, a fifth day. 
 
 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the 
 living creature after its kind, cattle, and creeping 
 thing, and beast of the earth after its kind ; and it 
 was so. And God made the beast of the earth after 
 its kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every 
 thing that creepeth upon the ground after its kind ; 
 and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let 
 us make man in our image, after our likeness ; and 
 let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, 
 and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, 
 and over all the earth, and over every creeping 
 thing that creepeth upon the earth. And God 
 created man in his own image, in the image of 
 God created he him ; male and female created he 
 them. And God blessed them ; and God said unto 
 them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the 
 earth, and subdue it ; and have dominion over the 
 fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and 
 over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 
 
 And God said, Behold, I have given you every 
 herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all 
 the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of 
 a tree yielding seed ; to you it shall be for food ; 
 and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl
 
 ELOHIST ACCOUNT OF CREATION 53 
 
 of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon 
 the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every 
 green herb for food : and it was so. And God saw 
 every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was 
 very good. And there was an evening and a morn- 
 ing, the sixth day. 
 
 And the heaven and the earth were finished, and 
 all the host of them. And on the seventh day God 
 finished his work which he had made ; and he 
 rested on the seventh day from all his work which 
 he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, 
 and hallowed it, because that in it he rested from 
 all his work which God had created and made. 
 
 [These are the generations of the heaven and of 
 the earth when they were created.]
 
 II 
 
 THE JEHOVIST STORY OF THE FIRST FAMILY 
 
 If the Jehovist gave any account of the creation 
 of the earth, it was omitted by the compiler, who 
 apparently interpolated the statement " these are 
 the generations of the heaven and of the earth," 
 with reference to what precedes and for the purpose 
 of connecting the two fragments. He left traces 
 of a radical difference of view as to the origin of 
 things, for where the Elohist represents the land 
 as emerging from a waste of waters, the Jehovist 
 assumes an arid waste of land in need of rain to 
 make it fruitful. The latter's conceptions were 
 more mythological in quality and he was evidently 
 more familiar with Babylonian and Phoenician 
 fable, which he used in a fragmentary way and 
 transmuted with the touch of an original genius. 
 
 The peculiarly anthropomorphic character of his 
 conception of the deity is evident throughout. In- 
 stead of the mysterious Elohim bringing all things 
 into being by the fiat of his will, we have the Yah- 
 weh who forms man out of the dust of the ground 
 and breathes into him the spirit of life. He plants 
 a garden and places the man in it to dress and 
 
 54
 
 STORY OF THE FIRST FAMILY 55 
 
 keep it. Out of the ground he makes the trees 
 to grow for the delight of the eye and to furnish 
 food, and out of the ground he forms the birds 
 and beasts, after he has made man from the dust, 
 and brings them to man to receive their names. 
 Woman he creates to be man's helpmeet by tak- 
 ing of his substance and moulding it (" building" 
 in the original) into her form. It is a story-book 
 account of making living things. 
 
 In it there are suggestions of primitive deriva- 
 tion. The notion that man came from the dust 
 and returned to the dust was prevalent in the 
 Hebrew philosophy, and an etymological relation 
 was assumed between adam, the general term for 
 man, and adamah, earth. Hence the making of 
 man from the dust of the ground. Such a relation 
 did exist between is, man, in the special sense of 
 "vir" as distinguished from "homo," and issah, 
 woman. Hence the making of woman from the 
 substance of man, in conformity with the saying 
 already proverbial, bone of his bone and flesh of 
 his flesh. The saying that a man shall leave his 
 father and mother and cleave unto his wife can 
 seem appropriate in a being who has had no father 
 and mother and beholds a woman for the first 
 time, only as a mythical embodiment of general 
 truths concerning human society.
 
 
 56 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 The word "Eden" meant rather a place or con- 
 dition of delight than a special location, and the 
 matter-of-fact description with reference to the 
 rivers of the primitive world (in brackets below) is 
 an interpolation of the compiler. The Hiddekel 
 was the Tigris, but the rivers Pishon and Gihon, 
 which were made to compass the regions of the 
 East and South, correspond to no actual streams. 
 In the writer's imperfect geography the names 
 may have stood for remote rivers of which he had 
 only a vague notion. 
 
 The mythic significance of the story of the first 
 human couple was lost for ages through a perver- 
 sion of its meaning to serve the ends of a dogma 
 wrought in perfect good faith by the early teachers 
 of Christianity. It symbolizes the infancy of the 
 race as a state of childhood, in the innocence and 
 delight of " Eden," unconscious of either good or 
 evil, knowing neither wisdom nor folly, caring not 
 for its nakedness. But it cannot remain in its 
 "clouds of glory." The unhappy time comes for 
 the stirring of the insidious desire for knowledge 
 of good and evil and the impulse to liberty of 
 action. That suggestion of developing human 
 nature is symbolized in the serpent popularly 
 credited with subtlety and wisdom among animals 
 by the ancients.
 
 STORY OF THE FIRST FAMILY 57 
 
 The stirring and yearning of that time of change 
 comes sooner in woman than in man, and she is 
 apt to afford the incitement and stimulus to it in 
 him; and, when it comes, the state- of guileless 
 innocence is ended. With the knowledge of good 
 and evil comes the consciousness of shame in 
 nakedness. On that day, too, comes death, — not 
 literally, but in apprehension and sense of cer- 
 tainty, and man is turned out of his garden of 
 delight to face the toil of life and woman to meet 
 the pain and sorrow of motherhood. 
 
 But why was the eating of the fruit forbidden ? 
 Is there not in this an expression of sadness that 
 man should persist in knowing and doing for him- 
 self, and so incur the penalties of achievement, 
 and of a divine solicitude that he might remain 
 innocent and happy and forever a child? Once 
 tasting of knowledge and coming to the choice of 
 good and evil, he is debarred from the tree that 
 would furnish the antidote to the bitter penalty. 
 The cherubim and a flaming sword guard the 
 domain of innocent childhood which he has left. 
 
 In this symbolizing of a universal truth in human 
 nature and human life there is no suggestion of 
 individual sin or even of general sin. There is no 
 suggestion of a spirit of evil in the serpent, but his 
 supposed subtlety as a beast is used to figure the
 
 58 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 first awakening of the desire for knowledge of good 
 and evil; and the antipathy between him and man 
 is attributed to a primal curse. When the strangely 
 man-like God walks in the garden the shrinking 
 from his presence is not from a sense of guilt, but 
 of nakedness. The sad turn has come in human 
 life and character when nudity implies shame. 
 " Who told thee that thou wast naked ? " 
 
 The doctrine of original sin, of the fall from a 
 state of perfection, and the loss of an immortal 
 condition, was never drawn from this myth by the 
 Jews, because it was not embodied in it by their 
 genius. It was not in keeping with their ideas, 
 and the story was really an allegory of the growth 
 and not the fall of man, — an expression of human 
 development and not of relapse. The later doc- 
 trine was laboriously wrought to serve as the basis 
 of another, — that of the redemption of a fallen 
 race, whose fall was thus accounted for. 
 
 The Cain and Abel myth is separate from that 
 of Adam and Eve, and had in part the purpose 
 of illustrating the tendency of the human race to 
 violence and bloodshed. The innocent offspring of 
 the first couple was destroyed and the depraved and 
 vengeful was sent forth into the land of wander- 
 ing (Nod) to people the world alone. There is a 
 curious naivete in the assumption that it already
 
 STORY OF THE FIRST FAMILY 59 
 
 contained people from whom he needed protection 
 and among whom he must have found the wife 
 that bore Enoch, which was the name of a city- 
 still known in the time of the writer. Incidently 
 this story is used to enforce the idea that the 
 " firstlings of the flock and the fat thereof," rather 
 than the "fruit of the ground," were the proper 
 and accepted " offering unto the Lord " ; and it 
 contains the undeveloped germ of the primitive 
 division of human occupations into tilling the soil 
 and caring for flocks, and gives a sort of sanctity 
 to the latter as having been that of the forefathers 
 of Israel. 
 
 The obscure traces of myth in the brief passage 
 relating to Cain's descendants are from a Phoeni- 
 cian source, and bear upon the supposed origin 
 of pastoral people and of artificers of tools and 
 weapons, and of musical instruments, the sole 
 products of primitive mechanical skill. Tubal- 
 Cain and Naamah are believed to have had a 
 remote relationship to Vulcan and Venus, but the 
 material, of which the words of Lamech to his 
 wives appear to be an ancient rhythmical frag- 
 ment, was used so sparingly as to leave the whole 
 passage in obscurity. The statement as to the 
 birth of Seth does not belong to the Jehovist 
 document, but was drawn by the compiler from
 
 60 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 the Elohist to supply the place of Abel, and to 
 connect this with the passage which follows in 
 the compilation. The assumed etymology of the 
 name is fanciful. The Jehovist knew no Seth and 
 the Elohist no Cain and Abel. 
 
 [iU-iv] 
 
 In the day that the Lord God [Vahweh-Elohim] 
 made earth and heaven, no plant of the field was 
 yet in the earth, and no herh of the field had 
 yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused 
 it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a 
 man to till the ground ; but there went up a mist 
 from the earth, and watered the whole face of the 
 ground. And the Lord God formed man of the 
 dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils 
 the breath of life ; and man became a living soul. 
 
 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward, in 
 Eden ; and there he put the man whom he had 
 formed. And out of the ground made the Lord 
 God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, 
 and good for food ; the tree of life also in the midst 
 of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good 
 and evil. 
 
 [And a river goes out of Eden to water the gar- 
 den ; and from thence it is parted, and becomes four 
 heads. The name of the first is Pishon : that is it 
 which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where 
 there is gold ; and the gold of that land is good ; 
 there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the
 
 STORY OF THE FIRST FAMILY 6 1 
 
 name of the second river is Gihon ; the same is it 
 that compasseth the whole land of Cush. And the 
 name of the third river is Hiddekel ; that is it which 
 goeth in front of Assyria. And the fourth river is 
 Euphrates.] 
 
 And the Lord God took the man, and put him 
 into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 
 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of 
 every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat ; but 
 of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou 
 shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest 
 thereof thou shalt surely die. 
 
 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the 
 man should be alone ; I will make him an help meet 
 for him. And out of the ground the Lord God 
 formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of 
 the air ; and brought them unto the man to see what 
 he would call them ; and whatsoever the man called 
 every living creature, that was the name thereof. 
 And the man gave names to all cattle, and to the 
 fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field ; but 
 for man there was not found an help meet for him. 
 
 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall 
 upon the man, and he slept ; and he took one of his 
 ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place; and of 
 the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the 
 man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the 
 man. And the man said, This is now bone of my 
 bones, and flesh of my flesh ; she shall be called 
 Woman, because she was taken out of man. There- 
 fore shall a man leave his father and his mother,
 
 62 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 and shall cleave unto his wife ; and they shall be one 
 flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his 
 wife, and were not ashamed. 
 
 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast 
 of the field which the Lord God had made. And 
 he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye 
 shall not eat of any tree of the garden? And the 
 woman said unto the serpent, Of the fruit of the 
 trees of the garden we may eat, but of the fruit of 
 the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God 
 hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye 
 touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the 
 woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know 
 that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall 
 be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good 
 and evil. 
 
 And when the woman saw that the tree was good 
 for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and 
 that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, 
 she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat ; and she 
 gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. 
 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they 
 knew that they were naked ; and they sewed fig 
 leaves together, and made themselves girdles. 
 
 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walk- 
 ing in the garden in the cool of the day, and the 
 man and his wife hid themselves from the presence 
 of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. 
 And the Lord God called unto the man, and said 
 unto him, Where art thou ? And he said, I heard 
 thy footsteps in the garden, and I was afraid, be-
 
 STORY OF THE FIRST FAMILY 63 
 
 cause I was naked ; and I hid myself. And he said, 
 Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou 
 eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that 
 thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The 
 woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave 
 me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God 
 said unto the woman, What is this thou hast done? 
 And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and 
 I did eat. 
 
 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because 
 thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, 
 and above every beast of the field ; upon thy belly 
 shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of 
 thy life ; and I will put enmity between thee and 
 the woman, and between thy offspring and her off- 
 spring : it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise 
 his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly 
 multiply thy pain and thy conception ; in sorrow 
 thou shalt bring forth children ; and thy desire 
 shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. 
 
 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast heark- 
 ened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of 
 the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou 
 shalt not eat of it : cursed is the ground for thy 
 sake ; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy 
 life ; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to 
 thee ; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field ; in 
 the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou 
 return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou 
 taken : for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt 
 thou return. [And the man called his wife's name
 
 64 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Eve ; because she was the mother of all living.] 
 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife 
 coats of skins, and clothed them. 
 
 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is be- 
 come as one of us, to know good and evil ; and now, 
 lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree 
 of life, and eat, and live for ever — 
 
 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the 
 garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence 
 he was taken. So he drove out the man ; and he 
 placed at the east of the garden of Eden the Cheru- 
 bim, and the flame of a sword which turned every 
 way, to keep the way of the tree of life. 
 
 And the man knew Eve his wife ; and she con- 
 ceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a 
 man with the help of the Lord [Yahweh]. And 
 again she bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a 
 keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 
 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain 
 brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto 
 the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the first- 
 lings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the 
 Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering ; 
 but unto Cain and to his offering he had not re- 
 spect. And Cain was very wroth, and his counte- 
 nance fell. 
 
 And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou 
 wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If 
 thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and 
 if thou doest not well? — Sin coucheth at the
 
 STORY OF THE FIRST FAMILY 65 
 
 door, and lieth in wait for thee, but thou shouldest 
 rule over it. And Cain said unto Abel his brother — 
 
 And it came to pass, when they were in the field, 
 that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew 
 him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel 
 thy brother ? And he said, I know not ; am I my 
 brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou 
 done ? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto 
 me from the ground. And now cursed art thou 
 from the ground, which hath opened her mouth to 
 receive thy brother's blood from thy hand ; when 
 thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield 
 unto thee her strength ; a fugitive and a wanderer 
 shalt thou be in the earth. 
 
 And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is 
 greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven 
 me out this day from the face of the ground ; and 
 from thy face shall I be hid ; and I shall be a fugi- 
 tive and a wanderer in the earth ; and it shall come 
 to pass, that whosoever findeth me shall slay me. 
 And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever 
 slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sev- 
 enfold. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, 
 lest any finding him should smite him. And Cain 
 went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt 
 in the land of Nod [wandering] in front of Eden. 
 
 And Cain knew his wife ; and she conceived, and 
 bare Enoch ; and he builded a city, and called the 
 name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch. 
 And unto Enoch was born Irad, and Irad begat
 
 66 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Mehujacl, and Mehujael begat Methushael, and 
 Methushael begat Lamech. 
 
 And Lamech took unto him two wives; the name 
 of the one was Adah, and the name of the other 
 Zillah. And Adah bare Jabal : he was the father of 
 such as dwell in tents and have cattle. And his 
 brother's name was Jubal : he was the father of all 
 such as handle the harp and pipe. And Zillah, she 
 also bare Tubal-cain, the forger of every cutting 
 instrument of brass and iron ; and the sister of 
 Tubal-cain was Naamah. And Lamech said unto 
 his wives : 
 
 Adah and Zillah, hear my voice ; 
 
 Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech : 
 
 For I have slain a man for wounding me, 
 
 And a young man for bruising me : 
 
 If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, 
 
 Truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold. 
 
 [And Adam knew his wife again ; and she bare 
 a son, and called his name Seth : For, said she, 
 God hath appointed me another offspring instead of 
 Abel ; for Cain slew him. And to Seth, to him also 
 there was born a son ; and he called his name 
 Enosh. Then began men to call upon the name 
 of the Lord.]
 
 Ill 
 
 THE ANTEDILUVIAN GENERATIONS 
 
 The fifth chapter of Genesis is from the Elohist 
 document and its close connection with the pas- 
 sage from the same source with which the book 
 opens is quite obvious. While the reference to 
 the creation of man, as male and female, in 
 the plural, is repeated, the personification of the 
 father of mankind in Adam is made definite in 
 accordance with a plan which pervades the whole 
 book. The Elohist was much given to genealo- 
 gies personifying places and peoples. According 
 to him there were ten antediluvian generations of 
 long life. A distinct relation has been traced be- 
 tween the names of the heads of these generations 
 with their durations, and those of the antediluvian 
 dynasties of Chaldean legend, but it is no part of 
 the present purpose to follow this out. The cor- 
 respondence of the years of Enoch's age, after 
 which he "walked with God" and "was not," 
 with the number of days in the year is noticeable, 
 and suggests an astronomical myth, of which the 
 Chaldeans had many. 
 
 67
 
 68 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Lamech, the father of Noah, appears in the 
 seventh generation after Seth, while the Jehovist 
 made him the descendant of Cain in the fifth 
 generation. The intermediate names in the two 
 genealogies vary in their form and order, but 
 evidently had a common source. The northern 
 writer was less familiar with geographical and 
 legendary appellations than the author of the 
 Elohist document, and there was no system or 
 direct purpose in his slight use of them. 
 
 [V] 
 
 This is the book of the generations of Adam. 
 In the day that God [Elohim] created man, in the 
 likeness of God made he him ; male and female 
 created he them ; and blessed them, and called 
 their name Adam [man], in the day when they 
 were created. And Adam lived an hundred and 
 thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, 
 after his image, and called his name Seth ; and 
 the days of Adam after he begat Seth were eight 
 hundred years, and he begat sons and daughters. 
 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hun- 
 dred and thirty years, and he died. 
 
 And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and 
 begat Enosh ; and Seth lived after he begat Enosh 
 eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and 
 daughters; and all the days of Seth were nine hun- 
 dred and twelve years, and he died.
 
 ANTEDILUVIAN GENERATIONS 69 
 
 And Enosh lived ninety years, and begat Kenan, 
 and Enosh lived after he begat Kenan eight hun- 
 dred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daugh- 
 ters ; and all the days of Enosh were nine hundred 
 and five years, and he died. 
 
 And Kenan lived seventy years, and begat Ma- 
 halalel ; and Kenan lived after he begat Mahalalel 
 eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and 
 daughters ; and all the days of Kenan were nine 
 hundred and ten years, and he died. 
 
 And Mahalalel lived sixty and five years, and 
 begat Jared ; and Mahalalel lived after he begat 
 Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat 
 sons and daughters ; and all the days of Mahalalel 
 were eight hundred ninety and five years, and he 
 died. 
 
 And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, 
 and begat Enoch ; and Jared lived after he begat 
 Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and 
 daughters ; and all the days of Jared were nine 
 hundred sixty and two years, and he died. 
 
 And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat 
 Methuselah ; and Enoch walked with God after he 
 begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat 
 sons and daughters ; and all the days of Enoch were 
 three hundred sixty and five years, and Enoch 
 walked with God and he was not, for God took 
 him. 
 
 And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and 
 seven years, and begat Lamech ; and Methuselah 
 lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty
 
 JO THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 and two years, and begat sons and daughters ; and 
 all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty 
 and nine years, and he died. 
 
 And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two 
 years, and begat a son, and he called his name 
 Noah [saying, This same shall comfort us for our 
 work and for the toil of our hands, because of the 
 ground which the Lord hath cursed]. And Lamech 
 lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and 
 five years, and begat sons and daughters ; and all 
 the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy 
 and seven years, and he died. 
 
 And Noah was five hundred years old ; and Noah 
 begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
 
 IV 
 
 THE MIXED ACCOUNT OF THE FLOOD 
 
 In the old days when the memories of mankind 
 first began to take form in myths and legends, 
 which were ultimately preserved in writing, there 
 seems to have been in the East a wide-spread 
 tradition of a great cataclysm of nature, accom- 
 panied by an overwhelming flood of waters. It 
 is not unlikely that this had come down from 
 actual occurrences in the valleys of the great 
 rivers, and on the shores of the seas some time in 
 the early history of the human race. It is no 
 more than natural if the inhabitants of regions in 
 which this tradition prevailed, with their limited 
 knowledge of the world's area, vastly exaggerated 
 the extent of the destruction attending such catas- 
 trophes, and nothing could be more useful to the 
 makers of myths than the terror they inspired. 
 
 The ancient Hebrews had no tradition of their 
 own of this kind, but the Chaldeans of the Eu- 
 phrates valley had one of the most highly devel- 
 oped of the diluvian myths, and it has been 
 sufficiently traced to put beyond doubt that it 
 
 7i
 
 72 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 furnished the material of the story of " Noah's 
 Flood." The compiler adopted the Elohist ver- 
 sion of this story, but interpolated in it some 
 fragments and phrases from the other, which he 
 seemed to regard as necessary to complete it, but 
 which really confused it. If the passage given 
 below, which constitutes the four chapters, vi.-ix., 
 of the Book of Genesis, is read without the frag- 
 ments that are bracketed or italicized, it will be 
 found to be complete and harmonious in itself. 
 It represents Noah as taking the animals into the 
 ark two by two, male and female, for preserva- 
 tion, with no distinction of clean and unclean. 
 
 The Elohist, in his account of the creation, rep- 
 resented God as giving to man the " herb yielding 
 seed," and the fruit of every tree to be "for food," 
 and the "green herb" for food for animals. In 
 preparing the ark for its perilous voyage Noah is 
 directed to take two of every sort of living things 
 "to keep them alive," and to gather "of all food 
 that is eaten" for himself and for them. The 
 same writer describes God as blessing Noah after 
 the flood, and delivering into his hand the beast 
 of the earth, the fowl of the air, and the fishes of 
 the sea, and giving him "every moving thing that 
 liveth" for food. This appears with him to be 
 the origin of animal food for man. He repre-
 
 THE MIXED ACCOUNT OF THE FLOOD J I 
 
 sented the deluge of waters as the result of a 
 general cataclysm, a breaking up of the fountains 
 of the great deep, and an opening of the windows 
 of heaven, and he allows a hundred. and fifty days 
 for the rise of the overwhelming flood, and a like 
 period for its subsidence. He leaves Noah and 
 his family in the ark more than a year. In the 
 Chaldean legend there appears to have been an 
 association of this period with an astronomical 
 myth. 
 
 The other account, doubtless that of the Jeho- 
 vist, represents Noah as taking seven pairs of 
 " clean beasts " into the ark, the overplus beyond 
 what was necessary for the preservation of species 
 being presumably for food. The inadequacy of 
 accommodations in the ark, as it is described, for 
 what it was to contain, is a detail of no account, 
 if we recognize the mythical character of the 
 whole story. Such incongruities are common in 
 antique fable. The writer, who had conceived of 
 the earth at the creation as a barren waste of land 
 waiting for moisture, instead of a chaos of waters 
 from which the land was to emerge, conceived of 
 the flood as the result of a steady down-pour of 
 rain. According to him Noah entered the ark 
 and waited seven days, and then the flood of 
 waters came in a rainfall of forty days and forty
 
 74 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 nights, when it subsided, and the ark rested "upon 
 the mountains of Ararat." To him belong the 
 incidents of opening the window and sending out 
 a raven and a dove, and finally looking forth and 
 finding the face of the ground dried. The time 
 of waiting on the mountain top was made up of 
 three periods of seven days, and seventy days 
 covered the whole time of the stay in the ark. 
 
 The difference in the two accounts of the 
 flood, which the compiler mixed up, is plainly 
 discernible when we separate the broken frag- 
 ments of the one from the continuous fabric of 
 the other. The passages and phrases which do 
 not belong to the Elohist version are printed 
 below in italics, those which were wrought into 
 it as a part of the same narrative being put in 
 brackets. At the beginning and at the end of 
 the whole story are two separate interpolations 
 which are bracketed and left in Roman type. 
 The first is a curious bit of antique material 
 with no direct relation to the context and is in- 
 consistent with the post-diluvian genealogies in 
 the decree of shortened life for man. The last 
 shows Noah in a wholly different aspect from 
 that of the story of the flood, and is apparently 
 a scrap from the old patriarchal legends, intro- 
 duced for the sake of the curse upon the peo-
 
 THE MIXED ACCOUNT OF THE FLOOD 75 
 
 pie of Canaan, who were to be made subject to 
 the offspring of Shem, from whom the Israelites 
 were descended. It incidentally reflects a gross 
 and sensual character imputed to. the Southern 
 races, or descendants of Ham, and rebukes a 
 special form of disrespect for fathers. The 
 statement of Noah's age which follows connects 
 with the genealogy of Chapter v., and seems to 
 have been broken off from it by the insertion 
 of the story of the flood after the preliminary 
 statement of his age when he "begat Shem, 
 Ham and Japheth." 
 
 [VI-IX] 
 
 [And it came to pass, when men began to multiply 
 on the face of the ground, and daughters were born 
 unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters 
 of men that they were fair; and they took them 
 wives of all that they chose. And the Lord said, 
 My spirit shall not strive with man for ever, for that 
 he also is flesh ; yet shall his days be an hundred 
 and twenty years. The Nephilim (giants) were in 
 the earth in those days, and also after that, when the 
 sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and 
 they bare children to them : the same were the 
 mighty men which were of old, the men of renown.] 
 
 And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man 
 was great in the earth, and that every imagination 
 of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
 
 J6 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 And it repented the Lord that he had made man on 
 the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the 
 Lord said, I will destroy man whom L have created 
 from the face of the ground; both man, a?id beast, 
 and creeping thing, and fowl of the air; for it repent- 
 eth me that L have made them. But Noah found 
 grace in the eyes of the Lord. 
 
 These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a 
 righteous man, and blameless in his generations. 
 Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three sons, 
 Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And the earth was cor- 
 rupt before God, and the earth was filled with vio- 
 lence. And God saw the earth, and, behold, it was 
 corrupt ; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon 
 the earth. 
 
 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is 
 come before me ; for the earth is filled with violence 
 through them ; and, behold, I will destroy them with 
 the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood ; 
 rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch 
 it within and without with pitch. And this is how 
 thou shalt make it : the length of the ark three hun- 
 dred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the 
 height of it thirty cubits. A light shalt thou make 
 to the ark, and to a cubit shalt thou finish it upward ; 
 and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side 
 thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt 
 thou make it. 
 
 And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters 
 upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the 
 breath of life, from under heaven ; every thing that
 
 THE MIXED ACCOUNT OF THE FLOOD y>J 
 
 is in the earth shall die. But I will establish my 
 covenant with thee ; and thou shalt come into the 
 ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' 
 wives with thee. And of every living thing of all 
 flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the 
 ark, to keep them alive with thee ; they shall be 
 male and female. Of the fowl after their kind, and 
 of the cattle after their kind, of every creeping 
 thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort 
 shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. And 
 take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and 
 gather it to thee ; and it shall be for food for thee, 
 and for them. Thus did Noah ; according to all 
 that God commanded him, so did he. 
 
 And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and 
 all thy house into the ark ; for thee have I seen 
 righteous before me in this generation. Of every 
 clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, 
 the male and his female ; and of the beasts that are 
 not clean two, the male and his female ; of the fowl 
 also of the air, seven and seven, male and female, to 
 keep the ?-ace alive upon the face of all the earth. For 
 yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the 
 earth forty days and forty nights; and every living 
 thing that I have made will I destroy from off the 
 face of the ground. And Noah did according unto 
 all that the Lord commanded him. 
 
 And Noah was six hundred years old when the 
 flood of waters was upon the earth. And Noah 
 went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' 
 wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters
 
 78 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 of the flood. Of [clean] beasts, [and of beasts that 
 are not clean,'] and of fowls, and of every thing that 
 creepeth upon the ground, there went in two and 
 two unto Noah into the ark, male and female, as 
 God commanded Noah. [Audit came to pass after 
 the seven days, that the waters of the flood zvere 
 upon the earth. ,] 
 
 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in 
 the second month, on the seventeenth day of the 
 month, on the same day were all the fountains of 
 the great deep broken up, and the windows of 
 heaven were opened. [And the rain was upon the 
 earth forty days and forty nights.'] In the selfsame 
 day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and 
 Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and 
 the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark ; 
 they, and every beast after its kind, and all the 
 cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing 
 that creepeth upon the earth after its kind, and 
 every fowl after its kind, every bird of every sort. 
 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and 
 two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life. And 
 they that went in, went in male and female of all 
 flesh, as God commanded him ; [and the Lord shut 
 him in. And the flood was forty days upon the 
 earth ; and the "waters increased, and bare up the 
 ark, and it was lift up above the eart/i.] 
 
 And the waters prevailed, and increased greatly 
 upon the earth ; and the ark went upon the face of 
 the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly 
 upon the earth ; and all the high mountains that
 
 THE MIXED ACCOUNT OF THE FLOOD 79 
 
 were under the whole heaven were covered. Fif- 
 teen cubits upward did the waters prevail ; and the 
 mountains were covered. And all flesh died that 
 moved upon the earth, both fowl, and cattle, and 
 beast, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon 
 the earth, and every man : [all in whose nostrils was 
 the breath of the spirit of life, of all that was in the 
 dry land, died. And every living thing was de- 
 stroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both 
 man, and cattle, and creeping thing, and fowl of the 
 heaven ; and they were destroyed from the earth ; 
 and Noah only was left, and they that were with 
 him in the ark.~\ And the waters prevailed upon the 
 earth an hundred and fifty days. 
 
 And God remembered Noah, and every living 
 thing, and all the cattle that were with him in the 
 ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth, 
 and the waters assuaged ; the fountains also of the 
 deep and the windows of heaven were stopped ; 
 \_and the rain from heaven was restrained ; and the 
 waters returned from off the earth continually .•] and 
 after the end of an hundred and fifty days the waters 
 decreased [and the ark rested] in the seventh 
 month, on the seventeenth day of the month 
 [upon the mountains of Ararat.'] And the waters 
 decreased continually until the tenth month. In 
 the tenth month, on the first day of the month, 
 were the tops of the mountains seen. 
 
 {And it came to pass at the end of forty days, 
 that Noah opened the windotv of the ark which he 
 had made; and he sent forth a raven, and it went
 
 SO THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from 
 off the earth. And he sent forth a dove from him, to 
 see if the waters were aim ted from off the face of the 
 ground; but the dove found no rest for the sole of 
 her foot, and she returned unto him to the ai'k,for 
 the waters were on the face of the whole earth ; and 
 he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her 
 in unto him into the ark. And he stayed yet other 
 seven days ; and again he sent forth the dove out of 
 the ark ; and the dove came in to him at eventide ; 
 and, lo, in her mouth an olive leaf pluekt off : so 
 Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the 
 earth. And he stayed yet other seven days ; and 
 sent forth the dove ; and she returned not again unto 
 him any more.] 
 
 And it came to pass in the six hundred and first 
 year, in the first month, the first day of the month, 
 the waters were dried up from off the earth ; \_and 
 Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, 
 and, behold, the face of the ground was dried.'] 
 And in the second month, on the seven and twen- 
 tieth day of the month, was the earth dry. 
 
 And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of 
 the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy 
 sons' wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every 
 living thing that is with thee of all flesh, both fowl, 
 and cattle, and every creeping thing that creepeth 
 upon the earth ; that they may breed abundantly in 
 the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the 
 earth. And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his 
 wife, and his sons' wives with him. Every beast,
 
 THE MIXED ACCOUNT OF THE FLOOD 8 1 
 
 every creeping thing, and every fowl, whatsoever 
 moveth upon the earth, after their families, went 
 forth out of the ark. 
 
 And Noah bit ikied an altar unto the Lord ; and 
 took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, 
 and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the 
 LORD smelted the sweet savour ; and the Lord said 
 in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any 
 more for man's sake, for that the imagination of 
 man's heart is evil from his youth ; neither will I 
 again smite any more every thing living, as I have 
 done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and 
 harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, 
 and day and night shall not cease. 
 
 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said 
 unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish 
 the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of 
 you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and 
 upon every fowl of the air ; with all wherewith the 
 ground teemeth, and all the fishes of the sea, into 
 your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing 
 that liveth shall be food for you ; as the green herb 
 have I given you all. But flesh with the life thereof, 
 which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And 
 surely your blood, the blood of your lives, will I 
 avenge ; from every beast will I exact retribution 
 for it ; and at the hand of man, even at the hand 
 of every man's brother, will I exact retribution for 
 the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by 
 man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of 
 God made he man. And you, be ye fruitful, and
 
 82 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 multiply j bring forth abundantly in the earth, and 
 multiply therein. 
 
 And (iod spake unto Noah, and to his sons with 
 him, saying, And I. behold, I establish my covenant 
 with you, and with your posterity after you ; and 
 with every living creature that is with you, the fowl, 
 the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you ; 
 of all that go out of the ark, even every beast of 
 the earth. And I will establish my covenant with 
 you ; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by 
 the waters of the flood ; neither shall there any 
 more be a flood to destroy the earth. 
 
 And God said, This is the token of the covenant 
 which I make between me and you and every living 
 creature that is with you, for perpetual generations : 
 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a 
 token of a covenant between me and the earth. 
 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud 
 over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the 
 cloud, and I will remember my covenant, which is 
 between me and you and every living creature of all 
 flesh ; and the waters shall no more become a flood 
 to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the 
 cloud ; and I will look upon it, that I may remem- 
 ber the everlasting covenant between God and every 
 living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 
 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the 
 covenant which I have established between me and 
 all flesh that is upon the earth. 
 
 And the sons of Noah, thai went forth of the ark, 
 were Shan, and Ham, and Japheth : and Ham is
 
 THE MIXED ACCOUNT OF THE FLOOD 83 
 
 the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of 
 Noah : and of these was the whole earth overspread. 
 [And Noah began to be an husbandman, and 
 planted a vineyard ; and he drank of the wine, and 
 was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent. 
 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness 
 of his father, and told his two brethren without. 
 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it 
 upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and 
 covered the nakedness of their father ; and their 
 faces were backward, and they saw not their father's 
 nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and 
 knew what his youngest son had done unto him. 
 And he said, 
 
 Cursed be Canaan ; 
 
 A servant of servants shall he be unto his 
 brethren. 
 
 And he said, 
 
 Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem ; 
 
 And let Canaan be his servant. 
 
 God enlarge Japheth, 
 
 And let him dwell in the tents of Shem ; 
 
 And let Canaan be his servant.] 
 
 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred 
 and fifty years. And all the days of Noah were 
 nine hundred and fifty years : and he died.
 
 V 
 
 POST-DILUVIAN GENERATIONS 
 
 Chapter x. of the Book of Genesis is purely eth- 
 nographical and was intended to account for the 
 distribution of population within the range of the 
 writer's geography. Its basis was no doubt in 
 the Elohist document, as a genealogy of the de- 
 scendants of Noah, but it appears to have been 
 expanded by the compiler to conform to a some- 
 what more definite knowledge in his day. The 
 names were partly those of places, some cities and 
 some broader territorial designations, and partly 
 those of tribes or peoples. 
 
 Japheth, which implied vast extent, compre- 
 hended the Northern and Western peoples, of which 
 comparatively little was then known. Magog was 
 a term applied to the distant Scythians, and Javan 
 included the Ionians. Dodanim seems to be iden- 
 tical with the Rodanim of the Book of Chronicles, 
 and is supposed to mean the Rhodians. Ham, 
 which implied a hot climate, comprehended the 
 people of the South and the distant East, in- 
 cluding Egypt under the name of Mizraim. The 
 Canaanite tribes did not properly belong to this 
 
 8 4
 
 POST-DILUVIAN GENERATIONS 85 
 
 division, but to the Semitic race. They were 
 remotely akin to the Israelites, but their subjec- 
 tion and the hereditary antipathy engendered by 
 it led to placing them among the progeny of 
 Ham and putting a special opprobrium upon their 
 name. The reference to Nimrod and the founding 
 of Nineveh was an interpolation derived from the 
 prolific source of Chaldean myth, in which the 
 mighty hunter was an astronomical figure cor- 
 responding to Orion. The phrase " before the 
 Lord" is simply an intensive or superlative form 
 of expression. Zidon is mentioned both as 
 the son of Canaan and as a place on " the border 
 of the Canaanite " ; and the personal names for 
 the tribes of Canaan did not go beyond Heth, the 
 supposed ancestor of the Hittites. 
 
 Shem, meaning simply "name," implied the 
 noble strain in the descendants of Noah. Arpach- 
 shad was the name of a place, Shelah signified 
 "emigration," and Peleg "division." The ethnog- 
 raphy is by no means systematic or clear, and 
 there is a repetition of names. Sheba and Havi- 
 lah are given both as descendants of Ham and of 
 Shem. The former represented the people of 
 Southern Arabia, who are supposed to have be- 
 come the progenitors of the Nubians and Abyssin- 
 ians. Uz and Jobab, which irresistibly suggest
 
 S6 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Job and the land of Uz, appear again in the gene- 
 alogies of Seir and Edom (Chapter xxxvi.). The 
 whole scheme was a rough attempt at accounting 
 for the origin of the nations " divided in the earth 
 after the flood," according to the imperfect geo- 
 graphical knowledge of the writer, and the slight 
 revision of the compiler probably produced the 
 repetitions. 
 
 The compiler followed this with a fragment 
 (xi. 1-9) bearing the distinct characteristics of the 
 Jehovist, with his fondness for the fabulous in 
 dealing with the perversities of man. The pre- 
 ceding genealogy distinctly implied a diversity of 
 language in the division of the races, " after their 
 tongues," as well as their families, but this frag- 
 ment assumed "one speech" until it was "con- 
 founded " in consequence of a rash attempt to 
 keep the people from being scattered over the 
 earth, by building a tower which should reach 
 heaven. This picturesque bit of mythism was 
 undoubtedly suggested by the unfinished temple 
 of Bel in "the land of Shinar," and the assumed 
 derivation of its name from the Hebrew verb "to 
 confound " was mere fancy. It really meant the 
 gate (or the house) of Bel, the deity of the Baby- 
 lonians, and had no etymological relation to 
 "balal" or any other Hebrew word.
 
 POST-DILUVIAN GENERATIONS 8? 
 
 After this a characteristic piece of genealogy 
 from the Elohist (xi. 10-32) was introduced, trac- 
 ing the direct line of descent from Shem to 
 Abram. Exactly what significance might be 
 attached to the definite statement of the ages of 
 the several begetters of these generations — ten 
 in number like those before the flood — we cannot 
 say, but they furnish the means, if any is neces- 
 sary, for exposing the utterly unhistorical charac- 
 ter of the whole scheme. It represents the time 
 in which Abram lived as being only three to four 
 centuries after the destruction of all mankind ex- 
 cept one family, from which he was descended in 
 the tenth generation. And yet in that brief period 
 had grown up many nations scattered over a wide 
 area, with their various "borders" and cities, and 
 "the great City of" Nineveh had been long ago 
 founded. We know now that still existing pyramids 
 must have been built a thousand years before the 
 time assigned to Abram by the Hebrews them- 
 selves, and their own account of his career implies 
 antiquity in the "Chaldees," and the establishment, 
 for an indefinite time, of the Kingdom of Egypt. 
 
 Apart from the absurdity of supposing that 
 all the development implied in these narratives, 
 and well ascertained from other sources, had 
 taken place in three or four centuries of time,
 
 88 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 if we note that this genealogy itself would make 
 Shem, the son of Noah, a survivor of Abraham 
 by thirty-five years, and a living contemporary 
 of Pharaoh, Abimelech, and the other potentates 
 of their time, the assumption takes a ludicrous 
 aspect. The subject can, however, be regarded 
 seriously without being taken as even intended 
 to be matter of fact. 
 
 The first eleven chapters of Genesis consti- 
 tute a work by themselves, composite, irregular, 
 and fragmentary, but forming a prelude to the 
 mythical history of Israel's ancestry. 
 
 [X-XI] 
 
 Now these are the generations of the sons of 
 Noah : Shem, Ham and Japheth ; and unto them 
 were sons born after the flood. 
 
 The sons of Japheth : Gomer, and Magog, and 
 Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and 
 Tiras. And the sons of Gomer : Ashkenaz, and Ri- 
 phath, and Togarmah. And the sons of Javan : 
 Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. Of 
 these were the isles of the nations divided in their 
 lands, every one after his tongue ; after their fami- 
 lies, in their nations. 
 
 And the sons of Ham : Cush, and Mizraim, and 
 Put, and Canaan. And the sons of Cush : Seba, 
 and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sab- 
 teca ; and the sons of Raamah : Sheba, and Dedan.
 
 POST-DILUVIAN GENERATIONS 89 
 
 [And Cush begat Nimrod. He began to be a mighty 
 one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the 
 Lord ; wherefore it is said, Like Nimrod a mighty 
 hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his 
 kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and 
 Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land he 
 went forth into Assyria, and builded Nineveh, and 
 Rehoboth-Ir, and Calah, and Resen between Nine- 
 veh and Calah (the same is the great city).] And 
 Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, 
 and Naphtuhim, and Pathrusim, and Casluhim. 
 [whence went forth the Philistines], and Caphtorim. 
 
 And Canaan begat Zidon his first-born, and Heth, 
 and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girga- 
 shite, and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Si- 
 nite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the 
 Hamathite ; and afterward were the families of the 
 Canaanite spread abroad. And the border of 
 the Canaanite was from Zidon, as thou goest toward 
 Gerar, unto Gaza ; as thou goest toward Sodom and 
 Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboiim, unto Lasha. 
 These are the sons of Ham, after their families, 
 after their tongues, in their lands, in their nations. 
 
