CONCLUDING REMARKS. 51 These circumstances seem to point to a mixed descent, partly from the Caucasian, and partly from the Negro race. 5. The American race is a name given in common to the war like hunting tribes who peopled the forests and prairies of North America, the more civilized people who founded cities and kingdoms in the Centre, and the savages of the South; though the unity of all these requires further proof. The chief existing type is to be seen in the so-called Indians of North America. Their main distinction is a copper-coloured complexion, with thin lank hair. Their physical perfection, noble carriage, and manly courage, point to a Caucasian origin, while in language and manners they have many points of resemblance to the Turanians; so that a mixture of these two races appears to supply the most probable account of their origin. The ancient Greeks held that the first inhabitants of every land were sprung from the soil; and the nobles of Athens wore golden grasshoppers in token that they boasted to be Autochthons. The Latin races expressed the same belief by the word Aborigines, which modern usage has adopted. But it is scarcely necessary to say, that by an aboriginal people we now mean simply the earliest known inhabitants of their country. In concluding this chapter, we must emphatically repeat, that the enquiry of which it treats is as yet only in its infancy; but we seem at length to have reached a stage in which the intrinsic difficulties of the subject need no longer be enhanced by a wilful conflict between science and authority. In what remains to be done, no caution perhaps is more necessary than to bear in mind that the diffusion of our race cannot be accounted for by any single movement from its common centre. We must take into account, not only the successive impulses which have followed one another at long intervals, but the flux and reflux of the great tides of population. Every such wave has left behind it traces as marked as those of the waters which have covered the lands during the great geological periods. But their traces are the nations, languages, monuments, and customs of living men, whose vital action has worked changes much more difficult to classify than the strata of dead matter. All that has been done, however, has tended to confirm that great primeval document, "The Book of the Generations of the Sons of Noah." CHAPTER V. EARLY HISTORY OF THE HEBREW RACE-FROM THE CALL OF ABRAHAM TO THE EXODUS, B.C. 1921-1491. "Thus will this latter, as the former world, From all the rest, of whom to be invoked A nation from one faithful man to spring."-MILTON. THE HEBREWS NOT THE MOST ANCIENT NATION-REASON FOR THEIR PRECEDENCE-THE LINE OF SHEM TO ABRAHAM-UR OF THE CHALDEES, ITS PROBABLE SITE-CALL OF ABRAHAM AND MIGRATION OF TERAH'S FAMILY-FIRST SETTLEMENT AT CHARRAN-ABRAM'S JOURNEY INTO CANAAN TO THE VALLEY OF SHECHEM-REMOVAL TO EGYPT AND RETURN TO BETHEL-SEPARATION FROM LOT-THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN-EXPEDITION OF CHEDORLAOMER-THE TRIBES OF THE CANAANITES-ABRAM AT HEBRON-HIS SUBSEQUENT HISTORY-BIRTH AND MARRIAGE OF ISAAC-DEATH OF SARAH-BIRTH OF ESAU AND JACOB-DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRHA-ORIGIN OF THE NATIONS OF MOAB AND AMMON, THE ISHMAELITE AND KETURAÏTE ARABS-LIFE OF ISAAC-ESAU AND JACOB-THE EDOMITES-JACOB IN PADAN-ARAMHIS RETURN TO CANAAN-AFFAIRS AT SHECHEM-JOURNEY TO THE SOUTH-REMOVAL INTO EGYPT THE CAPTIVITY-CLOSE OF THE PATRIARCHAL AGE-THE EXODUS-AN EPOCH IN THE WORLD'S HISTORY. Out of all the nations that sprang from the three sons of Noah, the sacred history, which is still our only positive authority, begins with the story of the Hebrew race. Not that this was the first of the nations in chronological order. It did not even become a nation till four hundred and thirty years after the call of Abraham; and his history furnishes abundant proofs that great cities had already been built, and mighty kingdoms established. The very name of his native place, Ur of the Chaldees, attests that it belonged to the dominions of the great Cushite empire which has already been mentioned in the Book of Genesis, and with which Abraham comes into conflict at a later period. Damascus is already an important city; and, as Abraham journeys to the south, he finds Egypt at a high pitch of wealth and power, to say nothing of the nations of the Canaanites and Philistines. The precedence given to Abraham's call has that moral significance, which forms the true life of history. It is the next event after the confusion of the Babel builders, in which the direct action of God's providence is seen, and the first step in that course of B.C. 1996.] BIRTH OF ABRAHAM AT UR OF THE CHALDEES. 50. moral government, to which all the affairs of the surrounding nations are secondary. Following the same order, we shall take up the history of those nations, as they come in contact with the main current of the story of the chosen race. The Scriptural genealogy follows the line of Shem to Abram, through ten generations and four hundred and fifty years; the birth of Shem being in B.C. 2446, and that of Abram in B.c. 1996, according to the received chronology. In the fifth generation, the line of Shem is divided into two by the two sons of Eber, Peleg and Joktan; of whom the latter became the ancestor of the older Arabs, while the descendants of the former were named, from the common ancestor, Hebrews. Thus Abraham is called the Hebrew (Gen. xiv. 13).