Customs and ceremonies are extremely persistent, and, among different peoples, are often ob served long after their origin and original significance have completely faded. It is well known to be so in the churches of Christendom, even. The beginnings of the multitude of ceremonies and customs of the Hebrew were, at the earliest known time, mostly obscure or wholly lost. The ever- present "why" on the lips of the more inquiring adults and especially of the wide-eyed children here again demanded explanations. A host of legends in time resulted from this demand; for the real, historical reasons it was impossible for anyone to have given. Why was it forbidden to eat the meat from the hollow of the thigh? Because God struck Jacob there while wrestling with him at Penuel. (Gen. 32.) And why did people limp in passing through this place? In memory of Jacob who was thus lamed there in this wrestling bout. Why the sanctuary at Bethel? Because a certain stone there served as a pillow to Jacob during the night in which he dreamed of the ladder reaching to heaven. And, similarly almost, every other sanctuary had a legend explaining its origin or first anointing. These legends are invaluable in giving us an insight into the early religious feeling among this people.
Finally, we may mention the class of legends having for their object the explanation of proper names, which, so often, are very old and much altered in form. The tendency to seek an explanation of such names is widespread and inveterate in the human race. There are many people among us who believe unquestioningly that the Connecticut river was so called in the first place because it runs between and thus "connects" New Hampshire and Vermont, while it runs across and so divides or "cuts" Massachusetts. Manhattan was not so called be cause of the exclamation of an Indian upon seeing there for the first time a colonist wearing a great Dutch hat, "Man hat on," although a story so affirms. Many stories current in London purport to explain the origin of the name of a certain street generally called "Rotten Row," but which, as a matter of history, comes from the French "Route en roi." Some people in Utah, likewise, take seriously the story that Ogden received its name from the words of an early English traveler who, in disgust with the place, exclaimed "It's an 'og den (hog den)."
Legends having an etymological reference are especially common in the Old Testament. As with other early peoples, and as with the uneducated classes of to day, the etymologies given in these legends are often extremely naeve and far from sound. Beersheeba is explained as originating from Abraham's giving to Abimilech seven (Sheba) lambs at the well there. (Gen. 21.) The name Isaac (more exactly Jishak) is explained by the story that when his birth was foretold to his mother she laughed (Sahak.) (Gen. 8.) Jacob is, with wide license, interpreted "heel-holder," the story being that at birth he held his twin brother by the heel and thus robbed him of his birth right. (Gen. 25 .) Reuben is loosely referred to "rah beonji," he hath regarded my misery (Gen. 29.) And so in many other cases.
The child-like naturalness and simplicity of many of the etymological explanations is well illustrated by the legend of Babel (Heb. Babel). In Babylon there was a multitude of tongues due to the coming together there of many nationalities. The Hebrews made a connection between this fact and the name of the place, explaining Babel as a derivative of their word balal, to confound, utterly unmindful of the fact that Babel is not a Hebrew word and that in its proper language it unmistakably means "Gate of the Gods."
In Babylon and Assyria tall pyramidal temple towers, built for purposes of religious worship and of astronomical observation, were very common. The tower of Babel referred to in the. Biblical legend and those of various neigh boring peoples seems most likely, although not with entire certainty, to have been the tower of Borsippa, concerning which an inscription found on a cylinder re covered from the ruins of Babylon speaks as follows: "The building named the Stages of the Seven Spheres, which was the tower of Borsippa, had been built by a former king. He had completed forty-two cubits, but he did not finish its head. During,the lapse of time it had become ruined. They had not taken care of the exit of waters so that rain and wet had penetrated into the brick work; the casing of burned brick had swollen out, and the terraces of crude brick are scattered in heaps."
A great tower of this kind left unfinished and falling to ruin, must have excited the wonder of people seeing it or hearing of it. Legend must quickly surround it. It was a very natural thing for the Hebrews, in story, to connect it with the confusion of tongues so conspicuous in Babylon — for, with the lapse of time, the tendency is ever for legends origin ally distinct to become united into larger units and to become associated with less distant things. The use of such towers for astronomical purposes would be easily suggestive of the Hebrew and Arabic beliefs that the builders of the great tower were attempting to get near to the star or to reach heaven. To the Hebrew this would seem especially impious and a just cause for the divine wrath. Now a difference in language is obviously a disadvantage —an evil; and, since languages were then believed to be directly given by God, the confusion at Babylon would readily appear as a curse laid by God in his anger upon the builders of the tower. To the writer the story seems quite possibly to have been a remoulding of an older legend under particularly suggestive conditions, as has frequently happened in other cases. Oral traditions preserves real history but a few generations.
Of course, it is now well known that we have records in several languages much older than the dates given for Babel, and that there is not the slightest ground for thinking that languages actually began as a historical fact at the time or in the way described. Obviously the story gives no heed to the real antiquity of the races, to the clear contra diction of narratives found else where in scripture, to the wide distribution of the races or to their phyicsal differences which are far more deep-seated than their languages, etc. But the legend conveys a strong lesson in revealing to us vividly the He brew faith in the supremacy of God and in the punishment which he visits upon pride and arrogance in man.
In the folk-stories of races of various other countries we find stories accounting for the differences in language, some of them much suggesting the Hebrew ac count. Some of this type may be mentioned. The Hindu legend is as follows: "There grew in the center of the earth the wonderful 'knowledge tree.' It was so tall that it reached almost to heaven. It said in its heart, 'I shall hold my head in heaven and spread my branches over all the earth, and gather all men together under my shadow and protect them
