(Revised Version), but "in lambs." (See Septuagint, Gen. xxxiii, 19; Josh. xxiv, 32, and also margins of Revised and Authorized Versions of Gen. xxxiii, 19.) The right word in this place is certainly "Abraham," for it was he who "weighed to Ephron the silver" (Gen. xxiii, 16). "Bishop Pearce supposes that Luke originally wrote vńoato tiμñs ȧpyvpíov, 'which he bought for a sum of money,' that is, which Jacob bought, who is the last person of the singular number spoken of in the preceding verse. Those who saw that the word wvýoaro, 'bought,' had no nominative case joined to it, and did not know where to find the proper one, seem to have inserted Abraham in the text for that purpose, without sufficiently attending to the different circumstances of his purchase from that of Jacob." As a rule, men who are indifferent to their own accuracy are indifferent to the inaccuracy of others. Such a proceeding would betray rare ignorance in Jews who prided themselves not only in descent from, but also in a thorough knowledge of, the lives of Abraham and Jacob. This supposition does not smooth out the textual wrinkles. Why should Luke, having Jacob and his purchase in his mind, use the words Tuns apyvpíov, “ a price in silver," when the Septuagint, which he often quotes in this chapter and book, says Ekaтóv ȧμvæv, “for a hundred lambs?" This case of barter, lambs for land-which seems so strange to Gesenius and the great scholars whose lives are, as a rule, spent in old settled countries and amid dense populations, and who have searched far and deep into ancient times and things to find a bullion "kesitah" corresponding in value to the fourfooted "kesitah" (see Delitzsch's commentary on Gen. xxxiii, 19) that roamed the Palestine hills-is not in the least strange to residents of Wyoming. The writer knows of two recent cases that illustrate this. One was where the negotiations for the sale of a ranch of four hundred and twenty acres suddenly terminated because of the withdrawal of eighteen head of cattle from the chattels thereupon; the other was a trade of forty acres of land for cattle and hogs. That the sons of Hamor had not flocks large enough to feed down the rich pastures in their vicinity is easily proven, first, from their own statement that the land is "large enough" for the sons of Jacob (Gen. xxxiv, 21); and, second, because they looked upon the acquisition of herds and flocks as a great consideration in deciding upon intertribal marriage (verse 23). Had the conditions at Shechem been otherwise the Bible then had surely furnished us a case like the following: Years ago a stockman arrived at a ranch on the Horseshoe. After becoming well acquainted with his host he proposed building a house on the other side of the stream and "have that for his range." To which the host replied that he "would enjoy having him for a neighbor, but preferred that he build his house and graze his stock sixty miles away." A condition of things the reverse from what Jacob found at Shechem upon his arrival there had caused earlier the separation of Lot from Abraham, and later furnished the reason for the separation of Esau from Jacob (Gen. xxxvi, 7). That Palestine had at the time of Jacob's arrival a sparse population is proven by the fact that where he wished to settle he did so, unmolested either by sheik or tribesman (Gen. xxxiii, 17, 18; xxxv, 6, 27), and that "the most beautiful spot in central Palestine" was occupied only by a branch of the great Amary (Amorite) people, so small in numbers as to fall victims to the warlike prowess of Jacob's family and following. We will now take into consideration the translation of a recent able writer which in some items is similar to a translation suggested by Wesley in his Notes: "Jacob went down into Egypt and died, he and our fathers, and they were transferred over into Shechem, and after a while they were deposited by the sons of Hamor, then residing in Shechem, in the tomb Abraham bought for a price in silver." This translation fails in the purpose for which it was so very ingeniously constructed. It is at variance with the facts in that, first, Jacob was not transferred over into Shechem. "But Joseph, by the king's permission, carried his father's dead body to Hebron and there buried it at a great expense." * The events of his burial took place in regular consecutive order of time, to which the words "and after a while," as here intended, do not apply. Nothing is said of assistance from the sons of *Josephus, Antiquities, book ii, chap. 8. Hamor. In Genesis (1, 12, 13) the work of burial is attributed to Jacob's sons. Rawlinson says: The stoppage at Gosen-Atad was necessitated by the physical conditions which forbade the Egyptians to proceed farther. Joseph, perceiving that here must be the last conjoint mourning of his dead father by the two nations that honored him, made a halt of seven days at the place for the completion of the ceremonies. The last rites had still to be performed. Leaving the Egyptians at Gosen-Atad, Joseph and his brethren bore their father's body the rest of the distance and buried it in the cave of Machpelah, where it probably still rests.* Secondly, the eleven sons of Jacob were not transferred over into Shechem," nor "deposited by the sons of Hamor" in the tomb. "At length his (Joseph's) brethren died after they had lived happily in Egypt. Now the posterity and sons of these men after some time carried their bodies and buried them at Hebron; but as to the bones of Joseph, they carried them into the land of Canaan afterward."