So also in the posterity of Ismael, it might remain as a seed or pretence of enmity, that their forefather was by the instigation of Sarah cast out into the desert, with his mother Hagar, and had therein perished, but that it pleased God by his angel to relieve them. Ismael also had an Egyptian both to his mother and to his wife, and Amalek was also an Horite by his mother; which Horites were of the ancient Canaanites. The Idumeans also, or Edomites, were by their maternal line descended of the Canaanites. Fort Esau took two wives of that nation; one of them was Adah, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and the other Aholibamah, the grandchild of Zibeon the Hevite, lord of Seir, before the same was conquered by Esau, and called after his name Edom, or Edumaa.

Lastly, It appears that all those families of the Ismaelites, Amalekites, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, &c. were in process of time corrupted, and drawn from the knowledge and worship of God, and became idolaters, infected and seduced by the conversation of those people among whom they dwelt, and by those wives of the Canaanites which they had married; only a few of the Kenites, and those Midianites which inhabited on the edge of the Red sea, whereof Jethro was priest or prince, or both, worshipped the true and ever living God.

SECT. II.

Of the kings of the Canaanites and Madianites, mentioned in the ancient wars of the Israelites.

OF the kings of the Canaanites descended of Cham, (for Melchizedek may be thought to be of a better pedigree) we find four named by Moses, and thirty-one remembered by Joshua, though few of these named, otherwise than by the cities over which they commanded; to which each of them had a small territory adjoining, and no other dominion. These Canaanites, in a general consideration, are to be understood for all those nations descended of Cham by Canaan; as the Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, Gergesites,

t Gen. xxxvi.

Hevites, &c. and so here we understand this name in speaking of the kings of the Canaanites; and so also we call the country of their habitation, the holy land, or the land of promise; for God hath appointed that the seven principal families should be rooted out, and that his own people should inherit their lands and cities. But if we consider of the name and nation in particular, then is their proper habitation bounded by Jordan on the east, and by the Mediterranean sea on the west; in which narrow country, and in the choicest places thereof, those Canaanites which held their paternal name chiefly inhabited.

The first king of these nations, named in the scriptures, was "Hamor, or Hemer, of the Hevites, whom Simeon and Levi slew, together with his son Sichem, in revenge of their sister's ravishment.

Arad was the second king which the scriptures have remembered, who had that part of Canaan towards the south, neighbouring Edom and the Dead sea; the same which surprised Israel as they encamped in the wilderness, in the edge of Idumæa.

The third named was Sehon, king of Essebon, who before Moses's arrival had beaten the Moabites out of the west part of Arabia Petræa, or Nabathea, and thrust them over y Arnon into the deserts, the same whom Moses overthrew in the plains of Moab; at which time he took Essebon, and all the cities of the Amorites.

Ꮓ

Presently after which victory, Og was also slain by Israel, who commanded the north part of that valley between the mountains Traconi, or Galaad, and Jordan, who was also a king of the a Amorites.

The fifth was Adonizedek, king of the Jebusites and of Jerusalem, with whom Joshua nameth four other kings: Hoham, king of Hebron.

Piram, king of Jarmuth.
Japia, king of Lachis, and

u Gen. xxxiv.

x Numb. xxi. 1.

y Numb. xxi. 24.

z Josh. ix. Joseph. Ant. lib. 4.

c. 5.

a Numb. xxi. 35.

Deber, king of Eglon; who were all b Amorites, overthrown in battle, and hanged by Joshua. After this overthrow, Joshua nameth Jabin, king of Hazor, and

Jobab, king of Madon, whom he also slaughtered, and took his cities; and this Jabin seemed to have some dominion over the rest, for it is said in the text, For Hazor beforetime was the head of all those kingdoms.

After these, Adonibezek, that notorious tyrant, is named, who confessed that he had cut off the thumbs of the hands and feet of seventy kings, enforcing them to gather crumbs under his table; who, after Judah and Simeon had used the same execution upon himself, acknowledged it to be a just revenge of God: this king was carried to Jerusalem, where he died.

