of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept.

17 And God heard the voice of the lad; and the 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.

18 Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thine hand; for I will make him a great

nation.

19 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.

20 And God was with the lad; and he grew, and dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.

21 And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.

22 And it came to pass at that time, that Abimelech and Phichol the chief captain of his host spake unto Abraham, saying, God is with thee in all that thou doest:

23 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.

24 And Abraham said, I will swear.

5 Heb. if thou shalt lie unto me.

25 And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away.

26 And Abimelech said, I wot not who hath done this thing: neither didst thou tell me, neither yet heard I of it, but to day.

27 And Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech ; and both of them made a covenant.

28 And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves.

29 And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set by themselves?

30 And he said, For these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well.

31 Wherefore he called that place 'Beersheba; because there they sware both of them. 32 Thus they made a covenant at Beersheba: then Abimelech rose up, and Phichol the chief captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines.

33 ¶ And Abraham planted a 'grove in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God.

34 And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines' land many days.

7 Or, tree.

Verse 8. Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned.'-Among most eastern nations the women suckle their children much longer than is customary in Europe, and the same custom may be traced in the Bible. When Samuel was weaned, he was old enough to be left with Eli, for the service of the tabernacle; in 2 Chron. xxxi. 16, nothing is assigned for the provision of the children of priests and Levites until after three years of age, which renders it probable they were not weaned sooner; and in the second book of Maccabees (ch. vii. 27), a mother says, 'O my son, have pity upon me that bare thee nine months in my womb, and gave thee suck three years and nourished thee, and brought thee up unto this age. When the Persian ambassador was in England, he attributed to the custom of early weaning the greater forwardness of our children in mental acquirements than those of his own country, where male children are often kept to the breast till three years of age, and never taken from it till two years and two months. The practice is nearly the same in other Asiatic countries. In India the period is precisely three years. But everywhere a girl is taken from the breast sooner than the boy; in Persia, at two years; in India, within the first year. When the child is weaned, the Persians make a great feast,' to which friends and relations are invited, and of which the child also partakes, this being, in fact, his introduction to the customary fare of the country. The practice is the same among the Hindoos. See Morier's Second Journey; and Roberts's Oriental Illustrations.

10. The son of this bondswoman shall not be heir with my son.—It is not very clear what the mockery in the preced

ing verse denotes. The word phy also denotes 'jesting' or playing:' and St. Paul says (Gal. iv. 29), that Ishmael persecuted or teased Isaac. The fact would seem to be, that Ishmael, now a grown-up lad of about seventeen, and who up to the age of fourteen had expected to be the sole heir of his father, was not quite satisfied at being superseded in the inheritance by his younger brother, whom he does not appear to have treated with all the consideration which Sarah required. We know that Sarah had not shown much confidence in the promise of a son which had been made to Abraham; and probably, until the birth of Isaac, she had treated Ishmael as the hope of Abraham's house, if not as her own son. But the birth of Isaac made a great change in Ishmael's condition; and the change is quite conformable with the usages which still prevail in the East, where the son of a female slave would certainly be superseded by the son of a free woman, afterwards born. Nay, this feeling goes further; for-leaving slaves out of the question-in Persia, if a man has more than one wife (and he may have four, all equally his wives in the eye of the law), the son of the wife whose family is of the most distinction, often obtains the preference over the others. Thus, the late king of Persia, Futteh Ali Shah, overlooked his eldest son (a sort of Persian Ishmael in character), and nominated to the inheritance of the throne his second son Abbas Meerza, merely because the mother of the latter was a highly connected lady of his own tribe. The son of this Abbas Meerza is now king of Persia. Sir John Malcolm, in his Sketches of Persia, relates an anecdote which strikingly illustrates the passage of patriarchal history before us. During a journey in the north of Persia he was

