Antiquities — Book 1

Josephus · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

1. The structure and order of the elements of the cosmos. 2. Concerning the lineage of Adam and the ten generations descended from him down to the flood. 3. How the flood came about, and how Noah, saved in an ark with his kin, settled in the plain of Shinar. 4. How the tower, which his sons built in defiance of God, was raised, and how he changed their languages, and how the place where this happened was called Babylon. 5. How Noah's descendants settled the whole inhabited world. 6. That each of the nations was named after those who settled it. 7. How Abraham our forefather, leaving the land of the Chaldeans, took possession of the land then called Canaan, now called Judea. 8. How, when famine struck Canaan, he departed for Egypt, and after spending some time there returned again. 9. The defeat of the Sodomites when the Assyrians campaigned against them. 10. How Abraham, marching out against the Assyrians, won the victory, rescued the Sodomite captives, and recovered the plunder they had taken. 11. How God destroyed the nation of the Sodomites, angered at the sins they were committing. 12. Concerning Ishmael, son of Abraham, and his Arab descendants. 13. Concerning Isaac, who was Abraham's legitimate son. 14. Concerning Sarah, Abraham's wife, and how she ended her life. 15. How, when Abraham married Keturah, the nation of the Trogodyte Arabs was born. 16. Concerning the death of Abraham. 17. Concerning the birth and upbringing of Isaac's sons, Esau and Jacob. 18. Jacob's flight to Mesopotamia out of fear of his brother, and how, after marrying there and fathering twelve sons, he returned again to Canaan. 19. How Isaac died and was buried at Hebron.

This book covers a span of years which, by Josephus's reckoning, is 3,008; by the Hebrews' reckoning, 1,872; by Eusebius's reckoning, 3,459.

Those who wish to write histories, I observe, are moved by no single cause, but by many, and ones widely different from one another. Some, displaying their skill in rhetoric and hunting the reputation it brings, throw themselves into this branch of learning; others, doing a favor to the people whose record it happens to be, have taken up the labor of writing about them beyond their own capacity; and there are those compelled by the sheer necessity of events they happened to witness to set them down in a clear account; many more, since matters of great usefulness lay buried in ignorance, have been driven to bring their history into the open for the common good. Of the causes I have named, the last two apply to me as well. The war we Jews fought against the Romans, its course, and the outcome to which it came — having learned all this by experience — I was compelled to narrate in detail, on account of those who corrupt the truth in writing about it. But this present undertaking I have taken in hand believing it will appear to all the Greeks worthy of study, for it is going to contain our entire ancient history and the constitution of our government, translated from the Hebrew writings.

Indeed I had already resolved earlier, when I was composing the account of the war, to explain who the Jews were from the beginning, what fortunes befell them, under what lawgiver they were trained in piety and in virtue generally, and how many wars, fought over long ages, brought them at last, against their will, into conflict with the Romans. But since the scope of that subject was too great, I separated it out and gave the history its own beginning and its own end apart from that work. As time went on, however — as tends to happen to those who set their minds on great undertakings — hesitation and delay came over me at the thought of carrying so vast a subject into a language foreign and unfamiliar to us. But there were some who, out of eagerness for the history, urged me on toward it, and above all Epaphroditus, a man devoted to every form of learning, but especially delighted by acquaintance with great affairs, since he himself had been involved in weighty matters and varied fortunes, and had shown in all of them a remarkable natural strength and an unshakeable resolve toward virtue.

Persuaded by him — since he always shares the delight of those able to accomplish something useful or noble — and ashamed for myself, lest I should seem to prefer idleness to the labor of achieving the finest things, I was roused to greater eagerness, weighing besides, and not lightly, whether our own ancestors had been willing to share such things, and whether any of the Greeks had shown eagerness to learn about our affairs. I found, then, that the second of the Ptolemies, a king especially devoted to learning and to the collecting of books, was particularly eager to have our law and the constitution founded on it translated into the Greek language, and that Eleazar, second to none in virtue among our high priests, did not begrudge that king this benefit — though he would certainly have refused, had it not been our ancestral custom to keep nothing good hidden.

I thought it fitting, then, for myself to imitate the high priest's generosity of spirit, and to suppose that even now there are many, like that king, equally eager to learn — for that king did not even manage to obtain the whole of our record, but only those who were sent to Alexandria for the translation handed over the contents of the Law alone; countless things besides are set forth in the sacred writings, since a history of five thousand years is contained within them, comprising every sort of unexpected turn of fortune, many vicissitudes of war, acts of valor by generals, and changes of government.

In sum, anyone willing to work through this history from the outset will learn above all this from it: that for those who follow the will of God and do not dare to transgress laws that have been rightly established, all things turn out beyond belief successfully, and happiness is set before them by God as a prize; but to the degree that they depart from exact attention to these things, what was passable becomes impassable, and whatever they eagerly pursue as good turns instead into irreparable disaster.

Now, then, I urge those who take up these books to fix their minds on God, and to judge whether our lawgiver has understood his nature in a manner worthy of him, and has always assigned to him actions fitting to his power, keeping his account of him free of all the unseemly mythology found among others — even though, given the great length of time and the antiquity involved, he had every license for false invention. For he lived two thousand years ago, a span of time so vast that not even the poets ventured to trace back to it the births of their own gods, let alone the deeds or laws of men. As the account proceeds, it will indicate, in its proper order, the precise details found in the records; for that is what I promised to do throughout this work — to add nothing and to leave nothing out.

Since almost everything among us depends on the wisdom of the lawgiver Moses, I must first say a few words about him, so that none of my readers may wonder why an account concerned with laws and deeds has here made itself party to so much natural philosophy. One must understand, then, that he considered it most necessary of all things — for anyone who intended both to order his own life well and to legislate for others — first to contemplate the nature of God, and, having become through his mind a spectator of God's works, thereby to imitate, so far as possible, that best of all models, and to strive to follow it; for a lawgiver could never attain a right mind if deprived of this contemplation, nor would anything written for the sake of virtue benefit its readers, unless they were taught before all else that God, being father and master of all things and overseeing everything, grants a happy life to those who follow him, but surrounds with great disasters those who step outside virtue.

Wishing to instill this teaching, Moses did not begin the establishment of laws for his citizens, as others do, from contracts and mutual rights and obligations, but led their minds up to God and the framing of the cosmos, and persuaded them that we men are the finest of God's works upon earth; and once he had them obedient in matters of piety, he could then easily persuade them of everything else. For other lawgivers, following myths, transferred in their accounts the shame of human failings onto the gods, and thereby gave the wicked ample excuse; but our lawgiver, having shown that God possesses virtue pure and unmixed, held that men ought to strive to share in it, and punished without mercy those who did not think or believe accordingly.

I urge my readers, then, to undertake their examination with this premise in view; for to those who consider it in this light, nothing will appear unreasonable, nothing out of keeping with the majesty of God and his love for mankind — for everything holds a disposition in harmony with the nature of the universe as a whole, the lawgiver at times hinting things skillfully, at other times speaking allegorically with due solemnity, and, wherever it was better to speak directly, declaring these things in plain words. For those, however, who also wish to examine the reasons behind each provision, the inquiry would prove extensive and highly philosophical — one which I now set aside, but which, God granting me time, I shall try to write after completing this work.

I shall now turn to the narrative of events, first recalling what Moses said concerning the framing of the cosmos, which I found recorded thus in the sacred books.

It runs as follows: In the beginning God created heaven and earth. But the earth did not come into view; rather it lay hidden in deep darkness, while a wind swept over it from above, and God commanded that light come to be. When this had happened, he considered the whole mass of matter, and separated the light from the darkness, giving the one the name night and calling the other day, and naming the beginning of light and its cessation evening and dawn. This, then, would be the first day, though Moses called it 'one'; the reason for this I am able to give even now, but since I have promised to set out the explanation of all such matters in a separate work, I put off the account of it until then.

After this, on the second of the days, he set the heaven over the whole, having distinguished it from the rest and judged it worthy to be arranged by itself, fixing around it a crystalline vault and, fittingly for the earth, making it southerly and rain-bearing for the benefit that comes from dew. On the third day he set the earth firm, pouring the sea around it; and on that same day plants and seeds sprang up at once from the ground.

On the fourth he arrayed the heaven with sun and moon and the other stars, prescribing for them motions and courses by which the revolutions of the seasons would be marked. On the fifth day he sent forth living creatures, some swimming in the depths, others moving through the air, binding them together in fellowship and the union of mating, for the sake of increasing and multiplying their kind. On the sixth day he fashioned the race of four-footed animals, making them male and female; and on this day too he formed man. Moses says that the world and everything in it came to be within six days in all, and that on the seventh he rested and took a respite from his works — which is why we too observe leisure from our labors on this day, calling it Sabbath, a word that means 'rest' in the Hebrew tongue.

And indeed Moses began to speak of natural things after the seventh day, describing the formation of man as follows: God fashioned man, taking dust from the earth, and put into him breath and soul. This man was called Adam, which in the Hebrew language means 'red,' since he had come to be from red earth kneaded together — for such is virgin, true earth. God brought before Adam the animals arranged by kind, showing him male and female, and gave them the names by which they are still called today.

Seeing that Adam had no fellowship or companionship with a female — for there was none — and finding it strange, unlike the other animals, which had such companionship, God took one of his ribs while he slept and from it fashioned a woman. And Adam, when she was brought to him, recognized her as having come from himself. In the Hebrew language a woman is called 'essa,' and the name of that particular woman was Eve, which means 'mother of all.'

He says that God also planted a garden toward the east, luxuriant with every kind of plant; and among these were the tree of life and another, the tree of understanding, by which one could discern what was good and what was evil. Into this garden he brought Adam and the woman and bade them tend the plants. The garden is watered by a single river that flows around the whole land in a circle and splits into four branches.

The Phison — the name means 'multitude' — flows toward India and empties into the sea, and is called by the Greeks the Ganges; the Euphrates and the Tigris go down to the Red Sea. The Euphrates is called 'Phoras,' meaning either 'dispersal' or 'flower'; the Tigris is called 'Diglath,' from which comes the sense of something narrow and swift; and the Geon, flowing through Egypt, denotes the river that rises for us from the opposite direction, which the Greeks call the Nile.

