Nahor

“ Terah hath begotten Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran hath begotten Lot; 28 and Haran dieth in the presence of Terah his father, in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldees.
29 And Abram and Nahor take to themselves wives; the name of Abram's wife is Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife is Milcah, daughter of Haran, father of Milcah, and father of Iscah. 30 And Sarai is barren—she hath no child. ”

“ A. Agreeably to the foregoing chronology, he died in the nineteen hundred and ninety sixth year of the world.
Q. In what year of the world did Nahor die?
A. In the nineteen hundred and ninety seventh. ”

“ He established a national government, and he made Therach, the son of Nahor, his chief officer. When Nimrod had thus established his power he decided to build a city, a walled town, which should be the capital of his country. And he selected a certain plain and built a large city thereon, and called it Shinar. And Nimrod dwelt in Shinar in safety, and gradually became ruler over all the world; and at that time all the people of the earth were of one language and of one speech. Nimrod in his prosperity did not regard the Lord. He made gods of wood and stone, and the people copied his doings. ”

“ It appears from this account, that Nahor, brother of Abraham, Terah, Nahor, Serug, Reu, Peleg, Eber, Salah, Arphaxad, Shem, and Noah, all lived on the earth at the same time. And that Abraham was 18 years old when Reu died, 41 when Serug and his brother Nahor died, 75 when Terah died, 88 when Arphaxad died, 118 when Salah died, 150 when Shem died, and that Eber lived 4 years after Abraham's death. ”

“ And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed; for all the goods of his master were in his hand: and he arose and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor. And he made his camels to kneel down, without the city by a well of water at the time of the evening, even the time that women go out to draw water. ”

“ Nahor, out of whose family both Isaac and Jacob had their wives. (2.) Haran, the father of Lot, of whom it is here said, v. 28, that he died before his father Terah. Note, Children cannot be sure that they shall survive their parents: for death does not go by seniority, taking the eldest first: the shadow of death is without any order, Job 10. ”

“ The Father of nations has been a never-failing presence in every turn.
“And Rebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels, and followed the man; and the servant took Rebekah, and went his way.”
It was a long way from the city of Nahor, in Mesopotamia to Hebron in the southern borders of Palestine, and between the Euphrates and the land of promise stretched leagues of hot desert sands, through which the camels slowly and patiently toiled day after day with their precious burden. ”

“ Serug lived, after he begat Nahor, 200 years. Gen. 11:23. This added to 30 years, which was his age when Nahor was born, makes him 230 years old when he died. Nahor lived, after he begat Terah, 119 years. Gen. 11:25. This added to 29 years, which was his age when Terah was born, makes him 148 years when he died. Terah was 130 years old when Abraham was born, and is supposed to have lived 75 years after his birth: making him 205 years old when he died.
49 Agreeably to this last account, Peleg died in the 1996th year of the world, Nahor in the 1997th, and Noah in the 2006th. ”

“ He at length reached the city of Nahor, where Abraham used to live. It seems that Eliezer used to pray about everything! If he could not kneel down to pray, he prayed in his heart; and to those who tell God everything, God sends very quick answers.
In those hot countries, the caravans stop outside the city at the well, so that the thirsty men as well as the camels may drink.
Then Eliezer prayed, and asked God to send out the maiden to draw water, who was to be the wife of Isaac, and to point her out to him by her offering to draw water for the camels ”

“ Yea, the god of Nahor, Gen. 31. 53. is thought to be no other; partly, also the inferiour creatures were canonized for gods, in way of thankfulness for the benefits received from them, for which reason the Sea, the Winds, the Air, the Earth, and fruits of the earth, became deified. At last, well deserving men; nay, Crocodiles, Serpents, Rats, Cats, Dogs, Garlick, and Onions, were reputed gods.
CHAP. II.
Of Moloch, Adram-Melech, Anam-Melech, Baal, The Tabernacle of Molech, Chiun, Rempham, Horses consecrated to the Sun, Thamuz.
Of the Idol Moloch we read in divers places of Scripture, 1 King. ”

