that among the letters sent by Ebed-Tob, the king of
Jerusalem, to the Egyptian Pharaoh is one in which he speaks of "the
city of the Mountain of Jerusalem, whose name is the city of the temple
of the god Nin-ip." In this "Mountain of Jerusalem" it is difficult not
to see the "temple-Mount" of later days.

In the cuneiform texts of Ebed-Tob and the later Assyrian kings the name
of Jerusalem is written Uru-Salim, "the city of Salim." Salim or "Peace"
is almost certainly the native name of the god who was identified with
the Babylonian Nin-ip, and perhaps Isaiah--that student of the older
history of his country--is alluding to the fact when he declares that
one of the titles of the Messiah shall be "the Prince of Peace." At any
rate, if the Most High God of Jerusalem were really Salim, the God of
Peace, we should have an explanation of the blessing pronounced by
Melchizedek upon the patriarch. Abram's victory had restored peace to
Canaan; he had brought back the captives, and had himself returned in
peace. It was fitting, therefore, that he should be welcomed by the
priest of the God of Peace, and that he should offer tithes of the booty
he had recovered to the god of "the City of Peace."

This offering of tithes was no new thing. In his Babylonian home Abraham
must have been familiar with the practice. The cuneiform inscriptions of
Babylonia contain frequent references to it. It went back to the
pre-Semitic age of Chaldaea, and the great temples of Babylonia were
largely supported by the _esra_ or tithe which was levied upon prince
and peasant alike. That the god should receive a tenth of the good
things which, it was believed, he had bestowed upon mankind, was not
considered to be asking too much. There are many tablets in the British
Museum which are receipts for the payment of the tithe to the great
temple of the Sun-god at Sippara in the time of Nebuchadrezzar and his
successors. From one of them we learn that Belshazzar, even at the very
moment when the Babylonian empire was falling from his father's hands,
nevertheless found an opportunity for paying the tithe due from his
sister; while others show us that Cyrus and Cambyses did not regard
their foreign origin as affording any pretext for refusing to pay tithe
to the gods of the kingdom they had overthrown.

The Babylonian army had been defeated near Damascus, and immediately
after this we are told that the steward of Abraham's house was "Eli-ezer
of Damascus." W