God, then, commanded Adam and the woman to eat of the other plants, but to abstain from the tree of understanding, warning them in advance that ruin would come upon them if they touched it. Now at that time all the animals still spoke a common language, and the serpent, living alongside Adam and the woman, was envious of the happiness he supposed they would enjoy if they remained persuaded by God's commands; and thinking they would fall into misfortune if they disobeyed, he maliciously persuaded the woman to taste of the tree of understanding, telling her

that they would gain the knowledge of good and evil, and that once they had it they would live a blessed life, lacking nothing of the divine. In this way he tricked the woman into scorning God's command. She tasted the plant, and enjoying its fruit, persuaded Adam to eat of it as well. At once they understood that they were naked, and, feeling shame at being exposed, they set about devising covering for themselves, for the plant had the property of sharpening perception and understanding. So they covered themselves with fig leaves, and, using these to screen their nakedness, they thought themselves better off than before, now that they had found what they had previously lacked.

When God came into the garden, Adam, who before had been in the habit of coming to converse with him, now withdrew, conscious of his wrongdoing. God was struck by this and asked the reason why Adam, who had formerly delighted in conversation with him, now fled and avoided it. When Adam said nothing, aware in himself that he had transgressed God's command, God said, "I had determined for you a happy life, free from every evil, your soul troubled by no care, with everything conducive to enjoyment and pleasure arising of its own accord by my providence, without labor or hardship on your part — and with these blessings present, old age would not have come upon you so quickly, and your life would have been long. But now you have insulted this plan of mine by disobeying my commands, for it is not out of virtue that you keep silent, but out of a guilty conscience."

Adam tried to excuse himself of the sin and begged God not to be angry with him, laying the blame for what had happened on the woman and saying that he had sinned because she had deceived him; she in turn accused the serpent. God held Adam guilty of yielding to a woman's persuasion and condemned him to hard labor: the earth would no longer yield anything to them of its own accord, but would provide some things only for those who toiled and wore themselves out with work, and would deny them others. Eve he punished with childbirth and the pains of labor, because by the same deception with which the serpent had beguiled her she had led Adam astray and wrapped him in misfortune. He also took away the serpent's voice, angered at its malice toward Adam, and put venom under its tongue, making it an enemy to mankind, and ordained that men should strike at its head, since there the harm it does to men resides and death would come most easily to those who defend themselves there; and he deprived it of legs, making it crawl along the ground, writhing.

Having ordained that they should suffer these things, God moved Adam and Eve from the garden to another place. Two male children were born to them: the first was named Cain, a name that, translated, means "acquisition," and the second Abel, which means nothing. Daughters were also born to them. The brothers took pleasure in different pursuits. Abel, the younger, was concerned with justice, and, believing that God was present at everything he did, gave thought to virtue; his life was that of a shepherd. Cain, on the other hand, was thoroughly wicked, and, looking only to gain, was the first to think of plowing the earth. He killed his brother for the following reason: when it seemed good to them to sacrifice to God, Cain offered the fruits of his farming and of the trees, while Abel brought milk and the firstborn of his flocks.

God took greater pleasure in this offering, being honored by things that grow of their own accord and by nature, rather than by things produced by force through the contrivance of a grasping man. At this Cain, provoked that Abel had been preferred by God, killed his brother, and, having made the body disappear, supposed he would escape notice. But God, aware of the deed, came to Cain and asked about his brother, where he might be — for many days he had not seen him, though at every other time he had seen the two of them together. Cain, at a loss and having nothing to say to God, at first claimed that he too was perplexed at not seeing his brother; but when God pressed him insistently and probed further, he grew angry and said he was not his brother's tutor and guardian, nor of what he did.

At this God directly convicted Cain of being his brother's murderer, saying, "I am amazed that you cannot say what has become of a man whom you yourself have destroyed." He released him, however, from the penalty due for the murder once he had performed a sacrifice and, through it, begged not to incur a heavier wrath; but he pronounced him accursed, and threatened to punish his descendants down to the seventh generation, and cast him out of that land together with his wife. Fearing that in his wandering he would fall prey to wild beasts and perish in that way, God bade him harbor no such gloomy suspicion, but travel the whole earth without fear of coming to any harm from beasts on that account; and, setting a mark on him by which he would be recognized, he ordered him to depart.

After traversing much country, Cain settled with his wife in a place called Naid, and there made his home; there children were also born to him. He took his punishment not as a warning but as an occasion for the growth of wickedness, procuring every pleasure for his body, even if this meant getting it by outrage against his companions; and, increasing his household with a mass of wealth won by plunder and violence, he urged those he met on to pleasure and robbery, becoming their teacher in wicked pursuits. The freedom from care in which men had formerly lived together he did away with by the invention of measures and weights, changing what had been, through their ignorance of such things, an innocent and generous way of life into one of cunning; he was the first to set boundaries to land, and he built a city and fortified it with walls, compelling his household to gather together in one place. This city he named Anocha, after Anoch, his eldest son.

Anoch's son was Jared, and from him came Marouel, whose son was Mathusala, and his son Lamech, who had seventy-seven children by his two wives, Sella and Ada. Of these, Jobel, born of Ada, pitched tents and took up the raising of flocks; Jubal, his brother by the same mother, pursued music and invented psalteries and lyres; and Jubel, one of those born of the other wife, surpassed all in bodily strength and distinguished himself in the arts of war, procuring by these things what conduces to bodily pleasure, and was also the first to devise the working of bronze. When Lamech became father of a daughter, Noema by name, since he understood the divine things clearly and foresaw that he would undergo a punishment greater than that for Cain's fratricide, he made this plain to his wives.

While Adam still lived, it happened that Cain's descendants became utterly wicked, one generation after another growing worse in succession and imitation; for they gave themselves without restraint to warfare and set out on plunder, and if any among them was reluctant to kill, he showed a different kind of recklessness, committing outrage and greed. Adam, the first man made from the earth — for the narrative requires that his own account be given — after Abel had been slain and Cain had fled because of that murder, gave thought to having children, and a powerful desire for offspring took hold of him when he had already completed two hundred and thirty years of life; he lived seven hundred years beyond that and then died. He had, then, other children as well as Seth; but to speak of the others at length would take long, and I shall try to recount only the line descended from Seth. For Seth, having been raised and having come to an age already capable of judging what is good, and himself becoming a man of the highest excellence, left behind descendants who imitated the same virtues.

All of them, being good by nature, inhabited the same land without discord and prospered, with nothing troublesome befalling them even to the end, and they devised the wisdom concerning the heavenly bodies and their arrangement. And so that their discoveries should not be lost to mankind, nor perish before they came to be known, since Adam had foretold that the universe would be destroyed, once by the force of fire and again by the violence and abundance of water, they made two pillars, one of brick and the other of stone, and inscribed their discoveries on both, so that if the brick one should be destroyed by the flooding rain, the stone one would remain and make known to men what was written on it, showing also that a brick one had been set up by them. It remains to this day in the land of Siriad.

For seven generations these men continued to hold God to be lord of all and looked to virtue in everything, but as time went on they turned to the worse, abandoning their ancestral customs, no longer rendering to God the honors that were due, and taking no account of justice toward men; instead they displayed, in their conduct, twice the zeal for wickedness that they had once shown for virtue. In this way they made God their enemy. For many angels of God now consorted with women and begot insolent sons who scorned every good thing, through their confidence in their own strength; the deeds these men are said to have dared are like those the Greeks attribute to the giants.

Noah, displeased at what they were doing and finding their designs distasteful, tried to persuade them to change their thinking and their conduct for the better; but seeing that they would not yield, and were firmly mastered by their pleasure in wickedness, he grew afraid that they would kill him along with his wife and children and the women who lived with them, and so left that land. God, for his part, loved Noah for his righteousness, but condemned not only the wickedness of those men but resolved to destroy the whole of mankind then existing and to make another race free of wickedness; and, cutting short their lives, he made it so that men would no longer live as long as before, but a hundred and twenty years, and turned the mainland into sea. In this way all the rest were destroyed, but Noah alone was saved, God having devised for him a means and a way to safety of the following kind: he built an ark of four stories, three hundred cubits in length, fifty in breadth, and thirty in depth, and went up into it with his wife, his sons and their wives, having placed in it whatever else would be needed to sustain them, and bringing in creatures of every kind, male and female, for the preservation of their species, and others still, seven times that number.

The ark had walls and a roof strong enough that it could not be flooded from any side nor overcome by the force of the water. In this way Noah, together with his household, was saved. He himself was tenth in descent from Adam: he was the son of Lamech, whose father was Mathusala, who was son of Anoch, son of Jared; Jared was born of Malael, and Malael from Caina, son of Anosos, who had several sisters; Anosos was the son of Seth, son of Adam. This calamity occurred in the six-hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, called Dius by the Macedonians and Marsuan by the Hebrews — for so they had arranged the year in Egypt. Moses, however, made Nisan, which is Xanthicus, the first month for the festivals, since it was in this month that he led the Hebrews out of Egypt; this month also came first for him in everything relating to the honors paid to God, though for buying and selling and other business he kept to the original order of months. He says the downpour began on the twenty-seventh of the aforementioned month.

This time was two thousand two hundred and sixty-two years from Adam, the first man to exist. This chronology is recorded in the sacred books, since men of that age noted with great precision both the births and the deaths of illustrious men. When Adam had already reached his two hundred and thirtieth year, his son Seth was born, who lived nine hundred and thirty years. Seth, in his two hundred and fifth year, begot Anosos, who, after living nine hundred and five years, handed over the care of affairs to his son Caina, having begotten him around his hundred and ninetieth year; Anosos lived nine hundred and twelve years in all. Caina, having lived nine hundred and ten years, had a son Malael, born in his hundred and seventieth year; Malael, after living eight hundred and ninety-five years, died, leaving behind his son Jared, whom he had begotten at the age of a hundred and sixty-five. Jared, having lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years, was succeeded by his son Anoch, who was born when his father was a hundred and sixty-two; Anoch lived three hundred and sixty-five years and then departed to the divine, so that they have not even recorded his death. Mathusala, Anoch's son, born to him in his hundred and sixty-fifth year, had a son Lamech at about the age of a hundred and eighty-seven, having himself held the leadership for nine hundred and sixty-nine years. Lamech, having ruled seven hundred and seventy-seven years, appointed his son Noah head of affairs; Noah, born to Lamech when he had reached his hundred and eighty-eighth year, took up the leadership of affairs at the age of nine hundred and fifty. These years, added together, fill out the total given above. Let no one examine the deaths of these men, for they extended their lives well into those of their children and grandchildren; let him look only to their births.