“ Moreover, I love you, Nefra. From the moment when I heard your voice yonder by the palm trees and knew you for a woman beneath your cloak, I loved you, though then I thought you but some simple girl. What more is there to say? The future is dark; great dangers lie ahead. Mayhap it will be necessary to fly to far lands and leave all these pomps behind us. Yet together would they not be well lost?”
“Then what of Egypt, Prince Khian? What of Egypt and the mission laid upon me and the oath you heard me swear in this very hall?” ”

“ Jasher tells us, that when Nimrod was 40 years old, there was war between his brethren and the children of Japheth; (see verse 34;) and that they were under the power of their enemies; that with a few people, (of the children of Cush only,) he made war, and subdued them; and that they all came to dwell with him in Shinar. I have frequently had to remark that the word all must not in the Hebrew be taken in that latitude, as it would in the modern languages. ”

“ To rush from the prison was the first impulse of the God-defying followers of Nehor. In their fear some fell to the earth, others, impelled by the crowd behind stumbled and fell over the prostrate bodies, until they became one confused mass, blocking each other's way ”

“ Hathor (or more correctly Hat-hor, i. e. the abode of Horus) , is not merely the Aphrodite of ancient Egypt; she is the pupil of the eye of the sun; she is goddess of that beneficent planet whose rising heralds the waters of the inundation; she represents the eternal youth of nature, and is the direct personification of the beautiful. She is also goddess of truth. “I offer the truth to thee, O Goddess of Denderah!” says the king, in one of the inscriptions of the sanctuary of the sistrum; “for truth is thy work, and thou thyself art truth.” ”

“ In the modern Niffer we may recognize the Talmudical Nopher, and the Assyrian Nipur which is Nipru, with a mere metathesis of the two final letters. The fame of Nimrod has always been rife in the country of his domination. Arab writers record a number of remarkable traditions, in which he plays a conspicuous part; and there is little doubt but that it is in honor of his apotheosis that the constellation Orion bears in Arabian astronomy the title of El Jabbar, or “the giant.” ”

“ Then he turned the ascent-pin, whereupon the belly of the horse became full of wind and it swayed to and fro like a wave of the sea, and rose with them high in air nor slackened in its flight, till it was out of sight of the city. Now when Shams al-Nahar saw this, she asked him, “Ho thou! what is become of that thou toldest me of my Prince, making me believe that he sent thee to me?” Answered the Persian, “Allah damn the Prince! he is a mean and skin-flint knave.” She cried, “Woe to thee! How darest thou disobey thy lord’s commandment?” ”

“ The plain of Gawar is apparently rather a favourite haunt of those whom the Oriental will speak of (very rarely, and nervously) as “the Good People”—the Jann of the “Arabian Nights.” One cave in particular, in the hills that border the plain, is notoriously teeming with them; and any man who enters there usually comes out mad, if he ever emerges at all. Once, a few years ago, a party of thirty Kurds undertook its exploration, and went in well armed. ”

“ Here he found a godless people, filled with the falsehoods of Nehor, and living in the committal of all manner of abominations without repentance, because they cherished the flattering lie as the foundation of their creed, that all men would be saved. ”

“ He taught many of the heresies of Nehor, prominent among which were the denial of the coming of the Redeemer and of the efficacy of His atonement. His doctrine was that every man fared in this life according to his management, prospered according to his shrewdness, and conquered according to his strength. ”

“ The mountain-girdled plain of Gawar is a Paradise of fertility, with abundant water, and has a rich black soil capable of yielding twenty or thirtyfold to the cultivator. On it is the town of Diza, chiefly Armenian, which is a Turkish customs station, a military post, and the residence of a Kaimakam. There are over twenty Christian as well as some Moslem villages on Gawar, and a number of Kurdish hamlets and "castles" on the slopes and in the folds of the hills above it. ”

“ The chief occupation of the Nāyars is agriculture. Cultivation of a slipshod, time-honoured type is the forte of the Nāyar, for which he has always found time from times of old, though engaged in other occupations as well. In the Velakali, a kind of mock fight, which is one of the items of the utasom programme in every important temple in Malabar, the dress worn by the Nāyars is supposed to be their ancient military costume. ”

