Hebrew Myths (20 page)

11
. The Biblical tradition (
Genesis
X. 10) ranking Babylon with the primeval cities of Erech, Akkad and Calne, has not yet been disproved.

(
a
) This is the genealogy of Abram, whom God afterwards renamed Abraham, and who was descended in the elder line from Noah’s son Shem:

(
b
) Abram’s wife was Sarai, his half-sister by a different mother; for Terah had married both Amitlai daughter of Barnabo, and Edna, daughter of an elder kinsman also called Abram. Nahor the Second married his niece Milcah, daughter of Haran. The name of Haran’s wife is forgotten, but he had Lot by her, and another daughter, Iscah. Some say that Haran was also Sarai’s father.
²³³

(
c
) When Haran died young, Terah left Ur, the city of his birth, accompanied by Abram, Sarai and Lot, to settle in the Land of Harran; but Nahor the Second stayed behind at Ur with his ancestors, who were all still alive. Shem finally attained the age of six hundred years; Arpachshad, of four hundred and thirty-eight; Shelah, of four hundred and thirty-three; Eber, of four hundred and sixty-four; Peleg, of two hundred and thirty-nine; Reu, of two hundred and thirty-nine; Serug, of two hundred and thirty; Nahor the First, of one hundred and forty-eight; and Terah, of two hundred and five.
²³⁴

(
d
) Chaldean Ur was so named by its founder, Ur son of Kesed, Noah’s descendant—an evil, violent ruler who made his subjects worship idols. Abram’s ancestor Reu married Ur’s daughter Orah, and called his son Serug, grieved that he would
turn aside
towards wickedness. Serug taught his son, Nahor the First, all the astrological wisdom
of the Kasdim (Chaldeans); and Nahor called his son Terah because of the
suffering
he underwent when immense flocks of ravens ravaged the crops at Ur. Terah called the son borne him by Jessica the Chaldean, Abram, in honour of Edna’s father.
²³⁵

(
e
) Some make Abram the youngest of Terah’s sons; others, the eldest.
²³⁶

***

1
. The Patriarchs’ names have been identified with those of places or ethnic groups known from historical documents, which makes it plausible that they are the mythical residue of ancient traditions about ancestral wanderings. Arpachshad, whom Josephus calls ‘ancestor of the Chaldeans’, may refer to the land of Arrapkha, with the addition of Akkadian ‘shad’, meaning mountain. These ‘mountains of Arrapkha’ were ringed around modern Kirkuk with which Arrapkha is identified. Shelah seems to be the name of a deity, to judge from the composite name Methuselah (
Genesis
V. 21 ff) which means ‘Man of Shelah’, as Ishbaal means ‘Man of Baal’. Eber, the eponymous ancestor of the Ibrim or Hebrews, may be connected with any of the several areas which Hebrew and Assyrian sources describe as the land ‘beyond the river’ (
eber hannahar
, in 1
Kings
V. 4). Peleg is the name of a city located in the Middle Euphrates region and mentioned in the Mari letters. Reu occurs as a personal name in the same documents, and could possibly also be identified with the city of Rakhīlu in the same neighbourhood. Serug was a city called Sarugi, between Harran and Carchemish. Nahor is the city called Nakhuru, or Til Nakhiri, in the Mari letters and in Assyrian inscriptions from the eighteenth to the twelfth centuries
B.C.
, located near Harran. The city of Terah, which occurs as Til Turahi in ninth-century
B.C.
Assyrian inscriptions, also lay near Harran.

