portment towards his brother, and in the speedy and entire forgetfulness of the injuries which he had received from Jacob. JACOB, the son of Jacob and Rebekah, was born in the year B. C. 1836. He was twin-brother of Esau [see Gen. xxv. 25.] of a meek, peaceable disposition, domestic in his habits, inclined to a pastoral life, and the favourite of his mother; whereas, Esau was of a more fierce and turbulent temper, and, in consequence of his masculine active spirit, the object of his father's partial affection. Jacob derived his name from the manner of his birth, as he came into the world holding his brother's heel, which, in the Hebrew, signifies one who supplants, or strikes up, his adversary. Gen. xxv. 25. This was indicating some events that occurred in the progress of his years, particularly the supplanting of his brother.

We shall not very minutely detail the particulars of his future history, as they are recited in the book of Genesis, to which the reader is referred. Here we find, that in order to avoid the threatened effects of his brother's displeasure, incurred, as we have already related, under Esau, Jacob was sent by his mother to her brother Laban. In his journey he had a vision of a peculiar nature, which brightened his prospects, and induced him to form pious and laudable resolutions. On his arrival at Padan Aram, he was hospitably received by his uncle, Laban; and in a little time he conceived an affection for Rachel, his youngest daughter. In order to obtain Laban's consent to their marriage, he agreed to serve him seven years; but at the close of this period of service, Leah, the elder sister, was substituted for Rachel, and he contracted to serve Laban for a second term on condition of obtaining the first object of his affection. Upon the expiration of this term he married Rachel; and during his abode with Laban, he was singularly prosperous. At length his situation became intolerably grievous, and he determined to return with his wives and children, and the property he had acquired, to his own country. Availing himself of an opportu nity, which Laban's absence afforded, he prepared for his journey; and he had proceeded so far, before his departure was known, that Laban was seven days in pursuing him before he could overtake him. Upon their interview on Mount Gilead, Laban remonstrated against, and Jacob justified, the measure which he had adopted. Rachel, however, before her departure, had contrived to purloin her father's Teraphim, and Laban, in his remonstrance with Jacob, complained of the robbery. Jacob, unapprized of the fact, consented to an examination of every tent, and declared that the individual, who was guilty of the robbery, should be put to death. Rachel contrived to elude the search; and Laban, apprehending that his charge was unjust, inclined to measures of conciliation. Accordingly, he proposed to Jacob terms of alliance, and that a

monument should be erected as a testimony of it to future ages. Jacob acquiesced; a pile of stones was reared, called by Laban, in the Syriac tongue, Jagar Sabadutha, and by Jacob, in Hebrew, Gilead; both signifying the heap of witness. The treaty was concluded with a sacrifice and a feast; and Laban, having embraced and blessed Jacob and his family, set out on his return to Padan Aram. Jacob, as he pursued his journey, began to entertain apprehensions of the unappeased resentment of his brother Esau; and notwithstanding the conciliatory measures he had adopted, he soon found that his brother was advancing to meet him with an armed force, and with seeming purposes of hostility. Having recommended himself by an act of devotion to the Divine protection, he prepared a costly present for his brother. At this time he was favoured with a prophetic vision, which served to allay his fears and to animate his resolution; and from a circumstance that occurred on this occasion, he obtained the name of " Israel," signifying a man who has prevailed with God; and this became afterwards the name of his posterity. Having joined his family after this vision, he advanced to meet his brother, who received him in the most kind and affectionate manner, and invited him to settle in his neighbourhood. Jacob, however, could not easily dismiss his apprehensions of danger, and chose rather to take up his abode near Shechem, where he purchased ground, on which he built an altar to the Lord. A circumstance of a very distressing kind occurred, for an account of which we refer to the history, which made it necessary for Jacob to remove from the vicinity of Shechem; and while he was deliberating whither to direct his course, he was instructed to erect an altar to God at Bethel, a place where he had received early assurances of the Divine protection and favour. Having erected an altar at this place, he set out on his journey to his father; but in the way he was severely afflicted by the loss of his beloved wife Rachel, who died in child-birth of her son Benjamin. Soon afterwards he arrived at Mamre, and continued there till his father's death. At this time Joseph, being about 17 years of age, became the object of jealousy to his brethren; who, meditating his destruction, determined at length to sell him to a troop of Ishmaelites, and to feign a story, with which they imposed upon the afflicted father, of his having been torn to pieces by some wild beast. After the lapse of some years, Jacob received the consolatory news of Joseph's being still alive, and in a station of high honour and power at the Court of Pharaoh. The news, we may well imagine, transported him beyond measure, and he fainted in the arms of his sons who communicated it. As soon as he could be persuaded that the report was true, and found himself surrounded by the presents of his son, and by the chariots of Egypt, which were to convey him and his family thither, he prepared for his journey. He

