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CYCLOPEDIA

OF

BIBLICAL LITERATURE

CONDENSED.

AARON, the eldest son of Amram and ! Jochebad, of the tribe of Levi, and brother of Moses. He was born B.C. 1574 (Hales, B.C. 1730), three years before Moses, and one year efore Pharaoh's edict to destroy the male children of the Israelites (Exod. vi. 20; vii. 7). | His name first occurs in the mysterious interview which Moses had with the Lord, who appeared to him in the burning bush, while he kept Jethro's flock in Horeb. Among other excuses by which Moses sought to evade the great commission of delivering Israel, one was hat he lacked that persuasive readiness of speech (literally was not a man of words') which appeared to him essential to such an undertaking. But he was reminded that his brother Aaron possesred in a high degree the endowment which he deemed so needful, and could therefore speak in his name and on his behalf (Exod. iv. 14). During the forty years' absence of Moses in the land of Midian, Aaron had married a woman of the tribe of Judah, named Elisheba (or Elizabeth), who had born to him four sons, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazer, and Ithamar; and Eleazer had, before the return of Moses, become the father of Phinehas (Exod. vi. 23-25).

While Moses was absent in the mountain to receive the tables of the law, the people seem to have looked upon Aaron as their head, and growing impatient at the protracted absence of their great leader, they gathered around Aaron. and clamorously demanded that he should provide them with a visible symbolic image of their God, that they might worship him as other gods were worshipped. Aaron ventured not to stem the torrent, but weakly complied with their demand; and with the ornaments of gold which they freely offered, cast the figure of a calf or young bull, being doubtless that of the bull-god Apis at Memphis, whose worship extended throughout Egypt. However, to fix the meaning of this image as a symbol of the true God, Aaron was careful to proclaim a feast to Jehovah for the ensuing day. On that day the people met to celebrate the feast, after the fashion of the Egyptian festivals of the calf-idol, with dancing, with shouting, and with sports.

Meanwhile Moses had been dismissed from the mountain, provided with the decalogue. written by the finger of God,' on two tablets of stone. These, as soon as he came sufficiently near to observe the proceedings in the camp, he cast from him with such force that they brake in pieces. His re-appearance confounded the multitude, who quailed under his stern rebuke, and quietly submitted to see their new-made idol destroyed. For this sin the population was decimated by sword and plague (Exod. xxxii.).

In obedience to an intimation from God, Aaron went into the wilderness to meet his brother, and conduct him back to Egypt. After forty years of separation they met and embraced each other at the mount of Horeb When they arrived in Gosher, Aaron introduced his brother During his long absence in the mountain, to the chiefs of Israel, and assisted him in open- Moses had received instructions regarding the ing and enforcing the great commission which | ecclesiastical establishment, the tabernacle [TAhad been confided to him (Exod. iv. 27-31). In BERNACLE], and the priesthood [PRIESTS], which the subsequent transactions, from the first inter- he soon afterwards proceeded to execute. Under view with Pharaoh till after the delivered nation the new institution Aaron was to be high-priest, had passed the Red Sea, Aaron appears to have and his sons and descendants priests; and the been almost always present with Moses, assist- whole tribe to which he belonged, that of Levi, ing and supporting him; and no separate act of was set apart as the sacerdotal or learned caste his own is recorded. This co-operation was [LEVITES]. Accordingly, after the tabernacle ever afterwards maintained. Aaron and Hur had been completed, and every preparation were present on the hill from which Moses sur-made for the commencement of actual service, veyed the battle which Joshua fought with the Amalekites; and these two long sustained the weary hands upon whose uplifting the fate of the battle was found to depend (Exod. xvii. 10-12).

