too, in more copious supplies than anywhere else in the land; and it is just to its many fountains, rills, and water-courses that the valley owes its exquisite beauty. There is a singularity," he adds, "about the Vale of Shechem, and that is, the peculiar colouring which objects assume in it. You know that wherever there is water the air becomes charged with watery particles, and that distant objects beheld through that medium seem to be enveloped in a pale-blue or gray mist, such as contributes not a little to give a charm to the landscape. But it is precisely these atmospheric tints that we miss so much in Palestine. Fiery tints are to be seen both in the morning and the evening, and glittering violet or purple-coloured hues where the light falls next to the long deep shadows; but there is an absence of colouring, and of that charming dusky haze in which objects assume such softly blended forms, and in which also the transition in colour from the foreground to the farthest distance loses the hardness of outline peculiar to the perfect transparency of an eastern sky. It is otherwise in the Vale of Shechem, at least in the morning and the evening. Here the exhalations remain hovering among the branches and leaves of the olive-trees, and hence that lovely bluish haze. The valley is far from broad, not exceeding in some places a few hundred feet. This you find generally inclosed on all sides; there likewise the vapours are condensed. And so you advance under the shade of the foliage along the living waters, and charmed by the melody of a host of singing birds-for they, too, know where to find their best quarters while the perspective fades away, and is lost in the damp vapoury atmosphere. These are the features, so unlike to those of Jerusalem, which we have now to trace as they burst upon us in different points of view through the various stages of the history of Shechem, as of a face once familiar, often disappearing, yet again and again appearing through the vicissitudes of youth and age, through public and private life-changing, yet still the same, and connecting events and scenes in themselves widely different."

The valley of Moreh is the modern el-Makhnah, which is before Shechem-a plain which must have greatly drawn to it the admiration of the Syrian wanderers, if it was even half as lovely and fertile in the days of Abram as it is now. The clause in verse sixth, rendered in our translation "the plain of Moreh," should have been "the oak of Moreh." It is certain that the trees of the spot mentioned are pointed to here. The likelihood that these trees were oaks, and that among them one was much noted, is of the strongest kind. Some have tried to make out that the Terebinth (Pistacia terebinthus), or turpentine

tree, is the plant referred to. But there are several weighty objections to this. The chief of these is, that "oak" is by far the best translation for the word in the other passages in which it occurs.

From the Hebrew El or Ail (to be strong), certain words, in common. use in Scripture, are derived which indicate strong trees. In Genesis xiv. 6, Chedorlaomer is represented as smiting "the Horites in their Mount Seir, unto El-paran, which is by the wilderness." The reference here being to a noted terebinth tree (El) on the borders of the country

possessed by the Horites. The plural form of this occurs in Exodus xv. 27. "And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water and threescore and ten palm trees"-" Elim" being equivalent to strong, stately trees," namely, the trees of the wilderness, the palm trees. Another derivative is used in its masculine form to denote the oak, as here, and is interchangeable with the word (allon) most frequently employed to designate the oak. The masculine occurs in the expressions, "plain (oak) of Moreh;" "plain (oak) of Mamre "

(xiii. 18); "plain (oak) of Zaanim" (Jud. iv. 11); "All the men of Shechem gathered together, and all the house of Millo, and made Abimelech king, by the plain (oak) of the pillar that was in Shechem" (Jud. ix. 6); "See there come people down by the middle of the land, and another company come along by the plain (oak) of Meonenim (Jud. ix. 37); "Thou shalt go on forward from thence, and thou shalt come to the plain (oak) of Tabor" (1 Sam. x. 3).

The feminine form of elon, oak, is elah, terebinth, or turpentine tree. Thus in Isaiah vi. 13, it is opposed to the usual word for oak (allon), and is translated teil-tree. So also, in Hosea iv. 13, where it is rendered elm. In Judges vi. 19, it occurs as oak, in the description of the interview between Gideon and the angel-"The flesh he put in a basket, and he put both in a pot, and brought it out unto him under the oak (terebinth), and presented it." It is also the "thick oak" of Ezekiel vi. 13. That Elon was used as having the same meaning with Allon, is clear from Joshua xix. 33, " And their coast was from Heleph, from Allon to Zaanim." This is the same object and locality mentioned in Judges iv. 11, as the plain of Zaanim, literally an oak (elon) by Zaanim."

The tree of Moreh was thus the oak (Quercus robur), or common oak, a tree which still abounds in the region into which Abram came when, having left the course of the Jabbok, he crossed to the western shore of the Jordan, and encamped in the valley of Moreh, under Ebal and Gerizim. The oak, with the beech, the chestnut, &c., belongs to the natural order Corylaceae-the Nut-tree or Hazel family. It is noted for its great durability, a characteristic common to it with other trees-the Yew (Taxus baccata), for example-which are noted for the hardening of their central wood, or duramen of botanists. This becomes dry, and, unlike that of the trees of rapid growth and soft central wood, does not seem to take any part in the vital processes of the plant. Its durability and strength made the oak a fit figure of the powerful races, which the Lord drove out of Canaan before his chosen people. When pleading, by the lips of Amos, with a backsliding people, and when reminding them of his mighty acts on behalf of their fathers, the Lord says " Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the Cedars, and he was strong as the Oaks, yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath" (xi. 9).

