The retirement of Esau.

4. The dreaded meeting with Esau has passed; the two brothers retain their characters through the interview: the generosity of the one, and the caution of the other. And for the last time Esau retires to make room for Jacob; he leaves to him the land of his inheritance, and disappears on his way to the wild mountains of Seir.1 In those wild mountains, in the red hills of Edom, in the caves and excavations to which the soft sandstone rocks so readily lend themselves, in the cliffs which afterwards gave to the settlement the name of 'Sela' or 'Petra,' lingered the ancient aboriginal tribe of the Horites or dwellers in the holes of the rock. These 'the children of Esau succeeded, and destroyed 'from before them, and dwelt in their stead.' 3 It was the rough rocky country described in their father's blessing: a savage dwelling, 'away 4 from the fatness of the earth and the dew of 'heaven ;' by the sword they were to live; a race of hunters among the mountains; their nearest allies, the Arabian tribe Nebaioth. Together dwelt the conquering Edomites and the

2

remnant of the Horites, each under their respective chiefs,1 whose names are preserved in long lines down to the time of David. Petra, the mysterious, secluded city, with its thousand caves, is the lasting monument of their local habitation.

of Job.

May we not also trace their connexion with a monument still more instructive-the name and the scene of the Book of The Book Job? When, where, and by whom that wonderful book was written we need not here pause to ask.2 Yet, as we take leave of Esau and his race, we can hardly forbear to notice the numerous traces which connect the scene of the story with the land of Edom, with the mysterious rocks of Petra. Uz, Eliphaz, Teman, are all names more or less connected with the Idumæan chiefs. The description of the aboriginal tribes, expelled from their seats and living in the cliffs and caves of the rocks, well suits the flight of the Horites before the conquering Edomites. The description of the wonders of Egypt-the war-horse, the hippopotamus, and the crocodile -well suits the dweller in Idumæan Arabia.3 So the Septuagint translators understood even the name of Job, as identical with the Edomite Jobab, and fixed his exact place in the history of the tribe. Perhaps, after all, the position of the story is left in designed obscurity. But it would be in strict accordance with the tenderness which the older Scriptures exhibit towards the better qualities of Esau, that the one book admitted into the Sacred Canon, of which the subject is not a member of the Chosen People, should bring before us those better qualities in their purest form-suspected innocence asserting itself against false religious pretensions; the generous frankness of the Arabian chief without his levity. 'When the ear heard him, 'then it blessed him; when the eye saw him, it gave witness to ' him. He chose out their way, and sate chief, and dwelt as a 'king in the army, as one that comforteth the mourners.'5

So we part with the house of Esau, at least for the time, in peace, and return to the main stream of the history, Jacob and his latter days.

5. He too moves onward. From the summit of Mount Gerizim the eye rests on the wide opening in the eastern hills beyond the Jordan, which marks the issue of the Jabbok into the Jordan valley. Through that opening, straight towards Gerizim and Shechem, Jacob descends' in peace'1 and triumph. At every stage of his progress henceforward we are reminded that it is the second, and not the first settlement of Palestine, that is now unfolding itself. It is no longer, as in the Settlement at Shechem, case of Abraham, the purely pastoral life; it is the gradual transition from the pastoral to the agricultural. Jacob, on his first descent from the downs of Gilead, is no longer a mere dweller in tents; 'he builds him an house;' he makes "booths' or 'huts' for his cattle, and therefore the name of the place is called 'Succoth.'2 He advances across the Jordan; he comes to Shechem in the heart of Palestine, whither Abraham had come before him. But it is no longer the uninhabited 'place' and grove; it is 'the city' of Shechem, and 'before 'the city' his tent is pitched. And he comes not merely as an Arabian wanderer, but as with a fixed aim and fixed habitation in view. He sets his eye on the rich plain which stretches eastward of the city, now, as eighteen centuries ago, and then, as twenty centuries yet before, 'white already to the harvest '3 with its waving corn-fields. This, and not a mere sepulchre like the cave of Machpelah, is the possession which he purchases from the inhabitants of the land. The very pieces of money with which he buys the land are not merely weighed, as in the bargain with Ephron; they are stamped with the earliest mark of coinage, the figures of the lambs of the flocks. In this vale of Shechem the Patriarch rests, as in a permanent home. Beersheba, Hebron, even Bethel, are nothing to him in comparison