When God had given the sign and the rain had begun, the water came down for forty whole days, so that it rose fifteen cubits above the earth. This was the reason why more people could not be saved — they had no means of escape. When the rain stopped, the water only slowly began to subside, over a hundred and fifty days, so that by the seventh month, on its seventh day, it was gradually receding and abating. Then, the ark having come to rest on a certain peak of a mountain in Armenia, Noah, realizing this...

Noah opened the ark, saw a small patch of dry ground around it, and, now in better hope, waited quietly. A few days later, when the water had receded further, he sent out a raven, wanting to learn whether any other part of the earth left bare by the water was now safe for landing. It found the whole surface still under water and returned to Noah. Seven days later he sent out a dove to learn how things stood with the land; it came back covered in mud and carrying an olive branch, and from this he learned that the earth was free of the flood. He waited seven more days, then released the animals from the ark and came out himself with his family, and after sacrificing to God he feasted with his household. The Armenians call this place the Landing-Place, for it was there that the ark came safely to rest, and they still show the remains of it to this day.

This flood and the ark are mentioned by all who have written the histories of foreign peoples, among them Berossus the Chaldean; in his account of the flood he writes something like this: "It is said that a part of the ship still survives in Armenia, on the mountain of the Cordyaeans, and that some people scrape off pieces of the bitumen and carry them away, using what they bring back as charms." Hieronymus the Egyptian, who wrote the history of Phoenicia, mentions these things too, as does Mnaseas and several others. And Nicolaus of Damascus, in the ninety-sixth book of his history, writes of them as follows: "Above the land of the Minyans in Armenia there is a great mountain called Baris, where it is said that many people fled for refuge at the time of the flood and were saved, and that one man, carried on an ark, ran aground on the summit, and the remains of the timbers were preserved for a long time. This could well be the same man that Moses, the lawgiver of the Jews, wrote about."

Noah, fearing that God might flood the earth every year, having decreed the destruction of mankind, burned sacrifices and begged God that from then on things should remain in their original order, and that he would never again bring such a disaster, one that would risk destroying the whole race of living things; instead, having punished the wicked, God should spare those who had been left alive through their goodness and had been judged worthy to escape the calamity — for they would be worse off than the dead, condemned to a harsher fate, if they were not saved completely but were kept back only to face a second flood, having learned the fear and the story of the first one and now facing the destruction of the second. So Noah pleaded that God would receive his sacrifice with favor and never again cast such wrath upon the earth, so that men, devoting themselves to its labors and founding cities, might live happily and lack none of the good things they had enjoyed before the flood, down to a distant old age and a length of life like that of those who had lived before them.

When Noah had made these entreaties, God, who loved the man for his righteousness, promised to bring his prayers to fulfillment. He said that he himself had not destroyed those who perished, but that they had suffered this punishment through their own wickedness; nor, if he had resolved to wipe out the human race once it existed, would he have brought men into life in the first place — it would have been wiser never to have granted them life at all than to give it and then destroy it. "But those who insulted my reverence and virtue forced me to inflict this punishment on them. I will cease from now on to exact vengeance for wrongdoing with such great wrath, and all the more so since you ask it of me. And if I should ever again send a long storm, do not be afraid of the size of the rains, for the water will never again flood the earth. I do, however, urge you to abstain from human bloodshed and to keep yourselves free of murder, punishing anyone who does such a thing, while making use of all the other animals as you wish and as your appetites desire, for I have made you masters of them all, of those on land and in water and of whatever moves through the air above, except for their blood, for in that is the life. I will give you a sign that the rains will cease, by showing you the rainbow in the sky; for among the people there it is held that the bow belongs to God." Having said this and made this promise, God departed.

Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood, and having passed all that time in happiness, he died at the age of nine hundred and fifty years. Let no one, comparing the life we live now and the brevity of our years to the years of the ancients, judge what is said of them to be false, reasoning that because no one today lives so long a span, those men did not reach such a length of life either. For those men were beloved of God and had themselves been made by God, and because their food was better suited to a longer life, it is reasonable that they lived so great a number of years; besides, God granted them a longer life because of their virtue and their useful discoveries in astronomy and geometry, which they could not have safely foretold had they not lived six hundred years — for it is after that many years that the great year is completed. All who have written the ancient histories, both Greek and foreign, bear witness to what I say: Manetho, who compiled the record of the Egyptians, and Berossus, who gathered the history of the Chaldeans, and Mochus and Hestiaeus, and besides these Hieronymus the Egyptian, who wrote the history of Phoenicia, all agree with what I have said, and so do Hesiod, Hecataeus, Hellanicus, Acusilaus, and besides these Ephorus and Nicolaus, who record that the ancients lived a thousand years. On these matters, let each reader judge as he thinks best.

Noah's three sons — Shem, Japheth, and Ham — had been born a hundred years before the flood, and they were the first to come down from the mountains into the plains and settle there, and they persuaded the rest of the people, who were still very much afraid of the plains because of the flood and reluctant to come down from the high places, to take courage and follow their example. The plain in which they first settled them is called Shinar. But when God commanded them, because of their great numbers, to send out colonies, so that they would not quarrel with one another but, farming a great deal of land, might enjoy an abundance of its fruits, they disobeyed God out of foolishness, and so they fell into misfortune and came to recognize their sin. For when they had grown numerous in youthful strength, God again urged them to found colonies; but they, not attributing their prosperity to his favor, but supposing their own strength to be the cause of their abundance, would not obey. To their disobedience of God's will they added the suspicion that they were being urged toward colonization as a plot, so that once divided they would be easier to attack.

And it was Nimrod who incited them to this insolence and contempt of God; he was a grandson of Ham, Noah's son, a bold man and mighty in strength. He persuaded them not to attribute their prosperity to God, but to consider that their own courage was what provided it, and little by little he turned the state of affairs into a tyranny, believing that the only way to make men stop fearing God was for them to keep on relying upon his own power; and he threatened that he would take vengeance on God if he should ever wish to flood the earth again — for he would build a tower higher than the water could reach, and he would avenge the destruction of his ancestors.

The people were eager to follow Nimrod's decrees, considering it slavery to submit to God, and they built the tower, sparing no effort and showing no reluctance for the work; and because of the great number of hands it rose in height faster than anyone would have expected. Its thickness, however, was so great that its height appeared smaller to onlookers than it really was. It was built of baked brick bound together with bitumen, so that it would not be worn away by water. Seeing them driven to such madness, God decided not to destroy them utterly, since they had not been made wiser even by the destruction of the earlier generation, but he threw them into confusion by making them speak different languages, and by this multiplicity of tongues he made them unable to understand one another.

The place where they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion that first arose there regarding their language; for the Hebrews call confusion "babel." The Sibyl also mentions this tower and the differing languages of mankind, speaking as follows: "When all men spoke the same language, some of them built an exceedingly high tower, as though they meant to climb up to heaven by it. But the gods sent winds and overturned the tower, and gave each man his own language; and this is why the city came to be called Babylon." Hestiaeus also mentions the plain called Shinar in the land of Babylonia, speaking as follows: "Those of the priests who survived took the sacred vessels of Zeus Enyalius and came to Shinar in Babylonia."

From that point on they scattered, and because of the difference in their languages they founded colonies everywhere, and each group took possession of whatever land they came upon and to which God led them, until every continent was filled with them, both inland and along the coast, and some even crossed over by ship and settled the islands. Some of the nations still preserve the names given by their founders, others have changed them, and still others have altered their names to a form thought clearer to the peoples living around them. The Greeks are responsible for this: once they grew powerful in later times, they claimed the old glory of these nations as their own, embellishing the peoples with names pleasing and orderly to their own ears, as though the nations had originated from themselves.

Now these were the sons of Noah's sons, to whom, in their honor, the peoples they seized possession of a land gave their names. Japheth, Noah's son, had seven sons. They settled the region beginning from the Taurus and Amanus mountains, and advanced through Asia as far as the river Tanais, and through Europe as far as Cadiz, taking possession of whatever land they came upon, and since no one had settled there before them, they gave the nations their own names. Those now called Galatians by the Greeks, but formerly called Gomarites, were founded by Gomer. Magog founded those named after him the Magogites, called Scythians by the Greeks. Of Japheth's sons, from Javan and Madai: from Madai come the Madaeans, called Medes by the Greeks, and from Javan come Ionia and all the Greeks.

Thobel also founded the Thobelites, who are now called Iberians. And the Meschenians, founded by Meschus, are now called Cappadocians, though a trace of their old name is still shown: there is a city among them, even now, called Mazaca, which makes clear to those able to understand that this was once the name of the whole nation. Thiras named those he ruled Thirians, though the Greeks renamed them Thracians. So many are the nations settled by the sons of Japheth. Gomer had three sons: Aschanax founded the Aschanaxians, now called Rheginians by the Greeks; Riphath founded the Riphathaeans, called Paphlagonians; and Thygramas founded the Thygramaeans, whom the Greeks named Phrygians.

Javan, son of Japheth, likewise had three sons: Elisa founded the Elisaeans, whom he ruled, now called the Aeolians; Tharsus founded the Tharsians — for this was the old name of Cilicia, as shown by the fact that Tarsus, the most notable of their cities and their capital, is so called with a tau in place of a theta. Chethim took possession of the island of Chethima, now called Cyprus, and from it all the islands and most of the coastal regions are called Chethim by the Hebrews. A witness to what I say is one of the cities of Cyprus, which has managed to keep this name: it is called Kition by those who have Hellenized it, but even so it has not entirely escaped the name of Chethim. Such, then, were the nations that sprang from the sons and grandsons of Japheth.

There is a point that the Greeks may perhaps not know, and having stated it I will return to relating the rest of what I set out to tell. The names have been Hellenized for the pleasure of my readers, to suit the elegance of my composition, for this is not the native form of these names among us; rather, they all share one form and one ending — Noah, for instance, is called Noe among us, and this form is kept throughout, whatever the shape of the name.

The sons of Ham took possession of the land from Syria and the Amanus and Lebanon mountains, seizing whatever parts of it faced the sea, and extending their holdings as far as the ocean. Some of their names have vanished entirely, others have changed and been reshaped into other forms and are now hard to recognize, and only a few have kept their names unaltered. Ham had four sons. Time did no harm to the name of Chus, for the Ethiopians he ruled are still called Chusites, both by themselves and by all the peoples of Asia, even now. The memory of the name was also preserved among the Mersaeans, for we all who live there call Egypt Mersa and the Egyptians Mersaeans. Phut too founded Libya, naming its inhabitants Phutites after himself.

