21 And Isaac intreated the LORD for pray thee, with that same red pottage; for

I am faint: therefore was his name called
Edom.

31 And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.

32 And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?

10 Heb. going to die.

11

33 And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.

34 Then Jacob give Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.

11 Heb. 12. 16.

Verse 1. "Keturah."-The Jews are of opinion, we know not on what evidence, that this is the same woman as Hagar, and that Abraham recalled her after the death of Sarah. Others think that Keturah was a Canaanite. Whoever she was, many think that Keturah had become his secondary wife, and had borne him children long before the death of Sarah; after which event he raised her to the rank of matron, or principal wife. It seems to us that the current usages of the East give great probability to this conjecture, which is strengthened by considering the great age of Abraham when Sarah died; and that his sons by Keturah were old enough to be sent away to form independent clans before his own death.

66

6. "The sons of the concubines.”—This, no doubt, includes Ishmael, the son of the other concubine; and we thus incidentally learn that he was not lost sight of by his father, who made a better provision for him than has appeared in the course of the narrative. It seems not unlikely, from the narrative, that Abraham, for the sake of preserving peace among his sons, distributed all his property in his lifetime, giving the bulk of it to his legitimate son Isaac; and supplying the others with cattle and materials for a domestic establishment, with advice to go and establish themselves eastward in the Arabian desert. The arrangement was, doubtless, satisfactory to all parties, for among the Bedouins of the present day, we observe that the son, although he treats his father with respect while in his tent, is anxious to set up an independent establishment of his own, and spares no exertion to attain it ;" and when it is obtained," says Burckhardt, "he listens to no advice, nor obeys any earthly command but that of his own will." Though often too proud to ask for what his own arm may ultimately procure, he usually expects his father to make the offer of some cattle to enable him to begin life; and the omission of it occasions deep disgust, and leads to quarrels in after times, which form the worst feature of the Bedouin character. They have few children circumstanced like those of Abraham by his concubines; but in other Asiatic nations, where parallel circumstances occur, the fathers provide for such sons much in the same way as Abraham, giving them some property proportioned to his means, with advice to go and settle at some place distant from the family seat.

16. "These are the sons of Ishmael."-These are the names of the "twelve princes," promised to Ishmael's parents long before; and the whole statement concerning them is obviously intended to point them out distinctly as the founders of great Arabian tribes. It may be useful, therefore, to state the extent of that influence which the families of Ishmael exerted in modifying the character of the original population of the Arabian peninsula. As the Scripture affords but little information on this subject, we must turn to the accounts of the Arabian historians themselves. According to them, the aboriginal Arabians derived their origin from Kahtan or Joktan, the son of Heber, whose other son Peleg was an ancestor of Abraham. This Joktan they call the "Father of the Arabs," and his descendants, the Kahtan tribe, form at this day the wealthiest tribe of the eastern desert of Arabia, constituting, with the Beni Sad tribe, as the Arabians say, the only remains of the primitive inhabitants of the country. (See Burckhardt's Classification of the Bedouin Tribes.') The exterior parts of Arabia seem, however, to have been settled at a very early period by the descendants of Ham, some of whom remained, mixing more or less in the end, with the posterity of Shem; while others, who in the first instance settled on the western coast of the peninsula, are supposed to have made no long stay, but, either passing through Egypt or over the straits of Babel-Mandel, planted settlements in Ethiopia. This accounts for the fact that the name of Ethiopia has been extended, both by the Scriptures and the ancient classic writers, to Arabia as well as Ethiopia Proper. Moses mentions thirteen sons of Joktan, who, perhaps, includes his grandsons; the Arabians mention only two, Yarab, who founded the kingdom of Yemen, and Jorham, who settled that of Hedjaz, the present holy land of Arabia. A member of these primitive tribes is called Al Arab al Araba, " An Arab of the Arabs;" a distinction of purity of descent corresponding to the "Hebrew of the Hebrews" among the Jews. The later and prevailing race of Mostarabi, or mixed or naturalized Arabs, are descended from Ishmael through a marriage with the daughter of Modad, king of Hedjaz. It is true that Moses says he married an Egyptian woman, of whom the Arabian account takes no notice; but as this was in early life, and as the Bible account does not mention her again, or say that she was the mother of his twelve sons, there is nothing improbable in the Arabian account, for Ishmael may have married an Arabian wife after the death, or even during the life-time, of his first wife. Ishmael became the prince of Hedjaz, and the first pontiff of Mecca, preaching the religion of Abraham to the idolatrous Arabs, many of whose tribes were in process of time extirpated by the judgment of God, by dissensions among themselves, or by the swords of the Ishmaelites. The Arabians do not consider it any disparagement to belong to this mixed branch of the Arabian population. The absence of a perfectly pure descent is, in their opinion, quite compensated by the honour of being descended from Abraham, whom they hold in about the same veneration as the Jews. Mohammed himself claimed to be descended from Kedar, a younger son of Ishmael; but his descent could not be traced further than Adnan, who reigned in the Hedjaz B. C. 122. Arabian accounts vary as to the generations between Ishmael and Adnan; some make it forty, some ten, some seven. Ten is the common account, but after making a large allowance for the length of patriarchal lives, even forty generations seem too few to extend over the intervening period of about two thousand five hundred years. But this difficulty may be obviated by considering that the Arabians do not always reckon their genealogies from father to son, but from the heads of tribes, their object being only to preserve a knowledge of their descent, which, for their purposes, is as well effected in this way, as by encumbering the memory with a long catalogue of names. In the well preserved genealogy, for the 660 years from Adnan to Mohammed, there are counted 21 generations, and nearly 160 tribes branching off from the same parent stem. All these tribes were distinguished generally by the name of Adnan, the ascertained progenitor, besides the particular name of the subdivision. Thus the tribes of Adnan were distinguished not only from the tribes of Kahtan, but from the Ishmaelites, or mixed tribes, previous to Adnan. The tribes of Adnan, in their common accounts, passed

