disguise myself and go into the battle; but put thou on thy robes. And the king of Israel disguised himself.

Now the king of Aram had commanded the thirty and two captains of his chariots, saying: Fight neither with small nor great, save only with the king of Israel. And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, that they said: Surely it is the king of Israel; and they turned aside to fight against him; but Jehoshaphat cried out. And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots saw that it was not the king of Israel, that they turned back from pursuing him. And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of his armor; wherefore he said unto the driver of his chariot: Turn thy hand and bear me out of the host; for I am sore wounded. And the battle increased that day; and the king was stayed up in his chariot against the Aramæans, and died at even; and the blood ran out of the wound into the bottom of the chariot. And there went up a cry throughout the host, about the going down of the sun: Every man to his city, and every man to his country.

So the king died and was brought to Samaria; and they buried the king in Samaria. And they washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria; and the dogs licked up his blood; the harlots also washed themselves there; according to the word that Yahweh had spoken. So Ahab slept with his fathers, and Ahaziah his son reigned in his stead.

[But in Judah] Jehosophat put away out of the land the remnant of the sodomites that remained in the days of his father Asa. Now there was no king in Edom; a deputy was ruler. Jehoshaphat made ships of Tarshish to go to Ophir for gold; but they went not, for the ships were broken in Ezion-geber. Then said Ahaziah the son of Ahab unto Jehoshaphat: Let my servants go with thy servants in the ships; but he would not1

1 Here ends the great work of J.-abruptly, as if the pen had just fallen from his hand. The Ephraimite author E, having covered the same ground from Abraham to Ahab and given most vital traditions of the national heroes, rounds out the history of the usurpers in Israel during Asa's reign in Judah from the Ephraimitic point of view; and, in his accounts of Elisha's activities and the reign of Joash in Judah (Stories xvii and xvii), brings history to the reign of Jeroboam II in the middle of the eighth century B.C.

THE

GOLDEN AGE OF HEBREW LITERATURE

FIRST PERIOD

PROSE AND POETRY OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY, B.C.

NOTABLE DEEDS OF ISRAEL'S HEROES

POEMS OF AMOS OF TEKOA IN JUDAH

POEMS OF HOSEA, THE EPHRAIMITE

POEMS OF ISAIAH, THE COUNSELLOR OF HEZEKIAH
POEMS OF MICAH, THE MORASTHITE

SUPPLEMENT OF J'S HISTORY OF ISRAEL, BY JE

WITH A LATE ADDITION BY P.

NOTABLE DEEDS OF THE PATRIARCHS

AND HEROES OF ISRAEL

BY THE EPHRAIMITE AUTHOR E

I

OF ABRAHAM, THE PROGENITOR OF THE ISRAELITES The birth of Isaac. The abolition for his descendants of human sacrifice. (Genesis, xv, 1-18; xvi, 1a, 3, 15; xx, 1-17; xxi, 1b, 2b, 6-21; xxii, 1-13.)

The word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision, saying: Fear not, Abram; I am thy shield. Thy reward shall be exceeding great. And Abram said: O God Yahweh, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless, and he that shall be the possessor of my goods is this Eliezer of Damascus? Behold, to me Thou hast given no seed, and one born in my house is mine heir. Then behold, the word of Yahweh came to him saying: This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And He brought him forth abroad, and said: Look now toward heaven and count the stars, if thou be able to count them. And He said unto him: So shall thy seed be. And he believed in Yahweh, and it was counted to him for righteousness.

And He said unto him: I am Yahweh, that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this land for an inheritance. And he said: O God Yahweh, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? And He answered him: Take Me a heifer of three years old, and a turtle-dove and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece, one against the other; but the birds he divided not. And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

Now, when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him. And He said unto Abram: Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years. And that nation also whom they shall serve will I judge; and afterward shall they come out with great substance. But thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation shall they come hither again; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

And it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold! a smoking furnace and a burning torch that passed between the pieces.

In the same day, Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying: Unto thy seed will I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.

Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bare him no children. And Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, after Abram had dwelt twelve years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband to be his wife. And Hagar bare Abram a son. And Abram called the name of his son whom Hagar bare, Ishmael. And Abraham' journeyed from thence and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife: She is my sister. And Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said unto him: Behold, thou art a dead man on account of the woman thou hast taken, for she is a man's wife. And Abimelech had not come near her; and he said: Lord, wilt thou slay even a righteous person? Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said: He is my brother. In the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this. And God said unto him in a dream: Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart, for I also withheld thee from sinning against me; therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. Now therefore, restore to the man his wife, for he is a prophet; and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live. But, if thou restore her not, thou shalt surely die, thou and all that is thine.

Then Abimelech rose early in the morning and called his servants, and told all these things in their ears. And the men were sore afraid. And Abimelech called Abraham, and said unto him: What hast thou done unto us? and how have I offended thee, that thou hast brought upon me and on my kingdom a great sin? Thou hast done deeds unto me that ought not to be done. And Abimelech said unto Abraham: What sawest thou, that thou hast done this thing? And Abraham said: Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place, and they will slay me for my wife's sake. And yet she is indeed my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. And it came to pass when God caused me to wander from my father's house, that I said unto her: This is the kindness which thou shalt show me; at whatever place whither we come, say of me: He is my brother.

And Abimelech took sheep and oxen and man-servants and maidservants, and gave them unto Abraham, and restored him Sarah his wife. And Abimelech said: Behold, my land is before thee; dwell where it pleaseth thee. And unto Sarah he said: Behold, I have given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver. Behold, he is to thee a covering of the eyes, unto all that are with thee and to all other, and before all men thou art righted. And Abraham prayed unto God; and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maid-servants, and they bare children.

And God did to Sarah as he had spoken, at the set time of which He had spoken. And Sarah said: God hath made me to laugh; every one that heareth will laugh with me. And she said: Who would have said unto Abraham that Sarah should give children suck? for I have borne him a son in his old age. And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast the day Isaac was weaned. And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had borne to Abraham, mocking. Wherefore she said unto Abraham: Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, with Isaac. And the thing was very grievous in 1 The circumstances of the change of the names of Abram and Sarai are told by P, in ch. xvii, A. V.