Aaron and his sons were consecrated by Moses, who anointed them with the holy oil and invested them with the sacred garments. The high-priest applied himself assiduously to the duties of his exalted office, and during the

B

AARONITES

period of nearly forty years that it was filled by him, the incidents which bring him historically before us are very few. It is recorded to his honour that he held his peace' when his two eldest sons were, for their great offence, struck dead before the sanctuary (Lev. x. 1-11) [ABIHU]. Aaron would seem to have been liable to some fits of jealousy at the superior influence and authority of his brother; for he at least sanctioned the invidious conduct of his sister Miriam [MIRIAM], who, after the wife of Moses had been brought to the camp by Jethro, became apprehensive for her own position, and cast reflections upon Moses, much calculated to lamage his influence, on account of his marriage with a foreigner-always an odious thing Among the Hebrews. For this, Miriam was struck with temporary leprosy, which brought the high-priest to a sense of his sinful conduct, and he sought and obtained forgiveness (Num. xii.). Some twenty years after (B.c. 1471), when the camp was in the wilderness of Paran, a formiiable conspiracy was organized against the sacerlotal authority exercised by Aaron and his sons, and the civil authority exercised by Moses. This conspiracy was headed by chiefs of influence and station-Korah, of the tribe of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, of the tribe of Reuben KORAH]. But the Divine appointment was conirined by the signal destruction of the conspirators: and the next day, when the people assemled tumultuously and murmured loudly at the Jestruction which had overtaken their leaders and friends, a fierce pestilence broke out among them, and they fell by thousands on the spot. When this was seen, Aaron, at the command of Moses, filled a censer with fire from the altar, ind, rushing forward, he stood between the lead and the living,' and the plague was stayed Num. xvi.). This was in fact another attestation of the Divine appointment; and, for its further confirmation, the chiefs of the several tribes were required to lay up their staves overnight in the tabernacle, together with the rod of Aaron for the tribe of Levi; and in the morning it was found that, while the other rods remained as they were, that of Aaron had budded, blossomed, and yielded the fruit of almonds. The rod was preserved in the tabernacle in evidence of the Divine appointment of the Aaronic family to the priesthood (Num. xvii. 1).

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Aaron was not allowed to enter the Promised Land, on account of the distrust which he, as well as his brother, manifested when the rock was stricken at Meribah (Num. xx. 8-13). His leath indeed occurred very soon after that event. For when the host arrived at Mount Hor, the Divine mandate came, that Aaron, accompanied by his brother Moses and by his son Eleazer, should ascend to the top of that mountain in the view of all the people; and that he should there transfer his pontifical robes to Eleazer, and then die. He was 123 years old when his career thus terminated; and his son and his brother buried him in a cavern of the mountain [HOR, MOUNT]. The Israelites mourned for him thirty days; and on the first day of the month Ab the Jews still hold a fast in commemoration of his death.

AARONITES, the descendants of Aaron, who served as priests at the sanctuary (Num. iv. 5, req.; 1 Chron. xii. 27; xxvii. 17).

ABARIM

AB (father) is found as the first member of several compound Hebrew proper names-such as Abner, father of light; Abiezer, father of help; &c. By a process which it is not difficult to conceive, the idea of a natural father became modified into that of author, cause, source (as when it is said, 'has the rain a father?'-Job xxxviii. 28). So that, in course of time, the original meaning was so far modified that the word was sometimes applied to a woman, as in Abigail, father of joy.

AB is the Chaldee name of that month which is the fifth of the ecclesiastical and eleventh of the civil year of the Jews. It commenced with the new moon of our August (the reasons for this statement will be given in the article MONTHS), and always had 30 days. This month is preeminent in the Jewish calendar as the period of the most signal national calamities. The 1st is memorable for the death of Aaron (Num. xxxiii. 38). The 9th is the date assigned to the following events:-the declaration that no one then adult, except Joshua and Caleb, should enter into the Promised Land (Num. xiv. 30); the destruction of the first Temple by Nebuchadnezzar (to these first two the fast of the fifth month,' in Zech. vii. 5, viii. 19, is supposed to refer); the destruction of the second Temple by Titus; the devastation of the city Bettar, and the slaughter of Ben Cozîbah (Bar Cocâb), and of several thousand Jews there; and the ploughing up of the foundations of the Temple by Turnus Rufus -the two last of which happened in the time of Hadrian.