2
. The ages of the Patriarchs—Adam is said to have lived 930 years, Seth 912, Enosh 905, Kenan 910, Mahalalel 895, Jared 962, Enoch 365, Methuselah 969, Lamech 777, Noah 950, Shem 600, Arpachshad 438, Shelah 133, Eber 464, Peleg 239, Reu 239, Serug 230, Nahor 148 and Terah 205—are the modest Hebrew equivalents of the much longer life-spans attributed by the Babylonians to their antediluvian kings. The first five names will suffice as examples: Alulim reigned 28,800 years, Alamar 36,000, Enmenluanna 43,200, Enmenluanna 28,800, Dumuzi the Shepherd 36,000, etc. These Babylonian lists, a version of which is recorded also by Berossus,
have one feature in common with the Biblical list of patriarchs: that both attribute extremely long life-spans to the earliest figures, then shorter, but still unrealistically long, lives to the later ones, until the historical period is reached when both kings and patriarchs are cut down to human size. In the ancient Near East, where longevity was considered man’s greatest blessing, the quasi-divine character of early mythical kings and patriarchs is indicated by a ten-fold, hundred-fold or thousand-fold multiplication of their reigns or ages.

3
. Harran (Assyrian
Kharran
, ‘road’) was an important mercantile city, on the highway from Nineveh to Carchemish, at its junction with the main road to Damascus. It is still in existence on the Balikh River, sixty miles west of Tell Halaf.

4
. Since the raven is a solitary bird, the ‘ravens’ which damaged Mesopotamian crops may have been starlings, which fly about in large flocks. Or they may have been tribesmen with a raven totem; perhaps Midianite nomads from the Syrian Desert—Oreb (‘raven’) mentioned in
Judges
VII. 25, was a Midianite Prince.

5
. Abram’s genealogy is meant to show that the ancestors of Israel were all wise, virtuous, first-born sons; and the final details are evidently edited in that sense. Haran’s birth should refer to a stay in Harran—though, indeed, the names are not etymologically identical; but he is said to have previously died at Ur. The repetition of ‘Nahor’ suggests that despite
Genesis
XI. 26–27, which lists Terah’s three sons as Abram, Nahor the Second and Haran, Nahor will have been considered Terah’s first-born, because he bore his paternal grandfather’s name. This custom still prevails in the Middle East. Moreover, Terah married his cousin Edna, Abram’s daughter; their second son should therefore have been an Abram too. Thus the midrashic tradition that Abram was younger than Nahor makes sense, though he would have been so named only if he were the second, not the third, son.

6
. Midrashic commentators on Abram’s marriage, who uphold the laws against incest found in
Leviticus
XX. 17, are obliged to disregard the clear evidence of
Genesis
XX. 12 that Sarai was his sister by a different mother. Instead, they make her Abram’s brother’s daughter—a union permitted under Mosaic law. Yet marriage to a half-sister born of a different mother was common in Egypt—Abram is connected in Biblical myth with Egypt—and was legal in Israel down to the days of King David.

(
a
) Prince Terah commanded the royal armies, and one evening all King Nimrod’s courtiers, councillors and astrologers assembled in his house to make merry with him. That same night Terah’s son Abram was born and, as the company returned to their homes and gazed up at the sky, an enormous comet coursed around the horizon from the east, and swallowed four stars each fixed in a different quarter of Heaven. The astrologers stood amazed, knowing what this sight portended, and whispered to one another: ‘Terah’s new-born son will be a mighty Emperor. His descendants will multiply and inherit the earth for all eternity, dethroning kings and possessing their lands.’

When morning came they assembled again, and said: ‘That comet was hidden from our lord Nimrod. Were he now to hear of it, he would ask us: “Why have you concealed so great a wonder from me?”, and thereupon kill us. Let us rather acquit ourselves of blame by freely disclosing it.’

They did so, telling Nimrod: ‘Pay Terah his price, and kill the child, before he can engender sons to destroy the King’s posterity and ours.’

Nimrod sent for Terah, commanding him: ‘Sell me your son!’ Terah answered: ‘Whatever the King orders his servant, will be done. Yet I humbly beg my lord’s advice in a certain matter. Last night your Councillor Aayun ate at my table. He said: “Sell me that tall, swift stallion which our master lately bestowed on you, and I will fill your house with gold, silver and excellent fodder.” How, my lord, could I have avoided offence in answering him?’

Nimrod cried angrily: ‘Were you so foolish as even to consider such a sale? Does your house lack silver and gold? Or of what use would his fodder have been if you sold my gift, the finest stallion alive?’