There is also a river in the land of the Moors bearing this name, and this is why most of the Greek historians can be found mentioning both this river and the region beside it, called Phute. But the name that now belongs to it has changed, taken from the sons of Mesraim, called Libys; I will explain shortly the reason it also came to be called Africa. Canaan, the fourth son of Ham, settled the land now called Judea and named it Canaan after himself. From these came further sons: Chus had six sons, of whom Sabas founded the Sabaeans, Evilas founded the Evilaeans, now called the Gaetulians, Sabathes founded the Sabathenians, called Astaboreans by the Greeks; Sabactas also founded the Sabactenians.

Ramos settled the Ramaeans and had two sons: Judadas, who settled the Judadaeans, an Ethiopian people in the west, and left them named after himself, and Sabaeus, who settled the Sabaeans. Nimrod, son of Chus, remained among the Babylonians and made himself their tyrant, as I have already shown. Of the eight sons of Mesraim, all together took possession of the land from Gaza to Egypt, though only the name of Philistinus survived for the country: the Greeks call his portion Palestine. Of the others — Loumaeus, Anamia, and Labim, who alone settled in Libya and likewise named the country after himself, and Nedem, Pethrosim, Chesloim, and Chephthom — we know nothing beyond their names, for the Ethiopian war, which I will describe later, uprooted their cities.

Canaan too had sons: Sidonius, who founded a city named after himself in Phoenicia, called Sidon by the Greeks; Amathus, who settled Amathus, still called Amathe by the natives today, though the Macedonians renamed it Epiphaneia after one of their successors; Arudaeus, who held the island of Aradus; and Arucaeus, who held Arce in Lebanon. Of the remaining seven — the Hivite, the Hittite, the Jebusite, the Amorite, the Girgashite, the Sinite, and the Samarite — we have nothing but their names from the sacred books, for the Hebrews destroyed their cities, and this came about through a disaster of the following kind.

After the flood, once the earth had returned to its natural state, Noah turned to farming, and having planted it with vines, when in due season the fruit had ripened and he had gathered the harvest and the wine was ready for use, he offered sacrifice and was making merry. Overcome by drink, he fell into sleep and lay uncovered, in an unseemly posture. His youngest son saw him and, laughing, pointed him out to his brothers, but they covered their father. When Noah learned of it, he prayed for prosperity on his other sons, but on Ham — because of their kinship — he did not himself pronounce a curse; instead he cursed Ham's descendants. So while the others escaped the curse, God pursued Canaan's sons for it. Of this we will speak further in what follows.

To Shem, the third of Noah's sons, five sons were born, who settled Asia as far as the Indian Ocean, beginning from the Euphrates. Elam left behind the Elamites, the ancestors of the Persians. Assouras founded the city of Nineveh and named his subjects Assyrians, who prospered above all others. Arphaxad named those now called Chaldaeans after himself, the Arphaxadaeans, having ruled over them. Aram held the Aramaeans, whom the Greeks call Syrians. Those now called Lydians, then called Ludians, were founded by Ludas. Of Aram's four sons, Uz founded Trachonitis and Damascus, which lies between Palestine and Coele-Syria; Ul founded Armenia; Gether founded the Bactrians; and Mash founded the Mashanaeans, called Spasinu Charax in modern times.

To Arphaxad was born a son, Shelah, and to him Eber, from whom the Jews were originally called Hebrews. Eber had two sons, Joktan and Peleg. Peleg was so named because he was born at the time of the division of dwelling-places, for the Hebrews call division "phalec." Joktan's sons, the sons of Eber, were Elmodad, Saleph, Azermoth, Eirae, Edoram, Uzal, Dacla, Ebal, Abimael, Saphas, Ophir, Euilas, and Jobab; these inhabit the region from the Cophen river in India to the neighboring Seria. So much, then, for the sons of Shem. Now I will turn to the Hebrews.

To Peleg, son of Eber, was born a son, Reu; to him, Serug, to whom Nahor was born as a son; to him, Terah, who became the father of Abram, the tenth generation from Noah, born in the two hundred and ninety-second year after the flood. Terah fathered Abram in his seventieth year; Nahor fathered Terah when he himself was already one hundred and twenty years old; Serug was born to Nahor around the hundred and thirty-second year; Reu fathered Serug at one hundred and thirty years of age; in the same years Peleg also had Reu; Eber, at one hundred and thirty-four years, fathered Peleg, having himself been fathered by Salah when Salah was one hundred and thirty, and Salah had been begotten by Arphaxad in his hundred and thirty-fifth year; Arphaxad was Shem's son, born twelve years after the flood.

Abram had brothers, Nahor and Haran. Of these, Haran, leaving behind a son, Lot, and daughters, Sarah and Milcah, died among the Chaldaeans in a city called Ur of the Chaldaeans, and his tomb is shown there to this day. His nieces were married by his brothers: Nahor married Milcah, Abram married Sarah. Because Terah had come to hate Chaldaea on account of his grief for Haran, the whole family moved to Haran in Mesopotamia, where Terah also died and was buried, having lived two hundred and five years; for by now the span of human life was already being cut short, growing briefer and briefer down to the birth of Moses, after whom the limit of life was set at one hundred and twenty years, God having fixed it at exactly the span that Moses himself came to live.

Now Nahor had eight sons by Milcah: Uz, Buz, Kemuel, Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, and Bethuel; these were Nahor's legitimate sons, for Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah were born to him by his concubine Reumah. To Bethuel, one of Nahor's legitimate sons, were born a daughter, Rebekah, and a son, Laban.

Abram took Lot, the son of his brother Haran and the brother of his own wife Sarah, as an adopted son, having no legitimate child of his own, and left Chaldaea at the age of seventy-five, at God's command, to move into Canaan. There he settled and left it to his descendants — a man skilled in understanding all things and persuasive to those who heard him, unerring in whatever he conjectured. For this reason, having begun to think more highly of virtue than others did, he resolved to reform and change the prevailing opinion about God that everyone then held.

He was thus the first to dare to declare that God is the one creator of all things, and that whatever else contributes to human welfare does so by his command, each thing supplying its share not by its own inherent power. He inferred this from the changes that befall the land and sea, and from all that happens to the sun, the moon, and everything in the heavens: for if these bodies had power of their own, they would surely provide for their own good order, but since they plainly lack this, it is clear that whatever service they render us for our benefit, they render not by their own authority but by the power of the one who commands them — to whom alone it is right to render honor and thanksgiving.

For these views the Chaldaeans and the other people of Mesopotamia rose up against him, and he resolved to emigrate; by the will and with the help of God he took possession of the land of Canaan. There he settled, built an altar, and offered sacrifice to God.

Our father Abram is mentioned by Berosus, though not by name, in these words: "After the flood, in the tenth generation, there lived among the Chaldaeans a certain righteous man, great and skilled in the things of heaven." Hecataeus has done more than merely mention him, for he composed and left behind a book about him. Nicolaus of Damascus, in the fourth book of his Histories, writes as follows: "Abrames reigned as king, an immigrant who arrived with an army from the land above Babylon called the land of the Chaldaeans. Not long afterward he moved on from that country as well, together with his people, into the land then called Canaan but now Judaea, and his descendants there multiplied greatly — of whom I shall give a full account in another work. Even now the name of Abram is honored in the region of Damascus, and a village is pointed out, named after him, called the Dwelling of Abram."

When famine later struck Judaea, Abram, learning that the Egyptians were prospering, was eager to move among them, both to share in their abundance and to hear what their priests said about the gods — intending either to follow them, if they were found to hold better views, or, being himself of sounder judgment, to bring them over to something better. Taking Sarah with him, and fearing the Egyptians' notorious passion for other men's wives, lest the king should kill him because of his wife's beauty, he devised the following scheme: he pretended to be her brother, and taught her to play along, since it would be to their advantage.

When they arrived in Egypt, things turned out for Abram just as he had suspected: the beauty of his wife was quickly reported abroad, so that Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, not content with what was said of her but eager to see for himself, was on the point of laying hands on Sarah. But God thwarted his unjust desire with sickness and civil disorder; and when he sacrificed to learn how to be rid of it, the priests declared, in accordance with God's anger, that the affliction was upon him because of his wish to violate the wife of a stranger.

Frightened, he questioned Sarah as to who she was and whom she had brought with her, and on learning the truth he begged Abram's pardon; for, thinking her only a sister and not a wife, he had been eager to form a marriage connection with her, not moved by lustful desire to violate her. He presented Abram with great wealth and admitted him into the company of the most learned Egyptians, and from this his reputation for virtue became even more distinguished.

For the Egyptians, being pleased with differing customs and disparaging one another's practices, were consequently ill-disposed toward each other. Abram, meeting with each group and refuting the arguments they made for their own views, showed them to be empty and containing nothing true. Admired by them in these discussions as a man of the greatest understanding, skilled not only in grasping but in persuading others of whatever he undertook to teach, he shared with them the science of arithmetic and passed on to them the knowledge of astronomy — for before Abram's arrival the Egyptians were ignorant of these things, which traveled to Egypt from the Chaldaeans, and from there passed on to the Greeks.

When he came into Canaan, he divided the land with Lot, since their shepherds quarreled over the pasturage; the choice, however, he left to Lot. Abram himself took the hill country left over by Lot's choice and settled in the city of Nabro, which is older than Tanis in Egypt by seven years. Lot took the land lying toward the plain, by the river Jordan, not far from the city of the Sodomites, which was then fertile but is now destroyed by the will of God — the reason for which I will explain in its proper place.

At that time, while the Assyrians held sway over Asia, the Sodomites were flourishing, both in wealth and in a large population of young men. Five kings ruled the country: Bala, Balaias, Sennabar, Symmoboros, and the king of the Balenites, each governing his own portion. The Assyrians marched against them, dividing their army into four parts, and besieged them, each division under its own commander. A battle was fought, the Assyrians won, and they imposed tribute on the kings of the Sodomites. For twelve years the Sodomites remained subject, paying the tribute imposed on them, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled, and an Assyrian army crossed against them under the commanders Amaraphel, Arioch, Chedorlaomer, and Thadal.

These plundered the whole of Syria and destroyed the descendants of the giants, and, reaching Sodom, encamped in the valley called the Pits of Bitumen — for there were pits there at that time, though now, since the city of the Sodomites has vanished, that valley has become the lake called Asphaltitis, of which I will speak again shortly. When the Sodomites engaged the Assyrians and a hard-fought battle followed, many of them were killed and the rest were taken captive, and among them Lot was led away, having come as an ally of the Sodomites.

