Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/139

XXI.] Canaan, built the two cities Sodom and Gomorrah, and called them after the names of his two sons; but Zoar he named after his mother. At the same time, Murk or Murph, king of Palestine, built Damascus.

 XXI.

THE PROPHET EBER. "Unto Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.

"The children of Shem;—Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.

"And the children of Aram;—Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash. "And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber."

According to some Mussulman writers, Oudh (Lud), the son of Shem, had a son named Ad; but, according to others, Ad was the son of Aram, son of Shem. The tribes of Ad and Thamud lived near one another in the desert of Hedjaz, in the south of Arabia. The land of the people of Ad was nearer Mecca than the valley of Hidjr, and the valley of Hidjr is situated at the extremity of the desert on the road to Syria.

Never in all the world were there such great and mighty men as the Adites. Each of them was twelve cubits high, and they were so strong that if any of them stamped on the ground he sank up to his knees. The Adites raised great monuments in the land which they inhabited. Wherever these Cyclopean edifices exist, they are called by the Arabs the constructions of the Adites.

God ordered the prophet Hud (Eber) to go to the Adites and preach to them the One true God, and turn them from idolatry. But the Adites would not hearken to his words, and when he offered them the promises of God, they said, "What better dwellings can He give us than those which we have made?" And when he spoke to them of God's threatenings, they mocked and said, "Who can resist us who are so strong?" 