Terah replied softly: ‘Did not the King command me to sell my son? And is it not his purpose to destroy him? And what use will I have for silver and gold after the death of my heir? Must not all my treasures return to the King if I die childless?’

At this Nimrod grew angrier yet; but Terah said pacifically: ‘All that is mine lies in the King’s hands! Let him do to his servant as he wills, taking my son without payment.’

Nimrod said: ‘No, but I shall surely pay you well for the child!’

Terah answered: ‘May it please my lord that I ask a small favour?’ And, being given leave, he said: ‘Only allow me three days in which to commune with my soul and with my kinsmen, that we may do gladly what our lord demands in rage.’

Nimrod granted this favour and, on the third day, his messengers fetched the child. Terah, knowing that he and his kinsmen would be put to the sword unless he obeyed, took a slave-woman’s son, born on the same night as Abram, gave him to the King, and accepted a price in silver and gold.

Nimrod dashed out the infant’s brain, and afterwards forgot the matter. Terah hid Abram in a cave with a chosen foster-mother, and brought them food month after month. God cared for Abram throughout the next ten years; though some say that thirteen years passed before Terah at last gave Abram permission to leave the cave, where he had seen the light of neither sun nor moon; and that, on emerging, he spoke the holy tongue of Hebrew, despised the sacred groves, loathed idols and trusted in the strength of his Creator.
²³⁷

Abram sought out his ancestors Noah and Shem, at whose house he studied the Law for thirty-nine years; but none knew his parentage.
²³⁸

(
b
) According to another account, King Nimrod himself was versed in astrology, and learned from the stars that a child soon to be born would overthrow the gods whom he held in awe. Nimrod sent for his chief princes and councillors, asking them: ‘What can I do against this child of destiny?’ They advised him to raise a great building, and issue an order that all women big with child should be delivered there; he should also post sentries at the gates, and set mid-wives to watch over the women and slaughter every male child as soon as born. ‘Nevertheless,’ they added, ‘spare every female infant, clothe its mother in royal purple, and shower her with gifts, saying: “Thus shall it be done to mothers of daughters!”’

Nimrod took their advice, and the angels who watched this slaughter, reproached God, crying: ‘Have You not seen how Nimrod the blasphemer murders innocents?’ God replied: ‘I never sleep, nor turn away My eyes, but observe all that happens on earth—either openly or in secret! Soon I shall chastise him.’

When Terah saw that Amitlai’s belly swelled and her face paled,
he asked: ‘What ails you, wife?’ She answered: ‘This ailment, the
qolsani
, comes upon me yearly.’ He told her: ‘Uncover yourself, that I may see whether you are with child; for, if so, we must obey the King’s command.’ But the unborn child rose in her breast; thus Terah, groping at Amitlai’s belly, found nothing and said: ‘It is indeed the
qolsani
.’

Amitlai, knowing that her hour was at hand, went out across the desert to a cave by the River Euphrates. There the pangs of travail came upon her, and she gave birth to Abram, the radiance of whose face lighted up the cave from end to end. Amitlai cried: ‘Alas, that I have borne you in this evil time! King Nimrod has destroyed seventy thousand male infants, and I fear greatly for your sake.’ She took part of her garment and wrapped Abram in it, saying: ‘God be with you and forsake you not!’ Then she departed.

Abram, lying alone in the cave without food, began to weep; but God sent the archangel Gabriel to give him milk, which flowed from the little finger of his right hand—and so the child was suckled.

At sunset on the tenth day, Abram stood up and walked down to the riverbank. He saw the stars rise, and thought: ‘Surely, these are as gods?’ When dawn came and the stars vanished, he said: ‘Yet I shall give them no worship, for gods do not vanish.’ Then the sun rose in splendour, and he asked: ‘Is this my god, whom I should praise?’ But when it set again at dusk, he cried: ‘It was no god! Sun, Moon and stars are surely moved by One greater than they.’ Gabriel appeared, saying: ‘Peace be with you!’ Abram answered: ‘And with you be peace! What is your name?’ He said: ‘I am Gabriel, the Messenger of God,’ whereupon Abram washed his face, hands and feet at a spring, and prostrated himself.