Before Chrift 1859. 5 



of two purchafes of landed property by him we have the amount of the 

 prices and the modes of the payments. The firfl may perhaps rather 

 be called an acknowlegement made to Abimelech, as king of the coun- 

 try, for having dug a well in his territory, than a real purchafe ; and 

 the payment was ieven ewe-lambs, befides a prefent, far more valuable, 

 of iheep and oxen. \Genefis, c. 21.] But the next is a fair and abfolute 

 purchafe of a field or piece of land, in the narrative of which we have 

 many circumftances well deferving our attention. Abraham, defirous 

 of burying his deceafed wife in ground which fhould be his own pro- 

 perty, applied to the people of the country for their intereft with Eph- 

 ron, the proprietor of the field, to induce him to difpofe of it. Ephron, 

 in the hearing of the people, politely offered him a prefent of the piece 

 of ground, and defired all the company to be witnefies of the donation. 

 Abraham, bowing refpedfully to all the people, declined the gift, but 

 defired to purchafe it at a fair price ; whereupon, after fome further 

 compliments, the value was fixed at ' four hundred fhekels of filver, 

 * current money with the merchant *.' The filver was immediately weigh- 

 ed (not counted), and paid to Ephron ; and the property of the field of 

 Machpela, with its cave or fepulchre, and all the trees belonging to it, 

 was warranted to Abraham in the prefence of all the people; The 

 whole tranfaftion appears to have been conducted with great candour 

 and politenefs on both fides. {Genefts, c. 23.] This contradl for the 

 regular transfer of landed property prefuppofes the various produdions 

 of the earth to have been for fome time the objeds of efliabliftied traf- 

 fic. We have reafon, however, to believe, that only inclofed and plant- 

 ed fields were property ; while the boundlefs common of the whole 

 world was the unappropriated pafl:ure ground of the patriarchs, who, 

 with their armies of children and fervants, and their innumerable herds 

 of cattle, ranged from place to place in fearch of frefli pafi:ure, as the 

 paftoral tribes of the Scythians and Arabians have done in all ages. 

 Abraham, who fed his flocks and herds at one time on the banks of the 

 Euphrates, and at another on thofe of the Nile, faid to his nephew Lot, 

 ' Let us feparate in order to prevent fi:rife among our herdfmen. If 

 ' you chufe to go to the left, I will go to the right. Is not the whole 

 ' land before you ?' 



From the hiftory of Abraham we learn, that money of denominations 

 and quality, fixed by public authority, or by the general confent of thofe 

 who were mofi: interefl;ed in the circulation of it, was then an efi:abliflied 

 flandard, or medium, in the tranfadions of mankind, and, together with 



* This important word mkrqhant implies, only fay, that the money was generally or public- 

 that the llandard of money was fixed by ufage ly current, or approved : but in the original He- 

 among merchants, and confequently, that merchants brew the words, as literally tranflated for me by a 

 conftituted a numerous and refpeftable clafs of the learned orientaliil, (igTuij four hundred Jhehels ofji!- 

 ' community. St. Jerom's, and fome other tranfla- ver current iv'ith the merchants ; fo that our mo- 

 tions of tlie Bible, omit the word merchant, and dern Englifli tranflation is one of the trucft. . 