The 9th of the month is observed by the Jews as a fast, in commemoration of the destruction of the first Temple: the 15th is the day appointed for the festival of the wood-offering, in which the wood for the burnt-offering was stored up in the court of the Temple: to which Nehemiah alludes in x. 34, and xiii. 31. Lastly, the 18th is a fast in the memory of the western lamp going out in the Temple in the time of Ahaz (2 Chron. xxix. 7, where the extinction of the lamps is mentioned as a part of Ahaz's attempts to suppress the Temple service). For an inquiry into what is meant by the western or evening lamp, see the article CANDLESTICK.

ABAD'DON, or APOLLYON (destruction). The former is the Hebrew name, and the latter the Greek, for the angel of death, described (Rev. ix. 11) as the king and chief of the Apocalyptic locusts under the fifth trumpet, and as the angel of the abyss or 'bottomless pit' [HADES].

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AB'AÑA, or, as it is given in the marginal reading, AMANA, the name of one of the rivers which are mentioned by Naaman (2 Kings v. 12), Abana and Pharpar,' as rivers of Damascus.' Amana signifies 'perennial,' and is probably the true name. At the present day it is scarcely possible to discover with certainty the stream to which this name was applied. The most recent conjecture seeks the Abana in the small river Fidgi, which rises in a pleasant valley fifteen or twenty miles to the north-west of Damascus and falls into the Barrada, the main stream by which Damascus is irrigated.

AB'ARIM, a mountain, or rather chain of mountains, which form or belong to the mountainous district east of the Dead Sea and the lower Jordan. It presents many distinct masses

ABEL

and elevations, commanding extensive views of the country west of the river. From one of the highest of these, called Mount Nebo, Moses surveyed the Promised Land before he died. From the manner in which the names Abarim, Nebo. and Pisgah are connected (Deut. xxxii. 49, 'Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto Mount Nebo; and xxxiv. 1, Unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah'), it would seem that Nebo was a mountain of the Abarim chain, and that Pisgah was the highest and most commanding peak of that mountain. The loftiest mounain of the neighbourhood is Mount Attarus, about ten miles north of the Arnon; and travellers have been disposed to identify it with Mount Nebo. It is represented as barren, its summit being marked by a wild pistachio-tree overshadowing a heap of stones.

AB'BA is the Hebrew word Ab, father, under a form peculiar to the Chaldee idiom (Mark xiv. 36; Rom. viii. 15; Gal. iv. 6).

1. ABDON (a servant), the son of Hillel, of the tribe of Ephraim, and tenth judge of Israel. He succeeded Elon, and judged Israel eight years. Nothing is recorded of him but that he had forty sons and thirty nephews, who rode on young asses—a mark of their consequence (Judg. xii. 13-15). Abdon died B.c. 1112.

There were three other persons of this name, which appears to have been rather common. They are mentioned in 1 Chron. viii. 23; ix. 36; and 2 Chron. xxxiv. 20.

2. ABDON, a city of the tribe of Asher, which was given to the Levites of Gershom's family (Joh. xxi. 30; 1 Chron. vi. 74).

ABED NEGO (servant of Nego, i. e. Nebo), the Chaldee name imposed by the king of Babylon's officer upon Azariah, one of the three companions of Daniel. With his two friends, Shadrach and Meshach, he was miraculously delivered from the burning furnace, into which they were cast for refusing to worship the golden statue which Nebuchadnezzar had caused to be set up (Dan. iii.).

