THE SHEPHERD KINGS OF EGYPT. 159 



•descent is plain and circumstantial. It is not difficult to believe that 

 such a son might have been born to Hezi-on, and have been the head 

 ■of a Tekoite family, although his name and those of his children 

 never again occur in the annals of the Jews. But how ( I Chron. ii. 

 24,) did Hezron, Avho (Genesis xlvi. 12,) went down with his brethren 

 into Egypt, and (1 Chron. ii. 21,) married a daughter of Machir, the 

 grandson of Joseph, there, come to die in Caleb Ephratah, which 

 ■was situated in Palestine 1 The question at once arises, " Is this the 

 same Hezron ?" I think not. I would even question that the father 

 of Asshiir bore the name of Hezron, and see in this verse a corruption 

 of the text, of which there are, unhappily, too many in the books of 

 Chronicles. I am compelled, indeed, to regard the appearance of the 

 grandson of -Judah in connection with the father of Tekoa as an 

 instance of Rabbinical interpolation or tampei'ing with the original of 

 the genealogies here recorded. Hezron, the son of Pharez, cannot 

 have been in any sense the father of Asshur, altliough he may have 

 entered upon the domain which was once the possession of this 

 ancient hero. 



I need not apologize for finding Gentile names in the early chapters 

 of the first book of Chronicles. Lord Arthur Hervey has already 

 found that the Kenezites of chapter iv. 13 are not Israelites, and 

 Professor Plumptre has expressed himself in a similar way even in 

 regard to Temeni, one of the sons of Asshur, whom he connects with 

 the Edoraites. There is, as I have shewn in my last paper, mention 

 made of professedly Gentile families in difierent parts of the second 

 and fourth chapters, and the whole argument of that paper has been 

 deemed conclusive for the non-Gentile character of the majority of 

 the genealogies of both of these. The Jerahmeelites, called descen- 

 dants of a son of Hezron, I have proved to be distinct as a people, 

 not only from the Hezronites, but from the tribe of Judah itself 

 Turning to the genealogies of Caleb or Chelubai, which is certainly 

 not a Jewish name, we find such Midianite appellations as Hekem 

 and Zur (1 Chron. ii. 43, 45; comp. Numbers xxxi. 8). Among 

 them also we find Maon, a name applied to no Israelite in any part 

 of the Bible, but designating (Judges x. 12, 2 Chron. xxvi. 7,) an 

 inimical tribe allied with Sidonians and Amalekites, Philistines and 

 Arabians. In 1 Chron. iv. 41, the word erroneously rendered "habi- 

 tations " in our English version is clearly the name of this tribe, aa 

 many writers have indicated. It is true that we have (Ezra ii. 50, 

 Nehem. vii. 52,) Meunim and Mehunim, which are the same word, 