“ Listen, the might of the Nine-bow barbarians rolls up the eastern branch of Sihor. But one day’s march from On the mountains run down to the edge of the river, and those mountains are pierced by a rocky pass through which the foe will surely come. Set thou thy ambush there, Wanderer, there at Prosopis—so shalt thou smite them. Farewell. I will seek out the Hathor if in any way I can come at her, and tell her all. But of this I warn thee, the hour is big with Fate, and soon will spawn a monstrous birth. Strange visions of doom and death passed before mine eyes as I slept last night. ”

“ He ruled first in Babylonia over the region which from other sources we know to have been the centre of Nimrod's kingdom. He extended his dominion to the Armenian mountains, the boundary of his late conquests according to tradition, and one principal scene of his exploits and triumphs was the city of Erech, which, according to Genesis, was the second capital of Nimrod. ”

“ To atone for past shortcomings, two hundred children of the best families in Carthage were sacrificed, and further, to obtain the god's favour, three hundred adult citizens immolated themselves.
Nimrod, the great-grandson of Noah, was an idolator, as were also his descendants. Nineveh was the seat of his empire. As the sun and moon became early objects of worship among the Assyrians, so in later days they adored the fire as their substitute,—a form of worship that was common among the ancients in many lands. ”

“ But whatever it was, it was the symbol on which the faith and cult of the Sumerians hung--the symbol of the god-head itself. And I know Naluna was right when she told us that her ancestors brought it with them on that long, grueling trek, ages ago, when they fled before Sargon's wild riders. And how many eons before that dim time must it have hung in El-lil's temple in Nippur, Erech or Old Eridu, booming out its mellow threat or promise over the dreamy valley of the Euphrates, or across the green foam of the Persian Gulf! ”

“ Go wash seven times in the Jordan? What marvelous power doth the Jordan possess? But enough of this folly. Thy master doth but speak in jest. Go say to him that Naaman of Syria came not to be mocked, but to be cured of his leprosy, and that he bringeth with him a great treasure with which to reward Elisha."
"My lord, it would avail naught for me to carry thy message to my master," said the servant. "Elisha hath spoken," and, turning, he passed quietly among the servants of Naaman and entered the lowly dwelling of his master. ”

“ It was often a dangerous matter to pick a path through the many barges, war-galleys, sea-going vessels and lesser river craft which were strung out as far as the eye could see along the western bank of the Nile.
“By Hathor,” said Nakht, a fieldhand, as he fixed his tired eyes upon the oncoming galley, “a man who can scull, row, and swim as can I, should have a place upon some such vessel. Think of the life those dirty Amu lead!” All foreigners were Amu to Nakht, sand-dwellers and loathed for their filthy habits and the lice that covered them. ”

“ He was, in fact, the first to bring the existence of this southern valley to the notice of the civilized world. The valley of the Jordan, as he describes it, widens about Jericho, where the hills which border it, join the chains of mountains which inclose the Dead Sea. At the southern extremity of the sea they again approach each other, leaving between them a valley or Ghor, similar in form to the northern Ghor, through which the Jordan flows; though the southern valley, from want of water, is a desert, while the Jordan and its tributaries make the other a fertile plain. ”

“ The horn is very conspicuous on the heads of men in the Nineveh (Asshur) sculptures, still, as a fashion, retained in Ethiopia (Cush, Abyssinia [4] ) , the origin of the Chaldeans, through Nimrod the Cushite (Gen. x. 8.) , who probably derived their chief sustenance from the river Tigris (Hiddekel) . Subsistence from (1) fishing, (2) hunting (e.g. Nimrod) , (3) grazing, and (4) agriculture, seems to have succeeded in the order named. The repeated appearance of fish on the same sculptures, is in allusion, doubtless, to the name Nineveh (= fish + habitation) ”

“ Warriors in mail and peaked helmets, and bearing wide-pointed, curved swords, lined the walls, and on silken cushions sat the chieftains--rulers of El Ghor and their satellites. Across the room sat Nureddin El Ghor, tall, lean, with a high-bridged, thin nose and keen dark eyes; his whole aspect distinctly hawk-like. His Semitic features contrasted with the Turks about him. His lean strong hand continually caressed the ivory hilt of a long, lean saber, and he wore a shirt of mesh-mail. A renegade chief from southern Arabia, this sheik was a man of great ability ”