In the place of Sichem, in the rich valley of Moreh, of which the Canaanite still held peaceful possession while increasing in wickedness and filling up the cup of their iniquity, "the Lord appeared unto Abram,

and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land." "And there Abram builded an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him" (ver. 7). The divine purpose in leading him to leave his own people and his father's house, begins now to have more light shed on it. The wood-clad hills, the fruitful fields, the "lands laughing with abundance," which everywhere met the eye of the Hebrew patriarch, were to be given to him and to his seed. The region which from Abraham to Joshua filled the hopes of the Hebrews, is thus clearly pointed out to the chief founder of their nation—"Unto thy seed will I give this land." (See under Numbers xiii. 17, for Canaan and the Canaanites.)

The topics which claim special notices in chapters xii. to xxv., are all more or less closely connected with the life of Abraham. The references, moreover, to other individuals, and to the tribes with which he came in contact, cannot be understood if considered apart from the biographical sketch of Abraham contained in these chapters. It will thus be best to weave the passages which demand attention into a narrative of the chief events in Abraham's history.

Leaving the plain of Moreh, Abram turned to the south and entered the highlands, whose central ridge reaches from Mount Ebal on the north to Bethel on the south. This ridge throws off subordinate ridges on both sides, whose axes are east and west. The range in after times was known as Mount Ephraim-a name which included the whole of that mountain region, which was given originally to the descendants of the younger son of Joseph, Ephraim, and part of that which was afterwards inherited by the Benjamites. "The mountain on the east of Bethel," to which he came after at least a couple of days' travel, was the plateau which lies on the top of the ridge between the supposed ruins of Ai and Beitîn-the ancient Bethel. It lies between two ravines, one of which is a branch of the modern Wady Suweinît, the other is Wady el-Medîneh. If we connect the nature of the locality to which he had gone, with the suggestive statement that the "Canaanite was then in the land," we may, perhaps, conclude that he had betaken himself to that place for greater security for a season. (Bethel see under 1 Kings xii. 29.) On this level plateau Abram built his second altar, and "called on the name of the Lord." His journeyings from place to place kept him mindful that, even in the land of promise, he was a pilgrim. He rested but a short time among the mountains to the south of Moreh. "He journeyed farther and farther southward" (ver. 9), an expression indicative of the true nomadic condition of his household. He was in the very heart of the land of Canaan, when a famine forced him to seek

sustenance for his people in Egypt-a country less liable, as we shall see, than Canaan to such visitations. This occurrence was another of those incidents through which the spiritual discipline under which Abram had been put was brought to bear on him. The lesson must have come to him full of meaning. He had seen the natural fertility of the soil. Now he sees God's sovereignty over it.

The visit to Egypt came, from another point of view, to have a great influence on Abram's spiritual history. Noted for his faith in the word and presence of God, he, nevertheless, failed on the very ground on which devoted steadfastness might have been expected from him. The man of faith proved a coward, and faithless in the first purely personal and domestic trial which he had to encounter. Yea, he attempted to palliate, by a timid equivocation, what he should have avoided in the boldness which has its foundation in faith in God. The comeliness of Sarai, whom he describes as "a fair woman to look on," did, as he had anticipated (ver. 11, 12), attract the attention of the princes of Egypt and of Pharaoh. Acting on the privilege of the absolute monarchs of the east, Pharaoh took Sarai into his harem, in the belief that she was Abram's sister, and not his wife. The Lord, however, dealt in such a way with Pharaoh's household, as to lead him to reconsider what he had done. The result was the discovery of the relation in which Sarai stood to Abram, and her return to him, without any breach of the sanctity of the marriage relationship (ver. 18). The fact of the divine revelation to the mind of Pharaoh, is full of interest. It was most likely made in the same way to him, as in the similar instance to Abimelech, king of Gerar (xx. 3). This seems to show, especially when it is connected with the true revelation made by God to Melchisedek and to Job, that the direct manifestations of God to the consciences of men were not limited to the chosen seed in those early times. This consideration should be taken into account, when attempts are made to form an estimate of the products of human thought in the first ages of the world.

The bearing of Abram in this transaction was little to his honour. Even the idolaters appear to have been ashamed of his duplicity. He had alleged that Sarai was indeed his sister-the daughter of his father, but not of his mother (xx. 12); and he now fell back on this equivocation as the vindication of his conduct. Good Bishop Hall's remarks (1650) on the transaction are much to the point:-" What a change is this? Hitherto hath Sarah been Abraham's wife, now Egypt hath made her his sister. Fear hath turned him from a husband to a