VI.] THE ISHMAELITES. 167 played such a part in the world's history that it is matter of the deepest interest to trace the varied fortunes that befel them. The histories of Edom, Moab, and Ammon were closely interwoven with that of Israel, and therefore have secured a certain amount of attention; but the tale of the Ishmaelites and of the Bene Kedem, whom Abraham sent eastward into the east country' (Gen. 25. 6), has received comparatively slight notice. It is pretty clear from the narratives in Genesis (25. 9) that Ishmael was living south of Canaan at the time of his father's death; but the twelve tribes descended from him. (Gen. 25. 13) must have gradually spread over the whole country stretching from Hermon to the southern limits of the northern desert. In the days of Saul (1 Chron. 5. 19) the men of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh expelled the Hagarites, Jetur, Nephish, and Nodab from the district they occupied and dwelt in their stead till the Captivity. Jetur and Nephish were two of the great Ishmaelite tribes, and Nodab was no doubt some division of the Ishmaelite race. The Ishmaelites thus expelled seem, in part at least, to have taken refuge in the defiles of the neighbouring Hermon, and subsequently to have regained possession of their country, for a portion of it, bordering on Hermon to the east, was long known in classical geography as Ituraea. The chief interest however that belongs to the incident thus recorded in Scripture consists in the use of the term Hagarites-the children of Hagar. We learn from it that the phrase Hagarites and Hagarenes indicated the Ishmaelites that bordered on Damascus; and perhaps we may gather from 1 Chron. 5. 9, &c., that before their expulsion these Hagarenes had settlements as far east as the Euphrates. Tadmor (Palmyra) may have been one of the districts taken from them by the Reubenites, for it was certainly in the possession of an Israelitish people when Solomon built his town there (1 Kings 9. 18). The southern tribes of Ishmaelites were from the first addicted to commerce; and so generally were they recog nized as traders, that their name was given to the neighbouring tribes who followed their example. The 'merchantmen' who bought Joseph of his brethren (Gen. 37) are described as Ishmaelites (vv. 25 and 28), yet we learn from v. 28 that they were by descent Midianites1. Again, when Gideon subdued the Midianites, he received their ear-rings as his share of the spoil, for they had golden ear-rings because they were Ishmaelites' (Judges 8. 24). Possibly it may have been this misuse of the name that induced the pastoral tribes of the north to drop the name of Ishmaelites and call themselves Hagarenes. Nebaioth and the kindred tribes occupied the whole country from the Euphrates to the Red Sea (Jos. Ant. 1. 12. 4); and in the fourth century B. C. they had possession of Petra. They spoke Aramean (Diod. 19. 96), and it is now a very general opinion that the strange inscriptions on the rocks of the Sinaitic peninsula were the work of this people. In the inscription at Thebes which describes the campaign of Shishak in Palestine, occur the names Pe-hekran and Naabayt, which modern Egyptologists consider as the names respectively of the Hagarenes and the Nabatheansthe Pe in Pe-hekran being the Coptic article; and in the inscriptions describing the conquests of Sennacherib on the Euphrates two of the conquered tribes are termed Hagaranu and Nabatanu. Eratosthenes (Strab. 16. 4. 2, p. 767) represented three races as located in the Northern Desertthe Nabataioi, the Agraioi and the Khaulotaioi-the last, no doubt, representing the men of Havilah2 who lived in the marshes at the head of the Persian Gulf. For a thousand years before our era the two predominant tribes of the The Midianites of verse 28 are called Medanites in verse 36, though our authorized version calls them Midianites in both places. This confusion of the two names is the more to be regretted as the distinction between the tribes of Medan and Midian (Gen. 28. 2) is recognized in classical geography. 2 The Khaulot of Khaulotaioi would exactly represent Havilah, the change of the final into t being one of the commonest of the Shemitic letterchanges. VI.] HAGARENES AND NABATHEANS. 169 Northern Desert seem to have been the Nabatheans and Hagarenes. Both tribes probably spoke Aramean dialects, and were mixed up in close relations with the civilized races around them. When Mahomedanism arose in the eighth century the Aramean dialects and the civilization they represented sunk beneath the ascendancy of the Arabs proper; and, as Quatremère and Renan have shown, Arab writers treat the 'Nabat' as a Syrian race. That the first of these writers has been betrayed into some mistakes by the strange theory he adopted with respect to these matters, is known to all who take an interest in tracing the history of the Shemitic languages. The fortunes of Israel are of such absorbing interest that the ruin of the surrounding nations is often passed by almost with indifference. Yet the voice of prophecy foretold their destruction in accents scarcely less awful than those which conveyed the doom of God's chosen people. The shadow was falling upon Edom before Obadiah poured forth his denunciations. Other prophets of evil had preceded him. We have Jeremiah (49. 13) proclaiming 'I have sworn by myself, saith the Lord, that Bozrah shall become a desolation, a reproach, a waste, and a curse, &c. Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rocks, that holdest the height of the hill: though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord.' At what particular time this prophecy was fulfilled we do not know, but in the fourth century B.C. Petra was in the hands of the Nabatheans; and the sons of Esau were probably driven from Mount Seir soon after Judah was carried away captive. The future that awaited the Edomites we shall discuss hereafter. CHAPTER VII. EGYPT. Mizraim. - Musri; men of the frontiers. The Old and New Monarchies. Avaris, Zoan. Cush, Mizraim, and Phut; the Cushite districts of the Zimri and the Hamitic settlers in Sheba and Dedan; the Egyptian settlements Ludim, Ananim, Pathrusim, Caphtorim, etc. The children of Shem, Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram. — The districts they occupied; the Chaldees; their origin; the races descended from Abraham, Bene Kedem, Ishmaelites, Hagarenes, Nabatheans, Edomites, etc. Origin of the terms Eruthraioi, Phoinikes, etc., the names Suroi, Leukosuroi, etc.; the terms Suroi and Aramaioi treated as synonymous by the later Greeks. -The Ereb or mingled people' the same as the Rebu of Egyptian history and the Eremboi of the Odyssey; the Ereb of the Desert. - Lud according to Arabian tradition the father of the Amalekites; the Mehunim or Maon; the Amalekites called Makedones in the Septuagint, the same people as the Hykshos. The Hykshos or Shepherdkings who invaded Egypt. The Solumoi of Asia Minor a Shemitic people; dressed their hair in a Sisoē; same mode of dressing the hair prevalent among the nations bordering on Palestine. The Amalekites and Geshurites some of the most ancient races of Palestine; whence descended; the Amalekites in certain localities called Maachath, whence the name of Makedon found in the Septuagint; the Maon or Mehunim au Amalekite people; the same as the Magan of the Assyrian inscriptions. From the Lud, Maon, and Maachath, settled round Palestine, came the Ludoi, Meones, and Makedones of Lydia. The mythus of Osiris symbolizes the progress of Egyptian culture rather than of Egyptian conquest; the story of Sesostris made up of legends relating to the conquests of various Egyptian Pharaohs; the mythus relating to Typhon. The expulsion of the Shepherds, the Exodus of the Israelites, and the defeat of the peoples of the sea' confounded together by Manetho; hence probably the late date ascribed by Rabbinical writers to the Exodus; Ahmes the first Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty the Pharaoh that expelled the Shepherds, and Thothmes probably the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Zoan an entrenched camp adjoining to Avaris, constructed by the Hykshos' king for the annual gatherings of his people. THE Countries whose history we have been investigating lay for the most part in the basin of the Euphrates or on its borders. But in the far West was situate a land, which from the remotest time had been highly civilized, and was inferior to none in power and dignity. The Assyrians |