When Abram heard of their disaster, fear for his kinsman Lot came over him, together with pity for the Sodomites, who were his friends and neighbors. Resolving to help them, he did not delay, but pressed on and, falling on the Assyrians by night on the fifth day near Dan — for so the other source of the Jordan is called — and catching them before they could arm, he killed those who were in their beds, having no warning of the disaster, while those who had not yet gone to sleep, unable to fight because of drunkenness, fled. Abram pursued them and drove them, by the second day, all the way to Hoba in the territory of Damascus, showing that victory does not lie in numbers and multitude of hands, but that the eagerness and courage of the fighters prevail over any number — for he overcame so great an army with three hundred and eighteen of his own servants and three friends.

As many of them as escaped fled home in disgrace. Abram, having saved the captive Sodomites, who had been taken by the Assyrians before he arrived, and his kinsman Lot, turned back in peace. The king of the Sodomites met him at a certain place called the King's Plain, where Melchizedek, king of Solyma, received him — the name means "righteous king"; and such he was by common consent, so much so that for this reason he was also made priest of God. He later called Solyma Jerusalem. This Melchizedek supplied Abram's army with hospitality and provided a great abundance of provisions, and during the feast he began to praise him and to bless God for having delivered his enemies into his hands.

When Abram offered him a tenth of the spoils, he accepted the gift. The king of the Sodomites urged Abram to keep the spoils but asked to have the people back, his own countrymen whom Abram had rescued from the Assyrians. Abram said he would not do this, nor would he take any further profit from that plunder beyond what served as food for the men who had marched with him.

for his household. He did, however, give a share to the friends who had campaigned with him, of whom the first was called Eschol, and the others Enner and Mambre. God, praising Abram's virtue, said, "You will not lose the rewards you deserve for such good conduct." When Abram answered by asking what gratification such rewards could bring him, since he had no one to succeed him — for he was still childless — God announced that a son would be born to him, and a great progeny after him, so numerous that it would match the stars in number. On hearing this, Abram, as God commanded, offered a sacrifice. The manner of the sacrifice was this: he divided, at God's command, a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old goat, and a three-year-old ram alike, and a turtledove and a pigeon, but he did not divide the birds. Then, before the altar was set up, birds of prey swooped down eager for the blood, and a divine voice was heard foretelling that his descendants would be evil neighbors' subjects for four hundred years in Egypt, but that after suffering hardship there they would overcome their enemies, and, prevailing in war over the Canaanites, would possess their land and their cities.

Abram was living near the oak called Ogyges — the place is in Canaan, not far from the city of the Hebronites — and, distressed that his wife had no child, he begged God to grant him offspring, a son. When God urged him to take courage, promising that all else would go well for him, as it had since he was led out of Mesopotamia for his good, and that children would be born to him, Sarah, at God's bidding, gave one of her maidservants, an Egyptian named Hagar, to Abram so that he might father a child by her. But once she had conceived, the maidservant dared to insult Sarah insolently, acting as if she would become mistress herself, on the assumption that authority would pass to the child she was to bear. When Abram handed her over to Sarah for punishment, Hagar, unable to bear the harsh treatment, plotted to run away, and begged God to take pity on her.

As she made her way through the desert, a divine angel met her and told her to return to her masters, for if she showed good sense she would attain a better life; even now, he said, her arrogant and stubborn treatment of her mistress had brought these troubles upon her — if she disobeyed God and pressed further on, she would perish, but if she went back, she would become the mother of a son who would rule that land. Persuaded by this, she returned to her masters and was forgiven. Not long after she bore Ishmael, a name one might render "heard by God," because God had listened to her plea. Abram was already eighty-six years old when this son was born to him; and when he had passed his ninety-ninth year, God appeared to him and announced that he would have a son by Sarah as well. God commanded him to call the boy Isaac, and declared that great nations and kings would spring from him, and that after wars they would possess the whole of Canaan from Sidon to Egypt. God further ordered — wishing that his line should remain unmixed with others — that they circumcise their private parts, and that this be done on the eighth day after birth. I will explain the reason for our circumcision elsewhere.

When Abram inquired also about Ishmael, whether he would live, God indicated that he would live long and become the father of great nations. Abram, giving thanks to God for these things, was circumcised at once, along with all the members of his household and his son Ishmael, who was then thirteen years old, while Abram himself was ninety-nine.

At about this time the people of Sodom, arrogant because of their numbers and the greatness of their wealth, became insolent toward men and impious toward God, so much so that they no longer remembered the benefits they had received from him; they grew hateful of strangers and shunned association with others. Angered at this, God resolved to punish them for their arrogance, to raze their city, and to devastate the land so completely that it would never again put forth so much as a plant or a fruit.

When God had made this decision concerning the Sodomites, Abram, seeing three angels, was sitting by the oak of Mambre near the gate of his own courtyard; taking them for strangers, he rose, greeted them, and, when they had come in to him, urged them to accept his hospitality. When they consented, he at once ordered loaves to be made from fine flour, and, slaughtering and roasting a calf, brought it to them as they reclined beneath the oak. They pretended to eat, and then asked about his wife, where Sarah might be. When he told them she was inside, they said that when they returned they would find her already a mother. At this the woman smiled and said that childbearing was impossible for her, since she was ninety years old and her husband a hundred. At that they no longer concealed themselves, but revealed that they were angels of God, and that one had been sent to announce the birth of the child, the other two to overthrow the Sodomites.

On hearing this, Abram grieved for the Sodomites, and rose and pleaded with God, begging him not to destroy the righteous and good along with the wicked. God replied that there was no good man among the Sodomites — for if there were ten among them, he would forgive them all the punishment due for their sins — and Abram fell silent. The angels then arrived in the city of the Sodomites, and Lot invited them to be his guests, for he was exceedingly kind to strangers, having learned this from Abram's own generosity. But the Sodomites, seeing the young men remarkably handsome in appearance and lodged with Lot, turned to violence and outrage against their beauty. When Lot urged them to restrain themselves and not proceed to shame his guests, but to respect the honor of his household, and said that if their desire was so uncontrollable, he would give them his daughters instead, still they would not be persuaded.

God, then, enraged at their outrages, struck them blind, so that they could not find the entrance to the house, and condemned the Sodomites to a universal destruction. Lot, having been told by God of the coming ruin of the Sodomites, took his wife and his daughters — two of whom were still unmarried, for the suitors had scorned the warning to leave, dismissing what Lot told them as foolishness — and departed. God then hurled a bolt upon the city and, with a like conflagration, burned it to the ground along with its inhabitants, obliterating the land, as I have already related earlier when writing of the Jewish War. Lot's wife, however, as they withdrew, kept turning back to look at the city and, meddling with matters God had forbidden her to concern herself with, was turned into a pillar of salt. I have seen it myself, for it still remains to this day.

Lot himself escaped with his daughters to a small district spared by the fire, still called Zoar to this day — for that is what the Hebrews call "a small thing." There he lived out a wretched existence, deprived of human company and short of food. His daughters, supposing that all mankind had been destroyed, took care to lie with their father unnoticed; they did this so that their family line should not die out. Sons were born: to the elder, Moab, whose name one might render "from his father"; the younger bore Ammon, whose name signifies "son of the people." From them are founded the Moabites, still today a very great nation, and the Ammonites founded by the other; both peoples belong to Coele-Syria. Such, then, was the outcome of Lot's departure from the Sodomites.

Abram meanwhile moved to Gerar in Palestine, bringing Sarah along in the guise of his sister, playing the same part as before out of fear, for he was afraid of Abimelech, the king of that region, who himself, falling in love with Sarah, was prepared to violate her. He was kept from his desire by a severe illness God sent upon him, and when the physicians had given him up for lost, he fell asleep and saw in a dream that he must do the stranger's wife no wrong. Recovering somewhat, he told his friends that God had inflicted this illness upon him in order to avenge the stranger by keeping his wife unmolested — for she was not, in fact, his sister, but his wife bound to him by law — and he promised that he would treat him kindly from then on, now that his fears for his wife had been removed. Having said this, he sent for Abram, on his friends' advice, and told him he need fear nothing further concerning his wife, as though she would suffer any dishonor, for God was watching over him, and in keeping with their bond of friendship he would receive her back unmolested.

Since God was witness, and his wife's conscience as well, Abimelech said he would never have desired her at all had he known she was a married woman, since he had taken her only supposing her to be a sister — a wrong he had not, in fact, committed. He urged Abram to bear him no ill will and to make God favorable toward him, and said that if Abram wished to remain with him he would want for nothing, while if he chose to leave he would be given an escort and everything he might need on his journey. To this Abram replied that he had not lied about his wife's kinship, for she was in truth the daughter of his brother, and that without such a pretense he could not have supposed his stay safe. As for the illness, he said, he had not caused it, though he had been eager for Abimelech's recovery, and he declared himself ready to remain with him. So Abimelech shared with him both land and wealth, and they agreed to deal with one another without deceit, swearing their oath over a well, which they called Beersheba — "the well of the oath" — a name it still bears among the people of that region to this day.

Not long afterward a son was born to Abram by Sarah, just as God had foretold him, whom he named Isaac, meaning "laughter" — for Sarah had smiled when God said she would bear a child, not expecting to give birth at her advanced age. She was ninety years old, and Abram a hundred. The child was born to them both in their final years, and they circumcised him at once on the eighth day, and from that time the Jews have kept the custom of performing circumcision after that same number of days, while the Arabs do so after the thirteenth year — for Ishmael, the founder of their nation, born to Abram by his concubine, was circumcised at that age; concerning him I shall set out the whole account with great care.

As for Ishmael, born to her slave Hagar, Sarah at first loved him no less than a mother loves her own son, for he was being raised with a view to succeeding to the headship of the family; but once she herself had borne Isaac, she thought it wrong that Ishmael, being older and capable of doing harm, should be raised alongside him once their father was dead. She therefore urged Abram to send him away, with his mother, to settle elsewhere. At first he would not agree to what Sarah was so intent upon, thinking it the cruelest thing of all to send away an infant child and a woman without means of support. Later, however, since God too was pleased with what Sarah proposed, he yielded and handed Ishmael over to his mother, the boy not yet able to travel on his own, and told her to take water in a skin and bread and go, guided only by necessity. As she went, her supplies ran out and she was in distress; when the water failed, she laid the child, gasping for breath, beneath a fir tree, so as not to be present when his soul departed, and went on further off. A divine angel met her and pointed out a spring nearby, and told her to look after the boy's upbringing, for great blessings awaited her through Ishmael's survival. She took courage at this promise, and, falling in with shepherds, escaped her hardships through their care.

