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OLD TESTAMENT LEGENDS.
[XXIV.

sand. On reaching the tent he put the sack under his head and went to sleep again. Very early in the morning Sarah said to Hagar, "What has Abraham in his sack? open it and look." So Hagar untied it, put in her hand and drew out flour. She and Sarah baked cakes of the flour, and woke Abraham and bade him eat. Then, full of wonder, he asked where they had obtained meal. They told him, and he understood that God had wrought a miracle.[1]

Now Abraham's flocks and herds, and those of Lot, pastured together. Abraham's cattle were muzzled that they should not feed in the lands of the neighbouring people; but Lot's cattle were not muzzled. And when Abraham's shepherds complained of this to those of Lot, the latter answered, "Your master is old, and has no children; soon he will die, and then all will belong to our master Lot."

But Abraham spake to Lot and said, "Thy ways and my ways do not agree: we must part; do thou go to the left, and I will go to the right." So they separated; and Lot departed from Abraham, and from the way of righteousness, and from the living God; but Abraham camped in Mamre.


3. THE WAR WITH THE KINGS.

After the failure of the Tower of Babel, and the people had been scattered over the whole earth, Chedorlaomer, one of Nimrod's chief captains, had left his service, and had established a kingdom of his own in Elam. He speedily brought into subjection all the Canaanitish peoples that dwelt in the fertile valley of Jordan,—Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zebojim, and Zoar, and made them tributary to himself. These cities bore his yoke for twelve years, and then they rebelled. Five years after did Nimrod, who is also called Amraphel in the sacred text,[2] march against Chedorlaomer, but Nimrod was defeated, along with his allies, Arioch, king of Ellasar, and Tidal, king of many confederate nations; and obliged to enter into alliance with his former general, Chedorlaomer, and agree to assist him in bringing back the revolted cities—Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zebojim, and Zoar—to their allegiance.

  1. Tabari, i. p. 156.
  2. Gen. xiv. 19. The book Jasher also says that Amraphel and Nimrod are the same.