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camel, which is neither represented nor named in the monuments before the Greek period. This, Müller supposes, was due to a religious scruple; but, of course, the difficulty remains of thinking that a religiously unclean animal should have been bred in Egypt, or have been gifted by Pharaoh to Abram. The order also—slaves between he-asses and she-asses—is strange; the explanation (Ho. Gu.) that the slaves were intermediate in value between these animals is jejune, and is, besides, contradicted by 24$3$ 30$35$. It is possible that has been added at the end by a glossator; but see 24$43$ 30$35$, and cf. [E] below.

17. The story reaches its climax. Yahwe interposes at the extreme moment to save Sarai and avert calamity from the patriarchal house. It is noteworthy that Yahwe's intervention is here purely providential: in 20$43$ it takes the form of a personal communication, while in the attenuated version of 26$3ff.$ it has become superfluous and is omitted.—smote with great plagues] severe bodily maladies; cf. 20$6ff.$, Ex. 11$17$, Ps. 39$1$ etc. How Pharaoh discovered the cause of his sickness we are left to conjecture; Jos. (Ant. i. 164 f.) pretty nearly exhausts the possibilities of the case when he mentions sacrifice, inquiry at the priests, and interrogation of Sarai. Gu. is probably right in suggesting that something has been omitted between $11$ and $17$.—18, 19. To the vigorous expostulation of the Pharaoh, Abram is unable to reply. The narrator evidently feels that morally the heathen king is in the right; and the zest with which the story was related was not quite so unalloyed by ethical reflexions as Gu. (151) would have us believe. The idea of God, however, is imperfectly moralised; Yahwe's providence puts in the wrong the man who is justified at the bar of human conscience; He is not here the absolutely righteous Being proclaimed by the prophets (Am. 3$18$).—20. Pharaoh gave men charge concerning

before .—17. ] The Pi. only of smiting with disease: 2 Ki. 15$2$, 2 Ch. 26$5$ (Pu. Ps. 73$20$).—] G + .—] possibly a gloss from 20$5$ (KS. al.); see on 2$17f.$.—19. ] 'so that I took'; Dri. T. § 74, § 116, Obs. 2.—] G + .—20. [E]G add at the end , as in MT of 13$9$: the phrase is interpolated in both places.