Hebrew.'
GENESIS xiv. 13.

This is a singular designation of Abram as 'The Hebrew.' Probably we
have in its use here a trace of the customary epithet which he bore
among the inhabitants of Canaan, and perhaps the presence of the
name in this narrative may indicate the influence of some older
account, traditional or written, which owed its authorship to some
of them. At all events, this is the first appearance of the name in
Scripture. As we all know, it has become that of the nation, but a
Jew did not call himself a 'Hebrew' except in intercourse with
foreigners. As in many other cases, the national name used by other
nations was not that by which the people called themselves. Here,
obviously, it is not a national name, for the very good reason that
there was no nation then. It is a personal epithet, or, in plain
English, a nickname, and it means, probably, as the ancient Greek
translation of Genesis gives it, neither more nor less than 'The man
from the other side,' the man that had come across the water. Just
as a mediaeval prince bore the _sobriquet_ Outremere-the 'man
from beyond the sea'--so Abram, to the aboriginal, or, at least,
long-settled, inhabitants of the country, was known simply as the
foreigner, the 'man from the other side' (of the Jordan, or more
probably of the great river Euphrates), the man from across the
water.

Now that name may suggest, with a permissible, and, I hope, not
misleading play of fancy, just two things, which I seek now to press
upon our hearts and consciences. The one is as to how men become
Christians, and the other is as to how they look to other people
when they are.