naive or derogatory
accounts of the relations which connected the others with their common
ancestor; Ammon and Moab were, for instance, the issue of the incestuous
union of Lot and his daughters. Midian and his sons were descended from
Keturah, who was merely a concubine, Ishmael was the son of an Egyptian
slave, while the "hairy" Esau had sold his birthright and the primacy of
the Edomites to his brother Jacob, and consequently to the Israelites,
for a dish of lentils. Abraham left Kharan at the command of Jahveh, his
God, receiving from Him a promise that his posterity should be blessed
above all others. Abraham pursued his way into the heart of Canaan
till he reached Shechem, and there, under the oaks of Moreh, Jahveh,
appearing to him a second time, announced to him that He would give the
whole land to his posterity as an inheritance. Abraham virtually took
possession of it, and wandered over it with his flocks, building altars
at Shechem, Bethel, and Mamre, the places where God had revealed Himself
to him, treating as his equals the native chiefs, Abimelech of Gerar and
Melchizedek of Jerusalem,* and granting the valley of the Jordan as
a place of pasturage to his nephew Lot, whose flocks had increased
immensely.** His nomadic instinct having led him into Egypt, he was here
robbed of his wife by Pharaoh.***

* Cf. the meeting with Melchizedek after the victory over
the Elamites (_Gen_. xiv. 18-20) and the agreement with
Abimelech about the well (Gen. xxi. 22-34). The mention of
the covenant of Abraham with Abimelech belongs to the oldest
part of the national tradition, and is given to us in the
Jehovistic narrative. Many critics have questioned the
historical existence of Melchizedek, and believed that the
passage in which he is mentioned is merely a kind of parable
intended to show the head of the race paying tithe of the
spoil to the priest of the supreme God residing at
Jerusalem; the information, however, furnished by the Tel-
el-Amarna tablets about the ancient city of Jerusalem and
the character of its early kings have determined Sayce to
pronounce Melchizedek to be an historical personage.

** _Gen._ xiii. 1-13. Lot has been sometimes connected of
late with the people called on the Egyptian monuments
Rotanu, or Lotanu, whom we shall have occasion to mention
frequently further on: he is supposed to have been their