sense of שָׁ֑ב֖עָה. The idea is rather the following : the place re- ceived its name from the seven lambs, by which Abraham secured to himself possession of the well, because the treaty was sworn to on the basis of the agreement confirmed by the seven lambs. There is no mention of sacrifice, however, in connection with the treaty (see chap. 26:33). רשָׁ֑בַע to swear, lit. to seven one's self, not because in the oath the divine number 3 is combined with the world-number 4, but because, from the sacredness of the number 7, the real origin and ground of which are to be sought in the number 7 of the work of creation, seven things were generally chosen to give validity to an oath, as was the case, according to Herodotus (3, 8), with the Arabians among others. Beersheba was in the Wady es-Seba, the broad channel of a winter-torrent, 12 hours’ journey to the south of Hebron on the road to Egypt and the Dead Sea, where there are still stones to be found, the relics of an ancient town, and two deep wells with excellent water, called Bit es Seba, i.e. seven-well (not lion-well, as the Bedouins erroneously interpret it) : cf. Robinson’s Pal. i. pp. 300 sqq. — Ver. 33. Here Abraham planted a tamarisk and called upon the name of the Lord (vid. chap. iv. 26), the everlasting God. Jehovah is called the ever- lasting God, as the eternally true, with respect to the eternal covenant, which He established with Abraham (chap. xvii. 7). The planting of this long-lived tree, with its hard wood, and its long, narrow, thickly clustered, evergreen leaves, was to be a type of the ever-enduring grace of the faithful covenant God. — Ver. 34. Abraham sojourned a long time there in the Philistines' land. There Isaac was probably born, and grew up to be a young man (xxii. 6), capable of carrying the wood for a sacrifice ; cf. xxii. 19. The expression “in the land of the Philistines” appears to be at variance with ver. 32, where Abimelech and Phicol are said to have returned to the land of the Philistines. But the discrepancy is easily reconciled, on the supposition that at that time the land of the Philistines had no fixed boundary, at all events, towards the desert. Beersheba did not belong to Gerar, the kingdom of Abimelech in the stricter sense ; but the Philistines extended their wanderings so far, and claimed the district as their own, as is evident from the fact that Abimelech’s people had taken the well from Abraham. On the other hand, Abraham with his numerous flocks would not confine him