* Four generations from Peleg bring us to Terah, the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran, the land of whose nativity was "Ur of the Chaldees." But this very statement of the locality raises a difficulty at the threshold. The prevailing opinion respecting the site of Ur identifies it with the Edessa of the Greeks, and the modern Orfah, in the extreme north of Mesopotamia, beyond the Euphrates, within the great bend which the river makes in descending from Armenia to Syria. This view is supported by the resemblance of name (which is perhaps more apparent than real), the local traditions about Abraham, and the fact that Charran, the first stage in the migration, the site of which is certainly known, lies on the high road to Palestine. The appellation “ Chaldæan " is explained on the assumption, either that the great Chaldæan empire had spread thus far to the north, or that these regions formed one at least of the early seats of the Chaldæan people. On the other hand, some of the most recent enquirers in this field place Ur at the very lowest part of the course of the Euphrates, on the right bank of the river, opposite to the confluence of the Shat-el-Hie, which unites it with the Tigris; once probably a maritime position, though now 120 miles inland. The site is marked by the ruins of Mugheir, a city dedicated to the Moon, and a sacred burial-place, as is proved by its innumerable tombs. This spot also possesses its traditions about Abraham. It seems to have been the great maritime city of the Chaldæan empire, and only second in importance to Babylon, if it did not even form a still earlier capital. * It is, however, only fair to mention the preference of some of the best Hebrew scholars for the purely geographical origin of the appellation, as signifying one from the other side of the Euphrates,=the Greek weрáτns. But this sense does not exclude the other. But how can we account for Abraham's journey thence to the land of Canaan by way of Charran, near the upper course of the Euphrates? It is answered, first, that this was no mere journey, but the migration of a whole patriarchal family, with their flocks and herds, which could make no safe passage across the desert. But, besides, it does not appear that Canaan was the first goal of the migration. Abram "was called to go into a land that God should show him, and he went forth, not knowing whither he went." The other branch of Terah's family, that of Nahor, clearly had another end for their journey, for they settled in the pasturages about Charran; and it would seem to have been here that Abram first learnt his final destination. According to this view, the movement was a great migration of the leading branch of the Semitic family, who had preserved the worship of the true God, retiring before the oppression and religious corruption of the Cushite sovereigns, and retracing their steps towards the highlands from which their fathers had descended.* Our knowledge is hardly ripe for a decision between these two views, but the latter is far too important not to be fully stated. The former has still powerful advocates, and must not be hastily rejected. From this ancient city of Ur, whatever may have been its true position, the family of Terah was called forth by a divine command addressed to Abram, who seems to have been the youngest of his three sons. We are expressly told that idolatry already prevailed in the land; and that it infected the family of Terah, as it did afterwards the Israelites in Egypt.† Oriental tradition has ascribed to Abram the most courageous attacks upon the idols, and miraculous deliverances from the rage of the idolaters; but the sacred history is content with the record of his faithful obedience to the divine command, which called him to found a great nation, who should preserve the worship and covenant of God, in some land as yet unknown to him, and which promised blessing and security to his descendants-nay more, a blessing through him to all the families of the earth. The whole family joined in the migration-the patriarch Terah, Abram's brother Nahor, and Lot the son of his other brother Haran, who had already died at Ur. The two daughters of Haran, Milcah and Sarai or Iscah, were married to their uncles, Nahor and Abram. Remote as is this event, such are the unchanged manners of those countries, that * Respecting the kingdom then established in Chaldæa, see Book II. chapter ix. Joshua xxiv. 2, 14. B.C. 1921.] THE CALL OF ABRAM. 61 the spectator of a caravan of Bedouins, with their flocks and herds, may at this day witness its outward appearance. The first permanent resting-place of the wanderers was Haran, or rather Charran, in Padan-Aram, or Upper Mesopotomia. The name describes the region; a place where the highlands sink down into fertile foot-hills, rich in pasturage. Such is the country that lies at the foot of Mount Masius, between the great bend of the Euphrates and the river Khabour, watered by the Belilk, which flows southwards into the Euphrates. Near its source is Orfah, the Ur of the popular belief, and about half-way down its course the unchanged name of Harran still marks the ancient site. Here Terah died; and here Nahor settled with his family, whom we find, in the next generation, preserving the selfish character displayed in such a choice; while Abram, with his nephew Lot, pressed onward, moved, as it would seem, by a renewal of the divine call. His stay at Charran was evidently long, and his wealth in cattle and slaves was greatly increased. He was seventy-five years old when he left Charran, in B.C. 1921. It was now revealed to him that his destination was the land of Canaan; and it would doubtless be a new trial of his faith, that he was called to live among that very Hamite race before whose power and wickedness he had fled from his first home. Two caravan routes lead from the Euphrates across the great Syrian Desert to the countries on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. The shorter and more northerly tends westward to the upper course of the Orontes, which the traveller follows upward into the deep valley of Colesyria, between the two great chains of Lebanon and Anti-Libanus. Emerging thence he finds himself at the sources of the Jordan, with the whole land of Palestine spread before him; a land formed by the hills which extend southward from the ranges of Lebanon to the peninsula of Arabia Petræa, breaking off on the east into the Desert, and sloping down on the west to the Mediterranean; divided from north to south by the great depression of the Jordan valley, and intersected from east to west by lateral valleys and plains. The other route strikes to the south-west; and, after a long journey across the Desert, divided by the oasis of Tadmor or Palmyra, reaches Damascus, one of the oldest and fairest cities of the world. It is built in an oasis, formed by the rivers Abana and Pharpar, with innumerable other streamlets, which descend from the eastern slope of Anti-Libanus, and are not lost in the Desert till they have clothed with verdure and beauty the plain over which the houses of the city lie scattered, embosomed |