From his encampment at Sichem, Abram removed by easy stages to the neighbourhood of Bethel, then called Luz. The Canaanites may have regarded with suspicion this stranger from a far country, and made his position in the open valley insecure; or the necessity of finding fresh pasturage for his numerous flocks and herds may have obliged him to change his quarters to the mountainous district between Bethel and Ai, towns about two miles apart. The site of Bethel, now Beitin, has never been lost. The village stands some ten miles north of Jerusalem on the great watershed which divides the country, and from it a steep incline leads down to Jericho eight miles distant. There are some perennial springs in the neighbourhood welling from the chalky rocks and keeping the herbage green amid the stony soil. The site of the altar which Abram built here has been placed by the late survey at the ruins of Burj Beitin on a little plateau, stony but fertile, east of the village.* In after times how many a solemn thought must have clustered round these altars thus witnessing to God in different localities ! Memories of ancestral achievements not committed to writing were preserved by these visible tokens. The tales of tradition were certified and represented in these external objects. Children yet unborn would recognize them as the work of their great forefather; they would see that the land was dedicated to the worship of Jehovah, and that it was destined to be their possession. They would realize the unseen; they would acknowledge the hand Divine that had guided him who erected these shrines, and they would trust their own future to its leading. Desolate and miserable as is now the appearance of Bethel, it has always been held in the highest honour as a sacred spot. The very scanty covering of soil on the rocks deprives it of verdure; and though there is an abundant supply of water in the valley collected into an immense reservoir which seems to be of great antiquity, yet it could never have been a good pasturage. "All the neighbourhood," says a late traveller,3 "is of grey, bare stone, or white chalk. The miserable fields are fenced in with stone walls, the hovels are rudely built of stone; the hill to the east is of hard rock, with only a few For "removed" (Gen. xii. 8) the Hebrew is “plucked up,” i.e. his tent pegs. He made frequent encampments.

2 "Survey Memoirs," ii. 295, 307.

3 C. R. Conder, "Tent Work,” p. 252.

scattered fig-gardens; the ancient sepulchres are cut in a low cliff, and a great reservoir south of the village is excavated in rock. The place seems as it were turned to stone, and we can well imagine that the lonely patriarch [Jacob] found nothing softer than a stone for the pillow under his head, when on the bare hillside he slept and dreamed of angels." In that most ancient religious sanctuary Abram pitched his tent; he watered his cattle at the springs in the reservoir, his maidens filled their pitchers at the same. From the heights above in after years the summit of Solomon's temple could be discerned ; and this spot, badly eminent for the base worship of the calf, was in sight of the mountain of Moriah, where the shrine of the true God of heaven and earth offered its silent protest against the novel idolatry of Jeroboam. The Bethel had then become Bethaven -the "House of God" had turned into a House of Vanity." Whether Luz in Abram's days was a royal city is not ascertained. It is mentioned in Joshua (chap. xiii. 16) as the seat of a Canaanitish king, but of its history before it came into the possession of the Israelites we know but little

CHAPTER V.

EGYPT.

Famine in Canaan-Ahram in Egypt-Condition of that country-The Hyksos; their civilization-Abram's policy-Sarai taken to Pharaoh's house; rescued by God's intervention.

A QUIET pastoral life Abram continued to lead, staying in one spot as long as food and water lasted, and when these failed removing to some more favoured locality, but "going on still toward the south," that southern tract of Palestine, which is called in the Hebrew Negeb. And everywhere as he went, he offered his sacrifice, and "called upon the name of the Lord.” He bade his own household to the worship of Jehovah, and, doubtless, as far as was possible, acted as a missionary to the benighted heathen around, preaching true religion and showing the faith that animated all his actions.

But now a new trial beset him. "God's athlete," as St. Ambrose says, "is exercised and hardened by adversity." The land which was promised to him, to which he clung as his future heritage, to which he had been so marvellously guided, could support him no longer. A mighty famine arose. He must leave his present position or starve for lack of water and grass. A country such as Canaan, only partially cultivated, with no artificial irrigation, and greatly dependent on the annual rainfall for the very existence of its pasture, often suffered from drought. Similar great famines are recorded as happening in the days of Elijah and Elisha; such are the visitations mentioned by the prophet Amos (iv. 6,7): "I have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places; 1 Kings xvii., xviii. ; 2 Kings viii. 1-6.

