The History of Antiquity (Vol. 1-6). Duncker Max

[581] Gen. xi. 10–32.

[582] Ezek. xxiii. 15; Deut. xxvi. 25; Joshua xxiv. 2.

[583] These are the numbers in the Hebrew text; in the Samaritan and Septuagint they are altered.—Nöldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 112. To the first text, chap, ii., 4–24 and iii., were added by the reviser; he inserted another genealogical table below the series of patriarchs in the original text from Adam to Noah (iv. 17 ff), and this table does not run like the first: Adam, Seth, Enos, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methusalah, Lamech, Noah, but gives the following order: (Enos) Adam, Cain, Enoch, Irad, Mahajael, Methusael, Lamech. To Lamech this narrator attached the origin of the shepherds, players on instruments, and workers in brass. Bunsen ("Ægypten," 5, 2, 62 ff), has drawn from this the conclusion that the Hebrews had really only seven patriarchs before the flood.

[584] Ptolemy. 6, 1.

[585] Kiepert, "Monatsberichte der Berl. Akademie," 1859, s. 200.

[586] Stephan. Byz. s. v. from Arrian; Nöldeke, "Untersuchungen," s. 16.

[587] Buttmann, "Mythol." 1, 235; Procop. "De Bell. P." 1, 17; Ewald, "Gesch. der V. Israel," 1, 358, 380; Bunsen, "Ægypten," 4, 450.

[588] The narrative of Hagar (Gen. xvi.) belongs to the first text; the additions to the revision; the account of the expulsion of Ishmael (Gen. xxi.) is from the Ephraimitic text.

[589] Gen. xiii. 5, 11, 12; xix. 29.

[590] Gen. xvii.

[591] Gen. xiv. De Wette-Schrader thinks the derivation from a written source probable ("Einleitung," s. 319).

[592] Gen. ix. 20–27; Schrader, "Studien und Kritiken," s. 166 ff.

[593] Gen. xxv. 19.

[594] Dillmann-Knobel, "Genesis," p. 313.

[595] Gen. xxxv. 9–15.

[596] Gen. xxviii. 11, 12, 17–22.

[597] Gen. xxviii. 13–16.

[598] Exod. xxiv. 17, "And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire." Exod. xix. 16, 18, "There were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly." Exod. xl. 38, "For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night;" cf. Numbers ix. 15, 16. Deut. iv. 15, "On the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire." Job i. 16, "The fire of God is fallen from heaven and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them." Numb. xvi. 35, "And there came out a fire from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense." Lev. x. 2, "And there went out a fire from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord." Exod. xxxiii. 3, "I will not go up in the midst of thee lest I consume thee in the way." Exod. xxxiii. 20, "Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live." Deut. v. 26, "Who is there of all flesh, that hath heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived." Lev. xvi. 2, "Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place … that he die not." Exod. xix. 21, "Charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish." Exod. xx. 19, "Let not God speak with us, lest we die." Judges xiii. 22, "We shall surely die, because we have seen God." 1 Sam. vi. 19, "And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord."

[599] Gen. xxxii. 24–32.

[600] Exod. iv. 24; xii. 1–18; xiii. 2, 12–14; xxxiv. 19; xxx. 11–16. From the sacrifice of Isaac, the redemption of the firstborn and the Paschal offering, the conclusion may be drawn that in the oldest times human sacrifices were not unknown to the Hebrews. If such took place they were not offered in the same manner as the Moloch-offerings of the Canaanites. If Jehovah appears in fire, the fire is not, to the Hebrews, his essence, but only a form or mode of appearance. Sacrifices like those offered to Moloch were forbidden by the earliest text (Levit. xviii. 22; xx. 2) under pain of death. The narrative of Jephthah's daughter lays especial stress on the sanctity of the vow. Of the other passages which come into consideration only one or two deal with sacrifices; the remainder have reference to executions. In Numbers xxv. 4, we find, "Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel." Jephthah vowed his daughter and sacrificed her, Judges xi. 30, 34. "And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal," 1 Samuel xv. 33. In 2 Samuel xxi. 6–9, the Gibeonites say, "Give us seven men of his sons that we may hang them before the Lord in Gibeah. And they hanged them up on the mountain before Jehovah."

[601] Gen. xiv. 6; Deut. ii. 12, 22.

[602] Gen. xxviii. 1–9; Gen. xxxvi. 3, 10, calls the daughter of Ishmael, Basmath; cf. supra, pp. 317, 406.

[603] Gen. xlviii. 1. On the places of worship at Beersheba and the "heights of Isaac" in Amos, cf. A. Bernstein, "Ursprung der Sagen," s. 14, 15.

      CHAPTER VIII.

      THE HEBREWS IN EGYPT.

       Table of Contents

      When the progenitors of the Hebrews had come from the Euphrates to Canaan, and had taken up their abode there at Hebron and Shechem, when Jacob and Esau had parted in peace, and the latter had gone to Mount Seir, Jacob, with all his sons, went to Egypt.

      Jacob dwelt at Hebron—so runs the narrative—when he sent Joseph, the son of Rachel, to his elder brethren in Shechem, to see if all was well with them and their flocks. But his brethren hated Joseph, because his father loved him more than them; and when they saw him coming, they said: We will slay him. But the eldest, Reuben, said: Shed no blood, but throw him into the pit yonder. This they did; they took from Joseph the coat which his father had made for him, and thrust him into the pit. Then there came a caravan of Ishmaelites from Gilead; their camels carried spices, balsam, and myrrh to Egypt. And his brethren took Joseph again out of the pit, and sold him to