entertained by a distinguished chief of one of those tribes in Persia called Eelauts, whose mode of life resembles that of the patriarchs of old or the Bedouins of the present day. This chief, in discoursing about his own domestic affairs, said he had six children, all of them except two by the same wife, who was the daughter of Futteh Ali Khan Afshar, a distinguished chief, who on the death of Nadir Shah aspired to the throne, and lost his life in the attempt to become a king. He continued, 'I married his orphan daughter, an excellent woman, but who carries her head rather high, as no doubt she has a right to do, from recollection of her father's pretensions. Look,' said he, speaking softly, for the apartment was within hearing of the interior; 'look at that youngster at the other end of the room; he is my son. His mother was the daughter of a jeweller of Isfahan. He is a fine lad, but I dare hardly notice him; and he is, you will observe, not allowed to sit within ten yards of the grandsons of Futteh Ali Khan Afshar!' He added, that this was all very proper.'

14. Abraham took bread, and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder.'-There are several Hebrew words which our translation equally renders 'bottle,' but which are not only different from each other but all different from the idea which the word 'bottle' conveys to our minds. We shall endeavour to discriminate the different sorts as we proceed; but may here observe generally, that the people of Asia, west of the Indus, use the skins of animals on a journey, for carrying water, and

SKIN BOTTLES.

other liquids, as well as, in general, other articles of provision which they are obliged to carry with them, in their journeys across the desert, or through thinly-inhabited plains. The preference of such vessels is well grounded. Earthen or wooden vessels would soon be broken in the rough usage which all luggage receives while conveyed on the backs of camels, horses, or mules; and if metal were used, the contents would be boiled or baked by the glowing heat of the sun. Besides, such skins exclude the encroachments of ants, which swarm in those countries, and they also effectually guard against the admission of that fine impalpable dust or sand, which forms so great an annoyance to travellers in Asia, defying all ordinary safeguards, and spoiling every necessary of life to which it gains access. The greater portability of such skins is another advantage. The skins of kids and goats are those used for ordinary

purposes. The head being cut off, the carcase is extracted without opening the belly, and the neck serves as the mouth of the vessel thus formed. The thighs, which are suffered to remain, serve as its handles, and also to give hold to the straps by which it is fastened to the luggage or saddle of a mounted traveller; or by which, being thrown across the shoulder (see text) and breast, it is slung to the back of a pedestrian. The heat of the climate, and the scarcity of streams and wells, render it indispensable for all travellers to carry water with them. When a party is large, and the prospect of a fresh supply of water distant, large skins of the camel or ox, two of which are a good load for a camel, are used. Goat-skins serve in ordinary circumstances. Individual travellers, whether in large or small parties, mounted or on foot, usually carry a kid-skin of water, or else a sort of bottle of prepared leather, shaped something like a powder flask. Hagar's bottle was doubtless a kid-skin, borne upon her shoulder. Some think it was a goat-skin; not being aware that a goat-skin of water is a good load for a man, and is what no one thinks of carrying to any distance. In several passages of his large work on Palestine, Dr. Robinson describes damsels coming to the wells, filling their water-skins and carrying them away on their shoulders. From this it appears that the old custom is still retained. More to the east skins of water are usually carried on the back by straps. Earthen vessels, of very classical forms, are almost always carried on the head by the women.

15. The water was spent in the bottle.'-Hagar and Ishmael were here in the most trying external condition in which human beings can possibly be placed. The exhaustion of a supply of water in the burning and inhospitable desert, without the prospect of a fresh supply, is a situation of such utter misery and danger as cannot well be imagined by those who have not themselves been exposed to something of the kind. The furnace-heat of those arid deserts increases greatly the ordinary demands of nature for drink, while the uncertainty of a fresh supply renders the exercise of unusual economy necessary. But when the water in the water-skins is spent, the merchant whose camels are laden with the rich products of India, becomes at once a beggar. In that agony of suffering which extreme thirst, in the hot unsheltered desert, excites, such a man would cheerfully give all his camels and all the wealth with which they are laden, for the mouthful of water which has been preserved in a water-bag by some poor creature, who is now the only object of his envy. But the latter scorns the paltry bribe, knowing that precious drop to be his only hold upon existence. In the instance before us, Ishmael, although a young man, being less inured than the poor bondwoman' to the trials of the desert, began to fail sooner, and needed the assistance of her support. But when the usual symptoms came upon himwhen his eyes became painfully inflamed-and his parched lips and tongue chapped and swollen-when his brain seemed to grow thick and feverish, and he was deafened by the hollow sound in his ears; some bushes offered a shelter under which he would fain lie down and die. He lay down, and his affectionate mother withdrew, that she might not see his unrelieved death, and that she might 'lift up her voice and weep' without restraint.

