Blair Collection > Celtic researches, on the origin, traditions & language, of the ancient Britons

98
legularly sbarecl the paternal estate, and became the heads of
iamilies, and the chiefs of the little cities: and it seems to
have weighed heavy upon Abraham's heart. " Lord God,"
says he, " what wilt diou give me, seeing Í go childless !—
Behold, to vie tlwn hast given no sad, and lo^ one born in mine
liouse is mine heir.'' lie had hoped to become the father of
a fannly; but from that hope he was cast doKH. To the
mortifying e})ithct whieh reminded him of his affliction, his
new licbrcic name, A Jatlicr of Multitudes, which was con-
ferred upon him several years after he had been in the land of
Canaan, must have presented a very pleasing contrast. To
the title of Exalted father, it would have been no contrast
at all.
If, then, the Hebrew be the pure language of Noah, it
must have been preserved to tlie time of Abraham, rather
by the descendants of Canaan than b}" those of Ilcber. This
will account for Jacob's using the Hebrew language, Avhile
Laban spoke the Chaldaic. The former had been educated
in the land of Canaan, where he had lived to his seventy-
seventh year. His father and his grandfather had been
settled there for nearly two centuries. The language oftliat
country must then have been the most famihar to his ear. — ■
He was now returning thither, with his family, who would
naturally adopt the same language, as a consequence of their
residence amongst tlie natives. He therefore names tho heap
of witness, in the language whieh was most familiar to him-
self, and most likely to be understood by his posterity, rather
than in that oi"iiis Mesopotamian relations. He was right. —
For the language of the CanaaiiitCb became that of the
Israeiiles,
It appears then that the Jews are not justified in their pre-
1-cnsioas to the peculiar preservation of the primitive lunguagc.