While there can be no question of the absolute historicity of the last three names, the first three undoubtedly provoke speculation. Rephāîm is the name for shades or ghosts; 'Emîm probably means terrible ones; and Zamzummîm (if this be the same word as Zûzîm), 'murmurers.' Schwally (Leben nach d. Tode, 64 f., and more fully ZATW, xviii. 127 ff.) has given reasons to show that all three names originally denoted spirits of the dead, and afterwards came to be applied to an imaginary race of extinct giants, the supposed original inhabitants of the country (see also Rob. Sm. in Dri. Deut. 40). The tradition with regard to the Rephaim is too persistent to make this ingenious hypothesis altogether easy of acceptance. It is unfortunate that on a matter bearing so closely on the historicity of Gn. 14 the evidence is not more decisive.
8-12. The final battle, and capture of Lot.—9.
four kings against the five] That the four Eastern kings
should have been all present in person (which is the obvious
meaning of the narrator) is improbable enough; that they
should count heads with the petty kinglets of the Pentapolis
is an unreal and misleading estimate of the opposing forces,
due to a desire to magnify Abram's subsequent achievement.—10.
The vale of Siddim was at that time wells upon wells of bitumen] The notice is a proof of intelligent popular reasoning
rather than of authentic information regarding actual
facts. The Dead Sea was noted in antiquity for the production
of bitumen, masses of which were found floating on
the surface (Strabo, XVI. ii. 42; Diod. ii. 48, xix. 98;
Pliny, vii. 65), as, indeed, they still are after earthquakes,
but "only in the southern part of the sea" (Robinson,
BR, i. 518, ii. 189, 191). It was a natural inference that
the bottom of the sea was covered with asphalt wells, like
those of Hit in Babylonia. Seetzen (i. 417) says that the
bitumen oozes from rocks round the sea, "and that (und zwar) under the surface of the water, as swimmers have felt
and seen"; and Strabo says it rose in bubbles like boiling
water from the middle of the deepest part.—11, 12. Sodom
and Gomorrah are sacked, and Lot is taken captive. The
10. (
Hebrew characters)] On the nominal appos. and duplication, see Dav. § 29,
R. 8; G-K. § 123 e (cf. § 130 e). GL has the word but once.—(Hebrew characters)] better
as [E]G (Hebrew characters). (Hebrew characters)] On the peculiar (Hebrew characters), see G-K. §§ 27 q, 90 i.—11.
(Hebrew characters)] G (Greek characters) (i.e. (Hebrew characters)); the confusion appears in 16. 21, but nowhere else
in OT.—12. (Hebrew characters)] G inserts the words immediately after (Hebrew characters),—an
indication that they have been introduced from the margin. It is to be