21. Wilderness of Paran.-This name seems to be applied in Scripture to the whole of the region extending from the southern frontier of Palestine to the borders of Sinai. At least we find the name in the north of this region, near to Kadesh, Num. xiii. 26, and elsewhere; and we find it also in the south, bordering upon Sinai (Num. x. 13); and it seems better to suppose that Paran was the name of the whole region marked by these limits, than that there were two opposite districts bearing the same name. This obviates the difficulty which has been felt in rightly appropriating the name to one particular locality, seeing that all the separate allocations which different writers have sought for Paran all meet in the somewhat extensive district which we suppose it to have embraced. The name itself of Paran is preserved in the Wady Feiran, a valley of the lower Sinai, through which lay the road

which the Israelites appear to have taken in their march to the upper region. See the note on Exod. xvii. 1.

23. Swear unto me here by God.'—Among the Arabs of the present day, the name of God is heard in almost every sentence they speak; and it is not seldom invoked to give weight to the most mendacious assertions. But there is no people who, with more fearfulness and awe, shrink, even in a just matter, from appealing to that great Name in a solemnly administered oath. Most Arabs would much rather lose a small sum than venture to swear in the name of God, however truly they might swear. They seem to attach supernatural consequences to such an act, and to believe that the Almighty would resent having his name made subservient to earthly purposes. Their most solemn oath is, By God, and in God, and through God.' See Burckhardt's Notes on the Bedouins, pp. 73-165.

— that thou wilt not deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son's son.'-Mr. Charles Taylor, in his additions to Calmet, and others, quote in illustration of this clause a passage from Bruce's Travels, of which we also avail ourselves. Bruce, in his passage up the hill, came to a place called Sheikh Ammer, from the Arab Sheikh, of which place he got a pledge that he should not be molested in his journey across the desert to Cosseir. A number of people afterwards assembled at the house. The great people among them,' says the traveller, 'came, and after joining hands, repeated a kind of prayer, by which they declared themselves and their children accursed if ever they lifted up their hands against me in the tell (or field) in the desert, or on the river; or, in case that I or mine should fly to them for refuge, if they did not protect us at the risk of their lives, their families, and their fortunes, or, as they emphatically expressed it, to the death of the last male child among them.'

The remarkable brevity of this first of treaties, while it is precise even to redundance, combined with its fine comprehensive character, renders it really inimitable. Its reliance upon the common sense and common honesty of men is also most beautiful. It merely states the principle of an engagement- thou wilt not deal falsely with me,' and thus expresses a healthy and refreshing confidence that men would interpret rightly the particular acts in which false dealing might seem to be involved. Thus worthily does the first chapter in the history of human treaties open.

25. Because of a well of water which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away.'-To dig a well is, unless under very peculiar circumstances, the most arduous and important work which a person in the situation of Abraham undertakes; and the benefits of such a work are so highly appreciated, that the property of it becomes vested in the person by whom it was digged and in his heirs for ever, provided it is kept in good condition: but if it gets out of repair, and remains in this state for any length of time, the property in it is transferred to the tribe or person by whom it is first restored to a serviceable condition. While the maker of the well is encamped near it, no parties not belonging to him can draw its waters without his leave. As we are getting into much mention of wells of water, it is desirable that this law on the subject should be clearly understood, as it tends to throw some light on subsequent transactions and disputes.