1 Gen. xxxiii. 18, 'to Shalem;' more accurately, 'in peace.' For the 'triumph,' see xlviii. 22.

2 Gen. xxxiii. 17.

3 John iv. 35.

Gen. xxxiii. 19. See Cardinal Wise. man's Lectures, ii. 197.

with this one chosen portion, which is to descend to his favourite son. Yet it is not his altogether by the peaceful occupation which at first seems implied. Two indications remain to us of a more warlike character. One is the word of the aged Patriarch to his son Joseph, like the expiring flash of the spirit of an ancient conqueror: 'Moreover I have given to 'thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the 'hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.' 1 It may allude to the bloody conquest of Shechem by Simeon and Levi; but the turn of expression ('I have given thee . with my sword and my bow ') rather points to incidents of the original settlement, not preserved in the regular narrative. The other indication is omitted altogether in the Hebrew record, but remains even unto this day. Outside the green vale of Shechem, but in 'the portion of the field east of the city,' is the ancient wall, which can hardly be doubted to be the one claimed at the Christian era by the Samaritans as 'the well of 'their father Jacob, who drank thereof himself, and his children, ' and his cattle.' A natural question arises at the sight of this well, why it was necessary to dig it at all, when so close at hand in the valley which falls into this plain are streams of living water, which might have been thought to render it superfluous? The answer has been made,3 with all appearance of probability, that it could only have been so dug by one who was unwilling to trust for his supply of water to the stronger and hostile inhabitants of the cultivated valley. It is, if so, an actually existing monument of the suspicious attitude of the old Patriarch towards his neighbours, and of his habitual prudence-'fearful 'lest, he being few in number, the inhabitants of the land 'should gather themselves together, and slay him and his 'house.' 4

6. It is with the latest portion of Jacob's life that are most closely interwoven those cords of natural and domestic affection which so bind his name round our hearts. He revisits then

'Gen. xlviii. 22.

'John iv. 12. See Sinai and Palestine, ch. v.

3

Robinson, B. R. ii. 286.

• Gen. xxxiv. 30.

Deborah.

his old haunts at Bethel and Beersheba. The ancient servant of his house, Deborah, his mother's nurse, the only link which The oak of survived between him and the face which he should see no more, dies, and is not forgotten, but is buried beneath the hill of Bethel, under the oak well known to the many who passed that way in later times as Allonbachuth, 'The Oak of Tears.' He advances yet a day's journey southward. They draw near to a place then known only by its ancient Canaanite name, and now for the first time mentioned in history, 'Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.' The village appears spread along its narrow ridge, but they are not to reach it. 'There was but a little way to come to Ephrath, and Rachel ‘travailed, and she had hard labour. . . . And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, for she died, that she called the name of the child Ben-oni (that is, "the son of sorrow"); 'but his father called him Ben-jamin (that is, "the son of my 'right hand"). And Rachel died, and was buried in the way 'to Ephrath. And Jacob set a pillar on her grave, 'that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day.' 1 The pillar has long disappeared, but her memory long remained. She still lived on, in Joseph's dreams. Her name still clung to the nuptial benedictions of the villagers of Bethlehem.3 After the allotment of the country to the several tribes, the territory of the Benjamites was extended by a long strip far into the south to include the sepulchre of their beloved ancestress. When the infants of Bethlehem 5 were slaughtered by Herod, it seemed to the Evangelist as though the voice of Rachel were heard weeping for her children from her neighbouring grave. On the spot indicated by the Sacred narrative, a rude copula, under the name of Rachel's tomb, still attracts the reverence of Christians, Jews, and Mussulmans.

The grave of
Rachel.

Beside the watch-tower of the flocks,' 6 in the same region where centuries afterwards there were still 'shepherds abiding "in the fields, watching over their flocks by night,' Israel spread

1 Gen. xxxv. 16-20.

2 Gen. xxxvii. 9, 10.

3 Ruth iv. II.

1 Sam. x. 2.

5 Matt. ii. 18.

Edar. Gen. xxxv. 21; Luke ii. 8.