gled over them with the native herdsmen; that Beer-sheba should
twice have received its name from a repetition of the same event is a
different matter. One of the wells--that of Rehoboth--made by Isaac's
servants is probably referred to in the Egyptian _Travels of a Mohar_,
where it is called Rehoburta.

Isaac was not a wanderer like his father. Lahai-roi in the desert, "the
valley of Gerar," Beer-sheba and Hebron, were the places round which his
life revolved, and they were all close to one another. There is no trace
of his presence in the north of Palestine, and when the prophet Amos
(vii. 16) makes Isaac synonymous with the northern kingdom of Israel,
there can be no geographical reference in his words. Isaac died
eventually at Hebron, and was buried in the family tomb of Machpelah.

But long before this happened Jacob had fled from the well-deserved
wrath of his brother to his uncle Laban at Harran. On his way he had
slept on the rocky ridge of Bethel, and had beheld in vision the angels
of God ascending and descending the steps of a staircase that led to
heaven. The nature of the ground itself must have suggested the dream.
The limestone rock is fissured into steplike terraces, which seem formed
of blocks of stone piled one upon the other, and rising upwards like a
gigantic staircase towards the sky. On the hill that towers above the
ruins of Beth-el, we may still fancy that we see before us the "ladder"
of Jacob.

But the vision was more than a mere dream. God appeared in it to the
patriarch, and repeated to him the promise that had been made to his
fathers. Through Jacob, the younger of the twins, the true line of
Abraham was to be carried on. When he awoke in the morning the fugitive
recognized the real character of his dream. He took, accordingly, the
stone that had served him for a pillow, and setting it up as an altar,
poured oil upon it, and so made it a Beth-el, or "House of God,"
Henceforward it was a consecrated altar, a holy memorial of the God
whose divinity had been mysteriously imparted to it.

The Semitic world was full of such Beth-els, or consecrated stones. They
are referred to in the literature of ancient Babylonia, and an English
traveller, Mr. Doughty, has found them still existing near the Tema of
the Old Testament in Northern Arabia. In Phoenicia we are told that they
abounded. The solitary rock in the desert or on the mountain-side seemed
to the primitive Semite the dwelling-place of Deit