 And unto Shem, the father of all the children of 
 Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, to him also 
 were children born. The sons of Shem : Elam, 
 and Asshur, and Arpachshad, and Lud, and Aram. 
 And the sons of Aram : Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and 
 Mash. And Arpachshad begat Shelah, and Shelah 
 begat Eber. And unto Eber were born two sons ; 
 the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days was
 
 90 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 the earth divided ; and his brother's name was Jok- 
 tan. And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and 
 Hazarmaveth, and Jerah ; and Hadoram, and Uzal, 
 and Diklahj and Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba; 
 and Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab : all these were 
 the sons of Joktan. And their dwelling was from 
 Mesha, as thou goest toward Sephar, the mountain 
 of the east. These are the sons of Shem, after their 
 families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their 
 nations. 
 
 These are the families of the sons of Noah, after 
 their generations, in their nations; and of these were 
 the nations divided in the earth after the flood. 
 
 [And the whole earth was of one language and of 
 one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed 
 east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar ; 
 and they dwelt there. And they said one to an- 
 other, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them 
 thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and bi- 
 tumen had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, 
 let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may 
 reach unto heaven, to make us a name, lest we be 
 scattered abroad upon the face of the whole 
 earth. 
 
 And the Lord came down to see the city and the 
 tower, which the children of men builded. And the 
 Lord said, Behold, they are one people, and they 
 have all one language ; and this is what they begin 
 to do, and now nothing will be withholden from 
 them which they purpose to do. Go to, let us go
 
 POST-DILUVIAN GENERATIONS 91 
 
 down, and there confound their language, that they 
 may not understand one another's speech. 
 
 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence 
 upon the face of all the earth, and they left off 
 building the city. Therefore was the name of it 
 called Babel ; because the Lord did there confound 
 the language of all the earth ; and from thence did 
 the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all 
 the earth.] 
 
 These are the generations of Shem. Shem was 
 an hundred years old, and begat Arpachshad two 
 years after the flood ; and Shem lived after he be- 
 gat Arpachshad five hundred years, and begat sons 
 and daughters. 
 
 And Arpachshad lived five and thirty years, and 
 begat Shelah ; and Arpachshad lived after he begat 
 Shelah four hundred and three years, and begat sons 
 and daughters. 
 
 And Shelah lived thirty years, and begat Eber; 
 and Shelah lived after he begat Eber four hundred 
 and three years, and begat sons and daughters. 
 
 And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat 
 Peleg; and Eber lived after he begat Peleg four 
 hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and 
 daughters. 
 
 And Peleg lived thirty years, and begat Reu ; and 
 Peleg lived after he begat Reu two hundred and nine 
 years, and begat sons and daughters. 
 
 And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat 
 Serug; and Reu lived after he begat Serug two
 
 92 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 hundred and seven years, and begat sons and 
 daughters. 
 
 And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor ; 
 and Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred 
 years, and begat sons and daughters. 
 
 And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat 
 Terah ; and Nahor lived after he begat Terah an 
 hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and 
 daughters. 
 
 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, 
 Nahor, and Haran. 
 
 Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah 
 begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran ; and Haran begat 
 Lot. And Haran died in the presence of his father 
 Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chal- 
 dees. And Abram and Nahor took them wives. 
 The name of Abram's wife was Sarai ; and the name 
 of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the 
 father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. And 
 Sarai was barren ; she had no child. 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 with them from 
 Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan ; 
 and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. And 
 the days of Terah were two hundred and five years ; 
 and Terah died in Haran.
 
 VI 
 
 ABRAHAM TAKES POSSESSION OF THE LAND 
 
 With Chapter xii. begins the story of Abraham, 
 transformed from the mythical Chaldean king, 
 father Orham, and from the putative ancestor of 
 the kindred Semitic peoples, from the river to the 
 sea, into the personal forefather of the Hebrew- 
 tribes. The different elements in this production 
 are not so clearly distinguishable as those of the 
 preceding section of the book, but there is plain 
 evidence of their existence in the many inconsist- 
 encies of the narrative. The compiler wrought 
 his materials together more completely, but not 
 much more harmoniously, and the work of his 
 own hand is more manifest. The Elohist docu- 
 ment appears to have been rather meagre so far 
 as it related to the Abraham legend, and the three 
 episodes of Chapters xii. and xiii. are mainly from 
 the Jehovist and derived by him largely from the 
 original patriarchal idyls. 
 
 The first episode describes Abraham's departure 
 from his own country to Shechem, where the land 
 was promised to his progeny. The event was 
 
 93
 
 94 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 commemorated by building an altar, and then the 
 possession of Bethel was consecrated by the same 
 means. The passage in brackets is of different 
 material from the rest and doubtless from the 
 Elohist. Having taken possession of the North, 
 Abraham journeyed south. 
 
 The second episode, beginning with xii. n, is 
 quite disconnected from this, and illustrates the 
 divine favor supposed to be bestowed upon Abra- 
 ham to protect him in a foreign land and to 
 give him wealth. The device of a famine to 
 account for his going into Egypt, and of plagues 
 to explain his departure, was afterwards applied in 
 a developed form in the case of his posterity. 
 The incident of representing his wife to be his 
 sister, as a means of protection to himself, throws 
 light upon the moral ideas of the writer's time. 
 There was no safeguard for the chastity of an 
 unmarried woman, whether maid or widow, but 
 any violation of the exclusive rights of the hus- 
 band was regarded with horror. There appears 
 to have been no sense of outrage if a sister should 
 be appropriated for the harem of a sensual mon- 
 arch, and Abraham is represented as being willing 
 that his wife should meet the fate that might 
 befall a sister to save himself from the fate of 
 having her made a widow. The moral aspect of
 
 ABRAHAM TAKES POSSESSION OF THE LAND 95 
 
 the case is somewhat mitigated by the fact that 
 the writer was dealing with symbolical characters 
 rather than real persons, but it nevertheless re- 
 flects the habit of thought of the time. Perhaps 
 the aesthetic aspect of the case may also be re- 
 lieved by the lack of reality in the characters ; for 
 the charms of Sarai must have been somewhat 
 mature, as she was said to be sixty-five years of 
 age when they left Haran. 
 
 The third episode (Chapter xiii. ) explains the 
 division of the land between Abraham, as the an- 
 cestor of Israel, and Lot, as the ancestor of Moab 
 and Amnion, and the former's exclusive possession 
 of the land of Canaan, albeit the " Canaanite and 
 Perizzite" then dwelt there. There are traces of 
 two diverse accounts of the division, one attribut- 
 ing it to the increase of the substance of the two 
 chiefs, and the other to strife between their herds- 
 men. Notwithstanding all his wealth and sub- 
 stance in flocks and herds, the patriarch is 
 described as passing through the land to revisit 
 his altar at Bethel and as moving his tent to 
 Hebron, the place which first became the centre 
 of consecration for the Kingdom of Judah. This 
 latter is apparently a touch from the Judean com- 
 piler, but the whole is in the true spirit of legend, 
 typifying in a sweeping way the original occupa-
 
 96 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 tion of the country. The interpolated statement 
 as to the wickedness of Sodom appears to be the 
 compiler's preparation for the story of its destruc- 
 tion introduced farther on. 
 
 [XII, XIII] 
 
 Now the Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of 
 thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy 
 father's house, unto the land that I will shew thee ; 
 and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will 
 bless thee, and make thy name great ; and be thou 
 a blessing, and I will bless them that bless thee, 
 and him that curseth thee will I curse, and in thee 
 shall all the families of the earth be blessed. 
 
 So Abram went, as the Lord had spoken unto 
 him ; and Lot went with him : [and Abram was 
 seventy and five years old when he departed out of 
 Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot 
 his brother's son, and all their substance that they 
 had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in 
 Haran ; and they went forth to go into the land of 
 Canaan ; and into the land of Canaan thev came.] 
 
 And Abram passed through the land unto the 
 place of Shechem, unto the oak of Moreh. And 
 the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord 
 appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy posterity 
 will I give this land : and there builded he an altar 
 unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. And he 
 removed from thence unto the mountain on the east 
 of Beth- el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on
 
 ABRAHAM TAKES POSSESSION OF THE LAND 07 
 
 the west, and Ai on the east ; and there he builded 
 an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name 
 of the Lord. 
 
 And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the 
 South ; and there was a famine in the land, and 
 Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, for 
 the famine was sore in the land. 
 
 And it came to pass, when he was come near to 
 enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, 
 Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to 
 look upon ; and it shall come to pass, when the 
 Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is 
 his wife, and they will kill me, but they will save 
 thee alive. Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister, 
 that it may be well with me for thy sake, and that 
 my soul may live because of thee. 
 
 And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come 
 into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that 
 she was very fair. And the princes of Pharaoh saw 
 her, and praised her to Pharaoh ; and the woman was 
 taken into Pharaoh's house. And he dealt well with 
 Abram for her sake ; and he had sheep, and oxen, 
 and he-asses, and menservants, and maidservants, 
 and she-asses, and camels. And the Lord plagued 
 Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because 
 of Sarai Abram's wife. And Pharaoh called Abram, 
 and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? 
 Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? 
 Why saidst thou, She is my sister, so that I took her 
 to be my wife ? Now therefore behold thy wife, take 
 
 H
 
 98 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 her, and go thy way. And Pharaoh gave men 
 charge concerning him ; and they brought him on 
 the way, and his wife, and all that he had. 
 
 And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, 
 and all that he had, into the South, and Lot was with 
 him. [And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, 
 and in gold.] And he went on his journeys from the 
 South even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent 
 had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Ai ; 
 unto the place of the altar, which he had made there 
 at the first ; and there Abram called on the name of 
 the Lord. 
 
 [And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, 
 and herds, and tents. And the land was not able to 
 bear them, that they might dwell together, for their 
 substance was great, so that they could not dwell to- 
 gether.] And there was a strife between the herdmen 
 of Abram's cattle and the herdmen of Lot's cattle : 
 \_and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in 
 the land.'] And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be 
 no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and be- 
 tween my herdmen and thy herdmen ; for we are 
 brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? Sepa- 
 rate thyself, I pray thee, from me ; if thou wilt take 
 the left hand, then I will go to the right ; or if thou 
 take the right hand, then I will go to the left. 
 
 And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the Plain 
 of Jordan, that it was well watered every where be- 
 fore the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like 
 the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as
 
 ABRAHAM TAKES POSSESSION OF THE LAND 99 
 
 thou goest unto Zoar. So Lot chose him all the 
 Plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east; [and they 
 separated themselves the one from the other. Abram 
 dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the 
 cities of the Plain,] and moved his tent as far as 
 Sodom. \_JV01a the men of Sodom were wicked and 
 sinners against the Lord exceedingly^ 
 
 And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was 
 separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look 
 from the place where thou art, northward and south- 
 ward and eastward and westward ; for all the land 
 which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy 
 posterity for ever. And I will make thy race as the 
 dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the 
 dust of the earth, then shall thy race also be num- 
 bered. Arise, walk through the land in the length 
 of it and in the breadth of it ; for unto thee will I 
 give it. 
 
 And Abram moved his tent, and came and dwelt 
 by the terebinths of Mamre, which are in Hebron, 
 and built there an altar unto the Lord.
 
 VII 
 
 ABRAHAM AS A WARLIKE CHIEF 
 
 The passage which stands apart as the four- 
 teenth chapter of Genesis presents Abraham in 
 a character and aspect that appear nowhere else. 
 Whether the compiler found it as a legend com- 
 plete in itself, or extracted it from some longer 
 document, or whether he composed it from existing 
 material, written or oral, with a purpose of his 
 own, is matter only of conjecture. Most critics 
 assume that it was contained in the Jehovist 
 document, but two widely different views have 
 been taken of it. 
 
 Some have regarded it as a fragment of ancient 
 chronicle, revealing glimpses of an antique world 
 in the light of reality, — a scene torn from a pano- 
 rama of prehistoric life in the weird region of the 
 Dead Sea. Others see in it a myth later than the 
 main substance of the story rather than earlier, 
 illustrating, like many another legend of the kind, 
 the invincible might of the favorite of Israel's God 
 as against the heathen. In support of this view is 
 cited the extravagant improbability of the exploit of 
 
 IOO
 
 ABRAHAM AS A WARLIKE CHIEF IOI 
 
 pursuing through the length and breadth of the 
 land the armies of the confederated kings, with 
 a band of three hundred and eighteen trained men 
 "born in his house," and recovering their plunder. 
 The use of the name " Damascus " was relatively 
 modern, and Dan, at the northern border of the 
 land, was established late in the period of the 
 judges. Of the country devastated by the invad- 
 ing kings from the East was that of the Amale- 
 kites. In the ethnographical system of the book, 
 the Amalekites were the descendants of Amalek, 
 and in the eponymic genealogies of the Elohist, 
 farther on, Amalek was the grandson of Abra- 
 ham's grandson Esau. 
 
 These anachronisms appear inconsistent with 
 the assumed antiquity of the composition, what- 
 ever may be said of the traditions from which 
 it might have been derived. The vivid picture 
 of Melchizedek, blessing Abraham, and receiving 
 from him a tenth of all, is so different from all 
 other references in Hebrew story to alien rulers 
 and pagan priests, as to suggest a device for 
 giving an ancient sanctity to Salem, the site of 
 the Judean capital, to the union of the functions 
 of king and priest in one person, and to the pay- 
 ment of tithes for the support of his beneficent 
 sway. Moreover, the significance of the name,
 
 102 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 " King of righteousness," would rather imply a 
 symbolical character in the whole story than 
 a recognition of superior sovereignty in an ancient 
 Jebusite monarch on the height of Salem (peace). 
 These suggestions, if they point to the truth, 
 indicate a relatively late composition for this pas- 
 sage, though wrought upon an antique pattern. 
 The term " El-Elion " (God most high) was in 
 use in Phoenicia. 
 
 The writer of the letter to the Hebrews in the 
 New Testament, erroneously credited to St. Paul 
 in the canon, plainly regarded Melchizedek as 
 an allegorical character, " being first, by inter- 
 pretation, King of righteousness, and then also 
 King of Salem, which is King of peace ; without 
 father, without mother, without genealogy, having 
 neither beginning of days nor end of life, but 
 made like unto the Son of God." Doubtless the 
 whole story of the slaughter of the kings, and 
 the giving of a tenth of all the recovered spoil 
 to this king of righteousness and peace, was a 
 symbolical representation of the power and sanc- 
 tity of Israel's mythical ancestor, and of the 
 obligation of his descendants to devote a tithe 
 of their substance to the consecrated impersona- 
 tion of an authority derived from the God of 
 Abraham. One of the incidental touches which
 
 ABRAHAM AS A WARLIKE CHIEF 103 
 
 seem inconsistent with the special antiquity of 
 this production is the prosaic statement that one 
 who had escaped "told Abram the Hebrew." 
 The word " Hebrew " did not come, into use as 
 a designation of the people of Israel until after 
 the establishment of the kingdoms. The main 
 features of the narrative were doubtless suggested 
 by one of the many invasions of the Southern 
 country from Shinar (Chaldea) and Elam (be- 
 yond the Tigris). The original author perhaps 
 made use of real traditions and wove into them 
 the exploits of Abraham. 
 
 [XIV] 
 
 And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king 
 of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer 
 king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim, that they 
 made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha 
 king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and 
 Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela 
 \_the same is Zoar\. All these joined together in 
 the vale of Siddim [the same is the Salt Sea~\. 
 Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in 
 the thirteenth year they rebelled. 
 
 And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, 
 and the kings that were with him, and smote the 
 Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, and the Zuzim in 
 Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim, and the 
 Horites in their mount Seir, unto El-paran, which
 
 104 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 is by the wilderness. And they returned, and came 
 to En-mishpat [the same is Kadesh~\, and smote all 
 the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amo- 
 rites, that dwelt in Hazazon-tamar. And there 
 went out the king of Sodom, and the king of 
 Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king 
 of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela [///<? same is 
 Zoar\ ; and they set the battle in array against 
 them in the vale of Siddim ; against Chedorlaomer 
 king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim, and Am- 
 raphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar ; 
 four kings against the five. 
 
 Now the vale of Siddim was full of bitumen pits ; 
 and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah tied, and 
 they fell there, and they that remained fled to the 
 mountain. And they took all the goods of Sodom 
 and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their 
 way. And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, 
 who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. 
 And there came one that had escaped, and told 
 Abram the Hebrew. Now he dwelt by the oaks of 
 Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother 
 of Aner ; and these were confederate with Abram. 
 
 And when Abram heard that his brother was 
 taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in 
 his house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued 
 as far as Dan. And he divided himself against them 
 by night, he and his servants, and smote them, and 
 pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left 
 hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the 
 goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and
 
 ABRAHAM AS A WARLIKE CHIEF 105 
 
 his goods, and the women also, and the people. 
 And the king of Sodom went out to meet him, after 
 his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and 
 the kings that were with him, at the vale of Shaveh 
 \Jhe same is the King's Vale']. 
 
 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth 
 bread and wine ; and he was priest of God Most 
 High [El-Elion]. And he blessed him, and said, 
 Blessed be Abram of God Most High, maker of 
 heaven and earth ; and blessed be God Most High, 
 which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. 
 And he gave him a tenth of all. 
 
 And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give 
 me the persons, and take the goods to thyself. 
 And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted 
 up mine hand unto the Lord, God Most High, 
 maker of heaven and earth, that I will not take a 
 thread nor a shoelatchet nor aught that is thine, lest 
 thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich ; save 
 only that which the young men have eaten, and 
 the portion of the men who went with me, Aner, 
 Eshcol, and Mamre, let them take their portion.
 
 VIII 
 
 FIRST ACCOUNT OF THE COVENANT 
 
 Chapter xv. contains the Jehovist account 
 of the original compact between Abraham and 
 Jehovah, which appears to be made up from 
 the most ancient material. It has a weird qual- 
 ity peculiar to itself, — in the word of the Lord 
 coming in a vision, in the antique sacrifice as a 
 ceremony in making a solemn covenant, in the 
 prediction of Egyptian servitude and deliver- 
 ance, and in the flame and smoke to indicate 
 the presence of deity. It involves only the 
 promise of the possession of the land to the 
 posterity of Abraham, which is made more im- 
 pressive by the not uncommon device of repre- 
 senting him as old and childless at the time. 
 It will be observed that this version of the story 
 brings Abraham himself and not his father Terah 
 from "Ur of the Chaldees." 
 
 The fact that the reciprocal obligation of 
 obedience does not appear, and no religious as- 
 pect is given to the transaction, leads one to 
 believe that the account was part of the old 
 
 1 06
 
 FIRST ACCOUNT OF THE COVENANT 107 
 
 material used by the Jehovist, rather than of 
 his own composition. It is quite distinct from 
 what precedes and follows, and the mythical 
 quality is unusually marked. The promise of 
 dominion from the "River of Egypt" to the Eu- 
 phrates was according to the hope always cher- 
 ished in Israel but never realized. The epithet 
 "Dammesek," applied to Abraham's servant Elie- 
 zer, is commonly explained as meaning Damas- 
 cene, but some learned Hebraists regard this as 
 a misconception of the original. The phrase 
 rendered by this word, " Dammesek," is said to 
 be unusual but capable of signifying the son of 
 property as distinguished from the son of the 
 person, and therefore implying inheritance other- 
 wise than by blood, where there is failure of 
 offspring, in accordance with an ancient rule 
 for the descent of property. 
 
 The opening phrase of this passage, "after 
 these things," merely constitutes a connective 
 expression, the equivalent of which was fre- 
 quently used by the compiler in passing from 
 one to another of the episodes culled from his 
 varied material. 
 
 [XV] 
 
 After these things the word of the Lord came 
 unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram ; I
 
 108 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 am thy shield, and thy reward shall be exceeding 
 great. And Abram said, O Lord God, what wilt 
 thou give me, seeing I go childless, and he that shall 
 be possessor of my house is Dammesek Eliezer? 
 And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no 
 offspring ; and, lo, one born in my house is mine 
 heir. 
 
 And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto 
 him, saying, This man shall not be thine heir ; but 
 he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels 
 shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth 
 abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell 
 the stars, if thou be able to tell them : and he said 
 unto him, So shall thy posterity be. And he be- 
 lieved in the Lord ; and he counted it to him for 
 righteousness. 
 
 And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought 
 thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land 
 to inherit it. And he said, O Lord God, whereby 
 shall I know that I shall inherit it? And he said 
 unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and 
 a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three 
 years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon. 
 And he took him all these, and divided them in the 
 midst, and laid each half over against the other; 
 but the birds divided he not. And the birds of 
 prey came down upon the carcases, and Abram 
 drove them away. And when the sun was going 
 down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram ; and, lo, an 
 horror of great darkness fell upon him. 
 
 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that
 
 FIRST ACCOUNT OF THE COVENANT IO9 
 
 thy offspring shall be a stranger in a land that is not 
 theirs, and shall serve them ; and they shall afflict 
 them four hundred years ; and also that nation, 
 whom they shall serve, will I judge ; and afterward 
 shall they come out with great substance. But thou 
 shalt go to thy fathers in peace ; thou shalt be bur- 
 ied in a good old age. And in the fourth generation 
 they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the 
 Amorite is not yet full. 
 
 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went 
 down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, 
 and a flaming torch that passed between these 
 pieces. In that day the Lord made a covenant 
 with Abram, saying, Unto thy race have I given this 
 land, from the river of Egypt unto the great, river, 
 the river Euphrates : the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, 
 and the Kadmonite, and the Hittite, and the Periz- 
 zite, and the Rephaim, and the Amorite, and the 
 Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.
 
 IX 
 
 FIRST STORY OF HAGAR AND ISHMAEL 
 
 The people of Arabia were known to be akin 
 to those of Palestine, and to Israel they were 
 known generally as Ishmael (God hears), or as 
 Ishmaelites. Those who dwelt in Arabia Petraea 
 were called " Hagrites," a term assumed to be from 
 Hagar, meaning "flight," the same as Hegira. 
 The significance of the names attached to places 
 and to tribes and peoples usually contained the 
 germs of the ethnic story evolved therefrom to 
 account for the origin of such peoples and their 
 possession of the places. 
 
 The Israelites acknowledged the common de- 
 scent of the Ishmaelites from their great ances- 
 tor, but relegated them to an inferior relation 
 with the story of the Egyptian handmaid and her 
 son. The story seems to have had several forms. 
 In that contained in the passage below (Genesis 
 xvi.), the turning into the wilderness of the "wild 
 ass among man " is represented as taking place 
 in the person of the mother before the birth of 
 the child, because she began to assume airs of 
 
 no
 
 FIRST STORY OF HAGAR AND ISHMAEL ill 
 
 superiority in consequence of her prospects. The 
 use of the word "angel" in our English version, 
 here and elsewhere, is apt to be misleading. The 
 original (maleak) varies in its application, but fre- 
 quently implies an apparition of the actual deity in 
 a visible or audible manner. The name of the 
 well, still existing in the writer's day, helped out 
 the story, as it implied that one had there seen 
 God and yet lived. The fragments in brackets are 
 an interpolation from the Elohist document, which 
 contained the Hagar story that comes later on 
 (Chapter xxi.). It belongs to the same narrative 
 with the fragment in Chapter xii., which says that 
 Abram was seventy-five years old when he came 
 to the land of Canaan. 
 
 [XVI] 
 
 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bare him no children ; 
 and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose 
 name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, 
 Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from 
 bearing; go in, I pray thee, unto my handmaid; 
 it may be that I shall obtain children by her. And 
 Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. [And Sarai 
 Abram's wife took Hagar the Egyptian, her hand- 
 maid, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land 
 of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to 
 be his wife.] And he went in unto Hagar, and she
 
 112 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 conceived j and when she saw that she had con- 
 ceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes. 
 
 And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon 
 thee. I gave my handmaid into thy bosom ; and 
 when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised 
 in her eyes. The Lord judge between me and thee. 
 But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in 
 thy hand ; do to her that which is good in thine 
 eyes. And Sarai dealt hardly with her, and she fled 
 from her face. And the angel of the Lord found 
 her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the 
 fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, 
 Sarai's handmaid, whence earnest thou ? and whither 
 goest thou? And she said, I flee from the face of 
 my mistress Sarai. And the angel of the Lord said 
 unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself 
 under her hands. 
 
 And the angel of the Lord said unto her, I will 
 greatly multiply thy offspring, that it shall not be 
 numbered for multitude. And the angel of the 
 Lord said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, 
 and shalt bear a son ; and thou shalt call his name 
 Ishmael, because the Lord hath heard thy afflic- 
 tion. And he shall be as a wild-ass among men ; 
 his hand shall be against every man, and every 
 man's hand against him ; and he shall dwell over 
 against all his brethren. 
 
 And she called the name of the Lord that spake 
 unto her, Thou art a God that seeth : for she said, 
 Have I even here looked after him that seeth me? 
 Wherefore the well was called Beerlahai-roi ; behold,
 
 FIRST STORY OF HAGAR AND ISHMAEL 113 
 
 it is between Kadesh and Bered. [And Hagar bare 
 Abram a son : and Abram called the name of his 
 son, which Hagar bare, Ishmael. And Abram was 
 fourscore and six years old, when Hagar bare Ish- 
 mael to Abram.] 
 1
 
 X 
 
 THE ELOHIST ACCOUNT OF THE COVENANT 
 
 Chapter xvii. of Genesis is an extract, little, if 
 at all, modified, from the document of the Elohist. 
 It contains his account of the first compact with 
 Abram, or Abraham, and is clearly distinguished 
 from the other by its didactic and matter-of-fact 
 quality. The Elohist was much given to exact 
 forms of statement, as in giving the age of per- 
 sons, the duration of periods of time, and the 
 names of persons and places referred to. His 
 conception of the covenant was of a promise on 
 the part of God — Elohim, or El Shaddai — to 
 give the land of Abraham's sojournings to his 
 posterity, and to protect them in its possession ; 
 and in return they were to be devoted to the 
 exclusive worship of this God. 
 
 The practice of the rite of circumcision was to 
 be the token of fidelity to their pledge. The prac- 
 tice of circumcision was not original with the He- 
 brews, and it was not so old among them as this 
 story would imply, but they were the first to 
 make it a religious rite, and they adopted it as 
 a pledge of their exclusiveness, probably because 
 
 114
 
 ELOHIST ACCOUNT OF THE COVENANT 115 
 
 they brought it among a people who did not use 
 it, and to whom it may have been repellent. The 
 Elohist writer was connected with the early tem- 
 ple service, and he turned the covenant with Abra- 
 ham to account to give a special sanction to the 
 rite of circumcision, just as he had used the story 
 of the creation to consecrate the observance of 
 the Sabbath, which had become an equally sacred 
 requirement in his eyes. 
 
 While there was a slight etymological difference 
 of meaning between the two forms, Ab-ram and Ab- 
 raham, from which the explanation of a change of 
 name was evolved, they were in tradition merely 
 variations in the designation of a mythical or legen- 
 dary personage, one of which finally superseded 
 the other and came into exclusive use. The same 
 statement will apply to the change from Sarai to 
 Sarah. While the definite promise of the son 
 Isaac appears here first in the compiler's narra- 
 tive, this is not its oldest form. Observe the 
 difference in which the general promise of pos- 
 terity is received here and in the ancient version 
 of the covenant in Chapter xv. There we are 
 solemnly assured, " he believed in the Lord," 
 while here Abraham appears as sceptically laugh- 
 ing at the idea of having children when he is a 
 hundred years old and his wife ninety.
 
 Il6 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 The name "Isaac" for the promised child is 
 derived from this laugh. The name seems really 
 to have been adopted into the patriarchal legends 
 as a link between the remote ancestor of all the 
 Semitic nations and the special ancestor of the 
 Israelites, from a tradition in the Beersheba 
 region of an ancient tribe, Isaak-el, meaning 
 "God laughs," or "laugh of God." The exact 
 meaning of such epithets is a matter of infer- 
 ence from the words out of which they appear 
 to be formed; and from the meaning so inferred, 
 whether exact or not, the stories explaining their 
 origin were evolved. Thus it happens that when 
 two or more such stories have been preserved 
 they are apt to be inconsistent. If they were not, 
 the coincidence would be remarkable. Some sig- 
 nificance may have been attached to making Abra- 
 ham just a hundred years old when Isaac was 
 born. In a vague, general way in the older story 
 of the covenant a hundred years is made synon- 
 ymous with a generation, as forty years was 
 assumed to be in the later annals. 
 
 [XVII] 
 
 And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, 
 the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, 
 I am God Almighty [El Shaddai] ; walk before me,
 
 ELOHIST ACCOUNT OF THE COVENANT 1 1/ 
 
 and be thou perfect. And I will make my cove- 
 nant between me and thee, and will multiply thee 
 exceedingly. 
 
 And Abram fell on his face ; and God talked 
 with him, saying, As for me, behold,' my covenant is 
 with thee, and thou shalt be the father of a multi- 
 tude of nations. Neither shall thy name any more 
 be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham ; 
 for the father of a multitude of nations have I made 
 thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, 
 and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall 
 come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant 
 between me and thee and thy posterity throughout 
 their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be 
 a God unto thee and to thy posterity. And I will 
 give unto thee, and to thy posterity, the land of thy 
 sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlast- 
 ing possession ; and I will be their God. 
 
 And God said unto Abraham, And as for thee, 
 thou shalt keep my covenant, thou, and thy pos- 
 terity throughout their generations. This is my cove- 
 nant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and 
 thy posterity ; every male among you shall be cir- 
 cumcised. And ye shall be circumcised in the flesh 
 of your foreskin ; and it shall be a token of a cove- 
 nant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight 
 days old shall be circumcised among you, every 
 male throughout your generations, he that is born in 
 the house, or bought with money of any stranger, 
 which is not of thy offspring. He that is born in thy 
 house, and he that is bought with thy money, must
 
 Il8 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 needs be circumcised, and my covenant shall be 
 in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the 
 uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the 
 flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from 
 his people ; he hath broken my covenant. 
 
 And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy 
 wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah 
 shall her name be. And I will bless her, and more- 
 over I will give thee a son of her ; yea, I will bless 
 her, and she shall be a mother of nations ; kings of 
 people shall be of her. Then Abraham fell upon 
 his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall 
 a child be born unto him that is an hundred years 
 old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? 
 
 And Abraham said unto God, Oh that Ishmael 
 might live before thee ! And God said, Nay, but 
 Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son ; and thou shalt 
 call his name Isaac ; and I will establish my cove- 
 nant with him for an everlasting covenant for his 
 seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard 
 thee ; behold, I have blessed him, and will make 
 him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly ; 
 twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him 
 a great nation. But my covenant will I establish 
 with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this 
 set time in the next year. 
 
 And he left off talking with him, and God went 
 up from Abraham. And Abraham took Ishmael his 
 son, and all that were born in his house, and all that 
 were bought with his money, every male among the 
 men of Abraham's house, and circumcised the flesh
 
 ELOHIST ACCOUNT OF THE COVENANT 119 
 
 of their foreskin in the selfsame day, as God had 
 said unto him. And Abraham was ninety years old 
 and nine, when he was circumcised in the flesh of 
 his foreskin. And Ishmael his son was thirteen 
 years old, when he was circumcised in the flesh of 
 his foreskin. In the selfsame day was Abraham 
 circumcised, and Ishmael his son. And all the 
 men of his house, those born in the house, and 
 those bought with money of the stranger, were 
 circumcised with him.
 
 XI 
 
 ANOTHER VERSION OF THE PROMISE OF ISAAC 
 
 Immediately following, in the first part of 
 Chapter xviii., we have the Jehovist version of 
 the promise of the birth of Isaac, which is not 
 only older than the other, but evidently formed 
 out of the most primitive material. In substance 
 and quality, in the simple representation of "the 
 Lord " as a man with two companions, hospita- 
 bly entertained by the pastoral patriarch, and 
 giving his assurances as one person to another, 
 we have evidence of the myth in its most an- 
 tique form ; and the contrast with the Elohist 
 account is so marked that the efforts of learned 
 men to "harmonize" the two reflect upon the 
 sanity of their learning. Here it is Sarah that 
 laughs at the absurdity of a couple so "stricken 
 in age" having offspring, and thereby furnishes 
 the derivation of the name " Isaac." 
 
 [XVI 1 1 1-15] 
 
 And the Lord appeared unto him by the oaks of 
 Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the 
 
 120
 
 ANOTHER VERSION OF THE PROMISE 121 
 
 day ; and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, lo, 
 three men stood over against him ; and when he 
 saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, 
 and bowed himself to the earth, and said, My lord, 
 if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not 
 away, I pray thee, from thy servant ; let now a little 
 water be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest your- 
 selves under the tree, and I will fetch a morsel of 
 bread, and comfort ye your heart; after that ye 
 shall pass on, forasmuch as ye are come to your 
 servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. 
 
 And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, 
 and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine 
 meal, knead it, and make cakes. And Abraham ran 
 unto the herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, 
 and gave it unto the servant ; and he hastened to 
 dress it. And he took butter, and milk, and the 
 calf which he had dressed, and set it before them ; 
 and he stood by them under the tree, and they did 
 eat. And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy 
 wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent. And he 
 said, I will certainly return unto thee when the sea- 
 son cometh round; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall 
 have a son. And Sarah heard in the tent door, 
 which was behind him. 
 
 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, and well 
 stricken in age ; it had ceased to be with Sarah after 
 the manner of women. And Sarah laughed within 
 herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have 
 pleasure, my lord being old also? And the Lord 
 said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, say-
 
 122 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 ing, Shall I of a surety bear a child, who am old ? 
 Is any thing too hard for the Lord? At the set 
 time I will return unto thee, when the season cometh 
 round, and Sarah shall have a son. Then Sarah de- 
 nied, saying, I laughed not ; for she was afraid. 
 And he said, Nay ; but thou didst laugh.
 
 XII 
 
 THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN AND THE FAMILY OF LOT 
 
 The compiler followed this version of the 
 promise of Isaac with the story of the destruc- 
 tion of the cities of the Dead Sea plain and an 
 account of the family of Lot, regarded as the 
 progenitor of the Moabites and Ammonites. In 
 this passage the effect of the compiler's own 
 hand in working over the material is more no- 
 ticeable than in anything that precedes. 
 
 The narrative consists of three distinct parts, 
 and the manner and spirit of the first indicate 
 that it had a later origin than the rest. In it 
 the menace of destruction to the sinful cities is 
 used to exhibit Abraham in the character of a 
 mediator between God and man to save the 
 righteous from the fate decreed to the wicked, 
 and "the Lord" is represented as recognizing 
 the justice of his plea and as willing to endure 
 the wickedness of the many for the sake of the 
 few righteous. This formal bit of instruction, 
 and the reference to the children of Abraham 
 keeping "the way of the Lord to do justice and 
 
 123
 
 124 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 judgment," so little in consonance with the gen- 
 eral tone of these narratives, suggest a rela- 
 tively late origin for this passage, which may 
 have been wrought out by the compiler without 
 obliterating from his material the primitive con- 
 ception of "the Lord" in the aspect of a "man ' : 
 conversing familiarly with the personification of 
 a "great and mighty nation." 
 
 At the end of this interview " the Lord " 
 disappears, and his two companions proceed as 
 " angels " to Sodom. This episode of the visit 
 of the " angels " to rescue the family of Lot, 
 and of the destruction of the doomed cities, 
 bears the distinct characteristics of the Jehovist 
 writer weaving together for his purposes the 
 traditions, oral or written, that were at his 
 command. He mingled together the legend of 
 the destruction of the cities by fire and brim- 
 stone, which had grown out of the weird deso- 
 lation and the evidences of ancient conflagration 
 in that region, and the ethnic myth of Lot as 
 the nephew of Abraham and the ancestor of 
 the Moabites and Ammonites. The Jehovist 
 took a gloomy view of the evil tendency of the 
 human race and the disposition of its creator 
 to destroy it, as we have already noticed, and 
 in his use of old tales he readily accepted the
 
 CITIES OF THE PLAIN AND LOT'S FAMILY 1 25 
 
 peculiarly anthropomorphic idea of the deity 
 which pervaded them, while the Elohist was 
 much more vague in his references to the 
 Almighty. 
 
 The picture of the moral condition of Sodom, 
 which is incidentally brought out, is much like 
 that of Gibeah in the Book of Judges, and the 
 two descriptions were not far from contempo- 
 raneous. The morals and manners suggested 
 were not unfamiliar to the early writers of Is- 
 rael in their own country, and the story of 
 Sodom may have been intended to convey a 
 lesson and a warning directly to their own peo- 
 ple in their own time. As the scenery and 
 geological peculiarities about the " Dead Sea " 
 gave rise to the legend of the destruction of the 
 cities, so doubtless the saline deposits in columnar 
 form suggested the weird touch about Lot's wife, 
 the only one — unreal as it is — that gives any 
 air of reality to such a person. 
 
 The brief fragment in brackets at the end of 
 this passage is from the Elohist, and sums up 
 the whole story in his characteristic way, so dif- 
 ferent from that of the imaginative author of 
 the other document. 
 
 What follows,' forming the third part of this 
 episode, is the ethnic story in its oldest form,
 
 126 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 derived from the ancient patriarchal legends, 
 from which the fragment about the drunken- 
 ness of Noah and the curse of Canaan was 
 drawn. It has the peculiar mythological qual- 
 ity of those old tales. A relation has been 
 traced between the name Lot and an ancient 
 Egyptian designation of the people occupying 
 the territory below the Jordan Valley. Doubt- 
 less the name still existed in tradition in the 
 time of the first Hebrew writers. There was 
 no doubt of the kinship between the tribes of 
 Israel and the Moabites and Ammonites of that 
 region, or Moab and Amnion, as they were 
 called. But a keen hostility was felt toward 
 them on account of old conflicts when the Isra- 
 elites were struggling for the possession of the 
 land of Canaan, and the marauding attacks 
 to which they continued to be subject, especially 
 from the Ammonites on their borders. 
 
 On account of this state of feeling the makers 
 of the ethnic myths would not allow that Moab 
 and Amnion were direct descendants of their 
 great ancestor Abraham, and not only set them 
 off on a collateral line, but gave them an incestu- 
 ous origin, and covered the name of Lot and his 
 daughters with obloquy. The purely mythologi- 
 cal character of the story is sufficiently evident in
 
 CITIES OF THE PLAIN AND LOT'S FAMILY \2J 
 
 the entire disregard of reality or probability in the 
 gross picture it presents. The phrase " unto this 
 day" also plainly indicates an imaginative dealing 
 by the writer with a remote past. The grossness 
 of the passage is much relieved when we consider 
 that it was not to be understood as dealing with 
 persons but with nations. The crude simplicity 
 of primitive expression was free from any sense 
 of indecency, but it would have been impossible 
 in an age when the scene pictured would excite 
 special aversion. 
 
 [XVIII 16-XIX] 
 
 And the men rose up from thence, and looked 
 toward Sodom ; and Abraham went with them to 
 bring them on the way. 
 
 And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham 
 that which I do ; seeing that Abraham shall surely 
 become a great and mighty nation, and all the na- 
 tions of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I 
 have known him, to the end that he may command 
 his children and his household after him, that they 
 may keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness 
 and justice ; to the end that the Lord may bring 
 upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. 
 
 And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very 
 grievous ; I will go down now, and see whether 
 they have done altogether according to the cry of
 
 [28 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. 
 And the men turned from thence, and went toward 
 Sodom, but Abraham stood yet before the Lord. 
 And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou 
 consume the righteous with the wicked? Perad- 
 venture there be fifty righteous within the city : 
 wilt thou consume and not spare the place for the 
 fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from 
 thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous 
 with the wicked, that so the righteous should be as 
 the wicked ; that be far from thee : shall not the 
 Judge of all the earth do right? And the Lord 
 said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the 
 city, then I will spare all the place for their sake. 
 
 And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I 
 have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which 
 am but dust and ashes ; peradventure there shall 
 lack five of the fifty righteous : wilt thou destroy 
 all the city for lack of five? And he said, I will 
 not destroy it, if I find there forty and five. And 
 he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradvent- 
 ure there shall be forty found there. And he said, 
 1 will not do it for the forty's sake. And he said, Oh 
 let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak ; perad- 
 venture there shall thirty be found there. And he 
 said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. And 
 he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to 
 speak unto the Lord ; peradventure there shall be 
 twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy 
 it for the twenty's sake. And he said, Oh let not 
 the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this
 
 CITIES OF THE PLAIN AND LOT'S FAMILY 1 29 
 
 once ; peradventure ten shall be found there. And 
 he said, I will not destroy it for the ten's sake. 
 
 And the Lord went his way, as soon as he had 
 left communing with Abraham, and Abraham re- 
 turned unto his place. 
 
 And the two angels came to Sodom at even ; and 
 Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, and Lot saw them, 
 and rose up to meet them ; and he bowed himself 
 with his face to the earth ; and he said, Behold now 
 my lords, turn aside, I pray you, into your servant's 
 house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and 
 ye shall rise up early, and go on your way. And 
 they said, Nay ; but we will abide in the street all 
 night. And he urged them greatly; and they 
 turned in unto him, and entered into his house ; 
 and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened 
 bread, and they did eat. 
 
 But before they lay down, the men of the city, 
 even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, 
 both young and old, all the people from every quar- 
 ter ; and they called unto Lot, and said unto him, 
 Where are the men which came in to thee this 
 night ? Bring them out unto us, that we may know 
 them. 
 
 And Lot went out unto them to the door, and 
 shut the door after him. And he said, I pray you, 
 my brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I 
 have two daughters which have not known man ; let 
 me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye 
 to them as is good in your eyes ; only unto these 
 
 K
 
 13O THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 men do nothing ; forasmuch as they are come under 
 the shadow of my roof. 
 
 And they said, Stand back. And they said, This 
 one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be 
 a judge ; now will we deal worse with thee, than with 
 them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even 
 Lot, and drew near to break the door. But the men 
 put forth their hand, and brought Lot into the house 
 to them, and shut to the door. And they smote the 
 men that were at the door of the house with blind- 
 ness, both small and great, so that they wearied 
 themselves to find the door. 
 