over the unascertained generations between Ishmael and their immediate progenitor, in their usual method of summary condensation. A curious light is thrown on all these matters, by the commencement of the historical romance of 'Antar,' part of which we subjoin:-" Ishmael, son of Abraham, was the father of Adnan, who had a son called Maad; and Maad was the father of Nizar, whose four sons, Rebeeah, Medher, Ayad, and Anmar, reigned over the Arabs in grea: glory for many years, and their descendants continued to multiply till they amounted to twenty thousand horsemen when disturbances arising among them they separated, and migrated from the valley of Mecca and the holy sanctuary, and many of them settled in a spot called Ibreem-oob-mootemim, which was the furthermost point of Hijaz, and the first in the land of Yemen. And they had a king called Rebeeah, a man much respected and feared, and he was of the tribe of Medher, a fair-raced people: and he had five sons; the eldest was called Nayil; the second Taweed; the third Mohelil; the fourth Medher; the fifth Adee: and their father was a stout and intrepid warrior; he conquered the whole country by his bravery, and ruled over the wilds and deserts.-Again the Arabs disagreed and dispersed, and every division had its chief and its leader," &c. In this way it is admitted, that during the period from Ishmael to Adnan, and from thence to the time of Mohammed, the posterity of Ishmael penetrating from Hedjaz towards the east, spread themselves over the peninsula, and introduced their peculiar manners and customs among the original inhabtants, with whom they became incorporated by intermarriages. This Arabian account does not contradict Scripture, and, whether true or not, there can be no doubt that the descendants of Ishmael form so great and absorbing a part of the Arabian population, as to allow us, in a general sense, to consider him as the progenitor of that great and extraordinary nation, which has preserved its integrity, its independence, and its primitive usages from the most ancient times; and which had its turn, after the Romans, in forming one of those gigantic empires that have in different ages astonished the world; and which, even now, not only preserves its own wide domain, but has diffused its tribes from the Oxus and the Erythrean Sea to the Atlantic,-has given religion and law, and rendered its language classic, far beyond these limits, to a large proportion of the human race ;-not to speak of the evidences of its past influence, which may be found in the vernacular languages of many nations, and in their literature, science, and actual condition. It only remains to add, that the Moslems believe Ishmael, and not Isaac, to have been the child of promise and trie heir of Abraham. They say that when Sarah insisted on the expulsion of the bondwoman and her son, Abraham conveyed them to the district of Mecca, which was then an arid desert destitute of water; but where, at the last extremity, God caused a spring to arise under the feet of Ishmael. They believe this forms the famous Zemzem well, now within the sacred enclosure of the temple of Mecca, and which supplies water for drink and purification to the inhabitants of the town, and the numerous pilgrims who annually resort thither. It is added that the famous Kaaba, or temple, otherwise called Beit-Allah, equivalent to Bethel in Hebrew-or" House of God"-was built on the spot by Abraham, to commemorate the double deliverance of Ishmael from thirst, and from being the victim of the sacrifice of which they consider him, rather than Isaac, to be the object. This story was probably manufactured out of the report that Abraham erected an altar and planted a grove at Beersheba (the "well of the oath "). The buildings of the present temple form extraneous additions to the original Kaaba, or rather an enclosure for it. The Kaaba itself is a truly primitive structure, being merely an oblong massive building, the sides and angles of which are unequal, so that its plan forms a trapezium. It measures eighteen paces by fourteen, and is from thirty-five to forty feet high; and its flat roof and black cloth covering give it the appearance of a perfect cube. This Kaaba is certainly of high antiquity, and was an object of veneration to the Arabs long before the time of Mohammed. It is now the point to which Moslems in all parts of the world turn their faces in prayer, and to which thousands of pilgrims resort every year from all places between the Ganges and Morocco. They call it the "Navel of the World," and regard with concentrated veneration a black stone inserted in an angle of its wall, and which they believe to have been brought from heaven to Abraham, by the angel Gabriel. It was, say they, originally a transparent hyacinth, and its present unsightly appearance is owing to the sins of mankind. It has been much worn by the kisses of the pilgrims, and has several times been fractured and joined together again by cement. It is framed in silver, and appeared to Burckhardt like a lava containing several small extraneous particles of a whitish and a yellowish substance. These statements do not directly illustrate the statements of our text; but it seems useful to know how these facts have been understood or distorted by a great people whose history is so intimately connected with them.

