ELOAH OR ALLAH. 183 



Before their canvass doors sat the women spinning 

 wool, and singing the Mesopotamian airs, while the 

 aged patriarch in the Great Tent, which served as the 

 forum and the guest-house, measured out the rations 

 for the day, gave orders to the young men ahout the 

 stock, and sat in judgment on the cases which were 

 brought before him, as king and father, to decide. 



He bought from the people of the land a field and 

 a cave, in which he buried his wife, and in which he 

 was afterwards himself interred. He was succeeded 

 by Isaac as head of the family. Esau and Jacob, the 

 two sons of Isaac, appear to have been equally power- 

 ful and rich. 



Up to this time the children of Abraham were 

 Bedouin Arabs — nothing more. They worshipped 

 Eloah or Allah, sometimes erecting to him a rude 

 altar, on which they sacrificed a ram or kid ; some- 

 times a stone pillar, on which they poured a drink, and 

 then smeared it with oil to his honour and glory ; 

 sometimes they planted a sacred tree. The life which 

 they led was precisely that of the wandering Arabs, 

 who pasture their flocks on the outskirts of Palestine 

 at the present day. Not only Ishmael, but also Lot, 

 Esau, and various other Abrahamites of lesser note 

 became the fathers of Arabian tribes. The Beni- 

 Israel did not differ in manners and religion from the 

 Beni-Ishmael, the Beni-Esau, and the Beni-Lot. It 

 was the settlement of the clan in a foreign country, 

 the influence of foreign institutions which made the 

 Israelites a peculiar people. It was the sale of the 

 shepherd boy, at first a house-slave, then a prisoner, 

 then a favourite of the Pharaoh, which created a 

 destiny for the House of Jacob, separated it from the 

 Arab tribes, and educated it into a nationality. "When 