 And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any 
 relative besides? Thy sons, and thy daughters, 
 and whomsoever thou hast in the city, bring 
 them out of the place, for we will destroy this 
 place, because the cry of them is waxen great 
 before the Lord ; and the Lord hath sent us to 
 destroy it. And Lot went out, and spake unto his 
 sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, 
 Up, get you out of this place ; for the Lord will 
 destroy the city. But he seemed unto his sons in 
 law as one that mocked. 
 
 And when the morning arose, then the angels 
 hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy 
 two daughters which are here ; lest thou be con- 
 sumed in the iniquity of the city. But he lingered ; 
 and the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon 
 the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two 
 daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him, and 
 they brought him forth, and set him without the city.
 
 CITIES OF THE PLAIN AND LOT'S FAMILY 131 
 
 And it came to pass, when they had brought them 
 forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life ; look 
 not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the Plain ; 
 escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. 
 And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my lord ; 
 behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy 
 sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which 
 thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life ; and 
 I cannot escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake 
 me, and I die. Behold now, this city is near to flee 
 unto, and it is a little one. Oh, let me escape 
 thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall 
 live. And he said unto him, See, I have accepted 
 thee concerning this thing also, that I will not over- 
 throw the city of which thou hast spoken. Haste 
 thee, escape thither ; for I cannot do any thing till 
 thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the 
 city was called Zoar. 
 
 The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot came 
 unto Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom 
 and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the 
 Lord out of heaven ; and he overthrew those 
 cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of 
 the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. 
 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she 
 became a pillar of salt. 
 
 And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the 
 place where he had stood before the Lord ; and he 
 looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward 
 all the land of the Plain, and beheld, and, lo, the 
 smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.
 
 132 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 [And it came to pass, when God destroyed the 
 cities of the Plain, that God remembered Abraham, 
 and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, 
 when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.] 
 
 [And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the 
 mountain, and his two daughters with him, for he 
 feared to dwell in Zoar ; and he dwelt in a cave, he 
 and his two daughters. And the firstborn said unto 
 the younger, Our father is old, and there is not 
 a man in the land to come in unto us after the 
 manner of all the earth ; come, let us make our 
 father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we 
 may preserve the family of our father. 
 
 And they made their father drink wine that night ; 
 and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father, 
 and he knew not when she lay down, nor when she 
 arose. And it came to pass on the morrow, that 
 the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay 
 yesternight with my father ; let us make him drink 
 wine this night also, and go thou in, and lie with 
 him, that we may preserve offspring of our father. 
 And they made their father drink wine that night 
 also ; and the younger arose, and lay with him, and 
 he knew not when she lay down, nor when she arose. 
 
 Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child 
 by their father. And the firstborn bare a son, and 
 called his name Moab ; the same is the father of 
 the Moabites unto this day. And the younger, she 
 also bare a son, and called his name Ben-ammi ; the 
 same is the father of the children of Ammon unto 
 this day.]
 
 XIII 
 
 ABRAHAM AND ABIMELECH 
 
 The compiler appears to have had in his mate- 
 rial two episodes, associating Abraham with a Phi- 
 listine king in the South, which were contained in 
 neither of his two main documents. One of these 
 he introduced immediately after the story of the 
 cities of the plain and the family of Lot, where 
 it now stands as Chapter xx. of the Book of 
 Genesis, and the other he appended incongru- 
 ously to the second version of the story of Hagar, 
 where it constitutes the last part of Chapter xxi. 
 There are traces of material in other parts of the 
 book from what appears to be the same source. 
 This material is designated by some critics as 
 that of the "second Elohist," but it appears only 
 in fragments and is older rather than later than 
 the rest. It cannot be attributed to any particular 
 writer or production, but was apparently drawn 
 from the floating mass of primitive story. 
 
 The first episode with Abimelech is introduced 
 by the compiler with the vague statement, " And 
 Abraham journeyed from thence toward the land 
 
 i33
 
 134 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 of the South." The account of the relations of 
 Sarah and the King of Gerar is an obvious vari- 
 ant of that in Chapter xii. in regard to Sarah 
 and Pharaoh ; and it appears still more incongru- 
 ous in this place from the fact that Sarah has 
 already been represented as ninety years old, 
 and as treating with derision the idea that she 
 was capable of having children at that age. The 
 story has no chronological relation, however, to 
 other events, save in the arrangement of the 
 compiler's narrative. 
 
 The explanatory sentence at the end, in brack- 
 ets, is apparently the compiler's own, and he 
 seems to have misconceived the nature of the 
 penalty inflicted upon Abimelech and his people, 
 which was evidently a general malady, or impo- 
 tence, and not merely a barrenness of women. 
 The story reflects again the moral ideas of the 
 time of the writer. Abraham is represented as 
 seriously telling Abimelech that Sarah was the 
 daughter of his father, though at the end of 
 Chapter xi. she is spoken of as Terah's daughter- 
 in-law, not his daughter. This is incidental evi- 
 dence, if any were needed, of diversity of origin 
 in the two statements. The marriage of half- 
 brothers and sisters, non-uterine in the relation- 
 ship, was not regarded as illegitimate at the time
 
 ABRAHAM AND ABIMELECH 1 35 
 
 of David and later, though finally interdicted in 
 the Levitical law. It is to be observed that 
 Abraham, in explaining his migration from his 
 own country, says that God caused him to wander 
 from his father's house, and there is no intima- 
 tion of what is called his "vocation." In fact, 
 this older material always appears to be devoid 
 of the religious quality of the later. 
 
 [XX] 
 
 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the 
 land of the South, and dwelt between Kadesh and 
 Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham 
 said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister ; and Abime- 
 lech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah. But God 
 came to Abimelech in a dream of the nidit, and 
 said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, be- 
 cause of the woman which thou hast taken ; for she 
 is a man's wife. Now Abimelech had not come near 
 her ; and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay even a right- 
 eous nation? Said he not himself unto me, She is 
 my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my 
 brother. In the integrity of my heart and the inno- 
 cency of my hands have I done this. And God said 
 unto him in the dream, Yea, I know that in the in- 
 tegrity of thy heart thou hast done this, and I also 
 withheld thee from sinning against me ; therefore 
 suffered I thee not to touch her. Now therefore 
 restore the man's wife ; for he is a prophet, and he
 
 136 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live ; and if thou 
 restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, 
 thou, and all that are thine. 
 
 And Abimelech rose early in the morning, and 
 called all his servants, and told all these things in 
 their ears ; and the men were sore afraid. Then 
 Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto him, What 
 hast thou done unto us? and wherein have I sinned 
 against thee, that thou hast brought on me and on 
 my kingdom a great sin ? Thou hast done deeds unto 
 me that ought not to be done. And Abimelech said 
 unto Abraham, What sawest thou, that thou hast 
 done this thing? And Abraham said, Because I 
 thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place ; 
 and they will slay me for my wife's sake. And more- 
 over she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my 
 father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she 
 became my wife ; and it came to pass, when God 
 caused me to wander from my father's house, that 
 I said unto her, This is thy kindness which thou 
 shalt shew unto me ; at every place whither we shall 
 come, say of me, He is my brother. 
 
 And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and men- 
 servants and womenservants, and gave them unto 
 Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife. And 
 Abimelech said, Behold, my land is before thee j 
 dwell where it pleaseth thee. And unto Sarah he 
 said, Behold, I have given thy brother a thousand 
 pieces of silver ; behold, it is for thee a covering of 
 the eyes to all that are with thee, and in respect of 
 all thou art righted. And Abraham prayed unto
 
 ABRAHAM AND ABIMELECH 137 
 
 God ; and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and 
 his maidservants ; and they bare children. [For 
 the Lord had fast closed up all the wombs of the 
 house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham's 
 wife.]
 
 XIV 
 
 SECOND STORY OF HAGAR AND HER SON 
 
 The opening statement of Genesis xxi., which 
 is put in brackets below, relating to the birth of 
 Isaac, is from the Elohist document and immedi- 
 ately sequent upon the promise in Chapter xvii. 
 The repetition in the first sentence may be due 
 to the compiler starting off with his own language 
 and then taking in the extract without change. 
 What follows is mainly a version of the ethnic 
 myth of Ishmael, as the ancestor of the people of 
 the desert, quite different from that of the Jeho- 
 vist in Chapter xvi. It is regarded as belong- 
 ing to the material which has been infelicitously 
 called the " second Elohist document," but which 
 is merely foreign to the two main sources from 
 which the compiler drew. 
 
 It begins with still another explanation of the 
 meaning of the name "Isaac" (laughter), — the 
 general merriment that such an old person as 
 Sarah should have a child. But the main purpose 
 of the story is to account for the alienation and 
 separation of the earlier progeny of Abraham 
 
 138
 
 SECOND STORY OF HAGAR AND HER SON 139 
 
 from the later. The Jehovist accounted for this 
 by the expulsion of the Egyptian mother before 
 the birth of the child, on account of her show of 
 pride to the vexation of Sarah, while this writer 
 attributed it to the scorn of the boy himself 
 exhibited at Isaac's weaning, and to Sarah's jeal- 
 ousy of his becoming co-heir with her offspring. 
 Abraham appears more sympathetic in this story 
 than in the other, though his alleged treatment 
 of the bondwoman and her child would be re- 
 garded in any but a mythical tale as cruel, since 
 it would mean certain death by starvation in the 
 wilderness for mother and child. 
 
 It is noticeable that in this version of the story 
 the name of Ishmael is not mentioned, though the 
 phrase derived from it, "God heard," is twice 
 used. Where Ishmael is mentioned in the real 
 Elohist material there is no intimation at all of 
 an alienation from his father or mother, or of his 
 expulsion to the wilderness. From that material 
 it would appear that Hagar's son must have been 
 a lad of about fifteen at the time of Isaac's wean- 
 ing, while the story under consideration treats him 
 as still a child whom his mother carries upon her 
 shoulder and casts under a shrub. It also dis- 
 poses of him finally as dwelling in the wilderness 
 of Pharan with a wife taken for him out of Egypt
 
 T40 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 by his mother, though we find him again in Chap- 
 ter xxv. joining with Isaac in the burial of his 
 father. The latter incident is evidently taken 
 from the version of the story which did not recog- 
 nize the expulsion of the Ishmaelites from the 
 house of Abraham. The purely mythical quality 
 of the following passage seems sufficiently mani- 
 fest in its lack of all relation to reality or proba- 
 bility. It is also devoid of the religious trace 
 which characterizes both the Jehovist and Elohist 
 writers, except as an allegorical representation of 
 the division of the people destined to divine favor 
 from others of the same blood who were to be 
 excluded from the heritage. 
 
 [XXI I-2I] 
 
 [And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and 
 the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken. And 
 Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old 
 age, at the set time of which God had spoken to 
 him. And Abraham called the name of his son that 
 was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac. 
 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he 
 was eight days old, as God had commanded him. 
 And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his 
 son Isaac was born unto him.] 
 
 And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh ; 
 every one that heareth will laugh with me. And
 
 SECOND STORY OF HAGAR AND HER SON 141 
 
 she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that 
 Sarah should give children suck? for I have borne 
 him a son in his old age. 
 
 And the child grew, and was weaned ; and Abra- 
 ham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was 
 weaned. And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the 
 Egyptian, which she had borne unto Abraham, 
 mocking. Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast 
 out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of 
 this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even 
 with Isaac. 
 
 And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's 
 sight on account of his son. And God said unto 
 Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because 
 of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman ; in all 
 that Sarah saith unto thee, hearken unto her voice, 
 for in Isaac shall thy progeny be called. And also 
 of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, 
 because he is thy offspring. 
 
 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and 
 took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it unto 
 Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, 
 and sent her away ; and she departed, and wandered 
 in the wilderness of Beersheba. And the water in 
 the bottle was spent, and she cast the child under 
 one of the shrubs. And she went, and sat her 
 down over against him a good way off, as it were a 
 bowshot ; for she said, Let me not look upon the 
 death of the child. And she sat over against him, 
 and lifted up her voice, and wept. 
 
 And God heard the voice of the lad ; and the
 
 142 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and 
 said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? fear not; 
 for God hath heard the voice of the lad where he is. 
 Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand ; 
 for I will make him a great nation. And God 
 opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water ; and 
 she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave 
 the lad drink. 
 
 And God was with the lad, and he grew ; and he 
 dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer. 
 And he dwelt in the wilderness of Pharan ; and his 
 mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.
 
 XV 
 
 COMPACT BETWEEN ABRAHAM AND ABIMELECH 
 
 The second Abimelech episode follows here 
 quite irrelevantly, the abrupt transition being 
 made by the compiler with the words, " and it 
 came to pass at that time," as the other story was 
 brought in with the statement that " Abraham 
 journeyed thence," etc. There had long been an 
 ancient fane at Beersheba, on the southern border 
 of the land of Israel, and the purpose of the origi- 
 nal narrator was to account for its possession, 
 and to connect its first consecration with Abra- 
 ham, who was said to have planted the tamarisk 
 tree which doubtless still marked the site of the 
 old place of worship. 
 
 Beersheba meant the seven wells or the well of 
 seven, but a mystic significance was attached to 
 the number seven, and it was associated with 
 treaties and solemn oaths, and the name was ac- 
 counted for in the story by an agreement between 
 Abraham and Abimelech for the possession of the 
 place by the former, witnessed by the gift of seven 
 ewe lambs. This story probably originated at a 
 
 H3
 
 144 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 time of peace with the Philistines, after the con- 
 quests of David, and was incidently meant to 
 cement friendly relations with those people by 
 reference to an ancient compact of amity. The 
 original Elohist writer, or, we may say, the real 
 Elohist, always fixes the residence of Abraham at 
 Hebron. It was the Jehovist, or the writer from 
 whom his material was drawn, that associated him 
 with Beersheba. The compiler, a "Jehovist" so 
 far as the use of the name of the deity was con- 
 cerned, and a Judean, writing after the Northern 
 Kingdom had passed away, produced much incon- 
 gruity in his narrative by trying to retain both 
 traditions as to Abraham's place of residence. 
 
 [XXI 22-34] 
 
 And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech 
 and Phicol the captain of his host spake unto Abra- 
 ham, saying, God is with thee in all that thou doest ; 
 now therefore swear unto me here by God that thou 
 wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor 
 with my son's son ; but according to the kindness 
 that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me, 
 and to the land wherein thou hast sojourned. And 
 Abraham said, I will swear. 
 
 And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of 
 the well of water, which Abimelech's servants had 
 violently taken away. And Abimelech said, I know
 
 COMPACT OF ABRAHAM AND ABIMELECH 145 
 
 not who hath done this thing ; neither didst thou 
 tell me, neither yet heard I of it, but to-day. And 
 Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto 
 Abimelech ; and they two made a covenant. And 
 Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by them- 
 selves. And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What 
 mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set 
 by themselves? And he said, These seven ewe 
 lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that it may be 
 a witness unto me, that I have digged this well. 
 Wherefore he called that place Beersheba ; be- 
 cause there they sware both of them. 
 
 So they made a covenant at Beersheba ; and 
 Abimelech rose up, and Phicol the captain of his 
 host, and they returned into the land of the Philis- 
 tines. And Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in 
 Beersheba, and called there on the name of the 
 Lord, the Everlasting God. And Abraham so- 
 journed in the land of the Philistines many days.
 
 XVI 
 
 THE STORY OF OFFERING ISAAC 
 
 The material which forms the basis of the ethi- 
 cal episode in Chapter xxii. is as foreign to the 
 main substance of the compiler's narrative as the 
 warlike episode in Chapter xiv. The aspect in 
 which it presents the aged patriarch, wandering 
 for three days across the country with an ass 
 laden with wood, and his child and two attendants, 
 is in the broadest contrast with the warrior chieftain 
 sweeping through the length of the land in pur- 
 suit of invading armies. The difference is due 
 to the diversity of purpose in the two tales and 
 furnishes the best evidence of the allegorical char- 
 acter of both. 
 
 This story, written after the temple had been 
 established on Mount Moriah, and when one of 
 the evil tendencies against which its teachers still 
 had to strive was the sacrifice of children to the 
 deity of whom the people stood in so much dread, 
 had the double purpose of carrying the consecra- 
 tion of the "Mount of the Lord" back to Abra- 
 ham, and of sanctifying the substitution of the 
 
 146
 
 THE STORY OF OFFERING ISAAC 1 47 
 
 firstlings of the flock for the first-born of the 
 family as a burnt offering. The ancient offering 
 of the first-born among all the people of that 
 region to their gods, which seems to us so bar- 
 barous, merely testifies to the terrible character 
 of their conceptions of the deity and the awful 
 fear under which they performed their acts of 
 worship. While human sacrifice excited an in- 
 tense aversion in the Hebrews, they were not free 
 from the sentiments which inspired it, and com- 
 paratively late in the history of the Kingdoms 
 they were liable to lapse into this most appalling 
 rite of their "heathen" neighbors. While the 
 modern spirit revolts even against the bloody 
 sacrifice and burnt offering of animals as a means 
 of worship, it was surely a beneficent substitute 
 for what it displaced. 
 
 This simple story of Abraham about to offer 
 Isaac at God's command and being stayed by the 
 "angel," so completely in the ancient Hebrew 
 manner of conveying a lesson, was calculated to 
 give an impressive sanction to animal sacrifice and 
 to the prohibition of human sacrifice. The main 
 story, comprising the first section of the passage 
 below, is of the original material, introduced by 
 the compiler with the familiar formula, " and it 
 came to pass after these things," and was perhaps
 
 148 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 revised by him in the transcription. It is the 
 compiler himself who takes occasion to connect 
 with the story a repetition of the promise to Abra- 
 ham as a reward for his obedience. He also as- 
 sumes that Abraham was dwelling then at 
 Beersheba, which does not so appear in the 
 story itself. 
 
 This passage contains another significant ex- 
 ample of the use of the word " maleak," of 
 which the translation through the Greek of 
 "angel" is apt to be misleading. It appears 
 distinctly as an embodiment or personification of 
 the deity himself, and even when it is repre- 
 sented as a separate person, or messenger, it 
 seems to be an added or multiplied embodiment, 
 a vestige of the polytheistic notion of the Elo- 
 him and Beni-elohim (Sons of God). 
 
 The ethnographic fragment at the end of the 
 chapter relates back to the close of Chapter xi., 
 and prepares the way for the coming story of 
 Rebekah. It is curious to observe in it the 
 common system of twelve tribes, of which four 
 are of inferior blood, as the offspring of concu- 
 bines. The names are mostly those of places, 
 including that of Nahor, and the compiler 
 brought in the fragment with the improbable 
 statement that " it was told to Abraham " ; but
 
 THE STORY OF OFFERING ISAAC 1 49 
 
 when we accept the mythical meaning of these 
 representations they have no proper relation to 
 probability. 
 
 [XXII] 
 
 And it came to pass after these things, that God 
 did prove Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham ! 
 And he said, Here am I. And he said, Take now 
 thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even 
 Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah ; and 
 offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the 
 mountains which I will tell thee of. 
 
 And Abraham rose early in the morning, and 
 saddled his ass, and took two of his young men 
 with him, and Isaac his son ; and he clave the wood 
 for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto 
 the place of which God had told him. On the 
 third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the 
 place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young 
 men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I and the 
 lad will go yonder • and we will worship, and come 
 again to you. 
 
 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offer- 
 ing, and laid it upon Isaac his son ; and he took in 
 his hand the fire and the knife ; and they went both 
 of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham 
 his father, and said, My father ! And he said, Here 
 am I, my son. And he said, Behold, the fire and 
 the wood ; but where is the lamb for a burnt offer- 
 ing? And Abraham said, God will provide himself
 
 150 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 the lamb for a burnt offering, my son ; so they went 
 both of them together. 
 
 And they came to the place which God had told 
 him ofj and Abraham built the altar there, and 
 laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, 
 and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And 
 Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the 
 knife to slay his son. And the angel of the Lord 
 called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, 
 Abraham ! And he said, Here am I. And he said, 
 Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou 
 any thing unto him ; for now I know that thou 
 fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, 
 thine only son, from me. 
 
 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and 
 behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by 
 his horns ; and Abraham went and took the ram, 
 and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead 
 of his son. 
 
 And Abraham called the name of that place 
 Jehovah -jireh, as it is said to this day, In the 
 mount of the Lord it shall be provided. And the 
 angel of the Lord called unto Abraham a second time 
 out of heaven, and saith, By myself have I sworn, saith 
 the Lord, because thou hast done this thing, and 
 hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in 
 blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will 
 multiply thy progeny as the stars of the heaven, and 
 as the sand which is upon the sea shore ; and thy 
 posterity shall possess the gate of his enemies;
 
 THE STORY OF OFFERING ISAAC I 5 I 
 
 and in thy posterity shall all the nations of the 
 earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my 
 voice. 
 
 So Abraham returned unto his young men, and 
 they rose up and went together to Beersheba ; and 
 Abraham dwelt at Beersheba. 
 
 And it came to pass after these things, that it was 
 told Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she also 
 hath borne children unto thy brother Nahor; Uz 
 his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the 
 father of Aram ; and Chesed, and Hazo, and Pil- 
 dash, and Jidlaph, and Bethuel. And Bethuel 
 begat Rebekah. These eight did Milcah bear to 
 Nahor, Abraham's brother. And his concubine, 
 whose name was Reumah, she also bare Tebah, and 
 Gaham, and Tahash, and Maacah.
 
 XVII 
 
 THE SACRED BURIAL PLACE 
 
 Before bringing in the Jehovist's story of the 
 marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, the compiler 
 introduced from the Elohist an account of the 
 consecration of Hebron as the ancestral burial 
 place. The story of the death of Sarah, and the 
 purchase of the field of Machpelah is in the matter- 
 of-fact style characteristic of the Elohist writer. 
 Much stress is laid upon the acquisition of the 
 land, by formal purchase, with the consent of the 
 Hittites, for the highest consecration of Israel's 
 right of possession in Canaan was the burial there 
 of the ancestors of the race. The Elohist always 
 associated Abraham with Hebron, the first sacred 
 place of the Kingdom of Judah, and the compiler 
 of the record saw that his bones and those of 
 Isaac and Jacob were gathered to the original 
 burial place of Sarah, to complete the consecra- 
 tion, though the developed story of Jacob, being 
 that of the Jehovist, connected his name chiefly 
 with the Northern Kingdom, and implied his final 
 burial at or near Shechem. 
 
 152
 
 THE SACRED BURIAL PLACE 1 53 
 
 [XXIII] 
 
 And the life of Sarah was an hundred and seven and 
 twenty years : these were the years of the life of 
 Sarah. And Sarah died in Kiriath-a'rba (the same 
 is Hebron), in the land of Canaan; and Abraham 
 came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. 
 
 And Abraham rose up from before his dead, and 
 spake unto the children of Heth, saying, I am a 
 stranger and a sojourner with you; give me a 
 possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may 
 bury my dead out of my sight. 
 
 And the children of Heth answered Abraham, 
 saying unto him, Hear us, my lord ; thou art a 
 prince of God among us ; in the choice of our 
 sepulchres bury thy dead ; none of us shall with- 
 hold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou mayest 
 bury thy dead. 
 
 And Abraham rose up, and bowed himself to the 
 people of the land, even to the children of Heth. 
 And he communed with them, saying, If it be your 
 mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight, 
 hear me, and intreat for me to Ephron the son of 
 Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, 
 which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for 
 the full price let him give it to me in the midst of 
 you for a possession of a buryingplace. 
 
 Now Ephron was sitting in the midst of the chil- 
 dren of Heth ; and Ephron the Hittite answered 
 Abraham in the audience of the children of Heth, 
 even of all that went in at the gate of his city, say-
 
 154 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 ing, Nay, my lord, hear me ; the field give I thee, 
 and the cave that is therein, I give it thee ; in the 
 presence of the sons of my people give I it thee ; 
 bury thy dead. 
 
 And Abraham bowed himself down before the 
 people of the land. And he spake unto Ephron in 
 the audience of the people of the land, saying, But 
 if thou wilt, I pray thee, hear me ; I will give the 
 price of the field ; take it of me, and I will bury my 
 dead there. 
 
 And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him, 
 My lord, hearken unto me ; a piece of land worth 
 four hundred shekels of silver, what is that betwixt 
 me and thee? bury therefore thy dead. 
 
 And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron ; and Abra- 
 ham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had 
 named in the audience of the children of Heth, four 
 hundred shekels of silver, current money with the mer- 
 chant. So the field of Ephron, which was in Mach- 
 pelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the 
 cave which was therein, and all the trees that were 
 in the field, that were in all the border thereof round 
 about, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession 
 in the presence of the children of Heth, before all 
 that went in at the gate of his city. 
 
 And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the 
 cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre (the same 
 is Hebron), in the land of Canaan. And the field, 
 and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto 
 Abraham for a possession of a buryingplace by the 
 children of Heth.
 
 XVIII 
 
 THE STORY OF REBEKAH 
 
 The beautiful idyl which pictures the patri- 
 archal caravan making its way over the hill 
 country of Ephraim to Syria to bring back the 
 bride of Isaac, bears all the marks of the imagi- 
 native genius of the Jehovist writer, as well as 
 his habitual recognition of divine direction in 
 whatever relates to the history of his people. 
 The color is doubtless that of his own time, in 
 the reign of Jehu, at Samaria, when relations 
 with Damascus were somewhat familiar. 
 
 The story of antique kinship breathes kindliness 
 between the two nations, which were prone to 
 alternate quarrel and alliance, and there is a 
 charming picture of Oriental hospitality in the 
 camels kneeling at the well, the Syrian maiden 
 with her water jar upon her shoulder welcoming 
 the messenger from her father's wandering kins- 
 men in a distant land, the gifts of nose ring 
 and bracelets, and of jewels and raiment, the 
 eating and drinking and tarrying all night, and 
 the parting benediction to the sister as she rode 
 
 J 55
 
 156 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 away on the gay trappings of the sleekest 
 camel to her new home in a far country. 
 
 The purpose of the story appears in the in- 
 troductory passage. Abraham, " old, and well 
 stricken in age," contemplating the end of his 
 eventful life, is anxious that his son shall not 
 marry of the daughters of the Canaanites, and 
 shall not himself go to " Aram of the two riv- 
 ers" for a wife, lest he remain there and lose 
 the heritage of his adopted land. Thus is poet- 
 ically expressed at once the repeated injunction ■ 
 against intermarriage with " the people of the 
 land," and a renewed sanction of its permanent 
 possession. There is at the beginning no inti- 
 mation of Abraham's place of abode, and we 
 bring from the previous chapter an impression 
 of Hebron, but the end carries us back to the 
 South as the home of Isaac. But at that time 
 there is no more question of the aged father. 
 He has disappeared from the scene, and "the 
 master" is now the son, who takes the bride to 
 the tent of his mother, Sarah, whom we have 
 seen buried at Hebron. 
 
 The mixed impression produced is due to the 
 difference of origin of the stories of Sarah's death 
 and of Isaac's marriage, and it was the compiler 
 who added the prosaic close of the latter for the 

 
 THE STORY OF REBEKAH 1 57 
 
 sake of completeness, and he was, fortunately, 
 never at much pains to harmonize the material 
 which he strung together with so little regard for 
 continuity or consistency. 
 
 [XXIV] 
 
 And Abraham was old, and well stricken in age ; 
 and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. 
 And Abraham said unto his servant, the elder of his 
 house, that ruled over all that he had, Put, I pray 
 thee, thy hand under my thigh; and I will make 
 thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the 
 God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife for 
 my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among 
 whom I dwell ; but thou shalt go unto my country, 
 and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son 
 Isaac. 
 
 And the servant said unto him, Peradventure the 
 woman will not be willing to follow me unto this 
 land ; must I needs bring thy son again unto the land 
 from whence thou earnest ? And Abraham said unto 
 him, Beware that thou bring not my son thither 
 again. The Lord, the God of heaven, that took 
 me from my father's house, and from the land of my 
 nativity, and that spake unto me, and that swear 
 unto me, saying, Unto thy offspring will I give this 
 land, he shall send his messenger before thee, and 
 thou shalt take a wife for my son from thence. And 
 if the woman be not willing to follow thee, then thou 
 shalt be clear from this my oath ; only thou shalt
 
 158 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 not bring my son thither again. And the servant 
 put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, 
 and swear to him concerning this matter. 
 
 And the servant took ten camels, of the camels of 
 his master, and departed, having all goodly things 
 of his master's in his keeping ; and he arose, and 
 went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor. And 
 he made the camels to kneel down without the city 
 by the well of water at the time of evening, the time 
 that women go out to draw water. 
 
 And he said, O Lord, the God of my master 
 Abraham, send me, I pray thee, good speed this 
 day, and shew kindness unto my master Abraham. 
 Behold, I stand by the fountain of water ; and the 
 daughters of the men of the city come out to draw 
 water ; and let it come to pass, that the damsel to 
 whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, 
 that I may drink ; and she shall say, 1 )rink, and I 
 will give thy camels drink also : let the same be she 
 that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac ; and 
 thereby shall I know that thou has shewed kindness 
 unto my master. 
 
 And it came to pass, before he had done speak- 
 ing, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born 
 to Bethuel the son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, 
 Abraham's brother, with her water jar upon her 
 shoulder. And the damsel was very fair to look 
 upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her ; 
 and she went down to the fountain, and lilted her 
 jar, and came up. And the servant ran to meet 
 her, and said, Give me to drink, I pray thee, a little
 
 THE STORY OF REBEKAH 1 59 
 
 water of thy jar. And she said, Drink, my lord ; 
 and she hasted, and let down her jar upon her hand, 
 and gave him drink. And when she had done giv- 
 ing him drink, she said, I will draw for thy camels 
 also, until they have done drinking. And she hasted, 
 and emptied her jar into the trough, and ran again 
 unto the well to draw, and drew for all his camels. 
 
 And the man looked stedfastly on her; holding 
 his peace, to know whether the Lord had made his 
 journey prosperous or not. And it came to pass, 
 as the camels had done drinking, that the man took 
 a golden nose ring of half a shekel weight, and two 
 bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of 
 gold ; and said, Whose daughter art thou ? tell me, 
 I pray thee. Is there room in thy father's house for 
 us to lodge in? And she said unto him, I am the 
 daughter of Bethuel the son of Milcah, which she 
 bare unto Nahor. She said moreover unto him, We 
 have both straw and provender enough, and room 
 to lodge in. 
 
 And the man bowed his head, and worshipped 
 the Lord. And he said, Blessed be the Lord, the 
 God of my master Abraham, who hath not forsaken 
 his mercy and his truth toward my master ; as for 
 me, the Lord hath led me in the way to the house 
 of my master's brethren. 
 
 And the damsel ran, and told her mother's house 
 according to these words. And Rebekah had a 
 brother, and his name was Laban ; and Laban ran 
 out unto the man, unto the fountain. And it came 
 to pass, when he saw the nose ring, and the brace-
 
 l6o THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 lets upon his sister's hands, and when he heard the 
 words of Rebekah his sister, saying, Thus spake the 
 man unto me ; that he came unto the man, and, 
 behold, he stood by the camels at the fountain. 
 And he said, Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; 
 wherefore standest thou without? for I have pre- 
 pared the house, and room for the camels. 
 
 And the man came into the house, and he un- 
 girded the camels ; and he gave straw and proven- 
 der for the camels, and water to wash his feet and 
 the men's feet that were with him. And there was 
 set meat before him to eat; but he said, I will not 
 eat, until I have told mine errand. And he said, 
 Speak on. 
 
 And he said, I am Abraham's servant. And the 
 Lord hath blessed my master greatly, and he is 
 become great ; and he hath given him flocks and 
 herds, and silver and gold, and menservants and 
 maidservants, and camels and asses. And Sarah my 
 master's wife bare a son to my master when she was 
 old, and unto him hath he given all that he hath. 
 And my master made me swear, saying, Thou shalt 
 not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the 
 Canaanites, in whose land I dwell ; but thou shalt 
 go unto my father's house, and to my kindred, and 
 take a wife for my son. And I said unto my master, 
 Peradventure the woman will not follow me. And 
 he said unto me, The Lord, before whom I walk, 
 will send his messenger with thee, and prosper thy 
 way ; and thou shalt take a wife for my son of my 
 kindred, and of my father's house ; then shalt thou
 
 THE STORY OF REBEKAH l6l 
 
 be clear from my oath, when thou comest to my 
 kindred j and if they give her not to thee, thou shalt 
 be clear from my oath. And I came this day unto 
 the fountain, and said, O Lord, the God of my mas- 
 ter Abraham, if now thou do prosper' my way which 
 I go : behold, I stand by the fountain of water j and 
 let it come to pass, that the maiden which cometh 
 forth to draw, to whom I shall say, Give me, I pray 
 thee, a little water of thy water jar to drink ; and 
 she shall say to me, Both drink thou, and I will also 
 draw for thy camels : let the same be the woman 
 whom the Lord hath appointed for my master's son. 
 And before I had done speaking in mine heart, be- 
 hold, Rebekah came forth with her water jar on her 
 shoulder ; and she went down unto the fountain, 
 and drew; and I said unto her, Let me drink, I 
 pray thee. And she made haste, and let down her 
 jar from her shoulder, and said, Drink, and I will 
 give thy camels drink also ; so I drank, and she 
 made the camels drink also. And I asked her, and 
 said, Whose daughter art thou ? And she said, The 
 daughter of Bethuel, Nahor's son, whom Milcah-bare 
 unto him ; and I put the ring upon her nose, and 
 the bracelets upon her hands. And I bowed my 
 head, and worshipped the Lord, and blessed the 
 Lord, the God of my master Abraham, which had 
 led me in the right way to take my master's brother's 
 daughter for his son. And now if ye will deal kindly 
 and truly with my master, tell me ; and if not, tell 
 me ; that I may turn to the right hand, or to the 
 left. 
 
 M
 
 162 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Then Laban and Bethucl answered and said, The 
 thing proceedeth from the Lord ; we cannot speak 
 unto thee bad or good. Behold, Rebekah is before 
 thee, take her, and go, and let her be thy master's 
 son's wife, as the Lord hath spoken. 
 
 And it came to pass, that, when Abraham's ser- 
 vant heard their words, he bowed himself down to 
 the earth unto the Lord. And the servant brought 
 forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and rai- 
 ment, and gave them to Rebekah ; he gave also to 
 her brother and to her mother precious things. And 
 they did eat and drink, he and the men that were 
 with him, and tarried all night ; and they rose up 
 in the morning, and he said, Send me away unto my 
 master. 
 
 And her brother and her mother said, Let the 
 damsel abide with us a few days, at the least ten ; 
 after that she shall go. And he said unto them, 
 Hinder me not, seeing the Lord hath prospered my 
 way ; send me away that I may go to my master. 
 And they said, We will call the damsel, and inquire 
 at her mouth. And they called Rebekah, and said 
 unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she 
 said, I will go. And they sent away Rebekah their 
 sister, and her nurse, and Abraham's servant, and 
 his men. And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto 
 her, Our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of 
 ten thousands, and let thy offspring possess the gate 
 of those which hate them. And Rebekah arose, and 
 her damsels, and they rode upon the camels, and 
 followed the man.
 
 THE STORY OF REBEKAH 1 63 
 
 [And the servant took Rebekah, and went his way. 
 And Isaac came from the way of Beer-lahai-roi ; 
 (for he dwelt in the land of the South.) And 
 Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the 
 eventide ; and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, 
 behold, there were camels coming. And Rebekah 
 lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she 
 lighted off the camel. And she said unto the ser- 
 vant, What man is this that walketh in the field to 
 meet us ? And the servant said, It is my master ; 
 and she took her veil, and covered herself. And the 
 servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. 
 And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's 
 tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife ; 
 and he loved her, and Isaac was comforted after 
 his mother's death.]
 
 XIX 
 
 VARIED PROGENY OF ABRAHAM 
 
 The compiler's disregard of consistency is strik- 
 ingly illustrated in what immediately follows the 
 story of Rebekah. Abraham had been repre- 
 sented as stricken in age and apparently about 
 to die, and then had disappeared from the story. 
 We gather from fragments of the Elohist docu- 
 ment in the general narrative that Abraham was 
 a hundred years old when Isaac was born, and it 
 was then regarded as a marvel that he and his 
 aged wife should be blessed with a son. It 
 was thirty-seven years later when Sarah died, 
 and Isaac was forty years old when he took 
 Rebekah to be his wife. And yet another 
 ethnographic fragment is brought in which rep- 
 resents Abraham as marrying again and having 
 six children by his new wife Keturah, besides an 
 unmentioned number of "sons of the concubines." 
 
 The names of the sons of Keturah are cpo- 
 nymic, and the fragment contains an indepen- 
 dent attempt to account for the wandering tribes 
 of the desert, inconsistent with that which rep- 
 resented them as the descendants of Ishmael. 
 
 164
 
 VARIED PROGENY OF ABRAHAM 1 65 
 
 Medan and Midian are variations of the same 
 designation, and it will be noticed hereafter in 
 the story of Joseph how the Midianites and Ish- 
 maelites were confounded. In the , account of 
 Gideon's victory over Midian in the Book of 
 Judges it is said that his captives had nose 
 rings " because they were Ishmaelites." 
 
 Sheba and Dedan are designations of territory, 
 the latter in the East, and the former in Southern 
 Arabia and the upper Nile region, and both names 
 appear in the post-diluvian ethnography of Chap- 
 ter x. among the descendants of Ham. All this 
 goes to show not only the mythical quality of this 
 kind of material, but the diversity of its sources. 
 This fragment could not have belonged to either 
 of the documents containing the stories of Ish- 
 mael, and it seems to be wholly apart from the 
 patriarchal tales. 
 
 The short passage which follows it, relating to 
 the death and burial of Abraham, is unquestion- 
 ably from the Elohist, who never separated Ish- 
 mael from his father's family, and who seldom 
 fails to mention the age of his characters. He 
 was much addicted to the details of family gen- 
 ealogy. The final statement of Isaac's residence 
 in the South was evidently interpolated by the 
 compiler.
 
 1 66 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 The brief account of the " generations of 
 Ishmael," which indicates again the system of 
 twelve tribes, must be in substance at least from 
 the Elohist, but the final statement is drawn from 
 the Jehovist's story, being a mere repetition of 
 xvi. 12. 
 
 This entire Chapter xxv. is made up by piec- 
 ing together fragments from different materials 
 in the hands of the compiler. After the Ishmael- 
 ite genealogy there is the beginning of the " gen- 
 erations of Isaac " from the Elohist document, but 
 it is broken off to bring in the ethnic myth of 
 Jacob and Esau, which is derived from the Jeho- 
 vist, and probably belonged to his original material 
 of the legends of the patriarchs. 
 
 When these were written, the Edomites had 
 been brought into subjection by Israel, but it was 
 a recognized fact that they were not only a kin- 
 dred nation, but a much older one in the possession 
 of a regular government. It suited the purpose 
 of the writer to represent them as an uncivilized 
 people over whom the Israelites had gained a 
 primacy by their superior craft and thrift. The 
 name " Edom " meant red and was applied to the 
 people, while their country was generally called 
 " Seir," which meant shaggy, or hairy. The He- 
 brew equivalent, "Esau," also meant hairy. In this
 
 VARIED PROGENY OF ABRAHAM 167 
 
 primitive tale redness is not only attributed to the 
 newly born child, but to the pottage for which 
 he afterwards sold his birthright. 
 
 Jacob had long been a poetical designation of 
 all Israel, and the name had an etymological re- 
 lation to a word meaning heel. Out of these ele- 
 ments of the significance of names, the recognized 
 relations of the two peoples, and the desire to ex- 
 alt the origin of the one at the expense of the 
 other, was developed this little myth in whose 
 simplicity there is a depth of ethnic meaning 
 characteristic of the productions of pristine genius. 
 
 [XXV] 
 
 [And Abraham took another wife, and her name 
 was Keturah. And she bare him Zimran, and 
 Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and 
 Shuah. And Jokshan begat Sheba, and Dedan. 
 And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim, and Letu- 
 shim, and Leummim. And the sons of Midian ; 
 Ephah and Epher and Hanoch, and Abida, and 
 Eldaah. All these were the children of Keturah. 
 And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac. But 
 unto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham 
 had, Abraham gave gifts ; and he sent them away 
 from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto 
 the east country.] 
 
 And these are the days of the years of Abraham's 
 life which he lived, an hundred threescore and fifteen
 
 l68 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 years. And Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in 
 a good old age, an old man, and full of years ; and 
 was gathered to his people. And Isaac and Ishmael 
 his sons buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in 
 the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, 
 which is before Mamre, the field which Abraham 
 purchased of the children of Heth ; there was Abra- 
 ham buried, and Sarah his wife. And it came to 
 pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed 
 Isaac his son ; [and Isaac dwelt by Beer-lahai-roi.~\ 
 
 Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abra- 
 ham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's 
 handmaid, bare unto Abraham ; and these are the 
 names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, ac- 
 cording to their generations : the firstborn of Ish- 
 mael, Nebaioth ; and Kedar, and Adbeel, and 
 Mibsam, and Mishma, and Dumah, and Massa ; 
 Hadad, and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah : 
 these are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their 
 names, by their villages, and by their encampments, 
 twelve princes according to their nations. And 
 these are the years of the life of Ishmael, an hun- 
 dred and thirty and seven years ; and he gave up the 
 ghost and died, and was gathered unto his people. 
 [And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur that is 
 before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria : he 
 abode in the presence of all his brethren. ~\ 
 
 [And these are the generations of Isaac, Abra- 
 ham's son : Abraham begat Isaac ; and Isaac was
 
 VARIED PROGENY OF ABRAHAM 1 69 
 
 forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daugh- 
 ter of Bethuel the Syrian of Paddan-aram, the sister 
 of Laban the Syrian, to be his wife.] — 
 
 And Isaac intreated the Lord for his wife, because 
 she was barren ; and the Lord was intreated of him, 
 and Rebekah his wife conceived. And the children 
 struggled together within her ; and she said, If it be 
 so, wherefore do I live? And she went to inquire 
 of the Lord. And the Lord said unto her, 
 
 Two nations are in thy womb, 
 And two peoples shall be separated 
 
 even from thy bowels ; 
 And the one people shall be stronger 
 
 than the other people ; 
 And the elder shall serve the younger.' 
 
