The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 273

"rent, fiasnre" (Fiirst), Shinab. "Father's gigantic stnturo (from an Arabic root, to bo tooth" (Gosenius) ; '' splendour of Ab" nigh), tho iron Led of whoso last king, Og, (Furst); "coolness " (Murphy). King of measured nine yards in length ai,d four in Admah. Fruit region, farm city: (Furst). breadth (Deut. iii. 11); forming n portion of And Shemeber. "Sonring aloft" (Gesenius). the aboriginal inhabitants of Palestine prior King of Zeboiim. Pl1tce of hyenas (Gese- to the invasion of the Canaanite~, though nius) ; gl\zollos (Murphy) ; a wild place existing as a remnant as late as the con- (Fiirst). And the king of Bela. "Devoured," quest (eh. ii. 20; iii. 11, 13). In Aehte- or "devourin~" (Gesenius). Which is Zoar. roth Kamaim. Literally, Ashteroth of the "Tho small,' a name nfterwards given to Two Horns; so caller! either from its situa- the city (eh. xix. 22), and here introduced tion between two horn-shaped hills (.Jewish as being better known the.n the more ancient interpreters), or because of the horned cattle one. with which it abounded (Hillery), or in Ver. 3.-All these-the last-named princes honour of the goddess Ashtaroth, Astarte, - were joined together--i. e. as confeder- or Venus, whose image was such ::i:s to sug- ates (sc. nnd came with their forces)-in gest the idea or a homed figure (A Lapide, (literally, to) the vale of Sidclim. The so.It Gesenius, Kalisch); identified by some with valley (LXX.); a wooded v1tle (Vulgate) ; the capital of Og (Keil), but by others dis- a plain filled with rocky hollows (Gesenius), tinguished from it (Wetstein); or uncertain with which ver. 10 agrees; the valley of site, though claimed to survive in the mins plains or.fields (Onkelos, Raschi, Keil, Mur- of Tell Ashtereh, near the ancient Edrei phy). Which is the salt sea. I. e. where /Ritter); in those of 'Afineh, eight miles the salt ·sea afterwards' a1;ose, on the de- from Buzrah (Porter); in the modern village struction of the cities of the plain-eh. xix. llfesarib (Burckhardt); or in El Kurnem or 24, 25 (Keil, Havernick; cf. Josephus, 'Bell. Opl.ein in Ledsha (Robinson). And the Jud. / iv. 8, 4); but the text scm·cely implies Zuzims. Probably the Zamzummims be- that the cities were submerged-only the tween the Arnon and the Jabbok (Deut. ii. valley (cf. Quarry, p. 207). The extrem~ 20). In Ham. "Possibly the ancient name depression of the Dead Sea, being 1300 feet of Rabba of the Ammonites (Deut. iii. 11) below the level of the Mediterranean (" the the remains being still preserved in th• most .deJ>ressed sheet of water in the world : " ruins of Amman" (Keil). And the Emims. Stanley s 'Sinai and Palestine,' eh. vii.), Fea1ful and terrible men, the primitive conjoined with its excessive saltness (con~ inhabitants of Moab (Dent. ii. 10, 11); called taining 26¼ per cent of saline particles), also Rephaims, as being of colossal stature. renders it one of the most remarkable of in- In Shaveh Kiriathaim. Literally, the plain lnnd lakes. Its shores are clothed with of Ki?-iathaim, or the plain of the two citi'e:r, gloom and desolation, Within a mile from situated in the district afterwards assigned its northern embouchure the verdure of the to Reuben (Numb. xxxii. 37); identificu. l'ich Jordan valley dies awny. Strewn along with, Coi·aiatha, the modern Koerriath or its desolate margin lie broken canes and Kereyat, ten miles west of Medebah (Euse- willow branches, with trunks of palms, pop- bius, Jerome, Kalisch), which, however, lars, nnd .other trees, half embedded in rather corresponds with Kerioth, in Jer. slimy mud, e.nd all covered with incmstations xlviii. 24 (Keil). of snlt. .At its south-westem corner stands Ver. 6. -And the Xorites. Literally, dwell- the mountain of rock salt, with its columnar ers in cave:r; from chor, a cave. In their fragments, which Josephus says in his day mount Seir. Literally, wooded (Gesenius) ; was regarded ns the pillar of Lot's wifo. hairy (Fi.irst); rugged (Lnnge) ; probably Ver. 4.~Twelve years-dating from the ,vith reference to the thick brush,vood :mu. commencement or his reign (Murphy)- forests that grew upon its sides. The cave they served-and paid tribute (cf. 2 Kings men or Seir were the earlier inhabitants of xviii. 7)-Chedorlaomer. If the king of the region lying between the Deau Sea and Elam was n Shemite prince, this wns in the Gulf of Elam, nfterwards taken posses- accordance with the Noachic prophecy (eh. sion of by the Edomites (Dent. ii. 12 ; J er. ix. 26); but according to the monuments the xlix. 16 ; Obad. 3, 4). Unto El-paran. I. e. Elamite dynasty was. Turanian. And in the oak or terebinth of Parnn. Which is by the thirteenth year-during the wholo of the wilderness. Between tho land of Edom the thirteenth year (vide Ewald's 'Hob. and tho fertile country of Egypt, and to the Synt. ,' § 300, a.; cf. ver. 5)-they rebelled, southwnrd of Palestine, identifie,L as the or had re belled. plateau of the Tth, across which the Isrncl- Yer. 6.-And in (or during) the four- itish march lay from Sinai (Stanley, 'Sinai teentJi year 011me Chedorlaomer, and the 1tnd P1tlestine,' p. 92). kings that were with him, and smote (be- Ver. 7.-And they returned-from tho Cl\uso of nctual or probablo rebellion) the oak of Pnran, the southernmost point ltephain:,s, r/yavrai; (T,XX. ), I\ tribe of reached by the invaders-and came to En• 204 THE BOOK OF GENESIS. [en. XIV. 1---121.