makes us understand the story of
Abraham's migration in a way that was never possible before. He was no
wild nomad wandering in unknown regions, among a people of alien habits
and foreign civilization. We know now why he took the road which we are
told he followed; why he was able to make allies among the inhabitants
of Canaan; why he understood their language and could take part in their
social life. Like the Englishman who migrates to a British colony,
Abraham was in contact with the same culture in Canaan and Chaldaea
alike.

But when he reached Canaan he was not yet Abraham. He was still "Abram
the Hebrew," and it was as "Abram the Hebrew" that he made alliance with
the Amorites of Mamre and overthrew the retreating forces of the
Babylonian kings. Abram--Abu-ramu, "the exalted father,"--is a
Babylonian name, and is found in contracts of the age of Chedor-laomer.
When the name was changed to Abraham, it was a sign that the Babylonian
emigrant had become a native of the West.

It was under the terebinth of Moreh before Shechem that Abraham first
pitched his tent and erected his first altar to the Lord. Above him
towered Ebal and Gerizim, where the curses and blessings of the Law were
afterwards to be pronounced. From thence he moved southward to one of
the hills westward of Beth-el, the modern Beitin, and there his second
altar was built. While the first had been reared in the plain, the
second was raised on the mountain-slope.

But here too he did not remain long. Again he "journeyed, going on still
towards the south." Then came a famine which obliged him to cross the
frontier of Egypt, and visit the court of the Pharaoh. The Hyksos
kinsmen of the race to which he belonged were ruling in the Delta, and a
ready welcome was given to the Asiatic stranger. He was "very rich in
cattle, in silver and in gold," and like a wealthy Arab sheikh to-day
was received with due honour in the Egyptian capital. The court of the
Pharaoh was doubtless at Zoan.

Among the possessions of the patriarch we are told were camels. The
camel is not included among the Egyptian hieroglyphs, nor has it been
found depicted on the walls of the Egyptian temples and tombs. The name
is first met with in a papyrus of the time of the nineteenth dynasty,
and is one of the many words which the Egyptians of that age borrowed
from their Canaanitish neighbours. The animal, in fact, was not used by
the Egyptians, and its domestication in the valley of the