ards me." What makes the occurrence of the
word the more striking is that it was utterly unknown to the
Babylonians. The root _zadaq_, "to be righteous," did not exist in the
Assyrian language.

There is yet another point in the history of the meeting between Abram
and Melchizedek which must not be passed over. When the patriarch
returned after smiting the invading army he was met outside Jerusalem
not only by Melchizedek, but also by the new king of Sodom. It was,
therefore, in the mountains and in the shadow of the sanctuary of the
Most High God that the newly-appointed prince was to be found, rather
than in the vale of Siddim. Does not this show that the king of
Jerusalem already exercised that sovereignty over the surrounding
district that Ebed-Tob did in the century before the Exodus? As we have
seen, Ebed-Tob describes himself as repairing the roads in that very
"Kikar," or "plain," in which Sodom and Gomorrha stood. It would seem
then that the priest-king of the great fortress in the mountains was
already acknowledged as the dominant Canaanitish ruler, and that the
neighbouring princes had to pay him homage when they first received the
crown. This would be an additional reason for the tithes given to him by
Abram.

Long after the defeat of Chedor-laomer and his allies, if we are to
accept the traditional belief, Abraham was again destined to visit
Jerusalem. But he had ceased to be "Abram the Hebrew," the confederate
of the Amorite chieftains in the plain of Mamre, and had become Abraham
the father of the promised seed. Isaac had been born to him, and he was
called upon to sacrifice his first-born son.

The place of sacrifice was upon one of the mountains in the land of
Moriah. There at the last moment the hand of the father was stayed, and
a ram was substituted for the human victim. "And Abraham called the name
of that place Yahveh-yireh; as it is said to this day, In the mount of
the Lord it shall be seen." According to the Hebrew text of the
Chronicles (2 Chron. iii. 1), this mount of the Lord where Abraham's
sacrifice was offered was the temple-mount at Jerusalem. The proverb
quoted in Genesis seems to indicate the same fact. Moreover, the
distance of the mountain from Beer-sheba--three days' journey--would be
also the distance of Jerusalem from Abraham's starting-place.

It is even possible that in the name of Yahveh-yireh we have a play upon
the first element in the name of Jeru-salem. The word _uru_, "