A'BEL, properly HEBEL, the second son of Adam, who was slain by Cain, his elder brother (Gen. iv. 1-16). The circumstances of that mysterious transaction are considered elsewhere [CAIN]. To the name Abel a twofold interprecation has been given. Its primary signification is weakness or vanity. By another rendering it signifies grief or lamentation, both meanings being justified by the Scripture narrative. CAIN (a possession) was so named to indicate both the joy of his mother and his right to the inheritance of the first-born: Abel received a name indicative of his weakness and poverty when compared with the supposed glory of his brother's destiny, and prophetically of the pain and sorrow which were to be inflicted on him and his parents.

ABEL, a name of several villages in Israel, with additions in the case of the more important, to distinguish them from one another. It appears to mean fresh grass; and the places so named may be conceived to have been in peculiarly verdant situations.

ABEL, ABEL-BETH-MAACAH, or ABEL-MAIM, a city in the north of Palestine, which seems to have been of considerable strength from its history, and of importance from its being called 'a

ABIATHAR

mother in Israel' (2 Sam. xx. 19). The identity of the city under these different names will be seen by a comparison of 2 Sam. xx. 14, 15, 18; 1 Kings xv. 20; 2 Chron. xvi. 4. The addition of Maacah' marks it as belonging to, or being near to, the region Maacah, which lay eastward of the Jordan under Mount Lebanon. This is the town in which Sheba posted himself when he rebelled against David. Eighty years afterwards it was taken and sacked by Benhadad, king of Syria; and 200 years subsequently by Tiglath-pileser, who sent away the inhabitants captives into Assyria (2 Kings xv. 29).

A'BEL-BETH-MAA'CAH, that is, Abel near the house or city of Maacah: the same as Abel. A'BEL-CARMA'IM (place of the vineyards), a village of the Ammonites, about six miles from Philadelphia, or Rabbath Ammon, according to Eusebius, in whose time the place was still rich in vineyards (Judg. xi. 33).

A'BEL-MA'IM. The same as ABEL. A'BEL-MEHO'LAH, or ABEL-MEA (place of the dance), a town supposed to have stood near the Jordan, and some miles (Eusebius says ten) to the south of Bethshan or Scythopolis (1 Kings iv. 12). It is remarkable in connection with Gideon's victory over the Midianites (Judg. vii. 22), and as the birth-place of Elisha (1 Kings xix. 16).

A'BEL-MIZRA'IM (the mourning of the Egyp tians), the name of a threshing-floor, so called on account of the great mourning' made there for Jacob by the funeral party from Egypt (Gen. L. 11). Jerome places it between Jericho and the Jordan, where Bethagla afterwards stood.

A'BEL-SHITTIM (place of acacias), a town in the plains of Moab, on the east of the Jordan. between which and Beth-Jesimoth was the last encampment of the Israelites on that side the river (Num. xxxiii. 49). It is more frequently called Shittim merely (Num. xxv. 1; Josh. ii. 1; Mic. vi. 5). The place is noted for the punishment which was there inflicted upon the Israelites for their worship of Baal-Peor.

ABELA. [ABILA.]

A'BI, the mother of King Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 2), called also Abijah (2 Chron. xxix. 1). Her father's name was Zachariah, perhaps the same who was taken by Isaiah (viii. 2) for a witness.

ABI'A. [ABIJAH, 3.]

ABI'AH, or ABIJAH, one of the sons of Samuel who were intrusted with the administration of justice, and whose misconduct afforded the ostensible ground on which the Israelites demanded that their government should be changed into a monarchy (1 Sam. viii. 1-5).

ABI-AL'BON. [ABIEL, 2.]