Now Abraham had digged a well near his encampment; and of the use of this the servants' (probably the herdsmen) of Abimelech had violently deprived him. As men seldom act without some reason, or show of reason, which is deemed satisfactory to themselves, it may seem likely that Abimelech's people doubted the right of Abraham to apply the law of the desert to the common lands of an appropriated territory, and to claim the exclusive possession of the well he had digged in such land. If their view had been just, however, it could only have entitled them to a share of the water, and not have justified them in assuming that exclusive possession which they denied to the party at whose expense the benefit had been secured. But taking into account some transactions of rather later date, we incline to think that the cause of all the differences about

wells which we read of in the history of Abraham and of Isaac, lay deeper than this account supposes, and must be sought in a country more similarly circumstanced than the open deserts to that in which the patriarch was at this time sojourning. The best analogy is offered by Persia. There all waste land-that is, all lands which are uncultivable from wanting the means of irrigation-are called 'God's lands;' and although the king is regarded as the general proprietor of the soil, such lands are free for any uses to which they can be applied; and whoever procures the means of irrigation, becomes the proprietor of the land which he thus renders cultivable. Now, as among the immemorially ancient usages of the East, none are more ancient than those which relate to the occupation of land, it is not too much to suppose that a similar usage to this existed in the time of Abraham; and, if so, it is easy to conclude that the anxiety of the Philistines about the wells digged by Abraham arose from the apprehension that, by the formation of such wells, he would be understood to create a lien in the lands in which they lay, and would acquire an indefeasible right of occupation, or rather of possession; and it might seem to them inconvenient that so powerful a clan should acquire such a right in the soil of so small a territory as that which belonged to them. Hence also their care, when Abraham afterwards left their part of the country, to fill up the wells which he had made; and hence also the renewed and more bitter strife with Isaac when he, on arriving there, proceeded to clear out these wells, and, again, to dig new ones himself. That Isaac also pursued cultivation to some extent in the lands for which he had thus secured the means of irrigation, is a remarkable corroboration of the view we now take; as he certainly might in this way, but we know not how he could in any other way acquire such a proprietary right as could alone entitle him to cultivate the soil.

This information, for the substance of which we are indebted to Sir John McNeill, lately the British envoy to the Persian court, will throw much light not only upon this text, but upon the subsequent transactions of Isaac in the same district (xxvi. 17-22, 32, 33).

30. These seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness.'-That there was something particular in the number seven, in connection with the oath, would seem from the fact that the word for oath (sheba, as in Beersheba) means also seven. Bruce subjoins to the anecdote in the note on v. 23, that, after the solemn pledge of protection and good faith, the people sent down to his boat two bushels of wheat and seven sheep. Although he seems to have received this merely as a present, it is not unlikely that the Arabs intended it as a ratification of the preceding covenant. At any rate, there is throughout considerable analogy between the covenant of Abraham and Abimelech and that of Bruce with the Arabs. The details of the remarkable transactions between Abraham and Abimelech, which this chapter contains, will be considered with the more interest, when it is recollected that it affords the earliest instance on record of a treaty of peace. Its terms and forms seem to show that such treaties were not then newly invented. The inability of nations or tribes to maintain a continual hostility with their neighbours, must have rendered the necessity of such engagements apparent to the earliest generations of mankind. Goguet's Origine des Lois, tom. i. p. 341.

See

33. Beer-sheba.'--The Hebrew name Beersheba signifies 'Well of the Oath,' or, as some suppose, 'Well of the Seven,' referring to the seven lambs which Abraham gave to Abimelech in token of the oath between them (v. 28, 32). The Arabic name, Bîr es-Sebà, signifies Well of the Seven,' also 'Well of the Lion.' Some writers have regarded the name as implying seven wells; but without the slightest historical or other ground for such a conclusion. Beersheba was the most southern point of Palestine, in which respect it was of importance to fix its site, independently of the interest connected with it as the fre quent station of the patriarchs. But it lay out of the beaten track of travel in Palestine; and no traveller had professed to have found it, or to make us acquainted with it. The