many years, or that the origin of the name of Beer-sheba would have been
so quickly forgotten. Rather we must believe that two narratives have
been mingled together, and that the earlier visit of Abraham to Gerar
has coloured the story of Isaac's sojourn in the territory of Abimelech.
We need not refuse to believe that the servants of Isaac dug wells and
wrangled over them with the native herdsmen; that Beer-sheba should
twice have received its name from a repetition of the same event is a
different matter. One of the wells--that of Rehoboth--made by Isaac's
servants is probably referred to in the Egyptian _Travels of a Mohar_,
where it is called Rehoburta.

Isaac was not a wanderer like his father. Lahai-roi in the desert, "the
valley of Gerar," Beer-sheba and Hebron, were the places round which his
life revolved, and they were all close to one another. There is no trace
of his presence in the north of Palestine, and when the prophet Amos
(vii. 16) makes Isaac synonymous with the northern kingdom of Israel,
there can be no geographical reference in his words. Isaac died
eventually at Hebron, and was buried in the family tomb of Machpelah.

But long before this happened Jacob had fled from the well-deserved
wrath of his brother to his uncle Laban at Harran. On his way he had
slept on the rocky ridge of Bethel, and had beheld in vision the angels
of God ascending and descending the steps of a staircase that led to
heaven. The nature of the ground itself must have suggested the dream.
The limestone rock is fissured into steplike terraces, which seem formed
of blocks of stone piled one upon the other, and rising upwards like a
gigantic staircase towards the sky. On the hill that towers above the
ruins of Beth-el, we may still fancy that we see before us the "ladder"
of Jacob.