+"No tradition now exists at or near Shechem that the patriarchs were buried there." "The eleven brethren of Joseph, we are told by Josephus, were buried in Hebron, where their father had been buried. But, since the books of the Old Testament say nothing about this, the authority of Stephen (or of Luke, here) for their being buried in Shechem is at least as good as that of Josephus for their being buried in Hebron." What a pity that the good bishop did not see that, in accepting what he is pleased to term "the authority of Stephen" for the burial of the eleven sons of Jacob in Shechem, he also, to be consistent, must accept the same authority for Jacob's burial there too; for "Jacob. . . and our fathers" are but parts of one and the same antecedent term to what is predicated in verse 16. We are now prepared for Dr. Adam Clarke's own statement, "We have the uniform consent of the Jewish writers that all the patriarchs were brought out of Egypt, and buried in Canaan; but none, except Stephen, mentions their being buried in Shechem." Thirdly, we will now consider the adaptation of this trans Isaac and Jacob: Their Lives and Times, pp. 182, 183; Life and Times of Joseph, Tomkins, pp. 116, 117. ↑ Josephus, Antiquities, book ii, chap. 8, section 2. + W. C. Prime, Boat Life in Egypt, p. 466. Bishop Pearce, in Clarke's Commentary. lation to the transference of Joseph from Shechem to Hebron, to which its author makes it apply. Joseph was buried in Shechem (Josh. xxiv, 32). "There is a strange tradition that Joseph was buried at Pi-Sebek (Crocodilopolis) in the Fayûm and his body taken thence by the Jews at their departure. The people of Israel faithfully carried their great hero and fatherly friend through all their wanderings till in due season they arrived in Shechem." And under the vast echo of the blessings and curses from the hollow sides of Gerizim and Ebal lay the bones of Joseph in their Egyptian spicery, brought to be buried in the very field of his father's possession, and there in a hidden sepulcher perhaps Joseph still awaits in the flesh his further destiny. Professor Donaldson says: There is hardly any spot in Palestine which combines as this does the tradition of past times and the concurrent assent, as to its authenticity, of the varied sects, whether Samaritan, Jewish, Turkish, or Christian; and this is the more remarkable in a country where the struggles of religious strife are so prevalent and every supposed holy spot is so much the object of violent contention, whether to Greek or Latin. And another authority says on the same point: When we consider the pious reverence with which Moses and the descendants of Joseph conveyed their precious relic from the land of bondage, we may conceive that, although the present erection may be on the spot of ultimate deposit, it is but reasonable to suppose they followed the custom of the Egyptians, with whose manner of interment they were so well acquainted. If so they must have made a considerable excavation in the ground, formed a sepulchral chamber, lining it with stone, and must therein have laid the embalmed body. Without making an excavation it is impossible to ascertain whether any such chamber still exists, or to discover any further particulars of this interesting spot.* "The Moslems point out his (Joseph's) tomb at the base of Ebal in this vicinity, and this agrees well enough with Josh. xxiv, 32." "A ride of five minutes over the plain directly north (from Jacob's well) brings us to Joseph's tomb, an open inclosure about twenty by thirty feet, containing beyond ques • Tomkins, Life and Times of Joseph, pp. 168, 170; Deane, Joshua: His Life and Times, p. 66. + Thomson, Land and the Book, vol. ii, pp. 206, 209. So also Tristram in Whedon's Commentary, Conder's Palestine, p. 63; and Major Wilson in Studies in the Times of Abraham, pp. 74, 75. The only opposing tion the ashes of Jacob's beloved son." * testimony to this that we have found is in Mûjir-ed-din's History of Jerusalem and Hebron, where he says, " Joshua being come into Syria with the Israelites buried it near Nablus (Shechem), or rather at Hebron, according to a version widely spread among the people; it is, in fact, at Hebron that his tomb is seen and is well known." When in 1862, under a firman from the Porte and the lead of Sûraya Pasha, governor of Jerusalem, and guarded by a large body of troops, the Prince of Wales with his suite, entered the Machpelah, there were pointed out to them the tombs of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, and Joseph. After calling attention to the agreement of the Bible with the monuments of the Hebron mosque the learned Dean Stanley, who entered the hallowed shrine with the prince, says: The variation [of the monuments from the Bible record] which follows rests, as I am informed by Dr. Rosen, on the general tradition of the country . . . that the body of Joseph, after having been deposited first at Shechem, was subsequently transported to Hebron. But the peculiar situation of this alleged tomb agrees with the exceptional character of the tradition. It is in a domed chamber attached to the inclosure from the outside, and reached, therefore, by an aperture broken through the massive wall itself, and thus visible on the exterior of the southern side of the wall. It is less costly than the others, and it is remarkable that, although the name of his wife (according to the Mussulman version, "Zuleika") is inserted in the certificates given to pilgrims who have visited the mosque, no grave having that appellation is shown. ... These are the only variations from the catalogue of tombs in the book of Genesis. In the fourth century the Bordeaux pilgrim saw only the six great patriarchal shrines. But from the seventh century downward one or more lesser tombs seem to have been shown. . . . The tomb of Joseph [at Hebron] is first distinctly mentioned by Sawulf [A. D. 1102], who says that "the bones of Joseph were buried more humbly than the rest, as it were at the extremity of the castle." + Tomkins thinks that "this attribution of Joseph's burial was originated by jealousy of the Samaritans who possessed the real sepulcher of Joseph." And a reference to the plan of the Hebron mosque and the position of the so-called tomb of * De Hass, Buried Cities Recovered, pp. 173, 258. + History of the Jewish Church, vol. i, third edition. |