 And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, 
 behold, there were twins in her womb. And the 
 first came forth red, all over like an hairy garment ; 
 and they called his name Esau. And after that 
 came forth his brother, and his hand had hold on 
 Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob: [and 
 Isaac was threescore years old when she bare thetn.~\ 
 
 And the boys grew ; and Esau was a cunning 
 hunter, a man of the field ; and Jacob was a plain 
 man, dwelling in tents. Now Isaac loved Esau, 
 because he did eat of his venison ; and Rebekah 
 loved Jacob. And Jacob boiled pottage, and Esau 
 came in from the field, and he was faint ; and Esau 
 said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same
 
 170 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 red pottage, for I am faint : therefore was his name 
 called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy 
 birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the 
 point to die ; and what profit shall the birthright do 
 to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day ; and 
 he sware unto him, and he sold his birthright unto 
 Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of 
 lentils ; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and 
 went his way ; so Esau despised his birthright.
 
 XX 
 
 ISAAC AND ABIMELECH 
 
 While the original traditions associated with 
 Beersheba and the southern border of Philistia 
 pertained to the name Isaac, which stood for 
 some ancient branch of the Hebrew people in 
 that region, they were freely used in the Abraham 
 legend, and when the compiler of the narrative in 
 the Book of Genesis came to deal with Isaac as a 
 personality after his father's death, he used sub- 
 stantially the same material over again, or ma- 
 terial drawn from the same traditions. There is 
 scarcely anything in Chapter xxvi. which is not 
 a repetition or variation of what was related of 
 Abraham. 
 
 The material is in the main that of the Jehovist, 
 who gave the account of Abraham's going to 
 Egypt, in Chapter xii., but who had no hand in 
 the story of Abraham and Abimelech in Chap- 
 ter xx. The handiwork of the compiler himself 
 is however more than usually evident. If we were 
 to give heed to the apparent chronology of the 
 record, we should note that since the first patri- 
 arch's sojourn at Gerar Isaac had been born and 
 
 171
 
 172 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 had reached the age of sixty at the birth of the 
 two sons who have already been represented as 
 grown up, and yet we find there the same King 
 Abimelech and the same Phicol captain of his 
 host. Practically the same story is told of the 
 mother of the grown-up twins that was told of 
 Sarah when she was ninety years old, and even 
 then it was a variant of the tale of the fascination 
 of Pharaoh at the time of the visit to Egypt a 
 quarter of a century earlier. But chronology has 
 nothing to do with material of this kind, which 
 is drawn from various sources and used for dif- 
 ferent purposes without any relation to historical 
 fact. 
 
 In this story, while the familiar device of a fam- 
 ine is used to account for a migration, Isaac is 
 warned against going into Egypt. The main pur- 
 pose is to illustrate the ancient relation with the 
 Philistines of the South, a peaceable establishment 
 of the division of territory with them, and the 
 consecration of Beersheba as an Israelite posses- 
 sion and sacred place. The original writer appar- 
 ently knew nothing of the other story, attributing 
 this to Abraham, and the compiler, in his desire 
 to give prominence to Isaac as an important link 
 in the line of descent and of inheritance, retained 
 both accounts. It was doubtless he who reiterated
 
 ISAAC AND ABIMELECH 1 73 
 
 in the case of Isaac the promises made to Abra- 
 ham. The repetition of the wife and sister story- 
 indicates barrenness of invention and seems quite 
 unnecessary to the purpose in hand. 
 
 The statement of Isaac's prosperity is like that 
 of Abraham's state aforetime, but there is evi- 
 dence of the blending of two accounts of his 
 differences with the Philistines and of their set- 
 tlement. From one it would appear that the 
 Philistines endeavored to check his encroachments 
 by filling up his wells and cutting off the supply 
 of water for his herds, and that the King of Gerar 
 induced him to depart. The other represents him 
 as opening the same wells, filled up long before, 
 and his herdsmen as being still in contention with 
 those of Gerar. All this is preliminary to taking 
 possession of Beersheba, and entering into the 
 treaty of peace with Abimelech from which the 
 name of the place was derived. We are indebted 
 to the compiler for retaining the inconsistent ac- 
 counts which he found in his material of this and 
 of other events, for it is precisely these variations, 
 repetitions, and inconsistencies that have enabled 
 students to trace, not with clearness perhaps, but 
 with certainty, the different sources of his mate- 
 rial, and to demonstrate the seriously mythical 
 character and purpose of these old writings.
 
 174 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 [XXVI 1-33] 
 
 And there was a famine in the land, beside the 
 first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And 
 Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines 
 unto Gerar. And the Lord appeared unto him, and 
 said, Go not down into Egypt ; dwell in the land 
 which I shall tell thee of; sojourn in this land, and 
 I will be with thee, and will bless thee \ for unto thee, 
 and unto thy race, I will give all these lands, and I will 
 establish the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy 
 father ; and I will multiply thy progeny as the stars 
 of heaven, and will give unto thy posterity all these 
 lands ; and in thy posterity shall all the nations of 
 the earth be blessed, because that Abraham obeyed 
 my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, 
 my statutes, and my laws. 
 
 And Isaac dwelt in Gerar ; and the men of the 
 place asked him of his wife, and he said, She is my 
 sister ; for he feared to say, My wife, lest, said he, 
 the men of the place should kill me for Rebekah : 
 because she was fair to look upon. 
 
 And it came to pass, when he had been there a 
 long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines 
 looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac 
 was caressing Rebekah his wife. And Abimelech 
 called Isaac, and said, Behold, of a surety she is thy 
 wife, and how saidst thou, She is my sister? And 
 Isaac said unto him, Because I said, Lest I die for 
 her. And Abimelech said, What is this thou hast 
 done unto us ? One of the people might lightly have
 
 ISAAC AND ABIMELECH 1 75 
 
 lain with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought 
 guiltiness upon us. And Abimelech charged all the 
 people, saying, He that toucheth this man or his 
 wife shall surely be put to death. 
 
 And Isaac sowed in that land, and found in the 
 same year an hundredfold; and the Lord blessed 
 him. And the man waxed great, and grew more 
 and more until he became very great ; and he had 
 possessions of flocks, and possessions of herds, and 
 a great household, and the Philistines envied him. 
 Now all the wells which his father's servants had 
 digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philis- 
 tines had stopped them, and filled them with earth. 
 And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us, for 
 thou art much mightier than we. And Isaac de- 
 parted thence, and encamped in the valley of Gerar, 
 and dwelt there. 
 
 [And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which 
 they had digged in the days of Abraham his father ; 
 for the Philistines had stopped them after the death 
 of Abraham ; and he called their names after the 
 names by which his father had called them.] 
 
 And Isaac's servants digged in the valley, and 
 found there a well of springing water. And the 
 herdmen of Gerar strove with Isaac's herdmen, say- 
 ing, The water is ours ; and he called the name of 
 the well Esek, because they contended with him. 
 And they digged another well, and they strove for 
 that also ; and he called the name of it Sitnah. And 
 he removed from thence, and digged another well ;
 
 176 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 and for that they strove not, and he called the name 
 of it Rehoboth ; and he said, For now the Lord hath 
 made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land. 
 
 And he went up from thence to Beersheba. And 
 the Lord appeared unto him the same night, and 
 said, I am the God of Abraham thy father ; fear 
 not, for I am with thee, ami will bless thee, and 
 multiply thy progeny for my servant Abraham's sake. 
 And he builded an altar there, and called upon the 
 name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there ; and 
 there Isaac's servants digged a well. 
 
 Then Abimelech went to him from Gerar, and 
 Ahuzzath his friend, and Phicol the captain of his 
 host. And Isaac said unto them, Wherefore are ye 
 come unto me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent 
 me away from you? And they said, We saw plainly 
 that the Lord was with thee ; and we said, Let 
 there now be an oath betwixt us, even betwixt us 
 and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee, 
 that thou wilt do us no hurt, as we have not touched 
 thee, and as we have done unto thee nothing but 
 good, and have sent thee away in peace : thou art 
 now the blessed of the Lord. And he made them 
 a feast, and they did eat and drink. And they 
 rose up betimes in the morning, and sware one to 
 another ; and Isaac sent them away, and they 
 departed from him in peace. 
 
 And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac's 
 servants came, and told him concerning the well 
 which they had digged, and said unto him, We 
 have found water. And he called it Shibah ; there- 
 fore the name of the city is Beersheba unto this day.
 
 XXI 
 
 THE TWIN PEOPLES 
 
 A fragment of family genealogy characteristic 
 of the Elohist is introduced at the end of Chap- 
 ter xxvi., stating the marriage of Esau at the age 
 of forty. Then follows another ethnic myth illus- 
 trative of the relations of Israel and Edom, much 
 more elaborate than that at the end of Chapter 
 xxv., and obviously from a different source. It 
 seems to be mainly the work of the Jehovist, 
 whose peculiar inventive genius is plainly recog- 
 nizable. What would appear extremely repre- 
 hensible in the conduct of individuals, from a 
 moral point of view, loses all moral quality when 
 regarded as a mythological representation of an 
 existing state of things between nations. 
 
 Edom, the older nation, had been subjugated by 
 Israel in the time of David, held in subjection 
 until the time of Joram, and reconquered by Ama- 
 ziah, but finally it broke loose again and shook 
 the yoke from off its neck. It was regarded as 
 of the same origin as Israel, combining the ethnic 
 elements of the South and the North personified 
 
 N 177
 
 178 THE MYTHS OF [SRAEL 
 
 in Isaac and Rebekah, but as having been sup- 
 planted and outdone in the race of life by the 
 superior qualities of the younger of the twin 
 peoples, with the complicity of divine favor. 
 This condition of things, regarded from the 
 Israelite point of view, actually existed in the 
 time of the writer, and the deception practised 
 in the story may illustrate the moral standard 
 of the time, but it has no other moral significance, 
 when we regard the characters as figuring the 
 relations of nations and of events in a purely 
 mythological sense. 
 
 The same view explains the impossibility of 
 revoking the blessing obtained by imposing upon 
 a blind father, though one might naturally expect 
 it to be turned into a curse. It expressed accom- 
 plished facts which could not be changed. The 
 "blessings " in rhythmical form are older than the 
 context, and may have been from poetical material 
 out of which the substance of the whole story was 
 extracted. Esau, synonymous with the " shaggy " 
 region of Seir, appears as a hairy man in this story, 
 but there is no reference to the redness of Edom ; 
 and the name "Jacob " receives a different explana- 
 tion from that of the simpler tale of Chapter xxv. 
 As in other cases, the real or supposed meaning 
 of the names of persons and places, together
 
 THE TWIN PEOPLES 1 79 
 
 with known characteristics and circumstances, 
 furnished the elements out of which the myth 
 was wrought. No doubt the special affection 
 of Rebekah for Jacob was expressive of a close 
 amity between Syria and Israel and gave it 
 a sentimental bond, while Edom was repelled 
 from any alliance or attachment in that quarter. 
 The reference in the blessing of Jacob to his 
 "brethren," over whom he was to be "lord," is 
 incidental evidence that all these names and rela- 
 tions pertained to lands and peoples and not to 
 persons, for the story gives Jacob no brother 
 except Esau. It was the pre-eminence of Israel 
 over kindred peoples that was expressed, and it 
 was to its power that " the nations " were to 
 bow. 
 
 [XXVI 34-XXVII 45] 
 
 [And when Esau was forty years old he took to 
 wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and 
 Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite ; and 
 they were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Re- 
 bekah.] 
 
 And it came to pass, that when Isaac was old, 
 and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see, he 
 called Esau his elder son, and said unto him, My 
 son : and he said unto him, Here am I. And he 
 said, Behold now, I am old, I know not the day
 
 I SO THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 of my death. Now therefore take, I pray thee, 
 thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, and go out 
 to the field, and take me game ; and make me 
 savoury food, such as I love, and bring it to me, that 
 I may eat ; that my soul may bless thee before I die. 
 
 And Rebekah heard when Isaac spake to Esau 
 his son. And Esau went to the field to hunt for 
 game, and to bring it. And Rebekah spake unto 
 Jacob her son, saying, Behold, I heard thy father 
 speak unto Esau thy brother, saying, Bring me 
 game, and make me savoury food, that I may eat, 
 and bless thee before the Lord before my death. 
 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according 
 to that which I command thee. Go now to the 
 flock, and fetch me from thence two good kids of 
 the goats ; and I will make them savoury food for 
 thy father, such as he loveth ; and thou shalt bring 
 it to thy father, that he may eat, so that he may 
 bless thee before his death. 
 
 And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, 
 Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth 
 man. My father peradventure will feel me, and 1 
 shall seem to him as a deceiver ; and I shall bring 
 a curse upon me, and not a blessing. And his 
 mother said unto him, Upon me be thy curse, my 
 son ; only obey my voice, and go fetch me them. 
 And he went, and fetched, and brought them to 
 his mother ; and his mother made savoury food, 
 such as his father loved. And Rebekah took the 
 goodly garments of Esau her elder son, which were 
 with her in the house, and put them upon Jacob
 
 THE TWIN PEOPLES l8l 
 
 her younger son ; and she put the skins of the 
 kids of the goats upon his hands, and upon the 
 smooth of his neck; and she gave the savoury 
 meat and the bread, which she had prepared, into 
 the hand of her son Jacob. 
 
 And he came unto his father, and said, My father : 
 and he said, Here am I ; who art thou, my son ? 
 And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thy 
 firstborn ; I have done according as thou badest 
 me; arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my game, 
 that thy soul may bless me. And Isaac said unto 
 his son, How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, 
 my son ? And he said, Because the Lord thy God 
 sent me good speed. And Isaac said unto Jacob, 
 Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my 
 son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not. 
 And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father ; and 
 he felt him, and said, The voice is Jacob's voice, 
 but the hands are the hands of Esau. 
 
 And he discerned him not, because his hands 
 were hairy, as his brother Esau's hands ; so he 
 blessed him. And he said, Art thou my very son 
 Esau ? And he said, I am. And he said, Bring it 
 near to me, and I will eat of my son's game, that 
 my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near 
 to him, and he did eat ; and he brought him wine, 
 and he drank. 
 
 And his father Isaac said unto him, Come near 
 now, and kiss me, my son. And he came near, and 
 kissed him ; and he smelled the smell of his gar- 
 ments, and blessed him, and said,
 
 1 82 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 See, the smell of my son 
 
 Is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed : 
 
 And God give thee of the dew of heaven, 
 
 And of the fatness of the earth, 
 
 And plenty of corn and wine : 
 
 Let peoples serve thee, 
 
 And nations bow down to thee : 
 
 Be lord over thy brethren, 
 
 And let thy mother's sons bow down to thee : 
 
 Cursed be every one that curseth thee, 
 
 And blessed be every one that blesseth thee. 
 
 And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had made 
 an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce 
 gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that 
 Esau his brother came in from his hunting. And he 
 also made savoury food, and brought it unto his 
 father ; and he said unto his father, Let my father 
 arise, and eat of his son's game, that thy soul may 
 bless me. And Isaac his father said unto him, Who 
 art thou ? And he said, I am thy son, thy firstborn, 
 Esau. And Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and 
 said, Who then is he that hath taken game, and 
 brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou 
 earnest, and have blessed him? yea, and he shall 
 be blessed. 
 
 When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried 
 with an exceeding great and bitter cry, and said unto 
 his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father. 
 And he said, Thy brother came with guile, and hath 
 taken away thy blessing. And he said, Is not he
 
 THE TWIN PEOPLES 183 
 
 rightly named Jacob? for he hath supplanted me 
 these two times ; he took away my birthright, and, 
 behold, now he hath taken away my blessing. And 
 he said, Hast thou not reserved a blessing for me? 
 
 And Isaac answered and said unto Esau, Behold, 
 I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren have 
 I given to him for servants ; and with grain and wine 
 have I sustained him ; and what then shall I do for 
 thee, my son? And Esau said unto his father, Hast 
 thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even 
 me also, O my father. And Esau lifted up his voice, 
 and wept. And Isaac his father answered and said 
 unto him, 
 
 Behold, of the fatness of the earth shall be thy 
 
 dwelling, 
 And of the dew of heaven from above ; 
 And by thy sword shalt thou live, and thou shalt 
 
 serve thy brother ; 
 And it shall come to pass when thou shalt break loose, 
 That thou shalt shake his yoke from off thy neck. 
 
 And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing 
 wherewith his father blessed him ; and Esau said in 
 his heart, The days of mourning for my father are 
 at hand ; then will I slay my brother Jacob. And 
 the words of Esau her elder son were told to Re- 
 bekah ; and she sent and called Jacob her younger 
 son, and said unto him, Behold, thy brother Esau, 
 as touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing to 
 kill thee. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice,
 
 1 84 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran ; 
 and tarry with him a few days, until thy brother's 
 fury turn away ; until thy brother's anger turn away 
 from thee, and he forget that which thou hast done 
 to him ; then 1 will send, and fetch thee from thence. 
 Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day ?
 
 XXII 
 
 Jacob's journey to syria 
 
 The migration of Jacob to Haran in the land 
 of Syria is represented in the story above cited 
 as due to the anger of Esau and the fears of 
 Rebekah. This story, which is interrupted at 
 verse 45, Chapter xxvii., is resumed at verse 10 
 of Chapter xxviii., in the familiar division of our 
 Bibles. The break is filled with a passage — in 
 brackets below — from a different source, attach- 
 ing to the fragment at the end of Chapter xxvi. 
 Esau has been represented as marrying two Hit- 
 tite wives, to the grief of his father and mother, 
 and now the mother appears as determined that 
 Jacob shall not do likewise, and as sending him 
 with his father's blessing to seek a wife among 
 her kinsmen. 
 
 This prosaic passage has the qualities of 
 the Elohist, who never exhibited Jacob and 
 Esau (or Isaac and Ishmael) as alienated. It is 
 said here that Esau, when he saw that his father 
 was not pleased with the daughters of Canaan, 
 and had sent Jacob to Paddan-aram for a wife, 
 tried to make amends by adding to his own do- 
 mestic circle, as a third wife, his cousin, a daugh- 
 
 185
 
 1 86 the myths of Israel 
 
 tcr of Ishmacl. He evidently considered the blood 
 of his father's family just as good as that of his 
 mother's. When the genealogy of Esau is intro- 
 duced later on in Chapter xxxvi., we shall find that 
 one of his Canaanite wives is said to be a Hittite 
 and one a Hivite, instead of both being daughters 
 of Heth, and that two of the names of his wives 
 are differently given, while the third is transferred 
 from the daughter of Elon the Hittite to the 
 daughter of Ishmael. These inconsistencies are 
 important only as showing once more the charac- 
 ter of the material and the difference of source. 
 
 The imaginative quality and the religious and 
 ethnical purpose of the Jehovist reappear strongly 
 when the story of Jacob's journey from Beer- 
 sheba to Haran is resumed, but the writer is 
 evidently transmuting an ancient myth, and the 
 touch of the compiler is also seen in the familiar 
 phrases of the repeated promise of the land to 
 Jacob's posterity. Evidence of the independent 
 origin of the various legends, which pervades the 
 whole Book of Genesis, appears distinctly in this 
 passage. We have seen Abraham in two widely 
 different characters, and when a wife was sought 
 for Isaac a stately caravan was sent, with rich 
 presents, to bring her from a willing kindred. 
 Though Isaac has also been represented as attain-
 
 JACOB'S JOURNEY TO SYRIA 1 87 
 
 ing wealth and greatness, his son goes forth alone, 
 to wander through the country and seek favor 
 among his mother's people, afterwards working for 
 years as a common herdsman to win his two wives. 
 In one legend, already used by the compiler, 
 the consecration and naming of Bethel was attrib- 
 uted to Abraham. Here it is assigned to Jacob 
 in a more mystical way. The "angels" of the 
 dream were those mysterious manifestations of 
 divinity in one or many forms — personified divine 
 influences — of which we have noted other exam- 
 ples. The same symbolical sense of the term 
 appears in the "angels of God ascending and 
 descending upon the Son of Man " in the New 
 Testament. But this mystical picture does not 
 appear to have come from the same account as 
 that which told of Jacob's setting up the stone 
 pillar and making his vow thereon, for in the 
 latter he seems unconscious of the promise of 
 the dream. The statement of the vow is quite 
 prosaic, and evidently intended to assign a divine 
 origin to the requirement of tithes, as in the scene 
 of Abraham and Melchizedek. 
 
 [XXVII 46-XXVIII] 
 
 [And Rebekah said to Isaac, I am weary of my 
 life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob take
 
 l88 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these, of the 
 daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me ? 
 
 And Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and 
 charged him, and said unto him, Thou shalt not take 
 a wife of the daughters of Canaan. Arise, go to 
 Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother's 
 father ; and take thee a wife from thence of the 
 daughters of Eaban thy mother's brother. And , 
 God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, 
 and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a company 
 of peoples ; and give thee the blessing of Abraham, 
 to thee, and to thy posterity with thee ; that thou 
 mayest inherit the land of thy sojournings, which 
 God gave unto Abraham. 
 
 And Isaac sent away Jacob ; and he went to 
 Paddan-aram unto Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, 
 the brother of Rebekah, Jacob's and Esau's mother. 
 Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and 
 sent him away to Paddan-aram, to take him a wife 
 from thence; and that as he blessed him he gave 
 him a charge, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife of 
 the daughters of Canaan ; and that Jacob obeyed 
 his father and his mother, and was gone to Paddan- 
 aram : and Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan 
 pleased not Isaac his father \ and Esau went unto 
 Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had 
 Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, 
 the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife.] 
 
 And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went 
 toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place,
 
 JACOB'S JOURNEY TO SYRIA 1 89 
 
 and tarried there all night, because the sun was set ; 
 and he took one of the stones of the place and put 
 it under his head, and lay down in that place to 
 sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set 
 upon the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven ; 
 and behold the angels of God ascending and de- 
 scending on it. 
 
 And, behold, the Lord stood before him, and said, 
 I am the Lord the God of Abraham thy father, and 
 the God of Isaac ; the land whereon thou best, to 
 thee will I give it, and to thy posterity ; and thy 
 posterity shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou 
 shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and 
 to the north, and to the south ; and in thee and in 
 thy offspring shall all the families of the earth be 
 blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep 
 thee whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee 
 again into this land ; for I will not leave thee until I 
 have done that which I have spoken to thee of. 
 
 And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said : 
 Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not ; 
 and he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this 
 place ! this is none other but the house of God, and 
 this is the gate of heaven. 
 
 And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took 
 the stone that he had put under his head, and set it 
 up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And 
 he called the name of that place Beth-el, but the 
 name of the city was Luz at the first. And Jacob 
 vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and 
 keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread
 
 190 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to 
 my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my 
 God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, 
 shall be God's house ; and of all that thou shalt give 
 me I will surely give the tenth unto thee.
 
 XXIII 
 Jacob's double marriage 
 
 The ancient kinship of Israel and Syria was 
 illustrated in the story of Abraham and Nahor, 
 and again in that of the marriage of Isaac and 
 Rebekah. Still greater stress is laid upon it in 
 the more elaborate story of the double marriage 
 of Jacob with the daughters of Laban, and the 
 development therefrom of the several tribes. The 
 myth is in a different tone from the others, and 
 has a deeper and wider ethnic significance. Its 
 Northern, or Ephramite, origin is beyond question, 
 and it prepares the way for defining the relative 
 position of the tribes from that point of view. 
 The mother of the most favored was the beauty 
 of the Syrian family, was the younger, and is to 
 be represented as barren until especially blessed 
 with offspring, a common device of ancient He- 
 brew story for exhibiting divine preference. 
 
 Brilliant eyes were the chief token of beauty to 
 Oriental taste, and the older, less favored, but 
 more prolific wife had dull ("tender") eyes. The 
 coming exaltation of Joseph is made evident in 
 
 191
 
 192 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 this idyllic talc. In the course of its develop- 
 ment, four tribes are to be set lower than the 
 children of Leah, and represented as the offspring 
 of handmaids. The statements, in the account 
 of the marriage, of the giving of the handmaids 
 have the appearance of being interjected by the 
 compiler to prepare the way for later incidents, as 
 they break abruptly into the context. There are 
 also indications of a double source for the main 
 story. The first part speaks only of Rachel as 
 "the daughter" of Laban, and Jacob meets her 
 and falls in love with her at the well, when his 
 superior strength is exhibited in rolling away the 
 stone, which the shepherds could only move when 
 they came together with their flocks. Afterwards 
 we are informed, as if in a different version of the 
 tale, that Laban had two daughters, the younger 
 and more beautiful of whom Jacob loved. 
 
 There is an apparent omission of details belong- 
 ing to varying material in the scanty statement of 
 the bargain in a double form by which Jacob in 
 one form of statement was to receive Rachel as a 
 wife in lieu of "wages" for his service to Laban, 
 and in the other was to serve seven years for the 
 wife in lieu of the customary payment in Oriental 
 contracts of the kind. The imposing of the older 
 and undesired daughter upon the bridegroom by a
 
 JACOB'S DOUBLE MARRIAGE 193 
 
 trick, is intended still further to degrade the origin 
 of the other tribes in comparison with those which 
 sprang from Joseph. 
 
 [XXIX 1-30] 
 
 Then Jacob went on his journey, and came to the 
 land of the children of the east. And he looked, 
 and behold a well in the field, and, lo, three 
 flocks of sheep lying there by it, for out of that well 
 they watered the flocks ; and the stone upon the 
 well's mouth was great. And thither were all the 
 flocks gathered ; and they rolled the stone from 
 the well's mouth, and watered the sheep, and put 
 the stone again upon the well's mouth in its place. 
 
 And Jacob said unto them, My brethren, whence 
 are ye ? And they said, Of Haran are we. And he 
 said unto them, Know ye Laban the son of Nahor? 
 And they said, We know him. And he said unto 
 them, Is it well with him? And they said, It is 
 well ; and, behold, Rachel his daughter cometh 
 with the sheep. And he said, Lo, it is yet high 
 day, neither is it time that the cattle should be 
 gathered together ; water ye the sheep, and go and 
 feed them. And they said, We cannot, until all the 
 flocks be gathered together, and they roll the stone 
 from the well's mouth ; then we water the sheep. 
 
 While he yet spake with them, Rachel came with 
 her father's sheep ; for she kept them. And it 
 came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter 
 of Laban his mother's brother, and the sheep of
 
 194 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Laban his mother's brother, that Jacob went near, 
 and rolled the stone from the well's mouth, and 
 watered the flock of Laban his mother's brother. 
 And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, 
 and wept. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her 
 father's brother, and that he was Rebekah's son ; 
 and she ran and told her father. 
 
 And it came to pass, when Laban heard the 
 tidings of Jacob his sister's son, that he ran to 
 meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and 
 brought him to his house. And he told Laban all 
 these things. And Laban said to him, Surely thou 
 art my bone and my flesh. And he abode with him 
 the space of a month. And Laban said unto Jacob, 
 Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou there- 
 fore serve me for naught? tell me, what shall thy 
 wages be? 
 
 And Laban had two daughters ; the name of the 
 elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was 
 Rachel. And Leah's eyes were dull ; but Rachel 
 was beautiful and well favoured. And Jacob loved 
 Rachel ; and he said, I will serve thee seven years 
 for Rachel thy younger daughter. And Laban 
 said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that 
 I should give her to another man ; abide with me. 
 And Jacob served seven years for Rachel ; and they 
 seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had 
 to her. And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my 
 wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto 
 her. 
 
 And Laban gathered together all the men of the
 
 JACOB'S DOUBLE MARRIAGE 1 95 
 
 place, and made a feast. And it came to pass in 
 
 the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and 
 
 brought her to him ; and he went in unto her. 
 
 [And Laban gave Zilpah his handmaid unto his 
 
 daughter Leah for an handmaid.] And it came to 
 
 pass in the morning that, behold, it was Leah ; and 
 
 he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done unto 
 
 me? did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore 
 
 then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban said, It 
 
 is not so done in our place, to give the younger 
 
 before the firstborn. Fulfil the week of this one, 
 
 and we will give thee the other also for the service 
 
 which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other 
 
 years. And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week ; 
 
 and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife. 
 
 [And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah 
 
 his handmaid to be her handmaid.] And he went 
 
 in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more 
 
 than Leah, and served with him yet seven other 
 
 years.
 
 XXIV 
 
 THE BIRTH OF JACOB'S SONS 
 
 The account of the birth of Jacob's sons is 
 figurative of the origin of the tribes, as their 
 names and relative standing were known in the 
 writer's time, and regarded from his point of 
 view. The actual origin of the names is un- 
 known, and their etymological significance is 
 uncertain, but the fanciful derivations given in 
 the story come in some cases from mere casual 
 resemblance to familiar words with which they 
 had no real linguistic relation. In the case of 
 Issachar two applications are made of the mean- 
 ing of the word "hire," one indicating that the 
 name was given because Leah had hired her 
 husband for the night, and the other because 
 she had received her " hire " for giving her hand- 
 maid to Jacob. Zebulun is derived from two 
 words similar in form but quite different in mean- 
 ing, one signifying dowry and the other dwell- 
 ing. The double derivation of Joseph is from 
 words quite opposite in meaning, "asaf," to take 
 away, and "iasaf," to add. These incongruities 
 
 196
 
 THE BIRTH OF JACOB'S SONS 1 97 
 
 come not simply from a rough assumption of the 
 meaning of names which have a resemblance to 
 other words, but from the blending of statements 
 and phrases from different sources, by the com- 
 piler who made up the narrative in its final 
 form. 
 
 With regard to the giving of handmaids to the 
 husband by the wife and the accepting of the 
 children of such unions, it may be noted that it 
 was a recognized form of adopting such offspring 
 into the family. Without formality of the kind, 
 children of such parentage were common, but 
 were not recognized as legitimate. Significance 
 is given to the incident of the "love apples," or 
 fruit of the mandrake, by the Oriental belief 
 that they stimulated fecundity. There is in this 
 story of Jacob in Syria no question of the birth 
 of Benjamin, though in the Elohist genealogy at 
 the end of Chapter xxxv. he is enumerated among 
 the sons of Jacob "born to him in Paddan-aram." 
 The Jehovist had a way of his own of accounting 
 for Benjamin. The two brief statements which 
 are put in brackets are foreign to the original 
 material and apparently interpolated by the com- 
 piler, the latter perhaps in anticipation of an 
 episode in which Dinah figures. Elsewhere there 
 is no definite reference to a daughter in Jacob's
 
 I98 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 family, as there was no occasion for any in ful- 
 filling the purpose of the ethnical scheme. 
 
 [XXIX 31-XXX 24] 
 
 And the Lord saw that Leah was hated, and he 
 opened her womb ; but Rachel was barren. And 
 Leah conceived, and bare a son, and she called his 
 name Reuben ; for she said, Because the Lord hath 
 looked upon my affliction ; for now my husband will 
 love me. And she conceived again, and bare a son ; 
 and said, Because the Lord hath heard that I am 
 hated, he hath therefore given me this son also : and 
 she called his name Simeon. And she conceived 
 again, and bare a son ; and said, Now this time will 
 my husband be joined unto me, because I have 
 borne him three sons : therefore was his name called 
 Levi. And she conceived again, and bare a son, 
 and she said, This time will I praise the Lord : 
 therefore she called his name Judah, and she left 
 bearing. 
 
 And when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no 
 children, Rachel envied her sister ; and she said 
 unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die. [And 
 Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel ; and he 
 said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from 
 thee the fruit of the womb ?] And she said, Behold 
 my maid Bilhah, go in unto her, that she may bear 
 upon my knees, and I also may obtain children by 
 her. And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to 
 wife ; and Jacob went in unto her. And Bilhah
 
 THE BIRTH OF JACOB'S SONS 1 99 
 
 conceived, and bare Jacob a son. And Rachel said, 
 God hath judged me, and hath also heard my 
 voice, and hath given me a son : therefore called 
 she his name Dan. And Bilhah Rachel's handmaid 
 conceived again, and bare Jacob a second son. 
 And Rachel said, With mighty wrestlings have I 
 wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed : and 
 she called his name Naphtali. 
 
 When Leah saw that she had left bearing, she took 
 Zilpah her handmaid, and gave her to Jacob to wife. 
 And Zilpah Leah's handmaid bare Jacob a son. And 
 Leah said, Fortunate ! and she called his name 
 Gad. And Zilpah Leah's handmaid bare Jacob a 
 second son. And Leah said, Happy am I ! for the 
 daughters will call me happy : and she called his 
 name Asher. 
 
 And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, 
 and found love apples in the field, and brought 
 them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to 
 Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's love apples. 
 And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou 
 hast taken away my husband? and wouldest thou 
 take away my son's love apples also ? And Rachel 
 said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to-night for 
 thy son's love apples. 
 
 And Jacob came from the field in the evening, 
 and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou 
 must come in unto me ; for I have surely hired thee 
 with my son's love apples. And he lay with her 
 that night. And God hearkened unto Leah, and 
 she conceived, and bare Jacob a fifth son. And
 
 200 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Leah said, God hath given me my hire, because 
 I gave my handmaid to my husband : and she 
 called his name Issachar. And Leah conceived 
 again, and bare a sixth son to Jacob. And Leah 
 said, God hath endowed me with a good dowry; 
 now will my husband dwell with me, because I 
 have borne him six sons : and she called his name 
 Zebulun. [And afterwards she bare a daughter, 
 and called her name Dinah.] 
 
 And God remembered Rachel, and God heark- 
 ened to her, and opened her womb. And she con- 
 ceived, and bare a son ; and said, God hath taken 
 away my reproach : and she called his name Joseph, 
 saying, The Lord add to me another son.
 
 XXV 
 
 JACOB AND LABAN ISRAEL AND SYRIA 
 
 The story of the birth of Jacob's sons, from 
 Reuben to Joseph, represents them all as seeing 
 the light during the second seven years of the 
 father's service with Laban ; for it is after the 
 birth of Joseph that Jacob proposes to return to 
 his own country, reminding Laban that he has 
 completed the service to which he was bound. 
 This indicates a tradition in the time of the writer 
 that the tribes had their origin in the Mesopotamia 
 region and were closely related to the Syrians, 
 though the latter were earlier possessors of the 
 land of Paddan-aram. 
 
 What follows implies that by their superior 
 sagacity and thrift, the Israelites tended to absorb 
 the wealth and power of the country from the 
 Labanites, with the natural result of producing 
 jealousy and quarrel. The picturesque story of 
 the way in which Jacob grew rich at the expense 
 of his uncle and father-in-law by appropriating to 
 himself only the exceptional in the product of the 
 flocks — the striped and spotted among the goats 
 
 20 1
 
 202 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 and the black among the sheep — was another 
 illustration of the divine favor that followed the 
 ancestor of the Israelites. The evidence of two 
 widely different forms of this story in the original 
 material is unmistakable, and, as usual, the com- 
 piler leaves us this evidence by failing to efface 
 the inconsistencies. 
 
 One of these versions shows the same lack of 
 religious tone, and the same disposition to attrib- 
 ute craftiness to Jacob in his dealings, that ap- 
 peared in the accounts of his gaining advantage 
 over his brother Esau. Laban had proposed that 
 he name his wages for remaining in the service, 
 as affairs had prospered under his hand, and he 
 made the offer of taking only the striped and 
 spotted of the increase of the goats and the black 
 of the lambs, after having separated out all such 
 from the flocks, so that they should not propagate 
 therein. Then he resorted to the trick of the 
 partially peeled rods, which would scarcely prove 
 efficacious in actual practice, though it may serve 
 in a myth. 
 
 But when Jacob explains to his wives his reason 
 for leaving their father, there is no suggestion of 
 this. He is the one who has been imposed upon, 
 Laban having changed his wages ten times, some- 
 times giving him the speckled of the flocks and
 
 JACOB AND LABAN — ISRAEL AND SYRIA 203 
 
 again the streaked or the grisled, and so on. The 
 mature animals, thus marked, had not been sepa- 
 rated from the rest, but were made specially pro- 
 lific by divine favor to the defeat of all Laban's 
 selfish designs and the enrichment of Jacob. This 
 could hardly have been drawn from the same ver- 
 sion of the story as that which precedes, and the 
 transmuting touch of the devout Jehovist is plainly 
 visible, especially in the appearance of God in a 
 dream, reminding of the vow of Bethel, and com- 
 manding Jacob to return to the land of his 
 nativity. 
 
 The response of Rachel and Leah is not quite 
 so heartless as it seems in our familiar transla- 
 tion. They were " sold " only in the ordinary 
 way of disposing of daughters to husbands, and 
 the father had had the benefit of the price — 
 "devoured our money" does not fairly express 
 it. The subsequent transfer of his substance, it is 
 implied, was the act of God. But when we keep 
 in mind that all this is a mythological represen- 
 tation of the relations of lands and of peoples, 
 family sentiment does not seem really to be in- 
 volved. 
 
 Where material, foreign to that mainly used, 
 can be distinctly separated from the context, it is 
 put in brackets in the passage below. The only
 
 204 T1IK MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 fragment that can be identified as from the 
 Elohist document is that at the end. The others 
 are apparently due to the Jehovist narrator incor- 
 porating the material of two versions into one, or, 
 possibly, it was the compiler who modified the 
 Jehovist story with material foreign to it. The 
 only thing altogether beyond dispute is the com- 
 posite character of the account as we have it. 
 
 [XXX 25-XXXI 18] 
 
 And it came to pass, when Rachel had borne 
 Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away, 
 that I may go unto mine own place, and to my coun- 
 try. Give me my wives and my children for whom 
 I have served thee, and let me go, for thou knowest 
 my service wherewith I have served thee. 
 
 And Laban said unto him, If now I have found 
 favour in thine eyes, — I have divined that the Lord 
 hath blessed me for thy sake. And he said, Appoint 
 me thy wages, and I will give it. And he said unto 
 him, Thou knowest how I have served thee, and 
 how thy cattle hath fared with me. For it was 
 little which thou hadst before I came, and it hath 
 increased unto a multitude ; and the Lord hath 
 blessed thee whithersoever I turned ; and now when 
 shall I provide for mine own house also? And he 
 said, What shall I give thee? 
 
 And Jacob said, Thou shalt not give me aught ; if 
 thou wilt do this thing for me, I will again feed ihy
 
 JACOB AND LABAN — ISRAEL AND SYRIA 205 
 
 flock and keep it. I will pass through all thy flock 
 to-day, removing from thence every speckled and 
 spotted one, and every black one among the sheep, 
 and the spotted and speckled among the goats ; and 
 of such shall be my hire. So shall my righteousness 
 answer for me hereafter, when thou shalt come con- 
 cerning my hire that is before thee ; every one that 
 is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and 
 black among the sheep, if found with me shall be 
 counted stolen. And Laban said, Behold, I would 
 it might be according to thy word. 
 
 And he removed that day the he-goats that were 
 striped and spotted, and all the she-goats that were 
 speckled and spotted, every one that had white in it, 
 and all the black ones among the sheep, and gave 
 them into the hand of his sons ; and he set three 
 days' journey betwixt himself and Jacob ; and Jacob 
 fed the rest of Laban's flocks. 
 
 [And Jacob took him rods of fresh poplar, and of 
 the almond and of the plane tree ; and peeled white 
 streaks in them, and made the white appear which 
 was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had 
 peeled over against the flocks in the gutters in the 
 watering troughs where the flocks came to drink; 
 and they conceived when they came to drink. And 
 the flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks 
 brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted.] And 
 Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces of the 
 flocks toward the striped and all the black in the 
 flock of Laban ; and he put his own droves apart, 
 and put them not unto Laban's flock.
 
 206 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 [And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger of 
 the flock did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods 
 before the eyes of the flock in the gutters, that they 
 might conceive among the rods ; but when the flock 
 were feeble, he put them not in ; so the feebler were 
 Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's.] And the man 
 increased exceedingly, and had large flocks, and 
 maidservants and menservants, and camels and 
 asses. 
 
 And he heard the words of Laban's sons, saying, 
 Jacob hath taken away all that was our father's ; and 
 of that which was our father's hath he gotten all this 
 wealth. And Jacob beheld the countenance of 
 Laban, and, behold, it was not toward him as before- 
 time. And the Lord said unto Jacob, Return unto 
 the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred ; and I 
 will be with thee. 
 
 And Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to 
 the field unto his flock, and said unto them, I see 
 your father's countenance, that it is not toward me 
 as beforetime ; but the God of my father hath been 
 with me. And ye know that with all my power I 
 have served your father. And your father hath de- 
 ceived me, and changed my wages ten times ; but 
 God suffered him not to hurt me. If he said thus, 
 The speckled shall be thy wages ; then all the flock 
 bare speckled : and if he said thus, The striped shall 
 be thy wages ; then bare all the flock striped. Thus 
 God hath taken away the cattle of your father, and 
 given them to me. 
 
