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'seized and the infants destroyed. The Wezeer's daughter was 'married to Abraham's father, and he desired his son-in-law to 'take care that his wife did not become pregnant. She became 'pregnant notwithstanding, but she successfully concealed her 'state from her father and every one. When the time of her ' delivery came, she fled from her home in Bethlehem, and ' wandered on till she came to Birzeh, when the cleft we saw opened before her, and she entered and Abraham was born. 'It was then that the clay was tinged red. Fearing Nimrod, 'she concealed the infant in the hole for a long time, coming 'occasionally from Bethlehem to nurse him.

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'This story seems to be implicitly believed by the attendants ' and visitors at the mosque, the villagers, and the common 'people of the city. It is, however, only a vulgar legend. 'Literary Moslems disavow it. With them the Makam Ibrahim ' is simply a Mesjid to Ibrahim-a mosque or place of worship sacred or consecrated to Abraham. This is all the learned say ' of the place. I lately saw an Arabic MS. account of the Moslem holy places in Syria, composed by a man who was judge (kâdy) ' of Erzeroum, two or three hundred years ago. In this book 'the place at Birzeh is described just as I have stated above. Neither in it nor in conversation have I found any reason assigned for the connexion of the name of the Patriarch with 'the place, or any tradition of his having ever visited it.

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'Learned Moslems are very strict and critical in judging the ' claims of sacred graves and other holy places. For instance, the grave of Mohammed is attested by a series of legal documents, a new one being drawn up every year; and this is the only grave of a Prophet which they will admit to be certainly 'known. Even the graves of the Patriarchs at Hebron are ' regarded as only the supposed and probable resting-places of 'those whose name they bear.'

NOTE to p. 428.

In an account by Dr. Beke, of his journey to Hârrân-el-Awamîd to the Royal Geographical Society, there is a good description of the strongly-marked character of the hills of Gilead, as the easternmost boundary of Palestine.

APPENDIX II.

THE CAVE OF MACHPELAH.

In my Lecture on the History of Abraham I enlarged on the interest attached to the Cave of Machpelah. At that time I little thought that I should ever be enabled to penetrate within the inaccessible sanctuary which surrounds it. This privilege I owe to the effort made by the Prince of Wales, in 1862, to obtain an entrance into the Mosque of Hebron;1 the success of which gave to his Eastern journey a peculiar value, such as has attached to the visit of no other European Prince to the Holy Land.

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The cave of Machpelah is described in the Book of Genesis with a particularity almost resembling that of a legal deed. The Cave of The name of ' Machpelah,' or rather 'the Machpelah,' Machpelah. appears to have belonged to the whole district or property, though it is applied sometimes to the cave,3 and sometimes to the field. The meaning of the word is quite uncertain, though that of 'double,' 5 which is adopted in all the ancient versions (almost always as if applied to the cave), is the most probable. In this 'Machpelah' was a field, ‘a cultivated 'field,' which belonged not to one of the Amorite chiefs-Aner, Eshcol, or Mamre-but to a Hittite, Ephron the son of Zohar.6 The field was planted, as most of those around the vale of Hebron, with trees; olives, terebinths, or ilexes. At one 'end,'

For a more complete account of the incident of this visit, see Appendix I. to Sermons preached in the East before the Prince of Wales.

2 Gen. xxiii. 17. 'The field of Ephron, 'which was in Machpelah.'

3 Ibid. 9; xxv. 9. The cave of (the) 'Machpelah.'

* Gen. xxiii. 19; xlix. 30; l. 13. 'The 'field of (the) Machpelah.'

5'Spelunca duplex,' Vulgate. тò σýλaιov тò diпyoÛv, LXX. passim. Syriac, passim, except in Gen. 1. 13, where it is

the double field.'

• Gen. xxiii. 8; xxv. 9.
"Ibid. xxiii. ix.

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probably the upper end, was a cave. The whole place was 'in 'the face of Mamre,' that is, as it would seem, opposite the oaks or terebinths of Mamre the Amorite, where Abraham had pitched his tent. In this case it would be immediately within view of his encampment; and the open mouth of the cave may be supposed to have attracted his attention long before he made the proposal which ended in his purchase of this his first and only property in the Holy Land. 'There they buried Abraham

' and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his 'wife; and there,' according to the dying speech of the last of the Patriarchs, 'Jacob buried Leah ;' and there he himself was buried, in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham 'bought for a possession of a burial-place from the Hittite 'before Mamre.' 3

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This is the last Biblical notice of the Cave of Machpelah.

After the close of the Book of Genesis, no mention is made of it in the Scriptures. In the speech of Stephen,1 by a singular variation, the Tomb at Shechem is substituted for it. It is not even mentioned in the account of Caleb's conquest of Hebron or of David's reign there. The only possible allusion is the statement in Absalom's life,5 that he had vowed a pilgrimage to Hebron.