27. "Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents."-The epithet "plain" is pre-eminently applicable to a man dwelling in tents, whatever be his rank or wealth. Speaking of the Bedouins, Burckhardt says, "The richest sheikh lives like the meanest of his Arabs: they both eat every day of the same dishes, and in the same quantity, and never partake of any luxury except on the arrival of a stranger, when the host's tent is open to all his friends. They both dress in the same shabby gown and messlakh. The chief pleasure in which a chief may indulge is the possession of a swift mare, and the gratification of seeing his wives and daughters better dressed than any other females of the camp."

It is precisely the same among the other nomade tribes of Asia, as the Toorkmans, and the Eelauts of Persia. Among the latter, the tent of the elder is only distinguished by its greater size from that of the humblest man in the camp. The chiefs themselves, indeed, generally reside at court or in the provincial capitals; but those who do reside with their people are usually distinguished by the same simplicity of manners and appearance, which in their case is more remarkable than in that of the Bedouin sheiks, as their power is much greater and their wealth often more extensive. Mr. Morier, in his "Second Journey through Persia," mentions in the following terms, a very powerful chief, named Ahmed Khan, who visited the English ambassador at Maragha, in Adzerbigan:-" this chief is one of those personages frequently met with in the East, who realize and illustrate many of the facts recorded in holy writ of the lives and habits of the patriarchs. Like Isaac, he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds and great store of servants' (Gen. xxvi. 14). His manner and appearance are those of Jacob, a plain man, dwelling in tents.' Although verging to fourscore and ten, he is the picture of health and activity. His beard is quite white, and his dress scarcely superior to that of his own shepherds. His reputation, however, for riches is very great; for among other instances of it, it is affirmed that he sows 700 kherwar (nearly 500,000 lbs.) of grain annually: he breeds a race of hardy horses, much esteemed throughout Persia. He is one of the greatest of the elders of Persia, being called the Reish-se eed (White-beard) of Adzerbigan." The same "plainness" extends to the speech of the dwellers in tents as compared with the inhabitants of towns. There is among them none of those varied forms of address, flowery phrases, and refined compliments, which distinguish the Orientals in general; and a stranger, after having been annoyed with the complimentary phrases of the Persians or Turks, is delighted and refreshed by the plain and simple expressions of the Arab or the Tartar. The townspeople, as Burckhardt observes, have twenty different ways of wishing good morning to an acquaintance, and each of these methods has an established answer, so that if a man says, "May your day be white, the other can only reply, "May yours be like milk." On the contrary, an Arab is content to wish his friend good morning when he meets him, and farewell when he leaves him, on the road. One who accosts a stranger in the desert, to inquire about water or the nearest road, calls him "Uncle ;" and the other in reply, says "Brother." They