 And it came to pass at the time that the flock con-
 
 JACOB AND LAB AN — ISRAEL AND SYRIA 207 
 
 ceived, that I lifted up mine eyes, and saw in a dream, 
 and, behold, the he-goats which leaped upon the flock 
 were striped, speckled, and grisled. And the angel 
 of God said unto me in the dream, Jacob ! and I 
 said, Here am I. And he said, Lift up now thine 
 eyes, and see, all the he-goats which leap upon the 
 flock are striped, speckled, and grisled ; for I have 
 seen all that Laban doeth unto thee. I am the God 
 of Beth-el, where thou anointedst a pillar, where thou 
 vowedst a vow unto me ; now arise, get thee out from 
 this land, and return unto the land of thy nativity. 
 
 And Rachel and Leah answered and said unto 
 him, Is there yet any portion or inheritance for us 
 in our father's house ? Are we not counted of him 
 strangers? for he hath sold us, and hath also quite 
 consumed the price paid for us. For all the riches 
 which God hath taken away from our father, that is 
 ours and our children's ; now then, whatsoever God 
 hath said unto thee, do. [Then Jacob rose up, and 
 set his sons and his wives upon the camels ; and he 
 carried away all his cattle, and all his substance 
 which he had gathered, the cattle of his getting, 
 which he had gathered in Paddan-aram, for to go to 
 Isaac his father unto the land of Canaan.]
 
 XXVI 
 
 THE DIVISION AND TREATY 
 
 It is evident that the compiler made another 
 change in his material at verse 19 of Chapter xxxi., 
 at which point the passage given below begins. 
 He had just started Jacob off in a dignified man- 
 ner with his family on camels, and with his cattle 
 and substance, "to go to Isaac his father unto 
 the land of Canaan," but now we see Jacob in a 
 different guise, sneaking away toward the moun- 
 tain of Gilead, with stolen "gods" in the posses- 
 sion of his favorite wife, and Laban pursuing 
 after, and very justly upbraiding him for his 
 unworthy manner of taking leave. The quarrel 
 growing out of the theft of the teraphim and 
 the stealing away from the country was a rather 
 primitive device for explaining the ancient division 
 between Israel and Syria, and for leading up to 
 the agreement by which the traditional boundary 
 was fixed, and a friendly alliance established. 
 
 Laban appears in the more favorable light 
 throughout this incident, and it is in a spirit of 
 kindly concession and not of claiming his own 
 that he says Jacob's possessions are his. The 
 
 20S
 
 THE DIVISION AND TREATY 209 
 
 daughters and the children and the flocks have 
 come from his family and his substance, and are 
 not those of an alien or enemy ; and therefore 
 is he ready to enter into the covenant, confirm- 
 ing them to his son-in-law and establishing the 
 limits of their future possessions. The statement 
 of the actual ceremony of treaty-making is con- 
 fused, and contains elements of two accounts ; for 
 in one place Jacob sets up the stone pillar and 
 makes the heap of stones and in another place 
 Laban, and there is a double statement of the 
 eating together as part of the formality. 
 
 The relation of names to the forming of this 
 myth of the ancient separation and subsequent 
 alliance of Israel and Syria is worthy of note. 
 The natural boundary was the rocky ridge of 
 Gilead, which was not etymologically the same 
 as Galeed (a stone heap), and the commanding 
 height which formed a military rallying-place 
 had been naturally enough called Mizpah, the 
 "watch-tower." It will be noticed that Laban 
 is represented as giving the Aramaic name and 
 Jacob the Hebrew name to the same spot, at a 
 time when their language must have been the 
 same, assuming this to be a matter of history, 
 and long before the Hebrew forms of speech 
 had been developed through contact with the
 
 2IO 1 1 1 1 : MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 despised Canaanites and the Phoenicians. The 
 statement as to the names is regarded by scholars 
 as foreign to the context, and it may have been 
 interjected by the compiler. 
 
 Another conspicuous place in the same region 
 was Mahanaim, which meant "two camps," the 
 name coming from some event perhaps forgotten 
 in the writer's time, but he attributes it to the 
 meeting there of " God's host." The original 
 term for "angels of God" is the same phrase 
 of which we have spoken as signifying a kind of 
 symbolical manifestation of deity. The ethnical 
 significance of the whole incident is directly re- 
 vealed in the phrase "Jacob and his brethren," 
 to designate one party to the covenant ; for, liter- 
 ally speaking, Jacob had no "brethren " ; and some- 
 thing of the prevalent conception of deity appears 
 in the reference to the separate gods of Abraham 
 and Nahor and the common gods (in the plural) 
 of their father. It was long after the writer's 
 day that the Israelites attained a clear concep- 
 tion of God as something more than the special 
 deity of a nation or a people. 
 
 [XXXI 19-XXXII 2] 
 
 Now La ban was gone to shear his sheep, and 
 Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father's.
 
 THE DIVISION AND TREATY 211 
 
 And Jacob stole away unawares to Laban the Syrian, 
 in that he told him not that he fled. So he fled 
 with all that he had ; and he rose up, and passed 
 over the River, and set his face toward the moun- 
 tain of Gilead. 
 
 And it was told Laban on the third day that 
 Jacob was fled. And he took his brethren with him, 
 and pursued after him seven days' journey; and he 
 overtook him in the mountain of Gilead. And God 
 came to Laban the Syrian in a dream of the night, 
 and said unto him, Take heed to thyself that thou 
 speak not to Jacob either good or bad. And Laban 
 came up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his 
 tent in the mountain, and Laban with his brethren 
 pitched in the mountain of Gilead. 
 
 And Laban said to Jacob, What hast thou done, 
 that thou hast stolen away unawares to me, and 
 carried away my daughters as captives of the sword ? 
 Wherefore didst thou flee secretly, and steal away 
 from me, and didst not tell me, that I might 
 have sent thee away with mirth and with songs, 
 with tabret and with harp ; and hast not suf- 
 fered me to kiss my sons and my daughters ? Now 
 hast thou done foolishly. It is in the power of my 
 hand to do you hurt, but the God of your father 
 spake unto me yesternight, saying, Take heed to 
 thyself that thou speak not to Jacob either good or 
 bad. And now, though thou wouldest needs be 
 gone, because thou sore longedst after thy father's 
 house, yet wherefore hast thou stolen my gods? 
 
 And Jacob answered and said to Laban, Because
 
 212 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 I was afraid ; for I said, Lest thou shouldest take 
 thy daughters from me by force. With whom- 
 soever thou findest thy gods, he shall not live ; 
 before our brethren discern thou what is thine with 
 me, and take it to thee. For Jacob knew not that 
 Rachel had stolen them. And Laban went into 
 Jacob's tent, and into Leah's tent, and into the 
 tent of the two maidservants ; but he found them 
 not. And he went out of Leah's tent, and entered 
 into Rachel's tent. Now Rachel had taken the 
 teraphim, and put them under the camel's saddle, 
 and sat upon them. And Laban felt about all the 
 tent, but found them not. And she said to her 
 father, Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise 
 up before thee ; for the manner of women is upon 
 me. And he searched, but found not the teraphim. 
 And Jacob was wroth, and chode with Laban ; 
 and Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is 
 my trespass? what is my sin, that thou hast hotly 
 pursued after me? Whereas thou hast felt about 
 all my stuff, what hast thou found of all thy house- 
 hold stuff? Set it here before my brethren and thy 
 brethren, that they may judge betwixt us two. 
 This twenty years have I been with thee ; thy ewes 
 and thy she-goats have not cast their young, and 
 the rams of thy flocks have I not eaten. That 
 which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee, 
 I bare the loss of it ; of my hand didst thou require 
 it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. Thus 
 I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and 
 the frost by night ; and my sleep fled from mine
 
 THE DIVISION AND TREATY 213 
 
 eyes. These twenty years have I been in thy 
 house ; I served thee fourteen years for thy two 
 daughters, and six years for thy flock ; and thou 
 hast changed my wages ten times. Except the God 
 of my father, the God of Abraham, whom Isaac 
 feared, had been with me, surely now hadst thou 
 sent me away empty. God hath seen mine afflic- 
 tion and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee- 
 yesternight. 
 
 And Laban answered and said unto Jacob, The 
 daughters are my daughters, and the children are 
 my children, and the flocks are my flocks, and all 
 that thou seest is mine ; and what can I do this 
 day unto these my daughters, or unto their children 
 which they have borne? And now come, let us 
 make a covenant, I and thou ; and let it be for a 
 witness between me and thee. 
 
 And Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a 
 pillar. And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather 
 stones ; and they took stones, and made a heap ; 
 and they did eat there by the heap. [And La- 
 ban called it Jegar-sahadutha ; but Jacob called it 
 Galeed.] And Laban said, This heap is witness 
 between me and thee this day. Therefore was the 
 name of it called Galeed, and Mizpah ; for he said, 
 The Lord watch between me and thee, when we 
 are absent one from another. If thou shalt afflict 
 my daughters, and if thou shalt take wives beside 
 my daughters, no man is with us ; see, God is wit- 
 ness betwixt me and thee. 
 
 And Laban said to Jacob, Behold this heap, and
 
 214 TI1E MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 behold the pillar, which I have set betwixt me and 
 thee. This heap be witness, and the pillar be wit- 
 ness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, 
 and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and 
 this pillar unto me, for harm. The God of Abra- 
 ham, and the God of Nahor, the gods of their 
 father, judge betwixt us. And Jacob sware by the 
 God whom his father Isaac feared. And Jacob 
 offered a sacrifice in the mountain, and called his 
 brethren to eat bread ; and they did eat bread, and 
 tarried all night in the mountain. And early in the 
 morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his 
 daughters, and blessed them ; and Laban departed, 
 and returned unto his place. And Jacob went on 
 his way, and the angels of God met him. And 
 Jacob said when he saw them, This is God's host : 
 and he called the name of that place Mahanaim.
 
 XXVII 
 
 JACOB AND ESAU ISRAEL AND EDOM 
 
 If we were dealing with accounts of actual per- 
 sonal conduct, it would seem like a foolish pro- 
 ceeding for Jacob, on his way from Syria to the 
 northern part of Canaan, to send word to Esau in 
 the distant land of Seir, and then to exhibit such 
 dread of meeting him. But there is little doubt 
 that the story of a personal meeting is a mythical 
 embodiment of traditions of an encounter with 
 Edomites in the early migration from the North 
 and a truce by which peaceable relations were 
 established. What appears both foolish and cow- 
 ardly as personal behavior represents actual con- 
 ditions and relations in the conduct of tribes, of 
 which one was warlike and had fixed possessions, 
 and the other was peaceable and nomadic. 
 
 It was consistent with the theocratic spirit, 
 which began with the early Hebrew writers, to 
 acknowledge the superior warlike qualities of 
 Edom, and to represent Israel in a submissive, 
 not to say cowardly, attitude, and as escaping 
 hostility by crafty evasion and the making of 
 
 2I 5
 
 2l6 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 presents. While it seems craven in personal con- 
 duct, it is expressive of the policy solemnly incul- 
 cated by those who taught reliance upon Jehovah 
 in all national troubles. 
 
 The story of Jacob's encounter with Esau, 
 near the northern boundary of Israel's future 
 possessions east of the Jordan, is broken into two 
 parts by the interpolation of one of those mystical 
 episodes of which the Jehovist narrator was so 
 fond, and both parts show the usual evidence of 
 diversity of material which was imperfectly blended 
 by the compiler. In the first part suggestions 
 from the meaning of Mahanaira appear in the 
 relation of Jacob's devices for escaping what he 
 assumes will be the anger of a wronged brother ; 
 but they appear in two different forms. First we 
 are told that Jacob divided his caravan into two 
 companies, so that if Esau attacked one the other 
 might escape. Then, after the prayer for deliver- 
 ance, the twofold division appears again in the 
 sending forward of flocks and herds as a present 
 to appease Esau, separated by a safe distance 
 from the family. 
 
 The episode of the wrestling by the ford is a 
 curious example of the evolution of mythical 
 meanings from the names of places and persons 
 and from familiar facts. The name of the brook
 
 JACOB AND ESAU — ISRAEL AND EDOM 217 
 
 Jabbok resembled a word meaning "to wrestle." 
 Peniel or Penuel meant, or appeared to mean, 
 "the face of God." The word "Israel," which had 
 been the designation of that branch of the He- 
 brew race which took possession of Canaan from 
 time immemorial, while Jacob was a poetical and 
 oratorical equivalent for the same people, was of 
 doubtful derivation, but was assumed to mean 
 God's warrior or champion. There is no refer- 
 ence elsewhere to the custom of not eating the 
 sinew from the hollow of the thigh, but it is here 
 assumed to be a custom. Out of these elements 
 was formed the story whose main purpose seems 
 to be to account for the name " Israel," and to exalt 
 Jacob not only as one who contended for God, but 
 contended with him and prevailed. The explana- 
 tory statement that "the children of Israel eat not 
 the sinew of the hip" seems to drop one suddenly 
 from the realm of myth to the compiler's prosaic 
 time. 
 
 After this interruption the story of the meeting 
 with Esau is resumed in a form little correspond- 
 ing to the preparation, and having no relation to 
 the probabilities of actual personal experience. 
 The family is ranged in three divisions in the 
 reverse order of the rank of the tribes, regarded 
 from the Josephite writer's point of view, because
 
 2l8 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 there is assumed to be danger at the front in 
 meeting " my lord " Esau. But the chief of Edom 
 proves gracious to his humble kindred, and reluc- 
 tant to accept the proffered gift. There is a mar- 
 vellous condensation of ethnical meaning and ex- 
 pression of Israelite traits in Jacob's simulation 
 of joy at meeting his powerful brother, and in his 
 device for separation from him under pretence of 
 following him to the land of Seir, while avoiding 
 the proffered escort. 
 
 Doubtless this all belongs to the folk-lore of a 
 time when Israel was suspicious and fearful of 
 the power of the warlike Edom, and had either 
 established relations of peace or was anxious to 
 do so, and it was associated in the story with the 
 migration from Mesopotamia to Canaan, after the 
 division of territory with Syria, when there might 
 well have been fears of encountering Edomites 
 from the South. Jacob's pretended purpose of 
 following his brother home was of course imme- 
 diately forgotten, and he established his people's 
 right of possession on the east of the Jordan by 
 building a house and calling the place Succoth. 
 The proof of this was the existence of such a 
 place, the name meaning virtually "cattle-sheds."
 
 JACOB AND ESAU — ISRAEL AND EDOM 219 
 [XXXII 3-XXXIII 17] 
 
 And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau 
 his brother unto the land of Seir, the field of Edom. 
 And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye say 
 unto my lord Esau ; Thus saith thy servant Jacob, 
 I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now ; 
 and I have oxen, and asses and flocks, and men- 
 servants and maidservants ; and I have sent to tell 
 my lord, that I may find grace in thy sight. 
 
 And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, 
 We came to thy brother Esau, and moreover he 
 cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with 
 him. Then Jacob was greatly afraid and was dis- 
 tressed ; and he divided the people that were with 
 him, and the flocks, and the herds, and the camels, 
 into two companies ; and he said, If Esau come to 
 the one company, and smite it, then the company 
 which is left shall escape. 
 
 And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, 
 and God of my father Isaac, O Lord, which saidst 
 unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kin- 
 dred, and I will do thee good : I am not worthy of 
 the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, 
 which thou hast shewed unto thy servant ; for with 
 my staff I passed over this Jordan ; and now I am 
 become two companies. Deliver me, I pray thee, 
 from the hand of my brother, from the hand of 
 Esau ; for I fear him, lest he come and smite me, 
 the mother with the children. And thou saidst, I 
 will surely do thee good, and make thy posterity as
 
 220 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for 
 multitude. 
 
 And he lodged there that night ; and took of that 
 which he had with him a present for Esau his 
 brother ; two hundred she-goats and twenty he- 
 goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty 
 milch camels and their colts, forty kine and ten 
 bulls, twenty she-asses and ten foals. And he de- 
 livered them into the hand of his servants, every 
 drove by itself; and said unto his servants, Pass 
 over before me, and put a space betwixt drove and 
 drove. And he commanded the foremost, saying, 
 When Esau my brother meeteth thee, and asketh 
 thee, saying, Whose art thou? and whither goest 
 thou ? and whose are these before thee ? then thou 
 shalt say, They are thy servant Jacob's ; it is a pres- 
 ent sent unto my lord Esau, and, behold, he also 
 is behind us. And he commanded also the second, 
 and the third, and all that followed the droves, say- 
 ing, On this manner shall ye speak unto Esau, when 
 ye find him ; and ye shall say, Moreover, behold, 
 thy servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will 
 appease him with the present that goeth before me, 
 and afterward I will see his face; peradventure he 
 will accept me. So the present passed over before 
 him ; and he himself lodged that night in the 
 company. 
 
 And he rose up that night, and took his two 
 wives, and his two handmaids, and his eleven chil- 
 dren, and passed over the ford of Jabbok. And
 
 JACOB AND ESAU — ISRAEL AND EDOM 221 
 
 he took them, and sent them over the stream, and 
 sent over that he had. 
 
 And Jacob was left alone ; and there wrestled a 
 man with him until the breaking of the day. And 
 when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he 
 touched the hollow of his thigh ; and the hollow of 
 Jacob's thigh was strained, as he wrestled with him. 
 And he said, Let me go, for the day break eth. And 
 he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. 
 
 And he said unto him, What is thy name ? And 
 he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be 
 called no more Jacob, but Israel ; for thou hast 
 striven with God and with men, and hast prevailed. 
 And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray 
 thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that 
 thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him 
 there. And Jacob called the name of the place 
 Peniel ; for, said he, I have seen God face to face, 
 and my life is preserved. And the sun rose upon 
 him as he passed over Penuel, and he went halting 
 upon his thigh. [Therefore the children of Israel 
 eat not the sinew of the hip which is upon the 
 hollow of the thigh, unto this day ; because he 
 touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew 
 of the hip.] 
 
 And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, 
 behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred 
 men. And he divided the children unto Leah, and 
 unto Rachel, and unto the two handmaids. And
 
 222 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 he put the handmaids and their children foremost, 
 and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and 
 Joseph hindermost. And he himself passed over 
 before them, and bowed himself to the ground seven 
 times, until he came near to his brother. 
 
 And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, 
 and fell on his neck, and kissed him ; and they 
 wept. And he lifted up his eyes, and saw the 
 women and the children ; and said, Who are these 
 with thee? And he said, The children which God 
 hath graciously given thy servant. Then the hand- 
 maids came near, they and their children, and they 
 bowed themselves. And Leah also and her children 
 came near, and bowed themselves ; and after came 
 Joseph near and Rachel, and they bowed themselves. 
 
 And he said, What meanest thou by all this com- 
 pany which I met? And he said, To find grace 
 in the sight of my lord. And Esau said, I have 
 enough ; my brother, let that thou hast be thine. 
 And Jacob said, Nay, I pray thee, if now I have 
 found grace in thy sight, then receive my present 
 at my hand ; forasmuch as I have seen thy face, as 
 one seeth the face of God, and thou wast pleased 
 with me. Take, I pray thee, my gift that is brought 
 to thee ; because God hath dealt graciously with 
 me, and because I have enough. And he urged 
 him, and he took it. 
 
 And he said, Let us take our journey, and let us 
 go, and I will go before thee. And he said unto 
 him, My lord knoweth that the children are tender, 
 and that the flocks and herds with me have their
 
 JACOB AND ESAU — ISRAEL AND EDOM 223 
 
 young ; and if they overdrive them one day, all the 
 flocks will die. Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over 
 before his servant ; and I will lead on slowly, accord- 
 ing to the pace of the cattle that is before me and 
 according to the pace of the children, until I come 
 unto my lord unto Seir. And Esau said, Let me 
 now leave with thee some of the folk that are with 
 me. And he said, What needeth it? let me find 
 grace in the sight of my lord. So Esau returned 
 that day on his way unto Seir. And Jacob jour- 
 neyed to Succoth, and built him an house, and 
 made booths for his cattle ; therefore the name of 
 the place is called Succoth.
 
 XXVIII 
 
 AT SHECHEM THE STORY OF DINAH 
 
 There is no account in the compiler's narra- 
 tive of Jacob crossing the Jordan and making his 
 way over the country, but we are suddenly told 
 that he came in peace to Shechem and encamped 
 before the city. This statement (in italics below) 
 is from the Elohist. He bought ground and 
 built an altar, which symbolized in the Jehovist 
 story, from which this was derived, the taking 
 possession of the country. 
 
 The statements of the arrival at Shechem served 
 to introduce the curious tale of Dinah, the sole 
 daughter of Jacob, whose birth in Paddan-aram 
 has been barely mentioned. The purely ethnic 
 and mythic character of this tale is revealed 
 throughout in the most artless manner. She- 
 chem is used indifferently as a place and as a 
 person. In the outrage upon Dinah he is said 
 to have "wrought folly in Israel" at a time when 
 "Israel" is supposed to be a personal name for 
 Jacob, according to one account just conferred, 
 
 224
 
 AT SHECHEM — THE STORY OF DINAH 225 
 
 and according to another not yet conferred, by- 
 divine designation. 
 
 Again, the connecting passage of the compiler 
 represents Jacob as having just arrived from 
 Paddan-aram, all his children, including Dinah, 
 having been born within the last dozen years, and 
 being too "tender" on the journey to admit of 
 the caravan keeping pace with Esau's march. And 
 yet here his sons appear not merely as grown-up 
 men, but as promising on certain conditions to 
 give their daughters as wives to the men of the 
 land, while Simeon and Levi are such formidable 
 warriors as to inflict indiscriminate slaughter upon 
 the males of Shechem, to spoil the city, take the 
 women and children captive, and appropriate the 
 wealth of the place. 
 
 It needs no argument to prove that all this has 
 no relation to literal facts. The story seems to 
 have been made up from two versions sufficiently 
 wrought together to destroy their separate iden- 
 tity, but not sufficiently to efface the signs of dif- 
 ference. The account of the proposal of marriage 
 between Shechem and Dinah and of a general 
 intermarriage was originally independent of that 
 of the violation of the maiden, and a bewildering 
 mixture of purposes confuses the passage as it 
 stands. 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 In many ways in these old writings was the 
 injunction conveyed that there should be no mar- 
 rying with the native people of the land, who 
 should the rather be exterminated, as with the 
 sword of Simeon and Levi. In some elements 
 of this story there appears evidence of a desire 
 to degrade the children of Leah, and one possi- 
 ble purpose of the incident of the slaughter at 
 Shechem was to displace from popular memory, 
 at a time when it was the sole repository of pass- 
 ing records, the actual occurrence of outrage and 
 bloodshed in the days of the " judges," when 
 Gideon's son Abimelech, an Ephraimite, tried to 
 make himself king. 
 
 Some critics have undertaken so to divide the 
 story of Dinah as to exhibit the elements of the 
 two versions, of which one represents the maiden 
 as being abused by Shechem (to the vindictive 
 wrath of her brothers), and the other relates a 
 friendly effort to secure her marriage with the 
 Son of Hamor, and a general intermarriage be- 
 tween the two peoples, which was met by a 
 treacherous device of the sons of Jacob to de- 
 stroy the Shechemites and get possession of 
 their wealth. These two are supposed to have 
 been combined by the compiler by the simple 
 process of patching together passages from each
 
 AT SHECHEM — THE STORY OF DINAH 227 
 
 in such a manner as to produce the appearance of 
 a single narrative. As a matter of curious inter- 
 est, the story is so divided below as to exhibit 
 these diverse elements in alternative paragraphs. 
 According to Lenormant, that which begins 
 with Dinah's going out to visit the daughters 
 of the land, and gives an account of innocent 
 efforts to bring about a marriage, ending with 
 the treacherous violence of Simeon and Levi, 
 and Jacob's rebuke of their conduct, was con- 
 tained in the Elohist document, while that 
 which told of the defiling of Dinah and the 
 attempted reparation by marriage, and speaks 
 of the revenge of the "Sons of Jacob" without 
 mentioning names, was from the Jehovist. It 
 will be observed that neither designation for the 
 deity appears at all, and there is no religious 
 quality in the story. There certainly appears to 
 have been two of these tales, the main purpose 
 of which was to serve as a warning against 
 intermarriage with the Canaanites and to beget 
 an aversion to it. The compiler, instead of 
 adopting one in preference to the other, under- 
 took to make one out of the two. To make 
 clearer the distinction between what are regarded 
 as different sources, the paragraphs credited to 
 the less prominent are put in brackets.
 
 228 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 [XXXIII 18-XXXIV] 
 
 And Jacob came in peace to the city of Shechem, 
 which is in the land of Canaan. 10h.cn he came from 
 PaJdan-aram ; and encamped before the city. And 
 he bought the parcel of ground, where he had 
 spread his tent, at the hand of the children of 
 Hamor, Shechem's father, for an hundred pieces of 
 money. And he erected there an altar, and called 
 it El-elohe-Israel. 
 
 And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare 
 unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the 
 land. And Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, 
 the prince of the land, saw her ; 
 
 [And he took her, and lay with her, and humbled 
 her. And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter 
 of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake 
 kindly unto the damsel.] 
 
 And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, say- 
 ing, Get me this damsel to wife. 
 
 [Now Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his 
 daughter, and his sons were with his cattle in the 
 field ; and Jacob held his peace until they came.] 
 
 And Hamor the father of Shechem went out unto 
 Jacob to commune with him. 
 
 [And the sons of Jacob came in from the field 
 when they heard it ; and the men were grieved, 
 and they were very wroth, because he had wrought 
 folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter ; which 
 thing ought not to be done.]
 
 AT SHECHEM — THE STORY OF DINAH 229 
 
 And Hamor communed with them, saying, The 
 soul of my son Shechem longeth for your daughter ; 
 I pray you give her unto him to wife. And make 
 ye marriages with us ; give your daughters unto us, 
 and take our daughters unto you. And ye shall 
 dwell with us ; and the land shall be before you ; 
 dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions 
 therein. 
 
 [And Shechem said unto her father and unto her 
 brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes, and what 
 ye shall say unto me I will give. Ask me never so 
 much dowry and gift, and I will give according as 
 ye shall say unto me ; but give me the damsel to 
 wife. And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem 
 and Hamor his father with guile, and spake, be- 
 cause he had defiled Dinah their sister, and said 
 unto them, We cannot do this thing, to give our 
 sister to one that is uncircumcised ; for that were 
 a reproach unto us :] 
 
 Only on this condition will we consent unto you : 
 if ye will be as we be, that every male of you be 
 circumcised ; then will we give our daughters unto 
 you, and we will take your daughters to us, and 
 we will dwell with you, and we will become one 
 people. But if ye will not hearken unto us, to be 
 circumcised ; then will we take our daughter, and 
 we will be gone. And their words pleased Hamor, 
 and Shechem Hamor's son. 
 
 [And the young man deferred not to do the thing, 
 because he had delight in Jacob's daughter ; and he 
 was honoured above all the house of his father.]
 
 230 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the 
 gate of their city, and communed with the men of 
 their city, saying, These men are peaceable with 
 us ; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade 
 therein ; for, behold, the land is large enough for 
 them ; let us take their daughters to us for wives, 
 and let us give them our daughters. Only on this 
 condition will the men consent unto us to dwell 
 with us, to become one people, if every male among 
 us be circumcised, as they are circumcised. Shall 
 not their cattle and their substance and all their 
 beasts be ours? only let us consent unto them, and 
 they will dwell with us. And unto Hamor and unto 
 Shechem his son hearkened all that went out of the 
 gate of his city ; and every male was circumcised, 
 all that went out of the gate of his city. And it 
 came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, 
 that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, 
 Dinah's brethren, took each man his sword, and 
 came upon the city unawares, and slew all the males. 
 
 [And they slew Hamor and Shechem his son with 
 the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of She- 
 chem's house, and went forth. The sons of Jacob 
 came upon the slain, and spoiled the city, because 
 they had defiled their sister.] 
 
 They took their flocks and their herds and their 
 asses, and that which was in the city, and that which 
 was in the field; 
 
 [And all their wealth, and all their little ones and 
 their wives, took they captive and spoiled, even all 
 that was in the house.]
 
 AT SHECHEM— THE STORY OF DINAH 23 I 
 
 And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have 
 troubled me, to make me odious among the inhabit- 
 ants of the land, among the Canaanites and the 
 Perizzites ; and, I being few in number, they will 
 gather themselves together against me and smite 
 me ; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house. 
 
 [And they said, Should he deal with our sister as 
 with an harlot?]
 
 XXIX 
 
 BETHEL AND AFTER 
 
 Not only is there another complete change in 
 the character and tone of the narrative at the 
 beginning of Chapter xxxv. but that chapter 
 is made up of three passages quite distinct from 
 each other, and containing plain evidences of a 
 difference in their sources, though there are con- 
 spicuous indications in all three that the Elohist 
 document was again drawn upon. In fact, the 
 genealogical passage at the end seems to be 
 wholly from that source. 
 
 First we have an account of a re-consecra- 
 tion of Bethel, in which there is a reference to that 
 version of Jacob's journey to Paddan-aram which 
 represented him as fleeing from the anger of 
 Esau. There is no indication of his previous 
 dwelling-place, but he is told to " go up to Bethel 
 and dwell there," and to " make there an altar to 
 God." This is one of the tales which symbolized 
 the possession of that sacred place, the discarding 
 of idolatry and its emblems, which included rings 
 worn as amulets in the ears, and devotion to the 
 
 232
 
 BETHEL AND AFTER 233 
 
 worship of "El" on the ancient height of Luz. 
 It indicates the previous existence among the 
 people of polytheism, whose tokens, brought from 
 Syria, by stealth, were to be buried by the terebinth 
 of Shechem. This passage seems to be fragmen- 
 tary, and the tradition of the death of Rebekah's 
 nurse at a place where there was a tree known as 
 "the oak of weeping" is brought in with a strange 
 irrelevancy. There is no intimation elsewhere 
 that the nurse of Jacob's mother had attended 
 him in his varied wanderings, and one would 
 have supposed her dead long before this time. 
 
 The passage which immediately follows this 
 contains yet another account of the consecration 
 of Bethel, and of the giving of that name to the 
 place, though it has been already attributed once 
 to Abraham, and twice to Jacob. The incident is 
 said to have occurred when Jacob " came from 
 Paddan-aram," and then and there also his name 
 was changed to Israel, though we have had quite 
 another account of that in the occurrence by the 
 ford of Jabbok. The form of consecration by set- 
 ting up a pillar and pouring out a libation and 
 anointing with oil is generally characteristic of 
 the Elohist, where the Jehovist and the compiler 
 writing in his own person speak of the building 
 of an altar and making sacrifices.
 
 234 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 An ethnic fragment is brought in here relating 
 to the birth of Benjamin, on a journey from the 
 North to the South. The derivation of the name 
 of that tribe has been variously explained, and 
 while "yamin" meant "right," the warriors of the 
 tribe were distinguished for a skilful use of the 
 left hand. They were called Beni-yamin, sons of 
 the right or skilled hand, apparently because they 
 were ambidextrous, or skilled with both hands, 
 — right-handed as it were, on both sides. Hence 
 the etymological paradox of their being called 
 sons of the right hand because they used their 
 weapons with the left hand, which made them 
 specially effective as slingers and javelin-throw- 
 ers. The interpretation of "right" as favorable 
 or fortunate, with reference to omens, seems to be 
 without support in Hebrew ideas. The Samaritans 
 derived the name from " yamim," " days," indi- 
 cating the son of old age, but the chronology of 
 these narratives is greatly mixed and not signifi- 
 cant of much. 
 
 There were two traditions of Rachel's tomb, one 
 of which placed it at Bethlehem and the other 
 north of Jerusalem (i Sam. x. 2). It is easy to 
 imagine, but impossible to prove, that the com- 
 piler interpolated here the irrelevant statement 
 of Reuben's offence, deriving it from the poem
 
 BETHEL AND AFTER 235 
 
 which we shall find later on, commonly known 
 as Jacob's "blessing" of his sons. 
 
 The bit of genealogy at the end of the chapter 
 is noteworthy for including Benjamin among the 
 twelve sons of Jacob "born to him in Paddan- 
 aram," for making Hebron the dwelling-place of 
 Isaac, and for representing Esau and Jacob as 
 still in personal relations and joining in the burial 
 of their father. These are unmistakable charac- 
 teristics of the Elohist and quite inconsistent with 
 the Jehovist narratives, which placed Isaac at 
 Beersheba, set enmity between Esau and Jacob, 
 and long ago sent the former to the wilderness 
 of Mount Seir as a hunter and warrior. These 
 differences are of supreme interest as proof of 
 the diversity of material and of the purely ethni- 
 cal significance of these so-called records. 
 
 The confused chronology is important only in 
 the same view. For instance, Isaac was sixty 
 years old when Jacob was born, and he dies at 
 one hundred and eighty, making the son one hun- 
 dred and twenty ; but Jacob was forty when he 
 went to Paddan-aram, and he remained there 
 twenty years. This would give an interval of 
 sixty years between his return and his father's 
 death. But Joseph was born in Paddan-aram and 
 must have been living these sixty years, while we
 
 236 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 are yet to sec him sent to Egypt at the age of 
 seventeen and becoming Pharaoh's prime minister 
 at thirty. 
 
 [XXXV] 
 
 And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Beth- el, 
 and dwell there ; and make there an altar unto 
 God, who appeared unto thee when thou fleddest 
 from the face of Esau thy brother. 
 
 Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all 
 that were with him, Put away the strange gods that 
 are among you, and purify yourselves, and change 
 your garments ; and let us arise, and go up to 
 Beth-el ; and I will make there an altar unto God, 
 who answered me in the clay of my distress, and 
 was with me in the way which I went. And they 
 gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in 
 their hand, and the rings which were in their ears ; 
 and Jacob hid them under the terebinth which was 
 by Shechem. 
 
 And they journeyed ; and terror of God was upon 
 the cities that were round about them, and they did 
 not pursue after the sons of Jacob. So Jacob came 
 to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan (the same is 
 Beth-el), he and all the people that were with him. 
 And he built there an altar, and called the place 
 El-beth-el, because there God was revealed unto 
 him when he fled from the face of his brother. 
 
 And Deborah Rebekah's nurse died, and she was 
 buried below Beth-el under the oak ; and the name 
 of it was called Allon-bacuth {the oak of weeping).
 
 BETHEL AND AFTER 237 
 
 [And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he 
 came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. And 
 God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob ; thy name 
 shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall 
 be thy name : and he called his name Israel. And 
 God said unto him, I am God Almighty {El Shad- 
 dai) ; be fruitful and multiply ; a nation and a union 
 of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come 
 out of thy loins ; and the land which I gave unto 
 Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to 
 thy race after thee will I give the land. And God 
 went up from him in the place where he spake with 
 him. And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where 
 he spake with him, a pillar of stone ; and he poured 
 out a drink offering thereon, and poured oil thereon. 
 And Jacob called the name of the place where God 
 spake with him, Beth-el.] 
 
 And they journeyed from Beth-el ; and there was 
 still some way to come to Ephrath ; and Rachel 
 travailed, and she had hard labour. And it came 
 to pass, when she was in hard labour, that the mid- 
 wife said unto her, Fear not ; for now thou shalt 
 have another son. And it came to pass, as her soul 
 was in departing (for she died), that she called his 
 name Ben-oni ; but his father called him Benjamin. 
 And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to 
 Ephrath (the same is Beth-lehem). And Jacob set 
 up a pillar upon her grave ; the same is the Pillar 
 of Rachel's grave unto this day. And Israel jour- 
 neyed, and spread his tent beyond the tower of
 
 238 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Eder. [And it came to pass, while Israel dwelt in 
 that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his 
 father's concubine ; and Israel heard of it.] 
 
 [ Now the sons of Jacob were twelve : the sons of 
 Leah; Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and Simeon, and 
 Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun : the 
 sons of Rachel ; Joseph and Benjamin : and the 
 sons of Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid; Dan and Naph- 
 tali : and the sons of Zilpah, Leah's handmaid; Gad 
 and Asher : these are the sons of Jacob, which were 
 born to him in Paddan-aram. And Jacob came 
 unto Isaac his father to Mamre, to Kiriath-arba 
 (the same is Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac 
 sojourned. And the days of Isaac were an hundred 
 and fourscore years. And Isaac gave up the ghost, 
 and died, and was gathered unto his people, old 
 and full of days ; and Esau and Jacob his sons 
 buried him.]
 
 XXX 
 
 EDOMITE ETHNOGRAPHY 
 
 Immediately after giving us a view of Esau 
 joining with his brother Jacob in the burial of 
 their father at Hebron, the compiler introduces an 
 ethnographical account of Edom, obviously made 
 up of diverse fragments. The repetitions and 
 inconsistencies indicate that additions and correc- 
 tions had been crudely made. The general pur- 
 pose was to indicate that the Edomites, whose 
 domain was substantially that of Arabia Petraea, 
 were of mixed blood and widely alienated from 
 the pure strain of the descendants of Abraham, 
 which was preserved only in Israel. They were 
 mingled not only with the Canaanites and Ishmael- 
 ites, but with the Horites, who were the indige- 
 nous people of the Mount Seir region. 
 
 The first paragraph, as the text is printed below, 
 is clearly from the Elohist document, and only 
 presents the three main branches of the Edomite 
 stock as offspring of Esau's wives, two of whom 
 were from separate Canaanite tribes and the other 
 was a daughter of Ishmael. This writer repre- 
 
 239
 
 24O THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 sents the separation of Esau and Jacob as occur- 
 ring after the birth of the former's five sons, and 
 an undefined number of daughters, and as being 
 a peaceable arrangement due to the increase of 
 their possessions. The incongruity of this picture 
 with the Jehovist's account of the enmity of the 
 two brothers, and especially with the story of their 
 encounter when Jacob was returning from Paddan- 
 aram and Esau came with an army from Mount 
 Seir, where he had been established long before, 
 is sufficiently manifest. 
 
 The second paragraph, in the division below, is 
 quite independent of this, but corresponds in the 
 names of the wives and sons of Esau. It carries 
 the genealogy just far enough to account for the 
 traditional twelve tribes of Edom, and the roving 
 and predatory Amalekites, who are set aside as the 
 offspring of a concubine. 
 
 In the next paragraph we have a repetition of the 
 names as of the chiefs of tribes, but this is fol- 
 lowed by a personification of the aborigines of the 
 Mount Seir wilderness as the sons of Seir the 
 Horite. But the names are in part the same as 
 those which figure among the descendants of Esau, 
 and the relationships are confused. Anah, for 
 instance, who has been called a son of Zibeon, the 
 Hivite, is made both the brother and the son of
 
 EDOMITE ETHNOGRAPHY 24 1 
 
 Zibeon, who is a Horite. In fact, the names in 
 both cases are mostly those of places, though 
 some of them have a meaning denoting animals. 
 Zibeon means a hyena, and Anah a wild ass, for 
 instance. 
 
 These writings are not far from contempo- 
 raneous with the Book of Job, and it is interest- 
 ing to note the correspondence between Eliphaz 
 as the father of Teman and Eliphaz the Teman- 
 ite, and to find Uz among the descendants of 
 Seir. Uz also appears in the ethnography of 
 Genesis x. among the descendants of Shem. 
 
 The account of the " kings that reigned in 
 the land of Edom before there reigned any 
 king over the children of Israel " is curious as 
 naively revealing the fact that the author was 
 writing in the time of the kings in Israel, if 
 indeed he ever had any idea of concealing that 
 fact. Some have thought to identify Jobab in 
 this line of kings with Job, but that is fanciful. 
 There is a brief repetition or variation of a list of 
 Edomite chiefs, in which Timna and Oholibamah 
 figure, though these have previously appeared as 
 a concubine and a wife respectively of Esau. 
 These were really the names of places like Uz 
 and Teman. 
 
 The sentences in brackets at the end are a 
 
 R
 
 242 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 broken fragment used by the compiler to form 
 a rude connecting link between two utterly un- 
 related passages in his work. The last sentence 
 appears to have been introductory to a genealogy 
 of Jacob, which does not follow. 
 
 [XXXVI] 
 
 Now these are the generations of Esau (the same 
 is Edom). Esau took his wives of the daughters of 
 Canaan ; Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and 
 Oholibamah the daughter of Anah, the daughter of 
 Zibeon the Hivite ; and Basemath Ishmael's daugh- 
 ter, sister of Nebaioth. And Adah bare to Esau 
 Eliphaz ; and Basemath bare Reuel ; and Oholiba- 
 mah bare Jeush, and Jalam, and Korah : these are 
 the sons of Esau, which were born unto him in the 
 land of Canaan. And Esau took his wives, and his 
 sons, and his daughters, and all the souls of his 
 house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all 
 his possessions, which he had gathered in the land 
 of Canaan ; and went into a land away from his 
 brother Jacob. For their substance was too great 
 for them to dwell together ; and the land of their 
 sojournings could not bear them because of their 
 cattle. And Esau dwelt in mount Seir. Esau is 
 Edom. 
 
 And these are the generations of Esau the father 
 of the Edomites in mount Seir : these are the names
 
 EDOMITE ETHNOGRAPHY 243 
 
 of Esau's sons ; Eliphaz the son of Adah the wife of 
 Esau, Reuel the son of Basemath the wife of Esau. 
 And the sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, 
 and Gatam, and Kenaz. And Tamna was concu- 
 bine to Eliphaz Esau's son ; and she bare to Eliphaz 
 Amalek : these are the sons of Adah Esau's wife. 
 And these are the sons of Reuel ; Nahath, and Zerah, 
 Shammah, and Mizzah : these were the sons of Base- 
 math Esau's wife. And these were the sons of Oho- 
 libamah the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zib- 
 eon, Esau's wife ; and she bare to Esau Jeush, and 
 Jalam, and Korah. 
 
