the fact by the writers of the Old Testament, or that tradition should
have been silent on the matter. We must be content with the knowledge
that it was to one of the mountains "in the land of Moriah" that Abraham
was led, and that "Moriah" was a "land," not a single mountain-peak. (We
should not forget that the Septuagint reads "the highlands," that is,
_Moreh_ instead of _Moriah_, while the Syriac version boldly changes the
word into the name of the "Amorites." For arguments on the other side,
see p. 79.)

Abraham returned to Beer-sheba, and from thence went to Hebron, where
Sarah died. Hebron--or Kirjath-Arba as it was then called--was occupied
by a Hittite tribe, in contradistinction to the country round about it,
which was in the possession of the Amorites. As at Jerusalem, or at
Kadesh on the Orontes, the Hittites had intruded into Amoritish
territory and established themselves in the fortress-town. But while the
Hittite city was known as Kirjath-Arba, "the city of Arba," the
Amoritish district was named Mamre: the union of Kirjath-Arba and Mamre
created the Hebron of a later day.

Kirjath-Arba seems to have been built in the valley, close to the pools
which still provide water for its modern inhabitants. On the eastern
side the slope of the hill is honeycombed with tombs cut in the rock,
and, if ancient tradition is to be believed, it was in one of these that
Abraham desired to lay the body of his wife. The "double cave" of
Machpelah--for so the Septuagint renders the phrase--was in the field of
Ephron the Hittite, and from Ephron, accordingly, the Hebrew patriarch
purchased the land for 400 shekels of silver, or about £47. The cave, we
are told, lay opposite Mamre, which goes to show that the oak under
which Abraham once pitched his tent may not have been very far distant
from that still pointed out as the oak of Mamre in the grounds of the