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JacoVs sons had many servants along with them. Eleven 
sacks of grain, such as donkeys would carry, would not sustain 
a household like his for a week. It is no objection to this' 
supposition that these servants are not mentioned. 
Thus, had it not been for the capture of Lot by Chedorlaomer, 
we should not have known that Abraham had three hundred 
and eighteen full-grown men in his household ; and so, also, 
had it not been necessary for Jacob to send company after 
company to guide his large presents to meet Esau, we might 
have been left to suppose that he and his sons alone conducted 
his flocks in his flight from Mesopotamia. But it is certain 
that he had a large retinue of servants, and so, doubtless, each of 
his sons had servants, and it is incredible that they should have 
gone down to Egypt without them. On the contrary, there is 
every reason to believe that there was a large caravan. The 
fact, also, that the sons themselves took part in the work, and 
that each had his sack under him, is in exact correspondence 
with the customs of tent-dwelling shepherds at this day. The 
highest sheikhs dress and fare precisely as their followers do, 
and bear their full share in the operations of the company, 
whatever they may beV 
We must always remember that the corn was carried in quite 
a different thing* (Heb. k’ li ) from thatj* (pt^, saq) 
sack which contained the provender/' and in which each 
man’s money, and the silver cup, were secretly put. The 
latter receptacle is also called by a third Hebrew name, viz., 
nnriBS, amtakhath,X a word never again occurring in 
Scripture. Yet learned professors put into the hands of 
“ young people^ [in the year 1873] such objections as the 
following: “ The whole world suffers from the famine, and 
is obliged to go to Egypt for corn. This is necessarily in- 
volved in the story, for why else should JacoVs sons have 
chosen Egypt for their second as well as their first pur- 
chase of corn ? Is such a state of things credible in real 
life ? Again, Jacob sends ten of his sons, each with his 
own ass, to buy corn. One cannot help asking why he did 
nob send one son at the head of a caravan ? What little 
provision was laid in in this way, however, cannot have 
gone far towards supporting the whole family, especially 
if, as we are told, part of it had to be used as fodder for the 
beasts on the way. And yet the story tells us distinctly that 
each of JacoVs sons took his own sack with him upon his 
* Gen. xlii. 25. 
f Gen. xlii. 27. 
J Gen. xlii. 27, 28, &c. 
