one may think[1] of Helena, celebrated in Jewish writings, queen of Adiabene, the mother of Monabaz and Izates. But the identity of the Mesha of the catalogue of nations with Μεσήνη is uncertain, and the Jewish population of that place dates at least from the time of the Sassanides to the period of the Babylonian exile. We therefore hold by the Ishmaelite Massa, whether North Arabian or Hauranian; but we by no means subscribe Mühlau's non possumus non negare, Agurum et Lemuëlem proseytos e paganis, non Israelitas fuisse. The religion of the tribes descended from Abraham, so far as it had not degenerated, was not to be regarded as idolatrous. It was the religion which exists to the present day among the great Ishmaelite tribes of the Syrian desert as the true tradition of their fathers under the name of Dîn Ibrâhîm (Abraham's religion); which, as from Wetzstein, we have noted in the Commentary on Job (p. 387 and elsewhere), continues along with Mosaism among the nomadic tribes of the wilderness; which shortly before the appearance of Christianity in the country beyond the Jordan, produced doctrines coming into contact with the teachings of the gospel; which at that very time, according to historic evidences (e.g., Mêjâsinî's chronicles of the Ka'be), was dominant even in the towns of Higâz; and in the second century after Christ, was for the first time during the repeated migration of the South Arabians again oppressed by Greek idolatry, and was confined to the wilderness; which gave the mightiest impulse to the rise of Islam, and furnished its best component part; and which towards the end of the last century, in the country of Neged, pressed to a reform of Islam, and had as a result the Wahabite doctrine. If we except Pro 30:5., the proverbs of Agur and Lemuel contain nothing which may not be conceived from a non-Israelitish standpoint on which the author of the Book of Job placed himself. Even Job 30:5. is not there (cf. Job 6:10; Job 23:12) without parallels. When one compares Deu 4:2; Deu 13:1, and 2Sa 22:31 = Psa 18:31 (from which Pro 30:5 of the proverbs of Agur is derived, with the change of יהוה into אלוהּ), Agur certainly appears as one intimately acquainted with the revealed religion of Israel, and with their literature. But
- ↑ Derenbourg's Essai sur l'Hist. et la Géog. de la Palestine, i. p. 224.