never use any ceremonious titles to each other, whatever be their relative position. The Arabs, who used to attend the evening assemblies of Saaud, the great Wahabee chief, who was in fact king in Arabia, so far as Arabia can ever have a king, usually exchanged the salute of peace, and shook hands with him on entering the room, after which they sat down in any convenient place they could find. If any one had occasion to speak to him, they accosted him with "O Saoud!" or "O father of Abdallah!" or "O father of Mustachios!" and in return, he called every man by his name, without any of the ceremonious or complimentary phrases which abound in the East. Nor was this any affectation of humility in him, but quite the natural conduct of an Arab chief. See Burckhardt's 'Notes on the Bedouins,' and "History of the Wahabees.'

Tents."-The use of tents probably arose at first out of the exigencies of pastoral life, which rendered it necessary that men removing from one place to another in search of pasture should have a portable habitation. Accordingly we find that the first mention of tents is connected with the keeping of cattle (ch. iv. 20), and to this day tents remain the exclusive residence of only pastoral people. Portability is not the only recommendation of tents to the nomade tribes of the East; the shelter which they offer in the warm but delicious climates of Western Asia is positive enjoyment. Shelter from the sun is all that is needful; and this a tent sufficiently affords without excluding the balmy and delicate external air, the comparative exclusion of which renders the finest house detestable to one unaccustomed to a residence in tents. The advantage of tents in this respect is so well understood even by the inhabitants of towns, that in many places, those whose circumstances admit it, endeavour so far as possible to occupy tents during the summer months. This was the constant practice of the late king of Persia, who every year left his capital with all the nobles, and more than half the inhabitants, to encamp in the plain of Sultanieh. Many of the princes, his sons, did the same in their several provinces; and the practice is an old one in Persia. It is true that tents would seem to be rather cheerless abodes in the winter; but it is to be recollected that the nomades have generally the power of changing the climate with the season. In winter the Bedouins plunge into the heart of the Desert, and others descend, in the same season, from the mountainous and high lands, where they had enjoyed comparative coolness in summer, to the genial winter climate of the low valleys and plains, which in the summer had been too warm.

