which, whether originally identical with the Habiru or not (§ 3), is used in contrast to foreigners, and this non-committal ethnic deserves preference where precise distinction is unnecessary or impossible. The traditions which prevailed among the Hebrews concerning their origin belong to a time when Judah and Israel were regarded as a unit. Twelve divisions or tribes, of which Judah was one, held together by a traditional sentiment, were traced back to the sons of Jacob (otherwise known as Israel), the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham. Their names vary in origin and probably also in point of age, and where they represent fixed territorial limits, the districts so described were in some cases certainly peopled by groups of non-Israelite ancestry. But as tribal names they invited explanation, and of the many characteristic traditions which were doubtless current a number have been preserved, though not in any very early dress. Close relationship was recognized with the Aramaeans, with Edom, Moab and Ammon. This is characteristically expressed when Esau, the ancestor of Edom, is represented as the brother of Jacob, or when Moab and Ammon are the children of Lot, Abraham's nephew (see GENEALOGY: _Biblical_). Abraham, it was believed, came from Harran (Carrhae), primarily from Babylonia, and Jacob re-enters from Gilead in the north-east with his Aramaean wives and concubines and their families (Benjamin excepted). It is on this occasion that Jacob's name is changed to Israel. These traditions of migration and kinship are in themselves entirely credible, but the detailed accounts of the ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as given in Genesis, are inherently doubtful as regards both the internal conditions, which the (late) chronological scheme ascribes to the first half of the second millennium B.C., and the general circumstances of the life of these strangers in a foreign land. From a variety of independent reasons one is forced to conclude that, whatever historical elements they may contain, the stories of this remote past represent the form which tradition had taken in a very much later age.