ABI'ATHAR (father of abundance), the tenth high-priest of the Jews, and fourth in descent from Eli. When his father, the high-priest Abimelech, was slain with the priests at Nob, for suspected partiality to the fugitive David, Abiathar escaped the massacre; and bearing with him the most essential part of the priestly raiment, the ephod [PRIESTS], repaired to the son of Jesse, who was then in the cave of Adullam (1 Sam. xxii. 20-23; xxiii. 6). He was well received by David, and became the priest of the party during its wanderings. As such he

ABIGAIL

sought and received for David responses from God. When David became king of Judah, he made Abiathar high-priest. Meanwhile Zadok had been appointed high-priest by Saul, and continued to act in this capacity while Abiathar was high-priest in Judail. The appointment of Zadok was not only unexceptionable in itself, but was in accordance with the divine sentence of deposition which had been passed upon the house of Eli (1 Sam. ii. 30-36). When, therefore, David acquired the kingdom of Israel, he had no just ground on which Zadok could be removed, and Abiathar set in his place; and the attempt to do so would probably have been offensive to his new subjects. The king got over this difficulty by allowing both appointments to stand; and until the end of David's reign Zadok and Abiathar were joint highpriests. As high-priest Abiathar must have been perfectly aware of the divine intention that Solomon should be the successor of David: he was therefore the least excusable, in some respects, of all those who were parties in the attempt to raise Adonijah to the throne. So his conduct seems to have been viewed by Solomon, who, in deposing him from the high-priesthood, plainly told him that only his sacerdotal character, and his former services to David, preserved him from death. This deposition of Abiathar completed the doom long before denounced upon the house of Eli, who was of the line of Ithamar, the younger son of Aaron. Zadok, who remained the high-priest, was of the elder line of Eleazer (1 Kings i. 7, 19; ii. 26, 27).

A'BIB. [NISAN.]

1. ABIEL (father of strength, i. e. strong), the father of Kish, whose son Saul was the first king of Israel, and of Ner, whose son Abner was captain of the host to his cousin Saul (1 Sam. ix. 1; xiv. 51).

2. ABIEL, one of the thirty most distinguished men of David's army (1 Chron. xi. 32). He is called Abi-albon in 2 Sam. xxiii. 31; a name which has precisely the same signification (father of strength) as the other.

ABIEZER (father of help, Josh. xvii. 2), a son of Gilead, the grandson of Manasseh (Num. xxvi. 30), and founder of the family to which Gideon belonged, and which bore his name as a patronymic-Abiezrites (Judg. vi. 34; viii. 2). ABIGAIL (father of joy), the wife of a prosperous sheep-master, called Nabal, who dwelt in the district of Carmel, west of the Dead Sea. She is known chiefly for the promptitude and discretion of her conduct in taking measures to avert the wrath of David, which had been violently excited by the insulting treatment which his messengers had received from her husband [NABAL]. She hastily prepared a liberal supply of provisions, of which David's troop stood in much need, and went forth to meet him. Her beauty and prudence made such an impression upon David on this occasion, that when, not long after, he heard of Nabal's death, he sent for her, and she became his wife (1 Sam. xxv. 14-42). It is usually stated that he had by her two sons, Chileab and Daniel; but it is more likely that the Chileab of 2 Sam. iii. 3, is the same as the Daniel of 1 Chron. iii. 1; the son of Abigail being known by both these names.

ABIJAH

1. ABIHA'IL (father of light or splendour, the wife of Rehoboam, king of Judah. She is called the daughter of Eliab, David's elder brother (2 Chron. xi. 18); but was doubtless only his descendant.

2. ABIHAIL (father of might, i. e. mighty). This name should be written ABICHAIL. It was borne by several persons: 1. ABICHAIL, the son of Huri, one of the family-chiefs of the tribe of Gad, who settled in Bashan (1 Chron. v. 14). 2. ABICHAIL, the father of Zuriel, who was the father of the Levitical tribes of Merari (Num. iii. 35). 3. ABICHAIL, the father of Queen Esther, and brother of Mordecai (Esth. ii. 15).