 These are the chiefs of the sons of Esau : the 
 sons of Eliphaz the firstborn of Esau ; chief Teman, 
 chief Omar, chief Zepho, chief Kenaz, chief Korah, 
 chief Gatam, chief Amalek : these are the chiefs 
 that came of Eliphaz in the land of Edom ; these 
 are the sons of Adah. And these are the sons of 
 Reuel Esau's son ; chief Nahath, chief Zerah, chief 
 Shammah, chief Mizzah : these are the chiefs that 
 came of Reuel in the land of Edom ; these are the 
 sons of Basemath Esau's wife. And these are the 
 sons of Oholibamah Esau's wife ; chief Jeush, chief 
 Jalam, chief Korah : these are the chiefs that came 
 of Oholibamah the daughter of Anah, Esau's wife. 
 These are the sons of Esau, and these are their 
 chiefs. The same is Edom. 
 
 These are the sons of Seir the Horite, the inhab- 
 itants of the land ; Lotan and Shobal and Zibeon 
 and Anah, and Dishon and Ezer and Dishan : these
 
 244 
 
 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 are the chiefs that came of the Horites, the children 
 of Seir in the land of Edom. And the children of 
 Lotan were Hori and Hemam ; and Lotan's sister 
 was Timna. And these are the children of Shobal ; 
 Alvan and Manahath and Ebal, Shepho and Onam. 
 And these are the children of Zibeon ; Aiah and 
 Anah : [this is Anah who found the hot springs in 
 the wilderness, as he fed the asses of Zibeon his 
 father]. And these are the children of Anah; 
 Dishon and Oholibamah the daughter of Anah. 
 And these are the children of Dishon ; Hemdan 
 and Eshban and Ithran and Cheran. These are 
 the children of Ezer ; Bilhan and Zaavan and Akan. 
 These are the children of Dishan ; Uz and Aran. 
 These are the chiefs that came of the Horites ; 
 chief Lotan, chief Shobal, chief Zibeon, chief Anah, 
 chief Dishon, chief Ezer, chief Dishan : these are 
 the chiefs that came of the Horites, according to 
 their chiefs in the land of Seir. 
 
 And these are the kings that reigned in the land 
 of Edom, before there reigned any king over the 
 children of Israel. And Bela the son of Beor 
 reigned in Edom ; and the name of his city was 
 Dinhabah. And Bela died, and Jobab the son of 
 Zerah of Bozrah reigned in his stead. And Jobab 
 died, and Husham of the land of the Temanites 
 reigned in his stead. And Husham died, and 
 Hadad the son of Bedad, who smote Midian in 
 the field of Moab, reigned in his stead ; and the 
 name of his city was Avith. And Hadad died, and 
 Samlah of Masrekah reigned in his stead. And
 
 EDOMITE ETHNOGRAPHY 245 
 
 Samlah died, and Shaul of Rehoboth by the River 
 reigned in his stead. And Shaul died, and Baal- 
 hanan the son of Achbor reigned in his stead. And 
 Baal-hanan the son of Achbor died, and Hadar 
 reigned in his stead ; and the name of his city 
 was Pau ; and his wife's name was Mehetabel, the 
 daughter of Matred, the daughter of Me-zahab. 
 
 And these are the names of the chiefs that came 
 of Esau, according to their families, after their 
 places, by their names ; chief Timnah, chief Alvah, 
 chief Jetheth ; chief Oholibamah, chief Elah, chief 
 Pinon ; chief Kenaz, chief Teman, chief Mibzar ; 
 chief Magdiel, chief Irani : these be the chiefs of 
 Edom, according to their habitations in the land 
 of their possession. 
 
 [This is Esau the father of the Edomites, and 
 Jacob dwelt in the land of his father's sojournings, 
 in the land of Canaan. These are the generations of 
 Jacob.]
 
 XXXI 
 
 JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN 
 
 If the original author of the story of Joseph 
 and his brethren was familiar with the Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob legends, he took no pains to 
 be consistent with them. As it now stands, it 
 has no congruity with what precedes in the 
 "record," and it furnishes many indications of 
 the manner in which that record was composed. 
 
 It assumes, in the application of the dream of 
 the sun and moon and eleven stars, that Joseph's 
 mother was still living. It makes no reference 
 to Leah, but speaks of Bilhah and Zilpah as the 
 father's "wives" and the mothers of Joseph's 
 brethren. One reason given for the hatred of 
 his brethren was jealousy on account of the fath- 
 er's special love of the " son of his old age," and 
 yet, in the account of the birth of the children 
 in Paddan-aram, it appeared that there could not 
 be a difference of more than six or seven years 
 between the oldest and the youngest. Joseph is 
 said to be seventeen years old, but according to 
 the chronology of the genealogical narrator he 
 
 246
 
 JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN 247 
 
 must have been sixty when Isaac died. If we 
 follow this story and take seventeen as his age 
 when he was sent into Egypt, thirty when Pha- 
 raoh put him in charge of great affairs there, 
 and under forty, as it must have been, when 
 Jacob told Pharaoh that the sum of his own 
 "few and evil days" was a hundred and thirty 
 years, then must Jacob have been at least ninety 
 years old when Joseph was born, six years before 
 he left Paddan-aram, and something like seventy- 
 five when he went there. Such inconsistencies 
 dispel all ideas of personal history in these ac- 
 counts, but are unimportant when they are re- 
 garded in their true light as ethnic myths. 
 
 There are distinct evidences of the blending 
 of two different tales in the account of Joseph's 
 going to Egypt. The two explanations of the 
 motives of his brothers' hatred, — the father's fa- 
 voritism, and the self-exaltation of the dreams, — 
 were from different sources. Among the unreali- 
 ties of the narrative may be mentioned the sup- 
 position that dwellers in the vale of Hebron 
 would be feeding their flocks in Shechem, espe- 
 cially after the episode of slaughter there, — of 
 which this writer perhaps knew nothing, — and 
 wandering thence to Dothan, an unidentified place 
 on the caravan route from Damascus to Egypt,
 
 248 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 and that a lad of seventeen would be sent over 
 that range of hill country occupied by Canaanite 
 tribes to inquire after their welfare. 
 
 It is especially in the account of the betrayal of 
 the younger brother, his rescue from death, and 
 the abduction to Egypt, that indications of the 
 blending of two stories are clear. According to 
 one, Reuben rescues the lad by the suggestion that 
 he be put into one of the empty water cisterns 
 which were placed below the level of the ground 
 in those grazing regions. This was consented to, 
 perhaps, with the idea that he would perish there, 
 for the peculiar horror of death by shedding the 
 blood did not attach to perishing by other means. 
 But passing Midianites drew the boy out, carried 
 him to Egypt, and sold him into slavery. 
 
 According to the other story he was saved by 
 Judah's suggestion, that instead of killing him they 
 sell him to a caravan of Ishmaelites which hap- 
 pened to pass that way. Details of the stories 
 were omitted to make them fit together, and at the 
 end of this preliminary chapter we are told that the 
 "Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar," 
 while at the beginning of the chapter in which 
 the narrative is resumed, " Potiphar bought him 
 of the hand of the Ishmaelites." Casual signs of 
 the two stories also appear further on. For in-
 
 JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN 249 
 
 stance, Joseph told Pharaoh's chief butler in the 
 prison that he was " stolen away out of the land of 
 the Hebrews" (by the Midianites ?), and when he 
 finally revealed himself to his brothers, he told 
 them not to be grieved " that ye sold me hither " 
 (to the Ishmaelites ?). 
 
 Another of the evidences of mythical origin 
 may be noted in this reference to caravans of 
 Ishmaelites and Midianites passing through the 
 country to trade with Egypt. Jacob's family thus 
 far appears to consist of a dozen children, and 
 when they finally went down to Goshen, some 
 twenty years later, " all the souls of the house of 
 Jacob " were " three score and ten." But the Ish- 
 maelites had been represented as the descendants 
 of his father's half brother, and the Midianites as 
 the progeny of another and much younger half 
 brother. For such near relatives, they had grown 
 numerous and unfriendly at an amazing rate, but 
 in myths and fables, however significant of truths 
 in their own way, historical probability is not to 
 be looked for. The great fact embodied in this 
 story is the vast superiority in the mind of its 
 original author of the character and destiny of the 
 Josephite tribes over the rest of Israel. Its further 
 use was to prepare the way for accounting for the 
 greater, fact that the Israelites did at a remote
 
 250 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 time wander into Egypt and fall into a state of 
 bondage. 
 
 In the text below an attempt is made to separate 
 the elements which belong to the two different 
 versions of the story by inclosing in brackets the 
 statements drawn from the one that represents the 
 envy of the brothers as due to the father's favorit- 
 ism, and Judah as accomplishing Joseph's rescue 
 by the device of selling him to the Ishmaelites. 
 The parts derived from the other version appear 
 by omitting these bracketed statements, and they 
 attribute the hatred for Joseph to his dreams of 
 greatness, and the rescue to Reuben's interposi- 
 tion and the casting of the youth into the "pit," 
 from which he was lifted out and carried away by 
 Midianites. The division is that of Lenormant, 
 who credited the story in which Reuben and the 
 Midianites figure to the Elohist, and that in which 
 Judah and the Ishmaelites appear to the Jehovist. 
 There is little but conjecture to sustain that view, 
 and if it is well founded, it is pretty certain that 
 the material was not original with those writers, 
 though the opening statement of the chapter, 
 which sets out to give the "generations" of Jacob, 
 and is interrupted with the Joseph story, is dis- 
 tinctly of the Elohist. The unquestionable thing 
 is that the compiler of Genesis imperfectly blended
 
 JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN 25 1 
 
 into one two stories which were not consistent in 
 their details. It will be interesting to note for 
 future reference that in the elements from one 
 version of the story the father of Joseph is called 
 Jacob, while in those from the other he is called 
 Israel. 
 
 [XXXVII] 
 
 And Jacob dwelt in the land of his father's sojourn- 
 ings, in the land of Canaan. These are the genera- 
 tions of Jacob. 
 
 Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding 
 the flock with his brethren ; [and he was a lad with 
 the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his 
 father's wives :] and Joseph brought the evil report 
 of them unto their father. [Now Israel loved Joseph 
 more than all his children, because he was the son 
 of his old age ; and lie made him a coat of many 
 colours. And his brethren saw that their father 
 loved him more than all his brethren ; and they 
 hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto 
 
 him.] 
 
 And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to 
 his brethren ; and they hated him yet the more. 
 And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this 
 dream which I have dreamed : for, behold, we were 
 binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, 
 and also stood upright ; and, behold, your sheaves 
 came round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. 
 And his brethren said unto him, Shalt thou indeed
 
 252 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion 
 over us ? And they hated him yet the more for his 
 dreams, and for his words. And he dreamed yet 
 another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said, 
 Behold, I have dreamed yet a dream ; and, behold, 
 the sun and the moon and eleven stars made obei- 
 sance to me. And he told it to his father, and to 
 his brethren ; and his father rebuked him, and said 
 unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? 
 Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed 
 come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth? 
 And his brethren envied him; but his father kept 
 the saying in his mind. 
 
 [And his brethren went to feed their father's 
 flock in Shechem. And Israel said unto Joseph, 
 Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? 
 come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said 
 to him, Here am I. And he said to him, Go now, 
 see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well 
 with the flock ; and bring me word again. So he 
 sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to 
 Shechem. And a certain man found him, and, be- 
 hold, he was wandering in the field : and the man 
 asked him, saying, What seekest thou? And he 
 said, I seek my brethren ; tell me, I pray thee, where 
 they are feeding the flock. And the man said, They 
 are departed hence ; for I heard them say, Let us 
 go to Dothan. And Joseph went after his brethren, 
 and found them in Dothan.] 
 
 And they saw him afar off, and before he came 
 near unto them, they conspired against him to slay
 
 JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN 253 
 
 him. And they said one to another, Behold, this 
 dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us 
 day him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we 
 will say, An evil beast hath devoured him ; and we 
 shall see what will become of his dreams. And 
 Reuben heard it, and delivered him out of their 
 hand ; and said, Let us not take his life. And 
 Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood ; cast him 
 into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no 
 hand upon him : that he might deliver him out of 
 their hand, to restore him to his father. 
 
 [And it came to pass, when Joseph was come 
 unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph of his 
 coat, the coat of many colours that was on him.] 
 
 And they took him, and cast him into the pit ; 
 and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. 
 
 [And they sat down to eat bread ; and they lifted 
 up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a travelling 
 company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with 
 their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, 
 going to carry it down to Egypt. And Judah said 
 unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our 
 brother and conceal his blood ? Come, and let us 
 sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be 
 upon him ; for he is our brother, our flesh. And 
 his brethren hearkened unto him.] 
 
 And there passed by Midianites, merchantmen ; 
 and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, 
 [and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty 
 pieces of silver]. And they brought Joseph into 
 Egypt. And Reuben returned unto the pit ; and,
 
 254 TllE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 behold, Joseph was not in the pit ; and he rent 
 his clothes. And he returned unto his brethren, 
 and said, The child is not ; and I, whither shall I 
 go? 
 
 [And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a he- 
 goat, and dipped the coat in the blood ; and 
 they sent the coat of many colours, and they 
 brought it to their father ; and said, This have we 
 found ; know now whether it be thy son's coat or 
 not. And he knew it, and said, It is my son's coat ; 
 an evil beast hath devoured him ; Joseph is without 
 doubt torn in pieces.] 
 
 And Jacob rent his garments, and put sackcloth 
 upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. 
 And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to 
 comfort him ; but he refused to be comforted ; and 
 he said, For I will go down to Sheol to my son 
 mourning. And his father wept for him. And the 
 Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an 
 officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the guard.
 
 XXXII 
 
 JUDAH AND HIS FAMILY 
 
 Perhaps it is not strange that the Judean com- 
 piler of the Book of Genesis should have retained 
 the story of the exaltation of Joseph at the ex- 
 pense of his brethren. When he wrote, the proud 
 Kingdom of Ephraim had been humiliated and 
 destroyed, and its memories had become a com- 
 mon heritage of the race. Hope of a reunion of 
 the tribes and the establishment of a glorious 
 and enduring Kingdom of all Israel was then 
 cherished. He could afford to be magnanimous, 
 and besides, the story was a fascinating one, and 
 it was an essential part of that great epic of the 
 bondage and deliverance of the people, which 
 formed the basis of their history, their law, and 
 their religion. The compiler could hardly dis- 
 pense with it, and he was not capable of re- 
 placing it. Fortunately he retained it very much 
 as he found it in the collection of Ephraimite 
 productions. 
 
 But it does seem strange that between the 
 preliminary story of Joseph's dreams of great- 
 
 255
 
 256 THE MYTHS OK ISRAEL 
 
 ness and the jealousy and treachery of his breth- 
 ren, and that of the realization of the dreams in 
 power and glory in Egypt, with the humiliation 
 and dependence of the rest of the family, he 
 should have introduced that picture of the deg- 
 radation of Judah, containing a slightly veiled 
 satire upon the founder of the Judean dynasty, 
 which stands apart from all connection with the 
 context as Genesis xxxviii. Doubtless he did 
 not appreciate the moral turpitude attributed to 
 Judah, and the ignominy attached to his off- 
 spring; but he could hardly have missed the gen- 
 eral meaning and purpose of the story, which 
 must have originated at a time of harsh feeling 
 between the two kingdoms. 
 
 We have seen in the equally independent 
 epopee of Simeon and Levi avenging their sis- 
 ter's wrong at Shechem, that these sons of Jacob 
 appear as mature men with daughters to give 
 in marriage, though we come to the story with 
 fresh impressions of their tender childhood. In 
 the family tale of Paddan-aram, Judah could 
 scarcely have been three years older than Joseph, 
 and we have just seen him attending his father's 
 flocks and joining in the conspiracy to sell the 
 younger brother into Egypt at the age of seven- 
 teen. Here we come upon him in quite a differ-
 
 JUDAH AND HIS FAMILY 257 
 
 ent aspect, and with a family history of his own 
 extending over a period of many years. The 
 compiler introduced the story with the familiar 
 "and it came to pass at that time/' though it 
 had no relation in time or place with what pre- 
 cedes. 
 
 It is difficult to discern any very clear ethnic 
 significance in this episode of Judah and Tamar, 
 though some critics assume that Er and Onan 
 were sub-tribes of mixed Judean and Canaanite 
 blood which had died out. The whole appears 
 much more like a satire upon Judah and the 
 house of David. It begins with a union of the 
 putative ancestor of the kingdom with the de- 
 spised. Canaanite, which appears to have been 
 illegitimate, and not even a marriage, though 
 David himself had taken more than one Canaan- 
 ite wife. The offence of the first son is not 
 named, but that of the second was disobedience 
 of the "law" which required him to marry the 
 widow and raise up an heir to the oldest son of 
 the family. Failing that, he would himself be- 
 come the head of the family, and he refused, 
 and the Lord slew him. Judah then tried him- 
 self to evade the obligation of the law and get 
 rid of Tamar, who circumvented the design by 
 her own wiles. The part she played was that 
 s
 
 258 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 of one of the female attendants of the impure 
 worship of Astarte (Ashtoreth), which served 
 further to degrade Judah by complicity in the 
 cult most abominable in the eyes of the Puritans 
 of Israel. The prostitution itself was not sub- 
 ject to the penalty of burning", or to any other 
 penalty, unless in the case of Tamar it might 
 be regarded as equivalent to adultery ; but she 
 was declared to be " more righteous " than the 
 man who had failed to give her to his younger 
 son as the widow of the elder. That, indeed, was 
 Judah's offence, and so far as the story has an 
 ethical purpose, it was intended to enforce that 
 obligation of keeping the family inheritance in 
 the line of the oldest son. It may be that there 
 was a disposition among the people to evade it, 
 and that the story of the fate of Onan and the 
 humiliation of Judah gave an example of the 
 consequences. 
 
 The satire upon the family of David, which is 
 involved in the story, seems palpable when it is 
 closely studied. Even the name of Hirah the 
 Adullamite is suggestive of Hiram the Tyrian, 
 friend of David and Solomon, and of the refuge 
 of David when he was an outlaw. David had 
 married more than one Canaanitess, the most 
 notorious case being that of Bath-Sheba, the
 
 JUDAH AND HIS FAMILY 259 
 
 sometime wife of the Hittite officer, a name 
 synonymous with Bath-Shua (daughter of Shua). 
 Bath-Shua is given as the " wife " of Judah in 
 the genealogy of the Book of Chronicles. 
 
 The first offspring of David and Bath-Sheba 
 died in consequence of divine anger, as does the 
 firstborn of Judah and Bath-Shua. The letters 
 of the name " Er " in Hebrew, spelled backward, 
 mean "bad." The substitution of a single letter 
 in the Hebrew changes Onan to Amnon, the son 
 of David who was destroyed on account of sexual 
 sin. The identity of the name of the outraged 
 sister and the wronged wife of Judah's sons is 
 noticeable, while a close analogy to Amnon's 
 iniquity is transferred to Judah himself, while 
 he is seeking to evade the obligation to give his 
 third son to the widow of the first and second. 
 One letter inserted in the name of that third 
 son in the Hebrew transforms it to Solomon, 
 the son of David and Bath-Sheba, who became 
 the King of Judah against whom Jeroboam re- 
 belled. There may be an additional thrust in 
 the enigmatical remark that " he (Judah) was at 
 Chezib when she (Tamar) bare him" (Shelah), 
 for though Chezib may have been the name of 
 a place, it was also a noun meaning falsehood, 
 and was used in that sense by the prophet Micah.
 
 260 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 No offspring is given to Shelah in the story, 
 but the descendants of Judah are made to spring 
 from the iniquitous intercourse with Tamar, and 
 the ancestor of David is Perez, the "breach" 
 or " breaker through," who superseded his twin 
 brother at birth, as Solomon superseded an elder 
 brother in the succession to the throne, which 
 finally led to the Ephraimite revolt. If the rela- 
 tion to history of this episode in the life of 
 Judah, which breaks so abruptly into the narra- 
 tive of Joseph's going into Egypt to appear as 
 a model of chastity and integrity, is mere coin- 
 cidence, it makes it only the more remarkable. 
 
 If it were to be regarded as a matter of actual 
 personal history, it would be repulsive from a 
 moral point of view, but, while it furnishes a 
 picture of moral conditions at the time of its 
 production, its chief interest is in its mythical 
 or symbolical meanings. It also affords another 
 striking illustration of the varied character and 
 purpose of the productions which were wrought 
 together in the marvellous composition of this 
 Book of Genesis. It furnishes one of the many 
 proofs which that book contains within itself of a 
 complete lack of historical quality, in the literal 
 sense, and of an abundance and variety of mytho- 
 logical quality.
 
 JUDAH AND HIS FAMILY 26 1 
 
 [XXXVIII i] 
 
 And it came to pass at that time, that Judah went 
 down from his brethren, and turned in to a certain 
 Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. And Judah 
 saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose 
 name was Shua ; and he took her, and went in unto 
 her. And she conceived, and bare a son ; and he 
 called his name Er. And she conceived again, and 
 bare a son ; and she called his name Onan. And 
 she yet again bare a son, and called his name Shelah ; 
 and he was at Chezib, when she bare him. 
 
 And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and 
 her name was Tamar. And Er, Judah's firstborn, 
 was wicked in the sight of the Lord ; and the Lord 
 slew him. And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto 
 thy brother's wife, and perform the duty of an hus- 
 band's brother unto her, and raise up offspring to thy 
 brother. And Onan knew that the offspring should 
 not be his ; and it came to pass, when he went in 
 unto his brother's wife, that he avoided propagating 
 offspring to his brother. And the thing which he did 
 was evil in the sight of the Lord ; and he slew him 
 also. 
 
 Then said Judah to Tamar his daughter in law, 
 Remain a widow in thy father's house, till Shelah my 
 son be grown up : for he said, Lest he also die, like 
 
 1 The explanation of this chapter as a satire on the family 
 of David was first elaborated by Dr. Aaron Bernstein, author 
 of "Ursprung der Sage von Abraham, Isaak und Jakob."
 
 262 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 his brethren. And Tamar went and dwelt in her 
 father's house. And in process of time Shua's 
 daughter, the wife of Judah, died; and Judah was 
 comforted, and went up unto his sheepshearers to 
 Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. 
 And it was told Tamar, saying, Behold, thy father in 
 law goeth up to Timnah to shear his sheep. And 
 she put off from her the garments of her widowhood, 
 and covered herself with her veil, and wrapped her- 
 self, and sat in the gate of Enaim, which is by the 
 way to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah was grown 
 up, and she was not given unto him to wife. 
 
 When Judah saw her, he thought her to be an har- 
 lot ; for she had covered her face. And he turned 
 unto her by the way, and said, Go to, I pray thee, 
 let me come in unto thee : for he knew not that she 
 was his daughter in law. And she said, What wilt 
 thou give me, that thou mayest come in unto me? 
 And he said, I will send thee a kid of the goats from 
 the flock. And she said, Wilt thou give me a pledge, 
 till thou send it? And he said, What pledge shall 1 
 give thee ? And she said, Thy signet and thy cord, 
 and thy staff that is in thine hand. And he gave them 
 to her, and came in unto her, and she conceived by 
 him. And she arose, and went away, and put off 
 her veil from her, and put on the garments of her 
 widowhood. 
 
 And Judah sent the kid of the goats by the hand 
 of his friend the Adullamite, to receive the pledge 
 from the woman's hand ; but he found her not. 
 Then he asked the men of her place, saying, Where
 
 JUDAH AND HIS FAMILY 263 
 
 is the harlot, that was at Enaim by the way side? 
 And they said, There hath been no harlot here. 
 And he returned to Judah, and said, I have not 
 found her ; and also the men of the place said, 
 There hath been no harlot here. And Judah said, 
 Let her take it to her, lest we be put to shame ; 
 behold, I sent this kid, and thou hast not found her. 
 
 And it came to pass about three months after, that 
 it was told Judah, saying, Tamar thy daughter in law 
 hath played the harlot ; and moreover, behold, she is 
 with child by harlotry. And Judah said, Bring her 
 forth, and let her be burnt. When she was brought 
 forth, she sent to her father in law, saying, By the 
 man, whose these are, am I with child : and she 
 said, Discern, I pray thee, whose are these, the sig- 
 net, and the cords, and the staff. And Judah ac- 
 knowledged them, and said, She is more righteous 
 than I ; forasmuch as I gave her not to Shelah my 
 son. And he knew her again no more. 
 
 And it came to pass in the time of her travail, 
 that, behold, twins were in her womb. And it came 
 to pass, when she travailed, that one put out a hand ; 
 and the midwife took and bound upon his hand a 
 scarlet thread, saying, This came out first. And it 
 came to pass, as he drew back his hand, that, behold, 
 his brother came out ; and she said, Wherefore hast 
 thou made a breach for thyself? therefore his name 
 was called Perez. And afterward came out his 
 brother, that had the scarlet thread upon his hand ; 
 and his name was called Zerah.
 
 XXXIII 
 
 JOSEPH A SLAVE AND IN PRISON 
 
 The account of Joseph's life in Egypt before 
 he was brought to the notice of Pharaoh contains 
 distinct traces of the blending of two different 
 stories of which we have seen evidences already. 
 According to the opening statement he was 
 bought from the Ishmaelites by Potiphar, chief 
 of Pharaoh's palace guard, and the original lan- 
 guage implies that this person was a eunuch. 
 He is identified in the episode of the chief 
 " butler " and the chief " baker " — more properly 
 the chief cup bearer and chief purveyor of bread 
 — and also in the relation of this episode to the 
 king, with the " keeper of the prison," as from 
 his office he might well be. 
 
 This could hardly have been the same man as 
 Joseph's " master the Egyptian," whose wife 
 afforded such a serious test of his personal virtue. 
 This " Egyptian " was evidently a man of sub- 
 stance to whose confidence the " Hebrew servant " 
 so commended himself that he was put in charge 
 of " all that he had in the house and in the field." 
 
 264
 
 JOSEPH A SLAVE AND IN PRISON 265 
 
 Neither this, nor the tempting wife, is suggestive 
 of the "captain of the guard." Moreover, are 
 we not told that Joseph's angry master "put him 
 into prison," and that he gained favor in the sight 
 of the " keeper of the prison " and had all the 
 prisoners put in his charge, and does it not pres- 
 ently appear that it was the " captain of the 
 guard" himself who was keeper of the prison? 
 Surely the Egyptian master, whose favor Joseph 
 had first won, and then lost through the wiles of 
 the wife, was not suddenly transformed into the 
 keeper of the prison to have his favor regained. 
 
 Apparently the story which represented Joseph 
 as having been sold by his brethren to the Ishmael- 
 ites, also represented him as being bought by 
 the " captain of the guard," who had charge of 
 the prison, and as rising in the favor of that offi- 
 cer and having the care of the prisoners com- 
 mitted to him ; while the other story, which 
 represented Joseph as having been " stolen away" 
 by the Midianites, told of his having been sold 
 to a rich Egyptian who had him thrown into 
 prison on account of the incident of the wife's 
 intrigue. The name of the man is not mentioned 
 in what we have of this version of the story, and 
 the wife was doubtless not that of Potiphar the 
 eunuch.
 
 266 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Probably both stories led up to the dreams 
 which were to be the means of bringing Joseph 
 to the attention of Pharaoh, a common device in 
 Oriental tales, and traces of the difference dis- 
 appear except where Joseph speaks of himself as 
 having been " stolen away out of the land of the 
 Hebrews " and " put into a dungeon." This can 
 hardly be from the version in which he was said 
 to have been sold to the Ishmaelites and bought 
 by the officer in charge of the prison, whose chief 
 deputy he became. In connection with this phrase, 
 "land of the Hebrews," and that used by the 
 Egyptian's wife, " the Hebrew servant," it is to 
 be observed that the Israelites were not called 
 " Hebrews," and Canaan could not have been 
 designated as the "land of the Hebrews" until 
 sometime after the establishment of the kingdom. 
 The locution is that of the time of the writer. 
 
 As we have had occasion to say so often, 
 these inconsistencies are unimportant when we 
 consider the genuine mythological character of 
 the writings, but they are extremely interesting 
 as evidences of the manner of their production. 
 
 [XXXIX-XL] 
 
 [And Joseph was brought down to Egypt ; and 
 Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the
 
 JOSEPH A SLAVE AND IN PRISON 267 
 
 guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hand of the 
 Ishmaelites, which had brought him down thither.] 
 
 And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a 
 prosperous man ; and he was in the house of his 
 master the Egyptian. And his master saw that the 
 Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all 
 that he did to prosper in his hand. And Joseph 
 found grace in his sight, and he ministered unto 
 him ; and he made him overseer over his house, 
 and all that he had he put into his hand. And it 
 came to pass from the time that he made him over- 
 seer in his house, and over all that he had, that the 
 Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's 
 sake ; and the blessing of the Lord was upon all 
 that he had, in the house and in the field. And he 
 left all that he had in Joseph's hand ; and he knew 
 not aught that was with him, save the bread which 
 he did eat. 
 
 And Joseph was comely, and well favoured. And 
 it came to pass after these things, that his master's 
 wife cast her eyes upon Joseph ; and she said, Lie 
 with me. But he refused, and said unto his mas- 
 ter's wife, Behold, my master knoweth not what is 
 with me in the house, and he hath put all that he 
 hath into my hand ; there is none greater in this 
 house than I ; neither hath he kept back any thing 
 from me but thee, because thou art his wife ; how 
 then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against 
 God ? And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph 
 day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie 
 by her, or to be with her. And it came to pass
 
 268 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 about this time, that he went into the house to do 
 his work ; and there was none of the men of the 
 house there within. And she caught him by his 
 garment, saying, Lie with me : and he left his gar- 
 ment in her hand, and fled, and got him out. 
 
 And it came to pass, when she saw that he had 
 left his garment in her hand, and was fled forth, 
 that she called unto the men of her house, and 
 spake unto them, saying, See, he hath brought in an 
 Hebrew unto us to mock us ; he came in unto me 
 to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice ; and 
 it came to pass, when he heard that I lifted up my 
 voice and cried, that he left his garment by me, and 
 fled, and got him out. And she laid up his garment 
 by her, until his master came home. And she 
 spake unto him according to these words, saying, 
 The Hebrew servant, which thou hast brought unto 
 us, came in unto me to mock me ; and it came to 
 pass, as I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left 
 his garment by me, and fled out. And it came to 
 pass, when his master heard the words of his wife, 
 which she spake unto him, saying, After this manner 
 did thy servant to me ; that his wrath was kindled. 
 
 And Joseph's master took him, and put him into 
 the prison, the place where the king's prisoners 
 were bound ; and he was there in the prison. But 
 the Lord was with Joseph, and shewed kindness 
 unto him, and gave him favour in the sight of the 
 keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the 
 prison committed to Joseph's hand all the prison- 
 ers that were in the prison ; and whatsoever they
 
 JOSEPH A SLAVE AND IN PRISON 269 
 
 did there, he was the doer of it. The keeper of the 
 prison looked not to any thing that was under his 
 hand, because the Lord was with him ; and that 
 which he did, the Lord made it to prosper. 
 
 And it came to pass after these things, that the 
 cup bearer of the king of Egypt and his purveyor of 
 bread offended their lord the king of Egypt. And 
 Pharaoh was wroth against his two officers, against 
 the chief of the cup bearers, and against the chief of 
 the purveyors of bread. And he put them in ward 
 in the house of the captain of the guard, into the 
 prison, \_the place where Joseph was bound] . And 
 the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, 
 and he ministered unto them ; and they continued 
 a season in ward. 
 
 And they dreamed a dream both of them, each 
 man his dream, in one night, each man according to 
 the interpretation of his dream, the cup bearer and 
 the purveyor of bread of the king of Egypt, who 
 were bound in the prison. And Joseph came in 
 unto them in the morning, and saw them, and, be- 
 hold, they were sad. And he asked Pharaoh's offi- 
 cers \jhat were with him in ward in his master's 
 house'], saying, Wherefore look ye so sadly to-day? 
 And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, 
 and there is none that can interpret it. And Joseph 
 said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to 
 God ? tell it me, I pray you. 
 
 And the chief cup bearer told his dream to Joseph, 
 and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was
 
 270 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 before m€ ; and in the vine were three branches ; 
 and it was as though it budded, and its blossoms 
 shot forth ; and the clusters thereof brought forth 
 ripe grapes ; and Pharaoh's cup was in my hand ; 
 and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pha- 
 raoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. 
 And Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation 
 of it : the three branches are three days; within yet 
 three days shall Pharaoh lift up thine head, and 
 restore thee unto thine office ; and thou shalt give 
 Pharaoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner 
 when thou wast his cup bearer. But have me in thy 
 remembrance when it shall be well with thee, and 
 shew kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make men- 
 tion of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this 
 house ; for indeed I was stolen away out of the land 
 of the Hebrews : \_and here also have I done nothing 
 that they should put me into the dungeon.'] 
 
 When the chief purveyor of bread saw that the 
 interpretation was good, he said unto Joseph, I also 
 was in my dream, and, behold, three baskets of white 
 bread were on my head ; and in the uppermost bas- 
 ket there was of all manner of baked food for Pha- 
 raoh ; and the birds did eat them out of the basket 
 upon my head. And Joseph answered and said, 
 This is the interpretation thereof : the three baskets 
 are three days ; within yet three days shall Pharaoh 
 lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on 
 a tree ; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee. 
 And it came to pass the third day, which was Pha- 
 raoh's birthday, that he made a feast unto all his ser-
 
 JOSEPH A SLAVE AND IN PRISON 2J\ 
 
 vants ; and he lifted up the head of the chief cup 
 bearer and the head of the chief purveyor of bread 
 among his servants. And he restored the chief cup 
 bearer unto his office again, and he gave the cup 
 into Pharaoh's hand ; but he hanged the chief pur- 
 veyor of bread, as Joseph had interpreted to them. 
 Yet did not the chief cup bearer remember Joseph, 
 but forgot him.
 
 XXXIV 
 
 Joseph's elevation to power 
 
 There is hardly room for doubt that the origi- 
 nal story of Joseph was written in the Northern 
 Kingdom of Israel in the time of Jeroboam, its 
 first king. There is no indication that the name 
 Joseph was applied until after that time, as a 
 general designation for the people of the nation 
 made up chiefly of the tribes of Ephraim and 
 Manasseh, with outlying territory known by 
 names assumed to have been originally those of 
 other tribes. The etymology that derived Joseph 
 from a word meaning separation, or taking away, 
 may have had reference to the division of the 
 kingdom. It is a plausible surmise that Jero- 
 boam himself was the originator of the story, 
 if not the inventor of the name attributed to the 
 ancestor of his people. 
 
 It will be remembered that Jeroboam had 
 headed a revolt against Solomon and fled " unto 
 Shishak king of Egypt." It may be inferred 
 that he stood high in the favor of that ruler from 
 
 272
 
 JOSEPH'S ELEVATION TO POWER 273 
 
 the fact that a few years after he returned and 
 set up his throne at Shechem as king of the 
 revolted tribes, Shishak gave him substantial 
 support by invading the Kingdom of Judah and 
 laying Jerusalem under contribution. Jeroboam, 
 who was clearly the ablest Israelite of his time, 
 had all the knowledge of Egypt and of its lore 
 necessary for framing the incidents of the Joseph 
 story, and he had the motive for exalting the 
 prototype of his nation at the expense of the rest 
 of Israel, and exhibiting a kindly spirit toward 
 Pharaoh and his realm, — ever the objects of 
 hatred to Judean writers. It was even a matter 
 of pride to represent Ephraim and Manasseh as 
 half Egyptian in blood, though that had been cor- 
 ruption in the story of Ishmael, and in most of 
 the legends intermarriage with peoples not akin 
 to the seed of Abraham was degradation. The 
 man who set up golden calves as symbols of 
 Jehovah at Bethel and Dan could even take the 
 mother of his people from the priesthood of 
 Heliopolis. 
 
 The story of Joseph's elevation from slavery 
 and imprisonment to power in the land of Egypt 
 is contained in the forty-first chapter of Genesis, 
 in the traditional division of that book. It con- 
 tains no element of probability as matter of his-
 
 274 TIIK MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 torical fact, and is supported by no record of 
 such an extraordinary event as seven successive 
 years of marvellous plenty, succeeded by seven 
 years of absolute dearth in the Nile region and 
 all the neighboring lands, and as the exaltation of 
 a Hebrew slave to control of all the affairs of the 
 great Kingdom of Egypt in the height of its power. 
 The material of Pharaoh's dreams and their 
 fulfilment, and of Joseph's fabulous exaltation, 
 is such stuff as myths are made of, and the 
 evident purpose of the whole story is the glori- 
 fication of Jeroboam's kingdom. To this the ac- 
 count of Joseph's treatment by his brothers, his 
 being sold into slavery and thrown into prison, 
 and being ever attended by divine care, was pre- 
 liminary. There is little trace of the variant of 
 the main story in Chapter xli., though Joseph 
 is referred to by the chief cup bearer as "servant 
 to the captain of the guard " in the prison, and 
 is afterwards said to have been brought "hastily 
 out of the dungeon." The original story, it is to 
 be remembered, had passed through the hands of 
 at least two writers before the permanent form 
 was reached, and had assumed two varying ver- 
 sions, one of which was adopted as the basis of 
 a compilation and modified with material from 
 the other as it suited the compiler's notions of
 
 JOSEPH'S ELEVATION TO POWER 275 
 
 completeness. What appear to be interjected 
 sentences are put in brackets below. 
 
 [XLI] 
 
 And it came to pass at the end of two full years, 
 that Pharaoh dreamed ; and, behold, he stood by the 
 river. And, behold, there came up out of the river 
 seven kine, well favoured and fatfleshed ; and they 
 fed in the reedgrass. And, behold, seven other kine 
 came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and 
 leanfieshed, and stood by the other kine upon the 
 brink of the river. And the ill favoured and lean- 
 fieshed kine did eat up the seven well favoured and 
 fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke. 
 
 And he slept and dreamed a second time ; and, 
 behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, 
 rank and good. And, behold, seven ears, thin and 
 blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them. 
 And the thin ears swallowed up the seven rank and 
 full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, it was 
 a dream. 
 
 And it came to pass in the morning that his spirit 
 was troubled ; and he sent and called for all the di- 
 viners of Egypt and all the wise men thereof, and 
 Pharaoh told them his dream ; but there was none 
 that could interpret them unto Pharaoh. Then 
 spake the chief cup bearer unto Pharaoh, saying, I 
 do remember my faults this day. Pharaoh was wroth 
 with his servants, and put me in ward in the house 
 of the captain of the guard, me and the chief pur-
 
 276 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 veyor of bread, and we dreamed a dream in one 
 night, I and he ; we dreamed each man according 
 to the interpretation of his dream. And there was 
 with us there a young man, an Hebrew, servant to 
 the captain of the guard; and we told him, and he 
 interpreted to us our dreams, to each man according 
 to his dream he did interpret. And it came to pass, 
 as he interpreted to us, so it was ; me he restored 
 unto mine office, and him he hanged. 
 
 Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, [and they 
 brought him hastily out of the dungeon :] and he 
 shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came 
 in unto Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I 
 have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can 
 interpret it ; and I have heard say of thee, that when 
 thou hearest a dream thou canst interpret it. And 
 Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me ; 
 God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace. 
 
 And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, In my dream, 
 behold, I stood upon the brink of the river ; and, 
 behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, 
 fatfleshed and well favoured, and they fed in the 
 reedgrass ; and, behold, seven other kine came up 
 after them poor and very ill favoured and leanfleshed, 
 such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for bad- 
 ness, and the lean and ill favoured kine did eat up 
 the first seven fat kine ; and when they had eaten 
 them up, it could not be known that they had eaten 
 them ; but they were still ill favoured, as at the 
 beginning. So I awoke. And I saw in my dream, 
 and, behold, seven ears came up upon one stalk, full
 
 JOSEPH'S ELEVATION TO POWER 277 
 
 and good ; and, behold, seven ears, withered, thin, 
 and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after 
 them ; and the thin ears swallowed up the seven 
 good ears ; and I told it unto the diviners, but there 
 was none that could declare it to me: 
 
 And Joseph said unto Pharaoh, The dream of 
 Pharaoh is one ; what God is about to do he hath 
 declared unto Pharaoh. The seven good kine are 
 seven years ; and the seven good ears are seven 
 years ; the dream is one. And the seven lean and 
 ill favoured kine that came up after them are seven 
 years, and also the seven empty ears blasted with 
 the east wind ; they shall be seven years of famine. 
 That is the thing which I spake unto Pharaoh ; 
 what God is about to do he hath shewed unto Pha- 
 raoh. Behold, there come seven years of great plenty 
 throughout all the land of Egypt ; and there shall 
 arise after them seven years of famine ; and all the 
 plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt ; and 
 the famine shall consume the land ; and the plenty 
 shall not be known in the land by reason of that 
 famine which followeth, for it shall be very griev- 
 ous. And for that the dream was doubled unto 
 Pharaoh twice, it is because the thing is established 
 by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass. Now 
 therefore let Pharaoh look out a man discreet and 
 wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pha- 
 raoh do this, and let him appoint overseers over the 
 land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt 
 in the seven plenteous years. And let them gather 
 all the food of these good years that come, and lay
 
 2 ;8 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 up grain under the hand of Pharaoh for food in the 
 cities, and let them keep it. And the food shall be 
 for a store to the land against the seven years of 
 famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt ; that 
 the land perish not through the famine. And the 
 thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the 
 eyes of all his servants. 
 
