File:The home of God's people (1874) (14764125775).jpg

Identifier: homeofgodspeople00gage (find matches)
Title: The home of God's people
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Gage, William Leonard, 1832-1889
Subjects: Bible Palestine -- Description and travel
Publisher: Hartford, Conn. : Dustin, Gilman & Co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Beersheba and in its immediate vicinity; thatIsaac went westward to Gerar, and digged his numerous wellsup and down the course of Wady Sheriah, a broad and shallowwater-course a few miles south-east of Gaza, and runningtoward the latter city. Very careful research might bring tohght the wells which the provident and domestic Isaac digged,—the sources of such frequent controversy between his herds-men and those of the Philistine king. Even to the presentday, wells are the most valuable possession of the Arab tribes ;and no contentions are so prolonged or so bitter as those whichare held in respect to their possession. But, of all the wellsof the whole region, no two come so prominently forward asBeersheba, the favorite residence of Abraham and Jacob, andBeer-lahai-roi, the place around which Isaac loved to caUtogether his flocks. Mr. Rowland, in his hasty tour throughthe south country, discovered a well some distance south ofWady Sheriah, the ancient Valley of Gerar, bearing the name
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THE EXPULSION OF HAGAR. THE REAL HOME OP THE PATRIARCHS. 41 Moilalii. This, from the resemblance in the names, he con-jectured to be Hagar and Isaacs Lahai-roi. It is scarcely-possible that this was the case. The country where Rowlandmade his early discoveries is too barren to have been attractiveto a good husbandman like Isaac : he wovdd have chos^ themore fertile land south of Gaza, and in fact encroaching somedistance upon what was the subsequent territory of the Pliil-istines. The retem or juniper-bush grows there now just asit did in the olden time; and it affords a scanty shelter fromthe suns rays to the Arab of to-day, jugt as it did to Elijah,while he was on his pilgrimage to Horeb, and had advanced adays journey south of Beersheba. Here, then, in this half-fertile, half-desert tract, was the realhome of the patriarchs. South of it was the wilderness, thesubsequent scene of their descendants trials and protractedwanderings. North of it was the home of the Canaanites, thepowerf

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