anxiety on Lot's behalf, and with sympathy for the Sodomites, his neighbours, he called all his neighbours together, and all those who had followed him, and in earnest words exhorted them to prepare to fight and rescue Lot. But they, knowing the disparity of numbers, would make no promise; then he threatened them, but could not persuade them to join in what they regarded as an infatuated course certain to lead to destruction. Consequently Abraham was obliged to go against the enemy with only his own servants. But as they neared the plain, and saw the devastation wrought by the host of Chedorlaomer, they also slipped away in the night, and Abraham was left alone with Eliezer, his trusty slave, and his three friends Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre. And he followed after the foe, as they retired with their spoil, till he reached one of the fountains of Jordan, which is named Paneas, or Dan.
Here his three friends forsook him, along with their wives, who had accompanied them thus far. It was the night of the 15th Nisan, the self-same night in which in after-years the firstborn of Egypt would be slain; and Abraham's heart fainted as he overtook the mighty host, and saw that they were countless as the sands of the sea-shore, and as grasshoppers for number.
But lo! God fought for Abraham. The grass-blades changed into swords, and the stubble into spears, and battled all that night; and in the morning, when he looked upon the host, they were all dead corpses. Thus he delivered Lot and all the captives, men, women, and children, and the spoil that had been carried away; and none stayed them, for all their foes lay dead upon the ground.
The King of Sodom came forth to meet Abraham, full of pride of heart because he had been miraculously delivered, and attributing all the glory of the victory to Divine interposition on his own behalf. But all the people knew that Abraham was the favoured of God, and their deliverer, and they built a throne of the trees that covered the plain, and which had been burnt in the war, and set Abraham as their prince and king thereon; therefore is that place called to this day, "The king's dale."[1]
But Abraham was little pleased with this exhibition of honour, and he thought upon what he had learnt of old from
- ↑ Gen. xiv. 17.