When the boy had grown to manhood, he took a wife of Egyptian stock, from where his mother herself originally came, and by her twelve sons were born to Ishmael: Nabaioth, Kedar, Abdeel, Massam, Masmas, Idumas, Masmes, Chodam, Theman, Jetur, Naphes, and Kedmas. These occupy the whole region reaching from the Euphrates to the Red Sea, which they named Nabatene. It is they who give their name to the Arab nation and its tribes, both for their virtue and for the honor of Abram.

As for Isaac, his father Abram loved him above all things, being his only son and a gift granted him by God in his old age; and the boy himself invited still greater affection and love from his parents by pursuing every virtue, devoted to caring for them and zealous in the worship of God. Abram placed his own happiness in nothing but leaving his son unharmed when he departed this life. This, however, was not to be granted him according to his own wish, for God, wanting to test his devotion, appeared to him, and, after listing all the blessings he had bestowed upon him — how he had made him superior to his enemies, how his present prosperity, and his son Isaac too, had come to him through God's own care — asked that Isaac be given to him as an offering and a sacrificial victim, commanding that he lead him up to Mount Moriah and, building an altar there, burn him as a whole offering. In this way, God said, Abram would demonstrate his devotion, if he valued what was pleasing to God above even the life of his child.

Abram, judging it wrong to disobey God in anything, and holding that all things that come to those he favors happen through his providence, concealed from his wife both God's command and his own resolve concerning the sacrifice of the boy, and told none of his servants either, for he would have been hindered from carrying out God's service. Taking Isaac with two servants, and loading a donkey with what was needed for the sacrifice, he set out toward the mountain. For two days the servants traveled with him, but on the third, when the mountain came into view, he left his companions in the plain and went on with the boy alone to the mountain on which King David later built the temple. He carried...

and everything else needed for the sacrifice, except the victim. Isaac was twenty-five years old, and as he was building the altar he asked what they meant to sacrifice, since no victim was at hand. Abraham told him that God would provide one, since God was able to supply men with abundance even from what did not exist, and to take away what did exist from those who trusted in it.

So God, he said, would give a victim even to Isaac himself, if he meant to be present at the sacrifice with favor. When the altar was ready, and Abraham had brought up the wood and everything was prepared, he said to his son: "My child, I asked for you with countless prayers from God, and since you came into the world there is nothing I have not lavished on your upbringing, nor anything

by which I thought I would be happier than to see you grown to manhood and, when I died, to leave you as heir of my rule. But since I became your father by God's will, and since it is again his pleasure that I give you back, bear your consecration nobly. For I yield you to God, who has judged himself worthy of this honor from us in return for the favor he has shown me as ally and helper

in everything I have achieved until now. Since you were born only to die not in the common way of life, but sent ahead by your own father's hand as a sacrifice to God, the father of all, by the law of sacrifice, I think it right that you, whom he has judged worthy, should be released from life neither by sickness nor by war nor by any of the other misfortunes that commonly befall men, but should pass, amid prayers and sacred rites, into the hands of that God who will receive your soul

and keep it by himself. You will be to me a guardian and comfort in old age — that is why I raised you with such special care — since I offer you to God in place of yourself." Isaac, being the son of such a father, was bound to have a noble spirit to match, and he received these words with joy. He said it would not have been right for him even to have been born at all, if he meant to reject the judgment of both God and his father, and refuse

to offer himself readily to the will of them both, when even the will of his father alone, had it been the only one urging this, would have made disobedience unjust. So he rushed to the altar and to the slaughter. And the deed would have been carried out, had not God himself stood in the way. For he called out Abraham by name, crying aloud, and stopped him from slaying his son. God, he said, had not commanded the sacrifice of his son out of any desire for human blood,

nor because he wished, having made Abraham a father, to rob him of his son through such an act of impiety, but because he wished to test his disposition, to see whether even under such a command he would obey. Now that he had learned Abraham's eagerness and the depth of his devotion, he was pleased with what Abraham had offered him, and would never fail him or his descendants in every care; his son would live to a very great age,

live in happiness, and hand down a great dominion to good and legitimate children. God foretold, too, that their line would grow into many nations and increase in wealth, that an eternal memory of them would remain with the founders of those nations, and that once they had conquered Canaan by arms they would be the envy of all mankind. Having said this, God brought forth a ram out of nowhere for them to sacrifice. And they, beyond all hope

having recovered the boy and having heard the promise of such blessings, embraced one another, and after the sacrifice returned to Sarah and lived happily in all that they desired, since God worked with them in everything. Not long afterward Sarah died, having lived one hundred and twenty-seven years. They buried her at Hebron, the Canaanites consenting and even publicly heaping up her tomb,

though Abraham bought the plot for four hundred shekels from a certain Ephron of Hebron. There Abraham and his descendants built their family tombs. Later Abraham married Keturah, by whom he had six sons, sturdy in labor and quick of understanding: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. These too had children.

To Shuah were born Sabak and Dadan; to Dadan, Latusim, Assurim, and Luurim. To Medan were born Epher, Ophren, Hanoch, Abida, and Eldaah. For all these sons and grandsons Abraham arranged expeditions of colonists, and they occupied the Troglodyte country and the parts of Arabia Felix that reach to the Red Sea. It is said that this Ophren made war on Libya and took possession of it,

and that his grandsons, settling there, named the land Africa after him. My account is confirmed by Alexander Polyhistor, who writes as follows: "Cleodemus the prophet, also called Malchus, who wrote a history of the Jews, in agreement with Moses their lawgiver, says that Abraham had many sons by Keturah," and he names

three of them: Japhran, Sures, and Japhres. From Sures, he says, Assyria took its name, and from the other two, Japhras and Japher, the city of Ephra and the country of Africa were named. These men, he says, fought alongside Heracles against Libya and Antaeus, and Heracles, marrying the daughter of Japhran, had a son by her named Diodorus, from whom was born Sophon, from whom

the barbarians are called Sophaces. When Isaac was about forty years old, his father Abraham resolved that he should marry, and sent the eldest of his servants to court Rebecca, daughter of Bethuel, the son of Abraham's brother Nahor, binding him with solemn oaths. The oaths were taken in this manner: each placed his hand under the other's thigh, and then they called God to witness what was to come. Abraham also sent

gifts for those in that country, since such things were rare, or wholly unknown, there. Setting out, the servant, because Mesopotamia was hard to travel — in winter from the depth of mud, in summer from lack of water, and also because of bands of robbers there, which travelers could not escape unless they were on guard against them — came at length to the city of Haran, and finding himself in

the outskirts, he met a number of young women going to draw water. He prayed to God that Rebecca, whom Abraham had sent him to court for his son, might, if this marriage was to be accomplished as Abraham wished, be found among them and be made known to him in this way: that when he asked the others for a drink they would refuse, but she would give it to him. With this thought in mind he went to the

well, and asked the young women to give him a drink. When the others turned away, saying they needed the water for their own households and could not spare it for him — for indeed the water was not easily drawn — one of them all rebuked the others for their unkindness to the stranger, saying that they could never share anything with other men if they would not even share water with him, and gave it to him kindly.

He, now full of hope for everything, but wishing to learn the truth, praised her for her noble birth and her kindness, since she had not shrunk even from personal effort to help one in need, and asked whose daughter she was, and prayed that her parents might have joy of so fine a child, and that she might be married, he said, as would delight them, into the household of a good man, to bear him legitimate

children. She did not begrudge him this knowledge either, but told him her family as well: "I am called Rebecca," she said, "and my father was Bethuel; but he is now dead, and Laban is my brother, who together with our mother looks after the whole household and watches over my maidenhood." Hearing this, the servant rejoiced at what had happened and

at what had been said, seeing that God had so plainly favored his journey, and bringing out a necklace and some ornaments, such as are fitting for young women to wear, he gave them to the girl as a reward and gift for the kindness she had shown him in giving him drink, saying it was only right that she, who had proved herself good beyond so many other maidens, should receive such things. He also asked to be lodged with her family, since the night

was already taking from him the chance to travel farther, and, presenting the costly women's ornaments he carried, he said he trusted them no less securely than those to whom he had already given proof of himself. He said he could infer, too, the kindness of her mother and brother from her own character, and that they would not be displeased by it, and that he would not be a burden, since he would pay for their hospitality and use his own means for his expenses. She, as to the kindness of her

parents, told him he had guessed rightly, but reproached him for supposing them so mean-spirited, since they would share everything without payment. She told her brother Laban first, however, and only then, with his consent, said she would bring the stranger home. When this had been arranged, she led the stranger in; Laban's servants took charge of his camels and cared for them, while he himself was brought in to dine with them, and after dinner he said to

the girl's mother: "Abraham is the son of Terah and your kinsman; for Nahor, the grandfather of these children, was Abraham's brother, of the same father and the same mother. He has sent me to you, asking that you give this girl in marriage to his son, who is his legitimate son and the only one he has raised as heir to everything he owns.

Though it was in his power to take the wealthiest of the women there, he did not think it right to marry her, but honoring his own family he has arranged this match instead. Do not scorn his eagerness and his choice, for by God's will everything else has met me on my journey, and I have found this girl and your household. For when I came near the city, I saw

many young women coming to the well, and I prayed that I might chance upon this one — and so it has happened. Confirm, then, this marriage, brought about as it was by a divine sign, and honor Abraham, who has sent me with such earnestness, by consenting to give the girl." They, since the proposal was good and welcome to them, understood it to be the will of God, and gave over the daughter on the terms he asked.