ABI'HU (father of him), the second of the sons of Aaron, who, with his brothers Nadab, Eleazer, and Ithamar, was set apart and consecrated for the priesthood (Exod. xxviii. 1). He and his brother Nadab having presumed to offer incense in censers filled with strange' or common fire, they were instantly struck dead by lightning, and were taken away and buried in their clothes without the camp. As immediately after the record of this transaction comes a prohibition of wine or strong drink to the priests on duty at the tabernacle, it is not unfairly surmised that they were intoxicated when they committed this serious error in their ministrations (Lev. x. 1-71).

1. ABI'JAH (see signif. in ABIAH, 2 Chron. xiii. 1). He is also called Abijam (1 Kings xv.). Abijah was the second king of the separate kingdom of Judah, being the son of Rehoboam, and grandson of Solomon. He began to reign B.C. 957, in the eighteenth year of Jeroboam, king of Israel; and he reigned three years. At the commencement of his reign Abijah made a vigorous attempt to bring back the ten tribes to their allegiance. In this he failed; although a signal victory over Jeroboam, who had double his force and much greater experience, enabled him to take several cities which had been held by Israel. The numbers reputed to have been present in this action are 800,000 on the side of Jeroboam, 400,000 on the side of Abijah, and 500,000 left dead on the field. The book of Chronicles mentions nothing concerning Abijah adverse to the favourable impressions which we receive from his conduct on this occasion; but in Kings we are told that 'he walked in all the sins of his father' (1 Kings xv. 3). He had fourteen wives, by whom he left twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters. Asa succeeded him.

2. ABIJAH, son of Jeroboam I., king of Israel. His severe and threatening illness induced Jeroboam to send his wife with a present, suited to the disguise in which she went, to consult the prophet Ahijah respecting his recovery, This prophet was the same who had, in the days of Solomon, foretold to Jeroboam his elevation to the throne of Israel. Though blind with age, he knew the disguised wife of Jeroboam, and was authorized, by the prophetic impulse that came upon him, to reveal to her that, because there was found in Abijah only, of all the house of Jeroboam, some good thing towards the Lord,' he only, of all that house, should come to his grave in peace, and be mourned in Israel. Accordingly, when the mother returned home, the youth died as she crossed the threshold of

the door.

ABIMELECH

And they buried him, and all Israel mourned for him' (1 Kings xiv. 1-18).

3. ABIJAH, one of the descendants of Eleazer, the son of Aaron, and chief of one of the twentyfour courses or orders into which the whole body of the priesthood was divided by David (1 Chron. xxiv. 10; Luke i. 5). Of these the course of Abijah was the eighth.

ABIJAM. [ABIJAH, 1.]

ABILA, capital of the Abilene of Lysanias (Luke iii. 1); and distinguished from other places of the same name as the Abila of Lysaias, and (by Josephus) as the Abila of Lebaon.' Abila has been supposed to be the same as Abel-beth-Maacah, but without foundation, for that was a city of Naphtali, which Abila was not. About eighteen miles north-west of Damascus is Souk Wady Barrada, where an inscription was found by Mr. Bankes, which, beyond doubt, identifies that place with the Abila of Lysanias. Burckhardt states that there are here two villages, built on the opposite sides of the Barrada.

ABILE'NE (Luke iii. 1), the small district or territory which took its name from the chief, town, Åbila. Its situation is in some degree letermined by that of the town; but its precise limits and extent remain unknown. Northward t must have reached beyond the Upper Barrada, in order to include Abila; and it is probable that its southern border may have extended to Mount Hermon (Jebel es-Sheikh). It seems to have included the eastern declivities of AntiLibanus, and the fine valleys between its base and the hills which front the eastern plains.

