6. THE TOWER OF BABEL.

[GENES. XI.]

From the highlands of Armenia, where the ark had rested after the Deluge, the earlier descendants of Noah migrated southward till they arrived in the beautiful and fertile plain of Shinar, situated between the two great rivers Euphrates and Tigris.

Foreseeing the vast increase of the human family, they determined to build a large city with a stupendous tower, to serve for all future time as a centre of unity to mankind. They not only desired to construct an imposing dwelling-place, but they intended to pile up a gigantic tower whose top might reach to heaven, and by which they might make themselves a name.' Thus filled with pride and vanity, they actually began the ambitious task. With brick for stone and bitumen for mortar, they pursued their work with vigour, and the town rose rapidly. But the Lord was displeased at their arrogance and haughtiness. Therefore, He confounded their language suddenly, so that they could not understand one another. Annoyed and bewildered, the workmen renounced their labour; and the city, commenced with such proud hopes but never completed, was called Babel, meaning confusion. Thus the Bible accounts for the perplexing diversity of languages, which thoughtful men might well have deplored as a serious impediment to the brotherly intercourse between nations.

After this sad tale of man's vanity and God's speedy punishment, the Bible returns to the history of Shem. The generations followed each other in quiet succession; they had to re-discover many of the arts lost by the Deluge; but their chief pursuits were probably those of agriculture and cattle-breeding. The representative of

the ninth generation after Noah was Terah, who became the father of three sons: Abram (later called Abraham), Nahor, and Haran. Haran had a son named Lot, and two daughters Milcah and Iscal. But Haran died before his father Terah. Nahor took Milcah for his wife; while Abram married his half-sister Sarai. Milcah bore many children to her husband, but Sarai was childless. family journeyed together from Ur of the Chaldees, with the intention of emigrating into the land of Canaan, but they stopped on their way at Haran. Here Terah died in the course of time at the age of two hundred and five years.

This

II. THE HISTORY OF THE HEBREW

PATRIARCHS.

[GENES. XII.-L.]

7. THE WANDERINGS OF ABRAM AND LOT.

[GENES. XII. XIII.]

ABRAM lived to his seventy-fifth year in his old Mesopotamian home; but he was to spend the remaining and most eventful portion of his life in distant lands. The first patriarch, the father of the chosen people, descended from an idolatrous family and born in a heathen country, was to leave all the old associations and give up all the old ties which might weaken his faith and courage, and was to wander forth to unknown tribes there to establish a new domicile.

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'Go out of thy country,' said God to him, and from the place of thy birth, and from thy father's house, into the land which I shall show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless thee, and curse him that curses thee; shall all nations of the earth be blessed.' It was a great and glorious promise, full of glad tidings to unborn generations, the first revelation which God vouchsafed to man since the days of Noah. When Abram, full of faith and

and in thee

obedience, heard the Divine word, he instantly prepared to go whither he knew not; it was enough for him that he left a land of superstition and idolatry. With him went Sarai his wife, Lot his nephew, and all the members of his household. They journeyed forth, like all nomadic herdsmen, driving their flocks and their herds before them, with their tents slung on poles.

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Arriving in Canaan, Abram passed through the land, till he halted for the first time in the vale of Shechem. It may have been the remarkable beauty of the spot which induced the patriarch there to pitch his tents, and to rest for a while beneath the oaks of Moreh. Here,' so tells us the traveller Van de Velde, 'here is no wilderness, no wild thicket, but always verdure, always shade, not of the oak, the terebinth, and the coral tree, but of the olive grove so soft in colour, so picturesque in form, that for its sake we can willingly dispense with all other wood. Here is no impetuous mountain torrent, yet water in more copious supplies than anywhere else in the land; and it is just to its many fountains, rills, and watercourses that the valley, which in some places does not exceed a hundred feet, owes its exquisite beauty.' But apart from the attractions of the scene, the fact of the plain of Shechem lying in the very centre of that country which was finally to belong to the descendants of the patriarch, may have suggested to him the propriety of pitching his tents within its groves; and there, where idolatry prevailed, he built an altar to the one true, eternal God. And there the Lord appeared to him, with the renewal of the old promises.

Again the patriarch wandered on, taking the direct southern high-road of Palestine, and rested near the town of Bethel. Here also he built an altar, invoked the name of the Lord, and thus consecrated to Him an idolatrous city before called Luz. But he soon left

Bethel to travel again southwards; for as yet he had fixed upon no permanent resting-place. Whilst on this journey, a famine broke out in the land, one of the terrible scourges and trials by which eastern countries are so frequently visited. Egypt, that rich and fruitful land, long known as the store-house of the world, was now the aim of the patriarch's wandering.

He had arrived with his caravan on the confines of Egypt, when he was troubled by a strange fear. Sarai his wife was of remarkable beauty; might not one of the nobles of Egypt, nay the king himself, with oriental despotism, kill him in order to obtain her? A deception, considered harmless by Abram, and deemed necessary to avoid that calamity, presented itself to his mind. He said to Sarai: 'Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake, and my soul may live because of thee.' As Abram had foreseen, the Egyptians were struck by his wife's beauty, which was probably of a much higher order than that of their own countrywomen. Her praise reached the ears of Pharaoh. Eager to see the stranger, he ordered her to be brought before him. She must have found favour in his eyes; for Abram was kindly treated for her sake, and received rich presents of men- and maid-servants, of sheep and oxen, asses and camels. But the displeasure of God fell upon Pharaoh, who by terrible plagues was warned of the sin he was tempted to commit. In just anger, the heathen king, feeling that he had been ensnared by untruth, summoned Abram before him, and indignantly exclaimed: Why didst thou say, she is my sister, so I might have taken her to me to wife: and now behold thy wife, take her and go thy way.' Abram heard in silence this merited rebuke, and humiliated by the generosity of the heathen king, he took his wife, his house