 And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find 
 such a one as this, a man in whom the spirit of God 
 is? And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as 
 God hath shewed thee all this, there is none so dis- 
 creet and wise as thou, thou shalt be over my 
 house, and according unto thy word shall all my 
 people be ruled ; only in the throne will I be 
 greater than thou. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, 
 See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And 
 Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand, and 
 put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vest- 
 ures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his 
 neck ; and he made him to ride in the second char- 
 iot which he had ; and they cried before him, Bow 
 the knee : and he set him over all the land of Egypt. 
 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and 
 without thee shall no man lift up his hand or his foot 
 in all the land of Egypt. 
 
 And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphenath- 
 paneah ; and he gave him to wife Asenath the 
 daughter of Poti-phera priest of On. And Joseph 
 went out over the land of Egypt. And Joseph was 
 thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king 
 of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence
 
 JOSEPH'S ELEVATION TO POWER 279 
 
 of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of 
 Egypt, And in the seven plenteous years the earth 
 brought forth by handfuls. And he gathered up all 
 the food of the seven years which were in the land 
 of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities ; the 
 food of the field, which was round about every city, 
 laid he up in the same. [And Joseph laid up grain 
 as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left num- 
 bering ; for it was without number.] 
 
 And unto Joseph were born two sons before the 
 year of famine came, which Asenath the daughter of 
 Poti-phera priest of On bare unto him. [And Joseph 
 called the name of the firstborn Manasseh : For, 
 said he, God hath made me forget all my toil, and 
 all my father's house. And the name of the second 
 called he Ephraim : For God hath made me fruit- 
 ful in the land of my affliction.] 
 
 And the seven years of plenty, that was in the 
 land of Egypt, came to an end. And the seven 
 years of famine began to come, according as Joseph 
 had said, and there was famine in all lands ; but in 
 all the land of Egypt there was bread. And when 
 all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried 
 to Pharaoh for bread, and Pharaoh said unto all 
 the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph ; what he saith to 
 you, do. And the famine was over all the face of 
 the earth ; and Joseph opened all the storehouses, 
 and sold unto the Egyptians ; and the famine was 
 sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries came 
 into Egypt to Joseph for to buy grain ; because the 
 famine was sore in all the earth.
 
 XXXV 
 
 Joseph's brothers seek relief in egypt 
 
 The artless simplicity of primitive mythism 
 appears throughout the narrative, which tells of 
 Joseph's ten brothers seeking relief from famine 
 in Egypt, while he was " lord of the land." 
 Where Jacob then dwelt, " in the land of Canaan," 
 does not appear, but our last view of him was 
 when he sent his favorite son from ;< the vale of 
 Hebron " to his brethren feeding their flocks in 
 Shechem and wandering to Dothan ; and later 
 we shall find him coming from somewhere to 
 Beersheba. But wherever the patriarch and his 
 family might now be, it must be many days' 
 journey from the storehouses of Egypt. But the 
 ten sons, each with an ass and a sack, make 
 their way in time of famine to Joseph, who is 
 personally selling supplies to all comers. It had 
 never occurred to him in his nine years of pros- 
 perity and power to inquire after the family, and 
 his extraordinary advancement had never reached 
 their ears, though communication now seems so 
 easy. 
 
 280
 
 HIS BROTHERS SEEK RELIEF IN EGYPT 28 1 
 
 Apparently the brothers had no food on their 
 way down, and on the return the contents of 
 the nine sacks, borne on their humble beasts of 
 burden, — for Simeon was left behind,' — must have 
 sufficed for the grain which was to relieve the 
 famine of their " houses," the " provision for the 
 way," and the "provender" for the animals. It 
 would also appear that only one of the sacks 
 was opened at the " lodging place," for it was 
 after they reached home that each man's money 
 was found in his sack, that of only one having 
 been previously discovered. No fairy tale could 
 show a more charming disregard of probabilities, 
 or even possibilities, than this simple narrative. 
 It may seem rather far-fetched to assume that 
 Simeon was the name used for the brother left 
 as a hostage, because of the tradition of a tribe 
 of Simeon which had disappeared near the bor- 
 ders of Egypt ; but such slight suggestions were 
 prolific of the incidents of these old legends. 
 
 Here Reuben appears as reminding the other 
 brothers of their fault, when they find themselves 
 in trouble, and as afterwards assuring the aged 
 father of Benjamin's safety, in case he is taken 
 to Egypt in fulfilment of the pledge to " the lord 
 of the land," though Judah becomes the surety 
 when the second trip is actually made. In this
 
 282 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 is an evident trace of the two versions of the 
 story as they first appear in Chapter xxxvii. 
 
 The most striking quality in this passage, after 
 the evidence afforded by its incidents of the mythi- 
 cal character of the whole, is the subtle suggestion 
 of the sense of guilt overpowering the brothers. 
 It is supposed to be some twenty years since the 
 disappearance of Joseph, and all the family re- 
 gard him as dead. The brothers have no sus- 
 picion that the man whom they find in charge 
 of the distribution of food in Egypt has any 
 other relation to them than any lordly officer in 
 that position would have. But their rough and 
 suspicious treatment awakens memory of the 
 wronged brother, and they at once attribute it 
 to their guilt concerning him. So when the 
 money is found in the sack, they are alarmed at 
 an incident trivial in itself, as an omen of evil, 
 — as something that God had done unto them. 
 
 There is much pathos in the old father's sense 
 of bereavement, but the slaying of Reuben's 
 sons, if any harm should come to Benjamin, 
 could hardly be regarded as a comfort or a satis- 
 factory indemnity in a tale of real life. The 
 story, with the exception of interpolated frag- 
 ments here inclosed in brackets, appears to be 
 from the version which speaks of Jacob, and not
 
 HIS BROTHERS SEEK RELIEF IN EGYPT 283 
 
 of Israel, as the paternal patriarch, and gives 
 Reuben instead of Judah a prominent part. 
 
 [XLII] 
 
 Now Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, 
 and Jacob said unto his sons, Why do ye look one 
 upon another? And he said, Behold, I have heard 
 that there is grain in Egypt ; get you down thither, 
 and buy for us from thence, that we may live, and 
 not die. And Joseph's ten brethren went down to 
 buy grain from Egypt. But Benjamin, Joseph's 
 brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren ; for he 
 said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him. [And 
 the sons of Israel came to buy among those that 
 came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.] 
 
 And Joseph was the governor over the land ; he 
 it was that sold to all the people of the land ; and 
 Joseph's brethren came, and bowed down them- 
 selves to him with their faces to the earth. And 
 Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but 
 made himself strange unto them, and spake roughly 
 with them ; and he said unto them, Whence come 
 ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to 
 buy food. And Joseph knew his brethren, but they 
 knew not him. 
 
 And Joseph remembered the dreams which he 
 dreamed of them, and said unto them, Ye are spies ; 
 to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And 
 they said unto him, Nay, my lord, but to buy food 
 are thy servants come. We are all one man's
 
 284 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 sons ; we are true men, thy servants are no spies. 
 And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the naked- 
 ness of the land ye are come. And they said, We 
 thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one 
 man in the land of Canaan ; and, behold, the 
 youngest is this day with our father, and one is 
 not. 
 
 And Joseph said unto them, That is it that I 
 spake unto you, saying, Ye are spies ; hereby ye 
 shall be proved ; by the life of Pharaoh ye shall 
 not go forth hence, except your youngest brother 
 come hither. Send one of you, and let him fetch 
 your brother, and ye shall be bound, that your 
 words may be proved, whether there be truth in 
 you ; or else by the life of Pharaoh surely ye are 
 spies. And he put them all together into ward 
 three days. And Joseph said unto them the third 
 day, This do, and live, for I fear God ; if ye be 
 true men, let one of your brethren be bound in 
 your prison house ; but go ye, carry grain for the 
 famine of your houses, and bring your youngest 
 brother unto me ; so shall your words be verified, 
 and ye shall not die. And they did so. 
 
 And they said one to another, We are verily 
 guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the 
 distress of his soul, when he besought us, and we 
 would not hear ; therefore is this distress come 
 upon us. And Reuben answered them, saying, 
 Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against 
 the child; and ye would not hear? therefore also, 
 behold, his blood is required. And they knew not
 
 HIS BROTHERS SEEK RELIEF IN EGYPT 285 
 
 that Joseph understood them ; for there was an 
 interpreter between them. And he turned himself 
 about from them, and wept ; and he returned to 
 them, and spake to them, and took Simeon from 
 among them, and bound him before their eyes. 
 
 Then Joseph commanded to fill their vessels 
 with grain, and to restore every man's money into 
 his sack, and to give them provision for the way ; 
 and thus was it done unto them. And they laded 
 their asses with their grain, and departed thence. 
 
 [And as one of them opened his sack to give 
 his ass provender in the lodging place, he espied 
 his money ; and, behold, it was in the mouth of 
 his sack. And he said unto his brethren, My 
 money is restored ; and, lo, it is even in my sack ; 
 and their heart failed them, and they turned trem- 
 bling one to another, saying, What is this that God 
 hath done unto us ?] 
 
 And they came unto Jacob their father unto the 
 land of Canaan, and told him all that had befallen 
 them ; saying, The man, the lord of the land, spake 
 roughly with us, and took us for spies of the coun- 
 try. And we said unto him, We are true men ; 
 we are no spies ; we be twelve brethren, sons of 
 our father ; one is not, and the youngest is this 
 day with our father in the land of Canaan. And 
 the man, the lord of the land, said unto us, Hereby 
 shall I know that ye are true men ; leave one of 
 your brethren with me, and take grain for the 
 famine of your houses, and go your way, and bring 
 your youngest brother unto me ; then shall I know
 
 2S6 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 that ye are no spies, but that ye are true men ; so 
 will I deliver you your brother, and ye shall traffick 
 in the land. 
 
 And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, 
 that, behold, every man's bundle of money was in 
 his sack ; and when they and their father saw their 
 bundles of money, they were afraid. And Jacob 
 their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved 
 of my children ; Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, 
 and ye will take Benjamin away ; all these things 
 are against me. And Reuben spake unto his father, 
 saying, Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to 
 thee ; deliver him into my hand, and I will bring 
 him to thee again. And he said, My son shall not 
 go down with you ; for his brother is dead, and he 
 only is left ; if mischief befall him by the way in 
 which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray 
 hairs with sorrow to Sheol.
 
 XXXVI 
 
 THE SECOND JOURNEY TO EGYPT 
 
 In the account of the second journey of the 
 ten brothers — Benjamin taking the place of 
 Simeon — into Egypt, it is Judah that appears 
 in the character of surety for the safety of the 
 youngest, and later offers himself as a bondman 
 to Joseph "instead of the lad," while Reuben 
 is not referred to by name. We notice also that 
 the father is designated only by the personal 
 name of Israel, and Joseph speaks of himself as 
 "your brother whom ye sold into Egypt." This 
 indicates the same source as the material in Chap- 
 ter xxxvii. which represented Judah as saving 
 Joseph from death by the device of selling him 
 to a passing caravan of Ishmaelites from whom 
 he was bought by Pharaoh's captain of the guard 
 and keeper of the prison, and not from that 
 which made Reuben the rescuer by the device 
 of casting the lad into a dry " pit " from which 
 he was "stolen away" by Midianite merchantmen, 
 and in which Reuben also appeared as the chief 
 spokesman of the brothers in the sequel. 
 
 287
 
 288 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 We have noticed also that in the narrative of 
 the first visit to Egypt, in which Reuben is the 
 leading character, it is said that only one sack 
 was opened at the " lodging place " on the return, 
 and the money was found in the others after 
 the brothers reached home. But here they are 
 represented as telling Joseph's steward that when 
 they came to the lodging place they opened their 
 sacks, " and every man's money was in the mouth 
 of his sack." There are, indeed, traces of blend- 
 ing with this story some elements from the other. 
 
 First, the brothers are described as appearing 
 without ceremony before Joseph, who saw Ben- 
 jamin and gave orders to the steward to bring 
 them into the house and make ready for dinner, 
 which was done, and thereupon, in their alarm, 
 they explained about the money. But this is 
 followed by a different description of their being 
 brought by a "man" to Joseph's house, where 
 they were to wait for his appearance, having 
 " heard that they should eat bread there." When 
 Joseph presented himself, they prostrated them- 
 selves instead of standing before him, and he 
 graciously inquired after their father and " lifted 
 up his eyes and saw Benjamin." The result of the 
 banquet which followed is more strongly stated in 
 the original than in our familiar translation.
 
 THE SECOND JOURNEY TO EGYPT 289 
 
 The account of sending the brothers away 
 after this surprising treatment, and bringing them 
 back by the device of the apparently stolen divin- 
 ing cup, is of the simple fairy-tale order ; but in 
 the pathetic pleading of Judah before Joseph in 
 behalf of Benjamin there is something strangely 
 expressive of the relation of the tribes at the 
 time when the story must have originated. The 
 main ethnic purpose is kept in view, of account- 
 ing for the migration of the Israelites into Egypt, 
 where their bondage had long been a matter of 
 dim tradition, and of representing the ancestors 
 of the Northern tribes as having gone down first 
 and acquired a degree of favor and power that 
 made them the saviours of the rest. But the 
 story of Joseph's superior position, his gracious- 
 ness to the brethren who came to him humbly 
 for relief in time of distress, and his peculiar 
 affection for Benjamin, tells in mythic language 
 of a time when the Northern Kingdom was strong 
 after Jeroboam's secession, and that of the South 
 was humiliated ; when it was a question of de- 
 taching Benjamin from Judah, and joining it to 
 Ephraim, and possibly of subjugating Judah it- 
 self, and when the magnanimity of the North- 
 ern realm, which had the favor and support of 
 Egypt, saved the Southern tribes from extinction. 
 u
 
 2Q0 
 
 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 The passage near the end of the following ex- 
 tract, which is put in brackets, describing Joseph's 
 disclosure of himself to his brothers, is taken 
 from the other version of the story than that 
 mainly drawn upon, evidently for the sake of the 
 statement of divine purpose which it contains. 
 
 [XLIII-XLV 16] 
 
 And the famine was sore in the land. And it 
 came to pass, when they had eaten up the grain 
 which they had brought out of Egypt, their father 
 said unto them, Go again, buy us a little food. 
 And Judah spake unto him, saying, The man did 
 solemnly protest unto us, saying, Ye shall not see 
 my face, except your brother be with you. If thou 
 wilt send our brother with us, we will go down and 
 buy thee food ; but if thou wilt not send him, we 
 will not go down, for the man said unto us, Ye 
 shall not see my face except your brother be with 
 you. 
 
 And Israel said, Wherefore dealt ye so ill with 
 me, as to tell the man whether ye had yet a brother? 
 And they said, The man asked straitly concerning 
 ourselves, and concerning our kindred, saying, Is 
 your father yet alive? have ye another brother? and 
 we told him according to the tenor of these words. 
 Could we in any wise know that he would say, Bring 
 your brother down? 
 
 And Judah said unto Israel his father, Send the 
 lad with me, and we will arise and go ; that we may
 
 THE SECOND JOURNEY TO EGYPT 29 1 
 
 live, and not die, both we, and thou, and also our 
 little ones. I will be surety for him ; of my hand 
 shalt thou require him ; if I bring him not unto 
 thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the 
 blame for ever ; for except we had lingered, surely 
 we had now returned a second time. 
 
 And their father Israel said unto them, If it be so 
 now, do this ; take of the choice fruits of the land 
 in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, 
 a little balm, and a little honey, spicery and myrrh, 
 nuts, and almonds ; and take double money in your 
 hand ; and the money that was returned in the 
 mouth of your sacks carry again in your hand ; per- 
 adventure it was an oversight ; take also your 
 brother, and arise, go again unto the man ; and 
 God Almighty (El Shaddai) give you mercy before 
 the man, that he may release unto you your other 
 brother and Benjamin. And if I be bereaved of my 
 children, I am bereaved. 
 
 And the men took that present, and they took 
 double money in their hand, and Benjamin ; and 
 rose up, and went down to Egypt, and stood before 
 Joseph. And when Joseph saw Benjamin with 
 them, he said to the steward of his house, Bring the 
 men into the house, and slay, and make ready ; for 
 the men shall dine with me at noon. And the man 
 did as Joseph bade ; and the man brought the men 
 into Joseph's house. And the men were afraid, 
 because they were brought into Joseph's house ; 
 and they said, Because of the money that was 
 returned in our sacks at the first time are we
 
 2Q2 
 
 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 brought in ; that he may seek occasion against us, 
 and fall upon us, and take us for bondmen, and our 
 asses. 
 
 And they came near to the steward of Joseph's 
 house, and they spake unto him at the door of the 
 house, and said, Oh my lord, we came indeed down 
 at the first time to buy food ; and it came to pass, 
 when we came to the lodging place, that we opened 
 our sacks, and, behold, every man's money was in 
 the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight, 
 and we have brought it again in our hand. And 
 other money have we brought down in our hand to 
 buy food ; we know not who put our money in our 
 sacks. And he said, Peace be to you, fear not ; 
 your God, and the God of your father, hath given 
 you treasure in your sacks ; I had your money. 
 And he brought Simeon out unto them. 
 
 And the man brought the men into Joseph's 
 house, and gave them water, and they washed their 
 feet; and he gave their asses provender. And they 
 made ready the present against Joseph came at 
 noon, for they heard that they should eat bread 
 there. And when Joseph came home, they brought 
 him the present which was in their hand into the 
 house, and bowed down themselves to him to the 
 earth. And he asked them of their welfare, and 
 said, Is your father well, the old man of whom ye 
 spake? Is he yet alive? And they said, Thy ser- 
 vant our father is well, he is yet alive. And they 
 bowed the head, and made obeisance.
 
 THE SECOND JOURNEY TO EGYPT 293 
 
 And he lifted up his eyes, and saw Benjamin his 
 brother, his mother's son, and said, Is this your 
 youngest brother, of whom ye spake unto me? 
 And he said, God be gracious unto thee, my son. 
 And Joseph made haste ; for his bowels did yearn 
 upon his brother, and he sought where to weep ; 
 and he entered into his chamber, and wept there. 
 And he washed his face, and came out ; and he 
 refrained himself, and said, Set on bread. 
 
 And they set on for him by himself, and for them 
 by themselves, and for the Egyptians, which did eat 
 with him, by themselves, because the Egyptians 
 might not eat bread with the Hebrews ; for that is 
 an abomination unto the Egyptians. And they sat 
 before him, the firstborn according to his birthright, 
 and the youngest according to his youth ; and the 
 men marvelled one with another. And he took and 
 sent messes unto them from before him ; but Ben- 
 jamin's mess was five times so much as any of 
 theirs. And they drank, and were drunken with 
 him. 
 
 And he commanded the steward of his house, 
 saying, Fill the men's sacks with food, as much as 
 they can carry, and put every man's money in his 
 sack's mouth. And put my cup, the silver cup, in 
 the sack's mouth of the youngest, and his grain 
 money. And he did according to the word that 
 Joseph had spoken. As soon as the morning was 
 light, the men were sent away, they and their asses. 
 
 When they were gone out of the city, and
 
 2Q4 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 were not yet far off, Joseph said unto his steward, 
 Up, follow after the men ; and when thou dost 
 overtake them, say unto them, Wherefore have ye 
 rewarded evil for good? Is not this it in which my 
 lord drinketh, and whereby he indeed divineth? ye 
 have done evil in so doing. And he overtook 
 them, and he spake unto them these words. And 
 they said unto him, Wherefore speaketh my lord 
 such words as these? God forbid that thy servants 
 should do such a thing. Behold, the money, which 
 we found in our sacks' mouths, we brought again 
 unto thee out of the land of Canaan ; how then 
 should we steal out of thy lord's house silver or 
 gold ? With whomsoever of thy servants it be 
 found, let him die, and we also will be my lord's 
 bondmen. 
 
 And he said, Now also let it be according unto 
 your words ; he with whom it is found shall be my 
 bondman, and ye shall be blameless. Then they 
 hasted, and took down every man his sack to the 
 ground, and opened every man his sack. And he 
 searched, and began at the eldest, and left at the 
 youngest; and the cup was found in Benjamin's 
 sack. Then they rent their clothes, and laded 
 every man his ass, and returned to the city. 
 
 And Judah and his brethren came to Joseph's 
 house, and he was yet there ; and they fell before 
 him on the ground. And Joseph said unto them, 
 What deed is this that ye have done? know ye not 
 that such a man as I can indeed divine? And 
 Judah said, What shall we say unto my lord? what
 
 THE SECOND JOURNEY TO EGYPT 295 
 
 shall we speak? or how shall we clear ourselves? 
 God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants. 
 Behold, we are my lord's bondmen, both we, and 
 he also in whose hand the cup is found. And he 
 said, God forbid that I should do so ; the man in 
 whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my bond- 
 man ; but as for you, get you up in peace unto your 
 father. 
 
 Then Judah came near unto him, and said, Oh 
 my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word 
 in my lord's ears, and let not thine anger burn 
 against thy servant, for thou art even as Pharaoh. 
 My lord asked his servants, saying, Have ye a 
 father, or a brother? And we said unto my lord, 
 We have a father, an old man, and a child of his 
 old age, a little one ; and his brother is dead, and 
 he alone is left of his mother, and his father loveth 
 him. And thou saidst unto thy servants, Bring him 
 down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon him. 
 And we said unto my lord, The lad cannot leave his 
 father; for if he should leave his father, his father 
 would die. And thou saidst unto thy servants, Ex- 
 cept your youngest brother come down with you, ye 
 shall see my face no more. And it came to pass 
 when we came up unto thy servant my father, we 
 told him the words of my lord. 
 
 And our father said, Go again, buy us a little food. 
 And we said, \Ye cannot go down ; if our youngest 
 brother be with us, then will we go down, for we 
 may not see the man's face, except our youngest 
 brother be with us. And thy servant my father said
 
 296 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 unto us, Ye know that my wife bare me two sons ; 
 and the one went out from me, and I said, Surely 
 he is torn in pieces ; and I have not seen him since ; 
 and if ye take this one also from me, and mischief 
 befall him, ye shall bring down my gray hairs with 
 sorrow to Sheol. Now therefore when I come to 
 thy servant my father, and the lad be not with us ; 
 seeing that his life is bound up in the lad's life, it 
 shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not 
 with us, that he will die ; and thy servants shall bring 
 down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with 
 sorrow to Sheol. For thy servant became surety for 
 the lad unto my father, saying, If I bring him not 
 unto thee, then shall 1 bear the blame to my father 
 forever. Now therefore, let thy servant, I pray thee, 
 abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord ; 
 and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how 
 shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with 
 me? lest I see the evil that shall come on my 
 father. 
 
 Then Joseph could not refrain himself before 
 all them that stood by him ; and he cried, Cause 
 every man to go out from me. And there stood no 
 man with him, while Joseph made himself known 
 unto his brethren. And he wept aloud ; and the 
 Egyptians heard, and the house of Pharaoh 
 heard. 
 
 [And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am 
 Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his breth- 
 ren could not answer him ; for they were troubled 
 at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren,
 
 THE SECOND JOURNEY TO EGYPT 297 
 
 Come near to me, I pray you. And they came 
 near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, 
 whom ye sold into Egypt. And now be not grieved 
 nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither, 
 for God did send me before you to preserve life. 
 For these two years hath the famine been in the 
 land ; and there are yet five years in which there 
 shall be neither plowing nor harvest. And God 
 sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in 
 the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliver- 
 ance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, 
 but God ; and he hath made me a father to Pha- 
 raoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all 
 the land of Egypt. 
 
 Haste ye, and go up to my father, and say unto 
 him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me 
 lord of all Egypt ; come down unto me, tarry not, 
 and thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and 
 thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, 
 and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy 
 herds, and all that thou hast ; and there will I nour- 
 ish thee, for there are yet five years of famine, 
 lest thou come to poverty, thou, and thy household, 
 and all that thou hast. And, behold, your eyes 
 see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is 
 my mouth that speaketh unto you. And ye shall tell 
 my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that 
 ye have seen ; and ye shall haste and bring down 
 my father hither.] 
 
 And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, 
 and wept ; and Benjamin wept upon his neck.
 
 298 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 And he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon 
 them ; and after that his brethren talked with him. 
 And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, 
 saying, Joseph's brethren are come ; and it pleased 
 Pharaoh well, and his servants.
 
 XXXVII 
 
 Jacob's migration 
 
 Again the charming simplicity of the fairy 
 tale, with Joseph in the character of the kindly 
 godmother and Pharaoh as the benignant dis- 
 penser of endless favors ! The mighty potentate 
 of Egypt, who has raised a Hebrew slave to the 
 highest place of power and confidence in his 
 realm, personally sends for the aged patriarch 
 in that indefinite home, " the land of Canaan," 
 to come down with all his family and share the 
 good things of Egypt, leaving all possessions 
 behind as of no account. Wagons are sent and 
 gifts are bestowed by the lordly brother, special 
 favors being lavished upon little Benjamin. 
 
 We lose sight of the awful famine with five years 
 still to run, in visions of " the fat of the land," 
 and we do not mind that twenty asses, however 
 richly laden, were an inadequate cavalcade for 
 the supplies on so long a journey and return, 
 through a country which the later Israelites 
 found it so hard to traverse. We do not think 
 how the wagons are to get through that perilous 
 
 299
 
 300 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 wilderness, parched and burnt with two years 
 of drought already. 
 
 It is all as easy as an Arabian tale, and only 
 a question of breaking the joyful news to the 
 incredulous old father and bringing him in all 
 haste to the land of plenty and of Joseph's glory. 
 He bethinks him on his departure of Isaac's 
 God, whose altar is at Beersheba, and there he 
 gets a promise in the visions of the night that 
 the divinity of his father will accompany him to 
 the strange land and bring up his offspring again 
 in the time to come to be a great nation. It is 
 evidently the God of Isaac only, and in the long 
 interval Canaan will be left in sole possession 
 of its own deities, and not till Moses appears 
 as a deliverer will he concern himself even with 
 the fate of Israel in Egypt. Is it in the wilder- 
 ness about Mount Sinai that he is to lurk in the 
 mean time, waiting the growth of the promised 
 nation ? However it may be, Jacob is got into 
 Egypt and " all his family with him." The 
 account of the migration is of mixed material, 
 that from the secondary source being put in 
 brackets in the text below. 
 
 It is almost with a shock that we pass from 
 this exquisite picture to the prosaic genealogy of 
 the children of Israel which the compiler saw
 
 JACOB'S MIGRATION 301 
 
 fit to introduce here, doubtless from the Elohist 
 document of which we have seemed to lose sight 
 for some time. The shock does not come alone 
 from the abrupt transition. We have seen Reuben 
 offering the sacrifice of his "two sons," if Ben- 
 jamin should not be brought back in safety; but 
 now we find him with four sons, whose names 
 have a strange suggestion of antique geography. 
 Simeon and Levi have appeared once before as 
 mature men in the bloody episode of Shechem, 
 and now they have their sons who seem also to 
 be geographical expressions. We are reminded 
 again of Judah's family history by the names 
 of his offspring, while the mention of Leah's 
 other sons and those of the handmaids carries 
 us back to the Jacob legend, so different from 
 that which has lately charmed us. 
 
 But here is Benjamin, the tender lad, the "child 
 of his old age, a little one," appearing as the father 
 of ten children. Perhaps we need not be surprised, 
 for was he not born on the journey from Paddan- 
 aram, when Rachel died, and when his father 
 was some sixty years old, now according to his 
 own statement to Pharaoh about seventy years 
 ago ? The defective arithmetic, which appears 
 also in the enumeration of the family, does not 
 matter. What has arithmetic or other hard fact
 
 302 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 to do with the story of Joseph and his little 
 brother, which has delighted the world for cen- 
 turies ? No more than with the nightly advent- 
 ures of Haroun al Raschid in the " golden 
 prime." 
 
 [XLV 17-XLVI 27] 
 
 And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Say unto thy 
 brethren, This do ye : lade your beasts, and go, 
 get you unto the land of Canaan ; and take your 
 father and your households, and come unto me ; 
 and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, 
 and ye shall eat the fat of the land. Now thou 
 art commanded, this do ye ; take you wagons out 
 of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for 
 your wives, and bring your father, and come. Also 
 regard not your stuff; for the good of all the land 
 of Egypt is yours. And the sons of Israel did so ; 
 and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the 
 commandment of Pharaoh, and gave them provision 
 for the way. 
 
 [To all of them he gave each man changes of 
 raiment ; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred 
 pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment. And 
 to his father he sent after this manner ; ten asses 
 laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she- 
 asses laden with grain and bread and victual for his 
 father by the way. So he sent his brethren away, 
 and they departed ; and he said unto them, See 
 that ye fall not out by the way. And they went up
 
 JACOB'S MIGRATION 303 
 
 out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan 
 unto Jacob their father.] 
 
 And they told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, 
 and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt. And 
 his heart fainted, for he believed them not. And 
 they told him all the words of Joseph, which he 
 had said unto them ; and when he saw the wagons 
 which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of 
 Jacob their father revived ; and Israel said, It is 
 enough, Joseph my son is yet alive ; I will go and 
 see him before I die. 
 
 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, 
 and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices unto 
 the God of his father Isaac. And God spake unto 
 Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, 
 Jacob. And he said, Here am I. And he said, 
 I am God, the God of thy father; fear not to go 
 down into Egypt, for I will there make of thee a 
 great nation ; I will go down with thee into Egypt, 
 and I will also surely bring thee up again ; and 
 Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes. And 
 Jacob rose up from Beersheba ; and the sons of 
 Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little 
 ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh 
 had sent to carry him. 
 
 [And they took their cattle, and their goods, 
 which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and 
 came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his family with 
 him ; his sons, and his sons' sons with him, his 
 daughters, and his sons' daughters, and all his fam- 
 ily brought he with him into Egypt.]
 
 304 
 
 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 And these are the names of the children of 
 Israel, which came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons : 
 Reuben, Jacob's firstborn. And the sons of Reu- 
 ben ; Hanoch, and Pallu, and Hezron, and Carmi. 
 And the sons of Simeon ; Jemuel, and Jamin, and 
 Ohad, and Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of 
 a Canaanitish woman. And the sons of Levi ; 
 Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. And the sons of 
 Judah ; Er, and Onan, and Shelah, and Perez, and 
 Zerah ; [but Er and Onan died in the land of 
 Canaan.] And the sons of Perez were Hezron and 
 Hamul. And the sons of Issachar ; Tola, and 
 Puvah, and lob, and Shimron. And the sons of 
 Zebulun ; Sered, and Elon, and Jahleel. These are 
 the sons of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob in 
 Paddan-aram, with his daughter Dinah ; all the 
 souls of his sons and his daughters were thirty and 
 three. 
 
 And the sons of Gad ; Ziphion, and Haggi, 
 Shuni, and Ezbon, Eri, and Arodi, and Areli. 
 And the sons of Asher ; Imnah, and Ishvah, and 
 Ishvi, and Beriah, and Serah their sister : and the 
 sons of Beriah; Heber, and Malchiel. These are 
 the sons of Zilpah, which Laban gave to Leah his 
 daughter, and these she bare unto Jacob, even six- 
 teen souls. 
 
 The sons of Rachel Jacob's wife ; Joseph and 
 Benjamin. And unto Joseph in the land of Egypt 
 were born Manasseh and Ephraim, which Asenath 
 the daughter of Poti-phera priest of On bare unto 
 him. And the sons of Benjamin ; Bela, and
 
 JACOB'S MIGRATION 305 
 
 Becher, and Ashbel, Gera, and Naaman, Ehi, and 
 Rosh, Muppim, and Huppim, and Ard. These 
 are the sons of Rachel, which were born to Jacob ; 
 all the souls were fourteen. 
 
 And the sons of Dan ; Hushim. And the sons 
 of Naphtali ; Jahzeel, and Guni, and Jezer, and 
 Shillem. These are the sons of Bilhah, which 
 Laban gave unto Rachel his daughter, and these she 
 bare unto Jacob ; all the souls were seven. 
 
 All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, 
 which came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' 
 wives, all the souls were threescore and six ; and 
 the sons of Joseph, which were born to him in 
 Egypt, were two souls : all the souls of the house of 
 Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and 
 ten.
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 SETTLED IN EGYPT 
 
 Nothing but the fixed impressions which have 
 been produced by traditional views of this com- 
 position, would excuse a constant reference to the 
 evidence which it contains within itself of its ut- 
 terly unhistorical character and purpose. But for 
 those impressions the evidence would be obvious 
 and readily accepted. Now it seems to be neces- 
 sary to direct close attention to it. 
 
 The subjoined passage contains that evidence 
 not only in the innate improbability of its inci- 
 dents, and their inconsistency with other parts of 
 the general narrative, but in the process which we 
 have tried to make familiar to the reader's mind of 
 a blending of diverse elements in the story. When 
 Joseph disclosed his identity to his brothers, we 
 are told that he bade them make haste and bring 
 their father down to the land of Goshen, with 
 their families and their flocks and herds, that they 
 might be nourished through the remaining five 
 years of famine, for he was " lord of all Egypt." 
 
 In what immediately followed Pharaoh appeared 
 
 306
 
 SETTLED IN EGYPT 307 
 
 as telling Joseph what to say to his brethren and 
 as offering to their father and their households 
 "the good of the land of Egypt." They were to 
 leave all behind and come to Pharaoh to " eat the 
 fat of the land." There is no suggestion of the 
 famine or of dwelling apart in Goshen, but at 
 the close of the story of the migration we are 
 told that they " took their cattle and their goods." 
 The possession of these during the period of dire 
 stress, and taking them through that desolate 
 wilderness scorched for two years by drought, 
 would seem strange in any relation of presumed 
 facts. 
 
 We have had a complete account of this migra- 
 tion, including a visit to the altar at Beersheba, 
 the arrival in Egypt, and an enumeration of the 
 " souls of the house of Jacob " that settled there. 
 But here we are suddenly set back upon an ac- 
 count which represents Jacob as sending Judah on 
 ahead to show the way to Goshen, and Joseph as 
 coming up to meet him in his chariot. The latter 
 is then to tell Pharaoh of their coming with their 
 flocks and herds, and they are to ask the privilege 
 of dwelling in Goshen, because they were shep- 
 herds, and every shepherd was an " abomination 
 unto the Egyptians." Of this state of feeling in 
 Egypt in ancient times there really seems to be no
 
 308 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 proof, and its own people were largely agricultu- 
 ral, if not pastoral. 
 
 With the usual magic of such tales, Joseph has 
 then only to "go in" and tell Pharaoh about it, 
 taking five of his brothers with him, and we hardly 
 stop to wonder at the plea that they had come 
 down for pasture for their flocks, because the 
 famine was "sore in the land of Canaan." We 
 had supposed it to be equally sore in all the land 
 of Egypt, and that there were to be five years 
 more during which flocks and herds would be a 
 burden and the people must be fed from govern- 
 ment supplies. It seems strange, too, if Goshen 
 was "the best of the land of Egypt" and capable 
 of sustaining flocks and herds, that it was not 
 occupied by the Egyptians who had been suffering 
 from famine for two years. 
 
 The paragraph which represents Joseph as 
 bringing his father before Pharaoh is evidently 
 from another source. It is in a different tone and 
 manner, and apparently belongs to the narrative 
 which brought Jacob so promptly into Egypt, and 
 not merely to a meeting place on the border in 
 the land of Goshen. It is Joseph again who has 
 the disposal of affairs, and the name given to the 
 land placed in possession of his family is Rameses, 
 and not Goshen. It doubtless designated the
 
 SETTLED IN EGYPT 309 
 
 same region, which lay between the Nile Valley 
 and Arabia Petraea, and was the actual place of 
 sojourn of the Semitic Nomads who were driven 
 over the border by dearth of pasturage in a time 
 of prolonged drought. 
 
 [XLVI 28-XLVII 12] 
 
 And he sent Judah before him unto Joseph, to 
 shew the way before him into Goshen ; and they 
 came into the land of Goshen. And Joseph made 
 ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his 
 father, to Goshen ; and he presented himself unto 
 him, and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a 
 good while. And Israel said unto Joseph, Now let 
 me die, since I have seen thy face, that thou art yet 
 alive. 
 
 And Joseph said unto his brethren, and unto his 
 father's house, I will go up, and tell Pharaoh, and 
 will say unto him, My brethren, and my father's 
 house, which were in the land of Canaan, are come 
 unto me ; and the men are shepherds, for they have 
 been keepers of cattle ; and they have brought 
 their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have. 
 And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call 
 you, and shall say, What is your occupation? that 
 ye shall say, Thy servants have been keepers of 
 cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and 
 our fathers, that ye may dwell in the land of 
 Goshen ; for every shepherd is an abomination unto 
 the Egyptians.
 
 310 nil'- MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Then Joseph went in and told Pharaoh, and said, 
 My father and my brethren, and their flocks, and 
 their herds, and all that they have, are come out of 
 the land of Canaan ; and, behold, they are in the 
 land of Goshen. And from among his brethren he 
 took five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh. 
 And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your 
 occupation ? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy ser- 
 vants are shepherds, both we, and our fathers. And 
 they said unto Pharaoh, To sojourn in the land are 
 we come ; for there is no pasture for thy servants' 
 flocks ; for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan ; 
 now therefore, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell 
 in the land of Goshen. And Pharaoh spake unto 
 Joseph, saying, Thy father and thy brethren are 
 come unto thee ; the land of Egypt is before thee ; 
 in the best of the land make thy father and thy 
 brethren to dwell ; in the land of Goshen let them 
 dwell ; and if thou knovvest any able men among 
 them, then make them rulers over my cattle. 
 
 [And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set 
 him before Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. 
 And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How many are the 
 days of the years of thy life? And Jacob said unto 
 Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage 
 are an hundred and thirty years : few and evil have 
 been the days of the years of my life, and they have 
 not attained unto the days of the years of the life 
 of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. And 
 Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from the 
 presence of Pharaoh. And Joseph placed his father
 
 SETTLED IN EGYPT 3 1 1 
 
 and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the 
 land of Egypt, {in the best of the land, in the land of 
 Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.') And Joseph 
 nourished his father, and his brethren, and all his 
 father's household, with bread, according to their 
 families.]
 
 XXXIX 
 
 STRANGE RESULTS OF FAMINE 
 
 It is believed to be a historical fact that in the 
 days of the great Rameses the ownership of land 
 in Egypt was chiefly, if not solely, in the hands 
 of the king and his officers and soldiers, and of 
 the priests, and that the mass of the people were 
 reduced to a state of virtual serfdom and depend- 
 ence on the government. The payment of a 
 "fifth" for the use of the land may have been a 
 "statute." 
 
 We have here an account of something like 
 this state of things being brought about as the 
 result of the great famine under the administra- 
 tion of Joseph. It seems to be part of the scheme 
 for magnifying the greatness of Joseph, and is 
 characteristic of the Hebrew manner of account- 
 ing for conditions known or believed to exist in 
 past times or distant lands. It is needless to 
 point out that such a gathering up of everything 
 by one man, as a matter of policy and of eco- 
 nomic management during a seven years' period 
 of absolute dearth, does not come within the 
 
 312
 
 STRANGE RESULTS OF FAMINE 313 
 
 range of credibility ; but the account is not of a 
 kind which would elsewhere lay any claim to 
 credibility. It seems to be mainly the work of 
 the compiler, and not an integral, part of his 
 material. 
 
 [XLVII 13-26] 
 
 And there was no bread in all the land ; for the 
 famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and 
 the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine. 
 And Joseph gathered up all the money that was 
 found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Ca- 
 naan, for the grain which they bought ; and Joseph 
 brought the money into Pharaoh's house. And 
 when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt, 
 and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came 
 unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread : for why 
 should we die in thy presence? for our money 
 faileth. And Joseph said, Give your cattle ; and I 
 will give you for your cattle, if money fail. And 
 they brought their cattle unto Joseph ; and Joseph 
 gave them bread in exchange for the horses, and 
 for the flocks, and for the herds, and for the asses ; 
 and he fed them with bread in exchange for all their 
 cattle for that year. 
 
 And when that year was ended, they came unto 
 him the second year, and said unto him, We will 
 not hide from my lord, how that our money is all 
 spent, and the herds of cattle are my lord's ; there 
 is nought left in the sight of my lord, but our
 
 314 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 bodies, and our hands ; wherefore should we die 
 before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us 
 and our land for bread, and we and our land will 
 be servants unto Pharaoh ; and give us seed, that 
 we may live, and not the, and that the land be not 
 desolate. So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt 
 for Pharaoh ; for the Egyptians sold every man his 
 field, because the famine was sore upon them ; and 
 the land became Pharaoh's. 
 
 And as for the people, he reduced them to serf- 
 dom from one end of the border of Egypt even to 
 the other end thereof. Only the land of the priests 
 bought he not, for the priests had a portion from 
 Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh 
 gave them ; wherefore they sold not their land. 
 Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have 
 bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh ; lo, 
 here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land. 
 And it shall come to pass at the ingatherings, that 
 ye shall give a fifth unto Pharaoh, and four parts 
 shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for 
 your food, and for them of your households, and for 
 food for your little ones. And they said, Thou hast 
 saved our lives ; let us find grace in the sight of 
 my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants. And 
 Joseph made it a statute concerning the land of 
 Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the 
 fifth ; only the land of the priests alone became not 
 Pharaoh's.
 