and his family left, therefore, the valley of Mamre and came to Beersheba, where was an altar consecrated to the Lord. Here he offered sacrifices to his God, thus expressing his gratitude and his desires of continued protection and blessing. Having received assurances of divine favour, he pursued his journey with pleasure; and, as he approached the borders of Egypt, he received a message from Joseph, requesting him to meet him in the land of Goshen, situated between the Red Sea and the Nile, a fruitful territory, and adapted to his pastoral life. The interview between the patriarch, and his son Joseph, is best conceived by a mind of sensibility. Joseph presented his father to Pharaoh. Jacob having wished this prince all happiness, Pharaoh asked him his age. He answered, the time of my pilgrimage is an hundred and thirty years; few and evil have my years been in comparison of the age of my fathers.

Having obtained leave of Pharaoh to settle in the land of Goshen, Joseph conducted his father and family thither; and here they prospered and multiplied. Jacob lived 17 years in Egypt; and when he apprehended that his life was drawing to a close, he obtained a promise from Joseph that his remains should be carried to Canaan, and deposited with those of his progenitors, Abraham and Isaac, in the cave of the field Machpelah, which Abraham had purchased. When he was dying, he adopted the two sons of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, as his own; declaring, that in the division of the promised land, they were to receive a double lot, and to be considered as the heads of two distinct tribes. Having delivered to his sons, who were collected round him, his dying predictions of the events that should happen to their several descendants in future times, and which exactly corresponded to the patriarch's declaration, Jacob expired, at the age of 147 years, in the year B. C. 1689. Joseph faithfully fulfilled his promises, with respect to the burial of his father. He had him embalmed after the manner of the Egyptians, and there was a general lamentation for him in Egypt seventy days. After that time Joseph and his brethren, with the principal men of Egypt, carried him to the buryingplace of his fathers, near Hebron. After having deposited the remains of their father in the cave of Machpelah, Jacob's sons returned to Egypt, where they and their posterity remained till the time of Exodus.

REUBEN, the eldest son of Jacob and Leah, was born B. C. 1758, Gen. xxix. 32. One day Reuben went into the field, being yet young, and found a fruit called, in Hebrew, dudaim, generally interpreted mandrakes, which he brought to his mother Leah, Gen. xxx. 14. Rachel was desirous of having them, and asked them of Leah, who bargained with her for Jacob's company the night following. Long after this, Jacob being returned into the land of Canaan, Reuben defiled his father's conVOL. I.

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cubine, Bilhah, for which he lost his birthright, and all the privileges of primogeniture,

When Joseph's brethren had taken a resolution to destroy him, Reuben endeavoured by all means to deliver him. He proposed to them to let him down into an old water-pit, which had then no water, that afterwards he might take him up, and restore him to his father Jacob. His brethren took the advice; but while Reuben was at some distance from them, they sold Joseph to a party of Ishmaelites. Reuben going to the pit, and not finding him there, tore his clothes, and said to his brethren; "The child is not to be found, and whither shall I go."

Jacob, when dying, warmly reproaches Reuben with his crime committed with Bilhah; saying, "Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, but unstable as water; thou shalt not excel, because thou wentest up to thy father's bed, then defiledst thou it.”

