had been made at Jabbok; and gave him fresh assurance of his design of blessing and multiplying his posterity, and of giving them the inheritance of the land of Canaan. Some time after this Jacob journeyed from Bethel, and near Ephrath his wife Rachel died in labour of Benjamin ; and Jacob buried her near Ephrath or Bethlehem. From hence Jacob removed, and spread his tent beyond the tower of Edar; and soon after removed hence, and came to the plain of Mamre, to the city of Arbah or Hebron, to his father Isaac, who at that time lived here. He had met with several misfortunes from the time that he removed from Bethel; the death of his wife at Ephrath, and his son Reuben's baseness in lying with his concubine Bilhah, at Edar; besides which, there was a difference amongst his children, which in a little time ended in the loss of his son Joseph.

Joseph was his beloved child, a circumstance which drew upon him the envy of his brethren, and increased to perfect hatred, upon his telling them some dreams, which seemed to imply that he should be advanced in the world far above any of them. They told Jacob of Joseph's dreams, and Jacob thought it proper to discountenance the aspiring thoughts to which he imagined they would too naturally lead him; however, he could not but think in his heart, that there was something more than ordinary in them. Some time after this, Jacob sent Joseph from Hebron to Dothan,

* Ver. 22. and chap. xxxvii. Gen. xxxvii. 8-11.

where his other sons were taking care of the flocks; who, as soon as Joseph came in sight, called to mind his dreams, and were in a great heat about him, and designed to kill him. But Reuben endeavoured to prevent his being murdered, and persuaded them to throw him into a pit, and there leave him, intending when they were all gone, to come back to the place and help him out, and so to send him home to his father. But whilst they were in these debates, some Ishmaelites happened to come by, who were travelling from Mount Gilead to Egypt with spicery; upon sight of whom, they determined to sell him.* They sold him, and the Ishmaelites carried him to Egypt, and there sold him again to Potiphar, the captain of the king's guard. Jacob's sons killed a kid, and dipped Joseph's coat in the blood, and at their coming home, told their father that they found it in that condition; so that Jacob thought some wild beast had killed him, and he mourned exceedingly for him." Joseph was more than seventeen years old when his brethren sold him into Egypt; and about eight or nine years after he was sold thither, Isaac being 180 years old died, A. M. 2288.6

a

Isaac's death brought Esau and Jacob to another meeting; for Esau came from Seir to Mamre to assist at his father's funeral, and to receive as heir his father's substance. Jacob, though he came to Mamre to live near his father, some years before Isaac died,

Gen. xxxvii. 21, 22.

y Ver. 36.

* Ver. 25-28.

Ver. 31-35.

For he was seventeen, when Jacob lived at Edar, V.2.

had yet been exceeding careful of laying any founda-, tion for a misunderstanding with his brother, and therefore had not brought his flocks or substance into that part of the country. For we find that when he lived at Hebron, his sons were sent to take care of the flocks to Shechem and Dothan; so that he had carefully kept at a distance, and given Esau no reason to suspect, that he had any ways intermixed what he had gotten with what was his father's, or taken any opportunity to get away any thing from his father, to Esau's hindrance. After Isaac was buried, Esau had no mind to live at Mamre; for he considered, that what he had at Seir, and what he had now got in Canaan by his father's death, would be so great a stock, that it would be difficult to find sufficient room for him to live in Canaan, especially if his brother Jacob should settle there near him; therefore he took what he had in Canaan, and carried it with him into Seir. The land of Seir was at this time possessed by the Horites or Horims, and these were the inhabitants of it in the days of Abraham; for Chedorlaomer, out of whose hand Abraham rescued Lot, found them here when he brought his armies to subdue the nations of Canaan. Seir the Horite was contemporary with Abraham and Chedorlaomer, though probably something older than Abraham for Esau, Abraham's grandson, married Aholibamah the daughter of Seir's grandson. If Seir was king of the Horites, he might fall in bat

C

k

tle; for Chedorlaomer smote the Horites in their Mount Seir unto El-paran. Under the sons of Seir, the Horites gathered some strength again, and were governed by Seir's sons, who became dukes of the land,* either ruling jointly, or setting up several little sovereignties; and in the time of these dukes Esau came to live at Seir. His full determination of settling there was at Isaac's death, towards the decline of Esau's life; for Isaac was 60 years old when Esau was born,' and he lived to be 180, so that Esau at his death was 120; and this must be in the time of the third generation from Seir, when the children of Lotan, and of Zibeon, and of Shobal, and of Anah, the sons of Seir, ruled the land. Agreeably hereto Esau married a daughter of the men of this generation; Aholibamah the daughter of Anah; which Anah was not Anah the son of Seir, but Anah the son of Zibeon, and grandson of Seir," this was that Anah, who found the mules in the Wilderness as he fed the asses of Zibeon his father,* for he is by this action distinguished from the other Anah. The sons of Seir did not keep the dominion of these countries long, for the children of Esau got it from them. The children of Esau destroyed the Horites, and dwelt in their stead, as Israel did in the land of his possession, which the LORD gave unto him. This conquest of the Horites happened not in Esau's days, nor in his children's or grandchildren's days; but in the days of his grand-chil

dren's children; for the descendants of Esau, who became dukes of Edom, were Timna, Alia, Jetheth, Aholibamah, Elah, Pinon, Kenaz, Teman, Mibzar, Magdiel, Iram, as the writer of the book of Chronicles has expressly remarked, These were the.. dukes of Edom. Esau, and the children of Esau, and their children, are all enumerated, but they are not said to have been dukes of Edom; but the persons above-mentioned only. I am sensible that what I have here offered may be thought not entirely to agree with what we find in the xxxvith chap. of Genesis. In that chapter some of the sons of Esau are said to have been dukes; and most of his grand-children are likewise said to have arrived at this dignity. But in answer to this it should be remarked, that the verses from ver. 15 to ver. 20. do not say, that the sons or grand-sons of Esau there mentioned were dukes of Edom, but only that they were dukes in the land of Edom. Now this distinction should be carefully observed; for the true matter of fact was this. the children of Esau, in the days of Esau's sons and grand-sons, set up a form of government among themselves, and over their own families, and the persons who ruled them were dukes; not over the land of Edom, for the inhabitants of the land were not yet subject to them, but they were dukes in the land, and ruled the children of Esau, and so were, as they are called (Alephaiv) their dukes." Their children afterwards conquered the Horites, and took possession of

1 Chron. i. 51, ad fin."

'Gen. xxxvi. 18. t Ver. 15, 16, 17.

Ver. 35-37. "Gen. xxxvi. 10.

;