 XL 
 
 ADOPTION OF THE TRIBES OF JOSEPH 
 
 After the foregoing passage the compiler intro- 
 duced a concise statement of the settlement of 
 " Israel " in the land of Egypt where they " multi- 
 plied exceedingly," and followed it with a frag- 
 ment from the Elohist document giving the age 
 of "Jacob" at the time of his death. Reverting 
 to the material which used the name Israel, he 
 gave an account of the last days of the patriarch, 
 when he summoned Joseph and made him swear 
 that he would bury him in the burial place of his 
 fathers in the land of Canaan. This was the last 
 act of consecration of the possession of that land 
 by his posterity, whose writers were careful to 
 represent that the bones of their ancestors rested 
 in its soil, in ground solemnly acquired and de- 
 voted to that purpose. The form of oath euphe- 
 mistically expressed in the text, like that exacted of 
 his servant by Abraham with reference to the mar- 
 riage of Isaac, appears to have been a relic of the 
 time when a peculiar sacredness was attached to 
 
 315
 
 3l6 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 the natural power and agencies of reproduc- 
 tion. 
 
 Apparently this account of the oath of Joseph 
 originally ended with the death of " Israel," but 
 the compiler had another episode of his last days 
 to introduce, — that of adopting Ephraim and Ma- 
 nasseh into the family of tribes, by the process of 
 blessing the sons of Joseph. He began this with 
 an extract from the Elohist (in brackets below), 
 which represents Joseph as being informed of the 
 sickness of his father and as taking his two sons 
 to the bedside. Only these, born before Jacob 
 went into Egypt, are adopted, and it is implied 
 that Joseph had other offspring which was not of 
 Israel. The account is a recognition of supposed 
 facts as to the relation of the tribes. From the 
 Judean point of view, Ephraim and Manasseh, 
 powerful as they had become, were regarded as 
 comparatively alien in origin and as "added" or 
 adopted by Israel. The abrupt reminder of the 
 premature death of Rachel seems to be intended 
 as an explanation of the adoption of the sons of 
 Joseph on the same footing with the oldest of his 
 brothers, on the ground that the chance of other 
 direct progeny in that line had been cut off, and 
 Joseph himself had passed out of the family. 
 
 The actual account of the blessing after this
 
 ADOPTION OF THE TRIBES OF JOSEPH 317 
 
 preliminary statement is from the other, or Jeho- 
 vist, source. There is in it a certain analogy with 
 Isaac's blessing of his two sons, in the old man's 
 blindness, and in the preference given to the 
 younger over the older. It lacks the element of 
 deception and the actual exclusion of the older 
 branch from the heritage, but it embodies the 
 ethnic facts as to the relation of Ephraim and 
 Manasseh to each other and to the other tribes, as 
 the story of Isaac's blessing embodied those of the 
 relations of Israel and Edom. The elements of 
 the myth are of a more kindly sort as belonging 
 to the internal affairs of Israel. The descrip- 
 tion gives the impression that "the lads," Joseph's 
 sons, are young children, but they have both been 
 represented as born sometime before the famine, 
 which had lasted two years when Jacob came 
 into Egypt, now seventeen years ago. This is 
 much less incongruous than the sudden appear- 
 ance of the "lad" Benjamin as the father of ten 
 sons. 
 
 But, as we have said, this is a representation of 
 ethnic facts and relations as they were understood 
 in the writer's time, and not a family history. 
 The Ephraimites already possessed that "portion," 
 or mountain slope (Shechem), given to Joseph 
 above his brethren ; but that Jacob had taken it
 
 3 18 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 from the Amoritc with his sword and his bow was 
 merely a symbolical statement of its conquest by 
 the Israelites. We have had no account of war- 
 like acquisitions by Jacob, and in the legend he 
 has displayed none of the qualities of a conqueror. 
 It was Israel as a people that had made the con- 
 quest and allotted the portion to the Josephite 
 tribes, and Joseph was never brought again to the 
 land of his fathers except in the same ethnic 
 sense. We are to look at these statements, as 
 their writer did, from the point of view of accom- 
 plished events. 
 
 [XLVII 27-XLVIII] 
 
 And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the 
 land of Goshen ; and they gat them possessions 
 therein, and were fruitful, and multiplied exceed- 
 ingly. [And Jacob lived in the land of Kgypt sev- 
 enteen years ; so the days of Jacob, the years of 
 his life, were an hundred forty and seven years.] 
 And the time drew near that Israel must die; and 
 he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If 
 now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray 
 thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and 
 truly with me. Bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt ; 
 but when I sleep with my fathers, thou shalt carry 
 me out of Egypt, and bury me in their buryingplace. 
 And he said, I will do as thou hast said. And he 
 said, Swear unto me : and lie sware unto him. And 
 Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head.
 
 ADOPTION OF THE TRIBES OF JOSEPH 319 
 
 [And it came to pass after these things, that one 
 said to Joseph, Behold, thy father is sick ; and he 
 took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. 
 And one told Jacob, and said, Behold, thy son 
 Joseph cometh unto thee : and Israel strengthened 
 himself, and sat upon the bed. And Jacob said 
 unto Joseph, God Almighty {El Shaddai) appeared 
 unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed 
 me, and said unto me, Behold, I will make thee 
 fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee 
 a union of peoples ; and will give this land to thy 
 posterity after thee for an everlasting possession. 
 And now thy two sons, which were born unto thee 
 in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into 
 Egypt, are mine ; Ephraim and Manasseh, even as 
 Reuben and Simeon, shall be mine. And thy issue, 
 which thou begettest after them, shall be thine ; 
 they shall be called after the name of their brethren 
 in their inheritance. And as for me, when I came 
 from Paddan, Rachel died by me in the land of 
 Canaan in the way, when there was still some way 
 to come unto Ephrath ; and I buried her there in 
 the way to Ephrath (the same is Beth-lehem).] 
 
 And Israel beheld Joseph's sons, and said, Who 
 are these ? And Joseph said unto his father, They 
 are my sons, whom God hath given me here. And 
 he said, Bring them, I pray thee, unto me, and I 
 will bless them. Now the eyes of Israel were dim 
 for age, so that he could not see. And he brought 
 them near unto him ; and he kissed them, and em-
 
 i THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 braced them. And Israel said unto Joseph, I had 
 not thought to see thy face ; and, lo, God hath let 
 me see thy children also. And Joseph brought 
 them out from between his knees ; and he bowed 
 himself with his face to the earth. 
 
 And Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right 
 hand toward Israel's left hand, and Manasseh in 
 his left hand toward Israel's right hand, and brought 
 them near unto him. And Israel stretched out his 
 right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim's head, who 
 was the younger, and his left hand upon Manasseh's 
 head, guiding his hands wittingly ; for Manasseh was 
 the firstborn. And he blessed Joseph, and said, 
 The God before whom my fathers Abraham and 
 Isaac did walk, the God which hath fed me all my 
 life long unto this day, the angel which hath re- 
 deemed me from all evil, bless the lads ; and let 
 my name be named on them, and the name of 
 my fathers Abraham and Isaac ; and let them grow 
 into a multitude in the midst of the earth. 
 
 And when Joseph saw that his father laid his 
 right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased 
 him ; and he held up his father's hand, to remove it 
 from Ephraim's head unto Manasseh's head. And 
 Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father, for 
 this is the firstborn ; put thy right hand upon his 
 head. And his father refused, and said, I know it, 
 my son, I know it ; he also shall become a people, 
 and he also shall be great; howbeit his younger 
 brother shall be greater than he, and his progeny 
 shall become a multitude of nations. And he
 
 ADOPTION OF THE TRIBES OF JOSEPH 32 1 
 
 blessed them that day, saying, In thee shall Israel 
 bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as 
 Manasseh ; and he set Ephraim before Manasseh. 
 
 And Israel said unto Joseph, Behold, I die, but 
 God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the 
 land of your fathers. Moreover I have given to 
 thee one mountain slope (shechem) above thy 
 brethren, which I took out of the hand of the 
 Amorite with my sword and with my bow.
 
 XLI 
 
 POETICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE TRIBES 
 
 Nearly the whole of the forty-ninth chapter 
 of Genesis is taken up with a poetical resume 
 of the characteristics of the tribes of Israel at 
 a certain period of their history. It is of ex- 
 treme interest as betraying even more clearly 
 than the preceding narratives the fact that the 
 names with which we have been dealing repre- 
 sent in their origin symbolical personifications 
 of the tribes. It is introduced with the state- 
 ment, that it is what Jacob told his sons would 
 befall them "in the latter days," and the com- 
 piler followed it with the declaration that it re- 
 lated to the tribes of Israel, and was what their 
 father "spake unto them and blessed them." It 
 is generally spoken of as a "blessing" or bene- 
 diction, but it has little of that quality except 
 for Joseph. It is partly in the form of predic- 
 tion, but more of description or characterization. 
 
 The origin of this poetical production is a 
 matter of conjecture, or of inference. The com- 
 piler found it among his varied material, with or 
 
 322
 
 POETICAL DESCRIPTION OF TRIBES 323 
 
 without the introductory statement, and likelihood 
 favors the supposition that it was one of many- 
 ancient chants, in which tales, traditions, and de- 
 scriptions were embodied at a time when they 
 were transmitted orally, and constant repetition 
 in rhythmical forms served to keep them in 
 memory until they finally came to be written 
 down. When its substance had been drawn into 
 prose narratives, after writing came into use, 
 most of the primitive ballad literature was lost. 
 
 The time reflected in this poem appears to be 
 after the complete establishment of the kingdom, 
 which included all the tribes, and before its divi- 
 sion into two rival and often hostile powers, but 
 its general tone is strongly Ephraimite, while rec- 
 ognizing the predominance at the time of Judah. 
 
 Reuben was regarded as the oldest of the 
 tribes, which had lost the pre-eminence it once 
 held. The symbolism seems to imply that this 
 was due to presumption in usurping undue au- 
 thority over the rest, for we know from the story 
 of David and Absalom, and from other authority, 
 that taking possession of the father's harem (or 
 defiling his bed) was the supreme evidence of 
 seizing his prerogatives. An attempt of the 
 Reubenites to establish themselves as the ruling 
 power may explain the enigmatical reference
 
 324 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 here to the " father's bed," and in the previous 
 story, to one of his "concubines." At all events, 
 Reuben lost its primacy after the conquest and 
 practically disappeared as one of the tribes to 
 the east of the Jordan. 
 
 The allusion to the violence of Simeon and 
 Levi, which we have also had before in the 
 story of Shechem, is still more enigmatical, for 
 we are told of no event of history which ex- 
 plains it, but we do know that they were " scat- 
 tered " in Israel. The tribe of Simeon had 
 utterly faded out on the southern border since 
 the conquest, and the Levites were a wandering 
 class without territorial possessions of their own. 
 There is no trace of recognition here of the 
 character which they finally assumed as minis- 
 ters of the national worship. 
 
 The powerful and flourishing state of Judah 
 is recognized, and it evidently held the sceptre 
 of power over Israel at the time pictured in the 
 poem, which could only have been after the be- 
 ginning of the Davidic dynasty. The figure of 
 the lion's whelp may refer to the conquests over 
 the Philistines and other enemies in the days of 
 David, and the references to wine and milk 
 evidently symbolize material prosperity. What 
 means the retention of the ruler's staff until
 
 POETICAL DESCRIPTION OF TRIBES 325 
 
 Shiloh come ? Is it an ominous intimation that 
 Ephraim, whose most ancient fane was at or 
 near Shiloh, harbored the expectation of obtain- 
 ing the supreme sway ? Though Shiloh is found 
 only as a proper name elsewhere, some critics 
 have been disposed to regard it as a common 
 noun here, meaning peace, and implying that 
 Judah was to exercise kingly power only until 
 the country was reduced to tranquillity, when 
 the people were to revert to the primitive free- 
 dom for which they always yearned. 
 
 Zebulun is characterized only by reference to 
 its situation on the seaboard. Issachar was an 
 agricultural and pastoral land of considerable rich- 
 ness, and is spoken of in the guise of a laborer 
 and bearer of burdens. The name " Dan " means 
 a judge, and there is an apparent allusion to the 
 time when a small settlement on the Philistine 
 border got the better of a powerful enemy for 
 a while, and furnished one of the most famous 
 "judges of Israel." That exploit may have raised 
 it to the dignity of the "tribe" which afterwards 
 settled in the North. Gad on the eastern frontier 
 was exposed to marauding attacks, which it con- 
 stantly repelled, and Asher on the rich western 
 slope furnished dainties to the markets of Phoe- 
 nicia. The nimble warriors of the heights, whence
 
 326 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Deborah summoned Barak, were a " hind let 
 loose," who gave " good words," whether liter- 
 ally in battle songs or figuratively in giving good 
 account of themselves, who can say ? But it is 
 to be observed of these six names of tribes, that 
 nowhere in the patriarchal stories do the two 
 youngest sons of Leah, or the four offspring of 
 handmaidens, assume any personal individuality. 
 They are mere names, or are included in the 
 general designation of " sons of Jacob " or 
 "brethren of Joseph," without separate identity. 
 As tribes, they were scarcely more than " geo- 
 graphical expressions." They had no autonomy. 
 Joseph is the one upon whom the blessings of 
 a dying father are lavished, with promise of ex- 
 pansion and triumph. This stamps the poem as 
 an Ephraimite production beyond question, and 
 suggests a time of ambitious hopes in the Northern 
 land. But poor little Benjamin does not appear 
 as the favorite brother of Joseph and the beloved 
 child of his father. He personifies rather the 
 characteristics of that violent band of warriors 
 that made a new Sodom of Gibeah in the time 
 of the Judges, and brought upon them the wrath 
 of the other tribes by the outrage upon the poor 
 Levite who tarried there with his concubine from 
 Bethlehem-Judah.
 
 POETICAL DESCRIPTION OF TRIBES 327 
 
 A later and less poetical picture of the tribes 
 is found in the so-called blessing of Moses, 
 delivered when he was about to die in sight of 
 the promised land, which is contained in the 
 thirty-third chapter of Deuteronomy. It is traced 
 in part upon the lines of the earlier composition, 
 but breathes a kindlier spirit. Simeon has dis- 
 appeared, but there is an appeal that Reuben 
 may live, and the priestly character of Levi 
 is recognized while the violence formerly at- 
 tributed to him is forgotten. The power of 
 Judah is much abated, while the blessing of 
 Joseph continues, and Benjamin is referred to 
 with kindness. It is interesting to compare the 
 two poems, as presenting a view of the tribes 
 at different periods after their union, and as 
 throwing light upon the use of their names in 
 the ethnic myths. 
 
 [XLIX 1-28] 
 
 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said : Gather 
 yourselves together, that I may tell you that which 
 shall befall you in the latter days. 
 Assemble yourselves, and hear, ye sons of Jacob ; 
 And hearken unto Israel your father. 
 
 Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the 
 beginning of my strength ;
 
 328 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 The pre-eminence of dignity, and the pre-eminence 
 
 of power. 
 Boiling over as water, thou shalt not have the 
 
 pre-eminence, 
 Because thou wentest up to thy father's bed ; 
 Then defiledst thou it : he went up to my couch. 
 
 Simeon and Levi are brethren ; 
 
 Weapons of violence are their compacts. 
 
 My soul will not come into their council ; 
 
 Unto their assembly my glory shall not be united ; 
 
 For in their anger they slew a man, 
 
 And in their selfwill they houghed an ox. 
 
 Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce ; 
 
 And their wrath, for it was cruel : 
 
 I will divide them in Jacob, 
 
 And scatter them in Israel. 
 
 [Judah, thee shall thy brethren praise ; 
 
 Thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies ; 
 
 Thy father's sons shall bow down before thee. 1 ] 
 
 Judah is a lion's whelp ; 
 
 From the prey, my son, thou art returned. 
 
 He stooped down, he couched as a lion, 
 
 And as a lioness ; who shall rouse him up? 
 
 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, 
 
 Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, 
 
 Until Shiloh come ; 
 
 And unto him shall the obedience of the peoples be. 
 
 1 There is a question whether these three lines have not been 
 displaced from the reference to Joseph with a substitution of names.
 
 POETICAL DESCRIPTION OF TRIBES 329 
 
 Binding his foal unto the vine, 
 And his ass's colt unto the choice vine, 
 He hath washed his garments in wine, 
 And his vesture in the blood of grapes ; 
 His eyes shall be red with wine, 
 And his teeth white with milk. 
 
 Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea, 
 And he shall be for an haven of ships ; 
 And his border shall be upon Zidon. 
 
 Issachar is a strong ass, 
 
 Couching down between the sheepfolds ; 
 
 And he saw a resting place that it was good, 
 
 And the land that it was pleasant ; 
 
 And he bowed his shoulder to bear, 
 
 And became a servant under taskwork. 
 
 [Dan shall judge his people, 
 
 As one of the tribes of Israel.] 
 
 Dan shall be a serpent in the way, 
 
 An adder in the path, 
 
 That biteth the horse's heels, 
 
 So that his rider falleth backward. 
 
 [I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.] 
 
 Gad, a troop shall press upon him ; 
 But he shall press upon their heel. 
 
 Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, 
 And he shall yield royal dainties. 
 
 Naphtali is a hind let loose ; 
 He giveth goodly words.
 
 330 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Joseph is a fruitful bough, 
 A fruitful bough by a fountain ; 
 His branches run over the wall. 
 The archers have sorely grieved him, 
 And shot at him, and persecuted him ; 
 But his bow abode in strength, 
 And the arms of his hands were made strong, 
 By the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, 
 (From thence is the shepherd, the rock of Israel,) 
 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee, 
 And by the Almighty, who shall bless thee, 
 With blessings of heaven above, 
 Blessings of the deep that coucheth beneath, 
 Blessings of the breasts, and of the womb. 
 The blessings of thy father 
 
 Have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors 
 Unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. 
 They shall be on the head of Joseph, 
 And on the crown of the head of him that was sepa- 
 rate from his brethren. 
 
 Benjamin is a wolf that ravineth ; 
 
 In the morning he shall devour the prey, 
 
 And at even he shall divide the spoil. 
 
 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel ; and this 
 is it that their father spake unto them and blessed 
 them ; every one according to his blessing he 
 blessed them.
 
 XLII 
 
 THE BURIAL OF JACOB 
 
 The beginning and end of the following pas- 
 sage relating to the burial of Jacob, which are 
 put in brackets, are from the Elohist document 
 and connect with each other. The accounts of 
 the purchase of the cave of Machpelah and the 
 burial there of Sarah, Abraham, and Isaac in 
 previous chapters, are from the same source, as 
 we have seen. The Jehovist associated Jacob 
 mostly with Bethel and Shechem, as he asso- 
 ciated Isaac only with Beersheba. In the ac- 
 count of Jacob's first going to Shechem after his 
 return from Paddan-aram, it is said that he 
 bought a parcel of ground there of the children 
 of Hamor, and in the Book of Joshua it is stated 
 that the bones of Joseph, "which the children 
 of Israel brought up out of Egypt," they buried 
 in that parcel of ground. In the account of 
 Jacob's burial which follows the Elohist fragment 
 below, the reference in the original material is 
 probably to this place. This account is com- 
 
 33i
 
 332 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 plcte in itself and seems to have connected origi- 
 nally with what is now the end of chapter xlvii., 
 where Jacob is said to have summoned Joseph 
 to his death bed and made him swear to carry 
 him out of Egypt and bury him in the " burying- 
 place " of his fathers. 
 
 Joseph is now represented as saying that his 
 father had made him swear to bury him in a 
 grave which he had himself bought in the land of 
 Canaan. It seems a little strange to find Joseph 
 making his application to Pharaoh through inter- 
 mediaries of the king's household. The embalm- 
 ing and the mourning appear to be according to 
 known Egyptian custom, but the funeral cortege, 
 with " horses and chariots," and the dignitaries 
 of Egypt, passing through all that wilderness of 
 Pharan, is a sharp reminder of the unreality 
 of the whole description regarded as a matter 
 of personal history. There is also a reminder of 
 the fallibility of the process of deriving events 
 from names, which was so common with the 
 myth-makers of Israel. There was a plain, not 
 far from Jericho east of the Jordan, which was 
 called Abel-Mizraim, for some unknown reason, 
 but that meant " field of the Egyptians " and 
 not " mourning of the Egyptians." The mis- 
 taken derivation which formed the suggestion of
 
 THE BURIAL OF JACOB 333 
 
 the whole incident came from confounding Ebel, 
 "mourning," with Abel, "field." In the old He- 
 brew writing no vowels were used, and it is likely 
 that the distinction of vowel sounds was not always 
 kept clear in oral speech. Of the perversion of 
 the names of places on account of similarity of 
 sound with something else there are many modern 
 instances. 
 
 [XLIX 29-L 13] 
 
 [And he charged them, and said unto them, I am 
 to be gathered unto my people ; bury me with my 
 fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the 
 Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpe- 
 lah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, 
 which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron 
 the Hittite for a possession of a buryingplace. 
 There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife ; 
 there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife ; and 
 there I buried Leah : the field and the cave that is 
 therein, which was purchased from the children of 
 Heth. And when Jacob made an end of charging 
 his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and 
 yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his 
 people.] 
 
 And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept 
 upon him, and kissed him. And Joseph com- 
 manded his servants the physicians to embalm his 
 father ; and the physicians embalmed Israel. And 
 forty days were fulfilled for him ; for so are fulfilled
 
 334 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 the days of embalming ; and the Egyptians wept for 
 him threescore and ten days. 
 
 And when the days of weeping for him were past, 
 Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If 
 now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray 
 you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, My father made 
 me swear, saying, Lo, I die : in my grave which I 
 bought for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt 
 thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I 
 pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come 
 again. 
 
 And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, 
 according as he made thee swear. And Joseph 
 went up to bury his father ; and with him went up 
 all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, 
 and all the elders of the land of Egypt, and all the 
 house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's 
 house ; only their little ones, and their flocks, and 
 their herds, they left in the land of Goshen. 
 
 And there went up with him both chariots and 
 horsemen, and it was a very great company. And 
 they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is 
 beyond Jordan, and there they lamented with a 
 very great and sore lamentation ; and he made a 
 mourning for his father seven days. And when the 
 inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the 
 mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a 
 grievous mourning to the Egyptians : wherefore the 
 name of it was called Abel-mizraim, which is beyond 
 Jordan. 
 
 [And his sons did unto him according as he com-
 
 THE BURIAL OF JACOB 335 
 
 manded them; for his sons carried him unto the 
 land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the 
 field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with 
 the field, for a possession of a buryingplace, of 
 Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.]
 
 XLIII 
 
 THE END OF JOSEPH 
 
 With the completion of the story of Joseph 
 the purpose of the patriarchal myths is fulfilled. 
 The origin of the tribes, their characteristics and 
 their relation to each other, have been accounted 
 for; the sacred places of the nation have been 
 hallowed with memories of the people's earliest 
 ancestors ; the possession of the land has been 
 attributed to divine promise many times repeated, 
 to early occupation, and the consecration of an- 
 cestral graves ; obedience to Jehovah's commands 
 and devotion to his worship have been made a 
 solemn obligation through the compacts of the 
 venerable forefathers of the Hebrew race; and 
 finally the sojourn in Egypt, leading to the bond- 
 age and deliverance of which there had been 
 traditions for centuries, has been explained as 
 the result of divine care in preserving the people 
 in a time of terrible and protracted famine. 
 
 Through the series of stories runs the exalta- 
 tion of the offspring of Abraham over all other 
 peoples, the elevation of the Israelite branch 
 
 336
 
 THE END OF JOSEPH 337 
 
 over the Ishmaelite and Edomite, and finally 
 the glorification of the family of Joseph, consti- 
 tuting the kingdom of the North, in which the 
 main substance of the myths in their original 
 form was produced. 
 
 Joseph's mission in Egypt being fulfilled, he 
 is represented as dying, while his brothers live 
 on, and as making them swear to carry his 
 bones up out of Egypt when the time of their 
 deliverance should come. The naive passing 
 from the phrase " his brethren " to the " chil- 
 dren of Israel," leads one to think that the 
 writer was wholly conscious of the mythical 
 quality of his narrative, and had no notion of 
 its being received as ordinary matter of fact. 
 Indeed, historical fact was something beyond the 
 recognition or the conception of those ancient 
 scribes. We notice one of the constant charac- 
 teristics of their method in the general mention 
 of Ephraim's "children" and of Manasseh's son 
 by name, the fact being that the powerful tribe 
 of Ephraim was never divided, whereas there 
 was a branch of that of Manasseh known as 
 Machirites, on the east side of the Jordan. 
 
 Another characteristic touch, indicative of a 
 primitive moral standard in matters of truth, 
 appears in the little episode of the reconciliation 
 z
 
 338 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 after the father's death, in which the brothers 
 pretend that he left a dying injunction to Joseph 
 to forgive their transgression. It would have 
 been easy to represent the patriarch as deliver- 
 ing this injunction for himself, but the primitive 
 writer and the compiler of the material alike 
 had as little conception of literary art as of any 
 necessity of giving a semblance of candor to 
 their characters. The quality was not valued by 
 their race and time. 
 
 [L 14-26] 
 
 And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his 
 brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his 
 father, after he had buried his father. And when 
 Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, 
 they said, It may be that Joseph will hate us, and 
 will fully requite us all the evil which we did unto 
 him. 
 
 And they sent a message unto Joseph, saying, Thy 
 father did command before he died, saying, So shall 
 ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, 
 the transgression of thy brethren, and their sin, for 
 that they did unto thee evil ; and now, we pray 
 thee, forgive the transgression of the servants of the 
 God of thy father. 
 
 And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. 
 And his brethren also went and fell down before his 
 face ; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.
 
 THE END OF JOSEPH 339 
 
 And Joseph said unto them, Fear not ; for am I in 
 the place of God ? And as for you. ye meant evil 
 against me ; but God meant it for good, to bring to 
 pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. 
 Now therefore fear ye not ; I will nourish you, and 
 your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake 
 kindly unto them. 
 
 [And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father's 
 house ; and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years.] 
 
 And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third 
 generation ; the children also of Machir the son of 
 Manasseh were born upon Joseph's knees. And 
 Joseph said unto his brethren, I die ; but God will 
 surely visit you, and bring you up out of this land 
 unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, 
 and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the 
 children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, 
 and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. So 
 Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old ; 
 and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin 
 in Egypt.
 
 THE UNKNOWN HOMER OF THE 
 HEBREWS
 
 THE UNKNOWN HOMER OF THE 
 HEBREWS 1 • 
 
 The Hellenic Homer was separated from the 
 era of authentic Greek history and literature by 
 a space of centuries almost blank to modern 
 scholars. Dispute about his time and place, his 
 personality and work, began as early as Herodo- 
 tus, and has never ended. Whether he wrote or 
 recited, and whether the oldest literary dialect of 
 the Greeks had graphic form in his day, are not 
 wholly settled questions. It has been disputed 
 whether the work to which his name was attached 
 was wholly or mainly his. The two great epics 
 have been resolved by some into a series of dac- 
 tylic tales and ballads, chanted and developed by 
 more than one minstrel, and finally wrought into a 
 continuous web of pictured lays. 
 
 But Homer came down to historic time in 
 Greece as a name, and it stood for the genius who 
 in unrecorded days sang deeds of heroes, and 
 wove in immortal verse the " tale of Troy divine," 
 and the adventurous wanderings of the returning 
 
 1 Reprinted from The New World, March, 1897. 
 343
 
 34-1- TIIE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 Odysseus. It came to stand for an imposing per- 
 sonality, more revered for the mystery out of 
 which it came, more distinct to the imagination 
 because of the little knowledge men had of its 
 reality. 
 
 Almost contemporaneous with Homer, the epic 
 genius of the Hebrews wrought in silence and 
 obscurity, but in the midst of a stirring time in the 
 experience of that ancient people, and after the 
 opening of a literary period which closed only 
 with their history. It was an age of records more 
 continuous and complete, more authentic and 
 better preserved, than any other of equal antiq- 
 uity ; and yet, if the name of the writer who con- 
 tributed the grandest part to the Epic of Israel 
 ever emerged into the light, it was soon lost. His 
 work was broken in pieces and wrought with other 
 material into a composite fabric of perdurable 
 strength, and his personality was effaced. For 
 twenty-five centuries and more, the Homer of the 
 Hebrews has been without name and without 
 personal identity. 
 
 It is one of the triumphs of modern Biblical 
 research to have rescued the Hebrew genius from 
 the oblivion in which it was buried by ages of 
 superstition and imperfect knowledge. For a long 
 time the ancient incrustations and the later de-
 
 UNKNOWN HOMER OF THE HEBREWS 345 
 
 posits of bones and dust were guarded by the 
 fierce glare of religous faith ; but of late the pro- 
 tecting blaze has subsided, and, in the sober light 
 of knowledge and reason, excavations have been 
 made which reveal the true character of the hid- 
 den treasure. In this the work of the Hebrew 
 Homer is easily traced by its golden quality, 
 broken and mixed as it is with baser metal. 
 
 In that sacred history of the ancient Hebrews 
 into whose texture the "laws" of Judaism were 
 woven after the restoration of the temple by the 
 returned captives of Babylon, critics have been 
 able to distinguish with clearness certain superior 
 material which has come to be known as the 
 "Jehovist document." Curtailed as it had been, 
 and somewhat mingled with other substance, it is 
 for the most part separable from the rest. It was 
 in the process of later combination that this pre- 
 cious document became broken and deranged, and 
 imbedded in a conglomerate mass. 
 
 Study of the Hellenic Homer's work in relation 
 to events and authorship is much more a matter 
 of conjecture now than study of the writings of 
 the Hebrew Homer, whose early obscurity and 
 later oblivion were due to circumstances peculiar 
 to the character and history of Israel. The people 
 of Ephraim had drifted from an exclusive devotion
 
 346 the myths of Israel 
 
 to Jehovah from the time that Jeroboam set up his 
 symbols of worship at Bethel and Dan. The 
 Phoenician princess, whom Ahab made his queen, 
 established the luxurious cult of Baal and Astarte 
 above the humbler forms of worship of the God 
 of Israel, and pursued the prophets with cruel 
 persecutions, driving those who escaped slaughter 
 to the mountains and caves. But after Jehu 
 had accomplished his bloody revolution, and 
 dogs had eaten the flesh of Jezebel in the streets 
 of Jezreel, there was a revival of the ancient 
 faith and the teachers of Israel began their great 
 work. 
 
 It was not far from this time that the epic genius 
 appeared who wove from shreds of Chaldean fable 
 and Phoenician myth the marvellous tale of the 
 early world, and out of ancestral traditions that 
 had sprung from familiar names and places 
 wrought the story of the covenant with Abraham, 
 the inheritance of Jacob, and the great deliverance 
 from the bondage of Egypt, which put the people 
 of Israel under such tremendous obligation of sub- 
 mission and fidelity to Jehovah their God. To 
 impress them with this, and to secure their obedi- 
 ence to commands necessary to hold them to their 
 allegiance, was doubtless the main purpose of 
 this writer, but he displayed a creative genius in
 
 UNKNOWN HOMER OF THE HEBREWS 347 
 
 dealing with his material which has never been 
 excelled in power. 
 
 While the parts of the ancient record into 
 which the work of the great Jehovist was wrought 
 are easily distinguished from the rest, we cannot 
 tell how far he made use of material already exist- 
 ing in written or unwritten form, any more than 
 we can tell how far Homer derived the episodes 
 of the Iliad and the Odyssey from the floating 
 tales and traditions of the time, and how far they 
 were creations of his own brain. But there is no 
 doubt that he gave a certain unity to what was 
 before detached and incoherent, and transmuted 
 his material with the fiery touch of genius that 
 gave it durability and an unfading lustre. It is to 
 the Jehovist writer that we owe the never-to-be- 
 forgotten pictures of the Books of Genesis and 
 Exodus. 
 
 Oppressed with what seemed to be a hopeless 
 tendency to evil in mankind in his own day, but 
 inspired by an invincible faith in the righteousness 
 of Israel's God, and by a yearning for the purity 
 and simplicity of the days when Israel's fore- 
 fathers dwelt in tents, the Jehovist gave us the 
 immortal story of the Garden of Eden and the fall 
 of man, in which there was a strain of profound 
 philosophy that has pervaded religious doctrine 
 
 1
 
 348 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 ever since. His sombre theory of human de- 
 pravity was carried still further in the story of 
 Cain and Abel, which showed that the innocent 
 offspring of the first couple was slain, and only 
 the guilty propagated the early generations of 
 men, evolving but a single family worthy of pres- 
 ervation, when a disappointed deity destroyed 
 the rest with a great flood. Little of the story 
 of the Deluge, as it has come down to us, is from 
 the pen of the Jehovist, but it was he who ex- 
 plained the event as the result of the repentance 
 and grief of the Lord that he had made man, 
 because " every imagination of the thoughts of 
 his heart was only evil continually." He gave 
 the touches most vividly remembered of the dis- 
 mal rain of forty days and forty nights, the resting 
 of the ark on Mount Ararat, and the sending forth 
 of the raven and the dove ; and he gave the hope- 
 less turn to the covenant of the Lord, in return 
 for sacrifice, that he would curse the ground no 
 more for man's sake, " for that the imagination of 
 his heart is evil from his youth." Touches of the 
 same gloomy philosophy appear in the dispersion 
 of the presumptuous tower-builders of Shinar. 
 
 It is in the Jehovist document that we can 
 trace a continuous line of ethnic myths with 
 wonderful depth and variety of meaning. The
 
 UNKNOWN HOMER OF THE HEBREWS 349 
 
 writer had at his command, in oral or written 
 form, stories of the patriarchs, or imagined an- 
 cestors of the people; some of them perhaps 
 existed in more than one version, but it was in 
 the use made of them that the power of his 
 genius mainly appears. The common progenitor 
 of the Semitic peoples was consecrated as the 
 special ancestor of Israel by a covenant with 
 the Lord (Jehovah); and it is the Jehovist who 
 gives us the impressive picture of the wanderer 
 from Ur of the Chaldees beneath the number- 
 less stars, when a deep sleep and a horror of 
 great darkness fell upon him, as the solemn 
 prophecy of affliction and deliverance was made, 
 and the weird vision of a smoking furnace and 
 a flaming torch passed over the sacrifice of the 
 covenant. 
 
 The line of the ethnic myths of Israel is clearly 
 traceable in the writings of the Jehovist, from 
 Ararat to Sinai. The curse of Canaan for the 
 gross filial disrespect of one of the sons of 
 Noah was enough to justify and explain the 
 contempt and menial servitude in which the 
 tribes were held that Israel had subjugated. 
 Early death was a sign of divine disfavor, and 
 before Abram set out to take possession of the 
 land which was to be the heritage of his pos-
 
 350 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 tcrity, the brother died who was to be the an- 
 cestor of Israel's traditional enemies, Moab and 
 Amnion ; and though his son Lot, through 
 Abram's intervention, was saved from the fate 
 of Sodom, it was in hideous incest that the 
 hated Moabites and Ammonites had their origin. 
 
 The people of the Arabian deserts were thrust 
 out from the family of Abraham in the quaint 
 story of Ishmael and his Egyptian mother, while 
 Israel's origin was sanctified by divine promise 
 in the only son of the " princess " (Sarah), 
 whose very name (Isaac) was expressive of joy. 
 In the charming tale of the marriage of Isaac 
 with Rebekah is figured the ancient amity with 
 Syria, and in it also the later alliance of that 
 country with Northern Israel is sanctified. Most 
 deeply expressive of all mythic stories is that of 
 the twin children of the Syrian mother, the war- 
 like hunters of the red and shaggy region of 
 Edom and Mount Seir, and the peaceful dwellers 
 in tents who supplanted these by superiority of 
 mental resource and the potency of paternal 
 blessing. 
 
 In the lonely journey of Jacob to the land of 
 his mother's nativity, and the vision of renewed 
 promise on the ancient height of Luz, there is 
 a strain of exalted poetry. As Jacob embodied
 
 UNKNOWN HOMER OF THE HEBREWS 351 
 
 with marvellous condensation the characteristics 
 of Israel as a race, so in the birth of his sons 
 by the two Syrian wives and their handmaids 
 was figured with a few clear strokes the origin 
 and relationship of the tribes. Again, the su- 
 perior skill of Israel and the success that comes 
 from divine favor were illustrated in the ac- 
 quisition of Laban's property, and out of the 
 jealousy and quarrels which it engendered came 
 the ancient division of possessions and the es- 
 tablishment of the bounds of Syria. 
 
 The story of Joseph, which has charmed so 
 many generations of the children of men, both 
 young and old, is at once an exaltation of the 
 people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and 
 a mythical explanation of the falling of the 
 tribes under the sway of Egypt, and their pres- 
 ervation there until deliverance came. The form 
 in which we have it is a blending of two different 
 versions, but it is in the epic material of the 
 Jehovist that we find those episodes and ex- 
 pressions that always live in the memory. It is 
 he who tells us of the father's peculiar affec- 
 tion, and of its token in the long-sleeved tunic 
 (the " coat of many colors "), and of the tri- 
 umphant test of virtue in the house of the 
 Egyptian master. The experience in prison,
 
 352 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 and the liberation through the interpretation of 
 dreams, are from another hand, as, for the most 
 part, is the account of the exaltation to power 
 and the first visit of the famine-stricken brethren. 
 But all the touching passages with reference to 
 the sad old patriarch in the land of Canaan, 
 and his tender fondness for the remaining child 
 of his old age ; the yearning of Pharaoh's officer, 
 amid his grandeur, toward the humble visitors 
 from his father's house, and especially for the 
 one brother who was his own mother's son ; 
 Judah's pathetic plea, and Joseph's weeping reve- 
 lation of himself, — in short, all those strokes 
 that touch the everlasting fountains of human 
 joy and sorrow, — came from the Homeric teller 
 of Israel's ancient story. 
 
 But not alone the covenant and promise that 
 bound a heedless and faithless people to sub- 
 mission to their mighty deity was the theme of 
 that ancient and unknown genius of the Hebrew 
 race. He had to tell of the still more sacred 
 bond of gratitude that came from the fulfilment 
 of promise in the deliverance from Egyptian 
 bondage, the passage of a drear and hostile 
 wilderness, and full possession of the land which 
 the people now enjoyed. Centuries had gone 
 by, and traditions of those wonderful experi-
 
 UNKNOWN HOMER OF THE HEBREWS 353 
 
 ences, which had long passed from generation 
 to generation by word of mouth, had grown 
 dim. The conflicts of the kingdoms, the lapses 
 from the worship of Jehovah, the making of 
 written records, and the diversion of men's minds 
 from the treasured past, were making the people 
 forgetful of their sacred heritage and their obli- 
 gations to the national God. 
 
 No doubt the traditions of deliverance from 
 Egyptian bondage gathered around the name 
 of Moses, who had held the escaping people to 
 obedience and discipline through fear of the 
 terrible deity in whose name he spoke ; but it 
 was the Jehovist writer who created the august 
 figure of the deliverer and the lawgiver which 
 has overshadowed Judaism to this day. Not all 
 of the story of the Exodus is from his pen, but 
 to him we owe the picture of Moses as a herds- 
 man in Midian when the God of his people re- 
 vealed himself in fire in the wilderness of Mount 
 Horeb and gave the promise of deliverance. It 
 was he who first told of the signs and wonders 
 wherewith Pharaoh was constrained to let the 
 people go, — of the guidance by flame and 
 smoke ; the passage of the Red Sea ; and the 
 awful theophany of Mount Sinai, when the trum- 
 pet blew so loud. All this led up to the first 
 2 A
 
 ^54 THE MYTHS OF ISRAEL 
 
 divine commands whose ineffaceable durability 
 was symbolized by the writing of God's finger 
 on tables of stone. 
 
 The grandiose conceptions of this writer, and 
 the power with which he gave them expression, 
 make him the veritable Homer of the Hebrews, 
 albeit his purpose was so much more than his 
 personality that men failed to record his name. 
 Personality and authorship were deemed of no ac- 
 count when his work was used as raw material and 
 mingled with other matter by a prosaic compiler. 
 The work, broken and disfigured though it be, can 
 be identified, but the author remains in mystery. 
 
 The composition of the work perhaps began 
 in those troublous days of Ahab and Jezebel, 
 when the prophets were slain or driven to con- 
 cealment in the caves of the mountains. There 
 is suggested a coincidence in ancient Hebrew his- 
 tory that fascinates the imagination. The epi- 
 sodes of Elijah and Elisha, incorporated in the 
 Book of Kings, with their miracles and marvels, 
 were mostly taken from the Ziaggadas of a time 
 much later than the events with which they are 
 connected. But they give us the picture of one 
 of those potent prophets who always appeared 
 as watchmen of the Lord in Israel in critical 
 times. He may have lurked here and there on
 
 UNKNOWN HOMER OF THE HEBREWS 355 
 
 the borders of Syria or Phoenicia, getting word 
 of the wicked ways of Ahab, who sought his 
 death as a "trembler of Israel." He may have 
 sojourned in obscure abodes and concealed him- 
 self from time to time on Mount Carmel. In 
 moods of desperation he may have retired to 
 the solitudes of Mount Horeb and found new 
 inspiration in the " still, small voice " of God in 
 the desert wildernesses. Watching for his hour 
 and covering his movements with mystery, he 
 may have had a decisive hand in the revolutions 
 at Damascus and Samaria when Hazael and Jehu 
 usurped the thrones of Benhadad and Ahab, and 
 made way for the revival of Jehovah's power in 
 the land of Ephraim. 
 
 If this be so, may not one of the productions 
 of the great religious ferment, which then began, 
 have been the sacred history of Israel which em- 
 bodied the covenant with Abraham, the promise 
 to Jacob, the preservation by Joseph, the deliver- 
 ance through Moses, and set forth the com- 
 mands of the great Jehovah ? May not the 
 author of this production have been the myste- 
 rious prophet of Mount Carmel who was the 
 terror of Jezebel and the hope of Israel in a 
 dark and bloody time, and whose personality was 
 veiled behind the names of Elijah and Elisha ?
 

 
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