SIMEON, second son of Jacob and Leah, born in the year B. C. 1757, Gen. xxix. 37. Simeon and Levi revenged the affront, sustained by the defilement of their half-sister Dinah, on the part of Shechem, the son of Hamor, by entering the town of Shechem, and killing all the men they found; after which they brought away Dinah, in the year B. C. 1739, Gen. xxxiv. 25. It has been thought that Simeon was the most cruel to his brother Joseph, and that he advised his brethren to sell him, Gen. xxxii. 20. The conjecture is founded on the circumstance of his being detained prisoner in Egypt, Gen. xlii. 24; and of his being treated with greater rigour by Joseph than the rest of his brethren. Jacob, on his death-bed, manifested peculiar indignation against Simeon and Levi, Gen. xlix. 5. Accordingly the tribes of Simeon and Levi were dispersed in Israel. Levi had no compact lot or portion; and Simeon received for his portion only a district dismembered from the tribe of Judah, Josh. xix. 1, 2, &c., and some other lands which were over-run by those of this tribe on the mountains of Seir, and in the desart of Gedor, 1 Chron. iv. 24, 39, 42. The Targum of Jerusalem, and the rabbins, who have been followed by some of the fathers, have affirmed, that the greater part of the Scribes, and men learned in the law, were of this tribe; and as they were dispersed throughout Israel, we perceive the accomplishment of Jacob's prophecy, which foretold that Simeon and Levi should be scattered among their brethren. It has been suggested, however, that the dispersion of Simeon and Levi, which Jacob meant to be a degradation, was, in the progress of events, overruled, so as to be the occasion of honour; for Levi had the priesthood, and Simeon had the learning, or writing-authority of Israel; in consequence of which, both of these tribes were honourably dispersed throughout Israel. According to the testament of the twelve patriarchs, a book, indeed, of little authority, Simeon died at the age of 120 years.

The sons of Simeon were six, and are enumerated Exod. vi. 15. Their descendants amounted to 59,300 men, at the Exodus, Numb. i. 22.; but the number of those that entered the Land of Promise amounted only to 22,000, the rest having died in the desart, Numb. xxvi. 14. The portion of Simeon was west and south of that of Judah; having the tribe of Dan and the Philistines north, the Mediterranean west, and Arabia Petræa south, Josh. xix. 1-9.

NAPHTHALI, the second son of Jacob, by Bilhah, and the progenitor of the tribe.

LEVI, the third son of Jacob and Leah, and progenitor of the priests and Levites, was born about B. C. 1750. His treacherous and bloody combination with Simeon, to murder the Shechemites, is recorded in Gen. xxxiv. as well as Jacob's detestation of it, and his woe denounced against them for it, on his deathbed, at the very time that he pronounced blessings on Judah, Joseph, and the rest of his sons, Gen, xlix. 5-7. The predic tion of Jacob was verified in the descendants of Levi, who had no inheritance assigned them among their brethren in the land of Canaan, but were obliged to live on the tithes and offerings of the other tribes. However, by their zeal against idolatry, and the readiness with which they executed the command of Moses to put to death a number of the worshippers of the gol den calf, they obtained a mitigation of the sentence pronounced against them in the person of their progenitor. For they were admitted to the priesthood; which, though subordinate to that of Aaron and his posterity, entitled them to considerable privileges and immunities. They were thus appointed the keepers of the Jewish religion, and instructors of the people; and were entitled to a place in the judicial courts of every city and town, and to the property of thirty-five cities, with all their territories, in which they were supported by a fixed contribution of the tenths of all kinds of beasts, fruits, and grain in Israel. Levi died B. C. 1613, aged 137.

JUDAH, the fourth son of Jacob, and father of the chief tribe of the Jews, distinguished by his name, and honoured by giving birth to the Messiah, died B. C. 1636. This patriarch, though he seems not to have been a very rigid moralist, showed himself, nevertheless, a man of fine feelings. It was Judah who delivered that exquisitely affecting piece of natural eloquence, which may challenge a comparison with the finest productions of antiquity, and which was immediately followed by Joseph's discovery of himself to his brethren, Gen. xliv. 18-34. He persuaded his brethren to sell Joseph, rather than murder him, and thus saved his life. He was also possessed of a strong filial affection for his aged father.

ISSACHAR, the fifth son of Jacob by Leah, and the pro