I

and also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest." In such emergencies the Palestinians naturally turned to Egypt, as we find them doing in the days of Joseph. In that country, though rain was not infrequent on the northern coasts, the river was the great fertilizer, and by its regular rise rendered the vast level plain through which it flowed a very paradise of fecundity. Thus, independent of local rainfall, Egypt was revelling in plenty when other districts were suffering from famine; and grass, and vegetables, and food of all kinds were to be had in abundance at all seasons of the year. Thither Abram betook himself "to sojourn" for a time. Nothing is said of his having asked counsel from heaven before taking this important step; and succeeding events lead rather to the inference that he trusted to his own judgment in this matter, and consequently fell into

error.

I

To determine the exact date of Abram's arrival in Egypt, and who was the Pharaoh whom he found upon the throne, is impossible. Josephus calls him in one place Nechaoh, and in another Pharaothes; other Jewish authorities name him Rikaion or Rakaion, adding that he came from Sinear, and obtained the royal dignity by force and fraud. Malala' gives him the name of Naracho, of which Rikaion seems to be a corruption, and which is probably the same as the Nechaoh of Josephus.3 That the Egypt even of that early date was a country of vast importance, and of venerable antiquity, is certain from the monuments which have survived; but the obscurity of its early annals has not yet been cleared up, nor is the chronology of its several dynasties accurately fixed. But it was probably between the sixth and eleventh dynasties, and during the dominion of the Hyksos or Shepherds, that Abram appeared in the land. The word Hyksos is the Egyptian hik shasu, "prince of the Shasu," or Bedouins. They were of Semitic origin; and issuing from Canaan and Arabia, they conquered the native princes, and established a strong government at Zoan or Tanis,

* "Bell. Jud." v. 9, 4; "Antiq." i. 8. I.

211 Chronogr." 71.

3 Beer, p. 128.

4 " Fresh Light from the Monuments," pp. 50 f. Birch, "Ancient Egypt," P. 75. The presumption in the text is doubted by Rawlinson ("History of Ancient Egypt," ii. 190), but it seems best to suit the circumstances.

which maintained its position for a period estimated variously at 160 or 500 years, and was with difficulty overthrown by Aahmes or Amosis, the founder of the eighteenth dynasty, after the time of Joseph. Though Abram found here a people of kindred blood, and speaking a language like his own, their manners and customs were far removed from the pristine simplicity of tent life, or the habits of uncultured nomads. They had become thoroughly Egyptian in dress and mode of life they called their ruler no longer shalat, the old Semitic title, but Pharaoh, like the people whom they had dispossessed; they had adopted the luxury and vices of their neighbours. They erected temples, and engraved sculptures, and set up their own images, quite in the manner of the vanquished natives. But they not only learned useful arts and sciences from the subject races; they also taught them some profitable knowledge. They introduced the practice of dating events from the first regnal year of their first king Set or Saïtes; they were the authors of a more realistic execution in sculpture; they established a system of military and civil organization; and they effected changes in the language and literature of the country which issued in increased production of records. We may judge

2

of the character of their rulers from the hints given in Scripture concerning the Pharaoh of Joseph's days, who has been identified with Apepi, the last of these monarchs. He "is no rude and savage nomad, but a mild, civilized and somewhat luxurious king," who has a grand court, lives in state, rewards his favourites, is beneficent to his subjects, and conciliating and mild to strangers. But the Egyptians, though they had a code of morality which was remarkably pure, and in many points anticipative of Christianity,3 were in practice most licentious, and paid no regard to the commonest precepts of purity. Sensuality was a chief business in life; drunkenness and gluttony were virtues ; luxury and pleasure were the objects of universal pursuit. The king indulged in a plurality of wives, and beautiful maidens were eagerly sought after to be taken into his harem. The zeal displayed by the nobles and officers of the Egyptian court in bringing to the king's notice beautiful women is well attested, and an illustration of it is preserved in the papyrus of Orbiney referred to by Ebers in his work “Ægypten * Rawlinson, "Ancient Egypt," ii. 194 f. 2 Ibid. ii. 203.

3 See the "Book of the Dead." Brugsch, "History of Egypt," p. 17.