The last king named is Jabin the second, who, as it seemeth, had rebuilt Hazor, burnt by Joshua. For at such time as he employed Sisera against Israel, whom he oppressed twenty years, after the death of Ehud he inhabited Hazor. This Jabin, Barak (encouraged by Deborah) overthrew, and his captain Sisera had by Jael, the wife of f Heber the Kenite, a nail driven into his head while he slept in her tent; Jabin himself perishing afterwards in that war.

e

The Madianites had also their kings at times, but commonly mixed with the & Moabites; and they held a corner of land in Nabathea, to the south-east of the Dead sea. They descended from Madian, Abraham's son by h Keturah. Raguel, surnamed Gethegleus, or Jethres, saith Josephus, called Jethro in Exodus, Kenis in the first of Judges, the son of Dathan, the grandchild of Jexanis, or Joksham, the great grandchild of Abraham by Keturah, was priest or prince of the Madianites by the Red sea, whose daughter or niece Moses married; and of whom I have spoken elsewhere more at large. This Jethro, if he were not the same with Hobab, must be his father; and this Hobab had seven

i

daughters. He guided Moses in the wilderness, and became one of the Israelites: of him descended the Kenites, so called of his father k Raguel's surname, of which Kenites was Heber, which had peace with Jabin the second, even now remembered.

At such time as Saul invaded the Amalekites, he knowing the good affection of the Kenites to Israel, gave them warning to separate themselves: and yet the Kenites had strong seats, and lived in the mountains of the deserts.

1

The kings of the Canaanites, and Madianites, and the Amalekites, as many as I find named, were these:

1. Hemor the Hevite of Sichem.

2. Arad of the south parts.

3. Sehon of Essebon.

4. Og of Basan.

5. Adonizedek the Jebusite, king of Jerusalem.

6. m Hoham of Hebron.

7. Piram of Jarmuth.

8. Japia of Lachis.

9. Debir of Eglon.

10. Jabin of Hazor.

11. n Jobab of Modon.

12. Adonibezek of Bezek, and

13. Jabin the second king of Hazor.

Of the Madianites these:

• Evi, or Evis.

Rekam, or Recem, who built Petra, the metropolis of Petræa, so called by the Greeks, and by Isaiah xvi. 1. and Selah, which is as much as Petra; and so also it is called, 2 Reg. xiv. 7. where it is also called Joktheel.

Zur, Hur, and Reba; P Oreb, Zeb, Zebah, Zalmunna. After the death of Barak, judge of Israel, the four last named of these Madianite kings vexed Israel seven years;

k Judg. i.

1 I Sam. xv. 6.

in Josh. x.

" Josh. xi.

• These five first were all at one time kings of several portions of the Madianites slain by Phineas, and the

12,000 which he led against them. Numb. xxxi. 8.

P These four last were likewise at one time slain in the pursuit of Gideon's victory, Judg. vii. 25. and chap. viii. 12.

till they being put to flight by Gideon, two of them, to wit, Oreb and Zeb, were taken and slain by the Ephraimites, at the passage of Jordan, as in the 6th, 7th, and 8th of Judges it is written at large. Afterwards, in the pursuit of the rest, Gideon himself laid hands upon Zebah and Zalmana, or Zalmunna, and executed them, being prisoners; in which expedition of Gideon there perished 120,000 of the Madianites, and their confederates. Of the Idumeans, Moabites, and Ammonites, I will speak hereafter in the description of their territories.

SECT. III.

Of the Amalekites and Ismaelites.

OF the kings of the Amalekites and Ismaelites, I find few that are named; and though of the Ismaelites there were more in number than of the rest, (for they were multiplied into a greater nation, according to the promise of God made unto Abraham,) yet the Amalekites, who together with the Midianites were numbered among them, were more renowned in Moses's time than the rest of the Ismaelites. So also were they when Saul governed Israel; for Saul pursued them from Sur into Havilah, to wit, over a great part of Arabia Petræa, and the desert. The reason to me seemeth to be this; that the twelve princes which came of Ismael were content to leave those barren deserts of Arabia Petræa, called Shur, Paran, and Sin, to the issue of Abraham by Keturah, that joined with them, (for so seem the Amalekites to have been, and so were the Madianites,) themselves taking possession of a better soil in Arabia the Happy, and about the mountains of Galaad in Arabia Petræa. For Nabaioth, the eldest of those twelve princes, planted that part of Arabia Petræa, which was very fruitful, though adjoining to the desert in which Moses wandered, afterwards called Nabathea; the same which neighboureth Judæa on the east side. They also peopled a province in Arabia the Happy, whereof the people were in aftertimes called Napathei, 6 changed into p.