But the formal and constant reference to it in the Book of Genesis is a sufficient guarantee, not only for a spot of that name having existed from early times, but also for its having been known at the time of the composition of the book and of its introduction into the Jewish Canon. That cannot be earlier, on any hypothesis, than the time of Moses, nor later than the times of the Monarchy.

We are not left, however, entirely in the dark. Josephus, in his Antiquities, tells us that there were 'monuments built

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The Enclosure.

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'there by Abraham and his descendants ;'1 and in his Jewish War, that 'the monuments of Abraham and his sons' (apparently alluding to those already mentioned in the Antiquities) were still shown at Hebron, of beautiful 'marble, and admirably worked.' 2 These monuments can hardly be other than what the 'Bordeaux Pilgrim,' in a.D. 333, describes as 'a quadrangle of stones of astonishing beauty: and these again are clearly those which exist at the present day -the massive enclosure of the Mosque. The tradition, thus carried up unquestionably to the age of Josephus, is in fact carried by the same argument much higher. For the walls, as they now stand, and as Josephus speaks of them, must have been built before his time. The terms which he uses imply this and he omits to mention them amongst the works of Herod the Great, the only potentate who could or would have built them in his time, and amongst whose buildings they must have occupied, if at all, a distinguished place. But, if not erected by Herod, there is then no period at which we can stop short of the Monarchy. So elaborate and costly a structure is inconceivable in the disturbed and impoverished state of the nation after the Return. It is to the kings, at least, that the walls must be referred, and, if so, to none so likely as one of the sovereigns to whom they are ascribed by Jewish and Mussulman tradition, David or Solomon. Beyond this we can hardly expect to find a continuous proof. But, by this time, we have almost joined the earlier tradition implied in the reception of the Book of Genesis, with its detailed local description, into the Jewish Sacred Books.

With this early origin of the present enclosure its appearance fully agrees.5 With the long continuity of the tradition

1 Ant. i. 14.

2 B. J. iv. 9, § 7.

3 For the later list of witnesses, see Robinson's B. R. ii. 77, 78.

The Mussulman name at the present day for the enclosure is 'the wall of 'Solomon.'

"The peculiarities of the masonry are these:-(1.) Some of the stones are very large; Dr. Wilson mentions one 38 feet

long and 3 feet 4 inches deep; others are 16 feet long and 5 feet high. The largest in the Haram wall at Jerusalem is 24 feet. But yet (2.) the surface, in splendid preservation, is very finely worked, more so than the finest of the stones at the south and south-west portion of the enclosure at Jerusalem; the sunken part round the edges (sometimes called the 'bevel') very shallow, with no resemblance at all to more

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agrees also the general character of Hebron and its vicinity. There is no spot in Palestine, except, perhaps, Mount Gerizim, where the genius loci has been so slightly disturbed in the lapse of centuries. There is already a savour of antiquity in the earliest mention of Hebron, 'built seven years before Zoan in 'Egypt.' In it the names of the Amorite inhabitants 2 were preserved long after they had perished elsewhere; and from the time that the memory of Abraham first began to be cherished there it seems never to have ceased. The oak, 'the antediluvian 'oak,' 3 'the Terebinth, as old as the Creation,' 4 were shown in the time of Josephus. The Terebinth gave to the spot where it stood the name which lingers there down to the present day,5 centuries after the tree itself has disappeared. The fair held beneath it, the worship offered, show that the Patriarch was regarded almost as a Divinity. His name became identified not only with the sepulchral quadrangle, 'The Castle of Abraham,' but with the whole place. The Mussulman name of ' El-Khalêl,' 'the Friend' (of God), has as completely superseded in the native population the Israelite name of 'Hebron,' as the name of 'Hebron' had already superseded the Canaanite name of 'Kirjath-arba.' The town itself, which in ancient times must have been at some distance (as is implied in the original account of the purchase of the burial-place) from the sepulchre, has descended from the higher ground on which it was formerly situated, and clustered round the tomb which had become the chief centre of attraction. A similar instance may be noted in the name of El-Lazarieh, applied to Bethany, from the reputed tomb of Lazarus, round which the modern village has gathered.

modern rustic work.' (3.) The cross joints are not always vertical, but some are oblique. (4.) The wall is divided by pilasters about 2 feet 6 inches wide, and 5 feet apart, running the entire height of the ancient wall. There are eight of these pilasters at the ends, and sixteen at the sides of the enclosure. These observations are taken partly from Mr. Grove, who visited Hebron in 1859, partly from Dr. Robinson (B. R. ii. 75, 76). The length and breadth are given by Dr. Robinson respectively at 200 and 150 feet, by Signor

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