Isaac married her once the matter had come to him, for the sons of Keturah had already gone out to their colonies. Not long after, Abraham also died, a man supreme in every virtue and honored by God as his devotion to Him deserved. He lived in all one hundred and seventy-five years, and was buried at Hebron alongside his wife

Sarah, by his sons Isaac and Ishmael. After Abraham's death, Isaac's wife conceived, and as her womb grew larger she became distressed and inquired of God. He told her that Rebecca would bear twins, that the children would give their names to nations, and that the one who seemed the lesser would come before the greater. Soon afterward, in fulfillment

of God's prediction, twin children were born to her, of whom the elder was unusually hairy from head to foot, while the younger, as he came forth, held onto his brother's heel. The father loved the elder, called Esau after his hairiness — for the Hebrews call hair "esaur" — while Jacob, the younger, was dear to his mother. When famine

struck the land, Isaac resolved to go down to Egypt, since that country was fertile, but at God's command he went instead to Gerar. There King Abimelech received him as a guest and friend, out of regard for his friendship with Abraham, and showed him much goodwill at first, but was prevented, out of jealousy, from letting him remain there entirely. For seeing that God was with Isaac and

favoring him with such great care, he drove him away. Isaac, having experienced this second reversal from the envious Abimelech, withdrew for a time to a place called the Valley, not far from Gerar; but while he was digging a well there, shepherds fell upon him and fought to stop the work, and since he did not wish to contend with them, they seemed to have prevailed. He withdrew and dug another well, and when other

shepherds of Abimelech's again used force, he abandoned that one too and withdrew, wisely securing his own safety. Then, when the digging of a well was at last left unhindered, he named it Rehoboth, a name that means "wide space." Of the earlier wells, one was called Esek, which one might render "strife," and the other Sitnah, meaning "enmity." Isaac's power now grew

through the greatness of his affairs, and Abimelech, thinking Isaac was growing strong at his expense — their living together having already grown suspicious, though without open hostility, until Isaac withdrew — feared that his earlier friendship with Isaac would be of no use to him in defending against retaliation for what had been done, and so made a fresh alliance with him, bringing along one of his generals, Phicol. Having obtained everything

he asked, on account of Isaac's kindness — Isaac preferring an older favor to a fresh grievance, one shown to both himself and his father — Abimelech departed for his own country. Of Isaac's sons, Esau, whom his father favored above all, at the age of forty married Adah, daughter of Elon, and Aholibamah, daughter of Beeri, both leading men among the Canaanites, taking full authority over his own marriage

and consulting his father not at all — for Isaac would never have permitted it, had his opinion been asked, since it gave him no pleasure to form a family connection with the natives of the land. But not wishing to alienate his son, he refrained from ordering him to give up the women, and chose instead to stay silent. When he had grown old, and had lost his sight entirely, he called Esau to him, and

speaking of his old age, said that even apart from his blindness and the affliction of his eyes it kept him from serving God as he wished, and he bade him go out hunting and, having caught whatever game he could, prepare a meal for him, so that afterward he might entreat God to be his ally and helper throughout the rest of his life, saying he did not know when he would die, and wished, before

that time came, to have God grant him this through prayers offered on his behalf. So Esau set out for the hunt. But Rebecca, wishing God's favor to fall on Jacob, and against Isaac's wishes, told Jacob to slaughter some kids and prepare a meal. Jacob obeyed his mother in everything, having learned all this from her; and when

When the meal was ready, Jacob wrapped his arm in the skin of a kid, so that his father would believe from the roughness that he was Esau — for though he resembled his brother in everything else, being his twin, in this alone did they differ. Fearing that if he were caught cheating before the blessings were given, he would provoke his father to do the opposite, he brought the meal to his father.

Isaac, noticing the peculiar quality of his voice, called his son to him. When Jacob held out his arm, wrapped in the goatskin, Isaac felt it and said, "Your voice sounds like Jacob's, but by the thickness of the hair you seem to me to be Esau." Suspecting no trickery, he ate the meal and turned to prayer and supplication to God, saying: "Master of every age and creator of all being, you granted my father great strength in blessings, and you judged me worthy of what I now enjoy, and you promised those born from me that you would always be their kindly helper and the giver of still greater goods. Confirm these promises, then, and do not overlook me because of my present weakness — which makes me plead with you all the more — and in your kindness keep this son of mine safe, and guard him untouched by every evil, granting him a happy life and possession of goods, as many as lie within your power to give, and make him a source of fear to his enemies but honored and cherished by his friends."

While he thought he was praying for Esau, he made these petitions to God. He had just finished when Esau arrived from the hunt. Isaac, realizing the mistake, kept silent, but Esau demanded to receive from his father blessings equal to his brother's. When his father refused, since he had spent all his blessings on Jacob, Esau grieved bitterly over the mistake. Moved by his son's tears, his father declared that he would win renown in hunting and bodily strength, in arms and in every undertaking, and would reap glory from these for all ages, and so would his descendants after him — but he would be subject to his brother.

Jacob, fearing that his brother wished to take revenge on him for the mistake over the blessings, was rescued by his mother: she persuaded her husband to take Jacob to Mesopotamia to marry a kinswoman there. For Esau had already taken Ishmael's daughter Basemath to wife, since Isaac's household bore no goodwill toward the Canaanites; so, being displeased at his son's earlier marriages, and wishing to please them, Isaac took Basemath in especially warmly.

Jacob, sent off by his mother to Mesopotamia to marry the daughter of Laban, her brother — Isaac having permitted the marriage out of deference to his wife's wishes — traveled through Canaan, and because of his hatred for the local people he refused to lodge with any of them, but camped in the open, gathering stones together to rest his head on. In his sleep he saw such a vision appear before him: he seemed to see a ladder reaching from the earth to the sky, and figures descending by it more majestic than human nature allows, and finally, above it, God himself appeared to him clearly, calling him by name and speaking these words:

"Jacob, it was not fitting for the son of a good father, and the grandson of one who won great renown for virtue, to be discouraged by present circumstances, but rather to hope for better things; for an abundance of great goods awaits you in every respect, through my assistance. For I brought Abram here from Mesopotamia when he was being driven out by his kinsmen, and I made your father prosperous; and I will grant you a portion no less than theirs. Take courage, then, and continue on this journey with me as your escort; the marriage you are eager for will be accomplished, and good children will be born to you, and their number will surpass counting, and they will leave behind them still greater sons, to whom I give mastery of this land — to them and to their children, who will fill as much land and sea as the sun beholds. But fear no danger, and have no dread of the multitude of your labors, for I take thought for what will happen to you, both now and much more in time to come."

These things God foretold to Jacob. Overjoyed at what he had seen and heard, he anointed the stones, since so great a promise of good things had been made over them, and he vowed to sacrifice on them if he should return safely after acquiring a livelihood, and to offer God a tenth of what he had gained if he arrived there in this way. He judged the place worthy of honor and named it Bethel, which in the Greek tongue signifies "house of God."

Continuing on toward Mesopotamia, in time he arrived at Haran, and finding shepherds in the outskirts with young men and young women gathered around a well, he stayed with them, since he needed water to drink, and falling into conversation with them he asked whether they happened to know a certain Laban still living among them. They all said they knew him, for he was not a man to go unnoticed, and that his daughter tended flocks together with them, and they wondered that she had not yet arrived; for from her he could learn more precisely whatever he wished to hear about them. While they were still speaking, the girl arrived with the shepherds coming down after her. They pointed Jacob out to her, saying that this stranger had come asking about her father. She, delighted with childlike simplicity at his presence, asked him who he was, where he had come from to them, and by what need he had been brought, and said she hoped it might be in their power to supply whatever he had come needing.

Jacob, moved not by kinship or the goodwill it inspired, but overcome by love for the girl, and struck by her beauty when he saw how she was formed — such as few women of that time possessed — said: "But between me and you, and your father, if indeed you are Laban's daughter, there is a kinship older than either your birth or mine. For Abram and Arran and Nahor were sons of Terah, of whom Bethuel your grandfather is the son of Nahor, while Isaac my father is the son of Abram and of Sarah, daughter of Arran. Closer still, and more recent, is the bond of kinship we hold toward one another: Rebecca my mother is the daughter of the same father and mother as Laban your father, so you and I are cousins. And now I have come here to greet you and to renew the kinship that already exists between us." She, moved by memory — as tends to happen with the young — having already learned from her father about Rebecca, and knowing that her parents longed for word of her, burst into tears out of affection for her father and embraced Jacob. She said that bringing him home would be the most welcome and greatest pleasure to her father and to everyone in the household, since he was cherished in the memory of his sister and was her only remaining tie to her, and that he would prove worth every good thing to him. She urged him to come at once to her father and to follow her as she led the way, and not to deprive her of the greater part of her joy by delaying.

Having said this, she brought him to Laban, and once he was recognized by his uncle he felt no fear, being among friends, and gave them great pleasure by his unexpected appearance. Not many days later Laban said he rejoiced at his presence more than words could show, and asked the reason he had come, leaving behind an aged mother and father who needed his care — for he would supply him with everything and help him in every need. Jacob explained the whole reason to him, saying that Isaac had twin sons, himself and Esau, and that when Esau, through his mother's cunning on Jacob's behalf, was cheated of their father's blessings, he sought to kill him for having taken away the kingdom from God and the goods for which their father had prayed. This, he said, was the reason for his presence there, in obedience to his mother's instruction. "For to all of us brothers are brothers, and my mother values kinship even beyond what is due to them. Making you and God the defense of my journey, I take courage in my present circumstances."

Laban, for the sake of his ancestors and for his mother's sake, promised to share every kindness with him, and said he would show his goodwill toward her, absent though she was, through his care for Jacob; he said he would set him over the flocks and reward him with a share of their increase in place of wages, and that when he wished to return to his own family, he would send him back with gifts and with such honor as was fitting for so close a kinsman to receive. Jacob gladly accepted these terms and said he would willingly endure every labor while staying with him, for the sake of pleasing him, but asked as wages for this marriage to Rachel — both because she deserved honor from him for other reasons, and because she had been the means of his coming to him; for love of the girl had compelled him to raise the matter. Laban, delighted at this, agreed to the marriage, having wished for no better son-in-law to come along; he said he would grant it if Jacob would stay with him for a certain time, for he would not send his daughter off to the Canaanites — he already regretted the marriage connection made there through his sister. Jacob agreed to these terms and committed himself to seven years' time, for that was the period judged fit for him to serve his father-in-law, so that by giving proof of his worth he might be better known for what he was. Laban accepted the agreement, and when the time had passed he prepared the wedding feast. When night fell, without Jacob's suspecting anything, he brought in to him the other of his daughters, the elder of the two and not so fair to look on as Rachel. Jacob lay with her in drunkenness and darkness, and only realizing the wrong the next day, he charged Laban with injustice.

Laban begged pardon for the necessity that had made him act so, saying he had not given him Leah out of malice but had been overcome by a stronger obligation; that this, however, was no obstacle to his marriage to Rachel, but that he would give her to him, since he loved her, after another seven years. Jacob agreed, for his love for the girl allowed him to do nothing else, and when another seven years had passed he took Rachel. Each of the sisters had a maidservant given by their father — Zilpah to Leah, Bilhah to Rachel — not slaves, but subordinate to them.