This territory had been governed as a tetrarchate by Lysanias, son of Ptolemy and grandson of Mennæus, but he was put to death, B.C. 33, through the intrigues of Cleopatra, who then took possession of the province. After her death it fell to Augustus, who rented it out to one Zenodorus; but as he did not keep it clear of robbers, it was taken from him, and given to Herod the Great. At his death a part (the outhern, doubtless) of the territory was added o Trachonitis and Ituræa to form a tetrarchy for his son Philip; but by far the larger portion, including the city of Abila, was then, or shortly afterwards, bestowed on another Lysanias, mentioned by Luke (iii. 1), who is supposed to have been a descendant of the former Lysanias, but who is nowhere mentioned by Josephus. About ten years after the time referred to by Luke, the emperor Caligula gave Abilene to Agrippa I. as, 'the tetrarchy of Lysanias,' to whom it was afterwards confirmed by Claudius. At his death, t was included in that part of his possessions which went to his son Agrippa II.

1. ABIM'ELECH (futher of the king, or perhaps royal father), the name of the Philistine king of Gerar in the time of Abraham (Gen. xx. 1, sqq.: B.C. 1898; Hales, B.C. 2054); but, from its recurrence, it was probably less a proper name than a titular distinction, like PHARAOH for the kings of Egypt, or AUGUSTUS for the emperors of Rome. Abraham removed into his territory after the destruction of Sodom; and fearing that the beauty of Sarah might bring him into difficulties, he declared her to be his sister. The conduct of Abimelech in taking Sarah into his harem shows that kings even then

ABIMELECH

E claimed the right of taking to themselves the unmarried females not only of their natural subjects, but of those who sojourned in their dominions. But Abimelech, obedient to a divine warning, restored her to her husband. As a mark of his respect he added valuable gifts, and offered the patriarch a settlement in any part of the country; but he nevertheless did not forbear to visit with a gentle rebuke the deception which had been practised upon him (Gen. xx.). Nothing further is recorded of King Abimelech, except that a few years after he repaired to the camp of Abraham, who had removed southward beyond his borders, accompanied by Phichol, the chief captain of his host, to invite the patriarch to contract with him a league of peace and friendship. Abraham consented; and this first league on record [ALLIANCE] was confirmed by a mutual oath, made at a well which had been digged by Abraham, but which the herdsmen of Abimelech had seized without their lord's knowledge. It was restored to the rightful owner, on which Abraham named it BEERSHEBA (the Well of the Oath), and consecrated the spot to the worship of Jehovah (Gen. xxi. 22-34).

2. ABIMELECH, another king of Gerar, in the time of Isaac (about B.c. 1804; Hales, 1960), who is supposed to have been the son of the preceding. Isaac sought refuge in his territory during a famine; and having the same fear respecting his fair Mesopotamian wife, Rebekah, as his father had entertained respecting Sarah, he reported her to be his sister. This brought upon him the rebuke of Abimelech, when he accidentally discovered the truth. In those times, as now, wells of water were of so much importance for agricultural as well as pastoral purposes, that they gave a proprietary right to the soil, not previously appropriated, in which they were dug. Abraham had digged wells during his sojourn in the country; and, to bar the claim which resulted from them, the Philistines had afterwards filled them up; but they were now cleared out by Isaac, who proceeded to cultivate the ground to which they gave him a right. The virgin soil yielded him a hundredfold; and his other possessions, his flocks and herds, also received such prodigious increase that the jealousy of the Philistines could not be suppressed; and Abimelech desired him to seek more distant quarters, in language which gives a high notion of the wealth of the patriarchal chiefs, and the extent of their establishments:Depart from us: for thou art more and mightier than we. Isaac complied, and went out into the open country, and digged wells for his cattle. But the shepherds of the Philistines were not inclined to allow the claim to exclusive pasturage in these districts to be thus established; and their opposition induced the quiet patriarch to make successive removals, until he reached such a distance that his operations were no longer disputed. Afterwards, when he was at Beersheba, he received a visit from Abimelech, who was attended by Ahuzzath, his friend, and Phichol, the chief captain of his army. The king having explained that it was his wish to renew, with one so manifestly blessed of God, the covenant of peace which had been contracted. between their fathers, Isaac willingly consented, and the desired covenant was, with due cere

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