CHAP. III. 



PRECIOUS METALS. 115 



from the lowest state of barbarism. We l read 

 that he had not only flocks and herds, and male 

 and female slaves, and camels and asses, but also 

 silver and gold 2 . He purchased a field as a bury- 

 ing-place for four hundred shekels of silver 3 ; 

 and when he sent his servant to procure a wife 

 for his son, he furnished him with vessels of 

 silver and of gold to make presents to, or to pur- 

 chase her from, the family of the female with 

 whom he sought the union. The possession of 

 these precious metals in their uncoined state 

 for it seems clear that they passed as money by 

 weight, and not by tale is a strong indication 

 that the family of the Arabian patriarch was 

 very far removed from that savage state in which 

 the Greeks were existing several centuries later ; 

 and a farther proof is given by the knowledge of 

 the fact of their practising agriculture, and thus 

 having advanced from the shepherd stage of 

 society to that of the husbandman. We 4 read 

 that Isaac, who succeeded to the possessions of 

 his father, " sowed the land, and received in the 

 same year an hundred-fold." We also learn that 

 he digged a well and built an altar, which leads 

 to the conclusion, when connected with the cul- 

 tivation of the soil, that the wandering life of this 



1 Genesis, cap. xxiv. v. 35. 

 - Idem, cap. xxiv. v. 53. 



3 Idem, cap. xxiii. v. 15. 



4 Idem, cap. xxvi v. 12. 