Leah was tormented by her husband's love for her sister; she expected that if she bore children she would come to be honored, and she prayed to God continually. When a son was born, and because of this her husband turned toward her, she named the boy Reuben, because he had come to her through God's pity — for that is what the name signifies. Three more sons were born to them after a time: Simeon, whose name signifies that God had listened to her; then Levi, as it were a pledge of fellowship; after him Judah, which means thanksgiving. Rachel, fearing that because of her sister's fruitfulness she might receive a lesser share of her husband's favor, gave her own maidservant Bilhah to lie with Jacob. A child was born from her, Dan, whom some might call "God-judged" in the Greek tongue; and after him Naphtali, meaning "contriver," because of her rivalry against her sister's fruitfulness. Leah did the same thing against her sister's achievement, contriving in her turn; she gave her own maidservant, and from Zilpah was born a son, Gad, whom one might call "Fortune"; and after him Asher, which one might call "blessed," from the honor she gained through them.

When Reuben, Leah's eldest son, brought mandrake apples to his mother, Rachel saw them and asked to share in them, having conceived a longing for the fruit. When Leah refused, insisting that Rachel be satisfied, since she had taken from her the honor due from her husband, Rachel, softening her sister's anger, said she would yield her husband to her that evening, for him to sleep with her. Leah accepted the favor, and Jacob slept with Leah, granting Rachel's wish. Children were born to Leah again: Issachar, signifying the one born from wages; Zebulun, meaning pledged through the goodwill toward her; and a daughter, Dinah. Some time later Rachel too bore a son, Joseph, whose name signifies that something further would be added.

For all this time — twenty years — Jacob tended flocks for his father-in-law. After this he asked to take his wives and depart to his own home; but since his father-in-law would not agree, he planned to do it in secret. He tested his wives as to how they felt about the journey, and when they proved eager, Rachel also took the images of the gods, which it was customary for her to worship as ancestral, and joined in the flight together with her sister, along with the children of both and the maidservants with their sons, and whatever possessions they had. Jacob also took away half of the livestock, without Laban's knowledge beforehand. Rachel carried off the images of the gods, though Jacob had taught her to despise such honor paid to gods, so that if they were overtaken and pursued by her father, she might have something to which she could appeal for pardon.

Laban, learning the next day of Jacob's departure and grievously distressed over his daughters, pursued him with an armed force, pressing hard, and on the seventh day found them encamped on a hill. For the time being, since it was evening, he held back. But God, appearing to him in a dream, warned him, once he had overtaken his son-in-law and daughters, to remain calm and to venture nothing against them out of anger, but to make a truce with Jacob, saying that he himself would fight on Jacob's side if Laban, scorning his small numbers, should go against him in battle. Laban, having received such a warning, the next day invited Jacob to a conference and told him of the dream; and when Jacob had come to him, persuaded by it, Laban began to accuse him, charging that...

"He came to me poor and destitute of everything, and I took him in and gave him a full share of my own wealth. I even joined my daughters to him, thinking this would only increase the good will he bore us. But you have shown no respect for your own mother, to whom you are akin, nor for the wives you married, nor for the children of whom I am grandfather. You have treated me by the law of war, carrying off what is mine, persuading my daughters to run away from the father who bore them, and making off with the ancestral gods, honored by my forebears and by me held worthy of the same reverence they received. And this you have done—something not even men at war with their enemies would do—you, my own kinsman, son of my sister and husband of my daughters, a stranger and guest once welcomed at my own hearth."

When Laban had said this, Jacob defended himself, saying that it was not into himself alone but into all men that God had implanted a love of one's homeland, and that after so long a time it was only right that he should come down into it again. As for the plunder you charge me with, he said, you yourself would be found in the wrong by any other judge. For the flocks which you ought to be grateful to us for guarding, and which have grown larger under our care, you unjustly resent us for keeping even the small portion of them we hold. As for my daughters, know that they did not follow me because of any wrongdoing of mine, but out of the just devotion which wives naturally feel toward the men they live with—and it is not so much to me that they cling as to their own children.

This he said in his own defense, to show he had done no wrong; but he in turn brought his own accusation, charging that Laban, though his mother's brother and the man who had joined his daughters to him, had worn him down with harsh demands, keeping him in his service for a full twenty years. What Laban had done under the pretext of the marriages, hard as it was, he called the lighter part; worse still was what came after the marriages, and what an enemy would have fled from suffering. And indeed Laban had dealt very cunningly with Jacob: seeing that God favored him in whatever he set his hand to, Laban would promise to give him a share of what was born—sometimes agreeing it should be the white ones, sometimes the black ones among the offspring.

But as those born in Jacob's name grew numerous, Laban would not keep his word for the present flock, but kept promising to make it good the following year, since he coveted the great increase in wealth—making promises because it seemed unlikely such numbers could occur, then breaking faith once they did occur. As for the household gods, Laban ordered a search be made. When Laban had agreed to the search, Rachel, learning of it, hid the images in the saddlebag of the camel that was carrying her, and sat upon it, claiming that her monthly courses were troubling her. So Laban gave up any further search, never imagining his daughter would come near the images while in such a condition, and he made oaths to Jacob that he would bear no grudge for what had happened, and that Jacob for his part would cherish his daughters. And they sealed their pledges over

a certain range of hills, on which they set up a pillar in the shape of an altar—hence the height is called Galed, from which the region is still now called Gilead. After they had feasted upon the oaths, Laban set off homeward. As Jacob went on toward Canaan, apparitions met him foretelling good hopes for the future, and he named that place the Camp of God. Wishing to know what his brother's disposition toward him was, he sent men ahead to learn everything with precision, for he feared him on account of the old suspicion between them. He instructed the men he sent to say to Esau that Jacob, thinking it wrong to live alongside his brother's anger, had willingly withdrawn from the country, and that now, judging the time sufficient to have reconciled them, he was returning, bringing with him his wives and children along with the wealth he had gained,

putting himself, together with all he held most valuable, into his brother's hands, since he judged it the greatest good to share with his brother what God had given him. This is what the messengers reported. Esau was overjoyed, and went to meet his brother with four hundred armed men. When Jacob learned that he was coming to meet him with so great a company, he was seized with fear, but entrusted his hope of safety to God, and took thought, given his present circumstances, how he himself might come through unharmed and save those with him, should he have to overcome enemies bent on doing him harm. So he divided those with him, sending some ahead and ordering the rest to follow close behind, so that if those sent ahead were overwhelmed by an attack from his brother, those following would have somewhere to take refuge. Having arranged those with him in this manner, he sent some ahead carrying gifts

to his brother; the gifts sent were beasts of burden and a great number of animals of various kinds, which would be precious to those who received them because of their scarcity. Those sent went at intervals, so that by meeting Esau again and again they would seem more numerous, since he expected that his anger, if it still remained, would be softened by the gifts; he had also instructed those sent to speak kind words to Esau when they met him.

Having arranged all this over the course of the whole day, when night came on he moved those who were with him. And after they had crossed a certain torrent called the Jabbok, Jacob, who had been left behind alone, met with an apparition and wrestled with it, the apparition beginning the contest; and he overcame the apparition, which then used a voice and words toward him, urging him to rejoice in what had happened and not to think he had won a small victory, but had overcome a divine angel, and to take this as a sign

of great blessings to come, and that his line would never fail, nor would any man ever surpass him in strength. It told him to be called Israel, which in the Hebrew tongue signifies "the one who withstood an angel of God." This it foretold at Jacob's request, for perceiving it was an angel of God, he asked it to tell him what fate awaited him. And with these words the apparition vanished. Jacob, delighted at these things, named the place Peniel, which signifies "the face of God." And since from the struggle he suffered pain about the broad sinew, he himself abstains from eating it, and because of him it is not eaten by us either. Learning that his brother was already near, he ordered each of the women to go forward in her own group

together with her maidservants, so that from a distance they might watch the doings of the men should Esau wish to fight; but he himself went ahead and bowed before his brother as he drew near, finding in him no treacherous intent toward himself. And Esau, having embraced him, asked about the crowd of children and the women, and after learning the whole of it he asked that he too might now go along with them to their

father. But Jacob pled the weariness of the pack animals, and Esau withdrew to Seir; for there he made his home, having named the place "Hairy" after his own hairiness. Jacob came to the place still now called Tents, from where he went on to Shechem, a city belonging to the Canaanites. When the people of Shechem were holding a festival, Dinah, Jacob's only daughter, went into the

city to see the finery of the local women. Seeing her, Shechem, son of Hamor the king, violated her by force, and being overcome with love for her, he begged his father to obtain the girl for him in marriage. His father consented and went to Jacob, asking that his son Shechem be joined to Dinah in lawful marriage. Jacob, unable to refuse because of the rank of the one asking, yet not thinking it lawful to give his daughter in marriage to a man of another people, asked to be allowed time to deliberate on what was requested of him.

So the king went away expecting Jacob would grant the marriage, but Jacob, having told his sons of their sister's violation and of Hamor's request, asked them to decide what should be done. Most of them, at a loss, kept silent, but Simeon and Levi, the girl's brothers by the same mother, agreed together on a plan of the following kind: since it was the time of the festival and the people of Shechem were given over to relaxation and feasting, they fell by night upon the guards first and killed them in their sleep, then went into the city and slew every male, the king along with them, and his son too, but spared the women. Having done this without

their father's consent, they brought their sister back. Jacob, stunned at the magnitude of what had happened and angry with his sons, was told by God, who stood by him, to take courage, and, after purifying his household, to offer the sacrifices which he had vowed at the sight of the dream when he first set out for Mesopotamia. So while purifying those who followed him he came upon Laban's gods, not knowing

they had been stolen by Rachel, and he buried them in the ground at Shechem under a certain oak; then, setting out from there, he offered sacrifice at Bethel, where he had seen the dream when he was journeying earlier toward Mesopotamia. Going on from there, when he came into the region of Ephrath, he buried Rachel there, who had died in childbirth—alone among his kin not to obtain burial at the honored place in Hebron. Grieving greatly,

he named the child born of her Benjamin, on account of the sorrow her death had caused her mother. These were all of Jacob's children: twelve male and one female. Of these, eight were legitimate—six by Leah and two by Rachel—and four by the maidservants, two by each; I have already given the names of them all. From there he went on to Hebron,

a city situated in the land of Canaan; there Isaac had his home. They spent only a little time together, for Jacob did not find Rebecca still living. And Isaac too died not long after his son's arrival, and was buried by his sons, along with his wife, at Hebron, in the ancestral tomb they had there. Isaac was a man dear to God

and was thought worthy by him of much providential care, second only to his father Abraham, and he lived to a very great age; for he lived to a hundred and eighty-five years, and died in this way, in the practice of virtue.

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