It is impossible to ascertain with precision the construction and appearance of the patriarchal tents; but we shall not probably be far from the truth, if we consider the present Arab tent as affording the nearest existing approximations to the ancient model. The common Arab tent is generally of an oblong figure, varying in size according to the wants or rank of the owner, and in its general shape not unaptly compared by Sallust, and after him Dr. Shaw, to the hull of a ship turned upside down. A length of from 25 to 30 feet, by a depth or breadth not exceeding 10 feet form the dimensions of a rather large family tent; but there are many larger. The extreme height-that is, the height of the poles which are made higher than the others in order to give a slope to throw off the rain from the roofvaries from 7 to 10 feet; but the height of the side parts seldom exceeds 5 or 6 feet. The most usual sized tent has nine poles, three in the middle, and three on each side. The covering of the tent among the Arabs is usually black goats'-hair, so compactly woven, as to be impervious to the heaviest rain; but the side coverings are often of coarse wool. These tent-coverings are spun and woven at home by the women, unless the tribe has not goats enough to supply its own demand for goats'-hair, when the stuff is bought from those better furnished. The front of the tent is usually kept open, except in winter, and the back and side hangings or coverings are so managed, that the air can be admitted in any direction, or excluded at pleasure. The tents are kept stretched in the usual way by cords, fastened at one end to the poles, and at the other to pins driven into the ground at the distance of three or four paces from the tent. The interior is divided into two apartments, by a curtain hung up against the middle poles of the tent. This partition is usually of white woollen stuff, sometimes interwoven with patterns of flowers. One of these is for the men, and the other for the women. In the former the ground is usually covered with carpets or mats, and the wheat-sacks and camel-bags are heaped up in it, around the middle post, like a pyramid, at the base of which, or towards the back of the tent, are arranged the camels' pack-saddles, against which the men recline as they sit on the ground. The women's apartment is less neat, being encumbered with all the lumber of the tent, the water and butter, skins, the culinary utensils, &c. Some tents of great people are square, perhaps 30 feet square, with a proportionate increase in the number of poles, while others are so small as to require but one pole to support the centre. The principal differences are in the slope of the roof, and in the part for entrance. When the tent is oblong, the front is sometimes one of the broad, and at other times one of the narrow, sides of the tent. We suspect this difference depends on the season of the year or the character of the locality, but we cannot speak with certainty on this point. Some further information concerning tents has been given in previous notes, and other tents and huts will hereafter be noticed. It will be observed, that the tent covering among the Arabs is usually black; but it seems that they are sometimes brown, and occasionally striped white and black. Black tents seem to have prevailed among the Arabs from the earliest times. (See note on Sol. Song, i. 5.)

30. "Edom." This name, denoting "Red," or " Red man," had probably reference as much to the redness of his personal appearance (see v. 24.) as to the red pottage. Here is another instance of a change of name.

30, 34. "Red pottage."-The edom, or red pottage, was prepared, we learn from this chapter, by seething lentils (adashim) in water; and subsequently, as we may guess from a practice which prevails in many countries, adding a little manteca, or suet, to give them a flavour. The writer of these observations has often partaken of this self-same "red pottage," served up in the manner just described, and found it better food than a stranger would be apt to imagine. The mess had the redness which gained for it the name of edom; and which, through the singular circumstance of a son selling his birthright to satisfy the cravings of a pressing appetite, it imparted to the posterity of Esau in the people of Edom. The lentil (or Lens esculenta of some writers, and the Ervum lens of Linnæus) belongs to the leguminous or podded family. The stem is branched, and the leaves consist of about eight pairs of smaller leaflets. The flowers are small, and with the upper division of the flower prettily veined. The pods contain about two seeds, which vary from a tawny red to a black. It delights in a dry, warm sandy soil. Three varieties are cultivated in France-"small brown," "yellowish," and the "lentil of Provence." In the former country they are dressed and eaten during Lent as a haricot; in Syria they are used as food after they have undergone the simple process of being parched in a pan over the fire.

33. "He sold his birthright.”—It should be understood, that previously to the establishment of a priesthood under the Law of Moses, the first-born had not only a preference in the secular inheritance, but succeeded exclusively to the priestly functions which had belonged to his father, in leading the religious observances of the family, and performing the simple religious rites of these patriarchal times. The secular part of the birthright entitled the first-born to a "double portion" of the inheritance; but writers are divided in opinion as to the proportion of this double share. think that he had one-half, and that the rest was equally divided among the other sons; but a careful considera

Some

tion of Gen. xlvii. 5-22, in which we see that Jacob transfers the privilege of the first-born to Joseph, and that this privilege consisted in his having one share more than any of his brethren, inclines us to the opinion of the Rabbins, that the first-born had merely twice as much as any other of his brethren. It is certainly possible, but not very likely, that in the emergency, Esau bartered all his birthright for a mess of pottage; but it seems more probable that Esau did not properly appreciate the value of the sacerdotal part of his birthright, and therefore readily transferred it to Jacob for a trifling present advantage. This view of the matter seems to be confirmed by St. Paul, who calls Esau a "profane person," for his conduct on this occasion; and it is rather for despising his spiritual than his temporal privileges, that he seems to be liable to such an imputation.

3 Heb. found.
6 That is, hatred.